SteJoy

Between the lines · an island on paper

墨畫蒼生 InkWild

Write wood into a boat · write water into the deep

Coming to SteamWatch the trailer

InkWild is in Traditional and Simplified Chinese only. There is no English version.

Trailer

In-game footage. The music is a placeholder synthesized track.

Story

In Chinese, 島 (island) is written as a bird, 鳥, perched on a mountain, 山. A sheet of paper falls on the sea, and the characters written on it come alive. You are one of them: 人, a person, empty-handed. Every tile on the paper is a character. 木 is a tree, 山 is a mountain, 水 is water, 虎 is a tiger. The characters you take become materials; the characters you set down become your home.

The paper is tilting. Gonggong, in his fury, rammed Mount Buzhou, as the Huainanzi tells it, and the pillar of heaven broke. The corners curled up and let loose the giant serpent Xiushe, the great boar Fengxi and the Great Wind. The Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird and Black Tortoise are the paperweights holding the four corners. Survive one night, then the next; when your courage is enough, build a boat and leave.

Scenes from the demo

The demo covers the first 13 nights on the home island. Every clip below is in it.

GatheringEvery tile in the woods is a character. Take it, and it becomes material.
BuildingLay the bricks one by one, then a bed, a stove, a chest and a lamp.
SnowSnow often falls in the first days of spring. Lamps burn outside and in.
The 13th nightWhen dark falls, spirits that fear light drift in. Lamps on the ground burn them away.
StargazingOn a clear night, look up and learn the Chinese asterisms or the Western constellations.

The full game

After the demo, the paper is still large.

Live by the solar terms

A 360-day year follows the 24 solar terms and 72 pentads. Rain, snow, thunderstorms, gales and hail; deserts and volcanoes get only dry thunder.

Five grains, stroke by stroke

Grow rice, broomcorn millet, foxtail millet, wheat and soybeans. Guard them from sparrows, mice and locusts, and cook them for meal bonuses.

Cross the sea

With enough courage, build a sailboat or an ark. The paper holds continents, archipelagos, deserts, volcanoes and snowfields, and the 蜃 haunts the sea.

Climb Mount Buzhou

Defeat Xiushe, Fengxi and the Great Wind, take scrolls from the Black Tortoise, then climb Mount Buzhou to find Gonggong.

Contact

InkWild is the first game in SteJoy's 寫意 (Xieyi) series. Write to us: hello@stejoy.com