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[AcroGamesFin]

Hey all, may I present to you guys my second game currently in development: Sotidrokhima.

Sotidrokhima is a 2D top-down hack-and-slash game loosely based on a Finnish folk hero of the same name, more specifically from Karelia, of whom very little is known. The game is set in the 13th century during the Swedish crusades against the pagan Finns.

Sotidrokhima is a blood-drenched tale about friendship, companionship, war, and independence.
It's a straightforward experience and not to be taken too seriously. I've always just wanted to make a game about our rich folklore here in Finland, and with Sotidrokhima, this has finally come to fruition. It's not the most ambitious project, but definitely one I want to complete, polish to become as enjoyable as possible, and share with you guys.

Oh, and there will be blood, and badass-iness!
Here's a little (not too high quality, admittedly) trailer I quickly made for you guys at TIGsource to see.
EDIT: 5.4.2022. New Trailer Is Available For Viewing Further Down This Devlog!






I've been developing Sotidrokhima alone for the past 3 years, with many long off-seasons in between; I've been developing it concurrently, for the past 2,5 years, with another game of mine, The Finnish War. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=69704.0

I will aim to out both of these games in 2021. I'm making both of the games concurrently, but it seems likely that Sotidrokhima will release earlier.
EDIT: 5.4.2022. The Finnish War came out first!

Thanks for your interest!

[AcroGamesFin]

Devlog 2

Hey guys, been updating the battle system and minigames in Sotidrokhima lately and thought I'd share a couple images of what I've added.

You can now take enemies as human shields. They can be of help in getting you out of a bad situation, f. ex. if you're being surrounded by enemies on all sides. You can trick enemy archers into pincushioning the poor guys; and as soon as you feel they've outlived themselves, crack their neck and be done with them.



Melee-type enemies will not attack you if you have their friend as a shield - however - as soon as you turn your back on them, they charge without hesitation.



I've also added a Rush Attack that you can execute with a simple push of the mouse scroll, both forward and backward. If you have enemies clumped in front of you, blocking your path, you can just rush through them, pushing them aside for minor damage, and move on without a care.



Sotidrokhima has 3 basic weapons; sword, bow and arrows, and javelins. Each weapon has an Adrenaline attack that can be used to slaughter masses of enemies in quick succession once you unlock Adrenaline Mode. The duration of Adrenaline can be improved through the forementioned minigames.

I will tell later about the minigames, which in Sotidrokhima are used to skill your character between battles. Each of the minigames will have a different buff for Sotidrokhima if you are successful in them. You start out already strong enough to take on multiple enemies with relative ease, but through your journey, you will evolve into a one-man army; heads will be bashed and legs will be sliced off from those who dare stand in your way!

Until next time!

[AcroGamesFin]

Devlog 3


Hey guys, I thought of giving a glimpse of the characters you'll be meeting in Sotidrokhima. I'll start with just a few: one you'll be fighting alongside of, one you'll be fighting against, and the one you'll be fighting as.

So let's begin:



Sotidrokhima - the protagonist



Our namesake, the eponymous protagonist. Sotidrokhima, or as I like to call him, Soti is a man of few words but many actions. As mentioned in the original post he is (loosely) based on a folk hero from Karelia in Finland. Sotidrokhima changes as the story proceeds, and you will be skilling him up to make the journey easier. His default appearance is the one portrayed above; he also has another 'form' which will be explored further in the story (the one shown in the gif). Rumours say that in Sotidrokhima's veins runs the blood of an ancestor-god, Kaleva.



Also, in his second 'form' his lack of eyebrows is intentional - it's to make the forehead and eye ridges appear larger and make the face more sharply defined, making it look more serious. Well, Soti is basically always serious, but in his second 'form', it's on like Donkey Kong.


Tiera - an ally




Tiera is, also quite loosely, based on a Finnish folk character - he also appears in the national epic of Finland, Kalevala. Dude's full name is Iku-Tiera Nieranpoika, but he'll go by 'Tiera' in the game. Tiera is a loyal brother-in-arms and best friend of Sotidrokhima.
Tiera is a driving force behind the story - but, even though his role is important, it ends up being relatively minor in terms of appearance. Tbh, as the dev I actually regret this - he's probably my favorite character and I kind of wanted to see more of him. Despite what happens in the opening stages of the game, he does come back to make appearances throughout the story. Tiera is badass.


Birger Jarl - a villain




Mean-looking guy, right? Hopefully! Since he is one of the game's villains, Birger Jarl. He was a de facto ruler of Sweden in the 13th century, and a historical character. His intention is, using the pretext of crusade, to conquer the lands of the Finnish tribes to be used as a buffer-state against Sweden's most fearsome enemy - Russia - to the east of Finland. He is basically another driving force of the game's events, but more of a behind-the-scenes than in-your-face bad guy.


So that's some of the characters in Sotidrokhima. Now, there's quite a bunch of them there, but I decided to share a few at first. Hopefully you find them interesting. The game is story-based, so they make up most of it.
Till next time!

[AcroGamesFin]

Devlog 4


Hey again guys,
hasn't been long since last post, but here I thought I could share some GIFs of the features I've been working on lately in the game.

First off, some shots of your basic combat:







Also, been trying out new effects, so here we have some blood splatters...



Also also, minigames are all done. There are five. Here's my personal favorite of em:



...the sauna minigame!

[AcroGamesFin]

Hey all,

as sort of an afterthought, a wild idea came to me some time back.
Sotidrokhima needs a Renown system!
Now, it's been implemented, with many features that expand the gameplay and best of all, increase replayability.
Lemme explain:

• you gain Renown based on how well you perform in battles - but if you perform poorly, taking heavy damage and desperately throwing all you have against a small group of foes for example, your Renown fades and your memory vanishes from the chronicles of heroes!
• high Renown has many effects in gameplay: enemies will fear you in battle and may mass-rout, new special dialogue will unlock for the story, and best of all...
• ...at certain Renown levels, you gain special weapons which are otherwise impossible to obtain!

Here's one of them - a blade that grows stronger everytime it draws blood, indicated by the glow:



It gives battles a whole new perspective, for if you hastily try and smash your way through enemy hordes without any coordination or self-preservation (although the more you level up and the better weapons you gain, that can be allowed as well) your renown likely won't reach as high as it would, if you performed well in battles.

[AcroGamesFin]

Long time no see!
Sotidrokhima's been on a summer break while I've been busy with my other project. But now, time to get back to work here too.
I figured a large portion of the game's visuals date from the early days of development (2017-18) so maybe it'd be a good time to update the graphical department.
I started with the menu, hope you like:

[AcroGamesFin]

Hey there,

a little update regarding Sotidrokhima.
While I'm still aiming to release the game between Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, with the holidays and quarantines behind and regular life once again lifting its head, game development needs to become secondary once again. So from now on, posting here will most likely be less frequent than it has been up until now.



Sotidrokhima is doing great however.

Features I've implemented are being expanded, the storyline being finished, and minor fixes and improvements here and there taking place next.

It's becoming the simple, pacifying and stress-relieving hack n' slash - with a pinch of epicness - I always intended it to be!

EDIT 27.3.22.: As you can see, the game certainly was delayed a bit. This is due to another project, The Finnish War, having released first.

[AcroGamesFin]

Previously I've posted about special weapons you can earn in the game by gaining Renown.

Everyone knows Thor and his hammer, but the Finns have their own version of it as well...

Lately, time permitting, I've experimented some new weapon effects for the game, such as ones provided here by the Hammer of Ukko, the Over-god!

[AcroGamesFin]

It's been a while!! At holidays, time's none better spent than forwarding my game projects.
I've been doing a lot of finetuning with Sotidrokhima. Minigames and their rewards have been most recently under the microscope.

Each minigame has their own means of furthering your abilities in-game, combat-wise.
Here's a little peek at some of them:

[vdapps]

Hmm, interesting way to get into Finnish folk. Punching mini game or sauna mini game made me laugh.

Art can be for an indie title, however I would suggest using better fonts. Main title screen and also the font on that medieval like paper doesn't look very natural.

[AcroGamesFin]

Hmm, interesting way to get into Finnish folk. Punching mini game or sauna mini game made me laugh.

Art can be for an indie title, however I would suggest using better fonts. Main title screen and also the font on that medieval like paper doesn't look very natural.

thanks for commenting. Indeed, this is the plan, making visual upgrades through much of the game is still on to-do list!

[AcroGamesFin]

Been furthering the Renown system quite a bit. By being successful in battles, you gain renown; this makes your enemies fear you, and you gain access to otherwise unobtainable weapons and unlock lots of additional dialogue.





Been writing a lot of new dialogue and adding scenes to the game that can only be unlocked with renown. Characters will recognize you, etc.
It also encourages players to aim for faultless performance in battles: that's the only way to unfold all of the game's story and content!



If you have ideas for e.g. what kind of new thematic weapons could be added into the game as bonus content through Renown, feel free to speak them!
I've been focusing on Finnish mythology, but really all Norse mythology in general has worked as inspiration.

[AcroGamesFin]

Greetings!
Sotidrokhima is very much alive and well.
Over 2021, I've directed more time and energy to developing The Finnish War (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=69704.0) which had way more work to be done and some uncertainties around how easy it would be developing certain features.
Will be posting more on Sotidrokhima too later on Q3, Q4/2021.
Will see if the game makes it with its original planned release schedule. Atm, this seems likely.

[AcroGamesFin]

WE'RE BACK!

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/acrogamesfin

[AcroGamesFin]

Renewed combat in Sotidrokhima.





Much like with The Finnish War, we are actually undertaking the challenge of voiceacting Sotidrokhima as well!
Sotidrokhima is story-driven and has a lot of secret dialogue based on your Renown (check earlier posts for the Renown system in the game), in addition to the game's story.

And much of the visuals will certainly be updated for release.

Twitter:
 https://twitter.com/acrogamesfin
Trailer:
 

[AcroGamesFin]

Six voiceactors will lend their vocal abilities to the characters in Sotidrokhima!

So the same group as we had in The Finnish War. Sotidrokhima is much more story-driven though, so there's more dialogue to share among us.

Voiceacting will begin this month, if we manage to stay in schedule. First samples out in May.

Exciting!!

[mobilelast]

I love how Sotidrokhima is so grumpy all the time, no matter where he is or what he does. He doesn't look like a very humorous fellow. Even for a Finn.

[AcroGamesFin]

I love how Sotidrokhima is so grumpy all the time, no matter where he is or what he does. He doesn't look like a very humorous fellow. Even for a Finn.

He's a grump but has a good heart!
Sauna makes him happy. And occasional Swede-killing!! (apologies to Swedes everywhere)

[AcroGamesFin]

Summer update on development!

• voice-acting process has begun at last! Cast of 6 is working on some 15-20 voiced characters.
• improvements on Renown mechanic: new dialogue, new rewards, balance changes.
• New Devlog video is out now!

[AcroGamesFin]

Old dog still learns new tricks!



Added a Shield Push move to shove enemies out of the way.
Also made it so that the Rush move equally shoves enemies out of your path when rushing.