Title: Temukung :Cultivation in Drylands
Genre:Historical, farming, simulator, strategy
Price:Free
Release date :Late Q3 2024
Developer:Sengkala Dev
Publisher:Sengkala Dev
Platfrom:PC
Distribute:Steam
Take look the opening of Temukung
Temukung :Cultivation in Drylands is a historical farming simulator set in West Timor at middle 19th century. Farming in Timor is very challenging as the climate is very dry compared to other regions in Indonesia and the cultivation is only once in one year with rain season from November to March and long period of dry season after that. In same time, Dutch in West Timor and the Portuguese in East Timor try to expand their influence.
In this game, there are 5 ethics based on native ethnics in West Timor:
- Atoni
Atoni or popular as Dawan by other Timorese is the native Timorese who live near Kupang , mountains area in West Timor , and some part of Belu and Malaka.
- Tetun
Tetun is the native Timorese who live in Belu, Malaka, and most of part East Timor.
- Helong
Helong is the native Timorese who live in Kupang and Semau island.
- Bunak
Bunak or calls by Tetun as Marae is the native Timorese who live mountains area in Lamaknen and the area around it.
- Kemak
Kemak is the native Timorese who live area around Belu and Lamaknen. They came from East Timor after East Timor’s uprising in 1911.
Each ethnics has different characteristics, but have similar traditions in cultivation and farming.
In same time, the political condition in Timor has divided in 3 parts: Kupang and area surounded it under Dutch influence, mountains West Timor and Belu’s plain under the Liurai which claimed under Dutch, and East Timor under Portuguese with enclave area in mountains West Timor, Oekussi.
Name of Temukung taken from village head of Atoni in Dutch’s colonial era. Before colonialism, in Atoni they calls village head as Tobe. It’s different from other ethnics. So in short, player will play as
There are 3 modes in this game from
- History Mode
the game starts from specific positions in each ethnics and starts from January 1859 when the border between Netherlands and Portuguese has settled and end in December 1941. Experience many historical events from year to year!
Only Kemak started in 1912.
In this mode, there are list of villages for each ethnics
- Bikomi- Atoni
- Noemuti- Atoni
- Oelolok- Atoni
- Duarato-Bunak
- Dirun-Bunak
- Kewar-Bunak
- Wehoor-Tetun
- Matabesi-Tetun
- Fatubenao-Tetun
- Deribati-Kemak
- Wehali-Tetun
- Wewiku-Tetun
- Kletek-Tetun
- Oepura-Helong
- Kolhua-Helong
- Tenau-Helong
2. Sandbox Mode
Customize your village from the start and live like Timorese! No historical events or end year in this mode.
3. Challenge Mode
You have 5 years to prepare your village from long period of dry year or/and many hard obstacles. Try to survive!
There are many buildings based on each ethnics and some buildings have different characteristics. Also there are many farms like corn, rice, and sorghum.
Temukung:Cultivation in Drylands funded by Dana Indonesiana. Dana Indonesiana is the program from Indonesia Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, Technology, and Higher Education with fund from Immortal fund culture/Dana Abadi Kebudayaan under LPDP/Institute of Education Fund Management.
Special thanks to Taman Budaya NTT in Kupang.
Short story about Temukung:Cultivation in Dryland
The plan of Temukung:Cultivation in Drylands started from July 2023 when game director of Sengkala Dev, Muhammad Abdul Karim, thought of the main theme for registration Dana Indonesiana 2023. Corn cultivation in Timor’s theme is what he thought at that time as Timor considered it special among Indonesia’s region in farming.
After the proposal of Temukung approved by Dana Indonesiana’s committee in October 2023, the development of Temukung has start but very slow as the main priority of Sengkala Dev is Fall of Bali. When the fund passed to Sengkala Dev in late February 2024, the development became faster in early March 2024.
As this game not just focuses on the farming system in Timor, but also culture, language, history and even music, development of Temukung is quite challenging more than Fall of Bali. 5 focus group discussion in Zoom has been conducted from January 2024 until May 2025. The game director of Sengkala Dev went to West Timor on 11 April-17 April 2024 with research area in Kefamenanu, Atambua, Lamaknen, and Kupang and got many valuable information.
Sengkala Dev 