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Nightmare Before Christmas 2025 - IT LIVES!

Korby • October. 14, 2025, 2:04 AM

Korby Administrator

Benvenuto nella room italiana!

Korby

Administrator

Benvenuto nella room italiana!

October. 14, 2025, 2:04 AM Copy Link

What's this?

Well, it's the long-awaited return of

NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

After years of inactivity, this celebration of Halloween and the Holidays™ has finally returned!

Experience history with the chilling return of 14 themed maps and a whopping 64 skins!

But that's not all... This year, because of the advancements made in MM8BDM-v6b, NBC will have custom weapons for the first time!

And, of course, it wouldn't be NBC with just a simple release. That's right, I've read your mind. "Why would you put a release in Events?"

The answer's simple. Just like in the past, submissions are open to all! Weapons & Items, Skins, Maps; you name it, you can submit it!

If you haven't been around long enough to witness one of these - and I imagine that's most folk in the community nowadays - we'll have a fairly lengthy submission period that encompasses both holidays and should give you plenty of time to submit whatever you so desire.

If you're interested in submitting but don't know how to make what you want to make, venture on over to the Official MM8BDM Wiki where we've got tutorials galore for every aspect of creation you can think of! Whether that's creating a skin, creating a map, or even making a weapon or item, making things has never been more accessible so let your creativity run wild!

One thing worth mentioning is because of the sheer amount of them, most of the old skins do not currently have mugshots. As such, we're also taking any submissions we get for those for that completion factor! please make mugshots please there's so many skins oh my GOD

Submissions are OPEN from NOW until
11:59:59 EDT on January 17th!

And, of course, anyone who has something accepted into the second release will receive the

SHINY NEW Nightmare Before Christmas Contributor medal!

Download Here!

NBC-Maps-v1a

NBC-Skins-v1a

NBC-Weps-v1a

Finally, here's some submission guidelines for you to follow. Submissions are open to all and I'm not worried about creating a perfect product or anything, but these are mostly here for my sanity. I HIGHLY recommend reading these, especially if you're newer!

First and foremost, any submission should fall within the thematic of Halloween or a December Holiday to some extent. This'll be explained further below in each individual section, but theming is key!

Remember, when in doubt you can always float your idea by me. The absolute last thing I want is for you to spend time on an idea only for me to tell you "no."

I don't really expect to exercise this, but I do reserve the right to make modifications within reason to submissions to make sure they line up or to decline entries outright. Mostly I expect this to be balance tweaks to weapons or declining obvious joke submissions, but I'll keep in communication with you if anything like this were to come up.

For Skins:

For Halloween, a thematic skin is typically dressing up a character in a costume, making something spooky, something generally within the Halloween spirit, or a character associated with it!
For the Holidays, a thematic skin can be anything that follows the general holiday vibe! A lot of the existing ones are Megaman characters wrapped up in pretty Christmas decorations or in a generally jolly mood, but if you wanted to slap an ice cube on Snakeman's head I'd seriously have to consider that one for the pack.
Your skins should follow typical guidelines for skins you'd see in core at a minimum. They should have at least 5 rotations, should have visible Blue and Cyan on all rotations, and a Mugshot.
Your skins can have custom sounds and taunts, but be tasteful. No one wants their ears to explode because you put an airhorn sound on every facet of your skin.
OCs are okay as long as it fits the theme!
Bonus points if you use proper eye whites (168 on the palette, 252/252/252 #fcfcfc) on your skin!

For Maps:

A thematic map is actually more broad than you might think! For Halloween, as long as it's dark, gloomy, spooky, or inspired by typical Halloween aesthetics, you should be good! For the Holidays, you could do anything from making your map feel cold, be covered in candy, or even a southern-hemisphere summer-styled map! Remember, it's all about vibes, and if you're not sure, just shoot me a message!
Ensure your map has 32 Deathmatch spawns, 16 Light and 16 Wily spawns, 8 Cossack and 8 King spawns, and Player 1-8 spawns.
Ensure your map uses the features included in MM8BDM-v6b's map tools for relevant features (water, bouncepads, etc.)
Ensure your map has a Yashichi and Block Monster lines blocking any pits.
If you have thoughts on custom weapons to place on your map and you're not sure how to do it, you can look at the existing NBC maps for the method, or you can write a list when you send me the map and I can handle it!
Obviously, you're free to use any custom content in your map. Try to keep it vaguely 8-bit, I'd prefer if you didn't make a 32 bit map or anything like that.
You don't have to make your map a super sweaty competitive map, but do keep it within reason. People ARE still going to play on these, after all.
The primary song on your map should be 8-bit. You CAN have a secret song that isn't, although I'd prefer if every map I received didn't have a secret song.
It's okay to not use 255 lighting in your maps. Don't use 256 lighting in your maps.
Bonus points if you don't use Shademan or Blizzardman textures!

For Weapons:

A thematic weapon will follow similar guidelines to the other categories, but do try to make it at least slightly more obviously themed. The Knife from Castlevania IS from Castlevania which fits the vibe, but it's just a knife, y'know?
Your weapons (or items!) will be played alongside core weapons, so try to aim for a power level and design level more consistent with core values. This means things like only having one ammo type, avoiding altfires where possible, and having reasonable damage.
Try to use 8-bit sounds and graphics.
Your weapons and items MUST follow v6b conventions to allow for compatibility.
To repeat myself, I'll be trying to get the balance relatively in line so I may talk to you about your creations if I need to.
Any ACS in your file must also include the source file.

There's no limit to the amount of submissions you can throw at me! This isn't a contest or anything, just get those creative juices flowing and make stuff! Just remember to keep good faith when creating stuff. Having fun is fine, it's the entire point, but something that's obviously a troll submission is unlikely to happen.

I'm definitely forgetting something, but it's 2 AM and I work tomorrow. I'll add it here if I remember.

Make sure to post in this thread to let me know you're working on something! I lose track of things very easily so having everything here makes it MUCH easier for me.

Have fun, everyone, and Happy Holidays!