The game's name reminds me of the Russian word for state/district/region. I was right. It's an intended pun. The game's title screen on the screenshot in the article has Russian on it.
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edit. I should also point out that it's the same word in Ukrainian, for the record.
Would be nice to have the AI visualize all those words to their pre-zodiacal origin on a landscape wireframe diagram with popup points of interest and water surface tension effects showing affinity and uses among various cultures.
If I were to embark upon a project like that I would want to get the most out of the system, and that's a whole lot of work. I'm glad others are doing it.
The unfinished c64 projects like My Day on the Highway or Spooky are I think where I would end up. Amazing but a final product never seeing the light of day.
That said, when it was too hot to sleep the other night I sketched out a tiled graphics system (16 and 23 written to $d016 on alternating scanlines) for the c64 because my brain will keep on working on things whether I like it or not.