Official Level Design Contest: May/June

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Mystic

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Welcome to the new official level design contest. Hopefully this will provide more interesting judging and entries instead of creating the general boredom that happens after a while.

There are now two divisions, match and single player. Here are the important parts of each type, for those who would like the specifics:

Match stages are arenas for players to fight. 32 deathmatch starts are necessary to randomize the spawning, but if the stage loads and runs okay, it’s an acceptable entry for the match contest. Chaos spawns are a plus. You should also have a Player 1 Start to keep the level from crashing if loaded improperly.

Single Player stages are designed to play in 1 player, and have to include a start and end, and obstacles in the way. Generally, it’s a good idea to give the map support for Cooperate and Race mode, but it’s not necessary.

The full rules of the contest are as follows:

1. All levels must work correctly in their selected mode. Support for other modes is suggested, but not required. Levels will be judged in either Match or Single Player, depending on the contest you’re entering.
2. The map may not have been publicly released before. In other words, if you have released the level on the Addons section or on the forums or IRC channel, you may not enter it. However, if it’s unreleased, that is just as good as being completely new, and is a legal entry.

For the match contest, these additional rules are in place:

1. Custom textures, music, SOCs, and other lumps other than a header and the map itself are not allowed in the Match contest. Match levels are going to be combined into a single WAD file, so in the interest in getting the entries out on time, you have to be creative with what you have.
2. Please place the header both in the WAD and outside the WAD in a separate .txt file. This aids in getting the contest WAD complete and ready for judging as soon as possible.

Submissions are to be sent to my e-mail at mystic@srb2.org. The contest submissions period ends on July 1st, 2005 at 12:00 AM GMT. (June 30th, 2005 at 7:00 PM EST). Any submissions that are late will be possible to get in if you get them to me before the judging starts, but if you’re late, you’re taking a risk that you might have to wait for the next contest, so please get your file in on time.

Judging will consist of voting on the message board. Any member can vote, giving a number for each map from 0 to 10, zero being the most abysmal piece of crap ever, and ten being total perfection. You cannot vote on your own map. To encourage voting, if an entrant votes on everyone else’s map in the contest, the lowest score on all of their entries will be dropped.

Judging will start the instant the files are uploaded, and continue until a week after they were uploaded. The exact time when voting will end will be shown when the files are uploaded. At that point, all votes will be averaged and the map with the highest average in each category will be declared the winner.

The winner of each contest will have his or her map uploaded into the “Level of the Month” category of the Addons section. There may be additional prizes added before the submissions period is over.

All entries are welcome, from beginners to advanced level designers. Even if you don’t win, this is an excellent way to get feedback on your stage to help improve. Collaborations are allowed, and testing is encouraged strongly.

Good luck to all the participants. Hopefully we'll have enough entries this time to justify having a voting period.
 
hotdog003 said:
Cool!
Just to make it clear: Custom textures/M00Z4K are allowed in the SP division, right?
Yes. You can add any weird lumps you want to the single player stages, because they will not be made into a single pack like the match stages will.
 
I can confirn that I will have a match map done for this contest. It will be very large with many secrets. I have began already and will be working very hard on it.
 
Can we release our unfinished maps for debug/error testing?
EX. WinCrash98 doesn't work, the textures are all fudged up and the flats are crazily unusable. Can I release my map so you guys can fix it for me?

WinCrash98.png

There are 3 problems with this: The pink line through the recycle bin, the tiled start menu (supposed to be 224f. wide, looks to be 128f. wide), and the red noise through the flat just above the start menu. It's supposed to be solid white.

The size of the icon texture is 128x512, the start menu is 224x32, the flat is 64x64, and the last bit of the start menu texture is 4x32. Are they supposed to be square or something? 'Cause, it would really speed up my design if they didn't have to be.

*sigh*
Boy, I thought that Windows was bad, but it even hates me enough to not let me edit windows-themed levels!!!
*switches to Linux*
 
Thanks! Maybe Act 2 would have an XP-theme, but I don't have XP, so I'll need someone to take screenshots for me like mad.

Are group-efforts allowed?


Oh, if only it worked...
Say, are textures supposed to be square?
 
Hotdog, I explain everything up there. It specifically says that both answers are yes...

Read the rules *mauled*
 
I have XP, I could probably take a few screenshots... Oh, and as far as the testing and group effort thing goes...


Mystic said:
All entries are welcome, from beginners to advanced level designers. Even if you don’t win, this is an excellent way to get feedback on your stage to help improve. Collaborations are allowed, and testing is encouraged strongly.

hotdog003 said:
Say, are textures supposed to be square?
I would think so, yes. A rhombus would tile rather awkwardly, don't you think?
 
Mystic said:
It specifically says that both answers are yes...
No, it doesn't. It doesn't say that textures have to be square...
*shot*

Sorry about that, Mystic...

So that fixes the texture problem; I'll go resize everything so it's fair and square (if you'll pardon the pun), but what about the flat?

EDIT: Nevermind, I got it working. No more pictures until the release.
Say, Ritz, *could* you take alot of screenshots of XP? I'm looking for the start menu, the 'Your program has crashed' dialog, and stuff like icons, explorer, etc.
Thanks!
 
Now... I shall go crack open WadAuthor, and stare at it 'till something comes to me.
*Cracks it open*
:eek: *stares*
 
I'm sure some of us will be pleased to know that I will be participating in this contest. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I still have it in me. So I'll be submitting a map or two to make things interesting.
 
Tets said:
I'm sure some of us will be pleased to know that I will be participating in this contest. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I still have it in me. So I'll be submitting a map or two to make things interesting.

You should be some stiff competition. Then again, you may have gotten rusty...
 
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