The Dobbs First Month Challenge ends on April 14^th at 11:59 p.m., so I hope you've been hard at work on your modification of Dr. Dobbs Challenge (either the Windows or the Windows Mobile version) to be in with a chance to win $1,000!

If you haven't had a chance to get started properly yet, however, remember that there's still everything to play for -- submit your best attempt on April 14^th and feel free to continue development on the project for the final deadline (for all prizes) on June 13^th.

To attempt to spur you into action, we've already put up our first Critic's Choice mod - Georg Rottensteiner's amazing expansion to Dr. Dobbs Challenge, which features a fantastic level editor, new art, sound and even scrolling levels. Georg explains his choice to include a level editor as ";a needed addon: while text based levels are nice for casual editing, in the long run an in-game editor is better; you see exactly what you're doing and what's it going to look like. And it lets me create new stages faster!";

He's also included a few tips for people wanting to create graphics in the style of the original game (";I cheated a bit; painted new tiles in twice the resolution and simply scaled them down";) and creating sound effects: ";I've been using DrPetters sfxr sound tool for additional sound effects. It's an awesome tool that lets you create random 8-bit style sound effects and play with the parameters. Highly recommended.";

(and if you don't remember, or even know to begin with, what The Dobbs Challenge is, this post should hopefully explain all.)