Zong

Zong is a narrative game about an ordinary human from Earth who accidentally crosses into an ancient dimension. Its supreme beings were tasked with observing humanity and safeguarding the earthly realm, but Zong is dying: the Hundred Wells, the source of all memory, have been drained, and its inhabitants are losing themselves. The Five Clans of Corruption—Libentia, Ignominia, Avaritia, Procella and Furia—have divided Zong into seven sub-dimensions and imprisoned twenty-eight Generals. You can cross the barriers, find the Generals and restore their memories.

Chapter One, The Dimension of Primordial Initiation, contains fifteen levels and takes about seven hours. It follows a continuous journey from receiving the Primordial Imprint in the Centiwell to sailing through a water barrier. Across its distinct environments and mechanics, you fight, craft, solve puzzles, swim, climb, sing and gather items, while learning about memory, identity and civilization through Eastern philosophy and original classical incantations.

The journey through Zong

You begin in the Cave of Centiwell, where you meet Sol, the first Supreme Commander. He gives you the Primordial Imprint, which lets Zong’s beings hear your voice and allows you to move freely through their world. The Imprint also serves as your interface: it stores what you learn, save and ask. You write your name on a stone wall, take the Spiritual Eye of Retinentia, and scrape a rock against the wall to make a fireball that opens the way out.

Sol explains that the Coalition of the Five Clans of Corruption has drained the Centiwell and caused the Generals to lose their memories. He asks you to help find his scattered kin. As you travel together, you meet other beings who have lost their memories, including Ves and Phae, and encounter the spirits of fallen Commanders. The journey ends on a river of memory, where you carry letters toward the world you left behind.

Trials and encounters

The levels combine combat with tasks and puzzles. You fight an Osteospectral Tiger and harvest its marrow; cross the Bridge of Atomos while striking Captives swinging up from the abyss, with each blow producing a note in a melody; and gather falling Papaver rhoeas flowers with Ves before using a ledge as a raft. You also make a Jade Burial Suit from canary Golden Strings, jade stones from Lake Li’er and Papaver rhoeas flames, then place it on a statue of the ancient Commander Simian to return his heavenly spirit.

Other challenges include dodging levers and pressing seventy-three red buttons on the Cloud-Mounting Ladder; freeing the Valorous Wish from a stone crevice by following a military scroll; and using the Eye of Discernment to reveal the controllers inside Eon’s golden helmet and silver armor. In the Barrier of Furia, you interpret verses to solve a puzzle, face a bronze rat and withstand thirty-one strikes from the Nephrite Staff alone while three Generals are trapped inside a bell. In Cave Reverentia, Phae asks you to catch one hundred and eighty Fossa Snakes barehanded within twelve minutes, then extract bile or drive away a Buteo with the Wingblade Lasso.

The later levels include stirring a silver bean’s gelatinous contents one hundred times, facing Bande and five Ribbon Alp Scorpions, and defending against two Procella ships that fire ten thousand arrows across five zones. You then fight the Two Dragons Emerging from Water, switching between four weapons as they attack in combined and separated forms. In Reward Pool, you choose an instrument, solve a binary-mark puzzle using grains of rice, and learn the Mantra Kardia of Shared Zong, “Remembering spirits gone with the wind.”

Weapons and abilities

Power in Zong comes from Mantra Kardias, incantations that summon abilities and weapons. In Chapter One, the Generals summon them. Sol gives you the Fiery Whip to fight the Osteospectral Tiger, and you learn the Mantra Kardia that summons it once in the future. You later use the Hammers of Zither, Wellspring Needles, Staff of Espousal, Dionysian Slingshot, Shield of Frost, Umbrella Pugna, Valorous Wish, DUNXUN and Changyi scythe.

You also receive the Eye of Discernment, White Soil and seven water droplets representing Zong’s seven gates. The Imprint records your Mantra Kardias in the Creatura Voluta. Your actions earn Pitasarah fragments, which accumulate into segments, fruits and a tree as your growth and rank increase. Every being has an Arcane Rank, from Grana through Cyma, Virga, Thalla, Virgulta, Catoma, Palma, Amicula, Umbra and Silva to Auxiliary Commander, Ancillary Commander, Primary Commander and Supreme Commander. You begin at Grana.

Levels and interface

Levels start from the Centiwell. After you complete six levels, free level selection becomes available from the main menu. The Primordial Imprint is your interface, and you can drag its UI canvas to any position in your VR view.