5 years of Dato of Srivijaya

5 years of Dato of Srivijaya

Hello, everyone

14 December 2020 was the release date of Dato of Srivijaya. Now, Dato of Srivijaya's age is 5 years old.

The idea of Dato of Srivijaya appeared in late August 2018. Since then, the game director of Sengkala Dev, Karim, participated as a speaker in Seminar Sriwijaya at Palembang, 6-9 August 2018. He discussed, listened to many interesting speakers, and got the proceeding of Srivijaya. From this seminar, he was interested in making game about Srivijaya. In that time, the game project was developed in Gamemaker Studio 1.4. But, it was just a draft concept with the map.

2 years later, in June 2020, Karim prepared to apply for the Facilitation of Culture Project of The Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technologies. He knew this from his upper alumni, and he expects to get fundings. The maximum budget for this project was Rp 1 billion, but due to being unfamiliar with the budget plan and afraid to get rejected, he only purposed 18 million rupiah. This is the lowest proposal in The Facilitation of Culture Project in 2020 while all applications around a hundred million of rupiah.

At that time, the quality of the game was very poor due to the short time of development, an uncalculated budget, and team members still being limited.

Dato of Srivijaya started the development in 2nd week October 2020 after this project got funded by Facilitation of Culture project 2020. Karim, the game director of Sengkala Dev, purposed nearly Rp 18 million rupiah for this project. He miscalcuted as at that time, he was not sure that his project can get fund and low budget was okay as long as he can get funding.

The team of Sengkala only consists several people, unlike in present times. Karim wasn't just a historian and game director, but also the game designer and programmer.

Several updated has conducted in December 2020. We changed the graphic style in December 2021 that doesn't affected much in the gameplay.

There was some updated in 1st term of 2024 with graphic changed to pixel style, while the gameplay doesn't changed so we not update it in Steam.

The biggest updated happened in August 2025. Dato of Srivijaya remastered in all aspects from the art, the gameplay, and the contants as the gameplay map extended to Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. As the game director of Sengkala Dev involved in Indonesia National History project, he learned new things about how important Bongal sites in Srivijaya era and add this in Dato of Srivijaya 2025.

The remaster development started from April 2025 until August 2025. We released the remastered version in 17 August 2025 and updated version released in October 2025. Dato of Srivijaya Remaster version still have problems and lot of element to fill. Hope in future we can updating this game.

Dato of Srivijaya always be free of play game and we have commitment to update this game in future so keep support Sengkala Dev's game!

We want hear your expectation for future of Dato of Srivijaya

Dato of Srivijaya in 2021-2024

Dato of Srivijaya in 2025 (now)

Thank you

Game Director of Sengkala Dev