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Welcome ...

... to the the twenty-second bridge building contest. It's the first Bridge Construction Set/Pontifex II contest that is free for everyone to enter. Chronic Logic has released a special demo for the contest.

This contest is generously sponsored by and .

The Goal

For the uncertain, the goal is to build the cheapest, most original, best-looking or craziest bridge possible that allows the train to complete the level, while obeying the following simple rules ...

The Rules

In Contest 22 there are 2 main rule categories, clean bridges and dirty bridges:

For CLEAN bridges:

A CLEAN bridge should largely realistic, that means:

1. The bridge must work without breaking any links.
2. The bridge must work (the 'test passed' message must appear) with the following delays (the time shown to the bottom right): 0:30, 1:00, 2:00 Minutes (I'll skip 5:00 and 10:00 Minutes).
3. Bridge links may NOT touch/penetrate the level terrain.
4. Trains & trucks may NOT touch the water.
5. All decks (rails & street) must be strictly horizontal, that means decks may NOT be curved.
6. The bridge may NOT have gaps.
7. Trains & trucks & ships may NOT go through bridge material, no exceptions (e.g. crossbeams).

For DIRTY and ARTISTIC bridges:

For dirty and artistic bridges everything is allowed. The only rule is:

• The bridge must work (the 'test passed' message must appear) with a delay specified by the architect (that means: it's sufficient if the bridge works reliably with e.g. 17 seconds but not with any other delay).

For ALL bridges:

• Editing the level is strictly prohibited.
• You may NOT exploit bugs or flaws in the game engine.

Level submission

If you use the demo:

The file containing your bridge is named 'contest22.pfb' and it's located in the folder 'Bridge Construction Set Contest\profile\default\demo'. If you've finished your bridge, rename the file to

• 'C-[Yourname].pfb' in case of a CLEAN bridge,
• 'D-[Yourname].pfb' in case of a DIRTY bridge,
• 'A-[Yourname].pfb' in case of an ARTISTIC bridge.

WARNING: You can't load a renamed file in the demo, so once you rename your bridge you will have to rename it back to contest22.pfb if you want to edit it again. This makes working on your dirty, clean, and artistic bridge difficult. With the full version you can just use save as to save your bridge as the correct name and load bridge to load it up again.
Compress the file with RAR or ZIP, attach it to an e-mail and send it to contest22@bridgebuilder-game.com.

If you use the full version:

Your bridges will be located in your profile folder. Rename your file like described above and then compress it with RAR or ZIP!

The e-mail subject must read "[CLEAN/DIRTY/ARTIST] Cost: xxx Name: yyy". Use these e-mail links to make sure you get it right:

• Clean
• Dirty
• Artistic

The contest ends at 18:00 GMT on Sunday, October 31st. I take no responsibility for e-mail servers being too slow for your e-mail to reach me in time, etc.

I'll put up a list of received entries in the forum during the contest.

The number of bridges you submit is limited to three per category. The cheapest bridge will count.

Any discussions on contest bridge costs are to be kept in this special sub-forum. For your own good, it is password-protected. To get the password, first read this.

General comments on the level and the contest are warmly welcome and should be posted here. This forum thread is also the right place to dicuss the rules. If you are unsure whether or not your bridge meets all the requirements, contact me for a clarification before submitting your entry.

Breaking, bending or scratching any of the above rules will result in disqualification.

In the event of a tie, the entry I receive first will be rated better.

The Prizes

This time (and only this time) we have special prices: an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO and an ATI Radeon 9600 video card! They are awarded to the cheapest working CLEAN and DIRTY Bridge (see below). Additionally you can win three full versions of Bridge Construction Set that will be given away by a lottery. Everybody who submitted a working bridge will take part in the lottery. This means that even if you never entered a contest before, there's a really good chance you can win a prize this time! So don't be shy! Send in your bridges!

For the cheapest working 'CLEAN' bridges:

Winner: Eternal glory and admiration, the title of 'Bridge General' and an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB video card generously provided by ATI.
1st Runner-up: Temporary glory and admiration, the title of 'Bridge Major'
2nd Runner-up: Momentary glory and admiration, the title of 'Bridge Captain'

For the cheapest working 'DIRTY' bridges:

Winner: Eternal respect and awe, the title of 'Bridge Don' and ATI Radeon 9600 video card generously provided by ATI.
1st Runner-up: Temporary respect and awe, the title of 'Bridge Mafioso'
2nd Runner-up: Momentary respect and awe, the title of 'Bridge Bandit Knight'

Additional awards: The Title of 'Bridge Artist' for the best-looking entry
The Title of 'Bridge Inventor' for the most creative entry
Possible additional Special Titles as I see fit :)

Many thanks to ATI and Chronic Logic for providing the prizes!
The winners will be announced soon after the contest ends. Their names will also appear in the eternal Hall Of Fame.

The Level

The BCS Contest Demo version including the contest 22 level is available for Windows, Linux and OSX and can be downloaded here:
Windows: http://www.chroniclogic.com/demo/bcscondemo.exe
Linux: http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex2/contest22/bcscondemo.tar.gz
OSX: http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex2/contest22/bcscondemo.dmg

If you only need the contest level (you own the full version), download it here:
http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex2/contest22.zip
Unzip the archive into the 'files' folder and load it from the main menu using 'Load Level'.

Some Hints

I suggest you read the Manual (especially the drawbridge section), study the record bridges from the DWN-site and check out the forum in case you're not very familiar with the common bridge building techniques.

Good Luck!

The full version of BCS can be purchased for $19.95 directly from Chronic Logic:
http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex2order.htm

Special thanks to ATI for providing two great video cards as prizes.