Micro Madness 2023 / MM4 - General Topic & Signups

Introduction

Welcome to the fourth installment of New Element's mad little contest. Micro Madness began all the way back in 2007, when Kumba was in charge of the site's proceedings, and held his first contest as admin. He introduced a novel idea seen as quite provocative at the time: a new format of "micro" parks no larger than 15x15 tiles.

Brushed off my many as a joke that had nothing to do with serious park making, the format did introduce a new kind of building. One that was inherently quick and liberated. There simply wasn't that much space to fill, and the strict confinement meant creative experimentation was somewhat favoured over realistic style parkmaking.

The contest thus received response from people who up to this point may not have felt like they could fill large maps with tons of content, as was still the firmly established meta from the site's early years. The concept of "verticality" was quickly brought in by new faces, for example Camcorder22's Thrill Towers.

Given the small map size, a lot of engagement was expected, and the contest aimed to mimic the knockout format of 2004's Quest for the Best: Xtreme. To build x parks in sucession however proved to be difficult for some leading to a number of high profile dropouts and unfinished parks. Improvements to the format were made with the second iteration of Micro Madness, in which four way matches as the standard were introduced and a wildcard spot added to reward contest-wide effort. Dropouts still affected the matches, but Micro Madness 3 perfected the format as it introduced a more fluid bracket and a replacement system. It was arguably the best edition of Micro Madness thus far, and the micro format had begun to look like a testing ground for new ideas and techniques.

Format & Rules

Micro Madness
Micro Madness is an individual player contest open to all members at New Element. The objective is to create a small sized map (size limit will be revealed per round, but in the past has traditionally been 15x15 tiles) to directly compete against others within a group of 4-5. Micro Madness is all about creativity - it's a challenge for the best players to show that they can prove their skills on a smaller map, whilst also giving an opportunity for relatively unknown members to jump into the spotlight and demonstrate that they're just as good as the top brass. The contest will follow the traditional format set out by Micro Madness 2014 and 2019, which saw four-way matches in a flexible bracket system.

Objective & Rules
Your task is to develop a map constrained to a limited number of tiles, which will be set out at the start of each round. There are no limits to what can be and what can't be done, everyone has free reign, as long as it fits the size requirement for that round and follows the rules and regulations. You do not have to utilise a square shape to achieve the spatial target. Nothing may lie outside this boundary except directly adjacent walls (and other virtually 'flat' scenery pieces), map entrances, peep entry points and any way of getting peeps into your entry. Your submission will enter a match with a number of other submissions; the winner(s) of this match will proceed into the next round, in which you have to develop a new map following the same formula. The last round will see the winner crowned as Micro Madness 4 Champion!

The full set of rules are laid out in the Rules & Regulations topic, where you will also find details for the submission deadlines for each round. Please read these rules carefully to understand the requirements of the contest if you wish to participate.

Signing Up
You may sign up for the contest by stating your intention to join the contest in a reply below. Signups will close on January 15th at 23:59 PM GMT, the same as the Round 1 Deadline. The player seeding and Bracket will be announced on January 1st and all those who have signed up by then will be placed into a random group based on their seed (calculated according to player skill and past performance). Anyone who signs up after the bracket but before the Round 1 deadline will be placed into an available group as random. Due to the flexible nature of the bracket, we will be able to run the contest with any number of players, so no player will be left out or unselected.

Signups

Micro Madness is back, and Round 1 has officially kicked off! You may begin building immediately - please read all of the Rules & Regulations carefully to ensure you understand what is and isn't permitted and how to submit your park. You must also sign up below prior to the Round 1 deadline in order to participate.

The Bracket will be announced in one week, at which point you will know who you're set to compete against. The tile timit and deadline for this round have been posted below. Good luck and happy building!

Round 2 is now open to begin building on! As we've already seen some players eager to build after finishing their Round 1 maps already, we've intentionally set the tile limit to be the same as previous so that anything built so far isn't gone to waste.

You may now begin building on Round 3! This round is going super micro - the Tile Limit has been reduced to 100 tiles, in order spur creativity and give players pause for thought on how they adapt to a smaller map size.

The Grand Final is now open to start building, provided you make it all the way! This round will be appropriately super sized, with a bumper tile limit of 400 tiles and a longer deadline.

You know I’m in! Merry Christmas everyone!

Why not, count me in.
Merry Christmas!

I've got no time but a ton of ideas. Let's do it

For old times sake... in!

Really enjoyed checking out the last edition, so I’ll gladly join! Merry Christmas everyone

Im in

This is fun. Count me in.

I'll join:)

I'm in.

 

We'll count that as a sign-up. Going forwards, please clearly state your intent to participate so that there is no confusion.

I'm sitting this one out. Micros are not my genre. I've done some nice ones (Inspiration Well, Urban Renewal, Nibiru), but every good micro there is one randomly thrown together one. The format doesn't suit my ideas and I'd rather spend my precious RCT time continuing my solo stuff. I will also be more available to support the backstage processes and review all the micros to come. Really looking forward to seeing what insanity you guys can come up with!

I'll join! Love Micro Madness

This is me signing up

yes

Yup