Dynamite Maps Contest #5 [DM05]
[UPDATE] The Dynamite Maps Contest #5 has now ended. We have tabulated the votes, crunched the numbers, and have posted the results.
Today is a special day. No, not just because it’s my birthday, but because we are kicking off our first community maps contest of 2013!
On the off chance that you’ve been sleeping under a rock and missed the announcement of the latest indie bundle, Dynamite Jack has been included as part of the Humble Bundle with Android 5. With over 100,000 bundles purchased in just over twenty four hours, and 12+ days to go, we expect there to be tons of new players and map makers. So, together with creator Phil Hassey, we figured the time was right to announce DM05!
If you’re new to our contests, feel free to check out the results of DM01, DM02, DM03, and DM04 to get a rough idea for how it works. As always, if you’re interested in participating in this contest, be sure to use the contest tag, [DM05], on all submissions and follow the contest rules. Remember we have Early Bird prizes and a Just Jack award in addition to the People’s Choice Award.
The theme for this contest is “Light and Dark”. Feel free to interpret the theme however you see fit. We can’t wait to see the maps that you come up with!
Timeline
- The contest has officially begun (March 6th, 12:00 AM PST).
- The contest ends in just over two weeks at midnight (March 24th, 12:00 AM PDT).
- Judging for the People’s Choice Award will end one week after the submission deadline (March 31st, 12:00 AM PDT).
- Winners for all awards will be announced on this website the morning of April 1st.
So…who’s in? Let us know in the comments!
Posted on March 6, 2013, in Contests and tagged dm05. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
Check out my map
“DMo5 3 Stage Slave”
Before it gets played a ton and you lose any ratings, can you rename it with the contest tag like this: [DM05] 3 Stage Slave?
I’m participating as well, the map name is ‘[DM05] Vlad’s Castle’. Seems my last map (which was also my first one) was a bit too hard/frustrating (which I realized after looking at the leaderboard), hope this one is fine. It’s still relatively hard, but not the play-for-half-an-hour-and-die-30-times-hard of my last map. Also hope the map matches the theme..
Vlad’s Castle Rocks! The variety is good and the layout of the level is a great compromise between function and form!
Hi, fellow bombers!
Here’s my participation to DM05 contest : “[DM05] Yin & Yang”.
When I saw the theme of the contest, I thought that since light was the central concept of Dynamite Jack (and the founding one, see Phil’s blog : http://www.philhassey.com/blog/category/dynamitejack/page/2/ and search for “Light and Darkness”), most of DJ maps could more or less fit the bill, so I wanted to make something really different and flavorful.
So I went for a map based on the universally known symbol of duality: the Yin & Yang of the Chinese philosophy. I precise that although we Occidentals sometimes misunderstand the concept of Yin & Yang as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, it instead represents complementary and interconnected things of the world: light and darkness, male and female, life and death, etc.
Here’s the baseline:
“You start your spiritual trip at the black dot of the Yang. Journey through the Sun and Moon, Light and Darkness, and reach the illumination at the white dot of the Yin.”
A spiritual trip with a few bombings, I must admit…
You will find in this map :
- the Yin and the Yang, of course;
- the Sun, which makes life on Earth possible thanks to its light… but can also kill with its merciless burning rays;
- the Moon, shining bright in the night, peaceful and quiet… but maybe not as deserted as you’d think;
- the light bulb, symbol of light recreated by human genius, that allowed us to repel darkness and make our lives more comfortable… but electricity can also be deadly;
- and the bat, symbol of night’s inhabitants, and all the dangers of the wild when night has fallen.
It’s not my most difficult map, but I chose to focus on esthetics and flavor rather than challenge.
I hope you’ll enjoy it! =)
Cheers,
major-pob
I have made a map for submission into the contest, called:
DM05 The Challenge of PlayBoyMan.
I think I did a good job incorporating the Light and Dark theme for my map, but I’ll let you all be the judge of that.
It’s Challenging at first, but it is solvable. I hope you enjoy it.
Hi there!
I just posted a last minute map: Dark Light, for which I tried to work on shapes and colors.
And it’s “Just Jack” as some say: you don’t have the bombs.
Hope you enjoy it!
major-pob
[DM05] Turn Out the Lights! (Novice)
They left the lights on in the buildings at night! Make them pay!!!
It is challenging but has a lot of save points so it only takes 10-15 minutes to go through this big map. Half of the level is ‘just jack’ but once you get the flashlight and bombs it’s time to go Rambo!!! That will teach them to leave the lights on!!!
A very nice “classic-style” DJ map. I really enjoyed playing it several times searching for a better time. I put 5 stars because it’s both interesting and fun! Thanks and good luck for the People’s Choice Award! (I think you’re the favorite for now…)
Thanks! I see that you totally decimated my expected playtime of 10 minutes! This is my first DJ map, but I have spent years on other game editors like Doom, Halo, and Starcraft 2. I’ll be making more maps soon!
Some excellent new maps for DM05. But once again some map makers completely forget that this should be fun! Phitte refers to it above, once you’ve died 30+ times or taken over 30mins its just not fun. Don’t make it easy but above all please don’t make it hard.
Hi Freddie,
I completely agree with you that a map should be fun to play; for example, personnally I hate pits mazes where you should walk on narrow paths, or long mazes with dead ends… that’s not fun at all.
However, about the difficulty level of a map and the time one will spend on it, they depend on the experience and skill of the player… so it’s quite hard to build a map that will appeal to experienced players for its challenges, without being too frustrating for beginners. =)
I just bought the iPhone version so I can play away from my computer, and man the game is more difficult with the on-screen joystick. It just as much fun, but even the campaign is challenging playing on the phone, whereas I zipped through the campaign on the computer. I imagine I will prefer easier community maps on the phone and more difficult ones on the computer.
Boogersurfer (what a name!) bought the Android version myself in a humble bundle. But like you say its really difficult to use without a keyboard. And major-pob, respect for all your great maps. Personally I think its a pity when somebody has taken a great deal of trouble on a map but only 10 or so users have scores. That tells me its far too difficult. Like you don’t like mazes and another pet hate is the maps that require you to push zombies to block lasers. Refuse to play those.