I’ve just hit a milestone in the development of Nobles & Glory; the rules are finally in a place where only further playtesting will determine what happens next.
After years of design, rewriting, pruning, and thematic layering, the core rulebook, flavour text, and Forward, now feels complete. Everything essential is there. From this point on, it’s not about building new mechanics; it’s about tightening what’s already there. I expect only minor tweaks from here; the kind that emerge naturally through testing and rhythm. A couple of new rules have yet to be playtested, so they may need balancing; but overall, the structure is set.
Playtesting will take place over the next few weeks. I’ll be running mock games between myself using PlayingCards.io (highly recommend for card game prototyping), and a handful of real games with my wife, who is brilliant at games, and ruthless when it comes to finding the edges of a ruleset.
I’m also grateful that I didn’t call it “done” sooner. There were moments, months ago, where I considered it finished. But every time I took a break and came back, I would spot a huge opportunity to improve. Some of the best features in the game only exist because I paused, re-read, and let myself change my mind. That’s been a humbling part of this process.
There were moments of doubt. Sitting down to read through the entire rulebook front to back can sometimes be overwhelming. There’s always a flicker of uncertainty; have I made something too strange? Too complicated? Is this just a big, well-meaning misstep? It’s easy to spiral into second-guessing when there’s nothing quite like it out there.
But in the end, I keep coming back to the fact that I love it. The systems are rewarding. And I know that for players who enjoy deep, strategic card games; it’s going to resonate.
This game isn’t built for everyone. That’s never been the goal. It’s a very specific thing, made with care. The fact that it uses only a standard deck of cards makes it even more interesting to me. Because it proves that there’s space for ambitious ideas within simple materials.
So now it’s time to finish what I started. Soon, I’ll be moving into the final layout phase, and I’ll be filling the book with authentic medieval artwork. Once that’s done, I’ll be turning toward self-publishing. And when that time comes, I want to be able to say with full conviction that I finished it properly.
Thanks for following the journey.
– Jonathan
