Sim Panda - Study in China Simulator 🐼

A High-Fidelity, Choice-Driven RPG Life Simulator built with React and Electron.

📥 Download and Play

You can download the compiled Windows .exe installer directly from the GitHub Cloud servers.

👉 Download the Latest Windows Release Here

---

🎮 Game Overview

Sim Panda is an immersive lifestyle simulator that puts you in the shoes of an international student navigating the exciting, challenging, and culturally rich process of studying abroad in China.

Using a precise 32-week turn-based schedule, players balance Academics, Chinese, Culture, Digital Proficiency, Energy, relationships, and RMB Finances across the full study-abroad arc: applying to Minghai University, preparing documents and digital tools, arriving in Shanghai, building routes, recovering from crises, and reaching one of several endings.

📸 Screenshots

Shareable screenshots from the current build:

Cover	Start Menu

SimPad Tutorial	Character Dialogue

Ending Scene

🆕 Latest Update

The current development build expands Sim Panda into a fuller 2.0-style visual-novel life simulator:

• Added a complete title screen with New Game, Load Game, CG Gallery, and sound controls.
• Expanded the story into Application, Pre-Departure, and In-China phases with a concrete opening task chain, weekly action economy, route commitments, delayed consequences, and crisis recovery branches.
• Added visible route projects for Academic Portfolio, Internship Dossier, Neighborhood Map, Support Circle Guide, Shanghai Prototype, and Budget Ledger.
• Added relationship-driven character chains and reply choices for Professor Lin, Dr. Mei, Sophie, Xiao Chen, Neighbor Li, Uncle Wang, and Manager Zhang.
• Added Lin Yue, a Chinese female classmate with a forced Week 18 classroom introduction, a 1/6-to-6/6 relationship chain, optional light romance or close-friendship payoff, WeChat progression, Gallery unlocks, and ending afterword support.
• Standardized the character dialogue UI across the game: all supported character conversations now use a visual-novel style layout with a lower-left speaker portrait, aligned reply cards, readable dark dialogue panels, and consistent spacing across CG and non-CG scenes.
• Added Life Check resolution for high-pressure moments, with prep-card bonuses, route weighting, success/strain outcomes, and run-memory afterwords.
• Added SimPad systems for Calendar, Gallery / Memory Archive, DiDi, Taobao service orders, housing follow-up, WeChat meetups, jobs, souvenirs, character arcs, route projects, and player progress.
• Tightened onboarding clarity: named characters now receive explicit contact-card introductions before relationship choices, Week 12 housing must be confirmed through SimPad Housing, and airport DiDi arrival can require a SimPad ride action instead of resolving only through story text.
• Added required first-use SimPad tutorials for arrival DiDi, dorm Taobao ordering, Calendar deadline pinning, and WeChat check-ins so phone apps become playable story actions before opening as normal utilities.
• Clarified the weekly planner UI with action-point instructions, route-category descriptions, and a more concrete objective so players know what to do before midterm week arrives.
• Added visual QA screenshot capture for cover, title, required SimPad tutorials, weekly planner, midterm, Week 32 final submission, ending evaluation, and actual ending screens; tightened dense choice layouts, weekly planner spacing, SimPad spacing, ending readability, ending controls, ending HUD suppression, and typewriter fast-forward behavior based on those captures.
• Added GitHub-shareable screenshots under docs/screenshots/ so the README can show the current cover, start menu, SimPad tutorial, character dialogue, and ending scene directly.
• Expanded the Memory Archive to 39 CG memories, including admission, documents, academic route scenes, local-life scenes, career milestones, Shanghai startup events, risk endings, housing pressure, phone-layer consequences, and new daily-life character CGs.
• Added a large visual asset library: campus backgrounds, Shanghai / China travel scenes, character portraits, v2 character art, route CGs, and compressed JPG runtime assets.
• Added audio infrastructure with AudioManager, audio manifests, fallback Web Audio BGM/SFX, MP3 background tracks, scene ambience routing, and choice-impact feedback sounds.
• Added automated full-route QA covering seven route profiles, six route project actions, three crisis recovery chains, the weekly action economy, and manual Week 17-24 arrival-to-midterm smoke testing.
• Added design, narrative, asset, audio, QA, character-bible, and handoff documentation for continuing development.
• Removed repeated Node ESM module-type warnings by scoping data/ and engine/ as ES modules while keeping the Electron entrypoint CommonJS-safe.
• Updated the build pipeline so the standalone index.html stays playable offline while supporting optional PandaOffer website export.

✨ Features

• Dynamic Turn-Based Scheduling: Manage 32 weeks of actions across distinct Epochs (Application, Pre-Departure, In-China).
• RPG Stat System: Track academics, language growth, culture, digital readiness, energy, money, guanxi, and character relationships.
• Narrative Story Engine: Multiple routes and endings shaped by weekly choices, route commitments, risk events, Life Checks, delayed consequences, and relationship trust.
• Authentic Study-Abroad Flow: Application essays, JW202 / X1 visa prep, WeChat and Alipay setup, housing, airport arrival, registration, first classes, internships, and local-life adaptation.
• SimPad Tablet Interface: In-game hub for milestones, stats, Calendar, CG memories, DiDi shortcuts, Taobao service orders, jobs, WeChat contacts, souvenirs, character arcs, route projects, and route progress.
• Visual Novel Presentation: 39 unlockable CG memories, character portraits, campus backgrounds, route scenes, and a title-screen gallery.
• Audio Layer: Scene-aware BGM/SFX manager with Web Audio fallback, optional MP3 asset manifest, ambience switching, stingers, and choice-impact feedback.

🛠️ Local Development

To run the simulator locally in its Electron container or browser:

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/silverlion2/study_in_china_simulator.git
cd study_in_china_simulator

# 2. Install dependencies (for Electron desktop wrapping)
npm install

# 3. Play via Desktop Client
npm start

Note: If you only want to play in your browser, just double click index.html!

Validation

# Rebuild the standalone offline HTML
node build.js

# Validate story pointers, dialogue choices, and Life Check wiring
node validate_story.mjs

# Run automated full-route QA
npm run qa:routes

# Capture visual QA screenshots
npx electron tools/visual_qa_capture.cjs

🏗️ System Architecture

The project is structured to be highly pure, eschewing complicated bundle tooling (like Webpack) in favor of a raw React string-injected build.js pipeline.

• data/: Contains the JSON node tree logic for event handling.
• engine/: The core GameState.js and EventSystem.js maintaining state without Redux.
• components/: Modular React components tracking specific UI functions (like the TabletInterface).
• tools/: QA and production helper scripts, including full-route route feasibility checks.
• images/ and assets/: Runtime visual and audio assets used by the standalone build.
• docs/screenshots/: Shareable screenshots for the public README.

📜 License

ISC License