Doodle Empires

Doodle Empires

Early access since May 2025

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.

92% positive · 1,330 reviews
Not yet
In early access, still in active development
High confidence
Active Development
Not yet
In early access, still in active development
High confidence
Active Development

Where to buy

Steam $5.59 $6.99 −20%
Can't confirm — worth a look
We couldn't confirm these stores carry this game.
Green Man Gaming Steam key Search IndieGala Steam key Search
Prices in USD, as listed by each store.
Buying through an affiliate store helps support the site

Evaluation

Doodle Empires is an Early Access game launched on May 30, 2025, and Turtle Stack Games has maintained a remarkably consistent pace of development ever since. The developer has shipped ten major content updates in just over a year, including the Terrain Update (August 13, 2025), Map Maker/Scenarios (November 25, 2025), the Afro-Eurasia Map (January 12, 2026), Disasters and Notebook (March 28, 2026), Tribes with nomadic migration (March 31, 2026), Free Draw mode with Antarctica map (May 23, 2026), the Borders Update (June 21, 2026), and most recently a North America map update on July 28, 2026. This establishes a sustained cadence of major additions roughly every 4–8 weeks. Developer communications have been transparent and forward-looking throughout — a July 2025 post outlined plans for new leader traits, a bigger brush size, and menu updates, and subsequent updates delivered on those promises. No post has indicated that development is nearing completion or that a 1.0 release is imminent. The game continues to receive active feature work and is clearly still building toward its eventual full release.
Evidence
North America map added along with resolution setting updates, random Slavic nation names, random name button for forts/markers, and an Enable Borders option — the most recent developer update as of today's date.
news post · Jul 28, 2026 source development ongoing
high
Borders Update added borders to all nations, faiths, origins and groups, along with a tutorial mode, redesigned settings menu, and new random name options.
news post · Jun 21, 2026 source content shipped
high

Media

Details

Publisher
Turtle Stack Games
Achievements
—
Platform
Windows, macOS, Linux
Controller
—
Steam Deck
Playable
Players
Single-player

About this game

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:

  • 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

  • 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

  • UNION: The union card allows your selected nation to fully annex another nation as if part of a royal union or similar treaty

  • 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

  • NEW LEADER: The new leader card will switch out the currently selected nation's leader with a new one with new traits, which will affect how that nation expands its territory

  • BUILD CASTLE: The build castle card allows players to place and name a castle into the territory of the selected nation, which will then protect the tiles surrounding the castle, and thus make it more costly for other nations to take it

  • FOUND/ADOPT RELIGION: These cards will allow you to create new faiths, or adopt an already existing faith.

  • DIVERGE ORIGIN: This card will create a whole new origin from the selected nation

  • AGE CARDS: The age of conquest, division and unity cards will all make different cards more common over a period of time

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

  • Faith Mode: This mode allows players to see what tiles are part of what faith

  • Fort Mode: This mode allows players to see what tiles are currently protected by castles, and therefore more difficult to expand into

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:

  • Creating tribes, which can migrate and eventually settle

  • Disaster cards that will cause nations to lose land to the wilderness

  • A lot of quality of life additions such as, map sizes, list of dead nations, UI design, music/sound, etc.

  • Much more to come

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.

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 possibilities 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

Last evaluated Aug 19, 2026
Something about this evaluation looks wrong Report illegal or harmful content