For those looking to wash away all that sand gathered while building castles, Coneva has prepared something for you!

She's been working for a while on a new water park with several activities included, and everyone is invited to attend the grand opening this Saturday at 9pm, Eastern time! A fireworks show is expected to launch the place and the first official boat race to happen on the premises! Visitors will be free to explore and race each other.

Afterwards, those looking for something a bit more active will want to join us at the also new Sea Dome, an underwater arena. Two events are planned to take place over there!

Protect The Villager: You and others must work together in order to protect a defenseless villager against hordes of attacking zombies. Protect him with your life if you must! There will be no prizes for this activity, besides the satisfaction of a job well done.

Last Man Standing: Once the life of our long-nosed friend has been preserved, the group will move on to mass PvP! Everyone goes into the arena at once, bringing their own weapons and armor, and duke it out until only one remains standing. As such, once you've been killed, you can't reenter the battleground until the end of the round. Three such rounds will be done, the three winners each winning a prize. Those will be announced at a later time.

So, that's three events in one, all this Saturday the 1st of August at 9pm Eastern time. Coneva and I are hoping to see many of you there!

Another entry in the long running 1.8 series is set to be released tomorrow to fix a few bugs. This newest version is compatible with all previous 1.8 installs, so you're free to upgrade whenever you want.

Yesterday's Connect Four tournament was a success by attracting 9 players plus several watchers. The level of competition was higher than expected, with many rounds lasting until only a few moves were possible. Some players also refused to be defeated quickly, using every trick possible to keep things running. Eventually, after a few rounds of elimination, HimochiKouen came up on top and claimed the pot of 30 diamonds!

Congrats, Himo, and thanks to everyone who helped make this even more interesting than we hoped!

It is time for a new competition, one that has severed friendships, led to major feuds and bloodshed: CONNECT FOUR!!

If you don't know how this game is played, the rules are simple: two players alternate placing board pieces in any of the seven columns, said pieces falling from the top. The goal is to be the first to line up four pieces either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. All contestants will play 1 vs 1, tournament style, until only one remains standing!

The Connect Four installation has been updated to feature two playing fields. One board will be used to play the tournament while the second one can be used for practice and fun.

The entrance fee is 3 diamonds. All of these will be placed in a chest, and the winner of the competition takes it all! As such, the more competitors show up, the better the final prize!

Be sure to show up at Port Townshend's Boardwalk before 10pm Eastern time this Saturday the 25th with your entrance fee. You can quickly reach the area by accessing the End of Time, entering the Assorted Attractions portal, then hit the Townshend Boardwalk gateway.

See you then!

As I indicated in my contest announcement, the prizes were yet to be revealed. It's time to pull the veil from this!

I'm launching today a new structure of prizes to be used in the seasonal events and other contests:
Merit Points! These are points that can be earned through various competitions and stacked up over time. These points will later allow you to be entered in draws to earn prizes!

The prizes might include, among other options:
- Gift cards
- Steam games
- Signed postcards
- Personalized Minecraft items
- And more!


Everyone who enters a competition, like the ongoing sand castles competition, will earn a few points. The top three winners will get a lot more based on their ranking. Some of the seasonal events will be participation-based (and not always building events), such as exploring an area, so this gives us the flexibility of awarding prizes for completing various tasks.

After a while (the current plan calls for a year of collecting points), the various scores will be tallied up and names will be drawn. Each point will represent one chance of winning. As such, those who won events (and have a larger score) will be in a good position to win, while everyone else who simply participated will also have a shot at earning something!

To check the number of Merit Points you're currently holding, you can type /points in-game. Alternatively, you can look at your Minecraft profile on the forums at any time! Of course, at this moment, everyone's score is at 0.


Now, for this actual contest. The #1 castle will earn its builder a special refreshment after all this sand: a mighty diamond helmet dedicated to working under water! Everyone else, as explained above, will get a specific amount of Merit Points to hopefully win something later on!


As a side note, I'd like the assistance of two judges to help me determine the winners of this building competition. Please drop me a note on the forums if you're not entering and want to help with this!
All good, thank you!

Whenever you want to leave a message to another player, but said player is offline at the moment, you have the option to leave them a book in-game. Of course, this assumes that the person will find and read said book, which is not a guarantee when everyone travels a lot!

A better option involves the forums: as every Creeper's Lab player has an account, you can look them up, send them a private message and wait for the answer. This makes it much easier to write longer messages and includes links and image, as you need. However, not everyone checks the forums, making this a gamble.

To improve on that situation, whenever you connect to any Creeper's Lab server and have a private forum message waiting for you, you'll get a notification after a few seconds!

When you get such a notification, don't forget to go check your messages - it might be something important! As a reminder, you can quickly look up a player directly from the website, using the "Player lookup:" search box under the main navigation menu.

This is the first of such notifications to be included, more will be added if there's a demand or need for it!

Based on some feedback gathered on the forums, I'm introducing something new to the Creeper's Lab: seasonal events! These events will happen a few times a year on a given theme, lasting an entire month each time and taking place in a different world suited for whatever is happening. Kicking off this series is a sand castle building contest!

Rules

The goal of this contest, as previously mentioned, is to build a sand castle. A new world has been generated with a large beach/desert area, giving everyone plenty of building space and materials to work with. No lots are being explicitely marked this time around in order to give the place a more natural appearance. You can use an area up to 20x20 in size, although you can do smaller if you so wish. Be sure to mark your area properly, and to leave a few blocks between your creation and others! You own your lot from bedrock to sky height.

Judges will visit each entry and determine how closely it sticks to the theme, the amount of details included and how well it looks overall.


Location and world

You can reach the location from Central, in a new teleportation point set right next to the TransHub and Nether portal. This new world is set to Normal difficulty. A very limited spawn area has been made, so be ready to defend yourself if you happen to join at night time! A map is available to better orient yourself.

While no lots have been drawn, your entry must be centered around the spawn area. If you decide to build too far away from the others, the judges won't see or consider your entry! You are free to explore this world to find supplies and build shelters; however, do not do any permanent structures as they might be removed at the end of the month. Keep in mind the goal of the event!

Your inventory will NOT transfer to this place, and likewise, you will not be able to bring back anything from this place. As such, you're starting anew! This is done to level out the competition (no one starts with a large supply of items), and to give something fun to do for those who like starting from scratch.


Deadline

This contest is running for all July and begins now. This means that you have until July 31st, at 23:59 to finish your entry!


Prizes

Prizes will be announced later this month, as I'm still working on the full details. Stay tuned!


See you on the beach!