As discussed here, the Minecraft staff and I plan on hosting 1 day long competition every month. These competitions will be just a few hours and will allow any number of users to compete for cash prize. They should be just as enjoyable to spectate as they will be to compete in, which is important since the competitions will be live streamed and also edited for YouTube.

I began working on this month's competition last week and already have some stuff to show off.

January's competition is only somewhat decided. It's going to be a parkour speedrun but the theme is what I'm not sure about yet. The competition will be either a single long course with each segment having a different theme or a series of courses with each course having a different theme. My uncertainty of that though doesn't matter. The thing I haven't decided on is if the competition will be just Super Mario themed or Nintendo NES themed.

If I go with the Super Mario themed, then what I would probably do is have it so you go through levels inspired by games which Mario is in, in order, from the 8-bit era. It's possible I could do it strictly just Super Mario Bros 1 themed and have its so that every level of the game is ran through.

If I were to do it Nintendo NES themed, then I would try to construct the course so that you speed run through time, with each course representing a different year on the Nintendo NES with the biggest title of that year being the theme of that specific course. So for example, 1983 would be represented by Donkey Kong (and/or Mario Bros), 1985 would be Super Mario Bros, etc.

Either way, I plan to make a custom resource pack, which I've already begun working on. I also made it so that the racers wear a "plumber" suit and they can simply "dye" the color of their plumber suit to have their own variation. Took me a few hours to figure out how this was done and then to implement it. In the below screenshot I've dyed it to match the colors of Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi.



I'll probably provide a few updates as this project progresses.

I spent quite a few hours trying to get the pipes functioning properly but it was definitely worth it. They look so much better than they did before. You can actually go inside of them which is awesome, haven't figured out a warping mechanism for them yet though.

Davideo7 : There is in theory 2 ways you could do it

1. You could use the portal commands but that would flood the list of them and be annoying to set up.

2. I would just recommend using command blocks for it so that you can just set up warps with it. Ever since the server revival we found out commands were weird and required you use commands blocks in a weird way. Do execute as "@p run tp x y z" At least I think I've been playing survival more lately.

SonicOlmstead : My issue is finding a way to have the tp triggered. The pipes are basically 4 glass planes grouped together in a square and I can't fit a block in there (although characters fit).

Davideo7 : Then as much as I hate to see it I think the portal system is the only way to do that if you want I can try to show you how to use it if you don't know or if you need a reminder next live stream.

SonicOlmstead : Sure, we can give it a shot.

At the moment, I'm not sure if I'll be having any of the secrets accessible. I'm thinking that the first competition will be just based on Super Mario Bros 1 since I think that'd be the least time consuming solution. All I'd have to do is create all of the objects you see in the 1st world and most of the remaining worlds would be fairly quick to make since I wouldn't have to create that many more assets. I had envisioned it being where each course is a world so 8 courses total and each "lap" would be a level of the world. So in the first course, you'd run through levels 1-1 - 1-4 and the top finishers get a point and then we'd move on to world 2 and so on. Anyways, with this format, I was thinking of having the levels stacked. Level 2 above level 1, Level 3 above 2 and Level 4 vertically the highest level. This way if you fall in any of the pits on the level, you fall to the previous level. Having all 4 levels stacked like this also makes it possible for 1 of the camera views that I show for the stream display all 4 levels since I should be able to view all 4 levels in a single screen so that you can see where every user is at in a single view.

All of that sounds confusing but I'll have a demo of how it'd look next week.

I can say i'm pretty excited to participate. I'm really hoping it'll be on a day i'm off cause I can see myself trying for this all day. Keep us updated on when it'll be.

Level 2 is complete. I'd like to point out that once I've created all of the levels of world 1, most of the assets will be all done so therefore, creating the remaining levels would be pretty quick.

This screenshot gives you an idea of what one of the spectator views would look like. You'd be able to see all 4 courses of a world. Each "race" involves an entire world where users race through all 4 levels of a world until they get to the finish. The top finishers would get points and then we'd move on to the next world.

Level 2 is complete. I'd like to point out that once I've created all of the levels of world 1, most of the assets will be all done so therefore, creating the remaining levels would be pretty quick.

This screenshot gives you an idea of what one of the spectator views would look like. You'd be able to see all 4 courses of a world. Each "race" involves an entire world where users race through all 4 levels of a world until they get to the finish. The top finishers would get points and then we'd move on to the next world.