Lines of Battle: The Story Thus Far
I’m Leonardo Massaroli, founder of Sophie Games and the creator of Lines of Battle. In a year since my solo release of the game’s alpha version, the game has already gone further than I ever could have expected. Creating games has always been a hobby of mine, but in just a year of development, it has turned out to be radically different.
During the first year of alpha and beta development, a period of high YouTube interest drove the game to a peak of 175,000 registered users, 50,000 monthly users, and over 10,000 in ranked matchmaking. Once the game is ready for a 1.0 release, I’m confident that even greater things await.
A great community has formed around the game, with excellent artists, designers, and consultants contributing out of love for the vision. But in some ways, the story of Sophie Games and Lines of Battle stretches back almost two decades.
The Beginning of a Lifelong Passion
Some 17 years ago, I was a kid who loved videogames like Diablo 2, GTA, and Half-Life, but also strategy games like Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Panzer General 2. I’d watch in awe as my older brother showed me games he’d programmed and was eager to learn myself. By the age of 10, I was inspired to make my own rudimentary flash games.
I fell out of the hobby for a few years, although I continued to play games. But when I became interested in programming late in my teenage years, the old passion came roaring back – I made my own game, Independencia Juego, at the age of 19. It was a team-oriented, turn-based game that covered the South American wars of independence and took heavy inspiration from Panzer General 2.
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| Independencia Juego, the predecessor to Lines of Battle |
In many ways, it was the predecessor to Lines of Battle. The single most important lesson I took was that the turn-based format severely disrupted the action, especially in team play. With the niche setting and the slow pace, the game failed to generate much interest, and I ultimately abandoned it.
The failure of Independencia Juego informed my first and most influential decision regarding Lines of Battle; players would take their turns simultaneously, with orders executing all at once.
That said, I didn’t jump straight from Independencia Juego to Lines of Battle – not all of the pieces were there yet. From 2021 to 2024, I kept the hobby of creating games on the side and made four titles:
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| Herocraft gameplay |
Inspiration Strikes and Lines of Battle Begins
Everything came together for Lines of Battle in June that year; I’d begun watching Epic History videos and was entranced by the smooth, entertaining portrayal of the great battles of history. The interest wasn’t new to me; I’ve always loved reading about history, and I must have watched the 1970 classic Waterloo dozens of times.
But what was new was seeing so many comments on each of these videos, calling out for a game like this.
That summer, Lines of Battle was born. It started life as Lines of Battle: Waterloo, a single scenario with three unit types and I shared the game on Reddit, Youtube and other platforms.
From there, it branched out into competitive matchmaking, tournaments, new units, and new mechanics meant to enhance gameplay and strike a balance between depth and ease of play.
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| Early versions of Lines of Battle |
As interest trickled in, I left my day job, incorporated Sophie Games, and committed to developing Lines of Battle full-time; if I had a few thousand players and could make $500/mo from the game by the end of 2025, I’d stick with it.
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| Gameplay from the current Lines of Battle beta version |
Goals Fulfilled and Exceeded, Lessons Learned
Since then, the game and its community have developed beyond my expectations, with an explosion of popularity driven by a period of YouTube virality in March. The Android install base grew three times over almost overnight, and small YouTubers were getting six-figure views making Lines of Battle content.
While Lines of Battle declined in the algorithm and player intake declined with it, we retained a player base several times larger than what we had before. The fundamental promise of the game was proven beyond all doubt, and we also learned about the flaws of the current beta version and the obstacles we need to overcome to make the game a success.
Now, the mission is first and foremost to refine our existing mechanics to a full-release level of quality, craft an intuitive, guided new player experience, and provide robust gameplay options beyond competitive play. From there, we expect a 1.0 Steam release with over 30,000 wishlists this winter, and for Lines of Battle’s story to begin in earnest.
If you want to stay up to date with the development of Lines of Battle, here are my social networks and those of the game:
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