The Tip-Top Club: Sorcerer's Apprentice Boardroom

tcool123

tcool123

Well-Known Member
MickeyWaffleCo. said:
Yes exactly. Who's to say you actually are the same person? You could have killed the original tcool, and created this new account to impersonate him!
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DashHaber

DashHaber

Well-Known Member
Hello, there! I am DashHaber, and I have been really enjoying taking part as a competitor in Sorcerer's Apprentice. While I may be still working on this final stanza, I feel like I can still go ahead and answer these questions with the parts that I have already completed. So, let's begin!

1. So, my top 5 contributions, huh? Well, in no particular order, I would say...
  • The Wonder Car - While I have worked on walkthrough attractions in previous competitions, this one was a bit different in that it was less about telling a straightforward story and more about the experience (like some of Disney's classic attractions, such as The Haunted Mansion) thanks to the decision to make this a funhouse. With that in mind, I put myself into gear of how to use classic funhouse tricks through the lens of the set-up of a stage magician's trolley and ended up with a flow that suggests a narrative mood (in this case, starting through simple up-close tricks before moving to a magician's grander tricks and big finale). It even got me into thinking about that funhouse component of making a clown out of guests, constructing some of the rooms to function akin to a prank. The result is a project that was fun to write, especially given my own tendency to lean hard into story for my writing.
  • Godzilla: Terror in Transit - Godzilla is a classic IP, so the chance to work on an attraction based around it was a golden opportunity. Taking advantage of the bullet trains of Japan made total sense, but I didn't want to rely just on screens (like most of Skull Island: Reign of Kong or the once-proposed Godzilla simulator for Epcot's Japan pavilion). I wanted something more physical, so I leaned towards Earthquake and Kongfrontation as major influences. Where I had elements that would have been too tough to just do physically, I incorporated screens (largely for showing full-body movements of Godzilla and Mechagodzilla). Besides that, I found areas where I could devote solely to practical effects (like the station that falls apart at Mechagodzilla's hand) or use physical sets to enhance the screens (like the effects and ruined buildings in the climactic battle).
  • Mega Man: Museum Menace and Strider: A Stunt Spectacular - A video game-inspired prompt like Future City was already exciting to me, so the chance to take the sci-fi theme and design two attractions based around Capcom IPs was a delight. Both of them reflect different elements of my work in different forms. Mega Man: Museum Menace was a shot at designing a major E-Ticket attraction using the Mega Man IP. The form of a 3D motion-based dark ride was a natural fit, but there were also some spots where I could have stumbled. Thus, @Solaris Knight and @Miru both provided valuable input that offered flavor which I might have missed (for instance, using later-franchise Robot Masters instead of solely using classic bosses). Thus, I found a helpful space for collaboration. Meanwhile, Strider: A Stunt Spectacular was a late addition to our plans as a way to replace an F-Zero roller coaster no one was designing. I worked on this attraction by myself, giving me a chance to flex some writing muscles in terms of crafting a stunt show. Plus, it gave me a chance to dabble in more use of the queue as a way to catch guests up on the story for an IP they might not be familiar with.
  • Shops and Restaurants for 20th Century Studios - By this time in the competition, I had noticed that my work had just been in attractions. With most of the attractions already settled and claimed, I saw this as a chance for some diversity in my work output. I took on the task of designing all the shops and restaurants for our New York section. The result is five restaurants and five shops, coming to a total of ten separate spots throughout the land's two subsections of Central Park and Futurama: The World of Tomorrow. Though I had missed my own intended goals of having full menus for the restaurants, I feel the results for these locations still come through strong. They shine in not only the content, but how they reflect the sub-lands and offer diversity through that content. NYC is a place that spans from street-level folks to the high classes above, and it's reflected from the more tourist-y shilling of Looney Lenny's Big Apple Buys to the refined atmosphere of the Empire State Club. Meanwhile, Futurama has a distinct personality I could play with, using established locales like MomCorp or crafting original gags like The Slurm Spot (as a parody of "vintage" diners, using the 1990s for its backdrop). All in all, it really gave me a major shot to stretch while most of the team had more of a focus on attractions or some of the set-up of New York itself.
  • Venice - This was an assignment where I was tasked as PM, so I tried to keep our team organized with status reports at the end of each day to keep us reminded as we charged ahead. We settled into the initial excitement of Bond/Bourne, but I chose to guide us to Venice given the iconic architecture that guides would recognize. From there, we found ourselves energized by leaning into the city itself, using that to help capture a mood and atmosphere that would set the land apart from Universal's standard atmosphere. As for more specific contributions as PM, I would like to bring up @montydysquith-navarro and their work on James Bond: Escape from SPECTRE. They stepped up to the plate to design their first attraction for the competition, and they found some big challenges. I offered a helping hand, giving suggestions toward plot or queue design, wherever they needed a hand. Despite that, I kept back enough so that this could firmly remain their creation, and I am proud of the attraction that they had designed. Much kudos for them for taking on such an assignment.

2. Where did I struggle? I would say A Universal Journey. I had stepped in to design the preshow and (initially) the whole ride experience. Designing a ride with randomized segments is still a fun idea for showcasing the variety of Universal's films, but I found myself stretched thin on figuring out how to showcase all of these scenes during the ride. So, I reached out and found others who could help. More than that, however, is a problem our judges had noticed: the selection of scenes. While some were solid choices, there was a lot of it where it just felt like a sample platter of IPs already in the park. If I had been willing to look in other options (like An American Tail such as @JokersWild had suggested), we could have had a more diverse and interesting ride experience. Instead, we had an all-too-basic selection for our ride, and that falls onto my shoulders. The experience gave two valuable lessons for me: plan ahead when you shoot for the moon, and sometimes it's worth not going just for the most familiar things.

3. I do not currently foresee any major events to turn up that would override my participation in the game, were I to advance to the next round.
 
Tegan pilots a chicken

Tegan pilots a chicken

Sharpie Queen 💜
Premium Member
1. Tegan’s top five contributions to the game. In her own (many) words.

5. At the start of the game, I had never used Google Docs before. By the end of the game I used it regularly, both as a presentation format as well as a method of organizing material for presentations. I learned a new technical skill that benefited myself and my teams significantly.

4. Heading into the game I had zero confidence in my ability to write dialogue. By the end of the game, I had written dialogue for multiple attractions, and was heavily complimented for it. This was a skill I didn’t know I had, but I am now extremely confident in my abilities.

3. When the game began, I just wanted to have fun. I thought this would be a great use of my free time and a good way to keep my creativity flowing. I quickly discovered that not only did I have a renewed passion for Imagineering, but I was also able to contribute to the culture of the game. I was able to help cultivate an environment that was both fun and inclusive, something I am very proud of.

2. Throughout the course of the game, I was assigned to the Project Manager role twice. My team won both of those Stanzas. I also inherited the role on two occasions, making me the only player to hold the main leadership role for their team on four separate occasions. I’m extremely proud of that. My results were always consistent. Across the currently completed 12 Stanzas, my teams finished first or second 10 times, and never finished worse than second when I was in charge.

1. I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute a number of passion projects to the game. But none meant more to me than Metroid: The Escape. It had long been an Imagineering fantasy of mine to create a Metroid attraction that was truly immersive, genuinely terrifying, and treated the franchise with the grandiosity it deserves. I believe I delivered on that ambition, and my team won that Stanza. I felt I succeeded at paying tribute to my favorite video game character, and offering those unfamiliar a glimpse into the incredible world of Metroid, and the lonely orphan warrior who serves as protagonist, mother, and my hero, Samus Aran. My biggest dream for my time on this forum, aside from winning SA7, is to be able to continue to tell her story.

2. Stanza where Tegan was in the struggle puddle.

The meme round (Stanza III) threw me for a loop. We had just come off a project where we redeveloped a large portion of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I was anticipating something like a water park or resort next, the meme project totally threw me off guard. But I think that was my second biggest struggle of the game.

The round I struggled with the most was Stanza IX. Reason being my team ultimately voted to do a project based on an IP that I was very unfamiliar with. This forced me into more of a support role for the round, which was something I wasn’t used to. For the most part I played a large role on every project beginning with Stanza II. I had to learn to trust everyone else with delivering on the story we were telling, which I did. I had to learn to be comfortable in a smaller role, contributing art where I could and proofreading other players’ write ups.

3. Anything in the way?

NOPE!! This game is my primary focus for the next three weeks. All other priorities are on the back burner.

My goal at the beginning of the game was to have fun. My goal at the end of the game is to win.
 
Chaos Cat

Chaos Cat

Well-Known Member
B-Wolf's Boardroom Review​

1. What did you feel were your Top 5 contributions to the game and why?
5. Trial of Terror Script - I was not the most active that stanza (I want to thank my co-writer for this here, but I can't remember who that was. 😅 So sorry to whoever that was!) but what I did write I had a lot of fun with. This was such a fun premise to work with. However, my inexperience with writing lyrics meant that weren't as many songs as I wanted (at least one song per character) and I do think that did hurt the final product.

4. Tie between The Sky was the Limit and Runway Gifts - I can't pick between these two despite they being so different from each other. The Sky was the Limit is the bigger of the two, but I was less active with (ThemeParkPriest did the bulk of the work for this, admittedly), while Runway Gifts was almost entirely me, but is obviously a smaller part of the project.

3. Tie between Dr. Crygor's Gryo-Generation-O-Tron 3000 and Space Channel 5: Ulala's Swinging Report - Another tie, but these two are more equal and honestly, I can't consider these separate. These were both so fun to work and it was nice to play around with the flat ride format, especially for such unique IPs.

2. Wonder Car - Funhouses aren't really the most modern-friendly attractions around, so going back to Disneyland opening day gave me and DashHaber a unique opportunity that ended up feeling right at home among the other classic Disney attractions.

1. Play Zone, particularly the Hero's Gauntlet - This was basically the first time I made a land all by myself and I am so proud of myself for that. The Hero's Gauntlet ended up creating such a unique energy to the zone and really show what Disney Quest could have been: an immersive Disney adventure you just can't get in the parks.

Honorable Mention: Muscles Beach Mickey - I'm not sorry

2. Which project did you struggle with the most and what (if anything) did you learn from it?
The Dubai projects were... not a good time for me. I had a hard time figuring out what I could contribute to the projects. However, I would say the worst of it came with Animation Dominion, where I was suppose to work on an Ice Age ride... only to realize that I just couldn't make it work. I had zero knowledge or interest in the Ice Age movies and had only really volunteered because the rest of the team was more interested in the other IPs. We ended up having to scrap the idea, which ended up being for the best, since Ice Age didn't really fit what the land ended up being like, but I still feel so ashamed of myself for not being able to do anything with it, especially since Homemade Imagineering made some great BGMs for it. If there one thing to be learned from this, it's "Know Your Limits." There are some things that I just can't do, and I should not be ashamed to admit it before it starts causing problems.

3. If you were to advance, do you anticipate any exams/trips/work in your way that would take precedence over the game?
I should be starting on-site working again some time next week, but I'm not expecting anything too intrusive from it.
 
TwilightZone

TwilightZone

Well-Known Member
T-ZONE'S SUPER NOT ESSAY ANSWERS (never been wordy)​

spacemt354 said:
1. What did you feel were your Top 5 contributions to the game and why?
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In no particular order:
  • The meme stanza! I was team power's leader that round and we won so I must've done something right there haha.
  • In digital frontiers I did two of the restaurants: Chuck's and Tapper's, both seemed to be pretty well received! And were fun to work on.
  • Streets of tokyo website! Super fun and had a blast with it, had an idea and just really went with it. Lots of people really enjoyed the site, so feel proud of it.
  • Streets of Mexico and Chinatown shops, took me a lot of work and that work was well received from what I remember. Did a ton of research to make the places include some historical background and some authenticity.
spacemt354 said:
2. Which project did you struggle with the most and what (if anything) did you learn from it?
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The indiana jones project, I was assigned set design and I realized that I don't know anything about set design and it's really hard to research that. So I learned to just let set design to others and if there's little left over just help with smaller things haha.

spacemt354 said:
3. If you were to advance, do you anticipate any exams/trips/work in your way that would take precedence over the game?
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It depends, I've always been a little bit of a busy bee truthfully haha. I know FOR SURE I have a covid shot coming up. But for the most part I will always contribute in any way I can.
 
MickeyWaffleCo.

MickeyWaffleCo.

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
🧇
MickeyWaffleCo’s Boardroom Essay-ish Thing
With extra syrup!​

1. What did you feel were your Top 5 contributions to the game and why?

In no particular order:
  1. Presentation and editing. I often worked on presentation for my teams’ projects, from the Wikipedia aesthetic for Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to the layout and organization for the Halloween Town/World of Narnia project. I learned a lot about Google Sites and it’s numerous limitations with SAVII. Presentation was something I knew I was good at heading into the game, with my past graphic design and web design experience, so I made it a point to offer my experience and help to my team. I also frequently worked on editing our projects’ writing and layout before submission to ensure correct grammar and capitalization were used and no typos were missed. (Obviously I didn’t catch everything every time, but I did my best!) I didn’t realize how much I liked editing until I did it for SAVII, so there’s something I learned about me!
  2. Music. I composed and edited custom music for multiple Stanzas. My past experience with improvisation and theory helped me out here, but I also figured out some new harmonies and progressions while working on these custom songs. My musical contributions to SAVII include area, queue, and/or reading music for Digital Frontiers, Chinatown & Little Mexico, Forecast Follies, and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; and three custom musical songs for Trial of Terror. My Forecast Follies song (Wonderful, Wonderful Weather; I don’t know who came up with that name, maybe Brer Panther?) pushed me a bit, as I wasn’t used to working on lyrics to go along with my pieces. Usually I do arrangements of existing songs or original instrumental pieces, so fitting song melody and lyrics to each other was a nice challenge.
  3. Area descriptions. I worked on area and general land descriptions, along with details for many projects, including Chinatown & Little Mexico (along with the awesome @ThemeParkPriest ), Digital Frontiers, The Big Apple, and more. This was something else I enjoyed. Gathering reference images, designing trash cans, and thinking about minute details was really fun!
  4. Conceptualization. Going into this competition, I would not have named conceptualization as a strong suit of mine. However, as the season progressed and I contributed more and more concept art and maps, I realized that not only did they come out looking pretty good, but that I enjoyed making them! I worked on attraction and/or land maps for multiple projects, including World of Narnia, Chinatown & Little Mexico, Digital Frontiers, and the LEGO City space expansion. I also collected reference imagery for several Stanzas. I even worked on custom Photoshop concept art for the first time for the trash cans in Stanza I. In Stanza III I did Photoshops for Surfin’ Around the Internet, Toy Story Meme Mania, and Rock ‘n’ Rickroller Coaster. I also designed logos for Chinatown, Little Mexico, World of Narnia, Halloweentown, The Big Apple, Rock ‘n’ Rickroller Coaster, The World Above, and more.
  5. Story/Write-ups. I’ve worked on my writing skills with SAVII, as well. Though at first a lot of my writing was just touching up or expanding upon others’ work with editing, I tried to push myself to try writing some content from scratch as well. Thus, I wrote much of the Pac-Man attraction for Digital Frontiers, the majority of the LEGO City Monorail and Space Lab, the USF for Ancient Rome, Soarin’ Across America, and more.

2. Which project did you struggle with the most and what (if anything) did you learn from it?

While no project in particular stands out as incredibly challenging, I struggled a bit with multiple stanzas.

In Stanza V, I worked on the Pac-Man attraction for Digital Frontiers with @ThemeParkPriest . I was happy with the majority of the attraction, but I want satisfied with the layout. I had procrastinated too long in making the map, so I had to rush it and was left with limitations to work around. Don’t procrastinate, folks!

In Stanza VI, we started working in Dubai. I was totally unfamiliar with the majority of the 20th Century IPs we were using in this Stanza, so I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t contributing. While I chipped in here and there, my lack of IP knowledge prevented me from being overly helpful. After this Stanza, however, I realized that I don’t always need to contribute a ton of stuff every Stanza. Sometimes taking a more hands-off approach is beneficial, especially if others are more familiar with IPs, ride systems, or historical context needed for that project.

In Stanza VIII, I was moving to a new team, and to say we weren’t quite as active as my previous team would be an understatement. That, combined with a lack of motivation and passion for our project, produced a lackluster final product. I learned that sometimes a project that may not sound as good on the drawing board can turn out better with passion behind it than a good premise with less motivation.

In addition, there was one running thing I struggled with: brainstorming. With the exception of Stanza III, I did not contribute a whole lot in the way of ideas to my teams. It’s something I’ve noticed and I’m trying to work on. As the season has progressed, I’ve slowly but surely been increasing my brainstorming.

3. If you were to advance, do you anticipate any exams/trips/work in your way that would take precedence over the game?

Nope!

4. (Definitely an official question.) Anything else you’d like to share?

Nope! Well, except for a couple random Muppets and Hulk GIFs that are here for no apparent reason and definitely not to influence the judges whatsoever nope not at all.

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Sharon&Susan

Sharon&Susan

Well-Known Member
THE
BOARD ROOM SNAP-REVIEW​
Hello! I'm Sharon&Susan, the resident Disneylander of the Imagineering threads, so you can deduce I haven't been to any theme parks in over a year and needed something fun to do in the mean time which is how I became involved with these Imagineering boards last summer. And I've been having a ton of fun with this game in particular. Now that I've introduced myself...

My Top 5 Contributions (in no particular order):
5.2 of the Attractions for Digital Frontiers: Despite not winning, this was still a fun one to work on especially with my love of older video games. Working on Atari Quest was great, especially trying to figure out how to make these very simplistic games transition from scene to scene. I feel like I especially nailed the spirit of Tempest and Missile Command with their respective scenes, especially with the bleak ending of ultimate nuclear destruction ending the ride. Berzerk Lazer Frenzy was also fun to work on too, especially since the original 2 games in the series had literally no backstory giving me a playground to work with.
4. Ghosts of Hidden Side: I suggested the initial concept of Hidden Side along with the AR Goggles idea Worked on the entire ride through portion single handedly. Unlike the other Hidden Side project, I made sure to integrate the best ghosts from the universe (including the frightening Lady E). I also had tons of fun thinking of sight gags for this one.
3. Leadership for the HB Arcade project: I provided updates daily for this short form project along with ensuring that everything was running smoothly while also working on the attractions. I pushed for both the Scooby Doo pinball theme over something more obscure (especially since its a very popular IP with no real pinball table) and giving this a firm location in WB World (which made us stand out compared to the other 2 projects). I also created the logo for this project.
2. Venice Gondolas: Did a ton of research for this one to give both an accurate (as a theme park can be) tour through Venice and to make the diorama educational without being boring.
1. Creating and Pushing for Surf Swell Beach: I was the one who created and pushed for this idea. I just loved the idea of an area based on 60's Beach Party movies and Californian beaches and though it'd make a great spiritual successor to the other great period lands in Hollywood Studios. I really fought to keep this one alive from becoming two Japan areas (which I think really could've hurt the distinctness of both areas). And I think having such a fun, kinda bonkers area along with a more serious Japan really helped push us to the lead on this one.

What challenged me the most:
I'd say it was being crunched to create the queue of the attraction in only a day and a half for the Indiana Jones project we worked on, especially since details of the backstory changed on the fly. Still it was really fun to create something that was meant to feel welcoming in a way, but with hints of the evilness that would become obvious ahead inside the ride. Still the lesson is DON'T PROCRASTINATE ON CHOOSING THE THEME, especially with only 4 or so days to work on it.

Will I be available?
Yes! I have worked on every project this season and other than a few snags in two cases that prevented me from reading the near final project on the turn in day, I have always been available when my team has needed me. And these final stanzas will be no different in terms of my availability to help lead my team to victory!

Thank you for considering for these last 3 stanzas and I've had a wonderful time up to now in this competition. Tah-Tah for now!
 
JokersWild

JokersWild

Well-Known Member
We're back with another edition of "Jokers Had No Intentions of Doing This, But They Couldn't Walk Away"

Anyway, I don't necessarily expect to make it through, but I figured it'd be fun to do anyway.

JokersWild's Well Though-Out Boardroom Answers
​
1. What do you think are your Top 5 contributions and why?
In chronological order:
  1. Trolley Park - This was the first of a few projects where I kind of lead the design and aesthetic for the area. During this project I tried very hard to make sure that everyone was on the same page and that everything was thematically consistent to, for better or for worse, the mood that I wanted the land to have. Because of this (and of course the work that the rest of the team put into the project) I think that we ended up with a very unique land that, though we lost in the end, matched the feel and aesthetic of Opening Day Main Street the best of the three.​
  2. Toho Town - The second project where I lead the design of the land. I'm super proud of Toho Town - it's probably the project that I'm second most proud of. @DashHaber and I worked very closely to make this as authentic and unique as possible, and I think that we knocked it out of the park. Toho Town finally gave me an excuse to do something Japanese, and I went all out with it. Hopefully that was apparent enough in the actual project. I was also very excited to design a land that's essentially based off of my own area, which was an opportunity I will probably never have again. Outside of Toho Town proper, I was incredibly proud of Spirited Away. I put a lot into it, and I think that it was largely successful.​
  3. Sci-Fi City - This was the first project that I was PM for. While I think I struggled at times trying to get everyone on the same page, I think that the project was largely successful and I'm especially proud of my personal contributions. The judges were iffy on Doom, but I'm honestly really proud of the atmosphere of the attraction. Also, you all slept on that launch through a demon's chest, which no one will ever convince me was a bad idea. However, I am most proud of my Pikmin attraction. I feel weird bragging about my projects, but I genuinely believe that this was a very innovative concept. I had a lot of fun designing it, and I love the uniqueness of the attraction.​
  4. Futurama: The World of Tomorrow - This was my grand experiment in dialogue. Simulator aside, I'm really proud of the work that I put into this land. Being somehow the only person on my team who had ever watched Futurama, I ended up working on this land entirely alone (aside from restaurant and shop contributions from @DashHaber) which was a blessing and a curse because I was able to do literally whatever I wanted. I'm very proud of the atmosphere I was able to create (that seems to be a running theme for me this season....), and I still really adore the Robot Devil flatride. That's the one part of this subland that I think has good dialogue.​
  5. Scooby-Doo Pinball - This is the project that I'm most proud of. My goal was to create as realistic a pinball machine as I could, and I think that I was highly successful in doing that. I had a ton of fun designing the actual table, and the rule book, while very annoying to make, really set that realism over the edge. This was my favorite contribution.​
Honorable Mention - The Running of the Weebs
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Pictured: Perfection
​
2. What did you struggle with the most and what did you learn?
I don't know if I learned anything per se, but I really struggled with the Universal prompts. It's absolutely not the fault of the judges, but I was extremely burned out by so many IP-based projects in a row that I ended up kinda dropping off the face of the Earth outside of initial brainstorming. Of course, there were other more personal reasons that I'd rather not get into, but that was the primary reason for my performance during those stanzas. I think in the future I need to just start forcing myself to work through it.

3. If you were to advance, do you anticipate any exams/trips/work in your way that would take precedence over the game?
Not that I know of other than the normal time zone weirdness.
 
ThemeParkPriest

ThemeParkPriest

Well-Known Member
MickeyWaffleCo. said:
In Stanza V, I worked on the Pac-Man attraction for Digital Frontiers with @ThemeParkPriest . I was happy with the majority of the attraction, but I want satisfied with the layout. I had procrastinated too long in making the map, so I had to rush it and was left with limitations to work around. Don’t procrastinate, folks!
Click to expand...
If I was doing a litany like you (or even a list of two) of "struggle projects," that would make it onto mine as well. But I'll be mentioning Stanza 2 instead when I submit my resume...
 

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