Tomorrow is the first playtest of iteration 3.5 of my Congress of Vienna board game — rebuilt components and a lot of small changes around how gossip, loyalty and the evening's entertainments fit together. Curious what survives contact with real players.#BoardGameDesign
#HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna #DevDiary

The newest demo for The Glorious Cause is live for Steam Next Fest!

Our first public demo since January features the new 2.5D engine, improved battle presentation, new SFX, performance improvements, UI refinements, and updates to Trenton.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4297870/The_Glorious_Cause/

#TheGloriousCause #SteamNextFest #IndieGame #StrategyGame #Wargame #AmericanRevolution #HistoricalGames #TurnBasedStrategy #IndieDev #GameDev

Steam:The Glorious Cause

A historically grounded, hex-based strategy and tactics game where you command armies of the American Revolution. From tense battlefield engagements to the growing war for independence.

Dev diary: iteration 3.5 of Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations is slowly taking shape on my desk.
Still printing and cutting the player and estate boards (gluing them onto cardboard for stiffness), finishing the main board, and making the tokens — refreshments, themes, musical setting, evening attractions.
Which is when I realised the prototype mirrors the game itself: I'm organising a ball, one piece of cardboard at a time.
#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna #DevDiary

Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations is less a puzzle to solve than a city to get lost in.

By day, you wander the famous corners of Vienna. By evening, you disappear into its parties — gossip, romance, intrigue, and the slow art of winning powerful people to your side.

Meanwhile, Europe still needs rebuilding after years of war.
Somebody has to do it between dances.

#BoardGames #GameDesign #HistoricalGames

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀… 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀.

Metternich's evening dilemma, Vienna 1814 — committee session or masked ball, both at 8 PM. Plot twist: both were politics.

From my Congress of Vienna board game design diary.

#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna

Iteration 3.5 of my Congress of Vienna board game made historical characters more grounded: each one is present in a specific location, and movement between locations is possible — rare, player-driven, but real.

I care a lot about this kind of thing. The Congress was a city-wide social machine, and I want the board to feel like one, not like a row of cards waiting to be drafted.

#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna

Last-minute dev diary: spent last night building a proper player aid card for Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations. One lesson playtesting keeps teaching me — players need a reference sheet, especially once a game has this many icons. The plan was to print it today; the printer had other ideas, mostly involving an empty paper tray.
#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #DevDiary

𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁

Staircase of the Upper Belvedere, Rudolf von Alt, 1882.

Painted decades after the Congress, but the staircase itself is exactly the one guests climbed in 1814. Baroque theatre as architecture — sculpted ceilings, deliberate sightlines, a slow ascent designed to be watched. By the time you reached the top, half the room already knew who you were.

#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna

I am designing Vienna 1814: Waltz of Nations — a board game about the Congress of Vienna from the salon side: gossip, romance, intrigue, real historical characters. Still in development, and I am sharing the process here as I go.

#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna

𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁

Stephansdom from Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, Rudolf von Alt, 1832.

Painted a generation after the Congress, but the square barely changed. This is the Vienna delegates crossed on the way from one salon to the next — cathedral, market, carriages, dogs underfoot. The treaties happened in palaces. The rest of the Congress happened on streets like this one.

#BoardGameDesign #HistoricalGames #CongressOfVienna