How to Create Your Own Private Challenge Game

There are two approaches for creating a private challenge game:

1) Using the game user interface
2) Using a script

1) Create a Private Challenge Game using the game UI

On the main menu, select [New Game]. You will proceed to the Single Player Game screen, then select [Custom Game].  

Now you will see the following screen. Select the [GOALS] tab, then select [Challenge Game].

Set Challenge Game Mode to [On]

Set Number of Game Years to the number of years that you want the challenge game to last.

You should also set other new game settings, like the number of competitors, your start-up capital, like what you would do in setting up a normal game.

When you are done with all the game settings, you can now click the [Start] button to start the game.

2) Create a Private Challenge Game using a Script

You can use a script to create a challenge game so you don’t have to manually set the game parameters and goal settings on the game UI.

Learn how to create a script

Download a sample challenge game script

To load a script, click the [Load Script] button on the New Game Setup menu.

load a script

It will open the Script window. Now select [User-Create Scripts] at the top of the window. load challenge game script
Click the [Open Folder] button at the bottom of the window and it will open the folder in File Explorer. 
Now copy the script file you have prepared to this folder. Go back to Capitalism Lab after that.
You will see the script available for selecting. Double-click the script or click the [Load] button to load it.

How to Save the Challenge Game

After a new game has been created using the settings you specified, you can review the generated game world, including the cities and their populations, and decide whether you want to use this game for the challenge game or generate a new one.

Skip goal set

Note that you will be asked whether you want to add an additional set of goals to your game right after the game begins. In most cases, you would want to click [Skip] if you are happy with the goals you have defined previously.

If you want to increase the difficulty of the challenge game, you may let the game run for several years, allowing the AI corporations to expand their businesses without the presence of a human player.

When you are ready to save it as a new challenge game, you can press the ESC key to open the in-game menu and select “Save Game” (or press the shortcut key ALT-S).

The following box will pop up, and you should select [Challenge Game] and subsequently proceed to save the file.

Now click the [Save New] button at the bottom of the screen to save a new Challenge Game.
Note: After starting a new game and prior to saving the Challenge Game, you will still be able to change the goals and challenge game settings. To do so, simply press [F9] to open the Game Setting menu.

Challenge Game Info File

If you want to add a description and other information to your challenge game, you can optionally create a Challenge Game Info file.

Learn more about Challenge Game Info files 

Sending a Challenge Game File to Participants

Please follow the procedures below to distribute the challenge game to participants.

Step 1: Click on the [Open Folder] button to open the folder containing all your private challenge game files.

Step 2: Now you may send a private challenge game file to people who want to participate via email attachment, Dropbox, or other means of file transfer. When they have received the file, they can save the file to their private challenge game folders by pressing the same [Open Folder] button. 

To play the challenge game, simply select [Challenge Game] from the main menu.

The Challenge Game menu will appear. Now click on the [Private Challenge Game] button, and then select the challenge game you want to play.

Viewing Your Private Challenge Game Status

To view your Private Challenge Game status, please access this web page:
https://www.capitalismlab.com/account/my_games.html

Below is an example:

Appendix: Create a Challenge Game Using a Script

You can use a script to automate the process of creating a challenge game, eliminating the need to manually enter the values into the new game settings screen each time.

To begin, click the [LOAD SCRIPT] button at the top-left of the screen.

load a script

 On this screen, select [User-created Scripts]
Next click the [Open Folder] button to open the Script folder in File Explorer.

The downloaded file is in ZIP format. Extract the script text file from the ZIP to the Capitalism Lab Script folder in File Explorer (see the previous step).

When you switch back to Capitalism Lab from File Explorer, you will see the newly added script file. Now select it and click the [Load] button.

You will then see the following screen. Simply click the [Start] button without needing to change any of the settings.

You will be presented with a window asking you if you want to add additional goals to the strategy challenge game’s goals which are defined in the script. Simply select “No Goals”.
You’re now ready to save the current game as a challenge game. To access the save game menu, press the ESC key and then select [Save Game], or just press the shortcut key ALT-S. Next, select [Challenge Game], as shown below.
On the Challenge Game screen, click the [Save New] button to save it and you will have completed the challenge game creation process!
If you would like to change the challenge game script file, please see the instructions at the Scripts webpage.

If you are a teacher planning to use it in your classroom and need help modifying the script file, please email us at info@enlight.com and we will assist you.

Now that you’ve created your challenge game, the next step is to distribute it to the participants. To do so, please refer to the instructions provided in the section above titled “Sending a Challenge Game File to Participants” and follow the procedure outlined there.