About This Game

(This game is inspired by modern Korean history. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is purely coincidental.)

One Man's Life Is the Modern History of a Nation

1930. Born into a poor peasant family under colonial rule; his childhood spent in a thatched hut.
He fled with his family into exile — working the fields, the factory floor, a newspaper route. Later he passed into the Military Academy, put on the uniform, and walked, through war and coup, into the corridors of power.
1961. Amid the gunfire of a coup, he chose his side.
1979. In the vacuum left by an assassinated president, he stood at history's crossroads.
The 1980s. He rose to the highest office. 1995. He stood before the judgment of history.

This man is Jeon Du-heo.

General Jeon is a visual novel × turn-based life-raising game set against the backdrop of modern Korean history.

You play as Jeon Du-heo, starting from nothing and spending a limited pool of action points to shape an entire life. Study, train, make friends, amass wealth, gamble, brawl — from back-alley streets to the Academy parade ground, from army factions to the seat of power. Across nearly sixty years you accumulate ability, money and connections, and face one choice after another that could change everything.

You may walk the path history recorded — or see your life cut short by a failed exam, an unexpected clash, or a single wrong allegiance.

History has one answer. Your fate does not.

Homines possunt historiam condonare, sed deus non vult.

Core Gameplay

📋 01 | Turn-Based Life Raising: A life decided by limited actions

You get one life, and every turn forces a trade-off.

With a limited pool of Action Points (AP), you chart your own course through dozens of life events — studying, training, socializing, part-time work, scheming.

Growth runs on three axes — personal attributes × money and power × relationships — and what “growing up” means shifts with every stage of life.

In your youth you build Intelligence, Physique, Command, Wealth and Dream. At the Academy those early gains convert into Might, Cunning and Ambition. And inside the halls of power, what decides your future becomes command ability, accumulated wealth, and the favor of the man on top.

A book read today, a friend made today — either may become the bargaining chip that decides your fate decades later.

⚖️ 02 | Choices That Decide: History remembers the outcome; you remember the choice

Fail the Academy exam and you may be shipped to the front. Lose a street fight and your life may end early. Bet on the wrong horse in a power struggle and years of work can vanish.

Your abilities, your relationships, your past — all of them can weigh on the outcome of a critical moment.

Not every effort is rewarded. Not every defeat can be undone.

Sometimes the protagonist exits quietly before the story even begins.

🤝 03 | Bonds and Loyalties: From boyhood friendships to power games

A wife you married young. Brothers-in-arms. Political allies. Trusted confidants. Build bonds with dozens of characters drawn from real historical figures.

A friendship from your teens can last decades. An ordinary encounter can become the setup for a turn of fate years later.

You can befriend, court, distance yourself — or betray. When private feeling collides with hard interest, and an old friend stands on the other side, what will you choose?

🎲 04 | Games Within the Game: Every era has its own contest

Dice on the casino table. A drinking contest over the cups. The save that decides the match. A brawl ready to ignite on any street corner.

As each stage of life opens up, you'll meet mini-games and special events woven into their historical moment.

And as you close in on the seat of power, the board itself changes.

Problems once settled with fists and drink become troop movements, factional maneuvering, and political gambits.

🗺️ 05 | Multiple Endings: History has one answer — your life may not

History had a set ending: a death sentence, commuted to life, then a pardon.

In General Jeon, you may never reach that day.

Flunking out of the Academy. A failed coup. An invasion. A quiet discharge. A courtroom. What you have built and what you chose will carry you to a different end.

On the historical spine you live through events drawn from real history. On the alternate branches, one failed check, one unexpected clash, one different choice can redirect the rest of a life.

One starting point. Utterly different destinations.

🕯️ Core Narrative | History recorded what he chose. You answer why.

History can record what a man said and did. It cannot show you his heart.

In General Jeon's historical mainline, key events follow the course they actually took. You, in first person, interpret what moved him at each stage of his life.

At one turning point after another, the same question returns:

“Why did he do it?”

Sincere, or feigned?
Principle, or opportunism?
Forced by circumstance, or planned all along?

Your answer won't rewrite what happened. It will change how he understands his own choices — and what the same memory comes to mean in the years that follow.

A sentence once spoken in earnest can, years later, become a chip in a trade. A friendship you once thought little of can take on an entirely different weight because of what you chose back then.

You'll look back over the life you lived — and see how choices that once seemed trivial shaped the man standing in front of you.

History recorded what he did. You answer why he did it.

A Modern Korean History You Can Live Through

Set against modern Korean history, the game folds war, overseas deployment, an assassinated president, a military coup, the wave of democratization, and a judicial reckoning into the arc of one man's life.

Written by a PhD in East Asian history, the script braids historical research with alternate narrative, following different characters' circumstances and choices to show what an era does to a life.

Beyond the serious history there are period details and hidden events to find — we look forward to seeing what you uncover.

So don't look so grim. Let's go have a drink in Gungseong-dong.

This game is a work of fiction inspired by real history. The names of characters and organizations have been altered; certain plotlines, relationships and endings are artistic invention and do not constitute a factual claim about the inner life of any real person.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Generative artificial intelligence was used to assist with background materials