The One Sentence Competition Retrospectives: Seasons 1-8

[Disgruntled Walt]

"CHALLENGE 4: Add a Muppet themed attraction to Animal Kingdom!"

It hurts my heart to put the Muppets in this park, but if we're gonna do this, it's gotta be done right!

Muppets on Safari
To be built behind Festival of the Lion King in Harambe in a show-building replacing a backstage parking lot (which would be relocated).

This would use a similar vehicle/truck to Skull Island: Reign of Kong down the road, with 5 different Muppet animatronic drivers to ensure that every experience is different. The ride would be a "safari" guided by the Muppets past scenes of animatronic Muppets and Muppet-like animals in humorous tableau. The order of the scenes can also be switched up with the trackless vehicles, allowing for even more unpredictable Muppet fun!

(Sorry I lapsed into Disney marketing-speak there at the end!)

 

[Tony the Tigger]

^NOT A petting zoo starring The Muppets.

At Rafiki’s Planet watch, watch The Muppets perform their protest song, “Not A Petting Zoo” where they comically give their side of what it’s like to have humans invade their space and pat their heads. Newly aware humans are then let out into, of course, the petting zoo.

 

[Miru]

Highlights From The Lion King: Presented by the Muppets, obviously is an Omnimover dark ride surprisingly depicting moments from the Lion King trilogy re-enacted by the Muppets for viewer delectation, complete with smells, wind effects, heat effects, & other immersive factors to create an ensured sense of immersion.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

1SC Retrospective
Season 4, Episode 3 - Clash of the Titans

Hosted by: @DisneyFan18 (With a lot of help from @spacemt354)
Started on: June 10th, 2018
Won by: @MisterPenguin

Season 4 continued with kiiiiiinnndddd of another cohosted round!

This episode was hosted by @DisneyFan18. Though, due to some real life scheduling issues, DFan didn't have the time to keep hosting the whole season. So, after the first couple of rounds @spacemt354 took over. The prompts were pre-written though, so it was still DFan's Episode. Around the half way point, DFan was able to have more free time again. Space still handled much of the hosting duties, but DFan was able to give his own reviews most rounds and help out.

The theme was Clash of the Titans. A tongue in cheek play on the rivalry between Disney and Universal. The rounds alternated between which company we were working on. And the bonuses also tied directly into this theme. For every Disney round, the bonus was about Universal finding a way to one up what we added to Disney. For every Universal round, it was Disney rushing to rip off their competitor. A fun play on the classic theme park rivalry. It was a theme that stood out more since there had been very few prompts outside of Disney parks in One Sentence history up to this point, so the Universal stuff felt fresh and new!

The Episode kept the same basic 1-3 Sentences, 1 picture, 1 sentence bonus format. No wheel reinvention here, but the bonuses were more tied to the main prompts than almost ever before thanks to the Disney/Universal rivalry theme.

There was some occasional hiccups with Space doing much of the hosting for Dfan's game with confusion over prompts and phrasing. But nothing major.

A lot of this Episodes prompts tended to take more of a blue sky "what if" quality. Or just found ways to be outside the box. Between the addition of a Universal focus and the crazier prompts, this was a very fresh and exciting Episode that stood out even with using the standard format.

This Episode wasn't afraid to think outside the box (And outside the Disney Bubble) and encouraged some really fun ideas! Something to keep in mind as we head into the future!

Check out the 3rd Episode of the 4th Season here!

As a Discussion Question for today, let's look at my favorite prompt from Season 4, Episode 3!

"CHALLENGE 4: Add a Muppet themed attraction to Animal Kingdom!"​

@castlecake2.0 i saw you sharing your idea for a Muppets Christmas Bar over in the News & Rumor side of the site! Thought you might be interested in joining our games over here! These are just for fun right now, but soon a little competition is gonna start up. Very simple stuff though. Info is on the first post!

 

[Pi on my Cake]

It hurts my heart to put the Muppets in this park, but if we're gonna do this, it's gotta be done right!

Muppets on Safari
To be built behind Festival of the Lion King in Harambe in a show-building replacing a backstage parking lot (which would be relocated).

This would use a similar vehicle/truck to Skull Island: Reign of Kong down the road, with 5 different Muppet animatronic drivers to ensure that every experience is different. The ride would be a "safari" guided by the Muppets past scenes of animatronic Muppets and Muppet-like animals in humorous tableau. The order of the scenes can also be switched up with the trackless vehicles, allowing for even more unpredictable Muppet fun!

(Sorry I lapsed into Disney marketing-speak there at the end!)

I totally understand not wanting Muppets in DAK, but despite your reticence you came up with a really fun idea that does a good job doing justice to both Muppets and DAK

^NOT A petting zoo starring The Muppets.

At Rafiki’s Planet watch, watch The Muppets perform their protest song, “Not A Petting Zoo” where they comically give their side of what it’s like to have humans invade their space and pat their heads. Newly aware humans are then let out into, of course, the petting zoo.

Anything that adds some life to Planet Watch is a win in my book lol

Highlights From The Lion King: Presented by the Muppets, obviously is an Omnimover dark ride surprisingly depicting moments from the Lion King trilogy re-enacted by the Muppets for viewer delectation, complete with smells, wind effects, heat effects, & other immersive factors to create an ensured sense of immersion.

Muppets Lion King is a potentially hilarious concept and would translate pretty well to a dark ride I'm sure

 

[Pi on my Cake]

This is early, but I'm gonna post tomorrow's retrospective today since I might not have the chance later tonight or tomorrow morning

1SC Retrospective
Season 4, Episode 4 - Double the Trouble Edition

Hosted by: @MickeyMousketeer and then @James G.
Started on: September 12th, 2018
Won by: N/A

Season 4 ended in a bit of an awkward way.

This episode was hosted by @MickeyMousketeer. At least, at first.

The theme was Double the Trouble. Which became very fitting in a meta sort of way. The idea would be that each round there would be two prompts and two bonuses covering two parks! This would lead to an abbreviated season length, but still 12 prompts (most Episodes are 10-12 prompts long with only a few exceptions).

The Episode switched around a bit between 1-3 Sentences or 1-5 Sentences. But always had 1 picture, 1 sentence bonus.

This could have been a great episode and had some real fun ideas, but the bubble popped here.

Let me explain what I mean...

I like to think of the 1SC as a bubble. The more you add to the game (higher sentence counts, more complicated prompts, more research heavy or obscure prompts, complex themes, longer rounds, extra bonuses, etc) the more the bubble fills up. A big bubble can be great! But overfill the bubble, and it pops.

There have been a few times where the bubble got pretty close to popping before this. Usually that would lead to the contestants dropping out as the game goes on. Season 3, Episode 2 is a good example of this. The more complicated Blue Sky Park set up was a ton of fun, but also alienated casual players and lead to a smaller cast.

Back on the topic of S4E4, the bubble popped. The prompts were really interesting, but tended to be complex things that required research in Roy Disney's life or creating a new ride system. Plus the double prompts and double bonuses. Plus raising the sentence count. It started to become a bit too much even if everything taken on its own was really well done! The whole couldn't stand up against the weight of it's parts

Especially since the fall of 2018 is when the forum started to head into a bit of a dead period. Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 5 did amazing! And there were a couple of strong mid-tier games like One Little Spark seasons 1 and 2. But outside of a few events like those, the activity level on the forums slowed down big time from the Fall of 2018 till near the end of 2019. And this lull in activity across the board hurt the 1SC as we will see in the next few Episodes. The forum recovered from this lull in 2020 (For some reason people had a lot more free time and were at home more), but seems to have hit a bit more of a lull in the second half of 2023. Although based on the excitement in this thread and the fact that activity is always lower in the fall I have total faith that we are headed towards another boom!

Between the metaphorical bubble pop, the activity on the forums in general slowing down, and some scheduling issues with @MickeyMousketeer that didn't give him the time to course correct, this Episode didn't last too long in its original form.

Enter: @James G.

A relative newbie to this forum at the time, but a veteran in the art of armchair imagineering, James was one of the most loyal and excited players for the first part of the Episode. When MM was stepping down, they asked James to take over.

Things were scaled back considerably.

1 prompt at a time. Only 2 sentences and 1 picture. 1 Sentence bonus. Simple prompts. No ongoing scores or medals, just a winner of each round.

This half was only 3 rounds and was very lowkey and flowed pretty smoothly other than some issues with @James G.'s posts being delayed waiting for moderator approval because him and @D Hulk swear like sailors (I say that in a loving way I promise )

This Episode was kind of two different episodes. But they both worked together to show the importance of not overcomplicating things. Because trying to do too much will make the really amazing stuff get lost in the shuffle. There will be a strong focus on trying not to pop the bubble going forward into the future.

Check out the 4th Episode of the 4th Season here!

As a Discussion Question for today, let's look at my favorite prompt from Season 4, Episode 4!

"CHALLENGE 1a: Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)"​

 

[Miru]

This dark ride, “Banshee Battle”, would use Darby O’Gill as a basis, and is an interactive shooting dark ride using devices to grab bits of gold and fend off the evil Banshee, who will menace riders as a pepper’s ghost effect alongside the death coach, but be sure to look out for the Little People as well as you explore Ireland!

 

[cdunlap]

This dark ride, “Banshee Battle”, would use Darby O’Gill as a basis, and is an interactive shooting dark ride using devices to grab bits of gold and fend off the evil Banshee, who will menace riders as a pepper’s ghost effect alongside the death coach, but be sure to look out for the Little People as well as you explore Ireland!

I need this ride!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

This is early, but I'm gonna post tomorrow's retrospective today since I might not have the chance later tonight or tomorrow morning

1SC Retrospective
Season 4, Episode 4 - Double the Trouble Edition

Hosted by: @MickeyMousketeer and then @James G.
Started on: September 12th, 2018
Won by: N/A

Season 4 ended in a bit of an awkward way.

This episode was hosted by @MickeyMousketeer. At least, at first.

The theme was Double the Trouble. Which became very fitting in a meta sort of way. The idea would be that each round there would be two prompts and two bonuses covering two parks! This would lead to an abbreviated season length, but still 12 prompts (most Episodes are 10-12 prompts long with only a few exceptions).

The Episode switched around a bit between 1-3 Sentences or 1-5 Sentences. But always had 1 picture, 1 sentence bonus.

This could have been a great episode and had some real fun ideas, but the bubble popped here.

Let me explain what I mean...

I like to think of the 1SC as a bubble. The more you add to the game (higher sentence counts, more complicated prompts, more research heavy or obscure prompts, complex themes, longer rounds, extra bonuses, etc) the more the bubble fills up. A big bubble can be great! But overfill the bubble, and it pops.

There have been a few times where the bubble got pretty close to popping before this. Usually that would lead to the contestants dropping out as the game goes on. Season 3, Episode 2 is a good example of this. The more complicated Blue Sky Park set up was a ton of fun, but also alienated casual players and lead to a smaller cast.

Back on the topic of S4E4, the bubble popped. The prompts were really interesting, but tended to be complex things that required research in Roy Disney's life or creating a new ride system. Plus the double prompts and double bonuses. Plus raising the sentence count. It started to become a bit too much even if everything taken on its own was really well done! The whole couldn't stand up against the weight of it's parts

Especially since the fall of 2018 is when the forum started to head into a bit of a dead period. Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 5 did amazing! And there were a couple of strong mid-tier games like One Little Spark seasons 1 and 2. But outside of a few events like those, the activity level on the forums slowed down big time from the Fall of 2018 till near the end of 2019. And this lull in activity across the board hurt the 1SC as we will see in the next few Episodes. The forum recovered from this lull in 2020 (For some reason people had a lot more free time and were at home more), but seems to have hit a bit more of a lull in the second half of 2023. Although based on the excitement in this thread and the fact that activity is always lower in the fall I have total faith that we are headed towards another boom!

Between the metaphorical bubble pop, the activity on the forums in general slowing down, and some scheduling issues with @MickeyMousketeer that didn't give him the time to course correct, this Episode didn't last too long in its original form.

Enter: @James G.

A relative newbie to this forum at the time, but a veteran in the art of armchair imagineering, James was one of the most loyal and excited players for the first part of the Episode. When MM was stepping down, they asked James to take over.

Things were scaled back considerably.

1 prompt at a time. Only 2 sentences and 1 picture. 1 Sentence bonus. Simple prompts. No ongoing scores or medals, just a winner of each round.

This half was only 3 rounds and was very lowkey and flowed pretty smoothly other than some issues with @James G.'s posts being delayed waiting for moderator approval because him and @D Hulk swear like sailors (I say that in a loving way I promise )

This Episode was kind of two different episodes. But they both worked together to show the importance of not overcomplicating things. Because trying to do too much will make the really amazing stuff get lost in the shuffle. There will be a strong focus on trying not to pop the bubble going forward into the future.

Check out the 4th Episode of the 4th Season here!

As a Discussion Question for today, let's look at my favorite prompt from Season 4, Episode 4!

"CHALLENGE 1a: Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)"​

Gotta be Herbie the Love Bug. (He can fly, he can fly, he can fly!) The ride vehicles practically design themselves.

I really thought I was involved by 2018, but none of this sounds familiar yet.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)

Oh dang, I would have gone the Darby O'Gill route...that's basically the only Disney movie I like from this era...

Ok bear with me on this...

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Voyage of the Nautilus
I know this has been done before...but this is quite different. Almost a cross between Poseidon's Fury and the Great Movie Ride.

The queue takes you through the newspaper office in the Pacific coastal town where the film begins. You see headlines about the mysterious "monster" attacking ships.

Next, you move to the docks, boarding a ship. You head below deck where a live actor portraying Ned Land performs "Whale of a Tale" and tells old sea stories. Suddenly, the ship is attacked by "the monster" which turns out to be the Nautilus. You follow Ned onto the Nautilus (via some special effects, new doorways appearing, modern WDI's specialty). You meet Nemo, encounter the Giant Squid, and eventually make your escape. I don't have time right now to fully flesh this out, but the bones are there.

 

[Lord Fozzinator]

The Story Of Treasure Island
This brand new ride in Adventureland is a swashbuckling adventure through the seven seas as we make our way towards treasure island. We enter the ride through village facades and we enter our ride vehicles. We go through the town as we get closer to the ship. We start our journey across the seven seas as the crew sing several sea shanties. We go through the ship as long John silver and his crew start to take over the ship and the captain starts to make a getaway. We see the crew chase the survivors and they find the treasure. We head back into the port town as the ride ends.
​

 

[Disney Warrior]

"CHALLENGE 1a: Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)"

How about a long flume themed to Song of the South but instead named after this Splash movie? I’ll call it “Splash Mountain”, people are gonna love it
(this is a joke post)

 

[cdunlap]

"CHALLENGE 1a: Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)"

A coaster based on The Third Man On The Mountain which gives guests the experience of climbing the Matterhorn.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

This dark ride, “Banshee Battle”, would use Darby O’Gill as a basis, and is an interactive shooting dark ride using devices to grab bits of gold and fend off the evil Banshee, who will menace riders as a pepper’s ghost effect alongside the death coach, but be sure to look out for the Little People as well as you explore Ireland!

I don't know much about Darby O'Gill and judging by this ride I know less than I thought lol, but it sounds awesome!!

Gotta be Herbie the Love Bug. (He can fly, he can fly, he can fly!) The ride vehicles practically design themselves.

I really thought I was involved by 2018, but none of this sounds familiar yet.

I'll keep an eye out for when I start seeing your name! Love Bug dark ride would be amazing

Oh dang, I would have gone the Darby O'Gill route...that's basically the only Disney movie I like from this era...

Ok bear with me on this...

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Voyage of the Nautilus
I know this has been done before...but this is quite different. Almost a cross between Poseidon's Fury and the Great Movie Ride.

The queue takes you through the newspaper office in the Pacific coastal town where the film begins. You see headlines about the mysterious "monster" attacking ships.

Next, you move to the docks, boarding a ship. You head below deck where a live actor portraying Ned Land performs "Whale of a Tale" and tells old sea stories. Suddenly, the ship is attacked by "the monster" which turns out to be the Nautilus. You follow Ned onto the Nautilus (via some special effects, new doorways appearing, modern WDI's specialty). You meet Nemo, encounter the Giant Squid, and eventually make your escape. I don't have time right now to fully flesh this out, but the bones are there.

The bones are definitely there for a really fun and unique take on the IP. There been so many 20k ride both on the forum and irl, but I don't think I've ever seen one quite like this. I love it!

The Story Of Treasure Island
This brand new ride in Adventureland is a swashbuckling adventure through the seven seas as we make our way towards treasure island. We enter the ride through village facades and we enter our ride vehicles. We go through the town as we get closer to the ship. We start our journey across the seven seas as the crew sing several sea shanties. We go through the ship as long John silver and his crew start to take over the ship and the captain starts to make a getaway. We see the crew chase the survivors and they find the treasure. We head back into the port town as the ride ends.
​

You had me at "sea shanties" haha. But honestly this sounds great and would be a great way to round out Adventureland! You did a good job pitching a pirate ride that could stand alongside PotC without feeling too similar

A coaster based on The Third Man On The Mountain which gives guests the experience of climbing the Matterhorn.

Sounds perfect! I'm shocked Disney hasn't done something like this already!

 

[Brer Panther]

How about a Babes in Toyland dark ride?

 

[WaltWiz1901]

Gonna make this a two-fer...

---

"CHALLENGE 4: Add a Muppet themed attraction to Animal Kingdom!"​

In the Tree of Life, It’s Tough to Be a Bug! is replaced with a multimedia show about the importance of taking care of the planet, starring an original cast of animal characters (not unlike the cast of, say, The Song of the Cloud Forest or the Muppet-adjacent It’s a Big Big World).

"CHALLENGE 1a: Create a Dark Ride for any park based on a live action Disney movie made before 1970 (no Mary Poppins!)"​

So Dear to My Heart, as a Fantasyland-style busbar

 

[Brer Panther]

In the Tree of Life, It’s Tough to Be a Bug! is replaced with a multimedia show about the importance of taking care of the planet, starring an original cast of animal characters (not unlike the cast of, say, The Song of the Cloud Forest or the Muppet-adjacent It’s a Big Big World).

I really like this idea.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

How about a Babes in Toyland dark ride?

Fantastic set design that would lend itself really well to a dark ride!

Gonna make this a two-fer...

---

In the Tree of Life, It’s Tough to Be a Bug! is replaced with a multimedia show about the importance of taking care of the planet, starring an original cast of animal characters (not unlike the cast of, say, The Song of the Cloud Forest or the Muppet-adjacent It’s a Big Big World).

So Dear to My Heart, as a Fantasyland-style busbar

Any show that involves puppets is a win in my book! A little bit if a stretch for a "add the Muppets to DAK" prompt, but would be a perfect fit for the Tree of Life and just a great show in general

Also, So Dear to My Heart is a really fun Oddball pick for a dark ride but I can definitely see the potential

 

[Pi on my Cake]

1SC Retrospective
Season 5, Episode 1 - The Anti-Park

Hosted by: @FireMountain
Started on: April 6th, 2019
Won by: N/A

Season 5 started in a bit of an awkward way.

This episode was hosted by @FireMountain. With a few guest reviews by @Evilgidgit.

The theme was Anti-Park. Which meant that everything was going to take place in WDW, but not inside any of the four theme parks. The Episode returned to just 1-3 Sentences, 1 picture, 1 sentence bonus for every round.

This episode kind of failed to launch.

The awkward end to season 4 wound up breaking the rhythm that the game had going. Since there wasn't the usual passing of the torch at the end of an episode, there wasn't really a plan for starting the game back up. Instead of starting in (or near) January like Seasons 2, 3, and 4 did, Season 5 started in April. There was a few false starts and multiple people saying they wanted to relaunch the game but then no one doing it to avoid stepping on each other's toes. As I mentioned before, activity on the forums was low for much of 2019 and the activity we did have was pretty focused on Sorcerer's Apprentice Endgame, so 1SC just kind of fell by the way side.

Eventually, @FireMountain took up the reigns and had some good ideas set up! @Evilgidgit couldn't commit to either hosting or cohosting at the time, but was going to do some guest reviews here or there to stay involved and support the game.

They had a great host, great plan, great prompts, a great theme. Was set up to be a great Episode!

Unfortunately, the one thing that was lacking was time.

Fire wound up getting very busy irl and that lead to some gaps between the ends of rounds and reviews and the next round being posted, throwing off the flow of the game and making it tough to keep up with. Players were busy with finals starting which lead to lower turn out. The Forum as a whole was also having some technical issues where notifications weren't going out.

No one submitted anything for the second prompt. Partly because not many people knew it had even been posted thanks to the inconsistent schedule and the lack of notifications from the site. It's tough for a host to correct course when players don't even know new things were posted. And so, the Episode had a sudden end. A vague promise to return soon, but schedules never cleared up and that seemed to be it for the 1SC in 2019.

This Episode shows how important it is to have at last the next couple prompts pre-written keep the rhythm of the game going even if the host gets busy. Rhythm really is key to these kinds of games. Things to keep in mind as we head into the future.

Check out the 1st Episode of the 5th Season here!

As a Discussion Question for today, let's look at my favorite prompt from Season 5, Episode 1!

"CHALLENGE 2: Create a new slide for the Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach Water Parks"​

 

[Disney Warrior]

"CHALLENGE 2: Create a new slide for the Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach Water Parks"

How about some sort of trapdoor slide themed to a snowstorm (or another mountain) at blizzard beach?