Hey everyone. The start date of June 4th has been announced. GLHF everyone!

Some things worthy of note:
-Registration deadline is June 25th
-Remember that every week you are in the competition you must post at least one editor screenshot with the secret word in it
-You can't start constructing your level until the competition has started
-I'm going to be posting the judging Excel template in a week or two so everyone knows how they are being judged; just remember that these maps are primarily judged on playability
-I'm hoping to have at least one more sponsor announcement in the next week or two.

And in case you hadn't heard, my wife is scheduled to give birth to our second child sometime in the next few days or so, so if I suddenly disappear you'll know why. Haha.

Sounds awesome Mav. For the secret word thing, though, does it start with the date of June 4th like you mentioned (so 4th, 11th, 18th, etc.), or every Sunday which is the start of the week?

btw congrats on your new child too. New additions are always exciting.

In most cases what will happen is that at the beginning of the week a secret word will be posted in the secret word thread. At least one of your screenshots for that week must then include that word. You can post the screenshot early in the week or late in the week, just as long as you post an editor screenshot with the secret word in it sometime during that week. The following week will follow the same rule for the rest of the competition's 10 weeks. Regardless of whether or not you do work that week you *must* post a screenshot every week with the secret word in it. (If you registered late then you obviously can't post screenshots from the previous weeks because there was nothing to screenshot) So in a nutshell, your very first screenshot should show a nearly blank or very basic radiant layout, and your final editor screenshot will show a very complete and finalized map.

As a note though:
You can post any screenshots you want, but the secret word screenshot must be from the editor. I'll go ahead and make the secret word thread following this post.

At the end of the competition you should have at least 10 screenshots with secret words in them (this may vary slightly depending on when you registered). You can obviously have more, which I strongly encourage.

Remember that there are lots of people watching this competition (non-mappers, mappers, graphic designers, industry professionals, sponsors) so the more exposure your map has the better you will look, the more feedback you will receive, the better the chance your map will get play tested, and the better chance sponsors will be happy now and sponsor again next time. I know for a fact that gaming companies are watching this competition; I've tried to structure it like a normal industry project, so think of the screenshots like you showing your work off to your boss and making sure things are still heading in the right direction.

Thanks for the well wishes; we're pretty excited.

BTW: I'm adding a majority of this post to the FAQ just to clarify things.

Oh, I may have forgotten to mention, I've started a twitter feed for the level design competition (@MaverickServers on twitter) if you want to get the latest and greatest information. If any of you can retweet or pimp the sponsors that ia always appreciated Thanks!

If any of you have twitter accounts and want to publicize them please feel free to post them.