Manticore Games, the creators of the Unreal Engine powered Core game creation platform (previously featured here and here) just announced a new D&D themed contest with a $20K USD in prizes.
More details from the official contest announcement:
So today I’m excited to announce that Manticore Games has launched our official D&D Design-a-Dungeon Contest that will run through September 6. In this contest we are challenging our community of Creators and newcomers to imagine and build original adventures in Core inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. Prizes totalling $20,000 will be awarded for the best D&D-themed games and experiences in four different adventure setting categories: strongholds and towers, the wilderness, elemental planes, and of course dungeons, caves, and catacombs.
To assist contest participants in their quest, Manticore has created a new “framework.” Frameworks are the kits we use to give Creators content, tools, and templates to start building in the game genre of their choice. The D&D Contest framework includes a collection of weapons, NPCs, a basic level progression system, example fantasy props, and a template white-box dungeon map. It’s the toolkit to get you started not just building a contest entry, but any sort of RPG you can imagine. We’re also building a special “hub world,” the fantasy village Corehaven, that will connect to all of the winning worlds through portals found in a magical shrine.
All the winning games and explorable worlds created during the contest will be unveiled and be playable during a special PAX Online storytelling and gameplay panel in September. We have invited our favorite D&D celebrity players and DMs to reveal and play through the contest winners. During the panel, they’ll also share tales of their most epic D&D adventures. We will be working with them and our community to recreate these scenes from inside Core. During the panel, we’ll show these recreations as they tell their legendary stories.
The winners are to be announced at PAX Online which is set to begin September 12th so time is certainly limited. Core is currently free and available for download here.