Months afters its open alpha launch in March, Core is picking up some more steam with its creator contest in partnership with Dungeons & Dragons, which wrapped up Tuesday.
Using Core‘s creator tools, 150 games were created for the Design-A-Dungeon Contest that were inspired by the fantasy tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, showcasing the potential of the platform to facilitate the creation of a wide variety of games. All of the games are available to play on Core for free.
The overall winner of the contest is the game Forgotten Cisterns created by player Keppu. It puts players in the shoes of an adventurer who is beginning their initiation into the Heroes Guild and has to go clean up some sewers, but is confronted with an undead menace. It’s a fun and short take on a fantasy action role-playing game with the option to play through it in a multiplayer session if you want to team up with friends or strangers.
Clearly not your average sewage backup.
Image: manticore games
The contest included categories for games set in the wilderness, the elemental planes, dungeons, caves and caverns, and strongholds and towers, with each category having its own winners. The winner for the elemental planes category is Corruption of Aurealis by Kelseru, which largely plays like a fantastical platformer with a little combat thrown in there and includes a hilarious wisp of a guide that prods you along on your journey. Best Little Horror House by CircleToons took the top place for the strongholds and towers category, is a darker adventure that blends comedy and horror elements with tons of jokes and pop culture references.
For Kelseru, Corruption of Aurealis was her first game she made in Core, which she picked up after she began learning how to code in April, which goes to show how intuitive Core‘s creative tools are even for people without a lot of experience. Meanwhile, CircleToons has a background in making mods for the game Neverwinter Nights, which is based on Dungeons & Dragons.
Within the scope of Dungeons & Dragons, it’s so interesting to see the kinds of ideas and experiments Core players have been able to come up with. Plus, Core‘s browser feature makes trying a bunch of them very easy, and the contest winners all connect back to each other within the games themselves through Core‘s portal system.
Some of the games from Core‘s Design-A-Dungeon contest are a bit more creative spins on D&D while others, like the overall winner Forgotten Cisterns, feel more like they’re tabletop D&D sessions brought to life in the game.
The assets available in ‘Core’ make it easy to bring your own fantasy game to fruition.
Image: manticore games
To highlight that aspect of Core, developer Manticore Games hosted a panel at PAX Tuesday featuring some celebrities and internet personalities who play D&D including Reggie Watts, Deborah Ann Woll, Xavier Woods, Sam Riegel, and Jerry Holkins. They recounted some D&D experiences of their past and had those scenarios recreated in Core to sometimes hilarious affect.
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Anyone could use Core to recreate their D&D sessions like this, come up with totally new ideas, or just play through other players’ creations. Currently, some of the most popular games on the platform are a farm simulator called Farmer’s Market and a marble racer called Roll ‘Em, which shows the kind of freedom players have in their creations.
As Core continues rolling on through its alpha and more players create more games, it feels like more possibilities are opening up for this game and could make quite a big mark when it releases in full.