I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how this whole Nobles & Glory thing started.
At first, it was just a side project. Something I chipped away at in between work, parenting, and trying to unwind at the end of the day. It was a creative outlet. A way to challenge myself with the simple idea: what if you could get an epic, thematic experience out of a regular deck of playing cards?
But somewhere along the way, it stopped being just a hobby. It became a legacy project. Something I want to leave behind.
What began as a little design puzzle; trying to give every card a purpose, every suit a theme; has slowly grown into something much bigger than I ever expected. Not just in terms of rules and mechanics (though yeah, there are plenty of those), but in the sense that this game now feels like a part of me. A world that somehow grew around the original idea, and now I’m the one looking after it.
And then I got the wild idea to publish it as a book. Which, as it turns out, requires even more thinking, editing, refining, and planning than I’d guessed.
I work full-time as a web developer. I’ve got two amazing daughters. And like most people, sometimes I just need to mentally switch off at the end of the day. That doesn’t always leave a lot of room for balancing kingdoms or rewording task interactions.
So this project mostly lives in the in-between times. Late at night. Early in the morning. On a lunch break. During those rare quiet weekends where everything slows down. And honestly, there are times where it feels like a grind. I open the rules doc and just sort of stare at it.
But even when I step away, the ideas keep coming. It’s not writer’s block. It’s the opposite. It’s like the game keeps designing itself in the background. Every time I take a breather, something new shows up that solves an old problem. That’s part of why I’ve stuck with it for so long.
To help keep my head clear, I’ve also been making smaller side projects — little games that are totally different. You can find them on my blog if you’re curious: https://jonathanhinson.com/category/games. They’re simple, fun, usually quick to design, and completely unrelated to court politics and medieval power struggles. They give me a bit of breathing room.
But no matter what else I work on, Nobles & Glory is the one that keeps calling me back. I just can’t leave it alone for long.
So if you’ve been following along and wondering when it’s coming out, just know that it’s still moving forward. Slowly, steadily. I’m not rushing it. I want it to feel right. I want it to feel finished. I want it to be something worth the wait.
There are still rule tweaks happening. Layout decisions. Art direction. And then there’s the whole publishing side; which I’ll be writing more about soon as I get things sorted with printing, ISBNs, and distribution.
But for now, I just wanted to check in and say that this project still matters to me. Maybe more than ever. I’ve had to kill a few darlings along the way, but it’s all part of making something I’ll be proud to share.
Thanks for sticking with me.
– Jonathan
