Starting today, you have two months (till April 1st) to make a project centered around the idea of an “Adventure Map.”
You are allowed to have a maximum of 3 people on your team, and those people must be listed on the Steam Contributors on the workshop page of your submission.
In the final submission name you must add “MapMania 2025”.
You have two weeks to sign up for MapMania on this form (Closes February 15th).
You will have another forum for you to do for submissions 1 week before this event is set to end (April,1st) which will be provided to you on this forum post.
You can:
Have up to 3 teammates (e.g. Level designers, NPC authors, Asset creators)
Teammates must be listed as contributors on the submission’s workshop page
Get advice and testing for a larger group, but these people will not get rewards.
Use any Vanilla or Curated map asset
For any curated map’s assets, you must link directly to the source workshop page.
Use any assets authored by your team, after the event start date
You cannot:
Submit any map created before the start date.
This includes edits of pre-existing maps
Use any Non-Curated/Vanilla workshop assets (No Object packs, resource packs, etc)
Plagiarism–Will result in immediate disqualification and blacklisting from future events.
Be against SDG’s Values – Values of SDG can be found here.
Kindness and empathy
Acceptance and inclusivity
Gender and sexual equality
LGBTQ+ rights
Anti-racism
Supporting Ukraine against Putin’s invasion. (Note: We understand that many Russians do not support Putin’s war.)
Maps will be judged based as it is. They don’t need to have to work in multiplayer but they have to be playable. You should specify if your submission is intended to be played in multiplayer, please mention it on the workshop page.
Think back to the old Minecraft Adventure/Campaign maps people would make, and how YouTubers would play them for fun. The concept is meant to be up to your interpretation so you don’t need to make it like those old adventure maps. (Examples: Herobrine’s Mansion, The Dropper, Blacklight).
Challenge maps, while very fun, are not in scope for this event. Sorry, no Unturned Skyblock!
How much creative liberty do we have?
You basically have infinite creative liberty when it comes to making a project. As long as the work is your own, you’re good to go.
Tribute Maps are acceptable, but what you’re making a tribute to should be apparent.
If you have a really out-there idea, one that stretches the very idea of an adventure map… we want to see it! Sometimes the incomprehensible is more interesting than the comprehensible.
How long should the map be playable for?
You should aim to make your submission a “fulfilling experience”. Some campaigns are short, some are long–but what makes a good campaign is intrigue, solid design and fun gameplay. This is all to say, you don’t have to strive to submit a multi-hour experience. A short, but well made and interesting campaign is more interesting than one that slogs on for another hour.
This is just depressing to see. Sad imitation of the mapjam. At least have some originality. Literally stole the background for the prize picture from animatic’s mapjams.
Good luck on your contest! I’m interested in seeing how this plays out with the new curated guidelines.
Sidenote- I really don’t appreciate the designer plagiarizing the designs (colours + placards) from the first MapJam trophies.
I heavily, heavily suggest getting your own unique identity to separate the two contests for your own sake. It’s not that difficult!
My apologies about the artwork, This was something that flew under my radar and was not something that I was aware of. The image has been taken down as of now.
For me and many others, a pressing question is: Who will create maps for this game going forward? I find this situation disappointing. A year or half ago, I predicted that eventually, many old veteran content creators would leave, you know about who I am talking. And they would be replaced by newcomers who accepted new SDG rules or its management. The key question is whether these new creators will be able to produce work at the same level as their predecessors. And we’ll find out, though, because of this new event “MapMania 2025”
Well, regardless, I wish the “new generation” of creators the best of luck. Don’t let us down!
What about people that just make maps and don’t engage in politics? Do people that want to submit maps have to state they are in favour of X, against Y or okay with Z? Take for example Russians, pretty sure they can’t outright state a different opinion on the war in Ukraine without facing legal repercussions.
Also, what’s the point of making a registration form if the theme and all guidelines are already given out?
To censor unwanted people out?
So some people can start work straight away but then 2 weeks later get contacted that they’re not eligable to participate due to them doing something stupid and dumb before, and now what? They’ve spent time working on their submission and won’t even get mentioned…
I guess you can use it to gauge engament from the community and the number of probable participants but what’s stopping people from just spamming the google form to bloat the numbers?
If that happens that you are already working on a map for the event and then are told you can’t participate then you could still finish the map and upload it to the workshop. It just means you can’t participate. But I don’t know why they would have to decline some people from participating.
I have some questions. So you basically need to make a map to your liking, which will be playable, unique and with a cool concept? Just come up with and create a map and share it, for example, make some city from real life? Are there any size requirements or can you make a small one but well designed?
