Shadow Doge

Shadow Doge is an upcoming 3-4 player semi-cooperative worker placement board game set at the height of the Most Serene Republic of Venice’s power. Players take the role of prominent noble families, attempting to manipulate the course of Venetian history so that theirs is the most prestigious family in Venice, despite never ascending to the Ducal throne themselves.

A Shadow Doge, if you will.

The game got its name and initial impetus from a joke on the tech/politics/comedy podcast TrashFuture which is too arcane to relate but which I will link here for context.

The game will be launching on Kickstarter in Q3 2026, assuming fair winds and favourable trade terms with the Ottoman Sultan.

I am Shadow Doge’s Lead Designer, working on the game alongside TrashFuture‘s November Kelly (Art Lead) and Riley Quinn (Producer). I have conducted historical research on our time period and setting (Venice and her various Italian and overseas clients, vassals, allies, and clients, from approximately 1450 to 11650 CE), written the game’s rules, created all of its cards and other components, and organized playtest sessions both digitally via Tabletop Simulator and in-person.

Like with my previous project, The Jagged Time, I approached this game with the mindset of adapting historical argument directly into game mechanics, instead of treating them simply as flavour or in someway unrelated to the experience of the game being played.

• Frederic Chapin Lane’s Venice: A Maritime Republic for a general historical survey and the broad arc of the game’s story.
• Joanne M. Ferraro’s Venice: History of the Floating City for a social and material history of the city, especially focusing on women, the working class, and others who are often left out of the contemporary historical record.
• Monique O’Connell’s Men of Empire: Power and Negotiation in Venice’s Maritime State for valuable detail on how noble families cooperated with and subverted the Venetian state’s authority.

Shadow Doge is currently in closed playtesting. If you are interested in participating, please send me an email at the link below and I will invite you into our testing server.

I am equally happy to send a copy of the current edition of the rules at request.