14 DAY TRIAL // Developer Torn Banner Studios has announced the beginning of Fortification, a map making contest for the Team Objective mode in their massively multiplayer online game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.
Chivalry is a multiplayer-oriented video game set in a fictional Middle Ages setting, with realistic warfare scenarios carried out from the first-person or third-person perspective.
The contest comes from the partnership of Torn Banner, Epic Games, Steam, Nvidia and Logitech, and the prize pool is an impressive $25k / €18k.
Apart from prizes, the winning designs will get integrated as official Team Objective maps in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. The best map of the lot will of course take the lion's share of prize money as well as everlasting glory, with the runner-ups sharing the rest of the spoils.
The contest's theme will obviously be focused around the medieval times, and the competition will take place in two rounds. The first one will run for two months, and the top 5 contestant will earn various cash prizes alongside gaming hardware from the sponsors and Epic Games Gear Bundles, and the second round will run for an additional two months, including both entries submitted for the first one as well as entirely new ones.
The deadline for round one is May 1, and for round two June 30, at which point the Gold, Silver and Bronze Prize winners will receive considerably bigger rewards along with a lot of exposure.
The official Torn Banner announcement details that the maps will be judged using a set of criteria such as gameplay and fun, balance, polish, performance and technical stability, with secondary focus on visual fidelity, creativity, scope and AI pathing.
The announcement then details some of the minimum requirements for maps to qualify, such as supporting the Team Objective game mode and having at least 3 unique objectives to progress through, implementing all standard Chivalry: Medieval Warfare gameplay functionality and being fully compatible with Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.
All maps have to be made available for public download on Steam Workshop with the "Fortification Map Contest" tag applied, have to have a "work in progress" thread on the Torn Banner Forums and, of course, they have to fit the theme of Chivalry.
Of course, the announcement thread offers a host of additional information, as well as some resources to help players hit the ground running, including information on Chivalry specific map creation and the Chivalry SDK and a FAQ.