Map of the Month has been really successful over the years. Ignoring the recent drought, we only had to skip one month in the 55 months I've helped coordinate the competition, which is awesome. Thank you, everybody, for keeping the contest strong for so long.
That said, a few things have been bothering me for a while.
- Maps have been harder to come by. In an ideal world, members would naturally submit maps to the contest as they complete them rather than being pushed to submit, which often ends up in incomplete maps or even entire throwaway maps created just to get the contest started on time.
- The size of a map greatly affects its success in the contest. This may intimidate new participants from submitting their more modest work for fear of going against a 256-screen masterpiece. Other contests have natural limits (one screen, one enemy, etc.) that are more fair to entrants, in my opinion.
- We already have two other screen-design competitions in Screenshot of the Week and Screenshot: Challenge Accepted. I feel we're oversaturated because of how much Map of the Month overlaps with these two other contests.
- Ending Map of the Month gives us two good options: either we can focus more attention on our other contests or we can begin a brand new event catering to skills that have yet to be honored by a regular PureZC competition. Do we look at palettes? Music? Stories? Puzzles? Who knows what? But at least we'll have the chance.
Thank you to all who have supported the contest over the years—by entering, voting, and commenting—and to all the contest leaders before me: Hubydweyer, Rambly, Linkus, Joe123, and of course, Migokalle. It's been fun.