Not looking to make maps yourself? Search the Steam workshop for the "2023 September Map Builder Competition" tag to try out everyone's submissions and participate in the Community Votes portion of judging.
Prizes
- 1st place: $100 USD steam store credit
- 2nd place: $60 USD steam store credit
- 3rd place: $30 USD steam store credit
- 1st-3rd place: Added to Map Builder Competition Winners Steam Workshop collection.
- All Participants: Added to Map Builder Competition Steam Workshop collection.
Rules
- The competition runs the entire month of September (ie. 9/1/2023 - 9/30/2023). Once the competition has ended there will be a two-week play period where the community can rate the submitted maps on the Steam Workshop. Winners will be announced on October 14th!
- All submissions must be published and public on the Steam Workshop with a tag to denote the pack’s participation in the competition. See the How to Submit section below.
- Map creators can submit a total of up to 3 map packs to the competition with each pack containing however many maps you want. If you submit multiple maps only the highest-rated one will qualify for placement.
- Due to legal reasons users from Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, or Italy cannot participate.
- Winners may choose to receive their prize via PayPal which may be necessary for international (outside the US) prizes.
- All NSFW, Gore, Political, and Drug-related content is forbidden.
Judging Criteria
Maps will be judged on two criteria. Community votes and judging categories from the developers. Every submitted map pack will receive a score between 0 and 10 stars ★. Five of those stars come from user votes on the Steam workshop while the other five stars come from the judging criteria.
If a map pack has a small number of votes, its star score is capped to a maximum. (5 stars)
| Vote Count | Score Cap |
|---|---|
| Less than 5 votes | 3.0 max stars |
| Less than 10 votes | 3.5 max stars |
| Less than 15 votes | 4.0 max stars |
Judging Categories (5 stars)
- ★★ Fun Factor: How much fun is the map pack to complete?
- ★ Polish: Is the gameplay experience smooth with no errors or softlocks?
- ★ Story: Is the dialogue, themes, and/or plot of the map pack engaging, funny, or otherwise enjoyable? (Note: This does not mean you need a strong story, plot, or characters. Good usage of objectives, dialogue, and map actions to acknowledge the player’s actions will grant you a high score in this category.)
- ★ Novelty: How original or interesting is the map pack relative to the current campaign or example map packs? (Note: This is not general originality! A rogue-like, visual novel, or turn-based map pack is very original and interesting as a Byte Lynx map pack even if those genres are well-tread in the broader games space.)
Score Exceptions
- If you update your map after 9/30/2023 you will receive a one-time 0.5 star ☆ penalty. Note: This does not mean you can submit new map packs beyond 9/30, but you may update an existing submission. Any updates may or may not be judged depending on the order in which we play/test the maps.
- If we receive more than 50 submissions for the contest. Only the top 50 by star scores by user criteria (listed above) will be judged.
How to submit a Map Pack
To submit your map pack to the Map Builder Competition you need only check the “Submit for Map Builder Competition” toggle in the in-game publishing menu. This will add the “2023 September Map Builder Competition” tag to your Steam Workshop item.
If you have any questions about the competition or would like to connect with other map creators, please join our Discord.
