Ok, I want to get this going before the topic dies again.
So, I suggest the following setup, complain now if you want something changed!
1. The level design phase will last
3 weeks, the level solving phase will last
3 weeks as well. (This should give enough time to get something done, even if one is pretty busy. Any objections, or does this sound reasonable?)
You don't have to design a level in order to participate.
2. The topic of the contest will be: Design a
1-of-each-skill level.
3. The game the levels have to be designed for is
Lemmix. I suppose this is the platform the greatest number of players is familiar with. And I think everyone who has Lemmini uses Lemmix for level editing, so they should have it set up already. Lix would be nice for the extra skills, but I think few people are familiar with it, and there are some compatibility issues on Win 7.
4. Levels must be solvable
without glitches. To determine what is a glitch and what isn't, use these lists for reference:
non-glitches and
glitches. If some behaviour is not listed, but turns out to be needed in a level later, I suppose we could have a judge or discussion, and give the benefit of doubt unless it's something really obscure. Just don't use too weird stuff in your levels to be on the safe side. Note however that other players may use glitches to solve your levels, so you should try to protect your level against glitchy solutions.
5. Scoring:
3 categories:
- The main category
- Best looking level
- Most fun level
The last two will be decided by voting: each player has 6 votes (you can opt not to use all of them), which can be distributed over different levels, and a level can receive up to 3 votes. So e.g. you could give one level 3 votes, another 2 votes, and a third one 1 vote; or you could e.g. give 1 vote each to 5 different levels (and don't use the last vote). Level with most votes wins the category. I realize that it might be hard to judge how fun a level is if you haven't solved it, but I think you can cast votes on every level, whether you solved it or not, it's all just for fun.
For the main category, here's the interesting question:
How shall we score it? Please post to tell which option you prefer, I'll pick the most popular one. I don't have a strong preference myself, but I think it might be interesting to try the second version, in both version, players who design a level will have an advantage over those who don't design a level:
(A) You get a point for each level you solve, including your own one. This motivates designers to design their levels as hard as possible.
(B) You get a point for each level you solve, but not your own. At the end, you get additional points depending on how many players (apart from you) solved your level:
4 players: 2.0 points
3 or 5 players: 1.5 points
2 or 6 players: 1.0 points
1 or 7 players: 0.5 points
no-one or more than 7 players: 0 points
This favours making levels that are not insanely hard, but rather levels that are of moderate difficulty. It might also be an interesting challenge to find out how hard to make a level. For this, it would be good if everyone would post at latest during the level design phase how likely it is that they'll participate in the second phase.
6. Organization: There should be someone everyone would send their levels to. Someone who doesn't intend to participate would definitely work, but it's not really necessary. I want to participate, but I'd offer to do the organization stuff in addition, unless someone else wants to do it/you'd rather prefer if someone else does it. If you don't want to disclose your levels or especially replays until the respective deadline (I/the organizer won't look at them before, but in case you don't trust me/the organizer), one option is also to pack your levels/replays into a password-protected archive, which you send me before the deadline, and you disclose the password after the deadline. I think e.g. WinZip and 7zip should have a feature like this.
That's it. Please post your comments!