Hello, Duelists!

Today, the 10th of August, officially marks 7 years of development on Duels of Fortune! More time than any sane people should be spending on a single project, if we're being honest... but it's been time well-spent. And that's all thanks to you guys, our wonderful community who keep us going!

For our 7th dev anniversary, we wanted to do something to give back to the community that's carried us all this way. And so, it's our pleasure to announce the first ever...


That's right! We want to see your most creative, wacky, and stylish ideas for new costumes, and our favourite ones will get the opportunity to be added to the game officially! Whether you've had cool concepts floating around in your head for ages, you're only thinking of some now, or you just want an excuse to dress up your favourite character in a silly outfit, this is your time to shine!!

Each participant can submit up to 3 different costume designs, as long as each design is for a different character. Once submissions close, we will choose 3-5 winners, depending on how many submissions we get. Note that we will not select multiple designs created by the same person.

The contest starts RIGHT NOW, and will last until September 10th! We hope one month will be enough time to ensure everyone who wants to submit a design is able to do so!

Once you have a design ready, you can submit it through THIS GOOGLE FORM[docs.google.com]! You're free to also share your designs on Discord or social media if you wish, but if you don't submit to the form, your submission will not be counted!!

PLEASE READ THE RULES CAREFULLY BEFORE CREATING! Submissions that break the rules will be discarded!

• MAIN PLAYABLE CHARACTERS ONLY - You may only submit costumes for any fighter on the main playable roster (including the guests!). We are not allowing submissions for costume-only characters (i.e. Roy, Ricky Travis, Shoto Goto, etc.) or boss-only characters (i.e. Masked Oni, Shade, Donner, etc.).
  
• NO MATURE/18+ ELEMENTS -- This includes (but is not limited to): partial or full nudity, sexual suggestion, gore, and illicit drugs. Basically, just don’t submit anything NSFW or that we would otherwise normally avoid.
  
• A VISUAL REFERENCE MUST BE PROVIDED -- This can take the form of a sketch, digital artwork, 3D render, or whatever other visual art form you're comfortable with! A description by itself is just not enough for us to go on, so even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, just do the best you can! Alternatively, consider collaborating with someone to help you with the art if you're not able to convey your idea on your own (see the later rule on collaboration for more info). Submissions containing AI-generated artwork will not be accepted under any circumstances.
  
• MAXIMUM OF 3 SUBMISSIONS PER PERSON -- A single participant may submit up to 3 individual designs if they desire. HOWEVER, you may not submit multiple costumes for the same character. We will also not be choosing multiple winning designs made by the same person, as that would be unfair to other participants.
  
• COLLABORATION IS ALLOWED -- You are allowed to collaborate with others to create a design together, so long as all contributors are credited by name. Also keep in mind that, for group submissions, each contributor will be counted separately towards the 3-costumes-per-person rule (i.e. if you submit 2 costumes on your own and 1 with a team, you will be considered to have submitted 3 costumes and cannot submit another).
  
• NO CHARACTER REPACEMENTS -- You may not submit a costume that completely replaces the base character with a different one (i.e. costumes like Shin, Roy, Evilobster, etc.). Please also avoid submitting costumes that are just the character wearing another character's/your OC's outfit.
  
• NO OUTSIDE REFERENCES/CROSSOVERS -- Costumes may not be directly based on, or be extremely obvious references to, any existing intellectual properties outside of Duels of Fortune. In the case of the guest characters, making costumes inspired by their home games is A-OK!
  
• WE HAVE THE FINAL SAY ON WHAT GOES IN OUR GAME -- We reserve the right to tweak or modify the designs of any winning costumes if we so choose.

These are not hard and fast rules, but are some rough guidelines we ourselves use when designing costumes. We may be more likely to select costumes that follow these guidelines.

• Avoid submitting a costume that is too similar to an existing one. To help with this, we have provided a handy reference sheet of all the costumes currently in the game, which you can view HERE[docs.google.com]!
  
• Consider a character’s personality and aesthetic when designing a costume for them. Costumes that “fit” a character in that way tend to feel much more natural and believable. Be creative in your approach of course, but try to avoid, for instance, giving a silly character like Derrick a particularly dark or edgy costume.
  
• Avoid designs that drastically expand a part of a character’s base shape (such as adding a bulky accessory or large headwear to a character that doesn’t already have one). These can cause noticeable clipping issues during animations as well as make the bounds of a character’s hurtbox less clear.
  
• Try to keep in mind a character’s animations and general structure. Avoid adding capes or other flowy elements that would require new animation to be done on them. If an item or piece of clothing is an essential part of a character’s animations (such as Sylvan’s hat), try to ensure your costume has an equivalent.
  
• Avoid overly detailed designs. Duels of Fortune's art style is relatively simple, so too much detail in a design may stand out in a bad way.
  
• Consider including supporting characters. If a character has any supporting characters in their moveset (such as Shiverskull’s crew, Chip, or Gizmo), try to think of designs for them to supplement the main costume. These extra characters do not have to be included in your visual reference, but we would still appreciate a description of how they should look at minimum.

We have also provided turnaround model sheets for every eligible character, which can be viewed and downloaded HERE[drive.google.com]. You are free to use these as references for your artwork if you wish. And while we would encourage you to create an original artwork as your final submission piece, using these model sheets as a base to draw on top of may be helpful for getting your design down, especially if you have limited artistic experience.

Now that you understand everything, feel free to get creating! We can't wait to see what you all come up with!