The console switches work as they did in 1981. GAME RESET closes this panel and starts a new game. With a keyboard: 1 select, 2 or Enter reset, 3 difficulty, 4 TV type, M music, P pause, F full screen, Esc settings.
iPad: if the FULL SCREEN switch does nothing, tap the Share button in Safari, choose Add to Home Screen, and start the game from that icon. It then runs with no browser bars at all.
AUTO shows the stick on touch screens only. Move the stick to the other side if you are left-handed. Your choices are remembered on this device.
Comrade Chairman! Comrade Brezhnev is watching the Polish situation closely. Unauthorized organizers from the trade union Solidarnosc are approaching the Stocznia, the Huta and the Kopalnia. You must not touch them. That would look bad. Instead, discreetly spread oil across the factory yard and let gravity make the argument.
Organizers enter from the bottom of the screen and walk toward the three factory doors. They run from you if you get too close. Every organizer who slips on your oil falls down, gets up, and limps home in embarrassment. The slick is used up in the process.
If 15 organizers get into the factories, the workers have organized and the game is over. The progress of the movement is shown on the bar in the sky.
You begin with one batch of oil (5 slicks). Eat 5 pierogi to earn a new batch, then walk to the oil depot on the right side of the yard to collect it. The depot flashes when your batch is ready.
Due to limitations of the People's Hardware, no more than six oil slicks may exist at one time. Walking through your own oil slows you down.
| Stick | Hold the joystick in the lower corner with one thumb to move Yuri (8 directions) |
| Tap | Tap anywhere with another finger to spread oil, while the first thumb stays on the stick |
| Double-tap | Also spreads oil, for when you are not holding the stick |
| Title / Game Over | A single tap anywhere is the fire button |
| Paused | Tap the screen to resume. The game pauses when this panel opens or the app is hidden |
| Arrows / WASD | Move Yuri (8 directions) |
| Space, Z, X | Fire button: spread oil |
| Enter or 2 | GAME RESET |
| 1 | GAME SELECT |
| 3 | LEFT DIFFICULTY switch (A = braver, faster organizers) |
| 4 | TV TYPE switch (COLOR / B-W) |
| M / P | Music on/off / Pause |
| F / Esc | Full screen / Settings |
A USB gamepad also works: stick or d-pad to move, A to oil, Start to reset, Back to select.
| 100 | Organizer slips and falls |
| 25 | Pierogi eaten |
| GAME 1 | Standard |
| GAME 2 | Hurried Workers - organizers walk faster |
| GAME 3 | Martial Law - organizers arrive more often |
| GAME 4 | Young Pioneers - slower, for children of Party members |
This cartridge was programmed in fourteen days by one engineer, working to a deadline set by people who do not accept excuses. The flicker is a feature of the hardware. The music is The Internationale, transcribed from memory and tuned to the pitches the television chip permits, which are not the pitches the composer intended. When a sound effect plays, the bass player takes a short break.