redhotsonic has done it again! Here's his trailer for this year's Contest Week!

Now that the Trailer is out, we can also say that the Quality Control has been completed for Contest and Expo entries.

Any Contest entries that have been determined to be more appropriate for the Expo, and those that have been rejected altogether, have been emailed as to the reasons why.

All of these will be able to be played from Monday 26th October to Sunday 1st November, with the Contest Entries being eligible for Community Trophy voting too.

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This is your friendly reminder to get your updates done for the Expo! The final deadline for Expo entries is end of Monday 5th October!

If you've submitted to the Contest, double check your email in case we've tried to contact you. It seems like some people have not been responding to their emails.

Any Contest entries are set in stone and can no longer be edited. Thank you for all participants and anyone else just following the contest, we hope you all have a fun one~

So we had some server issues over Saturday night and Sunday morning, and due to it being the Contest deadline we're extending it for 24 hours.

The end of Monday 21st September is the new deadline.

(For those looking for an accurate time, due to time zones and such that'll most likely be something like 6-7am BST on Tuesday 22nd, ie. when Cinossu wakes up.)

This is a reminder that you have until the END of THIS SUNDAY (20th September) to submit to this year's Contest.

We have announced this since March, and the website has been open for submissions since August.

If you have anything good, that can meet the Quality Control Criteria, you can still submit.

By the way the upload limit has been increased, so if you have a huge upload for your contest entry (think 1GB+) you can now do it.

Remember, you do get an updates period which lasts until the end of Sunday 26th September.

Just ensure you have a fully playable build by the end of this Sunday, to progress to the next stage.

If you can't meet the Contest deadline, the Expo will still be available for your entries.

Okay, the good news is that the Twitter issue has been fixed, so hopefully this stays put for the duration of the contest.

The bad news is that we are approaching the one week mark before the first Contest deadline, so if you are still planning on entering for judging, read the following:

If you want to enter to the Contest, you MUST make an entry on the website, and ensure you have a playable build by the end of Sunday 20th September.

Again, you have one week to refine your entry and fix any issues you find, and this has to be submitted by the end of Sunday 27th September.

Please use this time well, as we will not accept any updates following this deadline. Test your entry thoroughly and fix any game breaking bugs before the deadlines, as Judges are NOT your beta testers.

Obviously those not entering the Contest (or those whose entries get rejected for said Contest for not meeting the criteria) will have until the end of Sunday 4th October to submit to the Expo.

I would like to remind everyone to follow the Quality Control Criteria and Submission Guidelines for entering to either section, this is not a free for all, and Judges ARE going through entries carefully to access their suitability.

We have had a fair amount of entries so far but unfortunately there have been some submitted who did not read the rules and will end up being rejected. The SHC is all about QUALITY nowadays, not QUANTITY.

Just a reminder to let us know if you have any issues with the site, so we can look into them.

Alternatively, if you have Discord, join our server and report them in the dedicated channel.

Also check your spam folder for any emails as some providers like to put those in there.

Please ensure your entry fits the Quality Control Criteria, or your entry will either be moved to the Expo, or if not fit for the Expo, will be rejected following the exhaustion of all deadlines!

We have seen a fair amount of decent entries so far. But on the other hand, we have seen a small amount of entries that so far, are very likely to end up in the shredder.

A reminder of what we are NOT wanting this year:

❌ Simple texture only hacks.

❌ Simple object layout modifications.

❌ Model swaps of existing game models. (UNLESS process is technical - there will be no repeat of 2019 this year)

The Expo is NOT a free-for-all to show off whatever you've made. If you cannot meet the criteria in time for the deadlines, we advise waiting for next year's Contest and Expo.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions, please put them in the thread, or contact us on the SHC Discord.

Welcome, one and all, to the Sonic Hacking Contest 2020!

It's taken a little while to get back here this time due to some fun server and software issues but here we are now, ready for yet another year of the hacking contest. You all know the drill by now, so I won't bore you with tiresome details. All of your accounts from last time are still here so you should still all be able to log in without issue. If you're new here all you need to do is register for an account. It is currently still separate from your Sonic Retro or SSRG forum accounts, but we're working on that.

As before you can have as many entries into the Contest or the Expo as you want so go nuts! (While adhering to the rules and guidelines, of course!)

So.. yeah, that's it for this post. I'm sure Spanner will have more to say than me here, so I'll leave it at that. Once again, welcome!

The website will be updated soon with the results, along with the Judges' evaluations. Here's all the links for everything you need in regards to the results:

• TSSZ News Article
• Sonic Retro News Article
• Sonic Stadium News Article
• Sonic Retro Results Thread
• SSRG Results Thread

Don't forget to fill in your evaluations if you have not, as we will be compiling those within the next few days: Click on Feedback...or here.

We'll let you know soon when the 2020 Contest is announced. Until then, all entries will still be available to access on the website. Thank you for participating.

There is still time to complete your voting for the Community Trophies, but TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

There'll still be SOME TIME on Sunday to finish voting, but when the voting is locked, at least a few hours before the results show, you won't be able to vote any more.

As usual it'll be streamed by MegaGWolf and also simulcast by TailsChannel, and this year it's Donnie who will be announcing the winners.

We'll also have a bunch of judges and some other guests on the show too! Also, don't forget, we do need your feedback. Fill out this form as we will be closing it in the next few days. Without your feedback, changes can't happen so easily. And we don't want to spend months planning things, we want to get things fixed up and ready to go for 2020. Just click on that Feedback button!

The Results Show starts from 8pm GMT / 3pm EST / 12pm PST, where all the winners will be announced.

Winners will also be announced on Twitter and all the results will be in forum threads and news articles after the end of the Results Show. And after the results show, there's a few more streams left to finish it off.

PSA...

(Don't you love when this acronym is abused outside of its intended meaning?)

The Contest Week Ends Tomorrow!

If you haven't already, please get your votes in ASAP. We have no guarantee how long voting will be available tomorrow before the results show.

All the streams and videos we can find from our official media panel can be found by clicking below...

Please note the list is a work in progress and there are videos still to add. We did plan on a better way to showcase recorded media but we could not implement it in time, maybe next year.

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Hey, it's that time again. We're finally live, and the Contest Week begins. All entries that were completed are now available for your public viewing, as well as votes in the case of the Contest itself. As always, enjoy!

Those of you with an existing account on here from last year, your account still exists. However, due to a change in the user system, all accounts have had their passwords changed to be locked out. What does this mean? You need to use the forgotten password feature in order to restore access to your account. I hope you remember your registration email addresses(!) If there are any issues, please contact us on discord for further assistance. Do note that the email may go into your spam folder. Please check there for it in case it does!

Thanks of course to redhotsonic for making this! Check out his YouTube Channel for his regular content and consider subscribing to him and his other channel JetPackTails too!

You know what time it is.

The time to reveal all upon the world, the secrets of the universe,peoplekind and of course first and foremost, the Sonic Hacking Contest entries.

Ready, Set, Go!

...

It seems we are limited by the technology of our time, the text editor still needs some work done.

So instead, I'll just send you to these links instead.

Sonic Hacking Contest 2019 Entry Thread on Twitter.

Contest and Expo Entry Article on The Sonic Stadium.

There are only a few days left before the Expo deadline expires. We have a good amount so far, but there is nothing stopping anyone from still submitting.

Again, in order for your entry to be in the Expo, it must be marked as Completed by the deadline, or else it may not be available in the Contest Week.

Can I also remind people to submit their trailer clips to redhotsonic, as it will save a lot of time in getting the trailer made which means we can release it earlier.

If anyone has a problem with creating a trailer clip, let RHS know and he may be able to help out with that. The instructions given should be clear however.

If you want your entry/entries marked as a Team entry send me a DM to Cinossu on Discord (link at bottom of page) with the entries in question, what you want as a team name, and all the members you want on said team. All members should already have users on the SHC site, and all members will be able to edit any team entry they're on the team of.

Today is the last day before the Contest Submissions Deadline. Please ensure you have marked your entry as Completed by the deadline, otherwise they will be moved to the Expo. Judging commences after the deadline has expired.

Also, any entry that the Judges feel are more suited to the Expo will also be moved. Remember that people have until the end of Sunday 17th November to have something submitted fully to the Expo.

Please note that the Expo will not be used just for any entry and if Judges feel that an entry is not suitable for showing in the Expo for failing many aspects of the Quality Control Criteria, it will be removed entirely.

Anyone who has wanted to submit this year has been aware of the deadlines since at least March. There's still time to get something in the Expo if you have anything to show off. There have been many things shown off over the year on here and elsewhere, they would certainly be welcomed to be submitted should you want to, even though they won't be judged, there's always next year if they are ongoing projects that can be continued. Without any doubt, the audience and download traffic for the Contest Week is the most highest you will get for any Sonic hack or mod these days, just like SAGE is for fan games, so use it to your advantage if you want more people to see your work.

Before anyone asks, the list of Contest entries won't be posted until the Expo deadline, as we will be posting both lists at the same time. I'm sure you can hold on for another week.

As of Friday 8th November, the website is now linking again on Twitter. Many thanks for all your reports to get this sorted out!

(original post below)

The Sonic Hacking Contest is having issues with Twitter who for some reason are blocking links to our sonichacking.org domain by saying they are spam or automated links, and this is seriously impacting us with promoting this whole thing, which may result in less entries overall and / or less attention for the whole event, as people may treat the link as suspicious.

To get Twitter to sort this out please go to https://help.twitter.com/forms/spam and click "I can't Tweet a link because Twitter thinks it's spam." and fill in the relevant details and of course the address of sonichacking.org - If enough people report it they might get it unblocked, otherwise we're going to have to blow some money and get a new domain entirely...which might also end up getting blocked by their algorithm.

We've owned this domain for many years without trouble and would prefer to keep it that way, but if we can't get this sorted out we'll have to get a new address.

We are not exactly sure why it would be blocked but if the issue relates to SSL support this has been implemented for this year's website.

Also, on a side note you still have a few hours left to get a Contest entry submitted.

Just a reminder to all those planning to enter in the Contest that they have until the end of this Sunday 3rd November to do so.

Following that, no further submissions may be made to the Contest, but the Expo is still open until the end of Sunday 17th November.

Reminder that Contest submissions have a one week update period which ends at the end of Sunday 10th November to allow submissions to be polished up for judging.

Do note that Judges will be scanning entries before that and should they feel that they be best placed in the Expo, they will be moved accordingly.

Also please remember to submit your trailer clips! Go to Information > Trailer Submissions for the details.

So there's one thing that keeps getting asked about, year after year, and that is team entries rather than single-user-only entries. More and more projects are worked on by more than one person, and thus multiple people both need credit and should be allowed access to modify an entry's contents, as well as given added restrictions on voting to prevent them from doing so on an entry of their own.

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Welcome, one and all, to the Sonic Hacking Contest 2019!

Phew; another year, another late opening to the hacking contest website. Blame a mix of late work hours, illness, stress, and actually trying to get this damn thing to work properly. Mmmnngh. If you find things not working as they should, please let us know on Discord and we'll see what we can do. You know how these things go in terms of teething issues.

But enough with the theatrics, welcome! Let's go into some more detail again...

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