Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for April 2020! This month is hosted by Arkive!




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





Theme of the Month: There Can Be Only One




All blocks and items may only be used once




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Theme Specific Rules

• Only one of each block may be placed on the route (more on the route below)
  
• Pieces which may be dragged to be made longer/larger may be placed once at any size (e.g. road pieces can be placed at any length, even though this technically places multiple blocks)
  
• Up to 8 unique custom blocks and items may be used. Each custom block or item used may only be used once
  
• Landscaping is not counted and may be used freely
  
• Variations of a piece do NOT count as unique blocks, so only 1 variation may be used
  
• A piece cannot be placed if it breaks a drawn road
  
• All custom blocks count as items and do not prevent you from placing the vanilla block
  
• Blocks are counted as part of the route if the car touches the block or is clearly influenced by the block (such as using the block as a direct wall or using a pillar as a clear obstacle). Blocks which are not used in the route may be placed freely, and do not need to abide by the above rules
  
• Either your submission must not be password protected or you need to send me a copy of your submission which isn't password protected. This is just so I can check the map

Example:


This is a valid part. Though the middle stretch of road is technically five 1-1-1 pieces in a row, they are placed with one click-and-drag of the mouse, and thusly only count as one block for our purposes.



Now this part is no longer valid. The checkpoint block interrupts the stretch of road, so it's now two sections of road instead of one. This is not allowed.



Terrain is free to place! This is all valid.



While these two pieces might look different, both are the 6-9-6 pieces. Since they are technically the same piece, this would mean that there are two of the same block placed, and thusly makes this invalid.

General Rules

• You may submit one track maximum
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map counts as one track for each author involved
  
• MTC should be present in the track name. Example: "MTC - Single Serve" or "on a budget (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
  
• All titlepacks are allowed
  
• Blockmixing is allowed
  
• Envimixing is allowed
  
• Embedded items are allowed
  
• Stadium64 base is allowed
  
• TMUF cars are allowed
  
• Mods are allowed (remember to include locators!)
  
• 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 April 30th at midnight EST. Submissions will continue to be accepted until I officially announce closure in this thread, which will likely occur the following EST morning
  
• Tracks submitted within the deadline will have 24 hours after submissions close to make any last minute edits
  
• Public voting will go from May 1st to May 8th or until the internal judging is finished, whichever occurs later
  
• 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

• You MUST upload your map to this map-pack and optionally post a link to your map in this 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
  
• Updating your track after the revision deadline has passed will lead to a disqualification. You are free to update your track once the results are published

Judging: Public and Internal
We will use a mixture of 75/25 between internal judging and public voting if there is 1 public voter, 60/40 for 2, and 50/50 for 3+

• 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 track will be judged with marks 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 must play and vote on all tracks for your votes to count
  
• 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 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!

Also unique blocks for scenery then i guess?

Yep. No matter how you use a block, you may only use it once in the map.

Is 8 the maximum of custom items and blocks we can use? Or can we use as many custom blocks & items we want?

You are allowed to use up to 8 items and custom blocks combined, and you may only use one instance of each custom block or item. For example, if you place myCoolItem in the map, you cannot place a second myCoolItem, but you may still place up to 7 other custom blocks/items.

Two more questions:
1: symmetric blocks allowed? (for example the sculptures with different numbers)
2: anything labeled as "road" (eg draggable Platforms) can be used multiple times?

did a lot of mapping today, fun challenge

As long as the block numbers are different, the blocks are considered different from each other and both may be used.

Any draggable "road" blocks may be used for one click-and-drag placement, no more. Notice in the second example that the CP interrupts the dragged road. Because of this, it would technically require two click-and-drags to place all of the road, which would count as two uses of the block. Therefore, it is not allowed.

You say that landscaping is free...what about the dedicated landscape-variation sculpting blocks?

Example: Canyon only has one, the 10-1-7 block. This doesn't actually add any geometry--it just alters the look of what's already been placed. Hopefully blocks like this are free, or there will be a lot of bland looking landscape.

Since I had a hard time deciding what to do regarding scenery, I had a quick poll on Discord to decide. The final verdict was this: a block may be placed once on the route OR it may be placed as many times as you wish for scenery, but not both.

There was also another quick rule added: you'll need to either have your map not be password protected or will need to send me a copy of the map that is not password protected. I just need to be able to double-check that all maps abide by the theme restrictions.

Both of these rules have been added to the top post.

Arkive says:
a block may be placed once on the route OR it may be placed as many times as you wish for scenery, but not both.

That's an awesome change and will result in much better looking maps--thanks for the additional consideration!

Edit: Sorry, but after thinking about it and looking at my map, I'm still not sure if that really answers my question though? If I have an off-road section of my map, and I use one of those sculpting/variant blocks (like canyon 10-1-7) to alter the part of the terrain that the car touches, does that mean that I can't use 10-1-7 again on the entire rest of the scenery and it's all going to all be generic cliff-face #1?

That block (and others like it that are only used to vary the appearance of natural terrain) should, IMO, be an exception in an MTC that encourages variation?