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Quality Control

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As I'm sure many of you already know, each level that is submitted to SMWCX will have to go through "Quality Control" before it is accepted. What this means, basically, is that we have people who will play through each level and make sure that it lives up to SMWCX's standards. The current Quality Control Team is:
-Purple Rex
-eXcavator
-Noel Yoshi
-Egadd

Each member of the team will post a kind of "report" about the level that they are testing in that level's thread. Based on those, we will decide whether to accept the level or not, and if not, give suggestions to the creator about what they should do with it. I will now post the guidelines for Quality Control judging, all level designers should keep these in mind.

Firstly and most importantly, the QC people will make a suggestion about what to do with the level. There are four "ratings" which a level can receive. They are:
Acceptable: The level can be accepted to the project as is. It has solid design and fair difficulty, the music and graphics are good, and there are no bugs.
Has Minor Errors: The level is well made and has no major flaws, but there are one or more minor errors that must be fixed before the level can be accepted. These include:
- Minor, easily fixable bugs
- Unfitting/Inappropriate/Copyrighted music
- Minor graphical issues
- Minor, specific level design issues
- Lack of correct goal star or midpoint
The level should only be given this "rating" if it has good level design and fair difficulty.
Has Major Errors: The level has the potential to be accepted into the collab, but has major, not easily fixable issues that must be addressed first by the level's creator. These include:
- Major, not easily fixable bugs
- Major level design issues, either in one specific area or throughout the entire level
- Severe graphical issues
- Inappropriate length (too short or too long)
- Filler/Pointless areas
- Missing graphics/music/etc files
The level should only be given this "rating" if it has enough going for it in terms of its design and uniqueness to be worth fixing.
Unacceptable: The level's quality is not high enough for it to be accepted into the collab. It cannot be fixed: it should either be redesigned from scratch or simply scrapped. A level should only be given this "rating" if it has one or more of the following issues:
- Overall bad level design
- Is boring/uninspired/generally not fun to play
- Severe Difficulty Issues (Absurdly easy/hard, difficulty is inconsistant throughout the level, general unfairness or "Kaizo" level design)
- Level is a remake of a previously existing level (we don't want level remakes, with the potential exception of remakes of SMWCP levels)
- Inconsistent design (areas are too different, does not feel like one distinct whole)
- Level-breaking, unfixable bugs

Levels with a rating other than "Acceptable", will have a list of the issues that must be fixed, or that make the level completely unacceptable. Screenshots will be provided if appropriate.




If a QC Team Member judges your level to be acceptable or only have minor errors, they will also make a suggestion as to where in the collab the level should be placed, based on its difficulty. The different difficulty ratings are:
- Early Game: The level is too easy to be used anywhere except the very beginning of the game.
- Early-Mid Game: The level is fairly easy and should be used in the first half of the game, but it is too difficult to be used at the very beginning.
- Mid-Late Game: The level is a solid challenge and should be used in the second half of the game, but it is not difficult to be used at the very end.
- Late Game: The level is very difficult and should be used at the end of the game.
- Bonus Only: The level is extremely difficult: too difficult to be used anywhere in the main game, but not difficult enough to be rejected. It should only be used as a bonus level or in a bonus/special world. (THE LEVEL MUST ALSO BE FAIR)


Any comments/questions/concerns/criticisms/etc about these guidelines should be posted here.
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