For a list of nominated levels so far, please see the nominated levels topic.Alright. We did this last year, and we're doing it again!
This is a bit different from the usual contests. You don't create a new level for this one; instead, levels released during 2016(ish) get nominated and a winner picked from them. To be precise, the eligible dates are from 1st December 2015 to 30th November 2016.
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 Dec 2015 to 30th Nov 2016), 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 (must be compatible with at least one version from V1.47n onwards), SuperLemmini, 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.
* To clarify here: If it was released publicly prior to Dec 1st 2015 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).Being a
derivative of an ineligible level (as long as it's from the same author) 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a level; as long as the level in question is clearly intended to stand as a seperate-but-related level rather than a newer version of the same level.
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 eight levels from authors
other than themself, up to a maximum of
three levels per author. Anyone who nominates at least three levels by other authors may also nominate one of their own levels; anyone who nominates at least seven levels by other authors may also nominate two of their own levels. (These self-nominations do
not count towards the eight nomination limit.)
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 beginning of December 31st 2016 (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 1This will be done similar to how the first rounds of the voteoffs for the official games were. The levels will be put into random brackets, and the top ~50% from each bracket will qualify for Stage 2.
Stage 2This will also be done in regular voteoff style. The aim here will be to get down to around 4~6 remaining levels, so exact details will depend on how many levels are entered.
Stage 3This 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.
As with last year, the prizes on offer will be US $15.00 for first place, and US $7.50 for second place. However, I have an extra prize available to throw into the mix - a copy of the Clickteam Humble Bundle that was available earlier this year, containing Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Developer Edition along with most exporters and a handful of games made with Clickteam products. In terms of pure price this is actually over $1000 worth of software, though the actual cost of it (while the bundle was available) was only $15. Either winner may choose to take this bundle instead of the monetary prize (however, if both winners want it, only first place gets it and second place will only have the monetary prize available). If you get this, you'll get a Humble Bundle gift link for the package, which you are free to do whatever you want with.
There are a couple of special cases that may apply:
1st and 2nd place are won by the same user - The 2nd place prize is passed down to 3rd, 4th, or whatever the highest place that was won by someone else was.
A prize is won by a user who cannot be contacted - They will be assumed to have chosen the monetary prize, and it will be donated to a charity of the other winner's choice (within reason).
Both prizes are won by users who cannot be contacted - Very unlikely, we will discuss what to do in this case if/when it happens.
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 LOTY2016 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!