Welcome! FAQ and more...

Thank you for being here!

Empire Water Works is my 2nd game development endeavor after the successful launch of my first title, Hydro in August 2025 (Hydro on Steam) - and I've learnt so much from that experience not to mention experienced so much positive feedback and compliments, so here I am again with my second title ːsteamhappyː

Like Hydro, I intend to give Empire my 110% during its development and post-development/post-release life cycle. And as always, I welcome your feedback and commentary and together we can help shape this title to be the best it can be.

Here's an FAQ to kick things off:

What is Empire Water Works about?

Empire Water Works is a game about running a steam-powered water works plant - your main goal is water for all! You'll be in charge of pumping water to three (3) different reservoirs across day (and night if you so choose) shifts, and fulfilling event-based contractual demands from the city and industrial entities. Throughout all this you will need to ensure the residential reservoir remains within suitable pressure thresholds so towns-folk can continue to sustain themselves.

You'll need to ensure you have sufficient coal and steam oil reserves to keep your plant running, and there will be required maintenance and other repairs to perform to keep things tip-top!

How detailed is the steam engine simulation in the game and what type of 'critical' events exist?

I plan to release more details on this over time, but I can say that the game currently models things such as boiler pressure, fire temperature, steam regulator setting, valve gear setting (for both the high pressure and low pressure side of the engine) as well as main bearing wear, cylinder wear, main bearing temperatures and cylinder temperatures. Not to mention, boiler integrity and eventual explosions are also here! You will need to fill oil-drip lubricators, and oil displacement lubricators, as well as keeping tabs on your engine's RPM.

You will need to 'fire' the boiler by shoveling coal, monitor your boiler pressures and ensure that boiler water levels remain sufficient. Without going into too much more detail here, I can simply say that if you really get things wrong, you can easily fill the plant with excess steam, or explode the boiler...not to mention, completely flood the basement.

More complexities are planned to be added over time! Stay tuned!

What game engine is being utilised for Empire Water Works?

Empire Water Works is developed in and runs on Unreal Engine 5.

When is the game going to be released?

I would love to answer this one now, but truthfully, I am not comfortable with committing to a release date as yet. You can rest assured however that I will continue to post development updates and dev logs as time goes on, and I plan to release a Demo for the game at some point, too!

Here's a quick plug for my YouTube channel...ensure you Subscribe and hit the bell so you're notified of more news about the game: View store page

Before you go...

If you like what you've seen and read so far, please Wishlist the game on Steam as this will help me out immensely!

Disclaimer

All assets used in development of Empire Water Works are either independently developed or purchased from the Epic Games Marketplace, and are all used with appropriate permissions and/or licenses.