Announcing the fourth in the series started by MARTH: the Let’s Entertain Awesome Fantasy contest, or LEAF. You can call it the Let’s Entertain Intriguing Fantasy contest, LEIF, too. This is a chapter creation competition in the vein of Ghast and Alusq’s Make A Fun Chapter series. This is intended to be a basic, no-frills contest. Prospective entrants will be challenged to make a quality chapter based on three fields of skill: gameplay, presentation, and story.
@Darrman is the head judge. The remaining judges are currently being recruited: if you are interested, please make a post in this thread.
RULES:
1: Engine
Entrants may use whatever engine they desire.
Engines include GBAFE, SNESFE, FEXNA/Tactile, SRPG Studio, or Lex Talionis.
If hacking, entrants may use whatever method they prefer.
Though creating an SRPG chapter is recommended, it is not required.
2: Length
Entrants are restricted to a single chapter.
However, they are free to submit multiple distinct entries.
There are no restrictions on this chapter’s length.
The map may be as large as desired, subject to the following restrictions.
If the map is in the style of FE4, a save must be given every castle.
This must be in-engine: “save state here” prompts are not allowed.
Only one map may be used for gameplay.
Exceptionally large map changes may be considered a second map at the judge's discretion.
As many cutscene maps as necessary may be used.
3: Content
Entrants may theme their entry however they wish.
The FEU content rules apply. Submissions may not be rated 17+.
Entrants may have as much or as little text as desired.
If entry is not an SRPG, Fire Emblem must be relevant.
If the entry is in a Fire Emblem engine, Fire Emblem is relevant.
For example, a Mario hack featuring Marth is allowed.
Usage of AI tools to generate a chapter is strictly forbidden.
4: Submission and Time Limits
Entrants have until 11:59pm UTC+1 on the 12th of April to submit an entry.
Entrants may spend as much time as desired working on their chapter.
Work must have begun after the competition was announced.
Entries must be sent to @Darrman on Fire Emblem Universe via personal message.
Entries must come with a readme containing patching or running instructions.
The readme must also contain a credits listing obeying FEU policy.
An entry can be freely updated until the deadline has passed.
Once the deadline passes, submission is final and cannot be withdrawn.
There will be no extension to the deadline.
5: Disqualification
Entrants will be disqualified if they:
Submit an entry that does not boot.
Submit an entry that cannot be finished.
Submit more than one chapter in an entry.
Submit an entry directly recycled from another game.
If an entry crashes at any point, a judge may halt gameplay and score it 0.
6: Ranking
Entrants will be scored in the following areas:
Gameplay: How enjoyable the entry is.
There are many elements in what is fun.
A unique chapter with an interesting gimmick will score well.
An empty field with a unit walking from A to B will score poorly.
Adding ASM hacks without balancing around them will be frowned upon.
For example, using the Skill System default skills without change.
Presentation: How the entry looks and sounds.
Don’t be afraid to use mugs and animations from the graphics repository.
If the entry stands out visually compared to other hacks, it will score well.
Tile cut-off or poor-quality recolours will penalise the entrant.
Music quality will also be scored under here.
Midis with dummy instruments will hurt an entry’s score, while high-quality mixes help it.
Story: The tale the entry tells.
The story does not need to be serious. Comedy is more than welcome.
Whether serious or funny, the story should make sense. Avoid plot holes.
There is no need to have every blue unit appear in every conversation.
Having little or no text will result in a low score, as will placeholders.
Gameplay will be scored out of 10, while graphics and story will be scored out of 5.
This adds up to 20.
Four judges will review each entry.
These scores will be added up, for a grand total of 80.
The entry with the highest score wins.
7: Other Notes
- Entrants are welcome to collaborate, and will be jointly credited if so.
- Entrants are welcome to publicly post a patch in the entry thread upon submission.
- Entries will be released to the public with the results.
- Entrants and non-entrants are welcome to play and provide feedback to other entrant’s entries.
Please spoiler this feedback to avoid influencing the judges. - Judges will attempt to finish each chapter without save state or other emulator tool usage. They will use in-game mid-chapter save points if provided.
- If emulator tool usage is required, the gameplay score will be penalised. Design your chapter as if it would be played on a Game Boy Advance.
- Turnwheel may be implemented. However, judges will avoid using it if possible.
Use of infinite turnwheel will be considered equal to rewinding in an emulator for penalty.
If you don’t know where to begin, then let me provide an optional theme for inspiration. I must stress that this is optional and will not affect your score in any way, nor will it be taken into account in the reviews.
The theme is: Staves. Feel free to experiment and use whatever ideas you want.
Remember, the deadline is 11:59pm UTC+1 on the 12th of April. Good luck to all entrants.
