Office Hours #72 · 30 September 2026
Ten prompts.
One trailer.
Zero parking
skills.
An open drop-in with a physics game on screen, and every question answered in between.
Gaming Week drop-in
Questions answered,
one game built.
Wednesday of Gaming Week is an open drop-in. Instead of a blank screen, Sam works on a side project while he answers questions. After seeing a one-prompt game on social media, he rebuilt a 3D trailer-parking simulator in about ten prompts, with a physics engine, a reverse camera, Kenney assets, and AI-designed levels.
During the hour he adds an animated "Let's Park" landing page in which a car reverses into a bay and knocks over cones, then sign-up with a themed login, a pause menu, usernames so no email is ever shown, and a public leaderboard that scores time and damage and rejects impossible numbers server-side.
The Q&A covers account bans, why Base44 apps cannot run offline, the lack of server-side rendering for SEO, PII and security, backend-function and integration costs, app-store publishing, and the Game Jam rules. Sam repeats the central point of the week: the techniques are what matter, not cloning his game.
Patterns from the parking game
Fun, gated,
fair, safe.
- 01
Fun
A borrowed mechanic plus real physics is enough for a satisfying loop.
- 02
Gated
Sign-up and save states turn a toy into something people come back to.
- 03
Fair
Server-side checks stop impossible leaderboard scores.
- 04
Safe
Usernames, not emails. PII never appears on a public board.
6 lessons
Build it,
then harden it.
- 01
Physics plus assets makes a fun game
The parking game started with about ten words: an idea borrowed from another game, plus a physics engine. The Kenney asset pack and a reverse camera did the rest. Simple concept, satisfying execution.
- 02
Let the AI design levels
Sam never designed a level by hand. "Create 10 levels, please" was enough to get a progression.
- 03
Gate the game behind sign-up with saves
One rambled prompt pivoted the game to a themed landing page, custom-themed sign-up, and per-user save states with Continue your save.
- 04
Never expose emails on a leaderboard
Give users a username at sign-up so public surfaces never show an email address, which is PII. Make the leaderboard public, injection-resistant, and validated server-side.
- 05
Keep scoring honest
Paused time should not count. Have the server reject impossible times and damage values so the leaderboard cannot be faked.
- 06
Don't over-polish while building live
Sam deliberately stops fiddling with a landing animation that runs a little long. Visual tweaks can take up a whole session while nothing new gets built.
Gaming Week,
continued.
As stated on 30 September 2026.
- Update 01
Thursday is the live game build
Thursday's advanced session will continue Meadow Reach, Sam's Settlers clone, and cover APIs, 3D model libraries, and an image-to-Three.js library he has found.
- Update 02
How the Game Jam works
Submit a game to the Launchpad. A screenshot is required. A description and video are optional but earn more votes. Gambling apps, including poker, break the rules.
- Update 03
Find every session on Base Camp
RSVP from the Events tab in Base Camp to get a builder ping and an email when Office Hours goes live.
Open drop-in.
Open answers.
Every substantive question from the hour, including answers the hosts could not confirm.
16 of 16 answers
Bans follow rule breaches. The only appeal route is the abuse/misuse email, where you can explain the business impact. Community channels cannot appeal suspensions.
No. Base44 builds React web apps that need a connection to load and sync data. Caching tricks exist elsewhere, but not through Base44.
There is no SSR yet. The team knows it is in demand and is working on it. In the meantime, paid third-party prerender services can sit in front of your app through DNS changes.
It depends on the genre. A visual novel lives on story and visuals, and an MMO on visuals and features. Sam thinks the idea, the audience, and the problem matter more than presentation, and design can be handed to a specialist later.
It can build it, but you will need a rigging API. An API is a handshake with someone who has already done the hard work, so don't rebuild that technology inside your app. Sam's quick search surfaced Meshy's rigging API.
Calling an external API costs nothing by itself. A community member pointed out that backend function invocations do add up, at roughly one integration credit per 100 calls, which Sam had not known.
As secure as you make it. Run the security scan, then a brute-force audit with Claude or Codex, then hire a pentester for PII-heavy apps. Base44 secures its storage; your app's logic is your responsibility.
It is getting better but still tricky. You follow a guide and need to understand the steps.
Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 17:00 UK time for one hour. RSVP through Base Camp's Events tab.
Yes. Thursday's Settlers build is essentially the same genre with less combat.
Not yet. It is on the team's radar, and the feedback board is the place to add your vote.
It is a redirect bug. Clear your cache, or use an incognito window (Ctrl+Shift+N in Chrome, Ctrl+Shift+P in Firefox).
Probably one prompt.
Yes. A driving game would need touch controls, such as a steering wheel or gyro.
Usually you can't. Credits pay for real LLM costs. Some events award credits for participating, and Sam suggests saving some for sprints.
Those are game studios with downloadable engines and built-in asset generation. Base44 builds web apps.
Watch the original
Questions
while parking.
Open on YouTube Several questions were repeated during the session and are merged here. Sam's remark about backend-function costs was a community correction he accepted live; check current pricing documentation.
Bring this to your next build
Park it.
Then ship it.
- 01
Borrow a mechanic, add a physics engine and an asset pack, and you have a fun game in about ten prompts.
- 02
Give every user a username so emails never appear on public surfaces.
- 03
Validate scores server-side and exclude paused time.
- 04
Plan SEO around the current lack of SSR.
- 05
Learn the technique on screen, then build your own idea for the jam.
Keep learning
Further reading.
- Kenney 3D assets
- Base Camp events calendar
- Previous session VOD
- Meshy rigging API
- Base44 feedback board
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