Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC), September 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: Secrets : Build a track in which the player is prompted to discover something secret.

Deadline: Sunday, September 29th 2013, 23:59:59 Pacific Time.

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:

You can build in any Trackmania 2 environment.
Max. 1 track per author. Single author per track.

Your track must PROMPT the player, in some way, to look/search/perform etc. the secret thing.
Discovering or performing the secret thing should be communicated to the player.

Blockmixing is allowed, however there will be a 2 point "fee" deducted from the DESIGN category if your track uses blockmixing. Please state clearly in your track description that your track is blockmixed. Also: If your track REQUIRES Unlimiter to be installed on player's computer, it will be rejected!

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 September 30th 2013 00:00 Pacific Time.

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 that are beyond the standard envelope of "typical track". Hiding the Finish gate, hiding checkpoints, placing hidden shortcuts that are needed for Gold medal time, or requiring the player to find a way to do something seemingly impossible -- these are all things that could be created. However, try to make the track fun to play.

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

Confirmed judges:
volunteers welcome!

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. -2 if you use blockmixing. 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 "Secret(s)" 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

So, is this kinda RPG???

Well, just very "kinda".

Don't think about "category", focus on the topic. You have to have something secret in the track and part of the fun should be finding it; but even if the player finds it, they should be able to have fun on subsequent runs of the track.

Drifting away from TM for a little while lately, but I may just have to come back to participate in this. Gotta be my favorite theme.

?

Basically hidden shortcuts I'd say.

And what is actually the challenge behind that?

Making it fun and innovative?

:-)

It doesn't have to be shortcuts, that's just one of many possibilities.

i mean every track should be fun and innovative
so this actually isnt a new challenge

building a secret into a track isnt challenge

FT»Lodec says:
i mean every track should be fun and innovative
so this actually isnt a new challenge

building a secret into a track isnt challenge

I don't think anyone's usual tracks contain too many secrets, so this is definitely stepping out of the comfort zone for most people. This is actually a great theme, you just need to think outside the box. Hiding something in a track is actually really tough... usually easter eggs and such are too easy to find.