Official Rules

This contest takes place once every three months.
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NorbertAdm
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Official Rules

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  • This thread is locked, but you may discuss these Rules here.
  • The first Contest is from 1 October 2012 to 31 December 2012. More information here.
Prince of Persia 1 Quarterly Modding Contest
Official Rules
as from August 11th, 2012
= GENERAL =

We, the Prince of Persia modding community ("Community"), are not in any way associated with any of the official (current or past) publishers and developers of the games in the Prince of Persia video game franchise. Our Community is not making any profit from the Prince of Persia 1 Quarterly Modding Contest ("Contest(s)"). The Contest is designed to keep our Community vibrant and to encourage fans of the original Prince of Persia 1 game ("PoP1") to create the best fan-made modifications ("Mod(s)") they can. Anyone who enters the Contest ("Entrant(s)" or "You") should read these official rules ("Rules"). Entry in the Contest constitutes Your acceptance of and agreement to these Rules.

= CONTEST PERIOD =

The Contest takes place once every quarter year (three months). The Contest begins on the 1st of January, April, July and October at 0:00:00 A.M. Coordinated Universal Time ("Contest Start") and ends on respectively 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and 31 December at 11:59:59 P.M. Coordinated Universal Time ("Contest End"). During the first two months of the Contest, Entrants can submit their Mods ("Submission Period"). Judging begins on the 1st of March, June, September and December at 0:00:00 A.M. Coordinated Universal Time and ends at the Contest End ("Judging Period"). The Judging Period consists of three phases, which are described in the JUDGING section of these Rules.

= HOW TO ENTER =

Entrants can be citizens of any country. Entrants are allowed to collaborate with other Entrants and submit a Mod together ("Team(s)"), but Teams are limited to two (2) Entrants. Each Entrant or Team may submit one (1) Mod per Contest. Subsequent entries will be disqualified. Mods must be created of either the DOS or the SNES version of the original PoP1. Each Mod must be given a title and, optionally, a brief description, to identify that particular work. Mods must not be offensive, threatening, defamatory, disparaging, libelous or contain any content that is inappropriate, indecent, sexual, profane, tortuous, slanderous, discriminatory in any way, or that promotes hatred or harm against any group or person. Mods must not have been released prior to the Contest. However, as explained in the JUDGING section of these Rules, already released Mods may be added during the Judging Period. Mods must be submitted on the "New Levels and Mods" board of the Princed Forum at http://forum.princed.org/viewforum.php?f=73 and must then be announced in the designated thread of the running Contest. As described in the RECORDING LEVELS section of these Rules, each Entrant or Team must record and publish walkthroughs of all the levels of the submitted Mod before the Judging Period starts.

= JUDGING =

We want to keep the process fair and scalable, and nobody should be required to play more than ten (10) Mods per Contest. Therefore, the Judging Period consists of three phases. During phases 2 and 3, a ranked (positional) voting method is being used. In the event of a tie in either of those phases, the tied Mods will be reevaluated and put up for a re-vote until the tie is broken. Decisions are final and binding. Mods are being evaluated and scored based on their playability, difficulty (curve), enjoyability, artistic merit, creativity and originality. The Community reserves the right to disqualify any Entrant from the Contest if it reasonably believes that the Entrant has attempted to undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest by cheating, deception, or other unfair practices. If less than six (6) Mods were submitted, Mods that have already been released but were never in a Contest will be added randomly until six (6) spots have been taken.

Phase 1 (Preparation)

During the first week (1st - 7th), forum members can register themselves if they want to partake in the second phase ("Peer(s)"). Peers may be Entrants but must not be part of the jury. The Peers are being randomly divided into groups. The number of groups is the number of Mods for the Contest rounded up to the nearest 10, divided by 10. (Example: 12 Mods would mean 20 / 10 = 2 groups.)

Also during that period, three (3) jury members are being nominated and appointed by the Community for the third phase ("Juror(s)"). Jurors must not self-judge, thus Entrants cannot be Jurors. When a permanent Juror wishes to be an Entrant, a previous Contest winner must take his or her place during that Contest as a substitute Juror.

Phase 2 (Peers Vote)

The next phase takes nine days (8th - 16th). The Mods are being randomly divided over the groups. Every Peer then plays and ranks all the Mods of his or her group. The Mods receive points from each Peer: the number of Mods + 1 - their rank. (Example: 2nd place out of 7 Mods would mean 7 + 1 - 2 = 6 points.) Of each group, the three (3) Mods that have the highest average Peer scores go to phase 3 ("Finalists").

Phase 3 (Jury Vote)

The last phase takes approx. 2 weeks (17th - 30th/31st). Every Juror plays and ranks all the Mods that triumphed in phase 2. The Mod that has the highest average Juror score wins first place in the Contest, the Mod with the second highest score wins second place, and the Mod with the third highest score wins third place. These three Mods and their Entrants ("Winners") will receive the prizes as described in the PRIZES section of these Rules.

Note that the forum nicks of the Peers and Jurors, and the points they have given the various Mods, are being published on the Princed Forum. This happens on the last days of phases 2 and 3.

= PRIZES =

Prizes will be awarded in accordance with these Rules. The Finalists and Winners are being notified via the Princed Forum. There are only non-cash prizes and the prizes are non-transferable. For a period of three (3) months, the names and places of the winning Mods are being displayed on the front pages of the following three websites: princed.org, popuw.com and popot.org. The Mods can be downloaded directly from these front pages, and these front pages also contain links to the forum threads of the Mods at the Princed Forum. Furthermore, the Princed Forum contains a thread with information about the winning Mods and Entrants of all previous Contests, in honor of these works and their authors.

= RECORDING LEVELS =

Each Entrant or Team is required to record and publish walkthroughs of all the levels of the submitted Mod. For DOS mods, DOSBox can be used to do this, as can be read here. Under GNU/Linux, if Ctrl+Alt+F5 cannot be used to record, first start "dosbox -startmapper" and save, exit. Then, in .dosbox/mapper, change hand_video from "key 286 mod1 mod2" to "key 9 mod1", to be able to start/stop recording with Ctrl+Tab. For SNES mods, ZSNES and Snes9X can be used to record, as can be read here and here. Recorded videos can be uploaded to YouTube. If You prefer, the videos may be unlisted.

= USEFUL LINKS =

It is not mandatory to use any of the following tools/information.

Where to download level editors:
http://www.popuw.com/editors.html
http://www.popot.org/level_editors.php

Familiarize Yourself with the in-game events:
http://forum.princed.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3151

How to change images and audio:
http://forum.princed.org/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=2937

Changing the executable:
http://www.popot.org/other_useful_tools.php?tool=CusPop
(Important: check everything in the "Customize allowed resources per level" section!)

PoP1 tricks and bugs:
http://forum.princed.org/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=1747

Using more than two level graphics:
http://forum.princed.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=3080
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