Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for January 2022! eyebo is your host for the month.
In the MTC, your mission is to build a map on a given theme. Later, all the maps are rated and a winner is found.

Theme of the Month: Connect the Dots
Use one of the base maps to create a map connecting the Start, CPs, and Finish.

The seven available base maps to build with:

• TM2 Canyon
  
• TM2 Valley
  
• TM2 Stadium
  
• TM2 Lagoon
  
• TM2 Island (comes free with Stadium)
  
• TMOne Speed (comes free with Valley)
  
• TMOne Alpine (comes free with Valley)


Theme Specific Rules

• You can change cars for any base maps if you want.
  
• Use the base titlepack (or TMAll) for each environment.
  
• You can submit up to two maps for this edition.
  
• Duo maps are allowed. Each duo counts as one map for each participant.
  
• You must use the already placed Start without moving it.
  
• You must use the already placed Finish without moving it, and it must be the main Finish of the map.
  
• You must pass through every Checkpoint already placed in the map, without moving them.
  
• It is allowed to place additional Checkpoints.
  
• Linked Checkpoints are NOT allowed.



General Rules

• MTC should be present in the track name. Example: "Where Is Waldo (MTC)" or "mtc|WhereIsWaldo"
  
• Maps should be built in the most recent version of the game
  
• Maps must be built during the month of this MTC.
  
• Blockmixing, embedded items, and mods are allowed
  
• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks are NOT allowed
  
• Maps requiring drivers to use OpenPlanet are NOT allowed

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!


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Deadlines

• Your map should be uploaded before January 31st at midnight EST. Submissions will continue to be accepted until I officially announce closure in this thread.
  
• Maps submitted within the deadline will have 24 hours after submissions close to make any edits
  
• Public voting is from February 2nd to February 9th 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
Honor and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that.)
The top 3 winners will receive a front page feature of a track of their choice

How to Submit

• You MUST upload your track to this mappack and optionally post a link to your map in this thread
  
• You can update your map within the deadline as many times as you want
  
• Submitted maps may be updated within 24 hours of submissions closing, in case of any necessary last minute changes; new maps may NOT be submitted in this time frame
  
• Updating your map after the revision deadline has passed will lead to a disqualification. You are free to update your map 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+[/i]

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a map (your score on your own map won't be counted)
  
• Every map 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 map entirely! You cannot judge only half of it. If you are not able to finish a map, your vote can still count! Please only leave that as a very last resort, and judge the entire map fairly
  
• You must play and vote on all maps 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!

Fixed the link to the mappack in the original post.
Thanks Citoxe!

Updated the link to the Island base, as it contained two starts and no finish.
Thanks to SLAYER for the heads up.

Mine:

January 2022 Public Voting Link: https://forms.gle/BUFGsnq8mxJnmdVq6

This month there's 7 maps! Download them here.

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:

8.2 - Pretty good, though a couple parts felt a bit too easy.

• 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 mixture of the average public score and the average internal score
  
• The mixture will be 75/25 between internal judging and public voting if there is 1 public voter, 60/40 for 2, and 50/50 for 3+
  
• You must be able to play 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 public voting will soft close on March 13, 2022 at midnight EST. After that, you may still vote until the internal judges complete their voting.

Voted!

Mappers tried their best to connect all of the pre-placed blocks. And now results are ready for this edition! Thanks to Arkes for judging alongside me. And thanks to our two public voters as well.

- MTC January 2022 Podium -

The winner is pjw with their Alpine in Speed map!


pjw also nabs 2nd place!


JR1988 gets 3rd place!




Here's a link to the full results which also contains the judges' comments.

pjw gets 2 front page features of their choice (but they've given one away to X3kuba3X), and JR1988 gets 1 front page feature of their choice.

Thanks everyone for participating!

I'm glad folks enjoyed the tracks.

I do feel a little guilty about grabbing first *and* second though...seems almost like cheating or something.
With that in mind, can I give my second front page showcase to X3kuba3X? They were just barely under that third-place wire...

pjw says:
With that in mind, can I give my second front page showcase to X3kuba3X? They were just barely under that third-place wire...

Sure you can. That's generous.

Congrats to pjw for winning this MTC! Really enjoyed his maps.

pjw says:

With that in mind, can I give my second front page showcase to X3kuba3X? They were just barely under that third-place wire...

Aww you didn't have to, thanks so much ❤