Running and Closing a Game

This section describes the behavior of the engine during a game, the process of automatic completion, and options for analyzing the results.

During a game, the engine runs fully autonomously. No manual actions by the author are required after the start.

There is only one rare scenario that requires the author's attention:

• If the last level of your game is configured for a time-based auto-transition (timeout), and some teams left the game and did not enter the interface after the auto-transition time occurred.
• In this case, to correctly record their finish, the author must go to the game statistics page and click the “Check auto-transitions” button. This will force close the levels for the lagging teams and lock in their final times.

• Automatic Transfer: As soon as the game end date and time (specified in the game settings) occurs, the engine automatically moves the game to the archive.
• Player Access: Once archived, the “Enter game” button disappears for teams, and active playthrough stops.
• Scenario Release: If the scenario settings had *“Visible in archive”* or *“Visible in archive, but only to players”* selected, the full game scenario with codes and hints becomes automatically visible to players.

After completing the last level, players see a feedback form where they can rate the game on a scale of 0 to 5 (with a step of 0.5) and leave a text review.

Ratings and reviews are available to the author via a direct link:

https://qeng.org/reviews.php?gid=GAME_ID

*(Replace GAME_ID with the numeric identifier of your game).*

If you want to run an already completed archived game again (e.g., for a new group of players):

• Simply change the Start time and End time of the game to new dates in the settings.
• The statistics of teams that have already played will be preserved.
• Players who have already completed the walkthrough will not be able to re-enter the game.
• New teams will be able to submit applications and play.

<note warning> Important when restarting: If levels used absolute time references (templates with unix_time tags), those timestamps may have already passed. Before restarting, make sure to update all timestamps in level templates so as not to break the experience for new players. </note>