Hey all--I've decided to throw a two-month, custom mini-campaign contest!
The idea is simple: starting today (August 15th, 2025), you'll have 2 months to create a short custom campaign in Together in Battle's SRPG campaign creator. All entries will be livestreamed and there will be hundreds of dollars* in cash prizes given out for the top 4 submissions! 🎊
*two hundred and fifty, to be exact.
Contest Theme
"Secret"
The Deadline
The Rules
Your campaign must be playable within Together in Battle (i.e. no custom engines, SRPG Studio, ROM hacks, etc.) You can use Together in Battle's free demo to make it, however! (The demo provides full access to the campaign creation suite.)
Your campaign must be "mini": it must consist of exactly 2 battles and no more than 5 scenes total (i.e. 2 battles and 1-3 cutscenes). Each of your cutscenes can be any length you like.
Your campaign must tell a complete, self-contained story. It's okay if your campaign takes place in the same setting as another campaign--but it must tell a story that feels complete in itself (i.e. it should provide all of the information necessary for the player to understand what's going on without having played a different campaign, and it should not end with a cliffhanger or "to be continued").
Your campaign must relate to the contest theme in some way. For example: it can be about a secret conspiracy; unmasking a secret traitor; learning the secret to achieving some goal; fighting to keep a secret from coming out; secretly infiltrating somewhere; it can have a twist where a character reveals a secret that assures victory when things look hopeless; etc. Exactly how the theme relates to your campaign is up to you to decide!
Your campaign must be your own original work. You may team up with other people, of course, and communal cooperation on how best to use the engine is encouraged. You may use any assets which come with Together in Battle, custom assets you created yourself, or assets in the public domain (including assets with a CC0 license). For all non-public domain assets you use, you must have an appropriate license or written permission. You may not use generative AI in any form or fashion.
You must email me your submission info and upload your submission to the Steam Workshop for Together in Battle by the contest deadline. (If you submit early, you can continue to revise your submission until the contest deadline.)
Submission info to be emailed: the name (or alias) of everyone in your team; the name of your campaign; a short explanation of how it uses the theme; and any other special instructions or information needed to play it.
Scoring Criteria
All submissions will be scored on the following criteria:
Gameplay (40 points)
Pacing (10) - battles should pose tactical questions to the player at a steady pace, neither overwhelming them nor leaving too much "empty" time where the player has no interesting choices to make.
Balance (10) - battles should pose an appropriate challenge without being frustrating; characters should all be useful to some degree, with distinct roles to play in the fighting and progression from leveling up that meaningfully alters their capabilities.
Technical (10) - the submission should competently use a variety of the engine's features (e.g. elevation, special terrain, destructible objects, lighting, weather, triggers, dialogue interactions, etc.)
Bugs will deduct points from this subcategory; make sure to test before submitting!
Creativity (10) - the submission should offer good enemy variety and successfully use gameplay to support the narrative elements; clever or unexpected use of game mechanics or assets, unusual objectives and battlefield conditions, and general originality will make up the remaining points here.
Narrative (30 points)
Plot (10) - what happens in the story? Does it make sense? Does it fit the setting and characters? Is it interesting, funny, or emotionally affecting?
Characters (10) - who participates in the story? Do they have distinct personalities and ways of speaking? Does their dialogue sound natural? Do they develop and change over the course of the submission? Do they have entertaining interactions with each other? Do their motivations naturally play into the plot?
Theme (10) - how well is the contest theme integrated into the narrative? Is the story built around it; are character arcs?
Aesthetic (10 points)
the submission should look and sound good. (This is obviously subjective, but at a minimum, try to avoid issues like excessively loud sounds or terrain tiles that don't work well together.)
Each submission will be scored out of 80 points using the criteria above. I will be judging each entry personally, but I may recruit other judges to help me--if I do, then our scores will be averaged to get the final score out of 80 for each submission.
The submissions will be ranked in descending order by their final score: the submission with the highest score will take 1st place, the submission with the second-highest score will take 2nd place, and so on. Ties will be broken on the basis of each submission's Theme score.
The Prizes
1st Place: $100.00 US
2nd Place: $75.00 US
3rd Place: $50.00 US
4th Place: $25.00 US
Regardless of placement, each and every campaign that is submitted will get a playthrough (with commentary) livestreamed on Youtube!
How to Make a Campaign
I'm planning to create a video series covering all the ins and outs of making a campaign in Together in Battle over on the Sinister Design Youtube channel--but for now, check out this excellent guide by community member Tacitus!
I think that about covers it. Let me know if you have any questions below; good luck and godspeed! 🫡
--Craig