Żulionerzy and the Polish Independent Video Games of the Early 2000s

Abstract

This article investigates the development of discourses related to a specific era of independent games and offers a close historical and cultural analysis of the freeware Polish game Żulionerzy (Ortalion Entertainment 2001). The game is positioned as a compelling cultural artefact from the often overlooked and underresearched period of the early 2000s, combining inspirations from the globally recognized TV franchise Who Wants to be a Millionaire and the emerging indie games scenes. The authors argue that Żulionerzy is a project that manages to capture young adults’ perspective on the economic and cultural zeitgeist of the era. Its potential as a counter-cultural and transgressive gaming intervention is further reinforced by intertextual references and a parodistic core gameplay loop. The assessment of Żulionerzy is concluded with a call to investigate similar productions which, while produced in a national language, shared their key features with the rising wave of grassroot browser-based games.

Keywords:

• Independent games
• freeware games
• Poland
• 2000s
• humour
• parody
• Who Wants to be a Millionaire

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 At the turn of the century, the Newgrounds website (1995-) and its automated self-publishing platform (2000-), became an important cultural hub for independent game developers and other artists working with Flash. In 2021, the Game Developers Choice Awards honoured Newgrounds’ creator—Tom Fulp—with the Pioneer Award that “honors breakthrough business, tech and game design milestones” (GDC 2021).

2 Cataloguing all these games would require a separate international archival project, as these titles were made for a variety of platforms and in a plethora of national languages. Yet we can at least identify another Polish project from the same era: Millionerzy (Kubica 2001), also not a parody.

3 In development since 2002, Valve owned Steam digital game distribution platform started publishing third-party titles in 2005. For example, one of the first such releases was an early indie game Darwinia (Introversion Software 2005).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Academy of Finland project Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (CoE-GameCult, [312396]).

Notes on contributors

Mateusz Felczak

Mateusz Felczak works at the Institute of Humanities, SWPS University, Poland. He holds a PhD in Arts Sciences from Jagiellonian University. His research interests include eSports, streaming media, Infinity Engine modding, postcolonial theory and cognitive capitalism. A member of the Games Research Centre at the Jagiellonian University, he recently published papers on postcolonial tropes in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire (in ‘Game Studies’) and ecocritical readings of digital hunting games (in ‘Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds’). His current primary research project, financed by the Polish National Science Centre, involves investigating large-scale eSports events in Poland and Hong Kong.

Maria B. Garda

Maria B. Garda is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies, based at the University of Turku, Finland. She is an expert in media history, and her current work focuses on comparative history of game cultures. Her recent publications have dealt with the history of microcomputers, digital heritage and computer art. She was previously involved with several research projects, including ‘Creative Micro-computing in Australia, 1976–1992’ (Flinders University, 2017–2018) and ‘Alternative Usage of New Media Technology during the Decline of People’s Republic of Poland’ (University of Lodz, 2013–2017).