50-Hour Mapping Challenge Next Weekend

5th May 2017

Starting Friday 12th May 2017 at 9:59pm Central European Summer Time, there will be a 50-Hour Mapping Challenge.

It is NOT part of The Hammer Cup 2017.

The Deadline for submitting entries will be Sunday 14th May 2017 at 11:59pm.

The theme will be appropriate for the time period.

Theme details and standard details will be announced next Friday.

Dev textures will be allowed. CALM DOWN.

I will be giving away Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II to the best entry.

There might be another judge in addition to me.

This is the first time I have run a mapping challenge like this – it might be a disaster or it might be fun – let’s see.

I will answer any questions you have now, EXCEPT if related to the theme – so don’t ask.

22 Comments

  1. This is a brilliant idea- cannot wait to see how it turns out!

  2. for a second there I thought the prize will be Dawn of War 3 and got excited 😛

  3. Bastion

    I’ll be up for it, the one thing that’s kept me away from THC this year is that I simply don’t have the time commitment for it, not with wrapped up school and job hunting.
    But setting aside a regular weekend to make a quick map? I’m good to go for that!

  4. ok, I’ll give it my best! (how much sleep should l lose? can’t figure it out!)

  5. UtharQ

    Just an idea that came to my mind that I think would be pretty cool(but unrealistic and very unlikely to work):

    What if after this contest is done, a new one appears but with proper length, and the entrants from 50-hour mapping challenge have to redo other user’s entry but having way more time to do and improve on the idea.

    This obviously assumes that most maps would be bare bones in visuals and that this would make sense with the theme(which only Phillip knows:))

    Anyway just a little idea that popped in my head.

    1. Thanks for sharing. In the past, mappers have always told me that any idea that requires them to work on another person’s map is not something they are interested in, so I have always avoided it.

      1. maybe a sequelville after this where the entrants either have to continue their map, or someone else’s?

        1. I have already done that with BeginningVille, MiddleVille and EndVille.

  6. NO FOOD!
    NO WATER!
    NO SLEEP!
    NO COMMUNICATING WITH ANYONE!

    ONLY MAPPING!!!

    1. Does that mean you might enter?

    2. Klems

      I can’t wait to die of exhaustion this next sunday! Hype.
      Edit: Oops, I wasn’t logged in. Klems here.

  7. Methinks this could produce some interesting maps!
    Very little time to over-think the project (unless some start from when this was announced).
    I hope entrants will concentrate on gameplay first and aesthetics second.

  8. Is this gonna be released as a regular (non THC) Ville on the site? Or how’s it looking? Also again I won’t be able to participate as I’m absent from 5/11/17 to 5/15/17 which is a shame. Always busy exactly when a challenge is around this can’t be coincidence anymore!

  9. Excited to see what people can whip up in such a short period of time.

    Just to clarify: This challenge is intended for Episode 2?

    1. Correcto. It will be for Episode Two.

        1. JamaicanDave

          Have you ever thought about running a challenge open to any Half Life game? I don’t know how feasible that is, but it would certainly be interesting.

          1. I have and I only got one entry. I might try again though.

    2. Maybe this is a tall call to make, but I feel like we’re going to see a lot of maps based around things like standoffs and survival scenarios, because they are easily repeatable using the game’s logic and automatic features (like continuous NPC spawning) without having to design a huge linear level.

      Perhaps maps will have a lot of backtracking, or maybe visiting the same area over and over except that different enemies/pickups/obstacles spawn in every time.

      1. This is probably the best case scenario. Infinitely respawning enemies tend to be tedious though, so hopefully there’s some sort of puzzle element (or backtracking like you said) to keep it interesting if it is a survival sort of map.

  10. I am very excited to learn what the theme for this challenge will be on Friday. My goal is to design a very small map with a simple puzzle that reuses space as much as possible and essentially fit the whole thing in one ‘room’. It will probably be an outdoor area or a large chamber, not a literal room. (That would be boring) Then I will have time to make that one ‘room’ as detailed as possible.

    That is totally dependent on the theme though. Phillip said dev textures will be allowed, so perhaps the theme will encourage more linear maps that would be impossible to detail in just fifty hours.

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