Judges & Voting

Learn about the voting process, criteria and the judges.

Voting Process

Once all submissions have been gathered, they go into a processing stage. Submissions go through verification and ensure all correct information has been provided in the submission forms. Failure to submit correct details could result in a submission not going to the final voting stage.

Voting will never be given out to the public, this is subject to popular voting and abuse of voting systems which we at the sandbox wish to avoid at all times.

Processing and Gathering

All valid submissions are checked over. We check if the asset complies with the theme. We do allow some leeway for creative interpretation. Check it meets guidelines. Under 5k faces, 175 nodes or less, within the size guides and the asset has at least 1 animation.

Check asset doesn't break any copyright issues.

Although we have IP contests its still very important not to incorporate any logos or copyrighted materials, unless stated in the medium that the IP is looking for something specific.

Voting Form

Submissions are looked over and 30-40 of the best submissions go into a final voting form.

Sometimes we increase the number if there is excellent quality that we feel more should be included in final voting. Judges are given a guideline on what the judging criteria is and what to look for on each criteria. No names for the artists assets are given in the voting form to avoid any popular voting.

Results Processing

Once the deadline for voting is closed. The results are then totalled up. In cases where usability is worth double points these are then calculated at the end. The top 10 is then announced on our VoxEdit Twitter as well as in our Discord. Prizes are sent out within 3 weeks of the results being announced.

Judging Criteria

• Creativity (How creative was the asset based on the theme?).

• Usability (How usable is this asset in other games? Colliders on asset, multiple animations, compatible with GM behaviours).

• Optimisation (Does this asset look optimised in The Sandbox Game? Faces and Node count).

• Aesthetics (Shape, proportions, Colour palette, texture and level of detail).

• Quality of Animation (Was new animations added? How good are the animations?).

• Complexity (How difficult is the asset to make)

Regular Judges

Regular Judges are our Staff members and ambassadors that have direct knowledge with both VoxEdit and Game Maker that are skilled in knowing the complexities with VoxEdit and how to create assets that are usable and workable within Game Maker. They are given the medium article to the contest as well as guidelines on the judging criteria.

Guest Judges

For IP related contests; Members of that IP are given a voting form to take part in the voting. This voting is only done with the IP and will never be shared to the public. They are carefully briefed on the voting criteria to ensure they know exactly how each criteria should be judges and what to look for.

The Sandbox Staff

On VoxEdit contests like the "Live VoxEdit Contest" all Sandbox Staff are invited to take part in voting. Otherwise a set of Sandbox Staff is selected to be part of our judging panel every contest

It's important to note that some IPs will want to determine some of the rankings for the contests. If asked, we only allow IPs to determine at maximum the top 5 positions with the judges votes being counted for the other positions. This doesn't happen often and we strongly discourage IPs from this practice.