From one character to a city

The game started as a single walker on a map of letters. Here is how it grew, version by version. No dates, only numbers.

0.1 → 0.9 nine versions up to the first build
1000+ changes in the project history
700+ of them since 0.9, not yet released

Versions 0.1 to 0.8 are development milestones and were never released as separate builds. The first build with a number is 0.9. Everything after it is still in development.

Milestone

0.1 Prototype
- A map drawn in characters in a 3/4 view, with a camera and zoom
- Walkers: every service goes out and walks the roads
- A housing ladder of six steps, goods chains, storehouses and a market
- Taxes, and workers shared out by priority
- An interface of lacquer and scrolls
The first look of the game: letters in a 10×5 tile. It is still there as the low graphics setting.
Milestone

0.2 Foundations
- Saves: slots, autosave and moving a game as a file
- The same map and the same actions always give the same game
- Storehouses no longer lose space when workers are short
- A city of thousands of people runs more smoothly
Milestone

0.3 Economy and the Xia campaign
- Mission goals, victory, and defeat by debt
- A Xia campaign of four missions with briefings
- A housing ladder modelled on the classics
- Bridges, forests and woodcutters, roadblocks for walkers
- Fires, collapses and the inspector's tower
The Xia as it looks today: huts on the high road and the first dykes.
Milestone

0.4 Interface and sound
- A main menu, a pause menu and settings
- Advisors for finances and population
- Problems shown on the map as icons, map layers on the L key
- A six-step tutorial for the first mission
- Music and sound effects
Milestone

0.5 A new look and living maps
- The dense style: small characters, texture, volume and light. It becomes the main look of the game
- Worlds shaped by relief and water: rivers, groves, dry beds and rocky outcrops
- Floods, droughts, plague, locusts and earthquakes, all with a warning. The dyke and the water wheel answer them
- A living village behind the main menu
The same city in the dense 16×8 style.
Milestone

0.6 Ancestors
- Three ancestors: Tian Gong guards the fields, He Mu the water, Yao Lao fire
- Each shrine is dedicated to one of them
- A forgotten ancestor sends a disaster of their element; one honoured with offerings keeps it away
- An Ancestors advisor and its own map layer
Milestone

0.7 The city grows upward
- Wheat, beans, cabbage, fish and game; tea, jade, salt, paper and stone
- Twelve buildings of faith, culture and order: temples and a pagoda, schools, a theatre, acrobats
- Festivals and the New Year; thieves and the watch
- Desirability of every tile, houses of steps 7 and 8, and the nobility
- A ruler’s house with a stipend and savings that carry over from mission to mission
A pagoda among the houses of a later city.
Milestone

0.8 The world beyond the walls
- An army: iron, weapons and horses; infantry, crossbowmen and chariots; walls, gates and towers
- Raids with a warning, or a peaceful game without them
- A world map (K) with the capital of the Son of Heaven and neighbouring cities; caravans by road and ships by river
- Court favor, its requests and gifts; tribute to neighbours
- Monuments built in stages: the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, a royal tomb and the Hall of Light
The world map with the capital and the neighbouring cities.
First build

0.9 Every core system
- The first version with a number: all the systems of the first version in one build
- The game is ready for playtests
- The world map opens full screen and reads larger
- The English name of the game becomes Glyph Dynasty
Not released yet

The next version

Everything below already works in development builds but has not been released. This version has no number yet: it gets one when it ships.
Five languages and a friendlier game
- English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese; the language switches at once, without a restart
- Three difficulty levels: easy, normal and hard
- 32 short hints the first time you meet a building, an advisor or a disaster
- Music that follows the city: calm themes by day, alarm for fires and raids, a festive theme after victory
- Every menu screen fits the window; granaries and storehouses take orders for each good
Qin and Han in full
- Qin edicts, the Office of Measures, law officers, a mint and the paved chidao road
- The Mausoleum of the First Sovereign with its clay army
- The Western gate opens the Silk Road, the Taixue holds examinations, the Weiyang Palace crowns the capital
- The campaign grows to 17 missions across five dynasties
- Free play is won when Heaven speaks: “Mandate confirmed”
The clay army in the pits of the mausoleum.
Large maps and a city you can read
- A large 160×160 map for free play
- Real Chinese characters on the signboards of 28 kinds of building: 市 on the market, 倉 on the granary
- Trading ships sail along the Grand Canal
- Free play opens the epochs one by one
Signboards in characters, gold on lacquer.
In development

League of Cities
- Co-op for 2 to 4 players, each with a city of their own
- Gifts, trade pacts and calls for help between neighbours
- A shared monument that no one can build alone
- Steam lobbies for friends
Cities of three players on the world map.
A city made for the camera
- A capture mode without the interface and with a free camera
- “Show the characters”: hold one key and only the bare characters remain
- Any frame saved as a real .txt text file
- A wave of lanterns at dusk, rain and snow, a locust swarm, floods and fire on the roofs
- Spring Festival lanterns and fireworks of characters; a 30-second video of three thousand years
A street of the city as bare characters.
The road to Steam
- Desktop builds for Windows and macOS
- A demo with the first Xia missions
- 21 achievements and saves in Steam Cloud
- The Steam page, and this site in five languages
Goal

1.0 Early Access

Early Access on Steam after the playtests. After that, regular updates shaped by what players write.