A computer science teacher at the capital’s Lyceum No. 53, a developer of games and educational programs, Serhiy Khramov, created the game Ukrainians: Our battle. More than 2,000 players are already awaiting its release. We tell you the details of the project.
A computer science teacher at the capital’s Lyceum No. 53, a developer of games and educational programs, Serhiy Khramov, created the game Ukrainians: Our battle. More than 2,000 players are already awaiting its release. We tell you the details of the project.
The idea for the game came to Serhiy at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in March 2022, when he was occupied in the Kyiv region, for which there were active battles. «The first concepts arose there, but only in my head. Without the presence of light, communication, battery charge, or at least some opportunity to use the „fruits of technical progress“, there were simply no other options,» the teacher says.
Against the backdrop of constant explosions, fires all around, and the illusion of hopelessness, Serhiy mentally projected the upcoming project in order not to go crazy. «It is not surprising that images associated with war are projected, which are intertwined in the ideas of creating a game that would become a kind of encyclopedia of events,» he explains.
After a successful attempt to leave the frontline territories, in a relatively safe place, Serhiy managed to start working on the game programmatically. «To do this, I brought together my team consisting of Dmitry Pogrebny and Ilya Ustenko, with whom I had worked fruitfully on previous releases, in particular Power Brain Trainer and the main project at that time, Powerful Courses,» he says.
Within two weeks, the team had a prototype: several text stories, where at each stage the user had to choose an action from 2-4 options. «Depending on the choice, the plot branched out. Each level had several different endings, and the player’s task was to find them all,» says Khramov.
Ukrainians: Our battle is a visual novel that will provide a wide range of opportunities to explore life in the country during the war. Feel yourself in the role of a volunteer, on whose shoulders a great responsibility fell in an instant. The game is filled with a variety of graphic scenes and deep text stories that will not leave anyone indifferent. In what dynamics does the country live in conditions of war: economy and business, education and science, sports, tourism, energy, police and other industries. Learn new facts for yourself and immerse yourself in these stories.
Serhiy claims that, together with like-minded guys, he became one of the first to prepare a game project directly on the topic of the war in Ukraine. «But testing on a local group of people pointed to a problem: each scene needs to have visualization. At that time, we didn’t have any artists or 3D designers in our team to create cool scenes that would complement the text part of the stories. And without this, releasing it would have been a bad idea. Thus, the project was planned to be postponed,» says Khramov, who admits that he did not have any hopes of continuing work on the game.
«Back then, we didn’t think that game development would get a second wind. As the Powerful Courses system was tested and improved, I found myself teaching a programming and 3D modeling class to be able to explore educational issues to improve my digital solutions from the inside. The high school where I taught had some very promising students who, after learning the basics of modeling in Blender, independently delved into more detailed study, reaching almost a professional level,» he says.
Thus, students Nikita Zelenkov and Maksym Kanshin became the best of all groups of the lyceum, the teacher is convinced. «I noticed that their scenes are often related to military themes. After asking about their personal reasons for focusing on military equipment and similar models, I realized that a new opportunity had opened up for the renewal of the development of „Ukrainians: Our battle“. Now the text stories will be harmoniously combined with the visual component. And most importantly, the students themselves expressed a desire to join the project as soon as they listened to the story of the appearance of its first version,» says Serhiy.
The game’s page is now published on Steam and has about 2,000 people on the wishlist, Khramov told dev.ua. «This is not a large number yet. In order for the release to take place, a mandatory requirement will be not only a completed build, but also the presence of at least 20,000 interested parties,» the developer says. He is convinced that this game should become popular as one of the largest games to date, dedicated to a full-scale invasion and partly the history of Ukraine.
Half of the net profit, says Serhiy, once the project is commercialized, will be directed to charity. «In particular, this is assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and citizens affected by the war. Depending on the scale and the current situation in the country, we reserve the right to choose the areas of distribution of the charitable part of the funds. For example, if by the time we still manage to achieve a release, the war will already be over, then it would make sense to direct assistance to the civilian population,» he explains.
Khramov says: by the end of the summer, you should expect the release of the Demo version of the game, followed soon by the release itself. And now you can add the game to your wishlist and wait for the release at the link .
The teacher is convinced that this game has already become not just another upcoming release, but a motivational driver for his students, who were inspired and immediately began creating their own projects, which are simply fantastic for the school level. «This is definitely a victory and the first step towards a future successful release,» he sums up.
