Mapper Rules.md

Mapper Rules

Please help us keep DDNet's Testing process as smooth as possible. Your cooperation will greatly benefit Testers, mappers, players and yourself. Check out these tips before posting your map.

Content

1. Every part should be working properly.
2. Try to be creative! If you copy parts from other maps, they must have been changed significantly.
3. Make your map fun! If your map is not fun, it will only be played once - for points. Therefore it is essential for your map to be free of any time wasting and boring parts.
4. Do not make unnecessarily tight parts. Using more space will not only make your map more enjoyable, but will allow bigger groups to play together as well.
5. Your map must be balanced throughout the whole map (do not put a Brutal part in the middle of a Moderate map).
6. Faily parts should be used very rarely on Novice maps.
7. Faily solo parts should be only used in higher Moderate, Brutal and Insane maps.
8. You should give fair amounts of play time for each player in a map (if one player does a long part, then so should the other). Also, in general, avoid making parts that require players to wait for excessive amounts of time.
9. A noob-filter must not be too long or too hard. Its only purpose should be to slow down the income of new players, but not prevent them from playing at all.

Design

1. Every entity that the player should know about should likewise be clearly marked with a visible tile.
2. The design must have appropriate contrast so that it is playable even without perfect light conditions. On the other hand, it should not be painful to look at.
3. Make sure there are no unused images (marked as dark blue in the 'Images' tab of the editor), mistakenly embedded or external images (marked as red). Also, do not add the same image more than once.
4. Delete all empty layers and groups.
5. Delete all unused envelopes.
6. Ensure that layers are not too big. When your map is finished make the layers as small as possible (but do not cut off any parts).
7. In general, supplementary decorative layers that may appear messy (e.g. extra layers of stars, midground, or doodads) or that may cause a significant FPS drop (e.g. big transparent areas) should be marked as "Detail" in the editor. The purpose of this is to allow players who prefer to play with a minimalistic design (using the 'High Detail off' client setting) have the ability to do so.
8. Ensure that the background is not transparent and is large enough for all screen resolutions (use the "Proof" button in the editor to check what players will see; the area within the white borders has to be covered).
9. Always add an entities off sign if you put any information the player has to know about in the design (e.g. signs, text, or tips).

Common problems

1. For every teleporter, ensure that there are multiple TO-tiles and that they are not placed directly on the ground. Exceptions for this rule may be made for Solo/Oldschool maps and solo parts.
2. Ensure that every teleporter is red (which will stop player movement and cut their hook) unless you intend to use blue teleporters to retain hook and movement.
3. You must allow the finish line to be reachable from the winner room so that a team may still finish if the last one dies. Make sure players have a chance to help others after finishing.
4. For Dummy maps, add an unlock team tile before the player has to kill their dummy so that the actual player is not killed as well.

5. Your start area should be big enough for at least 10 players to start.
6. Do not rely on a single spawn entity (except on Solo maps). At least 5 are needed.
7. Avoid chat-spam caused by carelessly placed on/off-tiles as well as gametile-spam.
8. Only force a certain team size if the map requires it (e.g. if it contains a lot switches, is heavy cheatable with many players), not as an excuse for tight mapping.

Make sure that your map works, the design is done, and the common problems listed above are solved. When you are ready to release your map, send it to us by making a thread in this forum following the section rules.

If you want to release your map on DDNet you must follow these rules. If you do not follow them, your map will be declined. There may be special cases of maps in which single rules might be in conflict with the general concept of the map or its technical realization. In such cases you should contact a Tester to check out whether an exception may be made.

Original version by deen.

Second version by RayB..

Third version based on rules by Soreu, hi_leute_gll & Knight, edited by jao, hi_leute_gll & Oblique.