We have decided to start development on a forum for the Sonic Hacking Contest!

Got thoughts? Positive? Negative? Let us know in the below linked poll, where you'll be able to express your opinion on forums, as well as our Side Events, the Mega Drive Music Contest, and the (now discontinued) Sonic Level Design Contest!

Click here to respond to the poll

As of Friday, April 12th 2024, the Sonic Level Design Contest has entered an indefinite hiatus.

Locking the event down to a Discord server has significantly killed its reach, with not even a hundred of readers for it. Additionally, there were serious flaws with its structure and management that have gone largely unaddressed.

For these reasons, we will no longer be hosting new rounds of the Sonic Level Design Contest in our Discord server, and we will be holding off from starting new rounds until we can deliver this event in a more accessible platform, with an all new structure.

This event has great potential, and has the chance to become a bite-sized, more frequent alternative to the Sonic Hacking Contest, but it can not be continued under the current structure.

Thank you all who have given the Sonic Level Design Contest a chance!

All entries have been archived and promoted within SHC controlled platforms, and can be downloaded right here.

We ask entrants to further advertise their entries themselves, should they wish to do so.

Tune into our YouTube Channel for a 10 minute presentation on the Sonic Hacking Contest 2024, where we'll be detailing all sorts of news and changes for this year's event!

We'll be revealing all of the dates and deadlines in this presentation!

We will have the website's information updated as soon as possible!

We are pleased to announce that Round 3 of the Sonic Level Design Contest is now accepting votes!

We'll be accepting votes until the 12th of April 2024, at 23:00 CET.

Vote now in our Discord server!

We recognize that operating such events within a locked down place like the Discord Server is not ideal: we hope to move this event to the main website, offering you readers a bite-sized alternative to the Sonic Hacking Contest, as soon as possible!

In the mean time, Check out the full set of entries from the Sonic Level Design Contest, including those from Round 3, right here!

UPDATE: As of the time of sharing of this update, FireRat and associates have been removed from the mentioned community. We thank Hame for his cooperation.

It is important to reinforce that this document was meant to target FireRat, Eduardo Knuckles, and Mr. Joker 27. Other individuals that may appear in the screenshot or within the community were not necessarily knowingly or willingly involved with FireRat and associates, and we ask that they not be harassed without evidence suggesting otherwise.

================

We have received notice that known pedophile FireRat is actively frequenting an emerging Sonic ROM Hacking community.

Please read this document for further details.

Community managers reading this, especially on Sonic ROM Hacking adjacent communities, are encouraged to spread this document, so that more people are made aware of this.

Once again, to ensure that this document gets the notice it deserves, we are delaying the announcement of the Sonic Hacking Contest 2024 to April 6th

UPDATE: We have postponed the announcement of the Sonic Hacking Contest 2024 from March 30th to April 6th. Please read the next article for more details.

Get ready, for we'll be announcing the Sonic Hacking Contest 2024 with a 9-10 minute video presentation on April 6th, 2024!

I would like to take the occasion to remind everyone that there's more than just the annual Sonic Hacking Contest in store! We happen to host a few Side Events, one with a focus on Mega Drive Music, and one with a focus on 2D Sonic Level Design! If you're interested, feel free to join our Discord server if you haven't yet!

If, for some reason, you were previously banned from the Discord server, and would like to appeal a previous action, contact us at shc<.>zone<.>site<@>gmail<.>com (without the "<>"s); we will examine your situation, and we may even reverse the decision!

In the mean time, stick around and keep your eyes pointed towards this website and our socials for further news! Big things are just around the corner!

We are currently considering changes that may expand the selection of entries allowed among the Unjudged entries of the Sonic Hacking Contest.

If you'd like to know what's up, as well as give your voice on the matter, please check out this form.

Original posting date: December 23rd, 2023

You heard it here third, the Sonic Hacking Contest now has a new host, as the previous host has stepped down from their position and has passed the torch to me. I would like to clarify ahead of time that this is not a formal announcement for SHC 2024, that will come at a later time. I want to briefly introduce myself and touch upon my goals and motives for the entire contest going forward. I'm HazelSpooder, but you may refer to me as Hazel! I'm a Sonic 3 A.I.R. modder who helped pushed for the game's inclusion in the contest, due to staff previously being unsure of if it should be categorized under Retro or 2DPC due to how it worked internally. One moment I was offered the role of being a 2DPC judge, and the next I'm suddenly leading the entire contest! As someone who is very self-conscious about maintaining a good image and is very passionate about the hacking/modding scene in general, my goal is to help lead the contest in a better direction by not focusing on numbers, but improving its its quality, reputation, and bringing it up to today's standards so it doesn't feel like it's stuck in the past. The staff are already discussing quite a few big changes that will be made for 2024, here are a few we have finalized and have fully agreed on:

• Removing the Update Deadline and extending the Submission Deadline in its place. This essentially giving entrants a whole extra week to finish their entry instead of being restricted to using it for minor changes. Hopefully this will lead to less entrants requesting to make changes after the Submission Deadline. As a personal suggestion of mine, if you have the time to spare, I highly recommend consistently testing your hacks/mods for any bugs that might have slipped through the cracks. Even if it doesn't seem like much, it's worth it in the end to help your entry feel much more polished and decrease the likelihood of a horribly game-breaking bug. Doesn't stop official titles getting updates that break mods after the deadline though, so like we did with Sonic Frontiers last year, we will allow entrants to submit fixes for their entries or remove their entry if a game gets updated post-deadline and breaks any mods.
• Adding head judges for each game category to help finalize decisions and break ties in voting. There were a lot of ties in voting during last year's contest, and having head judges will allow someone more experienced with a category to make a final say in breaking the tie reasonably instead of having to rely on the host.
• Merging the Contest and Expo sections into one, and instead adding an option for entries to opt-in for judging, meaning you can choose if you want your entry to be evaluated by judges and be eligible for being voted for trophies. Doing this will give expo entries the same value as contest entries that otherwise would have been submitted to/put in the Expo and most likely be overlooked by most people.

There are many more changes and ideas we are continuing to throw around and discuss, even as I write this post, but these are the ones that the staff has fully agreed on to change for next year. I have also assigned DeltaWooloo and Giovanni as co-hosts to help with running the contest and making decisions when I am unable to or not around at any given moment to. Both the previous host and I have seen the passion and care they both have for the contest and have helped out a lot even prior to becoming judges, so I have decided to bring them both on board as co-hosts! With that being said, here's to next year being a bigger success! Enjoy the holidays everyone!