Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC), February 2013, hosted by MX. I will be your host for this month

In the MTC, your task is to build a track on a given theme (see below). Later on, all of the entered tracks will be rated by our judges and a winner will be found.

The Details

Let's have a look at the details of the contest:

Theme of the Month: Bi-Directional: Build a track with Multilap Start/Finish which splits soon* after start, forcing the player to choose one of at least 2 directions around it, and which finishes by entering the Multilap Start/Finish in reverse direction.

Deadline: Saturday, February 23rd 2013

Prize:

Honour and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that )
Top 3 tracks will be featured in the News section, getting extra spotlight.

The rules:

The only Start and Finish present can be the Multilap Start and Finish tile; set the race to 1 lap.

The Split must not come later than after 1/10th of the racing time, or later than 7 seconds after start, whichever is greater. So, if your Author time is under 70 seconds, we're giving you 7 seconds to split; if it is over 70 seconds, you can use up to 1/10th of it to get to the split point.

Ideally, the racer should return to the split point after "going around the track" in either direction, and turn towards the finish, but this is not enforced, because it might cause unnecessary trouble due to speed etc.

We explicitly do not want SYMMETRIC tracks! Try to make the racing experience of the different directions different. One easy way to achieve this is to make the whole track "sloped", so in one direction, the player will be going Up (perhaps with jumps), while in the other, he or she will be going Down (drops). There are many more ways to achieve this -- use your creative gene!

There must be at least 3 CHECKPOINTS; the recommendation is to use so-called DOUBLE CHECKPOINTS, i.e. pairs of checkpoints facing away from each other, so if the car passes through them both and then respawns, the car will be facing the right direction. Clarification: A double-checkpoint counts as 1 checkpoint for purposes of this rule; the 3-CP rule aims to ensure that eg. during online race, racers meet head-on at several locations, so it's not two completely separated roads.

Author Time must be less than 2:00.00 (two minutes)

Max. 1 track per author. Single author per track.

Blockmixing is NOT allowed.

Include the sequence of letters "MTC" somewhere in the track name so that it can be easily discovered on mania-exchange.com.

The track must have been uploaded to the exchange before February 24th 2012 (February 23rd 23:59:59 is OK).

Important: To enter a track, simply upload it and post a link to your submission in THIS thread.

Theme explanation

We're looking for tracks which offer multiple racing experiences based on the direction the player chooses. Things that will bring additional points in creativity are:
- Difference in difficulty of the paths (such as Easy and Hard)
- Keeping the racing times on all paths as close as possible (eg. "Hard" path is 1:05 and "Easy" path is 1:07 -- that would be cool)
Some of you may remember This Track Which also features two totally different paths and yet there are merged Checkpoints. Of course, that track does not merge back to start, but you get the idea.

The Judging System (Attention! Change in point limits!):

Confirmed judges:
mazer
Lodec
3rd judge
A number of judges will rate the tracks on the following topics:

Design – Layout, respawnability of checkpoints, learning curve, scenery, the general "feel" of the track. Max 15 points/judge
- I am adding "Learning curve" to this section: Ideally, a player who never raced the track should be able to get further and further in your track with each try, or become better and better with each run. Try to avoid building sections which are show-stoppers for less skilled players.
- As a general rule of thumb, the faster a player goes through the track, the harder it should get, not the other way round.

Creativity – The creativity of the track itself and especially the Bi-Directional part. Max. 15 points/judge

Fun Factor – Sometimes a track can be poor in every way, but still extremely fun to drive. Depending on how fun the judges find your track, a few extra points can be given. Max 10 points/judge

Regarding the final results, the lowest and highest score of each track will be deleted and the average of the "medium scores" decides - if the number of judges is at least 5.


We need reliable and committed judges, so if you want to volunteer as a judge, please send a PM to Alcator!

Good luck! If you have any questions, please ask away

thats funny i had pretty the same idea when i startet a map yome days ago
the only difference is thet my map has 1 cp, 5 routes and 2 rounds
anyways nice theme(as the last one)
i would be sureley in if i didnt started that map but ill see

i hope this time judging will be more traceable and fair

what about giving points for:
theme(creativity based on the theme not only the main creativity)
MT(i dont like it if a track does not have gps and a nice intro always fancies me riding this track)

keep it up
and if you have more awesome themes like that i dont have anything against you hosting the mtc

Lodec says:

what about giving points for:
theme(creativity based on the theme not only the main creativity)

Quote from first post:
Creativity – The creativity of the track itself and especially the Bi-Directional part. Max. 15 points/judge

Great theme! I'll try to make sth

hm, and this time Stunts map are allowed suddenly?

Marius 89 says:
hm, and this time Stunts map are allowed suddenly?

Yes, sure, go ahead.

Sounds like my idea just a bit modified with multi-start instead

yea now you are OBLIGED to make something for it as well ^^

Yes, I took the idea from the Idea thread, and did a tiny adjustment. Sorry for not crediting you.

this theme sounds awesome! I can really imagine the chaos if there are more players driving on a track
crap that i cant take part