So, You Want to be an Imagineer Season 18 HYPE THREAD!

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Greetings, fellow Armchair Imagineers! Welcome to the 18th installment of the longest running Armchair Imagineering competition on the web. It's been a long hiatus since we crowned @spacemt354 winner of the last season. Since then the boards have had some ups and downs, but few would argue that the season of Sorcerer's Apprentice that just wrapped up was a definite high-point. There's been a renewed interest in long-form competitions on here. Sorcerer's Apprentice was a great spring competition, and SYWTBAI is here to usher the boards into the summer months.
sywtbaii.png

Season 18 is going to have a very simple mission statement behind it. Behind the vague Nintendo Switch ascetic, at the heart of this season is going to be a return to form. Throughout the WDWMagic era of the game, each iteration has been wildly different. Get a Clue was an explosive mix of creativity and controversy with the Murder Mystery twist. Greatest Hits celebrated the projects of the past and saw @Basketbuddy101 come out of it with his second win. Uniting Universal was a rare beast of a season with no clear winner or cast, and instead acted as a stand-alone Armchair Imagineering community project that I wasn't even involved in. Finally we have Purists vs. Innovators and The International Edition. The former used the game-changing tier system to incentive players to try out harder concepts. The latter was a return to the back to basics gameplay with a very small cast. Indeed, SYWTBAI has struggled to form a real identity on these boards the same way SA has, and this season aims to change that.

Sorcerer's Apprentice is an epic. I'm just going to come right out and say that anyone expecting a running storyline or comic is going to be let down, because were focusing almost exclusively on the creative writing side of things from the players point of view with this season. While SA is a grand novel, you might think of SYWTBAI as something of a yearly edition of a video game. The golden age of SYWTBAI happened in the latter half of the Visions Fantastic era, where we had a really nailed in format that got twisted up from season to season but for a stretch always stayed pretty much in place. This time around were going back to that format and honor what's come before.
sywtbai.jpg

Here's what players can expect to find this season.


Team-based gameplay
Depending on the size of the cast, the season will start with you divided up into either two or three different teams. Each round the teams will have to chose a Project Leader to guide the brainstorming. It's the project leader's job to nominate two players for elimination should the team loose. This will be done via a "voting booth" private message set-up we'll be implementing for each player. After the final tallies come in and a winning project is crowned, the judges will make the call on which of the two nominees gets eliminated. Things will get switched up from time to time including at least one team swap, but generally speaking that's how the first half of the season will play out.

Midway into the season, the two teams will merge into one and each round will be a singular team effort. The same rules apply...a project leader gets chosen who then has to nominate two people for elimination. Nominations can only be made AFTER the project is completed to ensure any last minute additions to the projects get accounted for in the nomination process.


The return of the Power of MVP
The Power of MVP, or PoMVP for short, is the most famous advantage in SYWTBAI. It's the game's equivalent to the immunity idol in Survivor or the Power of Veto in Big Brother. Every round the project leaders will nominate the player they feel contributed the most to the project for the power, and it will go to the nominated player of the winning team. The player with the PoMVP will be immune from being nominated from elimination the following round. Players cannot receive the PoMVP in back to back rounds. I love this power because it does a great job of honoring folks who go above and beyond for the project while getting progressively valuable as the game goes on.

Unorthodox projects...your way!
"Have it your way" might as well be the tagline of this season. Each prompt is going to celebrate the fact that SYWTBAI is the only Armchair Imagineering game that's done wildly outside the box IPs consistently for most of its run. With that in mind, every single prompt will be a little bit outside the lines. You're not going to find many traditional prompts here. With that being said, don't be scared off if you don't want to deep dive into an IP you're not familiar with. This time around each prompt will be an outside the box concept with enough options and variations for what can be done with it to ensure that nobody feels left out in the dark. It's all about diving into the subject matter YOU are passionate about!

And those are the three basics that were incorporating into this season. Oh, and did I mention #TeamTMNT!?!?! Indeed, the quartet that emerged as one of the fan-favorite storylines of Sorcerer's Apprentice: Odyssey has reunited to run this season. @mickeyfan5534 and I will be doing podcast recaps of every single project, as @NateD1226 and @Tux provide additional feedback in text form. The podcast will be incorporated into the game more than ever before, and if any sort of running storyline naturally emerges from all this, I promise it will come out of that.

To keep up the interest during the brief hiatus between the start of SA and beginning of SYWTBAI, @mickeyfan5534 will be in charge of an Imagineering Question of the Day. Starting tomorrow I'll also be posting the first of five Weekly Challenges. These challenges will be meant to set the tone of what to expect from the prompts and a secret power will be awaiting the cast member who the judges feel contributed the most consistently to them. Sign ups will be happening in late May for an estimated early June start date. I'll leave it to Mickeyfan to post the first Daily Question, and I'll throw it over to anyone who has any questions about the format to ask away. I'm incredibly excited for the prospects of this season and think the community on these boards in its current state is in a place to deliver one of the best iterations of the game yet.
 
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TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Something big I forgot to mention is the return of the grading scale. This is a major change up from the Sorcerer's Apprentice format in that it essentially gives players a "high score" to reach towards. The scale, as always will go as followed...

Creativity: /10
Detail: /10
Realism: /10
Presentation: /10
Group Work: /10

The categories are pretty self explanatory, but let me know if you want me to go into any of them more.
 

mickeyfan5534

Well-Known Member
And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.
Mine personally is the finale of SpectroMagic. I think a lot of things capture the utter magic of Disney but nothing has ever captured it in all its breathtaking glory as seeing those white floats just suddenly turn to color in an instant while the single greatest parade theme ever plays, triumphant and grand but elegant and matching the floats perfectly.
 
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TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'm glad this Switch format is seeing the light of day - I think this will really do wonders for the game

I'll definitely consider signing up on the condition that other past winners join as well to continue the tradition and help spark the next generation!

@Basketbuddy101
@MANEATINGWREATH
@KingMickey
@JokersWild and more!

@Snoopy
@RMichael21
@Disney Dad 3000

And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.

To get really specific with it, I'd probably go with the Tiki gardens at Disneyland. I do enjoy the larger scale of the Tiki Room facade and interior at WDW and certainly think they have the better "tropical storm" effect, but the pre-show just doesn't compare to Disneyland's. I absolutely adore sitting in that space eating a dole whip, especially in the early evening with the torches lit up. The gentle music playing, the pineapple film, the Blaine Gibson sculptures. Oh man...can I go back to Disneyland yet! :(
 

spacemt354

Chili's
For anyone new like @Outbound @PerGronStudio @Pufflefan etc who might be interested this is from 2017 so should probably update it but it chronicles the seasons over the years
 

spacemt354

Chili's
And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.
The Columbia Harbour House signs in Fantasyland vs Liberty Square

It's a picture of a chicken and fish in Fantasyland because you're in Medieval Times when not a lot of people can read. So shops would have pictures to illustrate what was inside. But in Liberty Square the sign is written in English, showing the passage of time to the 1700s.

It's such a small detail but encapsulates what separates Disney from other parks to me.
 

Orange Cat

Well-Known Member
And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.
I could say something cheesy like “spending time with friends & family”, which IS NICE & all but instead.....
Dole Whips
 

PerGron

Well-Known Member
I’ll be keeping my eye out for sign ups here, it’ll be fun to be on the player side for the first time in a while.

And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.

Rafiki’s Planet Watch pre 2017 update. Between the live animal presentations, being able to see a real vet clinic and real diet preparation, as well as tons of conservation going on there, it was one of the things that inspired me to become a zookeeper myself. Song of the Rainforest will forever be in my top 5 attractions at any Disney Park and I honestly may be the only person on earth who misses it.

Plus that entryway with the changing sign and all the animals painted on the wall, it’s what I inspire to make my house one day really
 

Pi on my Cake

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
Greetings, fellow Armchair Imagineers! Welcome to the 18th installment of the longest running Armchair Imagineering competition on the web. It's been a long hiatus since we crowned @spacemt354 winner of the last season. Since then the boards have had some ups and downs, but few would argue that the season of Sorcerer's Apprentice that just wrapped up was a definite high-point. There's been a renewed interest in long-form competitions on here. Sorcerer's Apprentice was a great spring competition, and SYWTBAI is here to usher the boards into the summer months.
View attachment 465565
Season 18 is going to have a very simple mission statement behind it. Behind the vague Nintendo Switch ascetic, at the heart of this season is going to be a return to form. Throughout the WDWMagic era of the game, each iteration has been wildly different. Get a Clue was an explosive mix of creativity and controversy with the Murder Mystery twist. Greatest Hits celebrated the projects of the past and saw @Basketbuddy101 come out of it with his second win. Uniting Universal was a rare beast of a season with no clear winner or cast, and instead acted as a stand-alone Armchair Imagineering community project that I wasn't even involved in. Finally we have Purists vs. Innovators and The International Edition. The former used the game-changing tier system to incentive players to try out harder concepts. The latter was a return to the back to basics gameplay with a very small cast. Indeed, SYWTBAI has struggled to form a real identity on these boards the same way SA has, and this season aims to change that.

Sorcerer's Apprentice is an epic. I'm just going to come right out and say that anyone expecting a running storyline or comic is going to be let down, because were focusing almost exclusively on the creative writing side of things from the players point of view with this season. While SA is a grand novel, you might think of SYWTBAI as something of a yearly edition of a video game. The golden age of SYWTBAI happened in the latter half of the Visions Fantastic era, where we had a really nailed in format that got twisted up from season to season but for a stretch always stayed pretty much in place. This time around were going back to that format and honor what's come before.
View attachment 465566
Here's what players can expect to find this season.


Team-based gameplay
Depending on the size of the cast, the season will start with you divided up into either two or three different teams. Each round the teams will have to chose a Project Leader to guide the brainstorming. It's the project leader's job to nominate two players for elimination should the team loose. This will be done via a "voting booth" private message set-up we'll be implementing for each player. After the final tallies come in and a winning project is crowned, the judges will make the call on which of the two nominees gets eliminated. Things will get switched up from time to time including at least one team swap, but generally speaking that's how the first half of the season will play out.

Midway into the season, the two teams will merge into one and each round will be a singular team effort. The same rules apply...a project leader gets chosen who then has to nominate two people for elimination. Nominations can only be made AFTER the project is completed to ensure any last minute additions to the projects get accounted for in the nomination process.


The return of the Power of MVP
The Power of MVP, or PoMVP for short, is the most famous advantage in SYWTBAI. It's the game's equivalent to the immunity idol in Survivor or the Power of Veto in Big Brother. Every round the project leaders will nominate the player they feel contributed the most to the project for the power, and it will go to the nominated player of the winning team. The player with the PoMVP will be immune from being nominated from elimination the following round. Players cannot receive the PoMVP in back to back rounds. I love this power because it does a great job of honoring folks who go above and beyond for the project while getting progressively valuable as the game goes on.

Unorthodox projects...your way!
"Have it your way" might as well be the tagline of this season. Each prompt is going to celebrate the fact that SYWTBAI is the only Armchair Imagineering game that's done wildly outside the box IPs consistently for most of its run. With that in mind, every single prompt will be a little bit outside the lines. You're not going to find many traditional prompts here. With that being said, don't be scared off if you don't want to deep dive into an IP you're not familiar with. This time around each prompt will be an outside the box concept with enough options and variations for what can be done with it to ensure that nobody feels left out in the dark. It's all about diving into the subject matter YOU are passionate about!

And those are the three basics that were incorporating into this season. Oh, and did I mention #TeamTMNT!?!?! Indeed, the quartet that emerged as one of the fan-favorite storylines of Sorcerer's Apprentice: Odyssey has reunited to run this season. @mickeyfan5534 and I will be doing podcast recaps of every single project, as @NateD1226 and @Tux provide additional feedback in text form. The podcast will be incorporated into the game more than ever before, and if any sort of running storyline naturally emerges from all this, I promise it will come out of that.

To keep up the interest during the brief hiatus between the start of SA and beginning of SYWTBAI, @mickeyfan5534 will be in charge of an Imagineering Question of the Day. Starting tomorrow I'll also be posting the first of five Weekly Challenges. These challenges will be meant to set the tone of what to expect from the prompts and a secret power will be awaiting the cast member who the judges feel contributed the most consistently to them. Sign ups will be happening in late May for an estimated early June start date. I'll leave it to Mickeyfan to post the first Daily Question, and I'll throw it over to anyone who has any questions about the format to ask away. I'm incredibly excited for the prospects of this season and think the community on these boards in its current state is in a place to deliver one of the best iterations of the game yet.
I have absolutely adored both seasons I've been able to play and I'm looking forward to playing again! This game has a really unique feel where each stanza truly is something crazy and cool. I remember back in Season 14 doing a Hobbit Log Flume project all as a poem and a land based on every cartoon ever. Or in Season 16 creating a dang good Disney themed video game (With the first incredible @D Hindley map I remember seeing)! SYWTBAI is the game for out there, fun prompts.

I remember @kmbmw777, @Magic Feather, and I made a great dream team back towards the end of season 14!

Looks like my competition will have to wait.... in the meantime, count me in!

Your competition could work well as a smaller scale game over the course of May. I don't think this starts till June? And with the One Sentence Comp not going, something smaller and more casual would really help the forum! I could help you get it set up if you'd like?

And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.

WDW's Tiki Room. Especially the pre-show. Partly just to mess with @TheOriginalTiki. But also because there is just something so relaxing about chilling in the back row that is mostly empty and feeling a cool breeze while in the shade. Seeing the Flora of Adventureland rustle. Plus, the pre-show, while corny, feels like a perfect set up to the show itself!

I remember one time back when I worked at the ice cream parlor having a long day of work. Got off and needed to unwind. So, I changed out of my costume, went back upstairs to the park, grabbed an All American Sundae with Cookies and Cream (That's the sundae with peanut butter drizzle, peanut butter chips, hot fudge, chocolate chips, and house made whip cream, best thing on the menu), and made my way to the Tiki Room. It started to rain and drizzle, but I made it to the pre-show perfect timing. It was just starting, it was mostly empty, and it was just starting to storm.I got to snack on my ice cream, listen to the storm, and enjoy the super chill pre-show.
 

Outbound

Well-Known Member
And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.

For some reason, I have an intense nostalgia for

Please Stand Clear of the Doors, Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas

But in terms of the parks, I love Big Thunder Mountain both as a ride and the western theme. I also love Cars Land, it's a spot-on recreation of my childhood movie. And to give some love to WDW, the ice cream sandwiches in Liberty Square are fantastic.
 

mickeyfan5534

Well-Known Member
So many awesome responses.
To get really specific with it, I'd probably go with the Tiki gardens at Disneyland. I do enjoy the larger scale of the Tiki Room facade and interior at WDW and certainly think they have the better "tropical storm" effect, but the pre-show just doesn't compare to Disneyland's. I absolutely adore sitting in that space eating a dole whip, especially in the early evening with the torches lit up. The gentle music playing, the pineapple film, the Blaine Gibson sculptures. Oh man...can I go back to Disneyland yet! :(
I get exactly what you mean. The Tiki Gardens have that Disneyland charm that just doesn't exist at WDW.
The Columbia Harbour House signs in Fantasyland vs Liberty Square

It's a picture of a chicken and fish in Fantasyland because you're in Medieval Times when not a lot of people can read. So shops would have pictures to illustrate what was inside. But in Liberty Square the sign is written in English, showing the passage of time to the 1700s.

It's such a small detail but encapsulates what separates Disney from other parks to me.
That's such a clever little touch that I can't help but agree. It's one of those subtle yet insanely smart details.
I could say something cheesy like “spending time with friends & family”, which IS NICE & all but instead.....
Dole Whips
That's some piping hot tea right there.
Rafiki’s Planet Watch pre 2017 update. Between the live animal presentations, being able to see a real vet clinic and real diet preparation, as well as tons of conservation going on there, it was one of the things that inspired me to become a zookeeper myself. Song of the Rainforest will forever be in my top 5 attractions at any Disney Park and I honestly may be the only person on earth who misses it.

Plus that entryway with the changing sign and all the animals painted on the wall, it’s what I inspire to make my house one day really
I can't remember the last time I was in Planet Watch. It's so far away from everything else and it takes so long to get there for something that's a bit of a stop and smell the roses experience.
WDW's Tiki Room. Especially the pre-show. Partly just to mess with @TheOriginalTiki. But also because there is just something so relaxing about chilling in the back row that is mostly empty and feeling a cool breeze while in the shade. Seeing the Flora of Adventureland rustle. Plus, the pre-show, while corny, feels like a perfect set up to the show itself!

I remember one time back when I worked at the ice cream parlor having a long day of work. Got off and needed to unwind. So, I changed out of my costume, went back upstairs to the park, grabbed an All American Sundae with Cookies and Cream (That's the sundae with peanut butter drizzle, peanut butter chips, hot fudge, chocolate chips, and house made whip cream, best thing on the menu), and made my way to the Tiki Room. It started to rain and drizzle, but I made it to the pre-show perfect timing. It was just starting, it was mostly empty, and it was just starting to storm.I got to snack on my ice cream, listen to the storm, and enjoy the super chill pre-show.
Gotta love that Disney Nostalgia
For some reason, I have an intense nostalgia for

Please Stand Clear of the Doors, Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas

But in terms of the parks, I love Big Thunder Mountain both as a ride and the western theme. I also love Cars Land, it's a spot-on recreation of my childhood movie. And to give some love to WDW, the ice cream sandwiches in Liberty Square are fantastic.
I'd count the monorail. That spiel is just one of those things you love for no reason.
View attachment 465605
space mountain, my first real roller coaster, and what started my love for them, and introduced me to rct3, via youtube.
I always have a ton of fun on WDW's Space Mountain but I'm 22 and it hurts me. I just can't do it
 

D Hulk

Well-Known Member
And speaking of the Question of the Day, we're going to start with a simple one.

What is your favorite single thing at any Disney Park? Ride, show, parade, sign, song, line, theming. Past or present, it doesn't matter.
Good question.

I realized what it was when living near the river in Chicago. Every year, freighter ships would start traveling at the start of spring. And so, along with the fresh blooms and bird songs, their distinctively romantic & old-timely bells would put me into a wistful, nostalgic mood.

With time I realized these were the very same bells used by the Disneyland Railroad locomotives when pulling into the station. Hearing the ships’ bells, I could smell the Main Street vanilla, hear the marching band, and otherwise get transported back to Disneyland despite being half a continent away.

The charming effect of these bells has only been duplicated in one other park I can think of (ignoring direct copies). Tokyo DisneySea’s Transit Steamers let out a steam whistle sound which is just as evocative of a quaint forgotten time and place. I can simply think of that sound right now and immediately I feel like I’m back in DisneySea. It’s these little sensory details which really deepen the Disney experience at its best.
 

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