Competitive Experience Mode is enabled when creating the experience in Step 1: General of the experience creation wizard.
Before You Start: Blueprint Prerequisites
Before you can set up a Competitive Experience, three blueprints must already exist: one for Red Squad, one for Blue Squad, and one for the Shared Environment that connects them.
The Shared Environment blueprint must be attached to both squad blueprints ahead of time — this isn't something you do inside the wizard. On each squad blueprint's own Blueprint Details page, add the Shared Environment blueprint using + Add Blueprint next to Allow Shared Blueprints. Only once it's attached to both squad blueprints will it show up as an option in the wizard.
A couple of requirements apply to this linkage:
- The Shared Environment blueprint's default snapshot and each squad blueprint's default snapshot must be provisioned in the same CloudShare region.
- The Shared Environment blueprint and each squad blueprint must use different (non-overlapping) networks.
Note: If these aren't set up first, the wizard's Shared Blueprint field will show no options once you select your two squad blueprints. Turning on Competitive Experience
A Competitive Experience toggle appears in Step 1, below Preconfigure Student Environments and above the Blueprints field, with a subtext explaining what it does: "Split the participants into competing squads, each with its own blueprint and environment — interacting through a Shared Environment."
The toggle is off by default — turning it on doesn't affect any existing experiences.
Note: Competitive Experience and Multi-step mode can't be used together. Turning on Competitive Experience Mode disables Multi-step (and automatically turns it off if it was already on) Assigning a Blueprint to Each Squad
Once Squads Mode is on, the single Blueprint dropdown is replaced with two rows — Red Squad Blueprint and Blue Squad Blueprint — each with its own badge and its own independent dropdown. Both are required, and each squad needs its own selection (you can pick the same blueprint for both, but you have to select it twice).
The Shared Blueprint field (used to connect the squads via the network bridge) stays disabled until both squad blueprints are selected. Once they are, it only shows Shared Environment blueprints connected to both selected squad blueprints — if none qualify, the dropdown is empty, and a message explains that the squad blueprints need a shared linked blueprint.
Changing either squad blueprint afterward clears the Shared Blueprint selection so it can be re-validated.
Note: Squad names (Red Squad, Blue Squad) are fixed at this step and can't be renamed here — custom naming isn't available for this release.Shared Environment View Access
The existing Enable Shared Environment View Access toggle behaves a bit differently once Competitive Experience Mode is on:
- If it's turned on, a new dropdown appears — Assign Shared Environment view access to: — where you choose Red Squad or Blue Squad. Only one squad can have view access per experience.
- If it's turned off, the squad selector stays hidden.
You can leave the squad selector unassigned here and set it later in the Editor, but a session can't be launched with Shared Environment View Access on and no squad selected.
Note: Enabling Shared Environment View Access is optional. If it's left off, the Shared Environment still connects the two squads, but strictly at the network level — participants and instructors get network-only access to its VMs (for example, via CLI or RDP), rather than a shared, live view through the Participant Viewer and Instructor Console.