The
Trackmania US Discord has an event twice a week where mappers are given
15 minutes to build a map and
5 minutes to validate. Then the maps are played in Rounds online where everyone discovers the maps.
The rules:
Rules on December 4, 2022 says:
-15 minutes to map, 5 minutes to validate; the host will say when to start/stop. You must be in voice chat for this but are not required to say anything.
-No premapping, must start with blank editor.
-No macros created before the map you were working on unless scenery and not driven on.
-AT must be less than 1 minute.
-No use of the validation tool.
-No use of map generators.
-All maps will be played in rounds, but can be skipped if rounds last over 6 minutes. (with 1m max AT and 3-4 rounds, this shouldn't be a problem)
-Most players should be able to finish your map in rounds. (on the intended route set by the author time)
-Be careful of validating maps in areas that would be dark before computing shadows.
-Any maps that break these rules are subject to be added to the KEKL graveyard rather than the main campaign. They can still be played, but will not be tracked on kekl-hunt.pages.dev
-Maps can be retroactively be moved to the graveyard if it was discovered that rules were broken or the map becomes impossible due to an update or any other reason.
-If you ever feel like you set a suspiciously fast AT, please save your validation replay for the KEKL hosts and/or be ready to drive it again.
It's not really a competition. It's just something to do together for fun.
However, we also have rules for when a map gets "graveyarded":
Rules on May 28, 2023 says:
-If less than half the players finish the map, a reason it could be redeemed is if the mapper finished too quickly and not everyone had enough time to figure out where to go. We will play the map up to 20 minutes if necessary and if it has a normal-ish route with a reasonable AT (without precise/difficult/kack/rng tricks) Squeakydoor's map was a good example from this and was the first map redeemed from the graveyard.
-If less than half finish with the intended route.. for example if there's a soft speedcheck most can't make, a risky finish, or a safe/risky way and people are only getting what seems to be the slow way in rounds we will also play the map up to 20 minutes to see if there is a reasonable way to get AT. A good example is Mathyper's map from last night. It had a precise/difficult platforming section that only a few managed to do in rounds, but it was found that there is an even faster way to get AT in the safe route. So the map was subject to be graveyarded but was not in this case.
-If the AT is over 1 minute but it is not too difficult to go under 1 minute. We already made this exemption on a few tracks, but I belive this is in the same vein as the others.
-If rounds last longer than 6 mintes. I do not believe we have an example of this yet but if there's something similar to Squeakydoor's map where it's fairly straightforward and simple to get AT and everyone struggled at first figuring it out then it may be redeemed after we look at it for up to 20 minutes.
Keep in mind there are some rules that, if broken, will not ever be redeemed such as map copying.
In addition to this, it is possible for a map to get redeemed from the graveyard:
Rules on May 28, 2023 says:
We are now doing graveyard redemptions! If your map gets graveyarded after this post, ask us to look at it and it may have a chance to be redeemed.
Although KEKL hosts may still use their discretion in this process when new scenarios come up, the process is not completely arbitrary. So if you care about the inner workings on the decision buckle up. But if not you can stop reading here.
Normally, if a map breaks any of the kekl rules listed in the discord it will be sent to the graveyard campaign rather than the kekl campaign. This is to protect the sanity of those crazy enough to hunt all KEKL ATs which are tracked on the KEKL site.
The problem is that although the rules generally do a good job, they are not perfect. The rounds rules (Specifically: rounds not lasting more than 6 minutes & most players must finish at least once with the intended route) were made so that hunters do not feel the need to sink hours into tracks with incredibly precise/difficult/kacky/rng tricks.
With that in mind, the redemption process happens like this:
When the maps are added to the campaign we (the KEKL hosts) will consider the rules that were broken, and if the map deserves to be redeemed. For instance..
The maps in this pack are maps that have been built during this event. The pack will continue to grow as new maps are uploaded.
To find a COMPLETE LIST of all maps, look in-game for the "KEKL" club. Inside you'll find club campaigns containing all of the maps from the events.
Alternatively you can search inside the "Library" for "KEKL". The campaigns are named "KEKL Maps 11", "KEKL Maps 12", and so on.
There's a
KEKL website where we keep track of maps and Author Times.
The event was the brainchild of Chloe.
The first regular host was LapisLightning.
The current regular host is Numberplay.
Backup hosts are eyebo, rockskater89, and MattDTO.
Credit also to Reaby, who created a dedicated EditorPlugin for KEKL mappers. It allows us to have a timer for the mapping and validation parts of the event.
We also built these maps (which aren't in the mappack):