Overview

What kind of bureaucrat are you?

A visual novel set in the far and dark of the forlorn future. You’re not a heroic marine or imperial gardesman – you are a bureaucrat of a dying sci-fi regime. A mid-level servant of the paperwork and red tape it takes to run an empire of uncounted worlds, given the impossible task of fixing this faltering machine.

It’s your job to cut through that horrifying mess – resolve disputes, fix problems, listen to angry people. It’s not your job to have sex – but you’ll meet people from every walk of life in the vast Imperium. Lonely guards, bored scribes, women trying to swing your decisions or just to have some fun in their bleak lives.

Don’t grind! There is not a single moment of grinding. You’re a reasonably high-ranking official of the organization that runs everything – you don’t need money. Your word is better than money. There’s a reason some folks try and bribe you with sex and not fat stacks of cash.

Choose your traits! Are you a schizophrenic empath? A paranoid bureaucratic genius? A nihilistic manipulator? Try and do your job. Endure your horrible empire. Serve the Emperor. Explore the continent – trek across cities, delve into underworlds, listen to a song along the coast. Meet soldiers, workers, nobles, picked men and pilgrims – wanderers, gangsters, sinners, saints, scam artists and sad mothers. Become the hero or the villain in so many other stories, climb into bed with a dizzying variety of women –

Or just do your job and play literal Bureaucracy Simulator. You can do that. The sex is optional.

DEVELOPER NOTES:

This is a story-focused experience. If you’re looking for a quick fap, look somewhere else. This isn’t a –

-just kidding, this is a porn game. But it does have a lot of words for the genre. I hope I found a good balance.

Gameplay:

• In the far and dark of a mourning millennia . . .
• Run around and talk to people. There’s no money, no affection meter, no grind – just dialogue and some options. How you perceive a situation and what you can say is influenced by the traits you choose – the different trait combinations share major story beats, but the tone and possible solution to each scene can be wildly varied.
• Resolve disputes: talk to folks, learn about the problem, accept or reject ‘bribes’, then make your decision.
• Meet random people. Learn their story. Commiserate about the misery of living in the Imperium of Hope and Mourning. Bang them?
• Help people. Hurt people. Get involved in side-stories that far exceed the responsibility of your job.
• Approximately 10 hours of content.

Planned Features:

• More locations, more people. The core of this game is running around and solving disputes/meeting weird folks, so variety is life. I have a lot of plans. The Imperium d’Espoir et de Deuil is a big place.
• A Lijkorps of Krijg gardeswoman that can’t function in human society. The dozen other noble houses of Crescyt and the bribery they’re willing to resort to get in your favor. Beltline workers, haughty imperial adepts, gutter-trash gungirls, militia troopers, other nuns (big seller, I think), a mecaniqué repairer, a choir member in the local chapel, and on and on.
  • Many of these are no longer ‘planned’ features – they’re in the game!
• Travel places! Leave the City on a rail line. Go to the planetary map, see farms and villages and Emperor knows what else.
  • This is no longer a planned feature. We’re filling out the rail line and its destinations now!
• Leave the planet. That’s the big one. That’s the long-term goal. And after that? We’re talking tau, warzones, pirates, elves, feudal worlds – every imaginable scenario that a mid-level bureaucrat won’t get instantly killed in.
• I’ve recovered my love of writing with this. I’ve been nerding out over somber sci-fi lore for a long time, and now I’m making it my own and exploring every grimy nook and cranny. The sky isn’t even the limit – we have spaceships.

AI Disclaimer:

• The backgrounds of most images were made with Stable Diffusion 1.5 – custom mix, lots of editing, lots of excuses, yada yada – it’s still AI. I have to point it out. If this is a dealbreaker, I understand.
• All portraits and key art are still handmade. The majority of h-scenes as of v0.2.9 contain AI elements from Stable Diffusion XL – I draw a base, then img2img on top of it and edit. All h-scenes going forward and some retroactively will be AI-assisted in this way.
• My writing is entirely human. AI does not touch the writing in any way, not consulting it, not generating it, nothing. I rawdog text straight into a Notepad++ file and spend a lot of time pacing and pondering how the next part will go.

Screenshots

Changelog

v0.3.21 – 2026-06-18

• New 87 anecdote
• New Area: Ponell’s Print Shop
  • Lore and content for area
• Approx. 30min of new content
  • 13 hours of content total
• 1 h-scene
  • repeatable w/ old h-scene after
• 1 new Replay Gallery entry

v0.3.2 – 2026-04-03

• New Dylershaven main storyline
• New Area: ZCSC Whisper Dish Tower
• Approx. 30min of new content
  • 12 hours of content total
• 1 h-scene
• 1 new Replay Gallery entry

v0.3.1 – 2026-01-24

• New Dylershaven main storyline
• New side story
• New Areas: St. Aulbracht ‘Red’ Street, Warehouses Interior
• Approx. 30min of new content
  • 12 hours of content total
• 1 h-scene
• 1 new Replay Gallery entry

v0.3 – 2025-11-15

• New City: Dylershaven
  • New Locations: Grey Street, Wharfmarket, Dockyards Office, Sailor’s Tavern
  • New Temporary Location: Dockyards Warehouses Interior
  • Two new long storylines, part of the main Dylershaven story
  • New long story
  • Four new short stories/collections
• Approx. 2-3hrs of new content
  • 11 hours of content total
• 2 h-scenes
  • technically 4 h scenes, but 3 are mutually exclusive variations
• 4 new Replay Gallery entries
• The Content Guide in Crescyt has been temporarily disabled
  • It’s outdated and slow. It’ll return in a future v0.3X update

v0.2.91 – 2025-07-09

• New Feature: REPLAY GALLERY
  • Major efforts to make it work with existing saves
• All h-scenes edited for replay compatibility
• Upgraded visuals for 1 existing h-scene
• Bug fixes for critical coding errors in the Panoply train scene
  • Update is recommended for bug fixes alone
• Fully save-game compatible with v0.1, v0.2
  • 9 hours of content total + replays!

v0.2.9 – 2025-06-03

• Two new short storylines
• New mechanic: random rail events
  • Five new events while riding the M4SRN
• 4 h-scenes
  • 1 h-scene for all facets,
  • 1 Rapport exclusive h-scene,
  • 1 Apparatchik exclusive h-scene,
  • 1 Panoply exclusive h-scene
• Fully save-game compatible with v0.1, v0.2
• Approximately 30m of new content
  • 9 hours of content total

v0.2.81 – 2025-04-17

• New storyline
• Small interim update while I work on v0.3
• 1 repeatable h-scene
  • Initially split into 2 separate h-scenes
• Fully save-game compatible with v0.1, v0.2
• Approx. 15min of new content
  • 8 hours of content total

v0.2.8 – 2025-03-30

8 hours of content total

New storyline

1 h-scene

New Rail destination: Tisrec River, overlooking Sānto Vaillant

New short stories

Fully save-game compatible with v0.1, v0.2

Approximately 30m of new content

How To Install Imperial Bureaucracy Hero

1. Extract
2. Play

Imperial Bureaucracy Hero Free Download