OK, people, let's see what creative ideas we can come up with for a good short mini-competition!

-We want it short 'n sweet so that many people could join and submit an entry without a WHOLE lotta time involved. Of course, the simple nature of the beast (level design) is that it IS time consuming, so that should be understood for anyone participating.

-We need creative ideas in order to spark creative entries! We don't want to mimic what other sites have done in the past for competitions; we want to make it unique here!

-There is never a good time-of-year to host a level design competition. Most time-frames always benefit some and not others. My belief is if we hold multiple "mini competitions" throughout the year, everyone who wants to join one will get a chance to do so; just at different times. So, if you have an idea for a good time-frame, please mention!

-I understand that there are a few HL1 active mappers here, so I propose that we include both HL1 and HL2 categories. We will need at least two (2) contestants for a category to be official. Each category is stand-alone and will not be judged against the other.

-Because of the small group of active members on our site, You may use this thread to simply state that you're interested in joining. This will let us know how many people may join. If you're a member on other popular mapping sites, be sure to support our efforts by linking them here. The more entries, the better!

-Any "prize" ideas or just simple recognition opportunities for possible winners?

-Based on past readings of old competition threads, the idea of having a NOVICE and ADVANCED categories struck my fancy. I think of this as another tool to bring in more people who may be interested but just a little shy about posting their work for critique. Letting them know that others who aren't experienced either may comfort them a little enough to want to join. However, I'm sure those that are looking to win may be experienced enough and still post their maps under the NOVICE title. I would like to think that the monitor of this competition could switch that person's entry into the other category before voting.

-For Source engine entries, I wouldn't mind playing any version of the Source engine. I would however, like to limit it to a single-player game for Source (not mods). However, content from any Source game could be ported to the map entry, just as long as the person playing the map has everything they need to run the map and won't have to extract everything or copy their own files into the right places just to play. They should just need the game of choice and the download with the .bsp and that's it! We can limit whatever games you guys decide on.

-I believe the best way to judge entries is by community vote rather than a small panel of individuals deciding.

-Here are past classes that entries were judged upon:

• originality
  
• creativity
  
• attention to detail
  
• craftsmanship
  
• complexity

Feel free to take or add any more that might cross your mind.

-Gwil has kindly setup a channel in IRC titled: #competition_fetish. If that link doesn't work you can find the channel in th irc.quakenet.org server.

-I have recently purchased my own domain name and server with 300 Gb, so I have no problem hosting the files (and pictures?) for this competition. Anyone else interesting in hosting, speak up!

Well, there you have it! A few "guidelines" of sorts to get you guys' minds rolling! To help you further, here are a couple of links from older competition threads where new ideas were thrown around for other competitions that never happened.

• 2006 competition ideas
  
• Early 2007 competition ideas
  
• Early 2006 competition thread
  
• 2005 competition thread
  
• Even earlier 2006 competition thread ideas

Post away!

I've been giving this some serious thought. Up until reaper47 found me in IRC and we started chatting, I couldn't come up with any good ideas. Luckily our discussion sparked one:

He and I agree that the size of the competition entries should be relatively small. We will probably enact an actual measurement on the dimensions a map may be. The theory is that the scale of a project is proportional to the time spent on it, and if this were to remain a "mini-comp" of sorts, we will need to keep the maps themselves mini.

On to my idea: Simply put: "Obstacles!"

In single-player level design, a designer knows that the only way for the gamer to have fun is to include obstacles along a path. Without these, the entire adventure feels like a long hallway leading to the end. What's the point without obstacles? Obstacles range from anything like A gap in the floor to hop across like in Mario, all the way to balancing a piece of bridge in order to make a ramp for your car to jump over (ala EP2). Point is: Obstacles are what make games fun. For this idea, we would want to incorporate a complex obstacle that people would have to figure out and complete. The challenge: Besides figuring what kind of cool creative obstacle you invent, you must also figure a way to incorporate it into an environment fitting the dimensions we decide upon. So you will have to create a "mini" world believable enough to contain your obstacle, just as if you were building the entire level yourself, but only showing this section as a demo to promote your style and theme (and obstacle).

Theme can be whatever you want, so long as it's believable to a real-world theme or an art-style. This is a category that could fit any engine and mapper in my opinion. What do you guys think?

yup

It's not impossible to build a jungle map in Source. However, it would take quite a bit of experience and time which may not be the optimal choice for a "mini" competition. Here's an example of a really nice jungle map released shortly before EP2: Interlopers page Talk about loads of custom models and textures. Really nicely done though. But of course, this is a forest map which is a far cry from a jungle map imo.

I like Finger's interpretation of RedWood's idea. Would the player be limited to a single camera to view the map like the menu screen maps? Or would they be allowed to run free through it? I already started thinking of some cool static visuals I could pull off, but I'm sure an impressive visual could be something that moves, like a building collapsing before you or an explosion of an entire city and the resulting devastation.

To clarify about the obstacle idea: I wasn't really thinking "obstacle course" but that would be totally acceptable. As an example, imagine you built a small map that fit an alley-way from Ravenholm in it. within the alley-way, the player comes across one of those spinning engine blade death traps that he has to crouch under or turn off in order to pass. That would be an example of an entry (although totally not original, and would probably recieve a low score). Something small that fit in a miniature world that was believable enough. But if you wished to actually create an obstacle course much like the famed HEV training course for HL1, then by all means go for it! It would be awesome if you added voices from scientists egging you on and such.

I was totally siding with campaignjunkie's suggestion when I first conceived the "obstacle" idea. (i.e. make a small Portal puzzle) I would totally do this if enough people could participate; meaning if enough people that own a copy of Portal could compete and vote legitimately, we could do it.

would evading the spam of the enemy team while entering their base to retrieve a flag back to your own base count as an obstacle?