Make Your Move 27: Jamcon 4! Milestone! (2024)

Make Your Move (MYM, to the regulars) is a moveset-writing contest with its roots in the pre-Brawl era of Smashboards! Since those halcyon days, people have come to MYM to answer the eternal question: what would it look like if I got to put my blorbo in Smash?

MYM is all about the hypothetical, so there's no rule about plausibility and character choice! We're happy to hear out a moveset idea whether you're pitching Waluigi or Walter White. Anime characters? Original characters? Mythological deities? A cool guy you met on a bus in Niagara Falls once, and sadly never again? It's all fair game.

Typically, MYM movesets are written with the latest and greatest Smash game in mind - that's Ultimate if you've been out of the loop. Movesets for older Smash games or even Project M are allowed if the fancy strikes you, though!

Whatever your character and engine of choice, if you're willing to write a little about how that moveset idea might work, this could be the thread for you!

What's In a Moveset?

The technical stuff we're after in a moveset is:​

That's 23 inputs in total!​

You can list these in whatever order you want. Many people have their own style and preferences about how to curate the experience for readers, but moves are almost always grouped together into the sections bullet-pointed above.​

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Most movesets list Special moves first, since their unique properties often tie a moveset together as a "core" and can be relevant to the rest of the moves. For example, Shulk's Monado Arts change up how the rest of his moves are used, so it'd be helpful to know about that from the jump.​

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If you're writing a moveset in Google Docs (as folks tend to do these days), here's a handy [ TEMPLATE ] you can use that includes all the essentials. If you're signed into Docs, just hit File > Make a Copy to snag your own copy of that.​

Other optional things you might want to include in a set:​

Having trouble writing a set? Just post in the thread or DM one of the five Leaders listed later in this post! We're always happy to check out WIP sets and provide feedback. ​

Submitting Movesets

In olden times, movesets were most always submitted by posting right in the thread itself! You still that sometimes. See an example here.​

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A good number of MYMers host movesets offsite these days though, for the sake of easier word processing and more control over presentation. Google Docs is the most commonly-used software for that sort of thing. Just drop a link to your moveset in the thread and you're good to go, that's a submission! You can toss in an image or text intro if you're feeling extra and you'd like to give it a little flair (like here or here).​

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Commenting

"Famous writers got to where they are due to reading a large amount of literature, and it’s the same with movesets. Commenting forces you to articulate that knowledge and put it to word; the helpfulness of this exercise cannot be overstated."​

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Movesets aren't the only kind of writing that sustains MYM. Everybody likes to know their creative work is finding an audience, yeah? When you read someone's work, try to drop the writer a line to let 'em know. Even leaving a "Like" on the set or just saying "I liked it" is something, so don't feel it's not worth taking the time because you don't have much to say!​

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Of course, you might not always like the sets you read. It happens! Leaving negative feedback is fine. Just keep it constructive and don't be discouraging; it's fine to be hard on movesets as long as you're going easy on people. If you'd like to write more comments but find yourself struggling with it, you may find this article on writing comments helpful.​

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To emphasize the importance of reading and commenting, readers are required to post [ at least 10 Comments ] throughout the contest in order to vote. Reading a lot can be daunting, but you'll be a much stronger and more informed setmaker if you rise to the challenge. You'll learn how setmakers roll, and you might even get inspiration for your own work.​

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Ranking

Many comentors will form their own [ Rankings ] - taking the movesets they've read and ranking them from strongest to weakest. You'll see different users' linked here and there in the thread or on Discord. Some ranking-inclined folks use ten-star systems, some five, and some are more qualitative.​

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Whatever the system, this is typically just a way for that user to clarify their opinions on movesets and advertise what their votes will be at the end of the contest. It's a completely optional exercise. Feel free to either make your own, or retain the mystique of not publicizing your votelist.​

Jamcons

A concept originated by Kholdstare in MYM24, Jamcons are monthly mini-contests. These little shots in the arm are designed to give the longer MYM contest a few extra, shorter movesets and encourage commenting. A participant has 4 days to write and submit a moveset that adheres to the Jamcon's theme.​

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After that, readers - whether they posted a submission or not - have 2 weeks to comment on every entry, then nominate their favorite entry. The most-nominated entry wins, and the winner gets to choose the theme for the next Jamcon.​

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Jamcon submission periods are typically Friday to Tuesday (Pacific Time), which is the weekend for most people. The first Jamcon of a contest often starts two weeks after the contest opens, to give time for people to read the opening movesets first. The exact timing of all this is up to the discretion of previous Jamcon's winner, though.​

Contest's End

MYM25 and MYM26 were both absolutely insane contests. After MYM25 hit a whopping 146 movesets over the course of six months, MYM26 shortened the submission period by nearly two months and still got itself 125 sets. Y'all should be proud and/or ashamed.​

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We're playing things a little cautiously this time around to avoid committing to too big a submission window, so we're not setting a specific end date for the contest just yet. Instead, when it looks like the contest is getting full (likely using the 100-moveset mark as a metric), we'll set an end date. Expect about a month's notice ahead of the end date, so that you can finish up anything you're in the middle of.​

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Whenever that may be, once the closing date rolls around, MYM27 stops accepting new movesets and we enter a reading period: a little window for prospective voters to catch up on sets they missed and whatever insanity went down at the end of the submission period.​

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Movesets can also be edited during the reading period, but we've got a strict "No Dodongos" clause this time around: a moveset needs to be reasonably considered finished by the submission deadline in order to be submitted. No templates that you edit up after the fact. And when I say "strict" I mean "please just be cool".​

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After reading, it's on to the voting period itself. If a reader has posted at least ten comments, they can submit a votelist to the contests' Vote Gurus on Smashboards via DM. More on reading + voting deadlines and the Vote Gurus when the submission period ends. Voters have up to 44 Votes to use, each split into 3 types of varying strength:​

Some votes from each category can be upgraded into a [ Vote Plus ] (+), which is worth 1-2 extra points:​

The Super Vote Plus (SV+) is typically awarded to your favorite moveset in the contest; be proud if you get any of these!​

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To give you a general idea of what a votelist looks like, here are all the votelists from last contest. Forty-four votes might seem like a ton, but you will have to make hard choices, even so.​

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For the egomaniac in the back with his hand raised.... no, you can't vote for your own movesets. C'mon, what are you trying to pull?​

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The Top 50

The voting deadline hits and it's time for the Leaders to tally up all the votes, break the ties and pretty up the presentation. Then it's Top 50 time, baby: MYM's time-honored tradition is to close out the contest with a list of the 50 highest-voted sets as the honorable winners.​

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Here's MYM26's Top 50, as an example! Feel free to check out the community's most recent batch of favorites there.​

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Placing at all can be a bit of a struggle, and it gets downright competitive at the top, so know that there's no shame in placing low or missing the Top 50 outright. We strive to keep things at a "friendly competition" level and there are no real stakes here.​

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When all's said and done, we shake hands (figuratively) and wait a couple weeks (literally) for MYM28.​

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Beyond The Thread
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MYM-Operated Communities and Sites

A lot of the activity in MYM lives on Discord [ LINK ]. The thread can only contain so much of our idle chatter, after all. On the Discord server you'll find plenty of conversation both on-topic and off. Whether you're looking for moveset discussion, you wanna talk video games, or you just like collecting Discord servers for access to emojis, please stop on by. We'll leave the light on for you.​

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It's also worth mentioning our venerable Wordpress blogs:​

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Unaffiliated Resources

UltimateFrameData [ LINK ] hosts a wealth of technical details about characters in Smash Ultimate, including frame-by-frame hitbox visuals for darn near every attack in the game! They're an outstanding reference point for just how strong and fast real moves actually are.​

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The Smash Wiki [ LINK ] is a pretty rich vein as well. It offers similar technical data, on top of more definitions of Smash jargon, trivia, and various formulae that keep Smash running under the hood.​

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Redditor u/Nachowcheese has created an absurdly exhaustive spreadsheet [ LINK ] with KO percentages and trajectories for each of Ultimate's attacks, as experienced by the middling Mii Swordfighter from the center of Final Destination.​

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Art of Smash [ LINK ] is a video series by Izaw about the intricacies of how Smash 4 is played. "Smash 4?" you might be asking yourself. "Wouldn't that be dated? Unless I was specifically writing for Smash 4 like the OP of MYM27 said I could do?" you might further be wondering. Never fear! Izaw also has an ongoing sequel series called Art of Smash Ultimate: [ LINK ]​

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In either series, the expansive list of character-specific videos are a great resource; seeing how real characters work is great for inspiring your own ideas! Maybe most importantly, the videos put a strong emphasis on "playstyle": how a character's toolkit flows together into a cohesive gameplan. Understanding this concept is essential for success in MYM!​

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Leadership​

The [ Leaders ] are a handful of senior members that moderate the community when needed, and also make decisions about when to set deadlines and things. Most of these folks have been hanging around MYM for a decade or so (maybe with some breaks).​

The Leaders are:​

If you have questions or need help with anything MYM-related, feel free to reach out to any of these fine folks.

Rules​

Make Your Move has [ RULES ], just like the rest of Smashboards. In the rare case where someone does break the rules, make sure you report them instead of replying to their post.

Now... y'all ready to Make Your Move?