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Archive for category Contests and challenges

Announcing the winners of the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video Contest

Votations are closed and the first winner is…

“Furniture Industry Route”, by meruhen205. With the diverse routes shown and the attention to details (including the music!), it is no wonder why it is the most voted video – a total of 14 votes. Congratulations!

In the second position we have “Akiwa Tsuneyama Main Line Local Service from Nakahara to Yamano” (have you read it to the end?) with 8 votes by danivenk, another greatly produced video. Good job!

The third place is reserved to “Airport Hotel Shuttle Bus”, by DThunder (he can’t stay away from the podium!), a simple yet elegant video that reached 7 votes. Nice done!

Here is the rest of the winners:

4 – “Autumnal Journey” by cousjath (6 votes)
5 – “Barington F line Light Rail Northbound Trip” by Jausdepot (3 votes)
6 – “The New Express Line” by Fightdrug (2 votes)
7 – “North American Style Commuter Train Journey” by DThunder (1 vote)

Congratulations to all! I will contact you all one by one so you can pick your prizes in order. That may take some weeks, be patient!

The first winner will also be featured in the Simutrans Steam Store page.

That’s all for now! Did you like this first video contest? We may celebrate another one in the future, if there is demand. For now, next year contest will be another screenshot contest. Until then – Happy Simutransing!

Vote now on the Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video Contest!

Thanks to everyone who submitted a video!

Vote now to select the winner of the first ever Simutrans Video Contest! Playlist of participants is available on the Simutrans YouTube channel

You can cast your votes on this survey in the Simutrans WIki.

You can cast up to two votes. Every participant will take a prize, so please don’t vote for yourself!

Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video Contest

Welcome, everyone! The first Simutrans Video Contest is about to begin! This is the first time ever we celebrate a video contest, and it is not the only surprise! This year you can also win actual prizes just by participating! Let everyone win!

Participation
1 – There are no categories. This means you can choose whatever pakset you want, and also whatever Simutrans version you want (yes, including Extended and OTRP).
2 – You can submit as up to two videos. This also means you can win up to two prizes!
3 – You need to include title for every video. Videos without title will not be eligible!
4 – You have until Januay 15st (inclusive) to submit your video!

Theme and guidelines
1 – The theme this year is… Routes! Show us your best routes, for example by following a convoi or different convois. Be creative!
2 – To keep videos clean, hide city/station names and waiting bars. Also, avoid showing non-Simutrans elements such as the title bar.
3 – There are no limits to video size and resolution, but recommended resolution is 1920×1080 as this is the most common resolution.
4 – Video duration limit is 10 minutes, but consider a duration of around 5 minutes.
5 – Use Simutrans music when possible. If you wish to use other music, please check that the license allows for its usage freely.

Remember that you can submit videos that do not fit the theme or guidelines just for the sake of showing others your work, but theme and guidelines will be used to select the winners!

Prizes
1 – For the first winner ONLY: The video will be displayed on the Simutrans Steam store page, alongside the new trailer. If the version used is not Simutrans Standard the next winner will be considered.
2 – For EVERY participant: You can choose a game* from the following list (choosing will be made in order, starting from the first winner):

  • Surviving Mars + Green Planet + Project Laika + Colony Design Set + Marsvision Song Contest + Space Race + Deluxe Edition Upgrade Pack
  • DEATHLOOP
  • Just Cause 4: Complete Edition
  • Ghostrunner
  • Killsquad
  • Railway Empire
  • Little Big Workshop
  • Epic Chef
  • Not tonight
  • Dinosaur Fossil Hunter
  • Gas Station Simulator
  • Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
  • NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
  • Embr
  • A Plague Tale: Innocence
  • Emily is Away <3
  • The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos
  • Forgive Me Father
  • Descenders
  • Monster Train + The Last Divinity DLC
  • The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
  • Disciples: Liberation
  • Golf Gang
  • Maid of Sker

* Games are provided as Steam keys. Some keys may be region-locked in some countries; in such a case, you can choose a different game.

Voting
Voting will be done on a wiki survey (I will post a new announcement when the time comes). Everyone (participants and non-participants) can vote, but you can only vote one time.
If two or more videos have the same votes, we will select a winner, taking into account theme and guidelines.

Submission
1. First upload your video to a site where we can download it (a cloud storage like Nextcloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc…).
2. You don’t need to upload it to a video site like YouTube. You can do it if you want, but we will be uploading the videos to the Simutrans YouTube channel later anyway.
3. You can submit then a link to the video file through the following platforms (don’t forget to include title):

  • The International Simutrans Forum: Posting the link to this thread.
  • Steam: submitting your videos to the “Videos” section of the community Hub, or just posting the link on the Announcement comments.
  • Reddit: Submitting your videos to /r/simutrans/
  • Twitter: Using the hashtag #SimutransVideoContest and mentioning the @SimutransTeam account.
  • Mastodon / Fediverse: Using the hashtag #SimutransVideoContest and mentioning the simutrans@fosstodon.org account.
  • E-mail: Send us your submission via e-mail to social@simutrans.com

We reserve the right to decline any submission that does not follow the guidelines and that we believe not enough effort was put into it.

Resources
If you have never recorded a video before, here are some resources that were used for the new Simutrans trailer video:

  • OBS Studio: Cross-platform tool to record your screen and applications. Fully free and widely used https://obsproject.com
  • Kdenlive: Cross-platform tool to edit your videos. Fully free and part of the KDE project https://kdenlive.org

Finally, if you want some examples / inspiration, you can think on something like the video showcased in our last interview to himeshi.

Simutrans 25th Anniversary
This is the last of the events planned for the 25th Anniversary. Getting to know better the people and the history behind Simutrans has been such an experience, and the videos and projects done like the trailer or the Simutrans Timeline were definitely fun to do, but also very time-consuming and tiring.

I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed doing them, and that they were worth doing. And I hope we have many fruitful years of Simutrans to come. At least, 25 more!

I need to take some months to rest now, but I’ll come back next year with more Simutransing. Until next time, Roboron.

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Simutrans 25th Anniversary #1: A look back at our shared history. The Simutrans Timeline.


Hajo’s first Simutrans sketch. At the top-right, a date can be read: 30-06-1997. Today, 25 years ago.

Simutrans started 25 years ago. Not yet as bits and bytes, but in the mind of a man: Hansjörg Malthaner (known by the Simutrans community as “Hajo”). Today, Simutrans is still alive, not only as bits and bytes in the thousands of computers (and now smartphones) that run Simutrans, but also in the hearts of many talented programmers, excellent artists, amazing modders and dedicated players.

To everyone of you: Thank you! Simutrans has gone very far, and it will go even further, thanks to everyone who believes in the Simutrans project.

Let’s take some time to congratulate ourselves and celebrate this milestone!

But first things first…

A little bit of history

Hajo started Simutrans alone in mid-1997. It was not until early 1999 that the first public beta was released. Simutrans started gaining some interest, and the first contributors, as the precursor of our current forum was created in the early 2000’s to accommodate a growing community.

Hajo kept developing Simutrans until he retired from development because of personal reasons in 2005. Since then, Markus Pristovsek “prissi” takes care of Simutrans, but not alone. In 2007, Simutrans became open source. This move ensured the long term survival of Simutrans and attracted many contributors.

Simutrans stayed on good track after that and would eventually come to other platforms such as Linux distributions, Steam, or more recently, Android.

Meanwhile, as Simutrans matured, other projects were born from it with the intention to innovate even further like jamespetts’ Simutrans Extended or himeshi’s OTRP.

But enough of reading about history. Reading about history is boring. So why don’t you instead see it?

The Simutrans Interactive Timeline

For the first event of this anniversary, here is an exciting idea: Let’s build a Simutrans Timeline of events. Surely a project as old as Simutrans has a lot of history to tell! So let’s tell it, graphically.

The very good news is that we already have built the foundations of this timeline, and it is interactive!

See it right now at simutrans.github.io. You can look more closely an also filter by event type. Here is a closer look at the last two years.

I have added the events that came to my mind, but there are many things missing, and I don’t know everything about Simutrans. Help us get a complete view of Simutrans history by adding missing events to the repository at GitHub. Missing releases, the date a contributor joined, or important events such as the forum migration. Every help is welcome!

The Simutrans 25th Anniversary

That’s not all we have prepared for this anniversary, but that’s all for today. In the upcoming weeks, you will see more posts to celebrate the anniversary. Join us in two weeks from now for an exclusive interview with the Man Who Started It All: Hansjörg Malthaner (Hajo).

If you want to know about the rest of the events: I am not telling you yet!

  • 2022-06-30 – A look back at our shared history. The Simutrans Timeline.
  • 2022-07-15 – An interview with Hansjörg Malthaner, the Founding Father.
  • 2022-07-30 – ???
  • 2022-08-15 – ???
  • 2022-08-30 – ???
  • 2022-09-15 – ???
  • 2022-09-30 – ???
  • 2022-10-15 – ???
  • From 2022-10-30 to 2022-12-31 – ???

Happy Simutransing!

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Announcing the Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest 2 winners

Votes have been submitted and winners are very clear. Congratulations to the winners!

First winner

The first position goes to… Aéroport De Jean Luc Picard, by DThunder518. Congratulations for your revenge, you finally win a contest!

Second winner

In second place, we have another image by DThunder. Schmetterlingsstadt gets the silver medal. What’s this, is DThunder518 going to claim all the podium?

Third winner

The well-earned third place is for… Leartin! Tropical Screen managed to reach the podium and deny DThunder518 yet another victory. Congratulations!

Winners 4-10

In order of votes.

4 – Transit Center, by DThunder518

5 – HSL ICE Passing Berngau Station, by danivenk

6 – Lübbecke, by Flemmbrav

7 – Dos Puentos, by DThunder518 (I think you mean “Dos Puentes”?)

8 – To The Moon!, by Flemmbrav.

9 – Bösel Hauptbahnhof In The DMZ, by danivenk.

10 – Fuchshofen Grenzbahnhof Where 2 Nations Meet In The DMZ, by danivenk.

Conclusion

I’m personally very happy with the results (specially since my favourite screenshot won) and with the participations. The screenshots look pretty good and more than enough were submitted to populate the Pak192.Comic store page, where you can already see them, replacing the old screenshots.


Library Header using the second winner.

I’m also delighted to see that this contest has drawn some necessary attention to pak192.comic, and I’m sure some of you have discovered this magnificent pakset thanks to this. Many of you have expressed feedback on the forums or other channels, and this was very valuable to pak192.comic developers. Perfect, all of this was a secondary objective of this contest. So if you have any additional comments, go leaving them before you forget! And if you liked pak192.comic, let a thumbs up in the Pak192.Comic store page.

Congratulations to the winners, and good luck next time to the ones who didn’t make it there! Join us next time at the end of this year in a special edition of this contest to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Simutrans. Until them, happy Simutransing!

Vote now in the Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest #2

Thank you everyone who have submitted screenshots for this second Simutrans Steam Screenshot Contest. Submissions are now closed, and we have over 20 screenshots from pak192.comic (I must admit that it is a bit over my initial expectations). It is now time to select the winners! Let’s proceed to cast the votes.

Wiki survey

Vote now on https://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/survey19

IMPORTANT: For voting an image select the checkbox at the bottom of the image NOT the checkbox at the top (even if it looks much closer).

When voting please have in mind the theme and guidelines. For this edition you can cast up to three votes, so if you have more than one favourite you can vote for one or two more.

You have until January 23th (inclusive) to vote.

List of participations

I will let you below a complete list of participations, so you can see the screenshots at their original quality.

Aéroport de Jean-Luc Picard, by DThunder518

1 – Flemmbrav, Hamm Station
2 – Flemmbrav, Lübbecke
3 – zeruon, Journey to the East
4 – Huperspace, The Mesh Road System
5 – Huperspace, The Death is waiting
6 – Huperspace, Not so busy market
7 – DThunder518, Aéroport de Jean Luc Picard
8 – DThunder518, Dos Puentos
9 – DThunder518, Schmetterlingsstadt
10 – DThunder518, Transit Center
11 – Flemmbrav, Printing money
12 – Flemmbrav, To the moon!
13 – Cousjath, Clune Junction, 1981
14 – Leartin, Tropical Screen
15 – danivenk, Biggest city in Sitzklauf: Tröndel Hauptbahnhof
16 – danivenk, Gemünden am Main (Tröndel Hbf) Railyard for the NS Abellio Main lines & HSL
17 – danivenk, Main road busy with busses in Willwerscheid just in front of the station
18 – danivenk, Bösel Hauptbahnhof in the DMZ
19 – danivenk, HSL ICE passing Berngau station
20 – danivenk, Barby Quadtracks
21 – danivenk, Fuchshofen Grenzbahnhof where 2 nations meet in the DMZ

Fear of heights

Swiss AlpsIf you love skiing, mountain climbing or a well planned railroad then you can play on this map of the Swiss Alps made by NYC911. It is part of an interesting scenario in which you have to be very careful in laying your track.

Links:

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November’s Edition of Simutrans Monthly Screenshot Contest

Here we are with another edition of the SMSC. The subject of this month is Historical & Modern buildings.

Everybody can participate, with only one screenshot of 800x 600 pixels, in jpg or png formats. You can use any pakset, and the deadline is November 21th. The voting begins on November 22th.

The prize will be a mention of your nickname in the Simutrans Hall of Fame, praises from the whole community and one post including your picture at blog and simutrans.com.

Links:

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Sarlock October Screenshot Contest Winner

october screenshot contest: a tale of two cities

A picture from Canada, (Sarlock’s screenshot) won the SMSC contest. (It could not be more fitting in autumn i should like to remark.) Raiser’s contribution was only one vote behind, don’t miss to have a look at all screenshots at the international forum.

Beside showing Canada, remarkable about the winning screenshot are the new trees. A work in progress snapshot of Sarlock’s extensive (winter) tree project for pak128. Over the last weeks he’s been working on high quality conifers and birches with good winter images.

please find larger screenshots and the original captions below.
(This is an extended cross post from the original g+ post.)

Read the rest of this entry »

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September’s Edition of Simutrans Monthly Screenshot Contest

After the summer break, we reboot the SMSC with a new edition. The subject of this month is Beautiful Stations.

Everybody can participate, with only one screenshot of 800x 600 pixels, in jpg or png formats. You can use any pakset, and the deadline is September 18th. The voting begins on September 19th.

The prize will be a mention of your nickname in the Simutrans Hall of Fame, praises from the whole community and one post including your picture at blog and simutrans.com.

Links:

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