We're happy to announce that today the first day of the Liberated Pixel Cup art competition. At this point we now welcome artists to begin working on artwork for the art competition of the Liberated Pixel Cup! Zombies, potions, spaceships, werewolves, whatever! We're looking forward to seeing what contributions you can build to match the style guide.

On that note, one of the primary goals of Liberated Pixel Cup was to create a clear style that many people could collaborate on. We're happy to announce that that style guide is released, along with some base assets to build off of and a fun "walkaround" demo that shows how the tiles can fit together.

(If you know how to use git, you are welcome to check out the style guide repository.)

You might notice that the base artwork has some thematic tropes that borrow from traditional fantasy RPG styles with a touch of victorian / colonial inspired decoration. You are welcome to follow this, but diversion is welcome and we don't consider *thematic* aspects to be a requirement to conforming to the guide. Science fiction, farming, contemporary urban, or whatever themes are welcome, as long as they conform to the general aspects of design laid out in the style guide.

Also, you may be wondering about prizes! Just what can you win by participating in the contest? We're happy to finally make that announcement.

The art phase of the contest has the following three prizes:

$1500 USD: grand prize (team or individual)

$500 USD: secondary prize, individual only

$500 USD: secondary prize, individual only

The code phase has the following four prizes:

$1500 USD: grand prize (team or individual)

$500 USD: secondary prize, team only

$500 USD: secondary prize, individual only

$1500 USD: HTML5 game prize

The art contest will end on June 30th, and immediately afterward the code contest will begin on July 1st and end on July 31st. After this period there will be judging for both contests.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop by the IRC channel and ask. Otherwise, get pixeling! To submit artwork, go to the art submission form. We look forward to seeing what you come up with!