Whenever I’ve taken part in Ludum Dare before, I’ve tended to get bogged down in messing around with art and sound.

My games often look ok, but are a bit shallow. This time I decided to take things as far as I could in another direction.

I’ve been wanting to make a simulation of the Neolithic revolution ever since reading Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens last year. So this LD was a great opportunity to finally make a start.

The game simulates our transition from hunter-gatherers to settled, agricultural societies and the rise of trade and social classes.

I decided early on to just focus on creating an interesting simulation, rather than trying to give the player agency, or making it fun. As a result it’s probably a lot more fun to work on than it is to play! (Sorry about that)

I’m pretty happy with the results. Sit back and watch the simulation and you will see hunter-gatherers migrating around in search of food. Eventually some of them will master agriculture and, without the pressure to migrate to find food, they will settle down in one place.

Settlements will trade with one another, food-rich people giving it to those that are starving. Hunter-gatherers soon become attached and dependent on these settlements, or are outpaced by their growth.

The trading of goods sets up class divisions between the rich and the needy, and eventually ruling classes spontaneously arise in the centres of your cities, with preferred access to traded goods. They become surrounded by slaves.

The ruling elites then stop farming, and villagers forget their hunter-gatherers survival skills. Elites start producing culture and use that to maintain their influence.

And all this happens (for better or worse) without any input from the player. The few rules I’ve put in interact to create emergent cities and social strata.

Play Nineveh

There is lots more that I still want to add… things like livestock, different crop types, proper construction using wood and stone production, droughts, plagues, horseback riding.