In the previous post, I described a plan to refactor Age of New Worlds without rewriting it.
The plan looked clean on paper.
Then the real work started.
The goal was not to move files around or rename a few classes. The goal was to remove duplicate paths while keeping the game working after every step.
The first safety work is now complete. Most of the new quality gates are running. The map migration is far advanced. Some real inconsistencies were found and fixed along the way.
(more…)When I wrote the first article about Age of New Worlds, the basic game loop was already working.
I could explore a hex map, found cities, move units, manage production, research technologies, improve terrain, end turns, and save the game. Flutter and Flame had already proved they could handle a 4X game. The new question was whether I could keep adding features without making the code harder to change every time.
(more…)Age of New Worlds is now available outside my development machine. The current release covers iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, and Android, with a web demo, direct downloads, store versions, and source code available publicly. That was the original technical goal: build one game codebase and make it run on real platforms.
Where To Play
(more…)Age of New Worlds started as a mobile-first game.
That shaped a lot of early decisions. The map had to work with touch. The HUD had to survive small screens. Panels had to slide in and out without burying the world. Most interactions were built around taps, long presses, drags, and responsive layouts.
For a while, that was enough.
Then the game started growing toward more platforms: web, desktop, Steam, and eventually devices like the Steam Deck. At that point controller support stopped being a nice extra and became part of the shape of the game.
(more…)While waiting for Age of New Worlds to move through the publishing path for iOS, Steam, and Android, I tried a small experiment.
This time in Unity.
Not as a replacement for AoNW. More as a question:
What happens if I take some of the mechanics and architecture from AoNW, move them into a 3D engine, and let the concept grow in a different direction?
A few hours later, I had the first slice of Peryhelium: a space 4X prototype about colonizing the Solar System, starting with the Moon, previewing locked planets, and rendering spherical hex maps with real planetary textures.
The first multiplayer implementation in Age of New Worlds was not a mistake.
It was a proof of concepts.
I needed to learn where the hard parts really were: command dispatch, reconnects, snapshots, event offsets, fog of war, match lobbies, AI turns, and the strange little edge cases that only appear when a turn-based game is running across two devices instead of one.
That version used a custom Dart server, HTTP routes, WebSockets, JWT handling, PostgreSQL repositories, and a lot of glue code.
It worked well enough to answer the most important question:
Can this game have multiplayer at all?
The answer was yes.
But once the concept was proven, the shape of the problem changed.
Now I do not need “a server that works”. I need a server architecture that is boring in the right places, strict in the important places, and easy to evolve without leaving a trail of networking code across the Flutter app.
That is why I started moving multiplayer to Serverpod.
(more…)A strategy game is not only about making decisions.
It is also about understanding them later.
In Age of New Worlds, a turn can contain many tiny things: a scout discovers a new civilization, a city finishes production, a unit moves through fog of war, diplomacy changes slightly, a battle resolves, research progresses, and the player probably notices only half of it while thinking about the next move.
For a long time I could run the Flutter app. I could run the Dart server. I could start a database. I could test multiplayer locally. That was enough while everything lived on my machine.
But a public build changes the shape of the problem.
Suddenly the project needs a real URL, TLS certificates, a running backend, a database that survives restarts, a static web bundle, a homepage, health checks, version numbers, iOS archives, and one command that can push the whole thing without me reconstructing the release process from terminal history.
(more…)When I started building Age of New Worlds, I was thinking mostly about the native app.
Flutter gave me the UI layer. Flame gave me the game scene. Dart gave me a shared language for the client, the rules, the AI, and the server. That was already enough complexity for a solo project.
Then I wanted one more thing: a public web version.
Not because the browser is the best place to play a heavy 4X strategy game. It is not. The native app is still the better experience. But the web version solves a very practical problem: people can open a link, see the game, start a match, and give feedback without installing anything.
(more…)After nearly two months of intensive Dart and Flutter learning, I’m finally releasing the first public playtest build of AoNW, my 4X strategy game.
You can try it here: https://aonw.net
This is not a polished release. It is very much an unstable public test build for single player mode. Saves may break, progress may be lost, and weird things will definitely happen. I’m putting it out mainly so people can test the core mechanics, feel the game loop, and help me catch the rough edges early.
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