These are the current guidelines that featured games must follow. As the BYOND software opens up new options and the community evolves, standards shall be raised.
Games which meet these standards shall undergo a final review by a portion of BYOND Volunteers before being featured. Do not wait for them to take notice! You are all welcome to submit (and resubmit) games through the Submissions forum.
Please understand that reviewers are donating their time for free. Make use of this list first and be aware that it may take a while to complete the review process.
- Games must meet the requirements for being listed. Content that is overtly vulgar or sexual in nature is not allowed. This means games filled with excessive swearing, obscene graphics, or references to anything sexually explicit.
- The content of a featured game must belong to the game's developer or be used with the permission of the content's legal owner. No unauthorized fan creations are allowed.
- Featured games must be in a playable state. Development may continue while a game is featured, but the updates must not be necessary to play.
- Game-breaking bugs are grounds for rejection. Less important bugs are expected to be fixed eventually.
- Partially implemented features are expected to be either finished or hidden. There is no set duration, but please try to be prompt. [Duration clarified March 25, 2011.]
- Games that require multiple people are fine, but those people better be able to play after making that effort to gather. [Clarified March 25, 2011.]
- Games must have content. Featured games are more than mere demos. They should offer one or more attributes such as replay value, a variety of challenges or a well told tale. [Added December 9, 2011.]
- Games must possess the illusive qualities of "fun" and "goodness". We're not trying to be overly coy here. While the shallower aspects of polish are easy to define, gameplay is not. What we can do, however, is continually list items of contention so that developers know what to expect and are judged equally. That list can be found here.
- Games should teach how they are played. While valid, this need not take the form of written documentation. In-game tutorials are welcome as is breaking lessons up into manageable chunks. Goals, game mechanics and methods of control should be described. While it is fine to ignore obvious interface controls (such as clearly labeled buttons), players should not be expected to have prior knowledge of a genre. [Modified June 10, 2011.]
- Grammar and spelling are important. Consider the language of the player base to be English as defined by either the US or the UK. Reviewers might not be able to proofread all of a game's content, but expect glaring errors to be a cause of rejection.
- Graphics should have a consistent look that fits their game. You don't need to be a professional artist or use cutting edge graphics; the most important factor here is having a homogeneous graphical style that is easy on the eyes. Ex: Using stick figures and simple colors to make a cohesive look would be just fine, but mixing and matching clashing sprites with differing resolutions or perspectives is not acceptable.
- Games should provide their own promotional materials. Help us help you! Hub descriptions should be accurate. Both the wide and large square banners should exist for the rotation and hub listings. (Small icons for favorite lists are appreciated as well.) Any developer able to upload content to the media section of their hub page is encouraged to do so.
- Games should add a reasonable amount of variety to the catalog. Projects taking ideas from each other is nothing new, but clones just take space in the listings. Go ahead and add another game within a featured genre. Feel free to reuse generic fantasy or science fiction themes. However, please avoid submitting the umpteenth implementation of a classic game or open source project without something wildly different to set you apart.
- Games should meet the featured interface guidelines. You may find those guidelines here.