About
Enter our competition for the chance to develop a story script for Questo, an award-winning platform for city exploration games.
What is a city exploration game?
Users play the role of a character to solve puzzles and discover more about the history, culture and locations of the city they’re in. Each game contains elements of outdoor escape games, treasure hunts and location-based roleplaying. Watch a demo video.
We've teamed up to offer a competition that is all about creating your very own city exploration game. You will develop a script following any theme you’d like, but must include elements of fiction writing, location selection, puzzle creation and fact-finding.
The first place winner will receive a cash prize of £1000, a bundle of creative writing guides and access to a number of Writers & Artists creative writing masterclasses, while second and third place will earn free advertising for their games and a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2023.
Additionally, every single game entered into this competition will be published. So even if you aren’t chosen as a winner or runner-up, as long as your entry adheres to Questo’s rules and guidelines, you’ll be able to earn 75% royalties of all future game sales.
Over 250,000 people have played a Questo game. Will yours be the one they play next?
To Enter
Go to the Questo Creators’ Room web platform and register a new account for free. This is the tool used to build games.
Complete the registration process (2-3 minutes), where you’ll get details about the process, and then start building your game.
This type of competition will require a little more than just writing. However, by using Questo’s web platform, you can make use of their guidelines as well as reaching out to the Questo team for help.
Before you get started, here’s what you need to create a great game.
• Be physically present in the town or city where you want to create a game
• Have creative writing skills (scripts, short/long fiction stories, novels, creative copywriting etc)
• Have basic location research capabilities (adding locations on a map, writing precise text directions, taking pictures of places - with a camera or smartphone)
During the process, you'll be working on a couple of different types of content.
1. Design a route and puzzles
2. Research and write facts for your locations
3. Write your fictional storyline that ties everything together
Effort approximation
• Designing route & puzzles (approx. 1 day)
• Researching and writing facts (1200 — 1700 words)
• Writing a fictional storyline (1000 — 1500 words)
Game theme & audience
The games created during the competition can have any theme you choose as long as it's appropriate for ages 10 and up.
The games are played by travellers looking to explore a new city and also locals wanting to spend quality leisure time with their friends or families. You can choose if your game leans more towards travellers' or locals' interests.
About the Questo web platform
- Anyone can access the web platform from a personal computer with an internet connection.
- You don’t need coding or any other special skills to use the platform.
- You will receive access to examples of full scripts (games) before you get started. You can either view them online, remotely, or try them out in a city nearby if you can find available games there. You only need a smartphone to access them.
- The platform is easy-to-use and contains guidelines and help sections for every step of the process.
- The Questo team is available for support during the building process.
- Examples, tools, templates and guidelines are available on the platform.
- Questo games are sold to locals and travellers, both on Questo's own channels and through their distribution partners such as Tripadvisor, Groupon, GetYourGuide or Booking.com.
Eligibility
- All entries must be submitted through the Questo Creators’ Room web platform
- Entrants must select Writers and Artists under the "What brought you here" field when creating their profile in the Creators' Room
- The competition is open to all ages, professions and nationalities
- You can build your game/s in any town or city with a population of over 100,000 residents and/or 100,000 annual visitors
- Writers may submit up to 5 complete games
- All entries must be in English.
- Your entries must be submitted before 23.59pm Thursday 19th January 2023
Timings
The competition will be open for entries on Thursday 17th November 2022 at 08.00am and will close on Thursday 19th January 2023 at 23.59pm.
Our three winners will be announced in Spring 2023. We will confirm the exact date in early 2023.
Prizes
1st place: A cash prize of £1000, a bundle of creative writing guides and access to a number of Writers & Artists creative writing masterclasses
2nd-3rd places: free multi-channel advertising for your games published on Questo, and a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2023.
Every participant has the chance to publish their game on the Questo platform and earn 75% lifetime royalties of sales.
Judging
The Questo editorial team and W&A team member Clare Povey will select the winners of the competition.
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