Players have had two spooky weeks to build their perfect spooky haunted houses in a special contest area in the desert on the east side of the island. Between the wonderful new items added by Facepunch and the terrifying new NPC’s roaming, it’s been an incredibly exciting wipe! Yesterday, a couple of admins and myself had an opportunity to tour the contest area and check out everyone’s hard work. As with all of our housing contests, each location is rated on a scale of 1 to 10, in 5 different categories, from how well it conveyed its theme, to how well it’s decorated, and then those points are tallied and averaged for a final score.
Our Grand Prize winner was Jake, with his incredible “Maze Macabre!” Jake managed not only to create a compelling and interesting haunted house, but he built a whole experience around it, very successfully emulating the feeling, experience, and enjoyment of a real-life corn maze, and he even tried to be present for each person who reached the end of the maze to help them celebrate, to give them goodies, and an impromptu fireworks display for their efforts. In 
included a genuinely challenging maze, riddles, challenges, and a fun haunted house in the center. Great work, and a huge congratulations on your prizes for next wipe! We’re looking forward to seeing what you do through 
November!
We had a two-way tie for our first runner-up was Jakolantern, with The Pumpkin Corporation’s genetic research lab. Throughout the facility, and as you wandered deeper and deeper into the bowels of this site, more and more
layers of secrets began to be peeled back, revealing that the doctors working to cure people of their ailments were actually creating deranged pumpkin/scarecrow/human hybrids, and running extensive, murderous experiments on them. The overall theme was unique and moving, and a unique take on the horror genre, that even managed to illicit not one, but two jump-scares with well-placed lights and turrets.
Our second-first runner-up was Dasbronco, creating an old rural church-
turned-funeral home. While the theme was a little bit of a trope, the execution on that theme was absolutely top notch. Where the other winners showed an interesting and creative step outside the box, this one took what was in the box, and polished it to a lustrous shine.
Our second runner up was Killer Jermz with what appeared at first to be a 
simple, straightforward mansion, but one that held a secret. As you explored the themed, dark, and oppressive rooms, it became more and more clear that the owners of this home had dark appetites that demanded satisfaction, and upon delving into the cellar, you find that it’s no cellar at all, but a torturous dungeon, complete with a supply of captured island survivors, including our long-lost Mrs. Muerte. 
Also within the dank dungeon were a number of ritual pieces and coffins for collecting those who didn’t survive the dungeon–which makes us beg the question, “Who was on display in the funeral chapel out back, and who fills all of those graves in the ‘family’ cemetery plot?”
A huge shout out for all of our winners, and congratulations! Thank you all for your hard work, your dedication, and your creativity! We can’t wait to see what you come up with next, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day in February by ripping out hearts and eating them, with the spoopy return of our late winter Halloween redux!
We hope that everyone had a great time for the 4th of July yesterday, and that you’ve still got all your eyes and fingers. With record-breaking high temperatures hitting all across the Northern Hemisphere over the last month, it’s time for us to do our part to cool things off! Several of you have already heard a little bit about the promo, but here’s the really real official word: Christmas in July!
