Yugo: The Non-Game

A story of a video game that’s really not a game. An “Inspired by Yugoslavia” fragment. With Petrit Hoxha.

The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps and it inspires their creativity. The Inspired by Yugoslavia series features such people and their creations.

Listen: “Yugo: The Non-Game” (Episode #101)

Bonus Extras: “Sarajevo, USA” (Episode #84)……

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Transcript: “Yugo: The Non-Game” (Episode #101)

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PETER KORCHNAK: This Fragment episode of Remembering Yugoslavia is brought to you by Yugoblok. 

Yugoblok is a member-supported global community and social network for all ex-Yugoslavs, post-Yugoslavs, yugodiasporans, yugophiles, and the yugocurious. It’s the new home of this podcast, it’s articles, translations, newsletters, events, and a shop—it’s all Yugoslavia, all the time…and better with you.

Visit Yugoblok.com to explore and join.

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PETER KORCHNAK: This is Remembering Yugoslavia, the Yugoblok show exploring the memory of a country that no longer exists. I’m your guide, Peter Korchnak.

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PETER KORCHNAK: The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps and it inspires their creativity. I feature such people and their creations in the Inspired by Yugoslavia series. Today on Inspired by Yugoslavia, a video game that’s really not a game. 

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PETER KORCHNAK: As I explained in the recent 100th episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, episodes come into being in a variety of ways. One of those ways is pitches from listeners and a year ago I received a most unusual one, on Instagram. 

A video game creator and a self-professed “big fan” of this podcast, messaged me to ask for permission to include a few episodes in a project of his that would be shown at an interactive storytelling festival in Amsterdam. The project was, quote “a game called “Yugo: The Non-Game” [in] which…you drive a Yugo, talk with people in your car, and listen to the radio.” One of the radio stations in the presented game would be Remembering Yugoslavia, featuring a variety of podcast episodes. 

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Petrit Hoxha is a game developer and graphic designer who splits his time between Germany and Kosovo, where he was born in 1991.

PETER KORCHNAK: You were born in the last year of Yugoslavia’s existence. So did that in any way, or has that in any way shaped you or informed your journey as a game developer, as a professional, as a human?

PETRIT HOXHA: Yeah, definitely, because it was right at the end of the proper Yugoslavia, and then from 91 to 91— 99 it was like a different version of it. 

Yeah, we kind of grew up with this nostalgia that was all around us, like hearing it from parents, older people who lived it at that time. And I guess, my generation, not to generalize, felt that we missed out on this, like, golden era of Yugoslavia. So for sure, that left, left something into the personality that, like, in the end, goes out on the work.

PETER KORCHNAK: Surveys have shown that the people of Kosovo are the least quote, unquote yugonostalgic or least regretful that the country doesn’t exist anymore, the country of Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore. 

PETRIT HOXHA: Yeah, that has a lot to do, especially with that period from 91 to 99 for sure, because then during that time, Yugoslavia stood for something else, like it resonated different, differently than the people, and it left a different taste in the end. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Inspiration for Yugo: The Non-Game came from two sources.

PETRIT HOXHA: One part that has to do with Yugo and the whole yugonostalgia, and another part, which is about the driving and people talking in the game and the radio.

The idea started during the COVID lockdowns. There was a part of nostalgia, so to say, for like, meeting people outside, and then, yeah, naturally, just went deeper into the nostalgia.

And then [I] decided for the car to be a Yugo, since it’s a car that my family owned when I was a kid. So after I decided I wanted to be to be a Yugo, then naturally, everything else fell in place, like kind of recreating that time that we somehow did not experience so much.

Yeah, at first, it was about creating this virtual space, not necessarily a game. And that’s why, also it’s on the title. The idea was to create like a space where people can talk bit more differently than when you have a Zoom call or like a Skype call. 

The idea was to have a situation where it would at least try to mimic real life hangouts. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Yugo: The Non-Game is a virtual space fashioned in the interior of a Yugo car where you talk with people who are your passengers. 

PETRIT HOXHA: Basically, when you start the game, you have, like, your own session with a password, and then you can share it with other people. And then other people join as passengers in the in the same car, and you’re automatically connected with voice chat, and yeah, then you just drive around and talk. 

PETER KORCHNAK: There are now public sessions as well that you can join if there’s room left in the car.

PETRIT HOXHA: The first player is driving a Yugo, and the landscape is there’s barren hills, and one road with lamp posts on the side, and here and there you see some monuments that are inspired by the socialist Yugoslavian monuments.

PETER KORCHNAK: You can drive the car using your keyboard or have the game self-drive it for you. The road is a curving empty highway, the time is dusk, and lamp posts on the side of the road light your way. The landscape is indeed barren, dark purple hills. And here and there, abstract structures pop up on the horizon, evoking but not quite resembling Yugoslav-era socialist monuments.

It’s a bit forlorn until your passengers join you and you talk with them via voice chat. 

The maximum number of people in the session is four.

PETRIT HOXHA: And this was a, was kind of an arbitrary decision to limit it to four. Since it’s also like a four seats on the car. But also, at the time that I was making it, I was all trying to create more of these, like personal conversations and not necessarily like a huge chat room. 

PETER KORCHNAK: There’s also a radio.

PETRIT HOXHA: There’s a few stations which are real life internet radios that you can listen together. 

PETER KORCHNAK: And there’s also ambient sounds. Inside the car it’s the engine and the sounds of shifting. Outside—

PETRIT HOXHA: There’s also another special for me sound there that there’s some crows, yeah, crows that fly around the whole time, and they constantly make sounds, and that’s like one of the phenomenons of especially Kosovo, but I think all around the Balkans at dusk, they all fly together, like there’s many of them in the sky, and always making that sound. So when I was living in Germany, that was like the one sound that would remind me of Kosovo, and I added that in the game.

PETER KORCHNAK: Crows, huh? Okay, okay, interesting.

PETRIT HOXHA: They have, like, not the really screechy ones make, like a more pleasant sound. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Nice crows. They’re nice Kosovo crows.

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PETER KORCHNAK: During Covid, Hoxha used the game for his own needs.

PETRIT HOXHA: The first few years, at the time that I was making it, I was still living in Germany, and, like visiting rarely, so it was a nice platform to talk with people back home. 

But now, since last year, I’m dividing my time more between Kosovo and Germany. So, yeah, I can meet people in real life more often, so I don’t use the game as much. 

PETER KORCHNAK: I found some parallels between my journey and Hoxha’s. First, where I started Remembering Yugoslavia as a passion project that grew out of a master’s thesis, Hoxha developed Yugo: The Non-Game as a masters thesis project, at the University of Bremen. Then he posted the project on an experimental game platform where it was available for free for three years.

PETRIT HOXHA: I was not expecting anyone to really play it. But over the time, like a community, started to slowly build up, and people play more and more. And then it was nominated for an award at this festival in Berlin, A MAZE. It’s like an independent experimental game festival. So it got more traction from that, obviously. And then it was also nominated at ITFA, the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam. So from those festivals, more people saw it.

And the whole time the community of people who were playing it were kind of getting bigger and bigger. It’s not like so big, but there’s still dedicated players who play it often and then ask for new features constantly.

I was just happy, happy of the reception of it, because at that time, when I thought that, oh, I would need to have this game with the car so I can talk to people and have like, different conversations and like the Zoom calls that you were having at the time, I did not realize how much other people and how many other people resonated with it and had the same need for it. So it was, it was super nice to see yeah, people enjoyed it, people use it in the way that it was intended to. 

And in the beginning, I thought the whole inspired by Yugoslavia part will go over people’s head, because it’s very subtle, except for the car the Yugo, which is, yeah, easy, but the monuments, for example, are not like one to one representations. But I was also happy that a lot of people saw that part and recognized that part as well, which, yeah, was a good feeling.

PETER KORCHNAK: Over three years, the free version of the game was downloaded 50,000 times. 

Where Remembering Yugoslavia evolved into Yugoblok, Yugo: The Non-Game too became a kernel of livelihood. As of this past October, a much improved and paid version of the game is available on the gaming platform Steam. The new version has a public lobby, or public session where you can meet random people you don’t know; you can add your own radio station; and there are localizations in various languages. Mobile versions are also planned. 

More importantly, Yugo: The Non-Game 2.0 is the first product of Hoxha’s game development company.

PETRIT HOXHA: I’m also happy to finish, put a bow tie on it and move on to the next projects, to be honest. It’s been a few years dealing with the same game, and I guess probably the next ones would have similar feels to them, like similar esthetics, for sure. 

In everything that I did, also in graphic design, I think at some point I saw those, like socialist esthetics creeping up on my work. So I think this, it will be similarly inspired, for sure.

PETER KORCHNAK: A podcast, a game… There are tons of us creatives out there who go out on a limb and try to make a living out of a passion or skill. There is no such thing as a free lunch; you simply can’t make a living by giving stuff away for free. So go to Steam, buy yourself a copy of Yugo: The Non-Game, and chat with friends in the little hangout inside your favorite car. And go to Yugoblok.com, buy yourself a HERO membership, and connect with people around the world around your favorite non-existent country. 

[OUTRO MUSIC – “Jugoslavijo / Od Vardara pa do Triglava” by Horn Orchestra]

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this Remembering Yugoslavia Fragment, thank you for listening. 

All guests’ opinions expressed are solely their own; unless otherwise noted they do not express, reflect, or represent the views or opinions of any third party, including myself. 

Find additional information, sources, embeds, links, photos, and the transcript of this episode at Yugoblok.com/Podcasts. And while you’re there, join Yugoblok as a member to get access to even more podcast stuff and much much more. 

Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić. Additional music by Sticky Keys (find them on Soundcloud). 

I am Peter Korchňak. 

Ćao!

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