Hey guys, here it is !
Ever since we got the featured tracks page we’ve been discussing what makes a track feature worthy and honestly it’s still not (and will never be) really measureable. That’s why we’ve decided to make general guidelines that can tell you if your track or someone else’s has the potential to go on the list.
First I’d like to explain to you how we generally go about the process of featuring tracks. Every now and then someone brings up a track in the conversation we’ve got going on and we give our opinions on it. There’s five guys in the team. We started with four, those four being Maple, Elibloodthirst, WheelieMaker and me. After some time we got Ness to join us and that makes the process of feauring tracks a lot easier. That’s because we use a voting system. Everyone can say yes or no to a track and if 3 people say yes to it we feature it. With 4 people that was a bit tougher as you might understand. If we don’t know if we want a track featured, we might make a thread about it with a poll to ask the community about it, like we did with Ness’ latest track.
We wanted to give you a general idea of what we like to see in a track, with a more personal part after that. Here are 5 basic things we look at when judging a track. If a track lacks severely in some of these aspects then that might be the reason it won’t get featured. Keep in mind that this is still subjective as well. Some of us might like the detail or the ride and others of us won’t. That’s why I tried to keep it simple.
Length
Both the most important and the least important part of a track. Overal quality will be better than quantity, but a quality track without quantity isn’t a great track. Generally, tracks that are shorter than 15 seconds are going to have a really hard time getting featured and will most likely have to be truly stunning. I’d say 30 seconds is about the minimum completion time that you should aim for if you want to make a feature worthy track. Quantity is something that only matters if you got a great track going. Tracks that are just quantity are not what we’re looking for, but if you don’t have quantity at all then it wont be featured either. Tracks like Plasticorp and Caesium are examples of tracks that became better because of their length.
Creativity/Originality
For me personally, this is the part that makes your track go from great to amazing. Doing stuff people have never done before, drawing locations no one has ever drawn, making crazy inventive layouts, stuff like that. This also includes having original detail (that doesn’t look too inspired by someone else) and generally having your own style. If we’ve seen it before but done better there’s a big chance that your track won’t get featured. Tracks like Aurora, Wooden Bucket and Super Mario Bros are great examples of this.
Layout
The way your track is layed out is one of the more advanced aspects of trackmaking, but can make a track really impressive. This could be both the ride and the detail/art. Looking at the ride aspect, that would mean re-using ramps be hitting them with another speed from another angle or with a gravity active on you, getting teased by a star right next to you that you just can’t reach and a bunch of other stuff that I won’t get into here. For detail/art that would mean how the track would look when you zoom out. Composition would be a better word here. It includes the perspective and generally how the drawings feel connected to eachother, making the track feel like a whole.
A great example of an amazingly layed out track is Alice. The layout is generally the reason why this goes from an interesting fun to play track to an awesome track.
A great example of an amazingly composed track is Dino World.
Ride
One of the most subjective parts of a track. There isn’t really a right or wrong here. Generally you should try to avoid making your track frustrating. If a track is hard but feels fair, then that’s alright, but stuff like spammy boosts and gravities or generally a really bumpy track can make a track feel frustrating. The more controll the rider has the better usually. Besides that a track can be smooth, a trial or whatever. If it is fun to play it’s fun to play, but a lot of times that’s really subjective. For me the perfect example of a fun to play track is Future Roots.
Detail/Art
Probably the part of a track that can be anything and still be feature worthy. From an amazingly detailed nature scene to a minimalistic jumps track. This is all about style. It’s also the part where you have the most freedom as you can draw anything you want. A general thing to keep in mind when drawing detail or art is to keep the lines connected, making a track not look sketchy. Apart from that this is also pretty subjective. Some people prefer 2d tracks, other 3d tracks, but really this is all up to you and your ability to execute it nicely.
When it comes to art, it’s important to try to have it work together with the rest of the track. Having a track that’s just about random art pieces is usually not as good as a track where the art takes place in a location that fits it. Like a drawing of a bear in a forrest or something like that (you can be creative with this). Great examples of detail are Chillwind Woods, Black Magic.
A great example of a track that’s more focussed on art is Wrath.
Generally, if a track is lacking in one of these areas it has to make up for it in another. Also, if a track looks unfinished it has a big chance that it won’t be on the featured list, unless it’s really amazing (see ‘black magic’)
Keep in mind that these are just 5 things that you have to focus on and that a track isn’t always something that we can judge by looking at these themes, but if you notice that a track lacks something I wrote here then that could be the reason we aren’t featuring it. Some tracks just don’t give us a good feeling even though they have everything they need according to this list. This is a lot harder to explain. The author who made it can also influence our choice to feature it or not. If an amazing author makes a ‘good’ track we are less likely to feature it. If an unknown author makes a great track, we are more likely to feature it.
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps
P.s The other feature guys could post some replies here as well with their thoughts so stay tuned for that. I might quote those posts in this one.
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