First devlog — what I'm building and why

This is my first devlog. The idea is simple: keep you informed on the project's progress, explain the choices, share the struggles — at my own pace. No social media account to feed (I can't stand them), no weekly newsletter. Just articles here, at least one a month, more if I feel like it. If it's your kind of thing, you'll find something worth reading.

First things first — what is this project?

Before kids, before a full-time job, before the moves — in short, I loved tabletop. Four-hour evenings around a table, hand-painted miniatures, two-hundred-page rulebooks you end up memorizing from sheer use. The atmosphere, the friendly arguments over a charge rule, the dice rolling the wrong way at the worst possible moment. Then life took over. When you have a baby and everyone works, organizing a tabletop "evening" is a logistics operation on par with a military landing. So you pack the miniatures into a box and tell yourself you'll get back to it when you have time.

You don't get back to it.

It's not the miniatures you miss, or the board. It's the spirit: tactical decisions under pressure, a die that rolls and changes everything, a story that builds across games. That's what I wanted back.

So I decided to recreate that spirit in a browser, with a (significant) roleplay layer I'm particularly fond of.

The game

Hammerpint is a rank-and-file fantasy wargame, playable online — a faithful implementation of classic tabletop rules, with persistent armies that evolve from battle to battle.

For those unfamiliar with the genre: rank-and-file wargaming is the management of a fantasy army split into regiments. Each unit has its stats, its special rules, its role in the overall composition. Phases follow in sequence — strategy, movement, shooting, combat, magic — and every decision commits you to what comes next. This is tactics, not action. You think, you decide, you live with the consequences.

What I'm trying to build

• Faithfully recreate the tabletop spirit — the rules, the tactical depth, not some "inspired by" version that waters down the substance.
• Games under 30 minutes. Playable on an evening when the baby's asleep, without blocking an entire schedule.
• Persistent armies: your generals gain experience, your units carry scars, your rivals nurse grudges they won't forget.
• A strong roleplay layer — shared narrative seasons, army reputation, campaigns with memory.
• An AI opponent with a real tactical personality, so you can play without having to sync five impossible schedules.

So two modes coexist. Skirmish: casual, nothing persists, for testing a composition or playing a quick game. Campaign: the real game — every battle counts, your armies live, age, sometimes die. That's where everything makes sense.

On the project's spirit

Hammerpint isn't meant to be a profitable project. I'm not looking to raise funds, to scale, to pitch investors. It's a seriously built hobby — or at least that's what I'm trying to do. If it finds an audience, great. If not, it's still satisfying to build, and I'll have learned a lot.

No Patreon. In my view, Patreon pushes you to treat your community like a cash cow — you set yourself a pace that turns a passion project into a second job, and you start bending your creative choices around who's paying. I don't want that, and I don't want to feel indebted to anyone. I do this for the pleasure of it. Nothing more.

The model will be simple: free access with three skirmishes a month to try it out, then a €10/month subscription for everything else — campaigns, unlimited games, AI opponents, all of it. First month free. No shop, no à la carte cosmetics, no pay-to-win. One price, one decision.

Where development stands

The rules engine works. Strategy, movement, shooting, combat, magic, psychology, war machines — all of it runs server-side and passes the automated tests. Two playable factions so far: Elves and Orcs. The WebSocket server is up, the game interface exists. Games run and hold together.

What's still missing is everything that lets someone other than me connect without hitting something broken: authentication, lobby, onboarding, content, balancing. Solo development means you go phase by phase. Some phases take longer. That's how it is.

The open alpha is targeted for summer 2026.

Until then, I'll write here about what I'm building and why. If the project interests you and you want early access as soon as the alpha is ready, you can join the waitlist on the site. For feedback and questions, email is best — I prefer a real conversation over likes.