Model the tabletop rules
Cards, routes, costs, hidden information and win conditions become explicit data and state transitions.
All case studies
Tabletop-to-digital game design
Test the rules before you manufacture the pieces.
Relic Roads and Captains’ Causeway began as distinct tabletop game concepts. Building them digitally created playable evidence: a practical way to test rules, pacing and edge cases before the cost and constraint of a physical prototype. Both games then continued into complete, fully playable digital implementations and passed the same staged verification and production-sign-off process.
2distinct playable game systems
2 × signed offthe same staged production rigour for both games
Local + hostedplay modes shaped around the game
Private staterecipient-safe multiplayer views
One design service, two possible outcomes
A digital build can answer the physical-game questions first.
Printing boards, cards and components too early can make every rule change expensive. A focused digital implementation allows a designer to run complete games, repeat difficult situations and refine the rules while the design is still cheap to change.
That is one useful service in its own right. If the concept also suits digital play, the same foundation can continue into a polished standalone experience, computer opponents or private hosted multiplayer. It does not have to stop at prototype.
From concept to evidence
The prototype becomes a rules laboratory.
Make the hard cases playable
A deterministic rules engine resolves choices consistently and exposes unclear or contradictory rules early.
Learn before manufacture
Real play can refine pacing, balance, wording and component needs before committing to a physical prototype.
Continue when it earns its place
The playtesting build can remain a design tool or develop into a complete local or hosted digital game.
Game 01 · Relic Roads
A quest adventure made deterministic.
Travellers move through Easy, Medium and Hard regions, search for ingredients, craft items, complete tiered quests and assemble the three pieces of a key before attempting a final quest.
- Canonical board, card and rule data drives the visible game.
- Rules-engine commands make outcomes repeatable and testable.
- Two-to-four-player private rooms preserve each traveller’s exact cards.
- Reconnect, stale-command and room-isolation behaviour is automated and certified.
Game 02 · Captains’ Causeway
A seafaring system with its own economy and risks.
Captains navigate a costed route network, take quests, search regions, craft, cross dangerous passages, plunder estates and pursue secret-vault and final-quest progression.
- Distinct Crossing, Mischief, Unfair Terms and Estate Deal systems.
- Complete local game, guided tutorial and computer-controlled opponent.
- Hosted room architecture projects public and owner-only information separately.
- Executable canon and generated manifests keep prose and behaviour aligned.
Captains’ Causeway route planner
The map understands the journey.
The full-board planner is not a decorative map overlay. It works over the game’s live route graph to calculate a captain’s cheapest legal path from their current position, or an ordered itinerary across several destinations.
Graph-based routing
Finds the lowest-cost route while respecting progression gates, route availability and special Crossings.
Complete itinerary evidence
Reports total gold, ordinary moves and Crossing count for a single destination or a deliberately ordered multi-stop plan.
One system, every play mode
The same view-only planning logic is exercised in local play and the hosted multiplayer projection, with automated tests.
What was actually built
More than a clickable board.
The implementation separates what the game is from how it is presented, so rules can be checked independently of the interface.
Validation, not theatre
The difficult behaviours were made testable.
Automated rule and interface tests exercise game actions, persistence and hosted-room behaviour.
Multi-client certification checks simultaneous commands, reconnects, authorization and room isolation.
Production sign-off for both games followed staged verification of rules, interfaces and hosted behaviour; neither title is presented here at a lower proof standard.
Project boundary
Relic Roads and Captains’ Causeway are founder-owned game designs shown as evidence of process and capability. Their rules, artwork, code, names and worlds are not included by implication in a new engagement.
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