Fun While it Lasted
Oct. 15th, 2010 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoWizards of the Coast has started up their second Great Designer Search, a sort of hybrid contest/job interview/reality show in which the masses vie for a chance to be awarded a 6-month paid internship at Wizards designing cards for Magic: the Gathering.
They did this once before, four years ago, and I decided I didn't really want to move to Washington, even for a few months, and didn't want to lose focus on my art career. Well, the art career is going kind of poorly, so this time I figured I'd give it a shot. Things didn't get off to the best start, as I missed the posting of the first challenge by a couple of days and had to scramble to finish it.
Test 1 was a series of 10 essay questions, each of which was to be answered in 250-350 words.
1. Introduce yourself and explain why you are a good fit for this internship.
2. You are instructed to move an ability from one color to another. This ability must be something used in every set (i.e. discard, direct damage, card drawing etc.). You may not choose an ability that has already been color shifted by R&D. What ability do you shift and to what color do you shift it? Explain why you would make that shift.
3. What block do you feel did the best job of integrating design with creative? What is one more thing that could have been done to make it even better?
4. R&D has recently been looking at rules in the game that aren't pulling their weight. If you had to remove an existing rule from the game for not being worth its inclusion, what would it be?
5. Name a card currently in Standard that, from a design standpoint, should not have been printed. What is the card and why shouldn't we have printed it?
6. What do you think design can do to best make the game accessible to newer players?
7. What do you think design can do to best make the game attractive to experienced players?
8. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the best designed? Explain why.
9. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the worst designed? Explain why.
10. Choose a plane to revisit other than Dominaria or Mirrodin. What is a mechanical twist we could add if we revisit this plane?
I think what they did was skim these and cut everyone who couldn't follow directions or spell. Then they sent out a 50-question multiple choice test, which they would use to cut the field to about 100 people. It's clever to do it in that order because right away it weeds out people who won't take the time and effort to write the essays. However, it does kind of suck for those of us who made it through Test 1 and failed to make it through Test 2, since our time on the essays was sort of wasted. Those who did make it through will face Test 3, an actual design challenge. Their essays will be read more carefully, I'm sure.
I made it through Test 1 even though in my desperate haste to make it under the deadline I didn't quite make the word count for a couple of the questions. Sadly, however, I appear to have flubbed the second test. They haven't released the actual correct answers, and I don't know if they will, so I'm frustrated not knowing which questions I answered incorrectly. The only things we do know are that you needed 44 right to move on, only one person got all 50 right, another got 49 right, and no one got exactly 48 right.
We were warned early in the process that Test 3 would require us to come up with our own world/setting, which would be home for all of the future design challenges. We were advised to start that worldbuilding process early, in case we moved on, because the actual duration of Test 3 is a mere four days.
I was actually starting to get pretty enthusiastic about my setting, so I'm extra disappointed that I don't get to move on and do anything with it. In theory we can post our stuff to the Wiki, and designers who _did_ move on can use a limited number of our ideas, possibly to demonstrate their ability to recognize good design. So I suppose I could continue with my ideas and possibly something would come of them, but it's much harder to build up enthusiasm now that I know that I'm out of the running. Oh, well.
They did this once before, four years ago, and I decided I didn't really want to move to Washington, even for a few months, and didn't want to lose focus on my art career. Well, the art career is going kind of poorly, so this time I figured I'd give it a shot. Things didn't get off to the best start, as I missed the posting of the first challenge by a couple of days and had to scramble to finish it.
Test 1 was a series of 10 essay questions, each of which was to be answered in 250-350 words.
1. Introduce yourself and explain why you are a good fit for this internship.
2. You are instructed to move an ability from one color to another. This ability must be something used in every set (i.e. discard, direct damage, card drawing etc.). You may not choose an ability that has already been color shifted by R&D. What ability do you shift and to what color do you shift it? Explain why you would make that shift.
3. What block do you feel did the best job of integrating design with creative? What is one more thing that could have been done to make it even better?
4. R&D has recently been looking at rules in the game that aren't pulling their weight. If you had to remove an existing rule from the game for not being worth its inclusion, what would it be?
5. Name a card currently in Standard that, from a design standpoint, should not have been printed. What is the card and why shouldn't we have printed it?
6. What do you think design can do to best make the game accessible to newer players?
7. What do you think design can do to best make the game attractive to experienced players?
8. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the best designed? Explain why.
9. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the worst designed? Explain why.
10. Choose a plane to revisit other than Dominaria or Mirrodin. What is a mechanical twist we could add if we revisit this plane?
I think what they did was skim these and cut everyone who couldn't follow directions or spell. Then they sent out a 50-question multiple choice test, which they would use to cut the field to about 100 people. It's clever to do it in that order because right away it weeds out people who won't take the time and effort to write the essays. However, it does kind of suck for those of us who made it through Test 1 and failed to make it through Test 2, since our time on the essays was sort of wasted. Those who did make it through will face Test 3, an actual design challenge. Their essays will be read more carefully, I'm sure.
I made it through Test 1 even though in my desperate haste to make it under the deadline I didn't quite make the word count for a couple of the questions. Sadly, however, I appear to have flubbed the second test. They haven't released the actual correct answers, and I don't know if they will, so I'm frustrated not knowing which questions I answered incorrectly. The only things we do know are that you needed 44 right to move on, only one person got all 50 right, another got 49 right, and no one got exactly 48 right.
We were warned early in the process that Test 3 would require us to come up with our own world/setting, which would be home for all of the future design challenges. We were advised to start that worldbuilding process early, in case we moved on, because the actual duration of Test 3 is a mere four days.
I was actually starting to get pretty enthusiastic about my setting, so I'm extra disappointed that I don't get to move on and do anything with it. In theory we can post our stuff to the Wiki, and designers who _did_ move on can use a limited number of our ideas, possibly to demonstrate their ability to recognize good design. So I suppose I could continue with my ideas and possibly something would come of them, but it's much harder to build up enthusiasm now that I know that I'm out of the running. Oh, well.
