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Олександр КузьменкоGameDev Eng
15 July 2025, 18:51
2025-07-15
"Helped clean Russian games from the library". Ukrainian soldier created a website that promotes Ukrainian localization in games and warns about Russian projects
Ukrainian IT veteran Vitaliy, who joined the Defense Forces and is currently serving in the Marine Corps in the Unmanned Systems Battalion, created the website «Ihrovyy prystanok». It promotes Ukrainian localization and provides a personalized report on the user’s game library. dev.ua spoke with the developer and learned more about his project.
Ukrainian IT veteran Vitaliy, who joined the Defense Forces and is currently serving in the Marine Corps in the Unmanned Systems Battalion, created the website «Ihrovyy prystanok». It promotes Ukrainian localization and provides a personalized report on the user’s game library. dev.ua spoke with the developer and learned more about his project.
«Before the service, I worked as a .NET developer, working on backend and desktop applications. In general, I like to write interesting things or experiment with hardware, so I have a wide range of my own pet projects — from bots to a „stalker radio“ on Raspberry Pi», — Vitaliy said about his background.
He noted that he had been developing the idea of «Ihrovyy prystanok» for a long time. He built the concept for his own needs, so as not to check manually whether the game has a Ukrainianizer or whether it was created by a Russian studio, but to automate the process.
Viyskovy says that this site is his personal contribution to the spread of the Ukrainian language in the information space. Previously, he joined various initiatives, and in 2016 he was an active translator for several months in STS-UA (the association that translated the Steam interface and Valve games into Ukrainian). Later, he participated in a translation event on the official Discord server STALKER Official Community and was a moderator there.
Screenshot from the website «Ihrovyy prystanok»
How to create a gaming service while serving in the Defense Forces
«There are no delays in our battalion. Those who return from duty have time to wash their clothes, prepare equipment for the next duty. Spend the rest of the time as you wish — you can go to the city to buy groceries, play games (this is where Steam Deck bursts into the chat), take part in online shit, and I wrote a website,» says Vitaliy.
He says that there is a myth among some civilians that if a service member is not «on duty» 24/7, then he is a «fake soldier,» but this is not true.
«After returning from vacation, my head refreshed and I was finally fired up with the desire to get started on the project — in 3 hours I wrote a minimal framework that read and output the library, the rest was writing logic, refactoring, and bringing it to a sensible look. It all took about 1.5 months,» notes the developer of «Ihrovyy prystanok».
Vitaliy added that developing the service would have taken longer if he had created the frontend from scratch, because it was «limping» in this aspect. But the MudBlazor library came to the rescue, which he came across when he was looking for a way to implement a schedule.
How the service works
Screenshot from the website «Ihrovyy prystanok»
Vitaliy says that the main page shows statistics — how many Steam games are currently in the Igrov Prystank database and what percentage of Steam users use Ukrainian.
«I would like to take this opportunity to call for switching the Steam interface to the Ukrainian language, because the more users use Ukrainian, the greater the interest of developers in releasing games, programs, content, etc. in Ukrainian. Globally, this applies not only to Steam, so switch the interface wherever you can,» the military officer urges.
In the «Library» section, the player can view which games from his Steam library have Ukrainian localization, which games are Ukrainian, and which are Russian. Information about the availability of Ukrainian localization is collected from two sources: from the Steam store (search by the criterion «Ukrainian language»), and the KULI catalog, from which information about the type of localization (text, voice-over, official, unofficial, semi-official) and the origin of the game (Ukrainian, Russian) is also obtained.
An additional source of information is the feedback of the curators, which helps to expand the base of Ukrainian and Russian games. Separately, all Ukrainian games are checked for the presence of prices in rubles. If there are prices, this means that the game is sold in Russia, and taxes are paid to the enemy budget from all sold copies, which are then converted into weapons, notes the project developer.
«The sale of Ukrainian games in a hostile country is unacceptable, it is worth reporting this to Ukrainian developers so that they remove their games from sales in the Russian region, because this is a trade in blood,» the military officer is sure.
According to him, the audience for his service is the active Ukrainian gaming community.
«After launching the site, I received a lot of positive feedback from players who found the site helped them clean out Russian games from their libraries. I’m glad that „Ihrovyy prystanok“ is bringing benefits,» says Vitaliy.
Future plans
Currently, the developer’s priority is to adapt the site to different screen sizes, because «the mobile version is a problem.»
«After I polish the problem areas, I can start adding functionality. As for interesting areas of development, I can highlight library statistics, the ability to view a general non-personalized catalog, and an open API,» Vitaliy shares his ideas.
He added that he develops and maintains «Ihrovyy prystanok» on his own, and aims to keep it non-commercial and ad-free.
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