"Zhulu Chess" the past, and the future

If you want to know what Zhulu Chess is about, here's a one-sentence summary: Zhulu Chess is a perfect information game inspired by Go (Weiqi).

1，Gameplay The core mechanics of Zhulu Chess come from the traditional Chinese board game - Go. You might have heard of this game from the flood of AI-related news. It's famous for its immense complexity and wasn't conquered by computers until the deep learning era. What makes Go fascinating is that it's a "perfect information game," meaning it has an optimal solution. However, due to its complexity, humans cannot determine this optimal solution, which adds to its mysterious charm. When playing Go, humans abandon the pursuit of optimal solutions and instead rely on mysterious concepts like "influence," "aesthetics," and "shape" to make decisions. This way of thinking through abstract concepts fascinated me, and I wanted players to experience this feeling. Thus, Zhulu Chess was born.

2，Development Process Since becoming a full-time indie developer, this is my second project. My first project was a Stellaris-like game that was eventually abandoned due to over-ambitious scope. After a year of developing Zhulu Chess, even though I tried to restrain myself, the content had expanded too much, almost pushing it to the brink of abandonment. At that time, I paused the project and spent three months completing "Arrive on Time." While "Arrive on Time" wasn't commercially successful, it taught me many valuable lessons.

When I looked back at Zhulu Chess, I painfully realized it wouldn't be a bestseller. I love making games, but I also need sales to sustain my life. It was too “fat”—building extensive features around a niche gameplay mechanic only made it more intimidating.

However, I ultimately decided to continue developing Zhulu Chess. Because I wanted to see it through to completion, believing this game is unique and only I could create it. Compared to the initial version, I cut many peripheral features: the item system, deck-building system, and rouge-lite progression system. Now, the game has a simple story connecting various battles, and that's all there is to it. It's become streamlined but pure.

3，Future Plans The core gameplay of Zhulu Chess is now finalized, with only the story and level design remaining. The game will participate in Steam's February Next Fest, where a demo will be available. If everything goes well, the game will release within this year. Thank you to all players who've read this far. I'm Hade Games, someone who wants to make indie games for life.