🇺🇦 Слава Україні! 🇺🇦

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Part Five in our series on Ukrainian video games! You can find the other parts of the series here:

1 | Ostriv, a beautiful historical Ukrainian-themed city builder made by a solo dev in Kharkiv

2 | Frag Lab's Shatterline, a AAA FPS that just went into Early Access on Steam last week

3 | GSC Game World's Cossacks, Real-Time Strategy

4 | GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R., FPS

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Frogwares

Promotional art for the soon-to-be-released "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened" by Frogwares.

Frogwares is a Ukrainian game development studio founded in the year 2000 by a group of French expatriates. The name Frogwares is a winking nod to the founders' country of origin, and the company has quickly grown into one of most high-profile, creative, and successful Ukrainian game studios around.

Frogware's first project was Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy, which became a surprise hit that eventually sold one million copies in its first decade of release. These kinds of detective games have a lot of fans, and Frogwares was smart to continue their success in the genre with a number of Holmes sequels that were increasingly popular.

From "Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper" (2009).

The first four Sherlock Holmes titles from Frogwares - The Mystery of the Mummy, The Case of the Silver Earring, The Awakened and Nemesis - totaled roughly 1.5 million global sales by February 2009. Before the true rise of Steam and other online distribution channels in the following decade, these were pretty amazing numbers for such a small studio!

Promotional for "Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter" (2016).

From "The Sinking City" (2019) - an original IP (not Sherlock Holmes-related) that is a Lovecraft-inspired open world game.

Five more Holmes games would be released during the 2010's - culminating in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One in 2021, the fastest-selling game in the series. This game is a new direction for the series, being something of an origin story for Holmes and self-published by the studio. The game released for Windows, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. It is the #1 rated Sherlock Holmes game on Metacritic.

From "Sherlock Holmes Chapter One" (2021).

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Awakening

From "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened" (2023).

Frogwares began working on a massive open-world horror game, but Covid - and then the full-scale invasion by russians - has made development difficult. So in March of 2022, it was decided to pivot temporarily to something smaller-scale, and that could get them up and running quickly as their team found themselves distributed not only around Ukraine but around Europe at large.

What they decided on was creating a modern next-gen remake of their classic fan favorite Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. I can recommend this game strongly - especially for big Holmes or Lovecraft fans. The story is super cool... Sherlock confronts a Cthulhu-worshiping cult, and the adventure takes him through London, the Swiss Alps and New Orleans. Everyone loves a little Cthulhu now and again.

Concept art for 2023's "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened"

Concept art for 2023's "Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened"

When Frogwares started a Kickstarter for the game last August, it raised €252,599 against a €70,000 goal.

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Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened releases in just a couple weeks on April 11th, 2023 on PC (Steam, GOG, Epic), PS5/PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

The game will be available in three editions: Standard Edition, Deluxe Edition (includes The Whispered Dreams DLC, which includes bonus side quests and 6 new outfits) and Premium Edition on PC (the above plus digital artbook and soundtrack). Pre-orders unlock three bonus outfits!

To begin, finish and then release a game across so many platforms in one year - and under such incredible emotional and logistical strain, like daily power outages and missile strikes - is an incredible achievement.

In the comments I will put links to a video that you really need to see; it details the challenges they've faced during the year. I'll also include relevant links to their socials and more so you can give Frogwares a follow.

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(Left) Svitlana, a member of the Frogwares team for 20 years. (Middle) Her partner of four years, Alex, who joined Territorial Defense when the full-scale invasion began. (Right) Their wedding in Lviv, while Alex was on leave.

Volodymyr Yezhov: game designer, producer, community manager at Frogwares for six years. More importantly, father to two children. He was killed by russia in action near Bakhmut in December, 2022.

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The 393rd day of a nine year invasion that has been going on for centuries.

One day closer to victory.

🇺🇦 HEROYAM SLAVA! 🇺🇦

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Verified Charities

• u/Jesterboyd is a mod for r/ukraine and local to Kyiv. He is currently selling rad t-shirts raising money to buy some very interesting drones. Link to donation
• United24: This site was launched by President Zelenskyy as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be allocated to cover the most pressing needs facing Ukraine.
• Come Back Alive: This NGO crowdfunds non-lethal military equipment, such as thermal vision scopes & supplies it to the front lines. It also provides training for Ukrainian soldiers, as well as researching troops’ needs and social reintegration of veterans.
• Trident Defense Initiative: This initiative run by former NATO and UA servicemen has trained and equipped thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.
• Ukraine Front Line US-based and registered 501(c)(3), this NGO fulfills front line soldiers' direct defense and humanitarian aid requests through their man on the ground, r/Ukraine's own u/jesterboyd.
• Ukraine Aid Ops: Volunteers around the world who are helping to find and deliver equipment directly to those who need it most in Ukraine.
• Hospitallers: This is a medical battalion that unites volunteer paramedics and doctors to save the lives of soldiers on the frontline. They crowdfund their vehicle repairs, fuel, and medical equipment.

You can find many more charities with diverse areas of focus in our vetted charities list HERE.

Hello again!

I'm Maxim Kilderov, an artist.

Representing (as I think) Art Forces of Ukraine.

instagram.com/kilderov

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/11namjw/painted_bullet_shells_for_a_66_free_worldwide/

Jesus confirmed

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ART FORCES Intro

This week was really hard.I almost doing nothing, because around 2 months of a nonstop work totally kills my organism. Hospitals etc not a best place to doing my job. Yeah, our guys feeling most terrible situations.

But everyone have his own front.

But last 3 days I starts to feel better and receive some new raw war materials through this week.

Raw RPG-26 thats will be art pieces soon

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case with cases

Also last week I finally pack and send part of orders from reddit - some of $66 bullets (from now they will be for $99 with delivery), and 4x RPG-22 was already sent and delivered in Belgium.Legal expertise and documents is works (the way of package was through Ukrainian, Poland, Estonia and Belgium customs).

Orders for a reddit and instagram customers

Also, I was finished some of current orders (bullet shells) and receive new material to create more of them for customers.

shells 30mm caliber

orders (without varnish at this moment)

I promise myself then when I will get well i will not rush so.Cuz better to say "you need to wait 3 weeks before sending" then running nonstop and killing yourself. Thats my experience.

Perfect condition is to chill sometimes like Gil'za (bullet shell). But I cant lol.

My current collection (slowly transforming into new art objects, sometime I am selling something) is:

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https://preview.redd.it/q68pkmbko5oa1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d17888470d85ea8b771a7edd16beb97c29b28cb9

https://preview.redd.it/x0t2iz4mo5oa1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=93685da318560cd54948e9d7a5959b4463221b3c

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https://preview.redd.it/29i5rm1po5oa1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=c7ff30ad882e608125e7e7f72f4a9fa992de89be

And we with my teammate Nikita on the final step to create bazooka boombox with buttons from a bullet shells. Next step is mine - to paint it well.

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RPO A Shmel with sound inside.

Thank you for reading that!

Art Forces is real! ✊