September has arrived, which means it's almost time for the Build-A-Thon! In case you missed it, Escape Simulator's next room building event will take place from 17-09-2022 00:00 CEST until 18-09-2022 23:59 CEST. Builders will have exactly 48 hours to build a room based on a theme that will be announced shortly before the Build-A-Thon kicks off. More information on the Build-A-Thon can be found here. Ready to join in on the room building fun? Sign up for the event via the Google Form found here.
Now that we've got all that out of the way, you could probably do with some inspiring examples of what an excellent community room can look like. Well, the dedicated room builders from our community have got you covered! So without further ado, here are our top community room picks for August!
Can you dig your way out?
We were really impressed by the sheer size of Abandoned Mine by namo_krub, which took us quite a long time to finish! In Abandoned Mine you have to escape, well, an abandoned mine. Pretty obvious, right? However, it's not going to be easy! In order to evacuate safely, you will need to face the mine's many challenges. This includes operating heavy machinery, fixing an elevator and identifying several rocks (or are they minerals?). Will you be able to make your way back to the surface?
It's a masterpiece!
Stroke of Genius is the latest room by Brengo, who you might already know from S.O.S. - An escape room out at sea and the Scientists' Office series. Brengo's latest room takes place in an art gallery which contains four different paintings made my by your recently deceased grandfather. Each painting will take you to a bite sized escape room with its own theme. Together, these four paintings will unravel your grandfather's story bit by bit. An excellent way of compiling several themes into one room if you ask us!
The final frontier!
We're always happy to see new up-and-coming room builders join our community. One new builder to definitely pay attention is GetOffMyBeard! We were really impressed with The Space Escape, which is only the second room they ever published! The Space Escape features a whole bunch of very clever puzzles that we really enjoyed solving and we think you will too! And let's be honest, you can never have enough space rooms, right?
Whodunnit?
If you enjoy some good old film noir, then you should definitely check out Noir in NYC by MelonVerse. For this room, MelonVerse has made excellent use of the recently added color filter, because the entire level is in black-and-white. Noir in NYC also features some excellent voice acting by community member and room builder Robin, which really adds to the room's atmosphere. You're going to need your detective skills in order to solve this murder mystery, so be prepared for some tricky puzzles!
Ready to build?
We hope all of these excellent rooms have inspired you to start building yourself! If they did, why not sign up for the Build-A-Thon right away? If you need help to start your room builder journey, you can also consider joining us over on Discord or Reddit. Thanks again for all of your support and we hope to see you on September 17th when the Build-A-Thon commences!
♥ Pine team
Build-A-Thon Summer '22: Builders' Choice!
Ready, set, build!
Attention, room builders!
The time has finally come for us to announce the next room building event! However, this time around we will be mixing up the formula just a tiny bit! Allow us to tell you what Escape Simulator's very first Build-A-Thon will be all about!
⏰ The clock is ticking!
This time around we will need you to work on a much tighter schedule than before! Instead of having the event go on for several weeks, the upcoming Build-A-Thon will last 48 hours! To be precise, the Build-A-Thon will last from 16-09-2022 00:00 CEST until 18-09-2022 23:59 CEST. It will be a race against time itself, but we're sure you'll be able to fully utilize those hours to create something incredible!
🙋 How do I sign up for the challenge?
You can sign up for the the Build-A-Thon via this 👉Google form 👈 For the upcoming two weeks, you are also abelt to send in your own ideas for themes that everyone will need to work with. Afterwards, the theme we liked the most will be the final theme for this Build-A-Thon and will be announced in our Discord.
🗺️ Where do I submit my entry?
The submitting form will be shared with the participants right before the start of the Build-A-Thon! For now, we ask you to fill in the sign-up for and share your fun and creative ideas for its theme!
🏆 Prizes
Of course the winners of this challenge will not go unrewarded! The three winning entries will get a receive a Pine Studio mystery box! In order to maintain the mystery behind this box, the contents of the box will have to remain a secret for now. 😉
📑 Rules
Room must be entirely new, no projects that were already in progress
Room needs to be built between 16-09-2022 00:00 CEST and 18-09-2022 23:59 CEST. Any rooms published after 18-09-2022 23:59 CEST will not be considered.
You can only submit one room. Multiple submissions will not be counted.
You must upload a video walkthrough of your room and a workshop link.
You are allowed to bug fix your room after submission, but not resubmit an entirely different room.
Copies of other players' rooms are not eligible.
Keep it fun/clean! Don’t create anything that might be considered offensive in any way or form. No profanity, racism, hate speech etc.
⚖️ Judging criteria
Rooms will be judged based on criteria such as the quality of the puzzles, level of innovation, visual appeal and more. We will compile a list of ten rooms that will make it to the community voting round. After this list gets published, it will be up to the community to pick three winners. More information on voting will be shared at a later time.
⚒️ How to make a room
Go to Escape Simulator, "Workshop" button, "Your Rooms," and press "Create". This creates an empty room, and you can start building. To get some help, you can look through "Tutorial Rooms" and learn the basics such as puzzles and animation. Or you can watch our tutorial video. Need some more inspiration? Then you should definitely check out the winners from our previous ‘Build-a-room’ challenges! Finally, you can also join our dedicated Discord community to ask about anything you might need help with!
See you soon!
So that's it from us for now! You can start sending us your theme suggestions right not via the Google form found here. We can't wait to see what all of you will come up with! See you on the 9th of September!
♥ Pine team
Our top community room picks for July!
Summer has arrived!
Wait, it's August already? Time really does fly when you're having fun!
Speaking of fun, we are currently participating in The Yogcast's Tiny Teams 2022 Festival, which is taking place between August 1 and August 8. To celebrate our participation in this event, both Escape Simulator and the Steampunk DLC are on sale now! Go check out our store page for more info!
Now without further delay, it's time for us to announce some more monthly picks! July has once again been a great month for community content and while selecting some of our personal favorites wasn't easy, we hope you will enjoy these recommendations!
Lost at sea
Looking for a short and sweet community room to play? Look no further than S.O.S. - An escape room out at sea by Brengo! This might be one of the most spacious community rooms we've played so far, as it takes place at the open sea! You're the survivor of a shipwreck and you will need to find a way to get back to the mainland. By the way, did we mention that there are sharks around? Good luck!
Spyfall
Do you love espionage? Want to play an awesome community room with one of your friends? If you answered 'yes' to both of these questions, then You Only Spy Twice by Elkondo is the room for you! This room features two different roles, which means you and your co-op buddy will each have a different experience while playing through this room. Don't have a co-op buddy yet? Well, then you will just have to spy another day! 🕵️
It's about time!
If you've been keeping up with our monthly picks so far, you might be familiar with Klaode's 'Mind Lock' series already. Like previous entries in the series, Back To Now continues to explore the theme of entering someone's mind to fix their memories. Once again, Klaode proves to have a real knack for creating some incredibly clever puzzles. We love to see it!
Open the gate!
Last but certainly not least, it's time for some sci-fi nostalgia! You might remember that back in the nineties, there was this very famous tv show called Stargate. Well, room builder Asahi made a stunning looking room based on that exact tv show! We were incredibly impressed with the sheer amount of detail in Stargate-Escape and on top of that, the puzzles it contains are a lot of fun to figure out. If you haven't already, you should definitely check this one out!
More Escape Simulator?
Well, that officially wraps it up for July, but of course we still have a lot more stuff planned! This includes four entirely new rooms, a whole bunch of updates to the room editor and a new event for our room builders! More information on future updates can be found in our latest dev update! In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy Escape Simulator. Thanks again for all of your support!
♥ Pine team
Dev Update: What's next for Escape Simulator?
Busy, busy, busy! 🛠️
Wow, can you believe that it's already been nine months since Escape Simulator was released on Steam? Seeing as it has been a while since our last development update, we thought it would be good to give you a little sneak peek at what we've been working on behind the scenes. We hope you are as excited as we are because there is still plenty of stuff coming up for Escape Simulator!
We heard you like updates! 👀
First off, we're glad to tell you that we still have four additional rooms planned for Escape Simulator! Two of these rooms are already in production, while the other two are currently in the design phase. Each of these rooms will be centered around an entirely new theme which we will reveal later!
More of a room builder than a puzzle solver? No worries, we've got you covered as well! While the in-game room editor recently got its major 2.0 update, that's definitely not the end. We are still working hard on adding even more features and tools for you to build with! We are working on several features: Texture exporter, next level loader, 2 new transparent planes, new sprite display, and many, many more!
Finally, you might wonder if there will be another Build-a-Room challenge soon! Over the past couple of months we received a lot of incredibly valuable feedback from our community in regards to these events. We've been gathering and processing all of this feedback for our next event which will be taking place in September. We will share more information on that soon!
But first, a short Summer break! 🌞
As a team, we're proud of what we have accomplished so far, and we are incredibly grateful for our awesome community. However, even we need a break sometimes, which is why Pine Studio will be off on vacation for the next two weeks. Hopefully, after that, we will once again be completely energized to bring you even more content and updates! We hope you all have a great Summer vacation and we will see you soon!
♥ Pine team
Our top community room picks for June!
It's been an exciting month!
Wow, July already? Where does the time go? Summer has arrived, which can only mean one thing: Steam Summer Sale! You can still get Escape Simulator with a 25% discount until July 7, so be sure to tell all your friends!
June was once again an incredible month for all of us here at Pine Studio. Not only did June see the release of the new Steampunk DLC, but we also released the free Room Editor 2.0 update, which provided room builders with a whole bunch of new tools to play around with! Speaking of room builders, June was also a great month for new community rooms! So without further ado, here are our monthly picks for June!
Look who's inside again...
Did you know that it took room builder Franch over 600 hours to create his very first room INSIDE: Escape Simulator Edition? Yeah, we were quite impressed too! The result? An incredibly fun and original room based entirely on Bo Burnham's comedy special Inside. Franch even went as far as to record cover versions of the songs featured in said comedy special. Whether you're familiar with the source material or not, we can confidently say that you definitely need to check this one out!
Get ready for more mind-bending puzzles!
If you ever played any of the rooms from Klaode's 'Mind Lock' series, you probably already know what you can expect from The Path of Memories! The Path of Memories is the fourth instalment in this mind-bending series. You will once again have to enter the mind of someone suffering from memory loss in order to try and restore their memories. Up for some very intriguing puzzles? Then this one's for you!
Teamwork makes the dream work!
Want to know what makes the Escape Simulator room building community so incredibly awesome? The fact that the builders from this community are always glad to help each other out and even collaborate on projects! The biggest example of such a collaboration so far? Why, The Collab: Boardgames of course! For this community room, twelve builders all made their own individual rooms which then combined to make one big room. All of these separate rooms are based around one central theme: Board games! We love this initiative and would really like to see more collaborations like these!
All the world's a stage...
We're pretty sure everyone has heard of William Shakespeare before, but how familiar are you with his work? Well, The Seven Ages of Man is based on a series of paintings by Robert Smirke which are in turn based on a monologue from Shakespeare's As You Like It. Still following? Well, in this room by Wollo you will be going through the titular seven stages of man, from infant to old age. This room features a series of seriously tricky puzzles, so be sure to give it a try if you're up for a challenge!
Who's the best? You're the best!
So that's it for our monthly picks for June, but there are of course many other great community rooms out there! Did you miss any rooms which you think should have made the cut? Be sure to let us know in the comment section below!
Finally, we would like to thank all of you for your continuous support. There is still plenty of awesome stuff coming up for Escape Simulator, so we hope you continue to look forward to that! In the meantime, why not join us on Discord or Reddit where you can stay up to date about all things Escape Simulator? We hope to see you there!
♥ Pine team
v1.0.22791 hotfix
The Crew Quarters
Fixed cannonballs
Added water sounds
The Greenhouse
Fixed sign and flower faces
The Helm Room
Fixed textures
Fixed handles
Room editor fixes
When changing behavior on a prop (button/animation) the prop no longer gets removed from the activator targets
Dial value counts can no longer be set to 0
Importing props fixes:
Custom models are now copied when imported (but they need some time to load in and the prop isn't refreshed when they load in)
Importing audio, scripts and custom model files is blocked if the room is not saved
Fixed some models not loading paint-overs properly for custom models
Fixed steampunk walls on new room
Added a dropdown for the impostorClone update type: Never/OnChange/Always
Other fixes
Fixed unable to unsubscribe from custom room when the files are deleted locally
Male/Female character model colliders are now the same size
Scrollbar snaps to the top when entering workshop rooms menu and when searching
Fixed activator component desyncs in coop play
The Collab: Boardgames
The Steampunk DLC is here!
It's been been a little more than a week since we officially launched the Steampunk DLC for Escape Simulator! Taking place on a majestic steampunk airship called ‘Valor’, the DLC features a total of four new rooms, each of which are bigger than any of the previously released rooms. If you haven't already, you can wishlist the DLC right here!
However, maybe you've already purchased and finished the Steampunk DLC! If that's indeed the case, you might just be interested in playing even more awesome rooms to keep that escape mood going! Luckily, our community recently provided just what the doctor has ordered! On that note, we can highly recommend you to check out Escape Simulator's very first mega-sized collaboration room made by a grand total of twelve excellent room builders from our community!
There's no I in team work!
Last month, several room builders from our Discord server were discussing the idea to make one big collaboration room together. This idea eventually came to fruition and resulted in the creation of The Collab: Boardgames. The idea behind this massive project was that each of the room builders involved would create a single smaller area based around a specific board game. Each room builder was allowed to apply their own signature style. In the end, all rooms would get compiled together to form one mega-sized room.
If you ask us, the final result speaks for itself! Each area featured in The Collab: Boardgames is a unique little space that serves as a showcase of what you might expect from the creators that made them. Above all else however, we are just floored by the sheer awesomeness of this initiative! It took a lot of planning and resourcefulness for the builder to create and combine all of their creations and we are beyond excited to see that our community members pulled through to deliver this awesome room for you to enjoy!
Here's one more hotfix patch for the base game, Steampunk DLC and the Room Editor. We did a bunch of smaller fixes but here are the most important ones in 1.0.22752r version:
General changelog
Added an option to remove timers
Fixed host can start a custom room before all players have installed it
Steampunk DLC fixes:
Fixed some hint/key item tags and item names
Removed the trunk fruit from the tree
S1 lighters can no longer be picked up before solving the puzzle
Room editor changelog:
Teleport - "change rotation on teleport" checkmark is no longer inverted
Room title issue with some characters (like %) fixed
Fixed loading steampunk walls when creating a new room
Victorian key prop no longer has the unlocking audio when placed on the floor
Steampunk props - fixed some pivot and collider issues
I would also use this opportunity to say that we would really appreciate it if you could leave a review of Steampunk DLC (and the base game) on the Steam page. It would help us big time! ❤️
Love, Pine team
Our top community room picks for May!
The Valor has arrived!
If you’ve been keeping an eye on our channels, you might have noticed that we released the brand new Steampunk DLC last Monday! This DLC takes place on a majestic steampunk airship called ‘Valor’ and features a total of four new rooms, each of which are bigger than any of the previously released pre-built rooms. It’s currently still on sale with a 10% discount, so now would be the best time for you to board the Valor!
However, chances are that you have already played through all of the new rooms and are still hungry for more awesome content! Luckily, there are of course plenty of great community rooms that are more than worth your time. In fact, we have once again selected four of last month’s finest rooms for you to enjoy! So without further ado, these are our monthly picks for May!
A towering achievement!
In Aqueduct Tower by namo_krub you get to explore...well, an aqueduct tower, of course! While wandering through this ancient structure which has been out of operation for millennia, you accidentally get trapped. In order to escape the tower, you will have figure out the mechanics and get it working again. Are you up to the challenge?
Cats can have lasagna, right?
Something strange is going on with Grandma's Kitty! In this room created by Cico, it is your task to feed and take care of your grandmother's many different pets. Sounds easy enough, right? However, it might be trickier than you'd expect! Will you be able to figure out what Grandma's Kitty is secretly up to?
Can you solve this mystery?
Fair warning, Catholic Orphanage is not meant for the faint of heart. In this room by Tarmo, you'll have to solve a mystery which the authorities were unable to uncover. If you're up for something really scary, then this is the room for you!
An epic conclusion!
The Scientists' Office Part 3 by Brengo is the final chapter of the Scientists' Office trilogy. It picks up right where Part 2 left off, so be sure to check out the previous entries in case you haven't played those yet! In this final chapter you enter a realm disconnected from the normal world. Will you be able to save the very concept of science itself?
Up for even more community rooms?
Want to be the first to find out which rooms might be featured in next month's picks? Or perhaps you would like to learn more about how to create your own rooms! Well, if that's the case, you might be interested in joining our official Discord server! Here you'll have the chance to chat with some of the most dedicated room builders from our community and find out about their upcoming projects! It's fun!
♥ Pine team
Steampunk Assets Update & Hotfix
Hello explorers! We've listened to your feedback and fixed all critical bugs and issues reported in the last few days. Also, we've added all Steampunk assets to the room editor for everyone to use! The update is now live, and here's a changelog of fixes that we can remember we did:
Added new Steampunk props for Room Editor
Loading custom model without images fixed
Fixed cannon bug in Steampunk 1 (S1)
Fixed Omega DDR3/PC bug
Fix not seeing Steampunk image as a client if the DLC is not installed
Fixed puzzle box bug in S1
Added reset button sound in S1
Added better spawn points
The botanists should be happy with new updated plant names in S3
Multiple texture fixes in all rooms
Yellow crystals don't stack with bolts and screws anymore
Fixed box clipping in S1
The butterfly in the greenhouse now has a much better path
The propellers are now ok in the helm room
The radar doesn't have that one bright button anymore
The labyrinth in the engine room should work every time!
The seed shouldn't disappear from anyone!
Multiple optimizations
Added more bugs to fix later
If you have any issues please send us via Steam or directly on our Discord.
Thank you so much for playing and supporting our work! Love, Pine team <3
