Hosted by MonorailRed, tcool123, and spacemt354
Overview
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is an armchair-imagineering competition that began in 2013 on the wdwmagic forum hosted by jdmdisney99. In design, the competition is inspired by 'The Apprentice' former reality-TV show, where teams strive for victory in a series of unique imagineering challenges, with the losing team in most challenges entering the 'Board Room'. In this room, nominated players from the losing team make their case for why they deserve to remain in the running for the ultimate prize of being named the next 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'.
Over the years, The Sorcerer's Apprentice has become one of the most cherished competitions in forum history, due to its emphasis on teamwork, creativity, and community building.
Season 4: Homecoming Edition hopes to combine reliving those nostalgic memories for veteran players, while at the same time, reviving the competition with a fresh style to create new memories for the next generation of imagineers!
Keeping the Traditions
The Sorcerer's Apprentice has built-in dynamics throughout the first 'trilogy' of the competition's history, that have been well-received elements and will remain in Season 4.
Official Theme Song
Gameplay
Players will be divided into 3 different teams to start the competition. For each challenge, there will be a rotating 'Project Manager'. The Project Manager can be used in an eclectic number of ways; anything between leading the project or just simply acting as a supporting voice. It is entirely up to the player for that given round.
Once the challenge projects are submitted, the hosts/judges will provide in-depth and helpful feedback to determine the rankings. The losing team's Project Manager in most challenges will then nominate two members (along with him or herself) to enter the 'Board Room' and make their cases to the judges for remaining in the hunt. As the competition goes on we will eventually reach the finalists who will face off in an epic finale to determine the next 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'
Creative Challenges
Similar to Season 2, this Season of The Sorcerer's Apprentice will take us not only to the Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts, but also to explore various international and exotic Disney Parks and Resorts, as well as a surprise or two along the way. Each challenge will be at a unique destination, and will be topics that have not been explored before in past competitions. Moreover, every challenge will be board enough for all members on the team to contribute and enable several different possibilities for the directions you can go.
Vacation Days
Despite the effort to make each challenge as accessible to the contestants as possible, taking into account their real world obligations for due dates, etc, sometimes things come up that are unavoidable. For those circumstances, there are 'Vacation Days'.
These are granted to each team at the start of the competition to extend due dates and accommodate personal schedule conflicts. These days can be used once per round, or you can combine Vacation Days with fellow teammates and extend the due date up to 3 days for a challenge. Only one team can use Vacation Days per challenge, and when a team uses Vacation Days, the due date is extended for all teams. The exact number of Vacation Days granted per team is TBD at the moment, because it's based on how many people sign-up.
What's New?
After a 3 year hiatus between Seasons 3 and 4, in order to keep the competition fresh and nuanced for the next generation, we've 'plussed' some old ideas and brought new ones to the table.
More Testimonials
It has been a tradition for one challenge per Season to involve the teams reaching out to another non-competing member of the forum, to ask the member for feedback on their project. This has been successful in expanding the participation in the competition to members who might have not otherwise known about it. For prior Seasons, since this is a budding and friendly community on wdwmagic, getting a testimonial has been accessible and fun, so for Season 4 - we are 'plussing' that.
For each challenge, the teams will 'phone a friend' from either around the forum, other forums, or anywhere really, to give a brief commentary on your finished project. It can be the same person each project, or you can diversify your reviews, but the goal of this is to not only branch out to more folks but gives the teams extra feedback. This additional feedback in turn helps the judges give more insightful reviews as outside members might pick things up that we didn't see at first glance, and makes the reviews/winner determinations more well-rounded.
Social Media
Continuing the effort to expand the horizons of the competition - this Season we have started several branches of Social Media that will be used leading up to and throughout the competition. These outlets all have specific purposes from Instagram competition concept art, to Pinterest research boards for teams to use, to Spotify Challenge 'Work' playlists, to recaps from @TheOriginalTiki 's podcast show, and much more -- we are striving to organize the competition in a more interactive setting than ever before.
You can follow The Sorcerer's Apprentice currently via Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Just click on the image links below!
--Spotify and YouTube Coming Soon--
Start Date and Sign-Ups
The Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 4: Homecoming Edition begins:
Tuesday March 20th
(The first day of Spring)
In the spirit of Disney Vacation Planning, and the fact that there's less than 60 days before the competition, we will have FastPass+ available.
If you know you're interested and want to reserve your spot in the competition...
You can reserve a FastPass+ starting right now!
15 contestants is the magic number for the competition
(though it may increase/decrease with time if necessary)
We know what our goals are and we know what we hope to accomplish. With that being said...
And from all of us, thank you!
Teaser Trailer
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