Doodle Empires
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Doodle Empires is an alternate history sandbox game all about drawing your own nations with your own histories and stories in a variety of maps. Watch your world take shape and evolve over time, and decide which nations will rise and which nations will fall.
How to play:
1. Create your first nation by selecting a border color and typing up a name
2. Draw the borders of your new nation onto the map, while paying attention to how much drawing power you have left at the top
3. Once out of drawing power, click a nation to open the nation inspector, and hit the select button.
4. Draw a new card on the top right, which will allow you to alter the selected nation further
5. Repeat
Card Types:
1. EXPAND: There are three expand card types, which are small, medium and large expand, and they allow you to grow the borders of your selected nation.
NOTE: Expanding into unclaimed territory will be much cheaper than trying to expand into the land of other nations
2. SPLIT: There are two split card types, which are the regular split and the small split, and both will cause you to carve out a new nation out of a portion of whatever nation you selected bfore drawing the card
3.UNION: The union card allows your selected nation to fully annex another nation as if part of a royal union or similar treaty
4. NEW NATION: The new nation card will allow you to create a new nation just as you did at the start of the game, which will allow you to make a whole new Origin Group
Map Modes:
Political Mode: This mode allows players to see the borders of all nations on the map
Origin Mode: This mode allows players to see the original nation each nation split off from. Think of it as a sort of culture group map. NOTE: A nation's origin can also be seen in its nation inspector
What's Next?
Doodle Empires is still early in development, and there is a lot I still want to add and expand on
Future mechanics and updates I'd like to add include:
- Leaders with traits that will affect their nation's future
- Founding and adopting religions
- Creating tribes, which can migrate and eventually settle
- Disaster cards that will cause nations to lose land to the wilderness
- Historical Ages cards, which will make certain cards more common during a set period of time
- A lot of quality of life additions such as, map sizes, brush size, list of dead nations, UI design, music/sound, etc.
Much like the nations in Doodle Empires, this list is subject to grow and change over time as I continue development, but should give you an idea of what I hope to build here.
Social Media
Follow me on TikTok, Bluesky, and YouTube to follow me and my progress!!
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@paletantan
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/paletantan.itch.io
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaleTanTan
Credits/About and Thanks
My name is Tanner/TanTan, and I'm working on this project on my own. I've been playing historical map strategy games since I was in middle school, and would occasionally like to draw on maps using the paint app on my computer. I've seen people similarly do the same using a spinning wheel with names of countries, events that happen, etc. That gave me the idea that instead of just winging it on paint like we've been doing I could make it into a real game with a bunch of possiblities and the freedom to make the world you like with some added randomness from drawing cards. Anyway, thank you to anyone who decides to try my game, and follow my progress as I continue to develop Doodle Empires into a full game
Bugs:
Also let me know about any bugs! I tried to make sure nothing was broken before I uploaded, but I wouldn't be shocked if something comes up lol
Updated | 2 days ago |
Status | In development |
Platforms | Windows, macOS |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (2 total ratings) |
Author | TanTan |
Genre | Strategy, Simulation |
Tags | 2D, Alternate History, Casual, geography, god-game, Historical, maps, Sandbox, world-building |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 1.2.2 oops!2 days ago
- Version 1.2.13 days ago
- Terrain Update8 days ago
- Version 1.1.126 days ago
- Leaders, Traits, and Editing27 days ago
Comments
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I've noticed a bug where when you get the "Union" card and select the same nation twice, it just vanishes and makes the territory it was on darker. h
h
I want to love this game so so much, it's a great concept, but if we don't have some way to skip cards or have balance it's just a chore to play, I want to do X with Y nation but I can't because "uh oh split card!" alright, sure, i guess I'll just try to rp some reason or revolt and get them next turn. "Uh oh ANOTHER SPLIT CARD" and repeat, trying to make the game enjoyable is near impossible for me right now.
Is there a way to skip a card
after some time of playing when i rename a nation it renames all the nations on the map.
Yeah, you're the second person to say that, so I'm thinking there's something up with the late game I need to look into. Thanks for letting me know, and thanks for playing
Hi, really cool idea for a game. Me and my sister have had a lot of fun playing this. We came up with some suggestions as we played it. We were playing the game competitively as strange as that sounds, so these suggestions might seem skewed by that.
-We thought that expansion of a nation should be based on the size of said nation. So for example if a nation draws an expansion card, it will grow by 2x more if it is size 2000 compared to if it was size 1000.
-We thought there should be a skip button for union cards or new nation cards. maybe you could trade that in for a random expansion card?
-We thought that there should be an option to only use so much expansion. if you draw a large expansion card you could do a small amount of expansions then move onto the next turn.
-we were thinking that a nation should be able at save up its expansion. any expansion not used should go into a bank, maybe you only get to keep 1/2 or 1/3 of the expansion that you don't use? We thought it could represent a nation growing wealthy or powerful in peace and being able to punch above its weight when it comes time to expand or resolve splits in the nation sooner.
-some sort of ledger that you could see all the current nations would be nice, even if its only to see the collection of small nations that are hidden away.
-We thought that nations could be assigned to a player along side giving them a name and colour, and that perhaps there would be a "player" map mode. this could work for single player as well by making it an "alliance" map mode that could let people make power blocks within there world
-we also thought that nations that split should be able to expand into the other half of the nation a bit easier, like it should cost a bit less expansion. maybe that would only last for 10 turns or so representing a civil war/rebellion ending in a more permanent break up of the nation?
-It would also be nice to have an undo button for the turn that was just played (we unionised countries we didn't mean to a few times)
please just ignore all of this if it clashes with your plans for the game. Regardless we are really interested to see where you take this game. Best of luck!
Hey, that's awesome!! I love the competitive gameplay you've made. Also I love the suggestions, and I was actually already planning on adding some of them to the next update lol. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for playing
cool game
Can you please make it available for android this is exactly what I've been looking for
By late game the new nation card ends up becoming the split card but now it crosses borders, i like it when i fill the map but after that it gets a bit annoying.
Also, i accidentally misclick on a place and im then forced to do what the card says which i dont like and i try to fix it but then it happens again.
Great job on the game! I can't wait to see more :>
Perchance add a way to make the mouse bigger or smaller, i want to add more detail but cant
You're in luck!! Brush sizes are gonna be in the next update lol
IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR A GAME LIKE THIS FOR AGES, I HAVE ALREADY SPENT QUITE A LARGE NUMBER OF HOURS ON IT. HOWEVER, THERE ARE A FEW THINGS I FIND ANNOYING: I DONT LIKE THE INEVITABILITY OF THE SPLIT CARDS, THEY APPEAR TOO FREQUENTLY IMO AND MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE LARGE EMPIRES, LIMITING THE CONTROL OF THE PLAYER OVER HIS OWN WORLD AND SCENARIOS. I THINK IT WOULD BE A LIFE IMPROVING CHANGE TO SIMPLY LET THE PLAYER SWAP ANOTHER CARD IF THE ONE HE GOT DOESNT GO IN THE DIRECTION HE PLANNED FOR HIS NATIONS. ALSO, FOR SOME REASON, THE GAME CRASHES AS SOON AS I TRY TO SAVE A SCENARIO, IT MAY NOT BE A GAME PROBLEM BUT MINE, BUT IDK. ILL BE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS GAME.
Hey, I'm really glad you like the game. I think I am going to make some kind of skip mechanic soon. Although, I don't think I want to be able to skip infinitely whenever I want, but I do think earning skips through some kind of point system might be more balanced. Either way it's on my to do list lol. As for the crashing, is it a specific map that crashes when you save? Some of the maps are larger than the others, and might take more to save. I'm thinking depending on how powerful your computer is that could be the issue. Either way let me know, and thanks again for playing
Thank you for answering, it's most definitely my pc's fault: i have a slow one and it crashes on every map as i try to save lmao. As for the skip mechanic, i was thinking you could add a sandbox mode where the player has full control over the cards, this way the "normal" mode can still be played under the card's influence without impacting on balance, keeping the two things in a separate way that lets you develop the game with more freedom.
You should add capitals, major cities, a way to only have the brush attack one nation, a random name generator, and a AI mode where you create the countries and then they fight
Hey, thanks for the suggestions. I definitely have plans for some of these already. As far as the AI mode is concerned tho, I don't think I'll be going in that direction, but I'd recommend checking out a game called Ages of Conflict. It's all about AI nations fighting each other, and is actually one of the inspirations for my game. Hope that helps, and thanks for playing
That game is so fun!
Will you add this game to steam?
I do plan on releasing the full game on Steam once development is complete
There should be preset countries in this game
I'm going to be adding a list of "dead" nations you've made and have been wiped off the map to be revived, but I can definitley make a list of preset nations for people starting out also. I like that idea
This is quite entertaining but how come there isn't a North America or South America map?
The game is currently a work in progress, but I'll be adding new maps as I update the game, which will include maps of The Americas and much more
I've spent a handful of hours on this already! I'm really into this idea and look forward to seeing it develop. I would really love to see a timelapse feature at the "end" of a game where you can watch the political and cultural maps grow and expand over time, kind of like the end game map time lapse at the end of Civ 5.
That’s awesome!! Also I like that idea, and I’m definitely gonna see about making that work at some point. Civ 5 is literally my favorite game, so I’m very much on board lol