Weekly Report #173
[h3]Hello Stalkers![/h3]
We have never hidden the fact that when creating Chernobylite, we were inspired by games, movies and TV series. We wrote about it a few weeks ago. So if you haven't had a chance to read this material yet, we encourage you to do so 🙂
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3700313061239297399?l=english
Today we would like to spend some time with one game in particular. To be more specific, it's not about the game itself, but about its... title.
Although the well-known title of the GSC World game is in fact an acronym that reads "Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers" (this is how all people residing illegally in the Zone are defined), for the players it has become a single word; a synonym for someone with a hood and a backpack, sometimes with a gas mask on the face, who roams the Zone in search of loot. Stalkers are also present in our game. We even gave the main antagonist the appropriate nickname, Black Stalker. But where does this word come from anyway? We took a closer look at this matter. It turns out that the matter is not as obvious as it seems.
If you look at the timeline, you can see that the word "stalker" has come a long way from being born. And contrary to appearances, it was not created in the heads of designers from GSCW. This word appeared, for example, in the film "Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky from 1979. The main protagonist, the titular Stalker, earns his living by guiding people through the Zone, an area where the laws of physics do not work the same as in the rest of the world. The zone was created as a result of an unknown event 20 years before the action of the film.
The description of the character is somewhat at odds with the image of the Stalker shown in the book "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the book the film was based on. While in the film the stalker was a person who showed curiousity around a forbidden place, in the book we deal with people who illegally take various items from the Zone and sell them profitably on the black market. Sounds familiar?
There’s just one thing that you have to remember: the background of the story in Chernobylite and similar titles is a disaster at a nuclear power plant, not the arrival of aliens, as was the case in the book.
To make it even more interesting, we will say that the authors of "Roadside Picnic" did not create the word "stalker" just out of nowhere. Their favorite childhood book came to the rescue: “Stalky & Co” by Rudyard Kipling's (1899). Its main character, Arthur Lionel Corkran, was nicknamed "Stalky". "Stalky" in the school vocabulary means someone clever, prudent and cunning, and Corkran was just such a person. Well, stalkers staying in the Zone must be cunning and cunning in order not to be caught by the services.
Let's go even further into the past. Here we move seamlessly from cultural references to linguistics. The words "stalk" and "stalking" were already present in many Indo-European languages. Their spelling and pronunciation may differ, but they are similar in meaning. And we go all the way to 1424, where the word "stalker" was probably used for the first time. Specifically, it is in the Stockholm legislation, which defines a deer poacher in this way.
What you have read is just a shortened version of the "stalker" story. If you are interested, we invite you to watch the video on our channel, in which we look at this issue in much more detail.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Finally, a short preview of what awaits us in the near future. Next week we will return to topics strictly related to Chernobylite. We've managed to collect some materials over the last few weeks, so there will certainly be plenty of topics. Be with us next week, we'll show you some drawings ;)
[h3]That's it for today![/h3]
Take care, Stalkers!
[h3]Do you like Chernobylite? Give us a review.[/h3]
[h3]Follow our official channels to stay up to date:[/h3]
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/
We have never hidden the fact that when creating Chernobylite, we were inspired by games, movies and TV series. We wrote about it a few weeks ago. So if you haven't had a chance to read this material yet, we encourage you to do so 🙂
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3700313061239297399?l=english
Today we would like to spend some time with one game in particular. To be more specific, it's not about the game itself, but about its... title.
Although the well-known title of the GSC World game is in fact an acronym that reads "Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers" (this is how all people residing illegally in the Zone are defined), for the players it has become a single word; a synonym for someone with a hood and a backpack, sometimes with a gas mask on the face, who roams the Zone in search of loot. Stalkers are also present in our game. We even gave the main antagonist the appropriate nickname, Black Stalker. But where does this word come from anyway? We took a closer look at this matter. It turns out that the matter is not as obvious as it seems.
If you look at the timeline, you can see that the word "stalker" has come a long way from being born. And contrary to appearances, it was not created in the heads of designers from GSCW. This word appeared, for example, in the film "Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky from 1979. The main protagonist, the titular Stalker, earns his living by guiding people through the Zone, an area where the laws of physics do not work the same as in the rest of the world. The zone was created as a result of an unknown event 20 years before the action of the film.
The description of the character is somewhat at odds with the image of the Stalker shown in the book "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the book the film was based on. While in the film the stalker was a person who showed curiousity around a forbidden place, in the book we deal with people who illegally take various items from the Zone and sell them profitably on the black market. Sounds familiar?
There’s just one thing that you have to remember: the background of the story in Chernobylite and similar titles is a disaster at a nuclear power plant, not the arrival of aliens, as was the case in the book.
To make it even more interesting, we will say that the authors of "Roadside Picnic" did not create the word "stalker" just out of nowhere. Their favorite childhood book came to the rescue: “Stalky & Co” by Rudyard Kipling's (1899). Its main character, Arthur Lionel Corkran, was nicknamed "Stalky". "Stalky" in the school vocabulary means someone clever, prudent and cunning, and Corkran was just such a person. Well, stalkers staying in the Zone must be cunning and cunning in order not to be caught by the services.
Let's go even further into the past. Here we move seamlessly from cultural references to linguistics. The words "stalk" and "stalking" were already present in many Indo-European languages. Their spelling and pronunciation may differ, but they are similar in meaning. And we go all the way to 1424, where the word "stalker" was probably used for the first time. Specifically, it is in the Stockholm legislation, which defines a deer poacher in this way.
What you have read is just a shortened version of the "stalker" story. If you are interested, we invite you to watch the video on our channel, in which we look at this issue in much more detail.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Finally, a short preview of what awaits us in the near future. Next week we will return to topics strictly related to Chernobylite. We've managed to collect some materials over the last few weeks, so there will certainly be plenty of topics. Be with us next week, we'll show you some drawings ;)
[h3]That's it for today![/h3]
Take care, Stalkers!
[h3]Do you like Chernobylite? Give us a review.[/h3]
[h3]Follow our official channels to stay up to date:[/h3]
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitterhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/