Welcome to NextOath

What it is

NextOath is a game about building a world with other people and then competing inside it. You and the other players invent the setting together — its tensions, its factions, the shape of it — and then you take sides and play in that world.

Why this?

NextOath began because I wanted to make my own game.

I'm an adult with kids, which means time for play and connection is precious—and often fragmented. I kept thinking about how powerful it would be to create a game that helped people build something together, even when life makes traditional play hard to sustain.

I was deeply inspired by The Quiet Year, especially by hearing it used to shape a shared world through storytelling. That idea stuck with me: world building as a way to gather people, spark imagination, and create a setting together before the larger game even begins.

I also love strategy games. So NextOath became my attempt to bring those two passions together: collaborative storytelling and meaningful strategic play. Modern AI made that ambition feel possible in a way it hadn't before, especially for a tiny team—first just me, then with help from my cofounder, and along the way with substantial support from tools like Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT.

The first core pieces of the world-building experience were written in early 2025. I returned to the project lightly in December, then picked it up in earnest in February after finishing another project. I also spent significant time on an earlier strategy direction that ultimately fell short of my goals. Replacing it led to a version of the game that feels much more distinct, satisfying, and fun.

How It Works

Every game of NextOath unfolds in two phases.

First, players build a world together. You choose or define a setting, answer a series of world-building questions, and gradually create the tensions and factions that will shape the game.

Then the game turns strategic. Each player takes control of a faction within that shared world and responds to the pressures that emerge from it. Your decisions create assets, shift the balance of power, and reshape the map over time.

Behind the scenes, AI does the connective work — generating prompts, interpreting answers, keeping the world consistent, resolving what happens — so the whole thing holds together as you move from building the world to playing in it.

What's Next

NextOath is still taking shape. I'm adding features, reworking mechanics, and learning from how people actually play, which usually surprises me. If you want to follow along, the changelog has the running list of changes, and the support page is the best place to send ideas, feedback, or questions.

If you want to try it, you can build your first world here.