Crimson Tactics: Building a Tactical RPG for Steam

Crimson Tactics: The Rise of the White Banner is a turn-based tactical RPG set in a medieval high fantasy world. Built by Black March Studios and shipped on Steam, it has 200+ reviews and a dedicated community of tactics fans.

I joined as a Game Programmer and worked on the core systems that drive the game.

What I Built

My focus was on gameplay and combat. The game is turn-based, so every system needs to feel precise and fair. I worked on:

• Core combat systems: the turn order, action resolution, and damage calculations that make every battle feel right
• Gameplay features: abilities, status effects, unit interactions, and the rules that tie it all together
• Cinematic system: in-game cinematics that play out during key story moments and battles
• Iteration and polish: tuning systems based on playtesting to make sure the tactics layer was deep but readable

Tech

Unity 3D, C#, and a lot of careful state management. Turn-based games are deceptively complex since every action has to resolve cleanly and the game state has to stay consistent across dozens of interacting systems.

The Result

The game shipped on Steam and found its audience. Building a tactics game was a different challenge from the fast-paced multiplayer work I’d go on to do at SuperGaming, but the fundamentals are the same: clean architecture, tight feedback loops, and shipping something people enjoy playing.

Steam / Black March Studios