The last time we had a level design contest, we used
this fan game. It was a little finicky, but it served its purpose. Also, it was fun. I'm somewhat interested in giving such a contest another go. However, I'd like to move from that fangame to an actual Sonic engine, using
SonED2.
Basically, I'd provide the source code, level assets, object definitions, and perhaps a small selection of music, and you guys can edit to your heart's content without having to know a thing about coding. At the end of the contest, I'll pack everything you guys make into one ROM and send it off to the Sonic Retro userbase for judging instead of making douglas do it like last time.
Of course, this only works if people care (and TSC was much more caring at the time of the last contest). There's really no prize, just the satisfaction of beating somebody else from TSC. If you're interested, let me know here. I'll figure out a few more specifics (such as which game's source code to use) after I know this will go somewhere.