Narrative management · Single-player
You're the new assistant magistrate of a county drowning in debt. Read every petition, audit what smells wrong, and bring down the seal: approve, reject, send back, or quietly skim into your Dark Ledger. Seven years of ink decide whether you rise, retire, or are named in a censor's memorial.
Early Access on Steam · December 10, 2026
Linshui County runs a standing deficit. Your predecessor left behind a stack of vouchers for doors and windows that were never built, a magistrate who wants clean accounts, clerks who want their firewood silver, and a secretary who has his own reasons for being so helpful.
You are the new County Assistant Magistrate. Every season, documents land on your desk: repair bills, grain loans, bandit bounties, tax assessments, petitions from the poorhouse, a classmate's desperate letter. Read them, decide what you believe, and bring down the seal.
The world
In Huanhai: A Career in Ink, the whole empire eventually turns into paper.
Da Yin is an invented dynasty, its robes and rites borrowed from the Song. The court is a thousand miles away; the realm is governed sheet by sheet: petitions, vouchers, tax registers, assessment ledgers.
You are the newly appointed magistrate. Every morning another stack of documents is slid in front of you. Approve, audit, or hold it back for now: it all comes down to your brush. Once the seal comes down, the matter is settled.
Superiors want face, the censor wants honest books, the clan wants looking after, and old classmates expect a helping hand. No favour is ever free; each one is written down in some ledger.
There is a review every winter, a term evaluation every three years, and a transfer order that may promote you, move you sideways, or keep you where you are. After seven years the files are sealed. What kind of official will they say you were?
Characters
Click or tap a card to turn it over.
The years
Each of the seven years has one turning point. Here are the first three.
Year One
You arrive just after the rain and still leave mud on the threshold. The handover register runs to a last page: your predecessor's unfinished matters are now yours too. You tie a length of blue cord around your notebook and write down the day you took office.
Year Two
Winter sets in. The clerk spreads the year's ledger under the lamp: date, matter, endorsement, each in its own box. Who pushed hardest, who waited longest outside the door: the boxes have no room for that. A bowl of porridge cools by the stove.
Year Three
The evaluator comes earlier than agreed and drinks half a cup of tea. He asks only what you handled, who will recommend you, and how the unfinished matters will be accounted for. Outside, two junior clerks are already moving boxes. The transfer order lies on the desk, still sealed.
Try one
This is what a document looks like in the game. Read it, then stamp Approve or Reject.
The autumn rains are near and the granary roof leaks in three places. We request eighty taels for tiles and timber, and ask that the predecessor's voucher of thirty taels for doors and windows be settled at the same time.
A web sample. In the game you can also audit or hold back each document, and the consequences run longer than one line.
Every document is a choice. Approve it as filed, reject it, send it back for review, or take a cut. Each stamp shows which way your standing will move before you commit: Merit, Prospects, Patronage, Wealth, Deficit and Public Grievance all answer to the ink.
Most papers hide a flaw: padded costs, a wrong sum, a seal that doesn't match, two names swapped. You only have so much Attention each year. Pick up the magnifier, and you might catch the lie. Let it pass, and it may come back to find you.
Silver sticks to the hand that signs. Every tael you skim goes into a private ledger, and every entry has a witness. Burn pages when you can afford to. The censor inspects in Years 3, 6 and 7, and in the Grand Assessment at the end of your term, the ink speaks for itself.
Pay off your secretary's old debt, and years later he may turn up with an armful of registers to shield you. Squeeze the county for the prefect's birthday, and the backlash will find its way back to your desk. Rumors drift in from the teahouse, true or false, and you won't know which until you act. Old favors are called in. Old enemies remember.
Each year closes with a narrated chapter and a summary of what you did. After seven years, the Grand Assessment decides your fate: a clean record and promotion, shelter under a powerful patron, a quiet road home, or your name read out in a memorial of impeachment.
Free demo
The free demo covers your first three years in office and ends at the censor's first inspection. The full seven-year term and all five endings are in the Early Access version, which launches on Steam in December 2026; more cases and characters are planned during Early Access. Court hearings, where you question witnesses yourself, are in development.
Windlantern 
