Two immediate lessons from Ludum Dare 28…

1. First Lesson: Multiplayer is hard! I originally set out to focus LD #28 on Fun, but instead I got bogged down in the technicalities of keeping a server database and a client-side program in sync. It was still educational, but I found it’s notably less exciting to code APIs and database queries than it is to create fun game features.
2. Second Lesson: Focus on minimum viable game! I know this is a very common trap, but I thought I would be able to avoid taking on an unattainable scope. Unfortunately I had trouble getting inspired by the theme (I didn’t even start until Saturday at about noon), so I let myself get inspired by a very complex game idea. As I worked on it, and fell behind on my milestones, I found it hard to trim things away and re-focus on the gameplay.

Capitalis Original Sketch

The original idea was something like Tiny Tower meets Sim City Online. Lots of deep, interconnected commerce, an entertaining A.I., and meaningful competition between citystates. Obviously this is very complex and absurd for 48 hours.

I still think the game’s ideas have potential, but what I was able to do over the span of the compo didn’t really turn into a real “game”. It’s still playable, but a lot of the interesting code is “under the hood”, and not really visible to the user. The choice is yours to try it out or not, but if you do, please let me know what you think, and what you like, don’t like and what ideas you would like to see added! Thanks.

Play: CAPITALIS (latin for “Capital”)