The International Simutrans Forum

(https://i.imgur.com/wP0YX4m.png)

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 1920x1080 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 (https://www.youtube.com/c/simutrans/videos) 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 (https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,22031.msg202031).
  
• 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/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/simutrans/)
  
• Twitter: Using the hashtag #SimutransVideoContest and mentioning the @SimutransTeam (https://twitter.com/SimutransTeam) account.
  
• Mastodon / Fediverse: Using the hashtag #SimutransVideoContest and mentioning the simutrans@fosstodon.org (https://fosstodon.org/@simutrans) 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 (https://youtu.be/8ByzhEHGeoA) 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.

• 2022-06-30 - A look back at our shared history. The Simutrans Timeline. (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2417)
  
• 2022-07-15 - An interview with Hansjörg Malthaner, the Founding Father. (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2430)
  
• 2022-07-30 - The Simutrans Museum (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2438)
  
• 2022-08-15 - An interview with Markus Pristovsek, the Adoptive Father (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2443)
  
• 2022-08-30 - For everything else, there's Simutrans (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2449)
  
• 2022-09-15 - An interview with James Petts, the Ex Father (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2456)
  
• 2022-09-30 - New Simutrans trailer (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2465)
  
• 2022-10-15 - An interview with himeshi/THLeader, Simutrans OTRP developer (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2473)
  
• From 2022-10-30  to 2023-01-15 - Simutrans 25th Anniversary Video Contest (https://blog.simutrans.com/?p=2482)
  

Excellent!

I think the title of the 25th anniversary event should emphasize "after the start of development".
This may be a gap between Japan and the rest of the world.
I've been playing simutrans for 4 years, and the strange fact is that I've experienced simutrans' 20th and 25th anniversaries in between. Because the Japanese celebrated the 20th anniversary of simutrans in a big way three and a half years ago. Because Japanese people count anniversaries after they are released. (´・ω・｀)

I was going to include that in the title of the events, but I couldn't, because title was too large to publish after including that (for Steam at least), so the shortened version it is.

Anyway, in the first post it was explained that the celebration was because 25 years since the start of development, not since the first release (which in my opinion doesn't make much sense to celebrate in Simutrans' case, but that's another topic).

There is only one week left for submitting your videos for the Simutrans Video Contest!

Remember that you can submit your old Simutrans videos too!

List of currently submitted videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzRXNerdR1xPGfi3ht5eniOzNJySOim4h

(https://i.imgur.com/wP0YX4m.png)

My two submissions can be found here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2y62oat3pzzoarc/AADiKTUYfJdB9mvpDWuVGUP5a?dl=0

I rarely share via Dropbox, so hopefully I shared it correctly. I'm sure I'll find out if I didn't.  :-X

The video titles are in their file names (minus the .mp4)

My submission is found at https://www.dropbox.com/s/zdghqbygelq5gmv/autumnal_journey.mp4?dl=0

Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPGUrdM-ci8

EDIT:
Music used is:
Homeward Bound
Journey's End
both are by Mattias Westlund and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 3.0)

Am a bit late (looking at Europe time) but had trouble with the renderer...

Here is "Akiwa Tsuneyama Main Line Local Service from Nakahara to Yamano":
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b26sltoh4pai6fj/danivenk-Tsuneyama_Nakahara-Yamano.mp4?dl=0

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 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzRXNerdR1xPGfi3ht5eniOzNJySOim4h)

You can cast your votes on this survey in the Simutrans WIki (https://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/survey20).

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

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" (https://youtu.be/pjhQO57slMU) by cousjath (6 votes)
5 - "Barington F line Light Rail Northbound Trip" (https://youtu.be/wLChBawU08w) by Jausdepot (3 votes)
6 - "The New Express Line" (https://youtu.be/qHFjr7OSZ7I) by Fightdrug (2 votes)
7 - "North American Style Commuter Train Journey" (https://youtu.be/l1EQAKOwLCw) 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!

Congratulations to meruhen205!

I would suggest using the voting feature of the forum next time. Somehow I missed this entirely ... (Also too busy in real life, but that is another issue.)

Does the voting feature of the forum allow for non-registered users to vote?

IIRC, that can be set up on a per-forum basis. So if we need a spot to allow for such a thing, I believe I'd need to create a forum for it - probably that didn't allow anyone to post, but anyone to vote. Or maybe guests could post but I'd want to make sure their posts had to be approved.... I'll look into that, but what would be your ideal setup? Then I'll see what I can do to replicate it.

Might take a little time as I'm still exhausted from covid, but I'm working again, so I can do this, just need more time that tonight. lol

(And frankly, I have ADHD, I may need prodding to remember)