Celestial Empire News

Begin your journey as a governor of this forgotten province. These people need you to bring them prosperity and peace. Prepare for winter and the harsh weather it will bring. You will have to balance your citizen’s happiness with moody gods. Not everything you do has to be a part of your great production scheme. Place bamboo clumps and fountains to make your city more beautiful. Make the Emperor proud of your aesthetic choices.



A few tips before you play yourself :

• Remember, your canals have to obey gravity, as all objects and beings do,
  
• Citizen’s needs are your guidelines to what and where to build,
  
• Rice and wood will keep your citizens well-fed and warm,
  
• R-r-rotate all buildings with R,
  
• Look out for ducks and pandas, they are adorable.
  

Begin your journey as a governor of this forgotten province. These people need you to bring them prosperity and peace. Prepare for winter and the harsh weather it will bring. You will have to balance your citizen’s happiness with moody gods. Not everything you do has to be a part of your great production scheme, place bamboo clumps and fountains to make your city more beautiful. Make the Emperor proud of your aesthetic choices.



A few tips before you play yourself :

• Remember, your canals have to obey gravity, as all objects and beings do,
  
• Citizen’s needs are your guidelines to what and where to build,
  
• Rice and wood will keep your citizens well-fed and warm,
  
• R-r-rotate all buildings with R,
  
• Look out for ducks and pandas, they are adorable.
  

Dear community!

A long-awaited moment is finally here! We have opened the playtests to everyone!
We invite you to test, exploit and break our game, so we can know what to fix!
The list of things we’d like you to especially focus on include:

• Does this game make you feel like you entered an ancient Chinese?
  
• Is the game intuitive enough to play without tutorials?
  
• Is the game running smoothly?
  
• Is the game’s difficulty balanced well?
  
• Can you survive the winter without dev-tools?
  
• Are you having fun?
  

If you find any mistakes or ambiguities in the localisation, also let us know! We know that our player base is a group of diverse people from all over the world and we’d like to make the playing in your mother tongues as pleasant as possible! And even though our small team did not manage to prepare all planned localisations on time for the playtests, we will do our best to have as many as possible for the demo.

Any complaint, praise, feedback or ideas for the full game? Let us know in-game! While we are available on our social media and in our Discord, the most preferable way of reaching the devs specifically is the in-game feedback tool, you can access it by pressing ESC, it will bring out a menu, where you can send us a message!



We are very excited to show you the game, but please remember that this is an early version and we are fighting with bugs every single day. We are going to add much more content and exciting features, please be patient with us.

If you have not signed up yet, click the 'GET ACCESS' button on our steam page.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330430

See you in the playtests!
President Studio Devs

Dear community!

At the beginning of this Chinese New Year, we wish you all the fortune and luck. May this New Year bring many opportunities your way, so you can grow and prosper in the upcoming year and beyond.
While we can’t give you a more traditional red packet, we hope that the upcoming free and time-limited demo will be enough of a gift this season.
May the tiger bring you good luck and fortune.

Happy Chinese New Year!
The Devs

Dear community!

Usually, the complexity of a strategy game has to be expressed through a multitude of icons and windows. This can create chaos on the screen and scare players away. Because of this, for the last month or two, we have been focusing on the player experience and how to bring out the most exciting aspects of the game without making it overwhelming. All stats and buffs affecting your city have to be clearly stated in the UI. We looked into many different designs and solutions, searching for the most suitable ones.

The main menu:
Before you can do anything in the game, you will be greeted by the main menu. The intimate sight of your gubernatorial office should get you in the right mood and have you reflect on the upcoming decisions you will have to make.



The menus have been designed with functionality in mind. We want all windows to be clear and intuitive, so you, as a player, know exactly where to look for specific settings and features.



The Clock:
Different mechanics are shown through changes in the UI. The most important one would be the time system. The clock will show you changing seasons. Each season will have its own quirks, summer will bring bountiful harvests, while winter will stall your production. A crucial aspect shown in this part of the UI is the twelve animal patrons and the way some of them will affect your city. While all these aspects are still in early development, we already prepared space especially for them.



Iterations:
All elements have gone through a countless number of styles. Some of them are shown below:



The entire team was deeply engaged in choosing the most suitable colors, themes and decorations for the UI. In the end, the decision to make the panels red and gold came from the cultural and historical importance of these colors. They will remind you of the Emperor who is taking patronage of your gubernatorial rule. His presence is supposed to be seeping from many elements of the game, as it is your honor and duty to be the extension of his power.

The decorative elements of the UI brought a lot of discussion to the team. Our graphic designer prepared a multitude of choices and, for the longest time, we could not decide on only one:



In the end, we managed to settle on this design:



Tell us what you think about the UI! We can’t wait to share some BIG news soon and feedback on everything we’ve been doing so far would be vastly appreciated. You can send us messages on social media, Steam and Discord.

See you next time!
The Devs