Welcome to the Level of the Year 2019 voteoff!

So, most of you will know how this works, but just in case - and so that specifics are covered - here's a quick rundown.

The 35 nominated levels have been divided into 7 groups of 5 levels, semi-randomly. To be specific, the division was done in such a way that a single author wouldn't have too many levels in a single group.

Each group will be voted on one at a time, with only 2 levels from each group advancing to Phase 2. We try to bring the number down to 2 in 1 single Round. I plan no tiebreakers for this and if we have a minor tie then all tied levels advance. In case of a lot of major ties (4+ levels), I might run a tiebreaker later.

If we then have a bit more than 14 levels in phase 2, these will be split up into 2-3 groups for phase 2. There, I also plan to just let 2-3 of each group survive with no tiebreakers if possible. So that only enough levels for 1 group are left for the final phase 3 and only there I will enforce placements with tiebreakers.

If you want to see the full list of nominated levels in non-randomized order, check the nominations list topic.
If you want to play these levels without having to dig up all the various level packs, check the playing phase topic which has an NXP available for download that contains all the nominated levels.

Please remember that discussing the nominated levels is not allowed in the LOTY2019 topics now that voting has begun. This does not apply to levels that have already been eliminated at the time. Discussing them elsewhere in the site is okay, as long as it's not in the context of LOTY2019.

Welcome to another contest of the Lemmingsforums! This time the three rules have been picked by Flopsy and myself for winning contest #19.

A few words to new participants and forum members: If you haven't entered before, I strongly encourage you to try - even if you don't win, it's fun to participate; and we have had cases where first-time entrants have won before! ATTENTION ENTY RULE CHANGE: There are three choices of rules given, you may enter one level for EACH one of the rules.
You may either use new format NeoLemmix, or Lix.
If you have more than one entry, they may (but do not have to) be for the same engine. Please make sure you tested your level for basic solvability before submitting and be sure to also submit any custom tileset you are using, so others have no problem playing your level.

Pre contest testing: You can choose 1 person who does a bit of pre-testing for you, so that the biggest backroutes and screw-ups of your levels can be detected before the playing phase. I cannot control this so it's only a guideline, but still I would prefer not everyone knows every level before the playing phase starts.

Here are the rules on how the submission deadlines work:
- Initial submission phase deadline will extend such that it's 72 hours from the time of the last submission, up to the 5th submission (inclusive). After this it no longer changes no matter what.
- Update phase deadline will not extend over the initial dead line!
- Even if you missed the cutoff date for the initial submission phase, late entries are accepted until the update phase ends. There is no penalty for a late entry, beyond that people are less likely to spend as much time on the level before voting begins.

And here is the new ruleset:

Rule 1

(By Flopsy)
Make a level which is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically terrain wise. There is no symmetry rules for the objects in the level.

To be clear: It must be horizontally and vertically symmetrical in clear physics mode only, including steel though! As long as that's given you can use different colored blocks for example.

Rule 2

(By IchoTolot)
Make a level that uses a complete 10 skill palette. Each skill has at most 5 on the counter. All skills need to be used at least once in the intended solution.

To treat the engines equally, I would say 10 is enough for lix as well. You can use more if you want though!

Rule 3

(By Flopsy and IchoTolot collaboratively)
Make a "fake" disjoint union level. Each union needs a hatch. All unions need to be connected in some way to help out each other hence the use of "fake" in inverted commas.

An example for a "real" disjoint union would be Havoc 14 "Synchronised Lemming". As there is no interaction in between the unions.


Submission phase ends May 17th 2020 at 00:00 UTC.

Ruleset in detail again: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2246.0

Send me a personal message with your level/s and if needed tileset/s to participate. It would also be nice to also tell me the rule which each level satisfies.

Please use the following naming format:  User1_Levelname_R3V1.lvl ---> Level "Levelname" by User1   for Rule 3   Version 1 of the level

Prize selection:
- US $5.00
- One month's advertising on the forums news ticker
- Pick next contest's rules

Entries so far: 22

- Armani (3)
- Crane (2)
- IchoTolot (3)
- DireKrow (3)
- Dullstar (1)
- NieSch (3)
- Flopsy (3)
- Mantha16 (3)
- Nessy (1)
- JRT (2)
- WillLem (1)

Ladies and gentleman, we've got our final results and it's a tie this time!

Congratulations to Flopsy and myself for winning the 19th Lemmings Forums Level Contest.

The levels respectively were:

- Flopsy's "Who Ya Gonna Call? Knuckles The Echidna!"
- IchoTolot's "It's The Name Of The Fame"

Also, congratulations to Armani for reaching the 3rd place with "Supernova"

Choice for the prize for the first place is either:

- a month's advertising on the forum's news ticker
- picking the next contest's rules
- US $5.00 (PayPal would be the easiest here I think).

In case of both picking the same prize we will work something out.

In each voting round, you're allowed to vote for up to a certain number of levels. Vote for the levels that you want to stay in the contest, not for levels you want eliminated. You may vote for fewer levels than the permitted maximum. You may vote for your own levels.

It's not allowed to discuss the levels publicly on the forums during the voting phase, even if the level is not in the current round, or even between rounds.

You may discuss any level in private messages. You may discuss publicly off-site, e.g., you may post Youtube videos of your playthroughs, or discuss in IRC chat. Eliminated levels may be discussed anywhere, even publicly on the forums.

There'll be voteoffs within each design rule, to get down to one/two/three remaining levels per design rule. After this, all qualifying levels will go into a mixed voteoff.

Generally, the number of levels that qualify for the next round will be the same as each user's permitted vote maximum. I've decided to keep the percentages of "surviving" levels of the rule-voteoffs somewhat similar to give every rule a fair chance. Example: A rule with a 66% survival-rate and one with a 33% survival-rate for the mixed rounds doesn't seem that fair to me.

There's only a prize for the 1st place winner - of course, getting close to that still means you made a great level.

So... let the voting begin! Each round will be open for voting for 3 days, except the final which will be 4 days.

All levels are still avialable in the discussion topic: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4571.0

For a list of nominated levels so far, please see the nominated levels topic.

And it's this time of the year again!

This is a bit different from the usual contests. You don't create a new level for this one; instead, levels released during 2019 get nominated and a winner picked from them. To be precise, the eligible dates are from 1st Janurary 2019 to 31th December 2019.

The following conditions must be met in order for a level to be eligible:
1. The level must have either been part of a large pack released during the eligible timeframe (1st Jan 2019 to 31th Dec 2019), or in some other way had its first public release during the timeframe. Private releases (such as sending to prerelease testers) do not affect eligibility either way. *
2. The level must be available for an engine that is usually eligible for the contests. Or in other words: NeoLemmix (new format version), or single-player Lix.
3. The level must be designed by a single author; collaboration levels are not eligible.
4. The creator of the level must not have specifically requested it be excluded.
5. The level must not have been nominated for LOTY2015/2016/2017/2018.

* To clarify here: If it was released publicly prior to 1st Janurary 2019 as part of a demo or preview, but the full pack was released during the eligible period, the level is fine (as long as it wasn't nominated for LOTY2015/2016/2017/2018).

Being a derivative of an ineligible level (as long as it's from the same author, the new author has a permission from the original one, or an official level) does not disqualify a level; as long as the level in question is clearly intended to stand as a seperate-but-related level rather than a newer version of the same level. Basically just don't send in carbon copies of ineligible levels.


To nominate a level, please PM me with your list of nominations. If you wish to modify your nominations at a later date, please resend the whole list of levels you wish to nominate, not just the changes.

Each user may nominate up to six levels from authors other than themself, up to a maximum of three levels per author. Anyone who nominates at least four levels by other authors may also nominate one of their own levels. (These self-nominations do not count towards the six nomination limit.)

So the maximum nomination value is: 6 levels from other users and 1 level of your own.

Note that levels that won a level design contest during the eligible timeframe get an automatic nomination, unless their author requests otherwise.

Nominations will be open until the end of February 29th 2020 (UTC). No additions / changes to nominations will be permitted after this date, with one exception: If a level someone has nominated is found to be ineligible for any reason and this is not discovered until after the deadline, they will be offered a chance to nominate a different level in its place.

Similar to last year, the voteoff will occur in three stages:

Stage 1
The levels will be put into random brackets, and the top ~50% from each bracket will qualify for Stage 2.

Stage 2
This will also be done in regular voteoff style. The aim here will be to get down to around a couple of remaining levels, so exact details will depend on how many levels are entered.

Stage 3
This will be done in an elimination format over multiple rounds; each round, one level gets knocked out, and the others continue onto the next round, until we have a winner.

---

The prize on offer will be US $10.00 for first place.

Also note that, in the interest of being reasonable, the "don't discuss levels involved in contests anywhere on the site during the voting period" rule does not fully apply to this contest; instead, it will be "do not discuss them at all within the LOTY2019 topics during voting, and don't discuss them in relation to the contest anywhere on the site".

So, that's about it! Any questions, ask here; and feel free to start nominating levels!

It seem like we have a case where a wrong animation has been assigned.

L3 shadow has OWW down arrows, but the designated animation for them is the one for OWW up arrows.

They, of course, still function correctly as OWW down arrows.

Note: This topic is ONLY for posting updates to your levels, or making late submissions. All other posts will be deleted. If you want to discuss the levels, post replays, etc, please do so in the Discussion Topic.

Please follow these rules for updates:
1. When posting a new updated version of a level, remove any old updated versions of that level --> Have all your recent updates stored in 1 post! I will delete such old posts eventually if the author doesn't; so don't store any important information in them.
2. Make a new post for a new update; do not edit your most recent post. You may, however, post updates to multiple entries (if you have more than one) in the same post.
3. Use the same filename as found in the ZIP of the entered levels, with "V2" "V3" etc added at the end. No matter how minor an update is, give it a new number.
4. Do not post in this topic, unless it's to post an update to your levels. Use the discussion topic instead for anything else.

Please use the same naming format as in the zip file:  User1_Levelname_R3V5.lvl ---> Level "Levelname" by User1   for Rule 3   Version 5 of the level   

For late submissions also, please use the same kind of filename as is used in the main levels download - ie: your username, and "R1" "R2" or "R3" to mark which rule the level is for. Remember that the maximum-of-two-levels-per-user rule still applies, even for late submissions. Please be sure to check the original contest announcement topic for the rules; as the notes in the discussion topic are simply meant as reminders, not full explanations of the rules.

Please use the right naming format when posting updates! That would lead to less confusions and less work for everyone.