Bonus Contest: The SMC Level Contest (Deadline July 15th)

[The Thwomp King]

Alrighty so a handful of you might be aware of my current episode in production, Super Mario Country (SMC), and how it's been at a halt in production. Seeing as though I won't be able to resume production on my part until another month, I want to give anyone who's interested an opportunity to contribute to the production. What better way to boost morale than a contest!

The Standard Rules

Violation of these rules will result in disqualification.

• The judges mustn't know which level you made. You may not reveal any details about the level to the public before the judges are done judging all the levels. This includes showing screenshots of the level prior to this announcement. You may not submit a level that you've posted screenshots of, or videos for that matter. And you can't say which level you made.
• You may only submit one level. If it's an accident, we'll just drop the extra level but if you submit a second level under another name, both levels will be disqualified.
• The level has to be made by you and you alone.
• You must submit the level before the deadline. If you submit after the deadline you will automatically get 2 points off your score after all scores are averaged together for your level.
• You must inform us what characters can or cannot be used in the level.
• The level cannot end to other than a Star (SMW or SMB3) and it can't have more than three.
• The level can't end the game.
• Don't put the .lvl or the music in the graphics folder.
• Do not use music that goes beyond 6 minutes. And this refers to just one song, not all the songs together.
• Levels with unreasonable difficulty will be scored low. Judges are not required to beat levels if they're crazy hard. This is because they often take too much time to complete, they are generally tedious.
• No Joke or Kaizo (as mentioned with difficulty) levels
• Adding a boss is optional
• LUNADLL, LUNA LUA, SMBX 2, PGE, are not allowed. No SMBX 1.4 either. Please keep submit levels through SMBX 1.3.
• By submitting a level you agree that it may be in a public episode containing all the submissions.
• By submitting a level here, you agree that all scores from judges here will be accounted for if you submit this level to the levels sub-forum. The scores will not be accounted for if you updated the level after the results of the contest are posted. If results don't come three weeks after the deadline, then you may post your level publicly on the level sub-forum if you want to.
• The level you submit must not be used in any contests prior to this one. Furthermore the level must not be from a completed episode either as it is already available to the public, and the level must not be revealed to the public in any way, shape, or form.
• Lastly, please test your level!

Additional Themed Rules

• You may submit up to five levels.
• Your level must end in either SMB3 or an off-screen exit. No star exits!
• Follow the level standards from SMC level expectations:
  Spoiler: show

  - Length of levels must not be too long! A level should be a fair length, if anything closer to the middle side for quality levels. I'm fine with some levels being of a longer length, but anything too drastic will not be accepted.
  
  - Enemies involved should generally be a mix of Donkey Kong Country and Mario Enemies. I don't want to have too many different enemies involved in the game so this will work. Also it's acceptable to have levels with solely Mario or DK enemies.
  
  - Music Variety shouldn't be too extreme. Music is a huge deal in making levels, so I want to make sure each theme gets its own respectable music. Like if there's a desert level with dubstep music then it won't be an approved song.
  
  - Graphics should be loyal to their respectful theme. Vanilla graphics can work for this episode, but I'm afraid some themes can be more restricted than others as far as graphics go.
  
  - Bonus rooms are well-known in the DKC series. Not all levels have to have one in this episode, but it wouldn't hurt to have one or two of them in a level either. These are usually well hidden in levels too, but any questions on them I'll answer them all.
  
  - Difficulty should be pretty flexible, but it the level you make should be relatively reflective of the world it's in. World 1 being the easiest with World 5-7 should be the hardest worlds (NOT IMPOSSIBLE).
  
  - Purpose. All levels have a purpose, so make your level known for something. It could be visually beautiful, have memorable music, contain a unique gimmick, have excellent replay value, etc. You do what you want comrade!
  
  - NO LunaLua or related programs that wouldn't work in normal conditions. This is probably the biggest limitation, and I apologize for it.
  
  - NO SMBX 2.0 until it is out of Beta!
• To be considered in the episode, the level must score a 6 or higher. Submitting a level that gets accepted in the episode means you agree to make any adjustments to the level if necessary.
• Levels submitted must include one of the following themes:
  Spoiler: show

  Jungle
  Treetops
  Ruins
  Caves
  Desert
  Mines
  Pyramid
  Train
  Walkway
  Coral
  Pine Forest
  Brambles
  Mountain
  Snow
  Ice Cave
  Factory
  Ship (Not airship)

How to submit a level

• Sign up by posting in this topic that you want to participate!
• Put your level in a ZIP along with the optional custom graphics folder and custom music.
• Please don't put the files in another folder before archiving because I will have to move them out afterwards and that's more unnecessary work for me.
• You may include a readme with tips if you want. But if your readme only has credits for graphics or something, please put it in the graphics folder. I only want critical info regarding playing the level next to the levels themselves.
• Submit the level to me through pm. If you submit it to anyone else or post the submission anywhere else it will be disqualified.

Judging Standards

• All scores cannot surpass two decimal points. It really shouldn't come to giving a level a rating past that, and you can use one or no decimal points too.
• Do all reviews in order of Entry 1 to the Final Entry This saves me a lot of time when everything is sent to me organized and done in order, so please do this!
• Submit all reviews in either one single text or word document, or you can pm me all the reviews at one (IN ORDER). I will not accept zip files with multiple text files for it becomes tedious work for me to copy and paste everything into a final document of all of the reviews.
• The Backup Judge must only submit reviews of levels made by the judges (in order of entry number still).
• No additional judges or guest judges. If they didn't ask to be a judge and aren't listed as a one of the five, or a backup judge, then their scores will not count for the final result.
• No spoiling reviews or scores before they are posted. You can discuss your reviews after the results have been posted.

The Judges
The Thwomp King
Linik
PROX
bossedit8
Sanct

Backup Judge
MECHDRAGON777

The Contestants Bolded = Submitted
MECHDRAGON777
Wolfy Werewolf
Uzendayo
RoundPiplup
Spider
Kep
RPG_Magician - 1 level
Mr Briney
Supershroom
King of Eterity
liamvdm - 1 level

Graphics (Special Thanks to FanofSMBX and all graphic designers who made all the graphics for this)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/x3bcnfgsd ... lesets.zip

The Deadline:
February 28th

I hope to get a lot of people involved. Hopefully members of the team will contribute as well.

[Alagirez]

Aww rip lunalua
anyway i might submit something so

[RPG_Magician]

A question, if I participate, do I get like a link to the custom graphics for the DKC enemies or do we have to find it ourselves?

[The Thwomp King]

A question, if I participate, do I get like a link to the custom graphics for the DKC enemies or do we have to find it ourselves?

Send me a pm reminding me to send you stuff and I can do that. I'm not sharing a link on where since it's really disorganized. You can use graphics beyond what I have though too.

[RPG_Magician]

A question, if I participate, do I get like a link to the custom graphics for the DKC enemies or do we have to find it ourselves?

Send me a pm reminding me to send you stuff and I can do that. I'm not sharing a link on where since it's really disorganized. You can use graphics beyond what I have though too.

aww yis.

Count me in, (uh oh. I've contracted Contest Fever Disease)

[ElectriKong]

[*] LUNADLL, LUNA LUA, SMBX 2, PGE, are not allowed. No SMBX 1.4 either. Please keep submit levels through SMBX 1.3.]

Does that mean we need to use the legacy editor to make the levels for the contest?

[Cedur]

Please keep submit levels through SMBX 1.3.

You mean 1.3.0.1, right?

[Wohlstand]

No matter which editor (legacy or PGE) you will use. Means levels are must strictly follow SMBX64 standard and with no using of extra advantages impossible with SMBX 1.3, and must work in legacy editor with no crash:
- you must don't include into blocks / herbs / eggs / lakitu impossible objects
- you must don't customize BGO order priority
- you must don't use any scripts or INI-files in the levels. Just level file, graphics, and music
- you must use music formats compatible with a vanilla engine (MP3 or WAV). Suggested to always compress with bitrate equal to 320 to have fewer quality damages.
- you must save into SMBX-64 (or older) LVL format, no LVLX or SMBX-38A levels.
- you must don't use decimal speeds in the npc.txt's because the legacy editor is crashing.
- you must don't use dummy elements because picking up of them will crash SMBX Editor
- you must don't use "system" BGOs (door star and key hole used for the warps) because picking up of them will crash SMBX Editor
- sizable blocks are must not have the size smaller than 64x64, picking up of this block will cause a crash
- sizable blocks are must have size multiple 32 because the legacy engine will show holes between image segments and it can't smartly fill empty space between them like PGE Editor and PGE Engine is doing.

EDIT: I added those tips to the bottom of SMBX64 standard description page

LUNA LUA

Please always write name of framework as LunaLua with NO space.

[Radiance]

LUNA LUA

Please always write name of framework as LunaLua with NO space.

Lol. Anyways, I'll join.

[The Thwomp King]

No matter which editor (legacy or PGE) you will use. Means levels are must strictly follow SMBX64 standard and with no using of extra advantages impossible with SMBX 1.3, and must work in legacy editor with no crash:
- you must don't include into blocks / herbs / eggs / lakitu impossible objects
- you must don't customize BGO order priority
- you must don't use any scripts or INI-files in the levels. Just level file, graphics, and music
- you must use music formats compatible with a vanilla engine (MP3 or WAV). Suggested to always compress with bitrate equal to 320 to have fewer quality damages.
- you must save into SMBX-64 (or older) LVL format, no LVLX or SMBX-38A levels.
- you must don't use decimal speeds in the npc.txt's because the legacy editor is crashing.
- you must don't use dummy elements because picking up of them will crash SMBX Editor
- you must don't use "system" BGOs (door star and key hole used for the warps) because picking up of them will crash SMBX Editor
- sizable blocks are must not have the size smaller than 64x64, picking up of this block will cause a crash
- sizable blocks are must have size multiple 32 because the legacy engine will show holes between image segments and it can't smartly fill empty space between them like PGE Editor and PGE Engine is doing.

EDIT: I added those tips to the bottom of SMBX64 standard description page

LUNA LUA

Please always write name of framework as LunaLua with NO space.

Thank you for clarifying. And my apologies, I'll fix that right away.

[JupiHornet]

So...only the winning levels get added into the episode?

[The Thwomp King]

So...only the winning levels get added into the episode?

A level with score of 6 or higher will instantly be considered for the episode. If you score below, but want the level to be in the episode, PM me and we can work out changes that need to be made for it to be in the episode.

[dragonfan96]

A question, if I participate, do I get like a link to the custom graphics for the DKC enemies or do we have to find it ourselves?

Best way to get DKC GFX is thru Squishy's CGFX Red_yoshi's Ultimate CGFX and Community GFX pack as well Are probably your best bet for most of them....
I bet if you really dig deep into here you'll find even more thru Old GFX packs and episodes even (I'd ask for permission if needed for episode imo)

Also I'd like to participate in the contest as well

[YokoAnashiwa]

i'll give it a try, count me in

[Cedur]

I looked through your project's topic and I'd like to ask, is the list of worlds and levels for SMC mandatory to consider? Like, do we have to look at what world uses your planned theme, and then look at which level spots are still free?

Also I'd appreciate some cgfx recommendations for the DK-specific style.

[The Thwomp King]

I looked through your project's topic and I'd like to ask, is the list of worlds and levels for SMC mandatory to consider? Like, do we have to look at what world uses your planned theme, and then look at which level spots are still free?

Also I'd appreciate some cgfx recommendations for the DK-specific style.

Pretty much the list of themes on here are the same as in the episode. I have plenty of (???) spaces for extra levels, this should give designers the freedom to explore the theme of their choice without going too crazy.

Pretty much make whatever level you want out of the themes, and if it's good for the episode we will find a place for it. So pretty much make what you want.

I'll add the graphics folder on here too. It's pretty disorganized, so I apologize for that.

[Cedur]

Just noticed lately that the graphics stuff is up :p

I've got a structure draft ready on paper, I guess I'll start next week

[The Thwomp King]

Hope people haven't forgotten about this!

[Alagirez]

I will not forget this Ttk don't worry ;D

[Radiance]

I won't.