The First Watch Tournament

No. No purchase necessary. The demo is free and so is the tournament. Wishlisting the game doesn't help or hurt you.

Yes: joining our Discord is required to take part, and it's free. The weekly tables and announcements are posted there, and that's how we contact winners. To claim a prize you must be a member when we announce the results.

No. It is a contest of skill: the best score on the ranking within the dates wins.

Yes. Your score is multiplied by the watch you pick: FIRST LIGHT ×0.75, THE LONG WATCH ×1, DEAD OF NIGHT ×1.30.

Yes, and you should. Until October 26, play as much as you like to try out builds and find the path to the highest score. Those watches count for the Demo Season, not for the tournament. Until it starts we may release demo updates (fixes, balance or new things), so what you discover may change: news goes out on Steam and on our Discord.

Yes, every watch that ends, win or lose. Abandoned watches (restarting, going back to the menu or closing the game midway) are not sent.

The watch is saved and posted automatically the next time you open the game with Steam and internet. For the tournament, what counts is when it reaches the server: if it arrives after the close, it doesn't count.

Check that Steam was running, that POST MY WATCHES TO THE RANKING was on when the watch ended, and that the watch actually ended. The ranking only shows your best watch. Your history is in %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Lone Torch Games\The Long Watch\historial_guardias.txt: if it still doesn't show up, send it in #tournament-help on our Discord.

No. One person, one Steam account, one prize. Multiple or shared accounts disqualify every account involved.

Yes, if you meet Steam's minimum age in your country. Steam Wallet credit is for players 18 and over; if you make the podium, you get the key, the credits and, if you're 1st, your character, with your parent's or guardian's permission; the cash goes to the next adult.

In Steam Wallet credit: we send digital gift cards and Steam converts them to your currency. You must have been friends with the studio's Steam account for 3 days.

On the day the full game launches, by private message. It has no release date yet.

The speedrun 1st place appears in the full game as a character with the personality and voice they choose, with their nickname. We never use your face or real name. If you don't want it, you can turn it down and keep the rest of the prize.

By talking with the studio: tell us who your character is, how they talk and what they care about, and we show you the lines before recording. It has to fit the world: dark, medieval, fantasy.

You can record it yourself with a regular microphone (we send the lines, in English like every voice in the game) or, if you prefer, an actor or the studio makes it from your description. We never imitate a real person.

We look for another version together. No trademarks, characters from other works, real people or anything offensive. The studio has the final say and may adapt the character, but the goal is for it to feel like yours. There's no extra payment or royalties: the character is part of the prize.

The server calculates the score and rejects impossible data; every watch is signed and tied to a Steam account. Before announcing we manually review the top 20 and may ask for a recording. If you find a bug that breaks the score, tell us privately.

It measures how long it takes you to win the demo from scratch. In RANKING → TOURNAMENT press START A RUN: your Workshop is emptied and left with no Blood (yours is saved and comes back when you leave). Play on THE LONG WATCH: lose, gather Blood, buy upgrades and keep going until you win. Every watch that ends, won or lost, is a watch of the run; if you abandon one, it isn't a watch and you can redo it, but its time is added. The Workshop and menus don't count. A watch finished on another difficulty voids the run. The lowest time wins; with equal times, whoever got there first. All of this is also inside the game, under HOW IT WORKS.

For the speedrun, yes: the top 3 send the full, uncut video of the whole run, from pressing START RUN to the win, abandoned watches included (OBS works). No video, no prize. Record any run that is going well.

When each watch ends, the end screen tells you whether the server REGISTERED it. In SEE MY WATCHES (RANKING → TOURNAMENT) you have the whole run, watch by watch. If it stays uploading (no connection, or a Steam or server delay), wait: it retries by itself; if it doesn't arrive, restart the game, and if it still doesn't, write to us on Discord. If the server rejects it, the run is voided and the game tells you why. The run enters the table only once the server has all its watches.

Only the ones you buy during the run: it starts with an empty Workshop and no Blood, and between watches you buy with the Blood you earn. What you had before comes back when you leave speedrun mode. Went badly? RESTART begins another run from scratch.

You can compete in both, but it is one prize per person: if you make the podium in both, you get the higher-value prize and the other goes to the next player in that table.

This is it: the speedrun 1st place joins the game as a character with the personality and voice they choose. The surprise promised to the best captain of the Demo Season is settled by the tournament.