SMS Returns Halloween Community Map Competition

Halloween Community Map Competition

Halloween is coming up, and what better way to kick off October than with a community map competition with some not-so-spooky prizes! Build us your best/scariest/funniest/most unique maps using the SMS Returns Level Editor and let's have some fun.

• 1st place: $100 & map pinned to the Community Spotlight for 1 week
• 2nd place: $50 & map pinned to the Community Spotlight for 1 week
• Admins Choice award: $25 & map pinned to the Community Spotlight for 1 week

• 2x Community Choice award: 1x SMS Returns Steam Key & map pinned to the Community Spotlight for 1 week

How to enter

Create your map in the Level Editor, publish it to the Steam Workshop, then simply post your submission to the official Discord #map-contest-2026 forum! https://discord.gg/7fSvvdaqgm

Your submission must contain a link to your map on the Steam Workshop, a description (can be the same as the Workshop description), and a note about what makes your map special.

Deadlines

Submissions must be finalised by 24th October 11pm BST

Judging will take place on the 25th October with winners announced 9pm GMT

Judging Criteria

The 1st and 2nd places will be scored by me based on the following criteria: Quality, creativity, and how fun the map is. You don't need to stick to the classic SMS formula - feel free to be creative and branch out, clever ways of using the Level Editor features will be rewarded and meme-ing is encouraged! Create your own original map or put your twist on a recreation of other popular media like The Backrooms. Remember, the Level Editor now supports custom assets, trigger volumes, and custom enemy meshes, so the sky is the limit! The official video tutorial is available here to get to grips with the controls and features: The Admins Choice award will be selected by the community admins from maps that did not win 1st or 2nd place.

The 2x Community Choice award will be given to the two submissions with the highest number of votes so make sure you show your love to your favourite maps! If the highest voted maps win one of the other categories, the award will get passed down to the submission with the next highest number of votes.

There is a two map entry limit per person. If you have any questions please post them to the #sms-returns channel. Have fun!