kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 4024
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged
|
Re: Hold Anonymous 4 { Round 1 Signups } (+4)
Due to the unexpectedly large number of signups, I've decided to write up most of the rules in advance, because it will take me longer to set up Round 1 than originally anticipated.
Edit: Wow this was a lot of text. The rules are quite small and permissive, I'm just trying to pre-empt all the questions. The next post has a short summary.
Must be Hold Admin Compatible
- The aim of this game is to produce a publishable hold at the end, so all content you make must adhere to the Hold Admin rules for promotion.
It's Anonymous!
- The whole premise of the forum game is we do not know what is in other people's rooms, so all discussion of what your rooms will contain before and during the building phase is strictly forbidden. Do not private message people about it, do not say things like "oh it sure would be nice if room 9 had this thing in it, wink wink nudge nudge, just saying this openly into the void to nobody in particular".
- You are allowed to discuss the level in more general terms, but you can't hint at what people should do.
- You are allowed to get support for scripting, or confirm if things are bugs. I'm willing to be more lenient on the rule if it's to help people get support with scripting. For example, if you're asking for help around something that will increase player health, that might "give away" information about what you are doing in your room, but I'm OK with that if it's in support of learning how to use the editor, or bug reporting.
Level Layout
- Each player will be randomly assigned a number. You will find 2 rooms on the level layout marked with your number. These are your rooms to edit, and all changes you make must be limited only to those two rooms. Any changes made outside this will be ignored by me when compiling the final level anyway.
- You are expected to delete the number, but if you think it will be hilarious to incorporate it into your room layout, do whatever you want.
- You are not allowed to modify any of the border tiles in any gameplay-relevant way! You can update visual floor tile design, add wall lights, and place invisible scripted characters on them to run scripts, but that's it. You will find pathways to adjacent rooms on the edges of your rooms, you cannot modify these in any way or add more.
- It is up to you to decide how traversable your room is between pathways to adjacent rooms. You can make your room freely traversable, or you can completely section off entrances from each other, or add doors / enemies etc. between them, it's all up to you. It is possible that entire sections of the level will be entirely unreachable in the final output, just one of the things we might have to fix and adjust rooms accordingly.
- Note that even if you make it hard to reach some entrances through your room, there is no guarantee your neighbours will do the same, and the level layout might end up with completely free traversal around your barriers. In this case, we may edit rooms to remove obstacles for player convenience, or set up similar barriers in other rooms. Experience from previous versions of this game has shown that making a room just to add cost to traversing the level layout is foolish, it'll probably backfire and make your room look dumb or completely useless in the final output, best to ensure there is something else in your room for the player to do.
- There is a room marked with "boss". This will be built during the fixing phase to accommodate the final output. We may add some resource drain gauntlet before the boss room, and can add to the map if necessary to accommodate that. If you have a room that is on the path to the boss room, there is no obligation that you have to put barriers in the way, but you can if you wish. It isn't your responsibility to be the gatekeeper of the final boss room if you don't want to be.
- This hold will have no hidden rooms. We are not accepting suggestions to add a hidden room anywhere in this iteration of this game.
No Percent Damage
- Percent damage is strictly forbidden, except 100% explosives! Its use in a hold is the worst thing ever without careful consideration and planning, the opposite of what this utterly chaotic forum game is about!
- The default values of hot tiles in this hold will be a flat 100 damage, aumtlich beams a flat 250 damage, and firetraps a flat 1000 damage. A scroll explaining this will be added to the start of any level where it becomes relevant.
- You are allowed to change _HotTile and _Firetrap if there's good reason to do so, but cannot be percentage based, and these are global so need changing back at an appropriate time. Note that changing _Beam impacts what is shown when viewing another room remotely, and so you won't be allowed to change this.
Scripting
- Custom scripting stuff is allowed. Custom monsters, items, equipment, you name it.
- Any character you add will be added to the hold and appear in the list for everyone in future levels. By adding a scripted thing to your room, you are giving the OK for people to freely use it in their room in future levels. You probably see this as a benefit rather than a problem, but it needs to be mentioned. If you don't like this, don't include it!
- Please be very careful with "surprise" scripting. It stinks to have a pressure plate suddenly do some unexpected thing when you step on it, or have the room explode without prior warning when you kill an enemy. BUT, we're willing to allow all sorts of ideas, provided it's clear what's happening. Placing a scroll in your room will go a long away, but please consider the new player experience, and try to prevent the hold being a confusing mess. There's a new feature, the _MyDescription variable, if you want an in-game supported way of documenting what a custom entity does. Don't forget Invisible Inspectable too if you're making a custom pickup!
- Custom enemies should take advantage of the lovely new colour-changing character options to make them more distinguishable from stock enemies.
- Similar to how changing _Beam will impact what is shown when viewing other rooms, the same is true for many of the other multiplier global variables, so changing these is highly discouraged. But RPG 2 now comes with local _My...Mult variables which can be placed on a custom entity to modify things only for that room, so you can have a more visible way of modifying things in your room without risking impacting other rooms.
- If you really need to change a global variable, such as different tarstuff baby spawns or setting which entites are mothers for tarstuff switch token purposes, those will need resetting in adjacent rooms, so please mention these during submission. Changing the default tarstuff baby spawns is discouraged outside of attaching a custom mother to the tarstuff blob, to make it more obvious that this tarstuff is different. Again, please try to consider if this will be a scripting "surprise" and accommodate accordingly.
The Fixing Phase
- After the rooms are built and compiled into the first draft, the fixing phase will begin.
- The first draft might have major balancing issues, inaccessible rooms, all sorts of issues.
- We want the final output to be fun, so the aim will be to adjust things as necessary to make the end result fun, while trying to maintain the spirit of the original rooms if we can.
- We reserve the right to edit any part of your rooms to achieve this, in any way deemed necessary.
- Rooms that end up out of balance do not necessarily need changing, if the end result still works out anyway. Don't worry too much about it.
- If you want to avoid your room being edited a lot, it is recommended to not be too wacky or extreme. Try to take a guess at what might be appropriate costs for any resources you provide, remember that some equipment or accessories, especially the grappling hook and flippers, could turn out to be very powerful in other rooms, and it is wise to try and cost them accordingly.
- If your room is just trying to troll the game, we reserve the right to blank it in its entirety to remove it from the end result.
Level-Specific Rules
- There may be further restrictions for a level, which will be posted when that level is posted.
- Some guidelines for stat lines will also be provided.
Submitting Your Rooms
- A copy of the hold with the level template will be provided. When you edit this, the game will ask you to make a copy. Your copy of the hold is what you will submit.
- A submissions thread will be made to submit your level to. In submission threads only you and the creator can see your posts.
- If you would like any of your rooms to have a map icon present at the start, those need to be set up in the Entrance room, so please let me know in your submission post so I can do that.
- Same for any scripting that will need to happen in adjacent rooms, such as resetting the music or a global variable.
- There will be a hard deadline of one week for your rooms to be submitted. If your submission is not received, the game will continue without you and your room will be left blank, or used for balancing purposes for the rest of the level. A gravestone will be placed commemorating the death of your room, but we won't name and shame, real life is more important than some stupid forum game, these things happen sometimes.
Other Misc Stuff
- Hiding collectibles directly underneath monsters is uncool.
[Last edited by kieranmillar at 08-28-2025 04:59 PM]
|
