Pole Chudes

Pole Chudes, the “Field of Wonders”, is a DOS adaptation of the most popular game show on Russian television, itself a loose offshoot of Wheel of Fortune. Programmer Vadim Bashurov wrote it in 1993 and gave it away as freeware, and it then spread exactly the way software spread in post-Soviet Russia: from diskette to diskette, from office to school computer lab, until practically everyone in the country with a PC had guessed a few words on it.

The rules follow the broadcast faithfully. You spin the wheel, call out letters and try to complete a hidden word on a given topic, hoping the pointer avoids the bankrupt sector that wipes out your score. The presentation is simple DOS-era fare, but for millions of players it perfectly bottled the ritual of the family quiz night in front of the TV.

The game's best story concerns its ending: as a joke, the author told winners to write to the TV show's editorial office to collect their prize. By 1995 the real Pole Chudes production office was being flooded with letters from players earnestly demanding the goods they had won in a computer game. You can spin the wheel of this diskette legend right in your browser on OldGame.cz.