Hi all!

Following a great discussion with Eulexia and Secondarian over on discord, I've decided to implement Eulexia's plan to have a scene writing contest for Newlife. 

The goal is to reward people who are writing scenes for Newlife and provide a little extra incentive to those who are on the fence about whether to get started.

To be included in the contest you just need to write a Newlife scene that's submitted via the usual process and accepted for inclusion in the game before Monday 14th of June. This means Sunday 13th is the last submission day. 
(TODO - is this a good deadline? I want it to be on a Monday so people who work on weekends get one at the end)

Please remember the rules for inclusion. In particular, there is a quality requirement. If you are not fluent in English then I recomend working with a collaborator. 
(TODO - it's tough to think about rejecting content due to quality, but I can't put stuff in NL that isn't good for the players so I think it has to be mentioned.)

The rules are:
- Everyone who has a piece of work accepted for inclusion in Newlife by the deadline will be considered for prizes in the contest. This includes people who submitted work before the contest was announced.
- A piece of work is a Newlife scene or group of related scenes in yml/vm custom scene format. For example the minidate content will count as 1 piece of work despite being multiple scenes.
- A writer can submit multiple pieces of work, and these will be considered separately for prizes: for example it would be possible for one writer to win both "best submission" and "2nd best submission" if they sent in two scenes.
- Submissions for the contest must meet the usual criteria for inclusion, including agreeing to the permissions statement. Anything that I reject (e.g. due to quality, writing style, content, bugginess etc) will not be considered for prizes.
- Submissions must be in the main game to be eligible. 3rd party add-ons such as nonconsent scenes do not count, although if an add-on writer submits a scene to the main game with the intent that their add-on would override it then that would be eligible. 
- Group submissions are allowed with a maximum of 3 contributors. Prizes will be split evenly among contributors. This may be the best choice if you want to participate but e.g. aren't a native English speaker. All contributors must agree to the permissions statement when the content is submitted for it to be included in the game and count for the contest.
- All work must be original. You cannot submit a modified version of someone else's scene unless you're doing so as a collaborator with them.
- Work done as a paid commission is also eligible for the contest, but not for the "everyone's a winner" category.

(TODO - are these good rules? Am I missing some way in which they could be exploited? Do they seem fair?)

THE CATEGORIES:

Everyone's a winner:

Every writer who has a scene included in the game that was not commissioned work automatically wins this category as long as their submission reaches the length requirement. The prize is $25. This only applies once per-writer even if they submit several pieces of work: I don't want to incentivise people to write lots of little scenes instead of one bigger, more interesting one.
To win this prize, the content from that writer must be at least 800 words (e.g. minidate_exlover would be enough by itself).

For multiple-writer scenes the prize is split along with anything else they win (e.g. 2 writers collaborating on 1 scene would get $12.50 each). If a writer collaborates on several pieces of work they can get this more than once up to the usual maximum of $25 per person.

To avoid the risk of bankrupcy, I am limiting the number of "everyone's a winner" winners to a maximum of 40 (i.e. a total payout of $1000), though I really don't expect to get anywhere near that limit. If the limit is reached then I'll choose who gets the reward based on scene size and quality.

I may also offer this prize to submitters whose scenes are rejected on quality grounds if they clearly put a lot of work into them. These scenes would still not be eligible for other prizes.

Best submission:
This category will be chosen by voters on Patreon. If there's a tie the money will be divided between the winners. E.g. if 1st and 2nd tied they'd receive $225 each.

Best submission: $250
2nd best: $200
3rd best: $150
4th: $75
5th: $50

Most helpful:
This category will be chosen by the writers themselves: I'll contact them for their votes once all submissions are in. This is to reward writers who help other people, either directly or by making guides or tools that others can use.

Most helpful: $100
2nd: $75
3rd: $50

Guest judge's choice:
I'll invite a guest judge: probably someone involved in the wider adult-games community. They'll pick their 3 favourites, each of which will receive $100.

Community favourite:
This vote will be opened up to all patrons at the $5 tier or higher on a 1-vote-per-patron basis. The top 3 will each win $100. 

Total prizes: 
$1550 plus $25 per non-commissioned writer.

TODO - Does this seem like a good prize structure?



PAYMENT:

Payment is by one of the following methods:
- By Paypal
- As donation to a charity of your choice. I reserve the right to refuse charities if I feel that they're dodgy or push an unpleasant political or religious ideology. In that case you'll be asked to choose a different one, or just take the money via paypal and handle the donation yourself. 

I'll take at least 1 month to try to get everyone paid. If at the end of that time I haven't been able to contact a winner or we've been unable to get any payment methods working, the money will go to the International Red Cross.