Introducing the Pine Festive Month!

The holiday season has arrived, and here at Pine Studio were celebrating with a special Escape Simulator advent calendar!
On the days marked on the calendar well be opening each door to reveal surprises that could range from giveaways to exciting special events. To find out whats behind each door as it opens, follow along on our Discord and social media channels! As you can see, the door for day 1 is already open, revealing

Build-A-Room #5 - Will you build the coziest room of them all?

It's time to get festive, room builders! With holidays approaching, it's the perfect time of the year to get nice and comfy. Whether that means you'll be spending your time reading a good book by the fireplace or by getting together with your friends and family, December is the perfect month to kick back and relax a little! Now, we know the room builders from our community have been eagerly awaiting the next contest, which is why we are pleased to announce the final Build-A-Room of the year! This time round, we want to challenge the builders from our community to channel all of their coziest vibes into a room worthy of the holiday season. Think fireplaces, hot cocoa, warm blankets, wooden cabins, comfy easy chairs and extremely good gameplay of course! Doesn't that just sound wonderful? Since it's the season of all things cozy, we wanted to shake things up a little for this Build-A-Room and introduce some new prize categories with a special place for new builders to get comfy. For Build-A-Room #5 there will be: 2 distinct prize categories and a community award:

• Rookie Builders Category
• Experienced Builders Category
• Community Award

Prizes

As always, we will be rewarding the greatest creations (and their creators) with some astonishing prizes! This time around, room builders will get a chance to win the following rewards in the new categories:

Rookie Builders Category (RBC)

Is this your first Build-A-Room competition? Then we have some great news! A special set of prizes reserved exclusively for first time competitors!

• BC first place winner gets a Meta Quest 3 + a surprise gift
• RBC second and third place get a 100$ Steam gift card + a surprise gift
• Fourth and fifth place get a surprise gift

Who is eligible for this category? This must be your FIRST submission for an official Escape Simulator competition. This means any of the four Build-A-Rooms or the Build-A-Thon competition. You can have other workshop submissions for Escape simulator under your profile. You are automatically qualified for this category if you meet the above standards, in addition to being entered into the Experienced Builders Category. You dont have to choose which category you want to enter.

Experienced Builders Category (EBC)

This is the main set of prizes. Every submission is qualified for this category and will be taken into consideration. Note that you cannot win in both categories - if you win an EBC prize, you wont be eligible for any RBC prizes even if youre a first time competitor.

• First place winner earns 1000$ in cash + Meta Quest 3 + a surprise gift
• Second and third place get a 100$ Steam gift card + a surprise gift
• Fourth and fifth place get a surprise gift

Community Award

After the submission deadline has passed, we will open a poll containing all rooms that were submitted. Voting will last until the Winners Announcement Stream on December 21st.

• The Community Award winner gets a 100$ Steam gift card + a surprise gift

Everyone is eligible to win the community award. Vote for the map you had most fun playing, the one that charmed you and stuck to you the most.

Rules

Other than the new prize categories, the rules for Build-A-Room #5 are the same as usual. Entries must have a cozy theme.

• Create a cozy escape room that's worthy of the holiday season in the Room Editor.
• To submit a room for the competition, post a link to your room in the #challenges channel in the Pine Studio Discord.
• You can only submit one room. Multiple submissions will not be counted.
• Multiple builders can work together on one room, but there will be only one prize for them.
• It has to be an escape room.
• The gameplay should ideally be under 30 minutes, but it can be longer.
• You can make your room as big as you wish.
• You need to record a video walkthrough and post it on YouTube or similar video sharing site.
• You are allowed to bug fix your room after submission, but can not resubmit an entirely different
• All references to existing IPs (including names, images, models and sounds) must be edited, parodied or otherwise modified to infer a likeness to the original IP without directly copying it.
• Use models, textures, sounds and other assets that are either Creative Commons (CC0) with attribution, that are from the ES library, or that you have paid the license for.
• Copies of other players' rooms are not eligible.
• Keep it fun/clean! No profanity, racism, hate speech, sexually suggestive content, etc.. Rooms that might be considered offensive in any way or form will be disqualified.
• The Pine team will choose the winners for the Rookie and Experienced Builder Categories this time! The Community prize will, naturally, be decided by community votes.

Dates:

• Submissions are open until December 18th 8PM CEST / 2PM EST
• We'll play and review all the submissions before December 21, which is when we will host a stream to announce the winners. More info about the stream will follow later!

General guidelines for your submission

• Less is more. Keep the map short. 15 to 30 minutes is ideal. If you arent sure if a puzzle is good or not, redesign it, or even better, cut it from your room. Its better to have 3 amazing puzzles, than 10 mediocre ones.
• Test test and test. Join the community in discord. Share your room and test it before submission.
• Less is more considering size. Walking simulators arent preferred. This is a puzzle game after all. :)
• Try to gear your map towards the average audience.
• Dont forget to create a good looking thumbnail and room description.
• Ask for help on discord. Most builders are willing to help.
• Dont forget about color blindness and hearing impairment when designing your puzzles.
• Try to show what happens when you solve a puzzle in the immediate vicinity. If you solve a puzzle, and a door opens in the other room - thats bad design.
• In the end its all about fun. Your room can have the most complex puzzles, or the shiniest graphics and amazing sound design, but if its boring it wont work!
• These are only guidelines that might help to make your room better. You can choose to ignore them all and go with your own flow.

It's to time start building your cozy rooms!

We hope you are excited about this final Build-A-Room contest of the year and we cant wait to see all of your cozy creations! Don't forget to join us over on our Discord or our subreddit where you can talk to other builders and exchange tips. Our December Festivities will be shared across our Discord and social media channels, so we hope to see you there!

Pine team

[ 2023-12-01 18:11:21 CET ] [ Original post ]