A fact from Tajemnica Statuetki appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 January 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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an image of a developper of staffer would be nice for an article of this length
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Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I think there may be one or two too many quotes here. One I'd get rid of is: "From the beginning, I knew one thing: if I had to do something, I would do it with panache". It's short and doesn't really add much to the understanding. What do you think, @Coin945:? Anarchyte (work | talk) 03:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
Done per @Anarchyte:'s logical request. Removed two quotes including the one they mention.--Coin945 (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
Great! The article's coming along quite well. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:16, 10 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Removed text
CC-By-SA declaration; text in this section removed from the article by me; I'm leaving it here in case its removal breaks any references. Baffle☿gab 01:35, 26 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
(Removed because the article is not about its developer):
Tajemnica Statuetki was conceived by Lubin-born[1] Pole Adrian Chmielarz, who moved into game development in a roundabout way. In 1985, at the age of 15 Chmielarz attended the first Polcon science fiction convention in Błażejewek, where he first discovered an affinity for computers; he soon went through a Star Wars phase that saw him interact with a computer for the first time. In 1987, Chmielarz earned financial sustainability by traveling 40 miles each day to sell bootleg VHSes copied from a friend at a bazaar in Wrocław, which wasn't deemed illegal at the time.[2] The marketplace where such goods were sold was known as the Wrocław commodity exchange (Wrocławskiej giełdy), which often had access to newer titles earlier.[1] He noted that while an Englishman could buy a game the day of release, the average Pole would often have to wait up to five weeks and become impatient during that time, leading to this natural solution.[3] According to Chmielarz "many people would buy games, if only it would be possible."[3] Nevertheless, while food was rare and hard to come by, "strangely", computers and games were relatively cheap and accessible, if not through the commodity exchange then by traveling over the border to Germany.[2] By the late 1980s, he had became fascinated by computer games by reading about them in magazines, particularly Knight Lore or Bugsy games on the cover of the fourth issue of Przegląd Techniczny.[3] He began saving for a ZX Spectrum despite never having used one before. His first experience playing games would see him typing in each line of code from gaming magazines into his friend's computer, though each time he turned off the computer the games were wiped as there was no way to save them.[2] Chmielarz was pushed by a desire to buy a computer with his own money, knowing that his parents had been forced into the black market to put food on the table.[2]
By 1990, he had bought his own ZX Spectrum computer and had more freedom with his game-playing ability.[2] Beginning computer lessons in second grade high school, he began to bury into game code and explore ways to manipulate it to alter gameplay.[1] By this time his bootleg business had expanded into a brick-and-morter company which sold different types of media including movies and games, while also building computers to feed the local business industry.[2] Chmielarz had set up a distribution deal with the to-be-founders of what would become Polish distribution company CD Projekt via the commodity exchange, whereby they would drop audiotapes full of pirated games at a local train station.[2] After picking them up, to get an advantage over his competitors at the bazaar, he would add subroutines to alter gameplay such as changing the number of lives or adding invulnerability; this marks the point when he began to make and sell his own games.[2] He bought cartridges, cracked the games, and then applied his own anti-piracy protection measures to prevent other pirates from copying and selling it.[1] Chmielarz spammed the editorial offices of Polish video game magazine Komputer with the results of his experiments.[1] He sent game descriptions to the magazine Bajtek, and won a subscription as a result.[3] One of these early titles was an erotic game called Erotic Fun, a decent experiment that sold well without any long-term profit; he later deemed this a good business lesson about exploiting an opportunity in the gaming market.[1] Some of his other early games include Kosmolot podroznik (Space Shuttle) and Sekretny dziennik adriana mole (The Secret Journal of Adrian Mole), which he designed on the Timex Computer 2048.[3] His obsession led to him playing games all the time, to the point where he would turn on the monitor to dry his face after splashing it with water first thing in the morning.[3]
While he had a computer engineering company, the times were getting tougher and only giants with big money could survive on the market.[4] Large companies started to enter Poland and the market became crowded.[5] Chmielarz decided to leave his profitable business and study at Wrocław University of Technology. After a few years he became bored and left without finishing his degree, and he would later regret wasting his time at college. Instead, "he and a few friends hatched a plan to take photographs from his vacation to France and turn them into a video game".[2] The group realised that they could fill a gap in the untapped Polish software market, in which hundreds of thousands of people had PCs but were unable to become fully immersed in adventure games as they did not understand English.[3] Chmielarz was not worried about the Polish gaming market being a small niche, as he knew the trail had already been set by developer X-Land. Furthermore, he has assessed that while the local market was currently not active it was potentially big, noting the number of people who attended conventions.[3]
(not relevant to the section but contains refs and might be useful elsewhere):
Running on computers with a 286 (AT) processor and requiring a VGA card, the game had to be installed on the hard drive, where the "incredibly resource-consuming product"[6] took up either around 3.2 MB,[7] less than a dozen megabytes,[1] or over 100 megabytes[6] of space and did not work properly on every computer, thought it did run successfully on high performing systems.[6] Meanwhile, the sound is supported by many different systems including Sound Blaster, Speaker and Covox.[7]
A reviewer at Gameplay, despite having a negative experience with Polish platformer Spy Master, bought this game mostly in the dark, due to the strength of its "really good press", noting that Chmielarz was adept at interesting the media with phrases such as "The first Polish adventure on PC!", "Digitized locations!", and "Realistic sounds!".[8]
Due to the difficulty of the game, particularly a puzzle set when the protagonist is trying to escape from prison, Chmielarz received incessant calls from players who stuck unable to move on; he would have to explain the "absurd" solution over the phone.[1]SS-NG notes that its contemporaries had begun making games for 8-bit computers, which freed up the market for Metropolis Software to pursue PC game development without competition.[9] The game's success gave the development team enough faith to put everything else aside in creating the next game.[10] They planned for this next title to follow in the footsteps of its success, being competitive not only in Poland but also in foreign countries.[11] As the game sold well, both players and reviewers eagerly awaited the next offering from this young studio.[12] The studio had set the bar very high with Tajemnica Statuetki, and so to avoid half-measures being taken, graphic designers, animators and testers were hired.[1]
Tajemnica Statuetki was followed by the critically acclaimed point-and-click adventure Teenagent (1995),[2][13] which the company eagerly advertised thus: "The creators of Tajemnica Statuetki have been silent for over a year. See for yourself why".[14] InnPoland attributes this marketing campaign, which attached its predecessor's quality stamp on the title, to Teenagent becoming a "breakthrough",[15] while PB.pl thought this slogan "grabbed" the public.[10] The title was considered a significant step forward in quality than its predecessor and stood on its shoulders in terms of its international reach.[16]
During the 1980s, the cheap and talented workforce of the Polish People's Republic began producing video games with Warsaw company Karen, founded by enterprising emigrant Lucjan Wencel, developing many hits that were released in the United States.[17] The 1991 strategy game "Solidarność" by Przemysław Rokita, where players led a trade union to political victory, was the symbolic beginning of a new trend where interactive works applied video game conventions to local Polish culture and history[17], and through a distorting mirror portrayed the Eastern Bloc, local villages, and the mentality of citizens.[18] Developers in this age struggled with minimal profits, working after hours, harsh working conditions, older computers, and an ignorance of foreign languages and sentiments.[17] The country saw its own text based games – e.g. Mózgprocesor (1989), arcade games – e.g. Robbo (1989), football manager – Polish League (1995), Doom-clone – Cytadela (1995), and The Settlers-clone – Polanie (1995), however the adventure game genre was the "most significant species in the 90s", a genre which was finally cracked with Tajemnica Statuetki.[17]
Tajemnica Statuetki was the first commercially released Polish adventure game,[6][19] one of the first Polish and Polish-language video games ever,[20] and Chmielarz's first game that he had developed from start to finish[21] – the first officially sold program that he wrote.[22] It is sometimes erroneously considered the first Polish computer game, a distinction held by Witold Podgórski's 1961 mainframe gameMarienbad, inspired by a Chinese puzzle called "Nim", and released on the Odra 1003.[23] (Meanwhile, Polygamia writes that 1986's text-based Puszka Pandory is the first game written by a Pole, sold in Poland, and reviewed in Polish press).[24] Despite this, Onet wrote in 2013 about a common misconception that the game marks the point where the history of digital entertainment in Poland begins.[25]
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Hi @Baffle gab1978:, I wonder if you could please transfer this information to the Adrian Chmielarz article? i have tried but encounter an error or two. I would hate for all this hard fought-for content to be left to rust. :)--Coin945 (talk) 14:27, 12 July 2021 (UTC)Reply
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