Charting Contest #12 - Rebirth

Welp, it's been a while since we've had one of these. Let's start again with something simple, shall we?

We've overhauled the rules and guidelines, so make sure you read through them all!

Notice:

Form of the first voting period is here: https://forms.gle/8koDsFyPPwsC1mYh8

Contest Schedule:

Each phase begins and ends at 0:00 and 23:59 UTC-8 respectively. Use this clock to judge the time: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/timezone/utc-8

October 27 - November 24: Chart Submission Period

November 25 - December 15: First Voting Period ( You CANNOT edit the level during this period )

December 16 - December 22 : Second Voting Period ( You CANNOT edit the level during this period )

Criteria:

• No song/genre restrictions!
• At least one difficulty. Creating more than one difficulty is highly recommended so that newer players are able to enjoy your level too. It's alright if you're short on time, but if your song is something like 2:30 there's little reason not to make more than one difficulty.
• One submission per charter.
• Collaboration is allowed! Featured and nonfeatured charters are able to collaborate with each other as they wish; however, the entry counts for a submission for each participant.

To enter:

Upload your level and tag it as needed (see Metadata Rules). Include "rebirth contest" and set to public. While you may edit the level during the submission period, all levels submitted will be downloaded when the voting phase begins and will be posted in a followup announcement. Editing your level after this point will be impossible until after the contest is over (unless there are serious problems with your level eg. broken level.json).

Eligibility:

You must have one level uploaded to the website. While there have been a couple decent contest debuts, past contest results have shown that most new charters shouldn't be participating with their first work. Please have another public level visible on your profile before participating in the contest.

Metadata Rules:

These rules will be applied automatically to your final score if you fail to meet the requirements. Please make sure you fill out your level.json and tags properly.

• Both music source and cover source must be properly filled, which includes
• NOT using Google, www.google.com, any search tool or any irrelevant sites as artist OR illustrator source.
• NOT using a third party website for the source (as in an upload from an unofficial account/channel without artist’s consent)
• You MUST NOT use “cytoid” anywhere in the Level ID (this causes confusion level is official or not).
• Level ID MUST include the charter’s official or other acceptable name. (Exception: Team names)
• Charter and storyboarder names MUST be included in tags.
• Collab charts MUST have a "collab" tag as well as all charters' names.
• Charts with storyboards MUST have a "storyboard" tag.
• The song title, artist name, and illustrator MUST be in their original language.

Translations should be reserved for the localization section. Preferred order when choosing a localized title is official translation > either literal or romanized.

For metadata best practices, please refer to this guide: https://www.notion.so/Metadata-d19f482dc1c2450dbc1412b4c049ae48

Judgement Criteria:

Each category is on a scale from 1-10.

Metadata (30%):

Accuracy of the chart's information. This includes tags, song and illustrator sources, song names, paths to the correct files, and anything else mentioned in Metadata Rules. One point will be deducted for each error. As this is the least subjective category, the mods will be handling this section.

The rest of these categories are for voters to judge during the voting phase. As each player's opinion on what to judge is different, scores will vary wildly, but a couple questions will be provided as examples for what you should be asking while evaluating each level.

Playability (30%):

Your judgement of how the chart plays. This category isn't asking if the chart is maxable; instead, it asks whether the chart's overall difficulty is consistent over its playtime.

• Are difficulty spikes reasonable and predictable?
• Is the chart's structure well defined?
• Are structural shifts too abrupt?
• Are there any obvious issues that disrupt gameplay like stacked tap notes or chords too close to each other?
• Does the chart and/or storyboard cause an unplayable amount of lag?
• Does the storyboard disrupt gameplay to the point of unplayability?

Representation (30%):

Your judgement of how the chart represents the song. This criterion asks if the charter's design choices best expresses the song's intensity and rhythms.

• Are notes on sync with the rhythm?
• Do speed changes make sense given the song's context?
• Does the chart's difficulty convey the song's intensity appropriately?
• Are similar sounds represented with similar patterns?
• When multiple rhythms are layered, does rhythmical focus shift in appropriate places?
• Do the storyboard's effects bring out what the chart can't?

Creativity (10%):

Your judgement of how unique the level is. This asks if the chart introduces concepts that makes it stand out and memorable among other charts.

• Does the chart introduce completely new concept?
• Does it take concepts from other charts and builds on them?
• Is there a gimmick that is developed as the chart progresses?
• Is the concept used consistently throughout the chart?
• Does the storyboard also do the above?

The top three entries during the first voting period will win and will be featured immediately. Entries past a certain threshold (let's say 7 for now, subject to change) will be posted as honorable mentions; these are then put through a second voting phase from a scale of -3 to 3: do you want this chart featured as well? Entries averaging above 1 after the second phase ends will then be featured as well.