Over the next few days I am refining and updating the manual for Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations. It is moving to Markdown – basically plain text – which feels fitting for a game about 1814: pages and pages of pure text, almost like 200 years ago. In a way. :)
Over the next few days I am refining and updating the manual for Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations. It is moving to Markdown – basically plain text – which feels fitting for a game about 1814: pages and pages of pure text, almost like 200 years ago. In a way. :)
#ZarazJade has a fully rewritten backend. It is mostly prepared for multiple cities, which wasn’t possible before.
User data must be migrated. I made a draft of the whole flow. Now I just need to refine it.
The voice of reason - my wife - told me: release it at last!
The last committee space in iteration 3.5 rewards completed political objectives rather than mere arrival — so being first matters far less than having done the work.
This is part of a wider shift in the design: late-game drama should reward earlier investment, not earlier sprinting. Whether the balance lands well is what the next round of playtests is for.
#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #DevDiary #CongressOfVienna
Small dev diary: while working out the committee track, I updated the intrigue cards so they now leverage the new action spaces in Vienna. The two systems are starting to talk to each other, which is exactly what I wanted. One step toward iteration 3.5.
Servants with proxy letters have been in Vienna 1814 for a while — small, useful, and quietly liked by players. An aristocrat hands off a letter, a servant carries an action where they cannot go themselves.
In iteration 3.5, the same mechanic now reaches the committee: a servant with a proxy can move the work forward by one step, opening a higher space the aristocrat may use later that turn.
A small extension of something that already works.
A small design question I am sitting with: on the locations of Vienna 1814, should action names stay, or should the icons speak for themselves?
The thematic names ("Foster Relationships", "Spark a Scandal", "Spreading Rumours") give playtesters a hook — narrative context that helps the icons land. A more experienced designer suggested cutting all the fluff text. He may well be right.
This is still a wireframe, and I am still arguing with myself.
Today I put #deeplink on the board in #ZarazJade. This is one of the few features I want refined and 100% in harmony with the architecture.
The coordinator is the basis of my navigation, so I’ll hook up the deep paths there, too.
Everything should work out of the box.
#DevDiary
Wandering Pine
Piotrek Jeremicz