Submission Guidelines

Screenshot Guidelines for Submissions

Most sections will accept screenshots as part of the submission process, both static images or animated, to showcase a resource or as part of a hack submissions.

1. Keep Screenshots Focused
   Only include details relevant to your submission in the screenshot. Do not include additional resources or custom graphics in your images that would make it unclear what resource is being previewed. Exceptions include CPU meters to show off an optimization or text that shows a clear "Before" and "After" state.


2. Don't Submit Blurry Screenshots
   If an image needs to be scaled to fit the required dimensions be sure to resize it without interpolation (a.k.a. "none" in some scaling utilities) or with "nearest neighbor" scaling so the game capture remains crisp. Other scaling methods will interpolate in ways that will blur the captured game image if it is scaled down.


3. Don't Crop a Screenshot
   Screenshots should not be cropped to fit into the required dimensions, instead resize an image to fit (following the advice above).


4. Disable Emulator Filters
   When capturing from your emulator disable any video filters or effects you may have enabled so a clean capture can be provided.

Hack-Specific Guidelineslink

• Capture Only the Game
  Only include screenshots that are of the game, avoid including letterboxing or other material in the image.


• Show the Title Screen First
  It is always recommended to include a screenshot of your titlescreen as this is the first thing that players will see when they boot your hack, so it should be the first thing they see on the hack page.


• Include a variety of additional screenshots
  This is an opportunity to show off your hack! Use screenshots that are from different levels in the game (but not too many), or include part of the overworld.

Formattinglink

Screenshots must be captured from a SNES emulator at the default resolution of the game: 256x224 pixels without any filters, artifacts or cropping done to the image. Supported file formats are .png for static screenshots, and .gif and .apng for animated.

Screenshot Details
Formats	.png, .gif, .apng
Resolution	256x224 pixels
Max File Size	1.0 MB

Exampleslink

The following is a screenshot that meets all the requirements.

• 
  ✅
  Properly sized and does not have any filters or unneccesary components.

The following are examples of bad screenshots and things you should avoid when creating or gathering screenshots for your submission.

• 
  ❌
  Did not use nearest-neighbour scaling when resizing the image to fit resulting in a blurry screenshot.
• 
  ❌
  Is using a non-standard aspect ratio and has letter boxing around the game capture.
• 
  ❌
  An external video capture with visual artifacts and not a screenshot of the game from an emulator.
• 
  ❌
  Not a capture of the game from an emulator but of the level editor in Lunar Magic.
• 
  ❌
  Cropped to fit the required dimensions and not a resized image.

A small utility for resizing a source screenshot to appropriate size is available here:

• Screenshot Scaling Utility →

Taking Screenshotslink

If you are unfamiliar with how to take screenshots here are some guidelines to help:

Emulator Capture

• Snes9x (1.62): while the game is running, use the "File → Save Other → Save Screenshot" action from the menu, or press the F12 hotkey.
• bsnes (v115): while the game is running, use the "Tools → Capture Screenshot" action from the menu; bsnes does not have a pre-set hotkey.
• Other Emulators: screenshot capturing varies between emulators, so try looking through their settings or menus, but F12 tends to be a common shortcut.

Application Capture

• Windows: Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots - Microsoft Support
• macOS: Take a screenshot - Apple Support
• Linux: There isn't a universal tool for screen capturing on Linux, if you use a graphical desktop environment search the applications menu for a screenshot tool.