“We can’t just watch,” such a message appeared on Twitter of the private Ukrainian company Frogwares., which specializes in the development of computer games, a few hours after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, the Kiev-based studio has been using its social media platforms not only to showcase trailers and video game announcements, but also to show what it’s like to live and work when there’s a war going on around you. For example, they share family photos and images of destroyed buildings, people in camouflage and civilians hiding in bomb shelters and subway shafts, refugees, and people working on laptops on the floor or in the bathroom.
The personal stories of people, like artist Svetlana Gunchenko, who has been a 2D artist at Frogwares for 20 years, tell of everyday madness: overcrowded shelters, a rocket that flew at her house but changed direction a second before impact, oh forced escape and return home.
“We wanted to bring some light into the darkness,” said an employee Frogwares Sergey Oganesyan (in the title photo) in a conversation with DW. “As a gaming company, we especially wanted to reach out to gamers and tell them about the horrors that happen every day in Ukraine.” 33-year-old Sergey lives in Kiev and runs the publishing house of the independent studio Frogwares, which today, April 11, 2023, released detective computer game-quest “Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened”.
Detective computer quest from Ukraine
Kyiv is not only the capital of Ukraine, but also the center of the Ukrainian IT industry. Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, more than 250,000 people worked in this industry, tens of thousands specialized in computer games. Despite the war, the IT industry in Ukraine continues to flourish. According to the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, nowhere else in Europe is there such a number of university graduates in technical specialties as in Ukraine. According to the forecast, next year there will be even more such specialists – up to 450 thousand people.
The new game “Sherlock Holmes” has been developed and created in Kyiv over the past year. The company decided to remake its already existing 2007 version, which received good reviews at the time. After the start of the war, a bet was made on a project that would be feasible and promising even in difficult conditions. And the fact that the game’s story was already set in a template made it easier to implement. The developers also raised about 250 thousand euros through crowdfunding.
State of emergency has become the norm
In the first days of the war, the Kiev studio Frogwares was closed. “We decided to give people time and give them all possible support so that they can move: either leave the country or find housing somewhere in western Ukraine,” says Hovhannisyan. Some of his colleagues started working in humanitarian organizations, someone joined the army or joined the territorial defense forces.
A few weeks later, employees who remained in Ukraine, as well as those who had gone abroad, resumed work. They programmed and implemented the project either from home or came to the office, depending on how safe it was for them to get to work and whether they had enough electricity to run their computers.
Regular blackouts have caused particular difficulties for the team: the office in Kiev is supplied with a relatively stable supply, but employees working remotely from different regions of Ukraine often do not even have the opportunity to get in touch and are forced to work at night or on weekends. Therefore, processes that normally take several hours sometimes drag on for several days.
At the same time, Sergei Oganesyan admitted that work helps him stop constantly thinking about the war. And, of course, it brings money, which is very necessary not only for the implementation of projects, but also for supporting Ukraine. According to their own statements, each member of the Frogwares team has already donated an average of about 2,800 euros since the start of the war.