This is your reminder that you have two weeks left before the submission deadline officially expires! And yes, the deadline extension also applies to trailer submissions!

Remember: to be eligible for participation at the Sonic Hacking Contest, your entry MUST be marked as Complete.

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We have an important announcement on the submission deadline of the Sonic Hacking Contest!

In short, it's been postponed! Effective immediately, the new submission deadline is September 7th, 2025! This affects none of the other dates of the Sonic Hacking Contest: unless otherwise stated, everything else will still happen as scheduled!

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Tune in for a 30 minute presentation for updates on your favorite (or soon to be favorite) Sonic hacks and mods!

Please remember that, although the Sonic Hacking Spotlight is run by SHC Staff, none of the material shown is guaranteed to show up at the Sonic Hacking Contest 2025, even when otherwise stated.

The presentation begins on August 12th, 2025, at 7:00 PM CEST

You've read the title right, you've only got two weeks to submit your entry to the Sonic Hacking Contest!

We highly recommend you get to filling in your submission as soon as you can: the last few days/hours are usually when things get over capacity around here, so we highly advise filling in your entry while you still can!

If there are any concerns, you know where to find us!

We have received notice of misinformation being spread with regards to submission rules for the Sonic Hacking Contest, more specifically, about supposed restrictions, according to which, entries have to be "never before seen" to participate at the Sonic Hacking Contest.

This PSA is issued to remind you that this is not true. Submissions to the Sonic Hacking Contest can be or can have been released outside of the Sonic Hacking Contest before. This means that, if you are submitting to the Sonic Hacking Contest, you are not restricted from submitting in these hypothetical scenarios:

• Your entry was released to the public before you even started filling in the submission form;
• At any point between the Submission Period and the Contest Period, you decide to release your entry to the general public on any platform, including other events such as SAGE.

The only realistic restrictions apply to entries that have been submit before to the Sonic Hacking Contest, and that is by mandating that, in between editions of the Sonic Hacking Contest, they are changed enough. This change is enforced with two measures:

• Repeat submissions are tested for Quality Control against previous versions present at the Sonic Hacking Contest;
• Repeat entrants are required to supply a mandatory, public facing changelog.

You can read the relevant rules here and here.

If you have doubts with regards to the rules of the Sonic Hacking Contest, contact SHC Staff, and do not rely solely on the interpretation of the rules made by potentially ill-informed members of the general public.

When there are doubts with regards to the rules of the Sonic Hacking Contest, do remember that the say of SHC Staff trumps all else.

On top of SHC2025 submissions being open, SHC2025 Trailer submissions are also open!

To submit your trailer clips, you will have to have created an entry. Please refer to the previous post for more information on that.

Like for submissions, you have until August 24th, 2025, to submit your footage.

Apply here!

Hello, hello!

You may or may not have noticed a couple of updates to our website. All of the information pages have been fully updated for the Sonic Hacking Contest 2025! And, most importantly...

YOU CAN SUBMIT ENTRIES!

Before you do so, however, please read the rules! Things have been changed a bit since last year, so keep your eyes peeled.

If you have questions about the rules or the submission process, join our Discord server, or contact us!

You have until the end of August 24th, 2025, to submit your entries at the Sonic Hacking Contest!

As per last year, if you are trying to submit a team entry, please contact SHC Staff, and we'll have your existing entry turned into a team entry.

Hello!

As the Sonic Hacking Contest is fast approaching, we'll be closing applications for becoming Judges of the Sonic Hacking Contest! They will be reopened in November 2025, after the Sonic Hacking Contest 2025! We are currently in the middle of reviewing our final batch of trialists for the year, so look forward to the updated list of Judges coming soon!

As for the Sonic Hacking Spotlight, we regret to inform you that we won't be able to meet our promised release period of "late July". Instead, we'll have the presentation released in early August. This won't affect the opening of submissions for the Sonic Hacking Contest 2025: that's coming real soon!

Hello, this is NiphFM, and I’m glad to announce that the Mega Drive Music Contest has commenced its 8th round. For those who aren’t familiar, the Mega Drive Music Contest is a mini-contest held within the SHC’s Discord server, of which contestants compete to create the best Mega Drive music to fit the round’s prompt. In Round 7, rigid_atoms won 1st place, and with it, the choice of this round’s prompt.

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As promised in our presentation, we are releasing ahead of time the ruleset of the Sonic Hacking Contest. All major changes made have been clearly highlighted.

Feel free to come talk to us, if you'd like to express your feedback on the rules as they stand! The best place to do so would be our Discord server!

Read here

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And that's it for submissions at the Sonic Hacking Spotlight! We would like to thank all who decided to participate!

As said earlier, the presentation will be released at some point later in July: we'll let you know when exactly closer to release!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the double-announcement, but I wanted to add that if you were looking to submit a ROM Hack category entry to the spotlight but, for whatever reason, are unable to record at the quality necessary for the presentation (1080p resolution at 60fps), I have volunteered myself to record some gameplay footage if necessary! If you're interested, simply DM me via Discord (my handle is @naoto_ntp) a build of the submission and some clear instructions on what you would like to be shown off in the spotlight and I'll find some time this week to play through it and record some footage in your stead. I will also work with you to ensure that it is to your liking.

Please note that I am only one person and my time is limited, so I will likely only be able to record footage for a few submitters in total. As such, this will be done on a "first come, first served" basis and your submission must clear quality-control as well. I also unfortunately cannot offer this for entire in the Modern 2D or 3D modding categories, as I am ill-prepared to record for those categories; I personally don't own enough of the games under those categories to confidently extend the offer that far. Of course, if there are any judges in the Modern 2D or 3D categories that are willing to do this as well, they are free to comment under this announcement as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you all have in store! Happy hacking.

That's right, you have one last week to submit your entry for this year's Sonic Hacking Spotlight!

Your deadline is set to the end of Sunday the 29th, 2025.

To be more precise, the form should close at around 9:00 of the 30th of June, 2025 (CEST timezone)*: past that time, you won't be able to submit.

Please remain available throughout the development of the presentation, as you may be asked for additional material!

^{*Since I'm going to be preparing myself for work, there is a likely chance the form will close up 9-10 hours later. If that scenario occurs, submissions sent in during that extra time window will still be accepted. It is advisable to not bet on that scenario to happen, and to prepare your submission in time.}

Apply Now!

WE ARE BACK!

Just like we did last year, we're doing another presentation going over what you can expect from this year's edition of the Sonic Hacking Contest! It's going to take a while for us to be able to update the website with this new information, so please pay attention to the contents of what's shown here!

You may watch the video below:

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The second edition of the Sonic Hacking Spotlight is opening up to applications!

The Sonic Hacking Spotlight is a Direct-style gaming presentation that aims to bring the latest news on Sonic ROM Hacks and mods in video form to an audience of tens of thousands!

For an example of how that's going to play out, please take a look at last year's presentation.

Applications are open to everyone, even those who do not wish to participate at the Sonic Hacking Contest 2025!

Apply now!

As announced in our presentation, we are looking for Judges for this year's Sonic Hacking Contest!

These are our most urgent openings for the time being:

• All Modern 2D games
• Mega Drive
• Sonic Advance 2
• Sonic Adventure Duology
• Renderware based games, such as Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog
• Any game that does not get submit often

If you are an expert in at least one of these categories, you are encouraged to apply!

Apply now!

We have received an announcement of the upcoming Sonic Racing Crossworlds release date, which will be on September 25th, 2025!

...which is unfortunately very inconvenient for our purposes, as it comes very close to the intended Sonic Hacking Contest 2025 Contest Period.

In response to this, all SHC Staff will be taking one additional day to decide whether to extraordinarily move the Sonic Hacking Contest Period accordingly.

This means that the upcoming presentation is delayed by one additional day, and is now scheduled for release on Sunday the 8th.

We apologize for the continuous delays, but luck really is not on our side this year, it seems!

As much as I wish I was making this up, due to a bee infestation in my room, progress on the SHC2025 presentation is temporarily halted, and is delayed to June 1st, 2025. Further delays may be necessary. You will be informed appropriately.

EDIT: it is going to take a while for the room to be rid of bees.

For this reason, the presentation is delayed to June 7th, 2025.

This will not affect the happening of the Sonic Hacking Contest or associated events.

Hi.

This is not so much an “important” SHC communication, as, if you’ve been following the SHC closely enough these days, you would likely learn nothing new from what I write. This is more so me speaking my thoughts on what’s going on as of late, especially the sudden passage of torch.

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Due to a series of very unfortunate and private events, HazelSpooder will no longer host the Sonic Hacking Contest. Ownership of the SHC is hereby transferred to me, giovanni.gen.

The upcoming SHC2025 presentation has been delayed to May 31st.

Expect an extended announcement.