Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty - Prologue 1939 News

Hello guys!
There will be nice discounts for all Strategic Mind titles throughout this week, so if you were thinking about grabbing the next SM game - it is a good opportunity to do just that.


Strategic Mind: The Pacific - 40%
https://store.steampowered.com/app/991810/Strategic_Mind_The_Pacific/

Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg - 40%
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200330/Strategic_Mind_Blitzkrieg/

Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism - 35%
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1341170/Strategic_Mind_Spectre_of_Communism/

Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom - 30%
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1381850/Strategic_Mind_Fight_for_Freedom/

Save up an additional 20% on top of the discounts above if you get Strategic Mind Complete Collection bundle:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/16499/Strategic_Mind_Complete_Collection/

With best regards from Kyiv
Starni Games team

Hello guys!

First of all, news from the front. The UAF counter-offensive continues and it seems that RF troops are now on the back foot. To remedy that mobilization was finally announced in Russia. How effective it would be in changing the situation on the frontlines remains to be seen. RF also holds so called “vote” on Ukraine territories joining Russia, starting today. Nobody buys that, so it does not really matter. From the talks with people here in Kyiv - everyone are confident in our efforts to liberate Ukraine and not too worried about Russia’s shenanigans.

Another piece of excellent news was the exchange of prisoners, that freed 215 Ukrainians from Russian captivity, including many prominent figures and top commanders from the heroic Mariupol (Azovstal) garrison (5 top commanders are now in Turkey and supposed to remain there until the end of the war, so they will not rejoin the war efforts). Plus, all people from other countries who volunteered to fight for Ukraine and were captured, some sentenced to death - all were released. In exchange, Ukraine released 55 Russian POW (including high ranking officers) and Medvedchuk - an oligarch and traitor (with close ties to Putin) who promoted Russian interests in Ukraine over the last decade and was arrested after the war had started. We feel very releived that the many Ukrainian POWs are now safe.

Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom is now available on PS and XBOX

Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom is now available on both PS and XBOX. So, if you prefer to play the WW2 battles on Console - your time has come. The latest Strategic Mind title will be a great addition to your games’ collection. Not to mention that now you can command Allied troops taking on Germany and later (in alternative history) the USSR on the big screen.



Dev Q&A (all games) rescheduled to next week

We could not record it last weekend, so it is planned for this weekend and will be available next week. This means you have the very last opportunity to submit your questions for the upcoming Dev Q&A by filling up the form (until Saturday):
https://forms.gle/mhoQ5wZdZFZSo2SX7

Ukraine War Stories - October release and Dev Q&A


The Ukraine War Stories approaches its release in October, so we held a Dev Q&A dedicated to this project exclusively. Learn more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCZMaJzIgQM&t=1s


Looking forward to answering your questions during Q&A session.

Stay tuned for future despatches.

With best regards from Kyiv
Starni Games team

Hello

It is Oleksandr speaking. We have to move the release date for Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty to 2023. I am really sorry we could not deliver the game by the previously estimated date, but we had a lot of force majeure factors stacked against us, the key issue obviously being the War in Ukraine.

We did not have a previous record of postponed releases and hope to avoid such incidents in the future as well. We value every community member, and we know that there are people waiting for the Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty release. Our key goal right now is to make sure we deliver a good game as promised, even if at a later date.

The good news is, you do not have to worry about us abandoning the project, or something like that. We did have to stop working on it temporarily, but now the development process is being resumed. We still have to solve different complications as we go, such as gathering our VO cast in Kyiv despite the war, and so on. That is why we cannot name a specific date or month for the release yet - many things have to be considered. All we know is that the work is resumed, and it is in our best interests to finish the project as soon as we can without compromising on its quality.

Another piece of good news is that our team is growing, allowing us to step up our production efforts. Right now we are more than 20 people.

We plan to release a clear roadmap for the project in autumn 2022 and will provide monthly updates on our progress starting in October. We might have some good news in store for you still in 2022.


In many aspects, the game was close to completion before the war started, but in terms of VO, cinematics, and localization the development is lagging behind, that is why we will need quite some time to catch up, as these are lengthy processes.

We hope for your understanding and patience and will do everything we can to deliver a well-made game that will take a proper place in the Strategic Mind saga.

We will announce our Dev Q&A soon, where I will record a broadcast answering all of your questions about the team or any of our games. Feel free to ask us any questions you like, by filling this form:
https://forms.gle/mhoQ5wZdZFZSo2SX7

With best regards from Kyiv
Oleksandr and the Starni Games team

We are happy to announce our charity project - Ukraine War Stories. It is a set of visual novels about real events that have happened during the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The stories tell about civilians who found themselves on Russian occupied territory. The game will be completely free (no in-app purchases), with the full release coming in October 2022. However, you do not have to wait until October to play, as you can try out the Demo right now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985510/Ukraine_War_Stories/

The full game will have 3 stories, one of them — Hostomel — is available right now in the Demo. The second story is about Bucha — the town next to Hostomel (another suburb of Kyiv), where Oleksandr Androshchuk from Starni Games team hid in the garage basement for a whole week under the Russian occupation. Luckily, his family managed to evacuate safely, but before they did, they've seen what Russian occupation was really like. Some of what Oleksandr had told us was also incorporated into the story.

As a Ukraine-based company (that still works from our Kyiv office) we could not sit idly by when the Russian Army stood some 3 km from Kyiv. Our main goal now is to spread the word about what is happening in Ukraine and present a correct and truthful account of the events.

Please support the project by adding it to your Wishlist, and spread the word about it among your friends. We do not gain any money from it, but we do hope that a lot of people across the world will see it on Steam and give it a try. The more people wishlist the game, the more will see it during the release time.

With best regards from Kyiv
Starni Games team

Hello guys!

Last time I promised you photos of the damaged houses on our way from the subway station to the office, but I could not have predicted that Russia would decide to add some extra ones and destroy one more building that we pass on our way from the subway station to the office. They also hit a playground of the kindergarten which the daughter of our Founder Ihor Tymoshenko was attending before the war.

The destruction caused in spring (on our way from the subway to the office)
These photos are taken by me on Monday, June 27th.











The Sunday (June 26th) attack (the building is on our way from the subway to the office)
These photos are from the press. I saw the place from the street as I walked to office on Monday (27th June), but there was a police checkpoint and lots of emergency services hard at work, so I decided not to interfere with their work to take photos and took the Sunday photos from the press.







Here is the photo of a kindergarten Ihor’s 5-year-old daughter was attending until the war started:



Hard at work - no holidays

At Starni Games we usually follow all public holidays in Ukraine. Since the war started all national holidays (except regular Saturdays and Sundays) were suspended and are now regular work days. We follow the same rules to bear with the rest of the country and to catch up on what we have missed in the first month of the war in terms of production. This allowed our team to fully focus on work and catch up a bit on our pre-war plans.

A project dedicated to the War in Ukarine

We are all very excited, as we will soon announce a project dedicated to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It will be fully free and we will not profit from it. It will also not be a strategy game, as you could have expected. It is a smaller scale project and it requires only a few people from our team to actively work on it, so it does not have significant impact on the speed of development of our other projects. It mostly requires our narrative team’s work. So, consider it a truly free to play bonus from our team while you wait for our key titles to release. It is also our story and the story of what the people of Ukraine are going through at the moment.

Stay tuned as we will make a proper announcement in the coming days.

With best regards from Kyiv
Starni Games team