Occupy White Walls News

[p]Someone once said "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." That someone was Pablo Picasso. While not being a game developer he understood that endings and beginnings are often the same thing.[/p][p]Hello Artinauts.[/p][p]This is a hard one to write.[/p][p]On March 16th, 2026, we will be turning off the OWW servers. The game will no longer be accessible after that date. No more building. No more wandering. No more discovering that weird gallery someone built inside a volcano at 3am.[/p][p]We're sorry.[/p][p]In our last message, we told you the game was complete and that we'd keep the lights on for as long as we could. We meant it. The truth is we've been paying out of pocket for the last four years, since 2022 - because we loved what we built together, and because shutting it down felt like bricking up a cathedral. But the spreadsheet has finally won the argument spreadsheets always win.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]What's Not Ending[/h2][p]Here's the hopeful bit: DAISY and Kultura.art aren't going anywhere.[/p][p]The artworks, the artists, the AI that treats everyone's taste as equally valid - all of that continues. Kultura will keep growing, keep connecting artists with audiences, keep doing what OWW set out to do from day one: make art accessible, democratic, and personal.[/p][p]The art keeps arting. The walls just won't be there anymore.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]What You Should Do Before March 16th[/h2][p]If you'd like, walk through your favourite galleries one more time. Take screenshots. Record videos. Stream it. Capture the spaces you built and the spaces that moved you.[/p][p]The galleries you created - the cruise ships, the liminal mazes, the faithful recreations of museums that exist in countries you've never visited, the ones with the questionable jukebox choices - these were extraordinary. They were yours.[/p][hr][/hr][h2]Not the End. The End of the Beginning.[/h2][p]We started OWW because we asked a stupid question: why are there no video games about Art? Eight years later, we still think it was the right question. We still think the answer matters.[/p][p]Kultura carries that answer forward. And who knows - maybe one day, in some form we can't quite picture yet, there will be new walls to occupy. We're not promising anything. We're not teasing a sequel. We're just saying that the idea that started all this hasn't stopped being exciting to us.[/p][p]But if it happens, it might be a very long time from now, and it might look nothing like what you remember. That's okay. Duchamp didn't make two urinals.[/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Thank You[/h2][p]To every Artinaut who built a gallery, bought an artwork, left a comment, uploaded a painting, argued about curation, danced in the Plaza, or simply wandered through someone else's imagination for a while - thank you.[/p][p]You proved that a game about looking at paintings and building walls could find its people. You built an Artiverse. The walls may come down, but what you made in them was real.[/p][p]See you on Kultura. Keep arting.[/p][p]- The StikiPixels[/p]

[h3]TL;DR: Occupy White Walls is complete. The servers stay on (for now), the art keeps arting, and we're proud of what we built together.[/h3][p]

[/p][p]--- [/p][p]Ten years ago, we asked ourselves a simple question: why are there no video games about Art?[/p][p][/p][p]Not games with beautiful art. Not games as art. Not even games set in art galleries. Games about Art—about discovering it, living with it, building spaces for it.[/p][p][/p][p]The answer to that question turned out to be a rabbit hole far deeper and more psychedelic than we ever anticipated. It pulled us into machine learning and AI recommendation systems. Into the philosophy of taste. Into architectural sandbox design. Into building an economy with no scarcity and a social space with no combat. Into arguments about what makes something "good" and whether that question even means anything.[/p][p][/p][p]Two years later, we emerged—blinking pixels, all of us—clutching Occupy White Walls.[/p][p][/p][p]We wanted to make something genuinely new. Not another game about microtransactions and shooting people. Not a live-service treadmill designed to extract maximum engagement. We wanted to prove that games could be art platforms—spaces for discovery, creativity, and community.
[/p][p]We think we succeeded. Maybe we were too radical. Maybe too naive. (Turns out "relaxing art gallery sandbox with no win conditions" is a hard pitch to monetize.) But we'd rather have made something genuinely new that struggled commercially than something cynical that printed money.[/p][p][/p][p]---[/p][p][/p][h3]The Numbers[/h3][p]We collected 20,000+ artworks to discover and built 3,000+ gorgeous Unreal building blocks to create with.
[/p][p]Here's what you did with them:[/p][p]- Galleries totalling 740 times the floor space of the Louvre - built by you, one wall at a time[/p][p]- Over 1,200 years of collective playtime - spent wandering, building, discovering
[/p][p]You didn't just play OWW. You built an Artiverse in it.[/p][p][/p][p]We still believe we made one of the best games about architecture out there. We're not aware of any other game that lets you create environments this abstract, this strange, this beautiful. For some people, that's incredibly exciting. For others, it won't click. That's okay. Not everything has to be for everyone.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]---[/p][p][/p][h3]So Where Are We Now?[/h3][p]
The game is complete.[/p][p][/p][p]We know "complete" sounds strange in an era where games are expected to update forever. But we've always believed games are artworks—and artworks can be finished. Nobody asks when the Mona Lisa is getting its next patch. Nevermind didn't ship with a roadmap.
[/p][h3]What continues:[/h3][p][/p][p]- The servers stay online (for as long as we can afford it)[/p][p]- The art collection keeps growing—artists upload new work constantly[/p][p]- DAISY keeps learning and improving[/p][p][/p][h3]What you shouldn't expect:[/h3][h3][/h3][p]- Major new features[/p][p]- New building assets[/p][p]- Active ongoing development[/p][p][/p][p]Fair warning: some small bugs have made themselves at home and we've learned to coexist. Fixing what looks like a tiny issue in a system this interconnected can take weeks of work we simply don't have anymore. If something isn't game-breaking, it's probably staying.
[/p][p]We have day jobs now. Those day jobs help us keep OWW's lights on.[/p][p][/p][p]---
[/p][h3]A Note on "Dead Games"[/h3][h3][/h3][p]We see the reviews. "Dead game." "Abandoned." Posted by people with 400, 600, 800 hours played (for free).[/p][p][/p][p]Here's something those reviewers might not know: keeping an online game running costs real money. Every month. SQL databases, cloud infrastructure, GPUs crunching neural networks, load balancers, etc - for OWW, we're talking around $3,000 monthly. Out of pocket. Because we refuse to let it disappear.
[/p][p]If a major game studio or publisher had made this game and it performed the way OWW did commercially, they would have shut down the servers six months into the beta. You'd have screenshots and memories, nothing more. The fact that you can still log in today, eight years later, and walk through galleries that players built in 2019? That's not a dead game. That's stubbornness. That's us caring about something we made more than the spreadsheet says we should.[/p][p][/p][p]A dead game is one you can't play. You can play OWW right now. You could play it tomorrow. You've been able to play it continuously since 2018, for free.[/p][p][/p][p]---[/p][h3]
What's Next[/h3][p][/p][p]We're still genuinely excited about DAISY. We think it's a unique development in the history of art—an AI that treats everyone's taste as equally valid, that doesn't care about fame or auction prices, that helps people discover what *they* love rather than what they're told to love.[/p][p][/p][p]We're thinking about new ways to make DAISY more accessible and relevant to more people and artists. We might have some announcements soon.[/p][p][/p][p]OWW isn't the end of the story—it's a rift through time and space, an anomaly that refuses to close. It'll keep humming quietly in its corner of the internet as long as we can manage it.[/p][p][/p][p]---[/p][p][/p][h3]Want to Support Us?[/h3][h3][/h3][p]Tell a friend about the game. Leave a nice review. Share your experiences in Occupy White Walls—the galleries you've built, the art you've discovered, the weird corners you've found. Being nice costs nothing.[/p][p][/p][p]If you want to go further, buy art upload credits on \[Kultura.art](https://kultura.art) and gift them to an artist you admire—especially one who might be a bit old-school and not know how to navigate digital platforms. Maybe there's a painter in your community. Maybe your grandma did some paintings that deserve to be seen. That's what keeps this ecosystem alive: more art, more artists, more discovery.[/p][p]
[/p][p]---[/p][h3]
Thank You[/h3][p][/p][p]Thank you for building with us. Thank you for the galleries, the conversations, the cruise ships and mazes and retro wonderlands you created. Thank you for proving that a game about art—a genuinely weird, non-violent, non-exploitative game about looking at paintings and building walls—could find its people.[/p][p][/p][p]We're proud of what we made. We're proud of what you made with it.[/p][p][/p][p]Keep building. Keep discovering. Keep arting.
[/p][h3]- The StikiPixels

[/h3]

OWW: 1.1 - ‘Hello world’
Someone once said:"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." That someone was Van Gogh. While not being a game developer he describes the creative process very well.

Hello Artinauts!
We’ve been so busy we forgot to actually tell the world about our recent updates(!) and all the things we added/fixed in the past 12 months. We may be silent and introverted but rest assured we are nowhere near done with the Artiverse. So please accept our apologies and check out these cool new features in the game!

PS
Ever wanted to show one of your artworks on a phone because you didn’t have a gaming PC nearby? Well... Did you know you can use your OWW account on KULTURA.art? It’s a web/mobile interface that gives you access to your in game art collection, comments and notifications + some special features. It also has DAISY and art collected on KULTURA will show up in your OWW account. Give it a go…

Broke all the rules:

• Expansions removed - no limits, run free :)
  
• New FreeForm rotation method with holding mouse button - 360 degrees of freedom - hold left mouse button and move the mouse.
  
• Ability to reset a gallery - ever wanted to nuke a gallery? Start fresh? Please be careful with the red button (you can find it in the main menu on your gallery list)
  
• Carpets to set spawn points in your gallery - those innocent (‘welcome’) carpets are connected to GPS satellites and allow you to set visitor spawn points if precise targeting.
  
• Complexity meter - showing the expected performance of your gallery - if you care about those things.
  
• Stickers! Customise your space even more (we didn’t think it was possible but hey :)
  

Improvements and optimizations:

• Dramatic performance optimization (we did a lot), tons of it - Loading performance, graphics, UNREAL engine updates, tons of assets optimised, networking, replication, rendering etc.
  
• New main menu UI - a fresh coat of paint (and some ceramic coating!) never hurts.
  
• Your game account is now synced with the website (KULTURA.art) - you can log in with the same credentials, and it's perhaps easier to review your collection on a more convenient website. Ability to like art in game (replacing wishlist)
  
• New cursor (!!) looks much better now.
  
• Arrow assets now can be mirrored - so three lefts make a right now :)
  
• Localization updates
  
• Change the building distance (asset placing) - with a mouse wheel scroll
  

Bug Fixes:

• Music volume balance on loading
  
• Artefacts on building/deleting assets effects
  
• Fixed avatars having wrong material
  
• Head bobbing finally removed (yay!)
  
• Economy problems (wrong income, NPCs not leaving cubes, incorrect charge for buying assets), now sorted.
  
• Login and registration problems - fixed!
  
• Fixed galleries search bar working incorrectly when gallery name has special symbols
  
• Fixed Environment tool not working when you are far away from the starting position
  
• Fixed free camera not showing your own avatar
  
• Fixed artwork preview in inventory not showing some info
  
• UI could get unresponsive after viewing user profile - fixed
  
• Fixed avatar visibility bug when switching between first person and third person
  
• Fixed bugs with Portals (not being able to set destination, portal UI not opening in some cases)
  
• Fixed bugs with granting building permissions
  
• Fixed water shader producing artefacts on some graphic cards
  
• Fixed how long usernames appear to fit some narrow UI holders
  
• Fixed visual bugs for mirrored assets
  

New Assets:

• 44 Stickers
  
• New trails effect masks
  
• 71 new frames
  
• “Invisible neon” walls, floor and ceiling
  
• New assets available at Dealers in Piazza
  
• tons of new assets in the pipeline, stay tuned
  

Stay tuned for even more exciting news, SOON™

KULTURA Ex Machina
London, June 2023

We are delighted to announce the winners of our June 2022 gallery building competition.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It was a joy to explore and immerse ourselves in the galleries and to see the wonderful worlds this diverse and creative community produced.
All of the Stikipixels were thoroughly impressed with the standard, scope and ambition of the galleries, well done to all those who built one.

While everyone's a winner in our eyes, we chose the following 10 winners for the June 2022 competition - in no particular order:

4swift2 by swift2


This gallery was more in the FX heavy vein but is expertly constructed by someone who knows how to build in a labyrinth style.
It has a great use of light and reflective surfaces that make it very photogenic.

Basalt Black Gallery by juliencfernandez


We felt this was the perfect example of a 'small but perfectly formed' gallery and that it showed an obvious ability to build well using the assets and it didn't feel overly cluttered and demonstrated a good use of space, colour form etc

Can Fla by flanagan


We were impressed with this gallery because it is built around a central hub and has many impressive architectural flourishes - We think the builder made good use of light and reflective surfaces and glass again to create a feeling of ambience, and it has very much a ‘chill’ and look at art vibe

Inside my head by gutfeeling


We liked the abstract and geometric forms of this gallery, it almost has the feeling of a mad scientist lab feeling which we appreciated a lot and it is certainly interesting as an unconventional gallery space with unique forms and details.

Megaron by krfn


This medium sized gallery was very consistent in style - it is a solid portrayal of a classical style of gallery with some nice touches such as a homely room with a fireplace.

Observatory by helioworld


We found this gallery to have an interesting well formed layout, and again it also explored a science lab type theme effectively

The End of the World as we know it by Shan Show


This gallery impressed us all with its complexity and scope.
We liked how it uniquely mixed organic forms with a classical architecture style in an interesting and engaging way.

The Halls of Liminus by good mourning


A fantastic 'theme based' gallery - It starts off dark and bizarre and we all liked the idea of making a gallery exploring liminal spaces.

The Eternal Garden by Kaleidoscopicdragon


Another Thematic gallery - The Eternal Garden is a linear journey gallery which is heavily about evoking an experience or atmosphere for the player - the end of the gallery with the tree is especially impressive for photos as it uses minimal shapes for maximum effect.

The Great and Secret Gallery by experientia


This was a very funny surprise for us all and amused us a lot, the mosaic is also very well made and impressed us.

Prizes have already been given out with exception to art codes and extra gallery slots. We are working on assigning these as we speak. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if there are any issues or if you have any questions.

Well done to you all!

Keep on creating, keep on building,
Keep on Occupying White Walls!

Over the past year there were tons of updates and cool new assets added to the game so we feel it’s a good time for a new trailer, featuring cool player galleries. And... you guessed it, we need your help!



[h2]WHAT IS IT?[/h2]
We’re launching a gallery building competition to showcase the limitless possibilities of art (and OWW), endless player creativity and just for fun.

We want to see ‘showcase’ galleries that can be used to impress people who don’t know about OWW and its special vibe.
[h2]RULES/REQUIREMENTS[/h2]
⚀ The only rule is about size, it should be a new gallery with no more than 100 expansion cubes (should be enough, less is more etc :)
⚁ It can be in any style/design in fact the more original the better
⚂ Keep an eye on the Complexity meter; try keeping it green or yellow - please 🙏
⚃ Featured galleries should not be changed until the end of 2022
[h2]TIME[/h2]
Starting NOW until June 14th! Extended to June 21st!
[h2]REWARDS[/h2]
Rewards for every player who enters a gallery:
⚀ 2 million cubes
⚁ An additional gallery slot
⚂ One cool (unreleased) car statue
[h2]REWARDS FOR ALL WINNERS[/h2] (where we feature your gallery in the new game trailer)
⚀ 10 Art upload codes (you can gift them if you'd like)
⚁ Another additional gallery slot (2 extra total)
⚂ Added to the gallery featured screen until at least the end of 2022
⚃ 3 additional unique statues (so 4 in total)



Steam does not trust google form links, so the submission form link may be blocked and you may need to copy and paste to access the entry form.

https://forms.gle/LndX4DG3xEKoUH8SA