Happy Valentine’s Day! We at Sonic Team Junior love our playerbase so much that we’re doing two cool things:
As always, thanks for sticking around and playing SRB2! We wouldn’t be where we are without you!
Hello everybody! The Autumn 2020 OLDC has come and gone. Before I congratulate the winners, I would like to go over some changes we will be making for future contests.
The biggest change is that future contests will be twice per year instead of four times per year. We recognize that creating maps is harder and takes longer than it did when the OLDC was first created. We hope that giving mappers six months instead of three months to work on maps will result in more maps submitted to each contest, and that the maps are as high quality as the mappers can manage.
In addition, we will now require participants to include their Discord tag in their map submission posts (that is, your username — NOT a nickname — and the four numbers after it). This way, we can add participants to a special channel on the SRB2 Official Discord Server dedicated to answering their questions about the contest. This channel can also be used to keep contest staff up to date on fixes to your maps after the submission deadline has passed. We hope this will be easier than sending direct messages to contest staff regarding such topics, since individual staff members are not always online and/or available to help. (You may skip this if you do not have a Discord account, however.)
Now, on to the results of the Autumn 2020 contest!
The winners of the single player division are Kwiin and Kanna with their entry, Foliage Furnace Zone. The map’s theme appears to be borrowed from another fangame called Sonic: After the Sequel. I found this map somewhat challenging. Watch out for death pits and fast-moving platforms! It uses slopes in ways that feel very much at home in a Sonic game, and its texture work is good. Congratulations, Kwiin and Kanna!
I would also like to congratulate the winners of the multiplayer divisions:
Congratulations to Joe Mewstard for winning the Circuit division with Electric Avenue Zone!
Congratulations to Krabs for winning the Battle Arena division with Stupid Facestabber Zone, as well as winning the Battle CTF division with GFZFLR01 Zone!
You can view the full contest results here. If you haven’t checked out this contest pack yet, you can download it here.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this contest! The deadline for OLDC 2021 Round 1 is June 1st, 2021 at 23:59 UTC (6:59 EST). See you then!
Hello everybody! I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that our message board will be going down for maintenance this weekend (December 26th & 27th, 2020). The good news is that this maintenance involves moving the message board to a new server. This should mean more stability, which is a much needed step in the process of upgrading to the new message board software.
Please be aware that this means the ingame server browser will not be functional during this time. The best way to work around this is to join our Discord server. The place is never empty, and it’s a great way to find people to play netgames with.
Since this is on such short notice, we have decided to extend the OLDC voting deadline by one week. Please cast your votes by January 2nd, 2021, 6:59pm EST (11:59pm UTC).
Thank you for your patience and your continued support. See you on Monday!
Hello everybody! We have re-thought and re-written the Submissions Guidelines. This is something that’s been overdue for quite a while, as they’ve been a little out of date in several ways. Please have a look over them here!
There are no doubt going to be some concerns over these changes. Everyone who is involved in this community knows that mods are the lifeblood of it, and it’s expected that people are going to worry about how new rules will change the face of the modding scene.
That’s why we’d like to address a few probable points of concern we expect people to have with these new rules. The first four concerns pertain to some new rules regarding what constitutes a worthy release. In short form:
There are some assorted smaller rules too, but these are the major entry qualifications to release. There is no quality check, and we’re probably not going to reject something because it didn’t have “enough effort” if it still meets the above standards. (We do reserve the right to reject anything we see fit, however.)
Based upon a lot of conversations we’ve all seen around in the community a lot lately, we anticipate some of the following concerns. So let me address them one by one.
#1: “I feel that low quality beginner mods devalue or divert attention from my mods I’ve worked hard on!”
This is a bit of a misunderstanding of what releases is supposed to be. Releases is not a showcase for the best and the greatest mods (though it’s historically been treated like that); it’s simple a repository of ALL mods the community has made, however large or small. Good mods generally recieve a lot of attention as is, but if you want more people to see your mod, please, you’re encouraged to promote it. Post screenshots! Take fun gifs! Engage in converations with people about why you designed your mod the way you did and why you think it’s fun. Post it on social media! Seriously, go nuts.
There has been a precedent over the past few months of very amateur mods generating a lot of short-lived attention, which has rubbed some creators the wrong way. We get it, we really do. But that’s not a releases problem, that’s a cultural problem. If someone doesn’t like a mod, it costs them nothing to ignore it and move along to what they do enjoy. It isn’t worth generating a buzz about something that’s not all that interesting in the first place, right? A bit more on this in the following text:
#2: “Isn’t the releases forum going to get too bloated with mods many people have no interest in?”
This is a very legitimate concern! This would also concern us, too, if not for one key fact: A transition to a new forum software is coming up in the future, and when this happens, the way releases are organized will be significantly more organized and easier to dig through and find popular mods.
#3: “People are just going to rush minimum effort mods out for clout/recognition!”
This is another concern that we’ve seen voiced frequently, and to that our response is, “what recognition?” Come on, you all know what you like! If someone’s art has that little appeal to anyone beyond the author, then the only reason it’s going to get any recognition over and above a few casual glances is if people make a big fuss about it. It’s not really worth doing that. And lastly, this point on the same topic:
#4: “This will encourage people to release whatever they can just to have something out on the forums.”
Sometimes people view this as a bad thing, but we don’t. Here’s why: If someone’s creation isn’t causing any harm or confusion, then there’s no harm in letting them put it out there. For some people, part of the creative process is being able to whet their appetite by saying, “Hey, it’s just something small, but I made something, I finished it, I showed it to people, and now I feel stronger.” Maybe they’ll go on to tackle bigger mods next time! Maybe they’ll take that feeling somewhere else entirely! Or maybe they won’t do anything else at all. Who knows? But if there’s no harm caused by letting people celebrate their little victories, so we agreed we should let them do just that.
Now, to shift gears entirely: Rule #10 is a big game changer. If you checked it out, it pertains to a topic that’s seen a lot of controversy: Is it okay for people to port content that predates the Reusable Content/Non-Reusable Content stamp? Rule #10 is our answer to that, and it’s incredibly specific in its terms and its limits. We discussed it a lot amongst ourselves and determined that this was the best way to ensure respect is kept towards people who are no longer around but never specified whether they desired the community to look out for and maintain their content, or to just leave it alone. We hope this will satisfy a lot of people who have been pretty vocal about the numerous old and well-loved mods in limbo due to this grey area in the rules.
Thanks for reading! We look forward to seeing what our community comes up with under these new guidelines. Happy modding!
Hey everyone!
The Official Level Design Contest for autumn 2020 is now open for voting! Please check out the release and discussion thread for details on how to vote and download the OLDC level pack.
You can vote by creating a thread with your list of votes under the Contest Voting subforum.
Thanks for everyone’s hard work. Good luck to the contestants and have fun!
Hello everybody! The Summer 2020 Official Level Design Contest has come to a close. We are taken aback by the enthusiasm of the mappers in our community. This is the largest contest yet with 41 maps! Let’s check out the winning maps.
The winner of the Single Player division is Oasis Palace Zone by so2ro. This large map features path splits, secrets, and even emblems to give you plenty of replay value. The main path is pretty straightforward, so you won’t get too lost. Though some rooms look similar, the visuals are quite pleasing overall. Oasis Palace Zone makes frequent use of dust devils as a means of progression. Although the dust devils are used similarly throughout the stage, they give the level a good sense of flow. Enemy placement is also a strength here — BASHes, Crushtaceans, and Green Snappers keep you on your toes without being too much of a nuisance. Overall, Oasis Palace is definitely worth your time to check out. Congratulations, so2ro!
I haven’t personally been able to make time to play any of the multiplayer maps, but the other winning maps look pretty cool! Let’s congratulate the rest of the winners:
Congratulations to Revan for winning the Match division with Crystalline Heights Zone!
Congratulations to JABSphere94 for winning the Circuit division with HydroWing Zone!
Congratulations to Krabs for winning the Arena and Battle CTF divisions with Gravity Station Zone and Serene Shore Zone!
And finally, congratulations to happyalm for winning the Battle division with Glimmer Gulch Zone!
You can check the full contest results here.
If you haven’t checked out this season’s contest pack yet, click here to visit its release post.
The deadline for the Autumn OLDC is November 30th, 2020 at 23:59 UTC. We hope to see even more maps this time!
Thanks to everyone who submitted maps and/or voted on them. Without you, there would be no contest at all! See you in December!
Hello everybody! Another update is here.
When we released v2.2.7, we accidentally broke the -file command line parameter — loading Lua scripts that added netvars via the -file parameter would lead to desyncs. This mostly impacted players on dedicated servers. The issue has been rectified.
We also broke PNG graphics in the OpenGL renderer, causing some mods to instantly crash in OpenGL. This has also been fixed.
Android users will be happy to hear we fixed the issue with the server browser. You should be able to join netgames as normal again.
This patch also has some other minor fixes, which you can read about on the full changelog.
Windows users: since v2.2.7 was so short-lived, we have made sure the new patch will work with both v2.2.6 and v2.2.7, just in case you missed our last patch. Remember, you can use the links to the zip files containing the game files if you don’t want to use the installers or if you experience problems with them. They’re in the fine print right under the links to the installers.
We appreciate your continued support as we strive to improve our favorite game. Zip over to the usual place to get the new patch.
Hello everybody! We’ve got another new update for you!
Since we had so much help from public testing, we were able to fix a lot of bugs. Thank you so much! We’ve also added some cool new features, such as:
You can read the full changelog here.
Windows users: we have also changed from the stinky old 7-zip self extracting archive to a shiny new professional installer that supports four languages. Patching the game from here on out should be faster and easier. We are also including full installers for every single update moving forward. (We will still provide zip archives for those that need/prefer them.) We hope these changes benefit new players and our non-English communities. We would like to extend our thanks for ACStriker and yfyfyfyfyfy for the Spanish and Russian translations of the installers, respectively.
That’s it! What are you waiting for? Head to the Downloads page already!
Hello everybody! The Official Level Design Contest for summer 2020 is now open for voting. Download the levels and find details about the voting process in its release & discussion thread.
Voting closes on September 23, 2020 at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. Be sure to get your votes in before then! See you in cyberspace…
Hello everybody! I’m pleased to announce that we have opened beta testing for future versions of SRB2. If you would like to help us find bugs and other problems, head on over to our Discord server and check out the new #public-testing channel. There you will find the newest release candidates of the game. We just finished uploading the first pre-release for v2.2.7 there, so come join the fun!
Stable builds will still be linked here on srb2.org, and will remain available for new users to download the latest stable version of the game. Both stable and pre-release versions should be able to connect to the Master Server.
Regardless of whether or not you decide to join us for testing, thanks for playing!
