A draft of the full rules can be found here.

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Playtest on Steam/Table Top Simulator!

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Content Warning: This game simulates the often fraught relationship between economic and romantic interests common amongst the lower gentry in the Regency period. The women in this game are tasked, as they are in Austen's fiction, with responding to a series of difficult circumstances in ways that best balance their need for financial security with the hope of romantic connection. It is hoped that the game allows players to get a sense of the challenges that Austen's women faced in their own time.

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Jane Austen Dance Party! is a tense, tactical game combining hidden roles, hand management, roll-and-move, and secret objectives. Players secretly represent one of four women from Austen's celebrated novel, Pride & Prejudice (1813): Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Bennet, Lydia Bennet, or Caroline Bingley. Each player also receives a secret "Dance Card" indicating exactly how much, or how little, influence they need to exercise over certain of the novel's eligible bachelors: Charles Bingley, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins, and Mr. Wickham. Meeting all of the targets on your Dance Card, without being too impertinent, may lead to economic security, and perhaps even romantic "attachment."

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On their turn, a player plays one card from their hand and moves the matching character on the dance floor. If the character passes through or ends its movement on a space with another character, then the player moves, swaps, puts on, or takes off influence between these characters, depending on who dances with whom. There are also extra points available for getting certain couples together. But be careful: breaking up already dancing or conversing couples will earn the player an "impertinence" cube, which will cost them points at the end of the game. After each player has played all 10 of their hand cards the game ends. Each player reveals their secret role and their dance cards and sees whether they've met their influence targets. The player who scores the most points wins.

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