Iceblade on 19/11/2015 at 17:57
Second draft of rules:
Contest Goal:
This contest is intended to provide novice dromeders with any level of experience to produce and release their first fan mission within a set time frame. In addition, authors will be able to receive grades on various mission aspects by the community to learn what aspects they should work on for their next mission release. There are few restrictions on the missions themselves, but authors are encouraged to keep the overall volume of their missions modest.
Construction:
* Authors are allowed to include prologue and/or epilogue story missions - note that there should be little to no gameplay in these missions. Also these "story" missions should be limited in scope so as not to take away significant time from your main mission.
* Authors should design their missions to fit within a 260,000 cubic unit space or less. While this is not a strict limit, missions in excess of 300,000 cubic dromed units total will likely suffer in quality resulting in lower scores.
* Missions must be FMSel and NewDark compatible.
* Authors have twelve weeks in order to build and betatest their missions.
* The contest will begin on December 4th, 2015, 12 am GMT.
* Missions must be submitted before 11:59 P.M. GMT on Feb. 12th, 2016.
* The mission must be submitted via forum PM with a download link at either one of the fan mission sites or a separate download site.
Custom Materials:
* All Dromed custom resources are allowed with the exception of multi-brushes and mission bases.
* FMs or OMs cannot be used as a mission base.
* Custom materials by other builders must be recognized in the readme.txt file.
Teams and Assistance:
* All construction and dromed work must be completed by a single builder.
* Builders should refrain from asking for assistance outside the (
http://shalebridgecradle.co.uk/testing/) Shalebridge Cradle .
* Mission authors will be anonymous during the contest, so limit mission details about your contest mission in areas beyond the Shalebridge Cradle.
* Builders may contact experienced builders for advice privately.
Eligibility:
* Only builders who have not released a solo mission before for T1/G/2 (newdark or otherwise) are allowed to enter.
* Builders who have released a mission before as part of team should PM me the details of their work on the team mission.
* Builders who have released mission(s) for T3 or TDM are allowed to enter.
* Builders shall not release any other missions during the contest building period.
Judging:
Seven criteria have been chosen for judgement. Voters should provide a 1-10 grade for each category for every mission. Gameplay is the highest weighted and most important category. Usage of Space, Story, and Design are the next highest categories and are equally weighted. Atmosphere and Technical complexity/execution (includes puzzles) are the next two categories. The final two categories of resource usage and uniqueness are the lowest weighted.
* Gameplay/Enjoyment - The focus of this criteria is overall fun factor, gameplay variation based on difficulty, ghosting/sneaking, and freedom of movement. Voters are encouraged to grade a mission based on its level of fun during a first play-thru. Replayability should not be considered.
* Atmosphere - How well is the implied atmosphere of the mission implemented?
* Story - Is the story interesting, well executed, emotionally evocative?
* Design - Is the mission well constructed? Is sound propagation implemented correctly? How complex is the missions design architecturally?
* Space - How well the limited space is used? Does mission seems larger than it is? Is it not overly cramped or filled with wasted space?
* Technical - Visuals (effects), conversations, spells, tricks, animations, interactions, complex systems. In addition, for this category you should consider complex puzzle design.
* Unique - Is the mission unusual, is its design or gameplay original or rare?
* Resource usage - Did the author use stock resource creatively? Were custom resources used purposely? Excessive use of a large variety of custom resources should result in a lower score.
Disqualification
* A submission will not be considered if the author releases a mission before the contest submission date.
