Where the Water Tastes Like Wine gets new Chinese-American stories

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is an ambitious journey through the heartland of American history that unfortunately failed to live up to those ambitions, and is best remembered these days for being a "commercial disaster." Despite that, a new update for the game called Gold Mountain was released today that adds full Chinese localization to the free Fireside Chats, and new stories based on the experiences of Chinese immigrants.

The Chinese localization was done by fans, according to the Steam update, who have been working on it for four months so far. "We are humbled and gratified by this, and we hope that Chinese players can play and enjoy our game, and understand our criticism of and reflection on America history and American culture," creator Johnnemann Nordhagen wrote.

"We know that China has its own wonderful and varied folklore in its thousands of years of history, and we hope that players there find our relatively small and brief American history and folklore to be interesting to them."

To pay tribute to the "generally overlooked" role played by Chinese immigrants in US history, new stories that focus on the role they played in shaping the country, written by Serenity Forge head Zhenghua Yang, have also been added to the game. 

"From miners in California to the railroad workers who bridged the continent to a whole host of other folks, Chinese immigrants have played a huge role in building this country. We're happy to be able to write more exploring their stories," Nordhagen wrote.

Bolstered by those new stories, the addition of Chinese language support, which includes the full game and the soundtrack lyrics, could help Where the Water Tastes Like Wine find the audience that's eluded it thus far. The localization is currently limited to Fireside Chats, the free "standalone experience" released late last year, but will come to the full game once everything is finished. Owners of the game will get the new content as part of a free update; for those who don't, it's also 60 percent off on Steam until July 17, dropping it to $8/£6/€8.