Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for October 2018, hosted by Arkive! Oh, the horror!

In the MTC your task is to build a track on a given theme. Later, all the entered tracks are rated and a winner is found.

Theme of the Month: Don't Look Behind You...
You ever get the feeling that someone... or something... is right behind you? If you were in a horror movie, looking back would spell your doom. Now, this trope comes to TrackMania! Your course should never twist in such a way that the car "looks back" to where it started.


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Theme Specific Rules

• The general route of your course may never move against the direction of the start arrow (or closest cardinal direction, if using a start item)
  
• If a start item is used to face the vehicle directly up/down, then the restricted orientation will be based on whichever direction the vehicle would face if it were pitched to lie flat on its tires

Example:


In the above picture, we have two similar routes; let's assume that the starting blocks point North. The left route uses a light chicane where the right route simply goes straight. The left route would be breaking the theme's rules since the chicane turns slightly South; even though the vehicle is moving away from and never faces the start, its route moves against the direction of the start arrow.

On the other hand, the right route is completely legal. It might not be moving North in the straight, but it's not moving South. Despite the fact that the vehicle itself might move slightly South within the straight blocks to prepare for the upcoming turn, the course is still considered within the rules. We are concerned with the overall route formed by the blocks, so minor "adjustment" infractions like shown will be ignored here. If this minor adjustment were to take the vehicle into the block row South of the turn's exit, then it would no longer be legal.

General Rules

• At most, you may submit ONE track
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map counts as one track for each author involved
  
• Your author time must be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes
  
• MTC should be present in the track name. Example: "MTC - Forwards" or "no backsies (mtc)" (check that any special characters do not break in the TM or MX track name)
  
• The track should be built in the most recent version of the game
  
• All environments are allowed
  
• Blockmixing is allowed
  
• Envimixing is allowed
  
• Embedded items are allowed
  
• Stadium64 base is allowed
  
• Mods are allowed (remember to include locators!)
  
• Custom titlepacks allowed this month include: TM2, TMAll, MrSloppi's, and TMOne Speed
  
• Custom titlepacks not explicitly mentioned are NOT allowed
  
• Multilap maps are NOT allowed (for obvious reasons)
  
• Multilap starts are allowed (set your laps to 1)
  
• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks are NOT allowed
  
• Courses requiring OpenPlanet are NOT allowed

If you have any questions or would like to contest a rule, feel free to ask!


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Deadlines

• Your track should be uploaded before the end of Sunday, October 21st at midnight EST. Submissions will continue to be accepted until the thread closes, which will occur the following morning
  
• Public voting will go from October 22nd to November 4th
  
• Results are calculated and posted soon after public voting closes



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Prizes
Honour and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that. I wasn't around then, but maybe some of you still remember him? )
The top 3 winners will receive a showcase of a track of their choice (< 10 awards)

How to Submit

• To submit a track, upload it to MX and post a link to your submission here:
  MTC October 2018: Submissions Thread
  
• You can update your track within the deadline as many times as you want
  
• Submitted courses may be updated within 24 hours of submissions closing, in case of any necessary last minute changes; new courses may NOT be submitted in this time frame

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a 50/50 mixture of the public voting system and the internal judging

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a track, but the vote for your own track will not count (give your own map whatever you want!)
  
• You must play and vote on all tracks for your votes to count
  
• Every track will be judged with marks from 0 (bad) to 10 (good)
  
• The internal judging will note some detailed feedback with points based on categories (Theme [20p], Creativity [10p], Fun [10p], Detail [10p])

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please ask!

Snake brought an edge case to my attention over in the MX Discord, so I thought I'd bring my verdict here and provide some examples. The edge essentially was where an obstacle on the road forces the vehicle to go in the forbidden direction without changing the blockline. Here's some examples, we'll assume that the start faces north.


Above, you can see that the northern half of one of the blocks is blocked off, forcing the vehicle to drive to the south of it. This is acceptable; the turn before the obstacle allows the vehicle to stay in the southern half of the line, thus meaning that it's possible to take a line that never turns south. Even if the course's fastest line goes into the northern half of the blockline before turning south to get around the obstacle, this would still be legal! There would only be a problem if the fastest line did not remain in the shown blockline but went north of that before returning south.


In this case, now there is an obstacle which forces your car to go into the northern half of the blockline before going into the southern half. Because the route now requires you to drive south, it is no longer legal. Despite this, I won't be disqualifying any maps which break this rule; it's all in the same blockline, so it's a rather minor infraction. Infractions like this will cause losses in the "theme" category of judging, though, so be careful.

I'd like to know if this block is usable (in this configuration, I can tell the other way around would not be).

Yes, that's completely fine.

Hey,

I know this route isn't allowed, but i'm wondering if you can allow it xD. I'm going to make it so the route can't see the previous parts of the track (like a tunnel). Here's a picture of the route.
http://prntscr.com/l7ytyn

Based on what you're showing in the given picture, the route looks fine. Given that this looks like a rough representation of the route, though, I'd need to see the actual track to ensure that everything is within the rules.

Submissions are closed! If anyone still needs to update their map, they have 24 hours to do so; new submissions are NOT accepted in this time. It'll still take me a bit to get the voting stuff set up, but I plan to have it ready within the next day or so.

October 2018 Public Voting Link: https://goo.gl/forms/vvAFcI2ymk6X4VTr2

There are 10 MTC entries. Download all of them here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DtBf5iCU7wB55ypmiBsB2BynH3UgSfbD/view?usp=sharing

In the voting sheet, give your score before your feedback (0 to 10, decimals are allowed). If you have comments, leave them right after your score. For example:

7.8 - Too much water!

Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a map (your score on your own map will be removed, so give it whatever you want!)

Every map will be judged with a decimal number from 0 (bad) to 10 (good). All votes greater than/equal to 7 or less than/equal to 4 require constructive feedback on why you gave it that score

Note that you have to judge a stage entirely! You cannot judge only half of it. If you are not able to finish the map, your vote can still count! Please only leave that as a very last resort, and still judge the entire map fairly

You need to verify your vote by making a post here (for example: "Voted ")

One best and one worst vote for each map will be ignored if more than 10 people vote

The overall score will be a 50/50 mixture of the average public score and the average internal score

You must have access to and vote on all maps for your votes to count

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A panel of judges will also judge the maps.
This internal voting will follow the format of:
Theme (20p) | Creativity (10p) | Fun (10p) | Detail (10p)

All voting will close on November 4th, 2018 at midnight EST.

Voted

Voted.