A game about shady political intrigues in Republican China
RoWS is a computer game for PC developped by Maestro Cinetik exploring the shady political plots of the 1920s and 1930s Kuomintang party in its quest for reuniting China.
- Play as one of the Kuomintang key figures or create your own character
- Plot and climb up through the hierachy of the Kuomintang to impose your views
- Betray, scheme, ally and become a master of intrigues
- Fight Chinese warlords and evil imperialists to reunite China
- Beware of foreign Bolcheviks and local communists (or befriend them)
On this website you will find the dev’s diaries, tips, previews, strategy guides and so much more: so stay tuned !
The ROWS team is an expert in developing astute and deep historical strategy games like J.Edgar Hoover’s Empire or Cold War 2 (you should definitely try this one: it is free, browser-based and perfect for playing at work or at school).
You can also have a chat with the community by joining our Discord.
And most of all : Have Fun!
Hey guys been a bit, i was wondering if you had some news for us the poeple lol no take your time really make it a jewel like jey empire but to be sur its not on hiatus right ?
Dear Dos_g,
Sorry for the delay in replying to you!
We did not stop working on the game, hell no! However, some IRL constraints delayed the work. A post will soon be up on the website.
The RoWS team
no worry and ofc take your time, im very happy to hear it, and while waiting for the news i wish you all the best
Excellent way of telling, and nice post to obtain information on the topic of my presentation topic, which i
am going to present in university.
Dear world news,
Thanks for your kind words, happy to be of service! Hope you got a good mark for your presentation 😉
The RoWS team
@Le Visiteur
Is the game still being developed? When is it planned to be released? When will the beta/demo come out? And will we have access to it?
Thx
A demo should be available at the end of the year, and probably an early release on steam sometime between april and july 2022
Bonjour les amis,
Avez-vous une date prévisionnel de sortie du jeu ?
Merci et bon dev !
A mon avis, une demo devrait être possible d’ici la fin de l’année.
Je diraos une sortie entre avril et juillet 2022
Hi, Can we please get some updates on the game, particularly in regards to gameplay? In the ‘quest’ to unite and become the leader of China, 1. Will we be able to control/partake in any military activities? Such as field/manage an army? ‘Declare war’ on a warlord in order to take those lands, etc. If so, how will that work out? 2. Will we be able to become the leader, as in the President or whathaveyou, of the entire country/government, as the player. And also, how much customization, change of the game is available as a result of player input? Will the Chinese government have different branches of government, 3 instead of the 5 they had/have in ROC, if the player is influential enough and supports it, can China be Parliamentarian or Presidential? I know you mentioned it can be Federal or a Central nation-state. If these things can be changed, then can our title/influence change as well? Accordingly. Can China, by our guidance/rule, become socialist? Or can it only be one variation of a democratic-republic? What exactly are we to do, can we do, in this game? Please share some more screenshots, in English preferably, and what the gameplay will look like. Demo will be available by new year’s, right? And before that something regarding the game might be available on itch.io? Am I remembering this information correctly? Thanks for the responses. I hope the game won’t have any tedious parts, like Jay’s (or incorrectly spelled Jey’s) Empire had. I don’t want to allocate the task to the AI then just skip turns hoping to get to the end quickly. I want to play a game, and enjoy it, not have it be so boring and tedious that the idea is that you skip it, only play a portion of the game and now the ‘full campaign’, that’s just nonsense. Anyway, that’s just my two-cents.
Dear TheSultan,
Thanks for your message. As you may know, work on Rise of the White Sun was slowed down as the developer was (and still is) working on Cauldrons of War: Stalingrad He is currently adding the Stalingrad urban fighting scenario. Regarding Rise of the White Sun, we aim at releasing a playable demo by the end of this year and target an early release on steam between April – July 2022.
Now, trying to answer your questions:
1. We do indeed plan to have you being able to partake in military actions. Depending on your character, you may be in a position of low-ranking officer – obeying orders on the field – or high-ranking officer, leading an army (which you will probably strive to make it YOUR army). Elements such as managing recruitment, equipment, morale, logistics are things we want to reflect in RoWS. Warring with a warlord would also be part of the games, especially since most of these were hostile to the GMD.
2. You will indeed be able to make your way through the ranks of the GMD up to the chairman position if you play your cards right. Internal influence wars will skyrocket after the death of Sun Yatsen in March 1925. In parallel of your party career, you will of course be well placed to take your chances at civilian positions in the high administration like Ministers or President.
3. Political regime: a lot of good questions from you which we would need to explore this further. We like the idea of you being able to move away from the Sun Yatsen principles – that would lead to an interesting chase of supporters for you to advocate e.g. a three-power government model instead of the five-power one. Work on the constitution began in October 1928 after the end of the Northern Expedition and the final constitution was adopted on 5 May 1931. You will probably end up (at least) as the leader of a faction reflecting your positions, so may alter the future regime to be more democratic, more parliamentarian or more presidential, more autocratic. There will be opportunities: remember that Sun Yatsen had a three-phase plan in mind: a military government first to unite China, a one-party tutelage period of ten years to prepare the ground for a democratic republic and, finally, the constitutional phase.
4. Communism / socialism: you can definitely be a member of the Communist party. Late 1926-1927 will be a turning point for you in this regard. If you want to build a socialist China, you will have to work extra hard to make sure the Wuhan (pro-Communist) goverment survives the confrontation with the Chiang Kai-shek-led Nanjing (anti-communist) regime. Should you fail to do that, you better be prepared to go into hiding and get ready for a long march…
5. We can have the high-ranking titles reflecting the actual political status of China, sure. We will look into this.
6. What you will do: the game is centred on the ascension of the GMD to power and the reunification of China. This entails the concept that your character will still, at the bare minimum, be part of this movement. However, as development is going, we think that it would be interesting to give you more freedom than being only tied to the GMD. In addition to you being able to join the Communist party, we are exploring the possibilities for you to start in the staff of an independent warlord or even be a bandit / pirate leader! There will be ovearching goals to the game but we do want to give you room to make your owns as well.
7. Screenshots: more will be posted when we return to actual development and these will be in English. Demo will also be available from itch.io.
8. Tediousness: Maestro Cinetik has been on a learning curve from his previous games and has good hopes these will be less present in his future productions, including RoWS.
Please note that all of this is not final and still in the design phase. Hope I managed to answer your questions!
The RoWS team
If you are going commie will to be possible to gain any sort of aid from the USSR?
Dear Shadow,
Thanks for your message. This should indeed be possible. If you side with the Wuhan government and succeed in making it survive its confrontation with Nanjing, collaboration with the Soviets may continue unhampered. However, if you are to end up on the losing side, hunted by Nationalist forces, I would not hope for much assistance from the USSR unless you are in an area close to its borders or Mongolia!
Best regards,
Le Visiteur
C’est extrêmement intéressant, bravo pour cette excellente idée de jeu ! J’espère que vous en verrez le bout sans problème majeur ^^
Bonjour Sébastien,
Merci pour votre message, nous espérons aussi ! 😉 Notre objectif est d’essayer de proposer un panorama aussi large que possible de ce que pouvait être l’époque en Chine.
Le Visiteur
Hi Devs,
I’m very excited for this game as this area of study has always been of interest to me.
Very good reading list you put together I’ve ordered one of them.
My question – is there a manual existing or planned?
Thanks and best of luck with the game.
Dear Greg B,
Thanks for your kind message and your interest in the game, glad to have fuelled your book collections. We are indeed working on a manual!
Best regards,
Le Visiteur
Hey developers,
This game looks really cool, but there’s no option for Mac on Steam. Will there be a version for Mac when the game is released? Looking forward to playing it!
Dear Julien,
Thank you for your message. A Mac version will probably be part of the final version of the game!
Best regards,
Maestro Cinetik & Le Visiteur
Hi,Your knowledge of this history surprised me. Will there be a Chinese version in the future
Dear hongxu,
Thank you for your kind message, we did our best to incorporate research from academic sources! A Chinese version will probably part of the final version.
Best regards,
Maestro Cinetik & Le Visiteur
Hey dev. I found that if I save and load game, the new recruited character will disappear. Please repair this bug soon.
Dear king,
Thanks for letting us know, we looked into the issue – it should be fixed by now.
Best regards,
Maestro Cinetik & Le Visiteur
There is a mistake in the trailer video you post on Steam:
the figure of « Sun Chuanfang » in the video is actually the portrait of the leader of the Shandong Clique: Zhang Zongchang, aka Dogmeat General.
P.S. Sun Chuanfang belongs to the faction Zhili Clique
Dear THDW,
Thank for you for spotting that mistake!
Best regards,
Le Visiteur
Hi,
we would like to review your interesting game « Rise Of The White Sun » on our Italian online newspaper Olnews.it.
At this link some of our most recent reviews: https://www.olnews.it/category/videogame/
We are therefore to ask you, kindly, for a Steam key to be able to test it.
As soon as our review is ready, we will send you the link.
Thank you in advance and greetings!
Luca Bagatin
http://www.olnews.it
games@olnews.it
Thank you very much to the production team for making this hardcore strategy game, the overall atmosphere of the game is a very good experience, but in the future updates of all kinds of episodes, especially the conquest option, can you give the player an option to cancel the turn or customize the turn limit, because this is too painful for the management type of players and perfectionists, I hope that I can be able to take my opinion, thank you very much to the production team for making this very good game!