Started: Feb 06, 2006 • Ended: Mar 06 15, 2006 -----> Deadline extended to March 15th!

The Main Rule NO CUSTOM RESOURCES OF ANY KIND MAY BE USED. Only stock resources... This means: No custom terrain textures (\fam) No custom objects (\obj) or AI (\mesh), neither binaries nor textures No custom sounds, neither ambient nor voices (\snd) No custom book art (\books\specific folder) No custom bitmaps (\bitmap) Exceptions: Obviously, you can have all the custom .str files you want for books, goals, object names, etc. You can use any custom script modules you want, provided they were available to the public at the start of the mission (meaning, script authors can't write new scripts just for their own or someone else's contest mission). You can create maps for your mission, since they are a crucial gameplay aid to players. You can create a custom main_1.pcx file for the title screen if you're that vain (like I am). You can use a custom gamesys, since it's invisible to the player and serves only as a convenience/implementation aid to the author.

Other Rules One mission per author (or team). T2 only. Some people don't have T1 so they wouldn't be able to vote without playing that mission. Time limit: 1 month. Theme: Anything you like, since working within the limits of original textures and objects is enough of a constraint. Size limit: The entire mission must occupy less than 500,000 uł (cubic Dromed units), preferably inside a single area brush. Its dimensions can be anything you want as long as its volume is <= 500,000 uł. For example, 100x100x50 or 80x80x75. This area brush should be left in your mission so I can easily verify the size of your entry. This 500,000 uł limit includes blue rooms as well, although it is fine for roombrushes and objects like SFX to extend slightly outside the limit area. So basically, there should be no terrain brushes outside the limits at all, but objects' bounding boxes can go outside when necessary (like, putting a Flame on the ground level will have some of the particles' bounding boxes extending below the area brush). If you want to challenge my math skills by making your mission not fit neatly in a rectangular solid (an L-shape, for instance), that's fine - just be sure you enclose each major portion in a large area brush and that the sum of all the area brush volumes is under the limit, and be sure I can easily find those large area brushes. Jason Otto has graciously allowed me to link to this image, a spreadsheet to help with size calculation. Find the first two dimensions of your area brush along the top and left sides, and the cell where they intersect is the largest the third dimension can be to keep you under the 500k limit. So, for instance, if your area brush is 72x80, the limit of the third dimension is 86.

Rationale for the Contest Why no custom stuff? Several reasons... first, it levels the playing field at least in terms of resource availability. Secondly, it means in order to really differentiate your entry, you'll need strong story and gameplay elements, which are lacking in so many missions these days. And, I just think that in this day of having loads of custom stuff available to us, it will be a nice and refreshing challenge to be limited to original stuff only, kind of a throwback to the old days where early FM authors didn't have much to work with. And the limit on no new sound files may also lead to some creative reuses of original conversations....

Anonymity Issues This is an anonymous contest (so that voting is impartial), so your readme shouldn't contain any personal info. I strongly urge everyone to have their mission betatested. Since the entries are anonymous, you should try and recruit people privately rather than posting for testers if possible, although if you do have to advertise for testers, obviously don't reveal any info about your mission in the thread. You should also avoid posting any screenshots of your mission for obvious reasons. It's fine to ask technical questions in The Editor's Guild, but just do your best to ask them generically enough that you can get your answer without making it obvious later which mission is yours. This isn't a big deal though, so don't sweat it too much.

Submitting Your Mission You can get your mission to me in one of these ways: Email if it's small (most missions in this contest should be!) Get my email address from my profile at TTLG. My attachment size limit is 10MB. If email doesn't work, use a file sending service such as Dropload or YouSendIt. Upload it to Thiefmissions using the instructions on the hosting page (the "upload thingy" is easy to use), then ask Jason to notify me of the location and I'll download it. Due date was March 15, 2006, at 11:59PM, EST.