Playtests Complete! What We Learned and Our Next Steps
Hello, Builders!
Long time, no see! Well, that’s about to change because the next few months are going to be intense. Make sure you’re all set with your tools and ready to build!
Over and out
First and foremost, we’ve just wrapped up an incredible round of playtesting, and we're buzzing to share the results! But first, a huge thank you to every single Builder who took part. Your engagement has pushed Chinese Frontiers to a whole new level, and we’re thrilled to have you on this journey with us.
Your feedback has been incredibly valuable, and we’ve gained some essential insights into the player’s perspective - something that’s worth more than gold. We're thrilled that you enjoyed it - and that’s not just lip service. Our survey results show that a whopping 89% of players were genuinely excited by the gameplay!
From all the elements tested, three stood out as fan favorites: building the General’s Tower, constructing machinery, and the stunning audio-visual experience. We're eager to expand on these features and can’t wait for you to experience the full scope of Chinese Frontiers. We’re already working on integrating your feedback to make these core elements even more engaging!
Updated Release Date
Reflecting on all the invaluable feedback, we see meaningful improvements we want to make to ensure your gameplay is immersive, polished, and unforgettable. To make this possible, we’ve made the tough decision to reschedule the release to next year. We know waiting is never easy, but this extra time means we’ll be fine-tuning every detail to bring you the most thrilling building experience possible and we believe you’ll feel it in every structure you build and every tool you use.
Thanks for your patience and continued support. We can’t wait to see you back in Chinese Frontiers soon – it’s going to be your ultimate building adventure!
In the End
We’d also like to remind you to keep an eye on our social media channels, where we’ll continue sharing exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Plus, don’t miss out on joining the ranks of top Builders worldwide on our official Discord server. Click HERE to stay up to date, meet other awesome people, and access exclusive insider content that you won’t find anywhere else. We can’t wait to see you there!
Cheers, SolidGames
Chinese Frontiers: DevLog #7 - THE SOUNDTRACK
Hey Chinese Builders!
We're back with fresh DevLog updates, straight from the recording studio where we just wrapped up the soundtrack for Chinese Frontiers!
What Unusual Thing Connects Poland and China?
We know that people in China value ethnic music and love Frederick Chopin, who was actually Polish! Since we couldn't exactly ask Chopin to compose the music for our game, we got Ignacy Zalewski, Dean of Composition at Fryderyk Chopin University in Warsaw, to help us out. It's almost like getting Chopin, right?
Ignacy composed, and incredible musicians recorded, and now, here it is (imagine guzheng intro), THE SOUNDTRACK FOR CHINESE FRONTIERS!
Well, it’s still in progress, but you can hear some pieces featuring various ethnic instruments like Guzheng, Er-hu, Suka Biłgorajska, Drums and Flutes. Not all these instruments are Chinese, but they’re all ethnic – that counts, still good enough. Plus, in Poland where we’re developing the game, we don’t have easy access to all Chinese instruments, so we improvised. Luckily, Mingjie played the guzheng, and Ada played the Er-hu. Awesome! 😊
The custom soundtrack is made just for you, to immerse you in the ancient Chinese atmosphere while exploring your world in Chinese Frontiers. The soundtrack will guide you through serene landscapes and bustling construction sites of the Great Wall, evoking wonder and peace. This music is incredible! You'll feel the calm and relaxation. We’ll also give you access to the soundtrack separately so you can enjoy it anytime, not just while building the Great Wall!
Stay tuned!
Please note that the soundtrack is still in development, but we’re excited to give you a sneak peek! :) Check out these tracks you’ll be able to enjoy while exploring the Chinese rural settlement.
We’d love to hear which one you like best—let us know in the comments!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7OpcRcXZEA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDlr83WA8I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2mQPldr8vo
For music geeks, here’s more about the artists and the recording process.
The recordings took place last week at the prestigious Polish Radio studio. Each session was a journey, exploring the rich textures and emotive power of traditional Chinese music. To preserve sound clarity and simplify post-production, the musicians recorded their tracks in separated acoustics, ensuring that every note and nuance was captured with pristine detail.
The man behind this incredible musical experience is Ignacy Zalewski, a renowned composer of classical, film, theater, and radio music, and a professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. His expertise and vision have shaped a soundscape that transports players back to the era of the Great Wall's construction.
Musicians and their instruments:
Katarzyna Gacek - Duda, a distinguished flutist, used an astounding variety of 20 different flutes to capture the essence of the era, enriching the soundtrack with layers of authenticity and depth.
Adrianna Kafel - Wozniak, a versatile modern and baroque cellist, played the Er-hu and the Biłgoraj Suka, providing a haunting and evocative sound that perfectly complements the game's setting.
Mingjie Yu, a guzheng master from Hubei province, contributed the timeless sounds of this ancient instrument, infusing the soundtrack with a profound sense of history and cultural heritage.
Wojciech Lubertowicz, a multi-instrumentalist and sound director, provided the rhythmic foundation with his skillful drumming, ensuring that every beat resonates with the spirit of medieval China.
Sound Direction & Management:
Last but not least, we want to highlight Igor Szymański, the person without whom this entire project wouldn’t be possible. Igor is the Sound Director at SolidGames and is responsible for the sound direction of the game Chinese Frontiers. He coordinated, organized, and managed everything with the musicians and composer. Igor, you rock!
We are back! After a brief break from our devlogs and announcements, we are excited to share updates on the past few months and our future plans for Chinese Frontiers!
Our team has been working tirelessly, and we are proud to announce that Chinese Frontiers will be released globally this year!
By launching directly to full release, we ensure that our community worldwide can enjoy the complete, fleshed-out experience from the start—no Early Access phase!
Development Recap
Since our initial announcement, Chinese Frontiers has evolved significantly through various stages of development.
Our journey began with a promising demo, where players built one of the Beacon Towers of the Great Wall of China. This demo captivated over 40,000 unique users. It was followed by the Chinese Frontiers Prologue (over 55,000 unique users, review rate Mostly Positive, 77% in date), which featured an extended tutorial in a sandbox level and the player’s production base — Village. Both, the demo and the Prologue, were extensively tested through Steam's playtest sessions. The most recent feedback was sought from the Playtest of a new level—the Desert Fort at Jiayu Pass.
Feedback
Each of these phases was crucial in sculpting the game’s direction and mechanics, heavily informed by player interactions and the feedback we received through surveys, our Discord server, and Steam Discussions.
We took that feedback to heart. Some of you had the chance to witness the changes we have made based on your opinions. There is a significant difference between our demo and prologue versions that you can test yourselves. We have added story quests and narrative for better immersion. Those of you who played the Desert Fort playtest may have noticed the new and improved tutorial system. There were many adjustments to give you a better experience, and there are still plenty that will be introduced in the upcoming full release!
The insights gained from these sessions were invaluable. We refined gameplay mechanics, enhanced narrative elements, and optimised user interfaces to make exploring ancient China as immersive and engaging as possible.
We especially want to thank our Chinese players for their suggestions and comments. Being based in Poland, Europe, the warm words and constructive feedback about Chinese culture, art, and language have helped us make our game more authentic and atmospheric.
We are profoundly grateful for the enthusiasm and support from our community throughout the development process. Your active participation in our playtests and your detailed feedback have been fundamental in shaping the final product.
Conclusion
Originally, Chinese Frontiers was slated for an Early Access release in Q2 2024. However, based on your feedback, we've made the strategic decision to skip Early Access. As we aim for a release later this year, we have given ourselves more time to fully develop our game. This decision not only streamlines the release process but also ensures that we are able to provide you with a coherent and immersive experience, complete with rich storytelling, enhanced gameplay mechanics, and beautifully crafted environments that will transport players directly into the majestic world of ancient China.
Stay tuned for further updates, and don't forget to add Chinese Frontiers to your wishlist and follow our Steam page.
Join Our Free Playtest: Discover the New Desert Level in "Chinese Frontiers"!
Hello, Chinese Builders!
We’re thrilled to announce a special opportunity for you to experience a slice of our upcoming builder/simulator game, "Chinese Frontiers." Dive into our short, free playtest and be among the first to traverse the sands of our newly designed desert level!
What Awaits in the Desert?
Explore the Jiayu Bastion: Navigate through the evolving fort and get a glimpse of the majestic General Tower of Jiayu Pass.
New Gameplay Mechanics: Test your skills with our innovative machine assembly process, learn about sculpting and wood painting, and interact with our dynamic NPCs.
How to Join the Adventure:
Accessing the playtest is easy! Simply go to the “Chinese Frontiers” Steam page, scroll to the “Join the Chinese Frontiers Playtest” section, and click “Request Access.” Steam Page
Remember, this journey through the sands is available for a limited time. The playtest will end on December 22nd.
Your Voice Matters:
We deeply value your feedback. After your adventure, please share your thoughts through the Feedback Survey → Links are inside the playtest.
Your insights help us refine gameplay, fix bugs, and enhance the overall experience.
Stay Engaged:
Thank you for being part of this journey! If you like what you see, don't forget to add "Chinese Frontiers" to your Steam wishlist to keep up with all our updates.
Join our vibrant community on Discord to discuss your experiences and stay connected.
We can’t wait to see how you leave your mark on the Silk Road!
Happy Building and Exploring! The "Chinese Frontiers" Team
Great Prolog Update 22.09
Updated Prolog of "Chinese Frontiers" is now live!
Click to play updated free Prolog version of "Chinese Frontiers"!
Hello, Chinese Builders! 🏯
We're excited to announce the upcoming update - patch release for the Prolog of 'Chinese Frontiers,' scheduled for this Friday, 22nd September. Our development team has been hard at work, listening to your feedback and making a countless of improvements. HERE, you'll find a detailed list of changes and updates that are coming your way.
Special Notice 🚨:
Save files from the previous UE4 version may not be compatible with the updated UE5 version. However, you'll have the option to choose between the old and updated branch versions on Steam.
Call to Action 📣:
Your feedback is most important to us! Join our Discord to engage with the community and developers. Also, don't forget to add the main game to your Wishlist if you haven't already.
Thank you for your ongoing support and dedication. We're eager for you to experience the new changes!
Best regards, The 'Chinese Frontiers' Development Team
PROLOGUE RELEASE!
Hello, Chinese Builders! We've got some good news!
You can now play the Chinese Frontiers FREE PROLOGUE!
We offer you approximately 3 hours of an immersive experience. You can do much more than in the DEMO, so don't hesitate to try out the game!
We are also very interested in your opinion! The game is still in development, and your feedback will be greatly appreciated. Join our social media platforms, where we can stay in touch and discuss your experience. We carefully read all the comments!
Hi, my name is Marcin, and I am the Art Director for Chinese Frontiers. You may remember me from our first devlog (Devlog #1). This time, I want to share a bit about the food and cooking mechanics in our upcoming game. In order to survive and create a thriving settlement in Chinese Frontiers you may take advantage of those mechanics.
Immersive world
Although the game primarily focuses on architecture, building, and all activities related to this process, we knew from the start that incorporating side mechanics would enhance the player's experience. After releasing the technical demo of our project, we searched for interesting gameplay and cultural touchpoints to create a game with a unique atmosphere.
Everyone knows the saying: the way to a heart is through the stomach.
The food and cooking mechanic plays a significant role in the game's immersive world. From a gameplay perspective, it complements farming, fishing, and breeding mechanics and at the same time enhances hunger, thirst, and stamina mechanics with short-term buffs. Moreover, the variety of ingredients and dishes showcases the differences between regions of China that the player visits. Note: While some of the dishes in our game may not be historically accurate, we still believe it's enjoyable to cook regionally relevant courses.
Could you taste these differences?
Cook your dish!
Our cooking mechanic is a unique and intricate system that plays a crucial role in the daily life of the settlement. With 14 recipes and 27 ingredients, players can experiment with various combinations to fulfill their hunger and other needs. Each group of ingredients and dishes is typical for a different area of China, including desert, mountain, river, and village cuisines.
The system distinguishes between Common dishes and Governor-worthy dishes. Common dishes fulfill hunger and provide a slight boost to health, while Governor-worthy dishes fill up one additional parameter such as thirst or stamina. However, after eating a Governor-worthy dish, some parameters are frozen for a few minutes, adding a strategic layer to the game.
The ultimate goal is to find and eat the Emperor-worthy dish, which fills up all parameters and freezes them for a brief period. This rare and valuable dish can provide a much-needed boost in a critical moment or save a player's life in a dangerous situation.
Our goal in creating Chinese Frontiers is to build an immersive and realistic world rooted in Chinese culture. The food and cooking mechanics are an essential for adding more spice and flavor into this world.
Let us know in the comment which traditional Chinese dish would you like to prepare!
Hi everyone, my name is Wojtek, and I’m the Level Designer and Technical Artist of our upcoming title, “Chinese Frontiers”. I would like to take you on a quick fly-through of the main level in the game - the player’s Village!
Walk through the valley of the Village
Relax, take a deep breath, and feel free to dive deep into an ancient Chinese valley surrounded by mountains.
At the settlement level, you will be able to discover multiple biomes. Our Village is spread along the river at the bottom of the valley. Near the water, you will find sandy beaches and bamboo forests. This is a good place to go fishing and take a look at the opposite riverbank, which you will be able to explore later in our full game. On the other side, the village is surrounded by a forest that you can delve into, gather wood and stones, pick up plants, which you can collect, farm, and use to cook original Chinese recipes. Take a look at the rice fields, unfolding like a verdant carpet from the mountains to the river bay. This is a typical part of Chinese scenery. The whole scenery is surrounded by mountains with ponds, rivers, and waterfalls that you can visit, along with attractive places with magnificent views.
Who knows, maybe along the way, you will uncover some secrets?
Revealing the Untold
Below, you can watch a short overview of the level we prepared.
This is just a quick fly-through of the first level. Stay tuned, and if you want, I’ll take you on a longer trip through the working process, technical features, and specific areas of every level. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you are most interested in.
Dive deep into the game and feel free to explore the whole level!
Marcin (Commando) and Tomek here, excited to talk about our part in creating our upcoming game, "Chinese Frontiers." As game designers and programmers, it's our job to bring the game world to life and make it engaging for players.
In our previous devlogs, we showcased the game loop and the amazing 3D assets our talented crew has been creating. Today, we're here to talk about what we've been working on specifically - interactive assets, resource gathering, building, upgrading, crafting, and more!
Building and Crafting
One of the core mechanics we've been working hard on is the building system. We had to make sure that it is intuitive and fun to use. You'll be able to upgrade buildings to unlock new features, craft tools and building materials to build even more stuff.
Crafting was an especially interesting subject for us as we wanted to add something more immersive for a player to interact with. Some of the crafting stations require more in-game actions from the player, rather than just selecting a recipe from the list. My favorite one is crafting bricks, and I am curious which one you like the most. Should we expand more on those ideas and add more crafting like this?
The Monuments
Moving on, let's talk about the main goal of "Chinese Frontiers" - building the Great Wall of China. But before you can do that, you need to gather materials, process them, and build up your Village. When you are ready, you will embark on a mission to build monumental parts of the Great Wall of China! In your journey you will use various tools to create them, starting from the crane which will help you to pull up heavy building materials. From programming code to the visual aspect and ending on audio design, we've put a lot of effort into creating an immersive crane experience.
One of the most significant challenges in building the Great Wall of China is the height of the wall. That's where the scaffolding comes in! We've added the scaffolding mechanic to help players build at higher places with ease. You'll be able to stack scaffoldings on top of each other, allowing you to reach new heights and build impressive structures. But be careful not to fall off while you're up there! 💀 We wanted to make sure that players could enjoy building at higher elevations without sacrificing the fun factor, and the scaffolding does just that.
Caravan
Another interesting tool that will aid you is the Players Caravan. It will allow you to transport necessary materials crafted in your Village to the Great Wall of China. The Caravan is connected to all workshops you place so you won’t have to transport all of the crafted materials in your own hands. Whenever you travel to the Monuments building site, your Caravan will be waiting for you with your materials ready. Hopefully, nothing will go missing during your travels! 😉
Making multiple intertwined systems that will allow setting up a monument of such a massive scale and will be easy to use for us, developers, proved to be an interesting challenge.
Skill System
As the game continues, players will have the opportunity to improve their character's abilities through various skills. These skills can boost their carrying capacity, increase movement speed, enhance farming abilities, and more. As players progress through the game, they will have the chance to invest in different skills, which will allow them to complete tasks more efficiently and make the most out of their resources. The skill system will add a layer of depth and strategy to the gameplay, as players must carefully choose which skills to invest in based on their playstyle and priorities. We believe that the skill system will add another layer of depth to the gameplay and give players a sense of progression as they develop their character's abilities. We're excited to see how players will use their skills to overcome challenges in "Chinese Frontiers"!
From Gatherer to Village Boss
As your Village grows, you'll need to assign work to your cohabitants. This feature will be introduced in the early access stage of the game as we are still working on it. We want to make sure that as the game progresses, you'll start to feel more like a manager and not just a simple farmer, as you oversee the production and technology of your village.
There's More!
And that's not all. There will be different levels in the game, each with its unique challenges. For example, cooking original Chinese dishes typical for each area will be a fun way to experience the different areas.
We're excited to bring these mechanics to life and can't wait for you to experience them in "Chinese Frontiers"!
Thank you for following our journey, and stay tuned for more updates!
Hello! My name is Iza, and I'm a 3D Graphic Designer for Chinese Frontiers. In today's devlog, you will learn a bit about the process of modelling the buildings (workshops) that you will soon be able to construct on your own in our upcoming game!
Research and sketching
Like almost everyone on our team, I am an architect - and thanks to this, when designing buildings, I paid attention to historical accuracy with traditional Chinese constructions. Before the actual modeling, I spent a lot of time on research. I used old sketches, books and films to better understand the whole process. It was definitely a very interesting stage of my job. 😃
After the research, it was time for design. Work on each building started with a sketch of the functional plan - so that its final form would be derived from the function it is intended to serve. During that time I also made a lot of loose sketches, as a way of thinking about possible forms.
2D to 3D transformation
The next, and really important step, was gradual transition from 2D to 3D. I created a lot of simple block models for each buildings - different alternatives - so that, even in 3D, before the final modeling, the scale, proportion, and arrangement of each building could be better sensed.
As a result, each of the buildings gained a blocky, simple form for further work.
Traditional Chinese wooden constructions often utilize intricate wood joinery techniques, where wooden pieces are interconnected without the use of nails or screws. Instead, interlocking joints are carefully crafted to create stable and durable structures. In Chinese Frontiers, you’ll be able to construct five different workshops, each of them has a different structure, tailored to the scale of the object and the function it is intended to serve.
Texturing
Final step was detailed modelling and texturing. Here is a comparison between the initial sketch version of the building and its final form:
Upgrade your workshop
One of the key features of the game is the development of buildings. As you progress in your skills, gain new technology and gather the necessary materials, you will be able to upgrade some of your workshops - from a primitive structure made of field stones and clay, to a more advanced and visually appealing one.
This is just a small portion of the objects that you will be able to build in Chinese Frontiers. Next time, I will tell you more about other assets that I have prepared for the game - as well as take a closer look inside the workshops to examine the crafting stations.
