Spookality 2024 Arrives October 1!

Written By Tupper

Amid twisting doorways, a dungeon maze,

VRRat hovers in a bubbling haze.

In his paws, a flask of green,

He whispers softly, "October 14th..."

The liquid stirs, begins to rise!

“It’s ALIVE!” he cheers with sparkling eyes.

The ritual complete, the spell is cast—

It’s VRCat! But green, with a skeleton mask.

Spookality, our annual Halloween-themed jam, returns!

Every year, Spookality allows us to highlight some of the most talented creators in VRChat. From October 1st to October 14th, you can submit your avatars and worlds for consideration.

We will pick the winners on October 14! The best worlds will be featured in VRChat’s main menu, and the best avatars will be in the default VRChat home world.

The theme of our last jam, “Summer Music Fest,” was very broad. You gave us feedback that you wanted something a little more special: Only people who submit entries related to the theme can win prizes. We like this idea, so let’s try it this year!

We also heard that you’d like to be able to split the digital prizes with your collaborators. This is now also possible for up to four collaborators! So, if you have a team of three and you would like to split the one year of VRC+, you would get four months each. For the pins, however, we can only send to one person. I don’t think you want us to chop up poor little VRCat!

Please make sure your email associated with your VRChat account is up to date! We will be reaching out to you through your email to coordinate physical merch prizes this year.

Before submitting, please take some time to review our Official Contest rules as well as our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. The submitter must also have the rights to use the content submitted (including all component parts and any referenced intellectual properties).

Any content violating the above rules won’t be selected!

Additionally, all content submitted must make use of VRChat SDK3 to be qualified for submission. Worlds must use VRCSDK3 for worlds and avatars must use VRCSDK3 for avatars. While the use of more advanced features within the SDK (such as Avatar Dynamics) is recommended, it is not required!

Your content must have been uploaded after submissions have opened (October 1st).

“But what’s the theme?” you may ask.

In Spookality 2024, there are three categories: one for avatars, and two for worlds.

Prizes? For meeeee?

That’s right, we’ve got prizes. Each category of submission, assuming you work with one of our themes, has several prizes available! Check each category to see what you’re eligible for.

This Spookality, we’re offering a few prizes! In addition to the Annual VRChat Plus subscriptions, we collaborated with Makeship on a brand new glow-in-the-dark spooky VRCat enamel pin set! Turns out you probably shouldn’t let VRRat into the chemical cabinet. That guy is a menace.

Avatars - This is My Final Form!

Theme: Create an avatar that makes use of Avatar Scaling Parameters to change its appearance or functionality at larger and small sizes. Check that link for documentation on what parameters to use!

Maybe an avatar that’s cute when it’s small, but scary when it’s bigger? Or the other way around?

Winners & Prizes:

  • 1 year of VRC+ and 1 Spookality pin set awarded for each of the Top 10 avatars

  • Top 25 avatars featured in an “Avatar Picker” in the Default Home world.

Judging Criteria:

  • Performance is Medium or better on both PC and Android

  • Content MUST be Cross-Platform (PC & Android)

  • Theme: Spooky

  • Theme: Creative use of scaling (both big and small)

  • Overall aesthetics

  • Extra Features - toggles customization, etc.

  • Adherence to our Official Contest rules, Terms of Service, and Community Guidelines

The Spookality pins are a set of enamel pins made in collaboration with Makeship: one “VRChat”-themed and one “Spookality VRCat”-themed. The user who submits the winning Spookality entry will coordinate the shipping of the pin through their registered VRChat email. 

Worlds - Fractured Realm

Theme: Create a spooky world where one player has a different goal and abilities from the others.

Maybe you’re a ghost, trapped in a mansion with other players? Or maybe you’re a devious dungeon master, placing treasures and traps? Perhaps you’re the big scary boss monster, and all the little guys have to find ways to defeat you.

We’ve released a special Open Beta SDK to help with this category - VRChat Worlds SDK 3.7.2 includes a heaping handful of helpful items. You don’t need this SDK to submit for this category, but it’ll help. You can install Beta SDKs through the VRChat Creator Companion.

  • Example Central is the new source for examples, making it easy to find and import official VRChat World and Avatar Examples. It has three new examples made specifically for this theme:

    • Player Join Zones - Collect players based on their position and handle basic lobby functionality, enabling users to join a game, play it, see results, then start a new game. It can be used to build opt-in experiences, like a game played by only some of the players in the instance. It also shows how to randomly choose a player to make larger, and extend the prefab’s logic with additional modes.

    • Screen Canvas - Create a Screen-Space UI Canvas for users on 2D screens like Mobile and non-VR Desktop. It also demonstrates how to teleport the user to a destination position and rotation.

    • Mute Others - Mute and unmute other Players, handy if you want some players to be able to plan in secret, or to create a no-talking-allowed experience.

  • Build & Test for Mobile enables you to quickly test and iterate on the Android Mobile version of your world like you can do for the Windows version of your world. Use your compatible Android device to test a world without publishing it.

Winners & Prizes:

  • 1 year of VRC+ and 1 Spookality pin set awarded for each of the Top 10 worlds 

  • Top 10 worlds featured in a special room in the default Home World

  • Top 25 worlds featured in VRChat’s main menu in a special category

Judging Criteria:

  • Content MUST be Cross-Platform (PC & Android)

Judges’ Note: Make it clear what to do in the world. Players and judges may only spend a few minutes in your world. They should be able to ‘get to the fun’ within 2 minutes of joining.

The Spookality pins are a set of enamel pins made in collaboration with Makeship: one “VRChat”-themed and one “Spookality VRCat”-themed. The user who submits the winning Spookality entry will coordinate the shipping of the pin through their registered VRChat email. 

Worlds - Spookality Showcase

Theme: Make a spooky world! That’s it. Boo! AUGH — sorry, I’m easily surprised.

Maybe a chill hangout world that’s Halloween-themed? Or something that doesn’t fit in with the “Fractured Realm” category? 

In previous Spookality events, we’ve seen people submit Spookality-themed content that are updates of their current content, special editions of their worlds, or just Spookality-themed general experiences and hangouts. We love these! We love them so much that we made a category just for you.

Winners & Prizes:

  • Top 25 worlds featured in VRChat’s main menu in a special category

Judging Guidelines

How do I Submit to Spookality?

With all of that out of the way, how do you actually submit your avatar or world?

Like always, you may submit your worlds and avatars via our own Jam portal on the VRChat website! You can access that by logging into the VRChat website and clicking on the “Jam” button right under your profile picture (it’s big and purple, so you can’t miss it!). Or, you can just click here! The Jam submission section will open on October 1st. 

Submissions open up October 1st at 12AM PDT and will close on October 14th at 12AM PDT. Make sure you get yours in before submissions close!

When will People See my Stuff?

We’ll be featuring winners from October 21st to November 4th. 

During that time, the top 10 Fractured Realm worlds and top 25 avatars will be visible in the default VRChat home world. 

There will be 50 worlds altogether featured in two unique world rows (one for Fractured Realms and one for the general Spookality category) on VRChat as well.

VRRat - Pull the Lever!

Creators! You have a week to prepare your spooky creations before submissions open.

Want to share your work in progress on social media? Tag us with #Spookality2024 and we might share our favorites! 

Good luck – we’re excited to see what you come up with.

VRRat, pull the lever! Let’s get started on October 1st.

Tupper
Previous

Spookality 2024 Winners Announced!
Next

Summer Music Festival Jam Winners Announced