Monday, August 30, 2010

Day -30: Getting Ready to Kick Some Patootie



I'm not a writer, I'm not a professional artist, and I certainly do not do comics. So, I ask of you, please forgive the above whatever-that-was comic. And for the ones in the future. In particular, every single one of them. Thanks!

So, I've been telling myself to do a blog for a LONG time. If I had up an interesting blog that was related to the games industry (not limited to video games, too) and updated it regularly, I'd get some followers. And with that, there's more of a chance that somebody would notice the blog and go, "Hey. Now THAT guy would be a neat-o guy to get my coffee every morning." O.K., not like that, but, you get me, right? Doing stuff like this would help me get noticed and increase my chances of achieving my dream job (or at least getting closer to it): doing game design.

Today, in his column, Mark Rosewater announced The Great Designer Search 2. Like the comic details, it's a Magic design competition to try to win a design internship at Wizards of the Coast. ...Wow. If I win this, I'd be pretty much on my way to getting what I dream of doing for a living, and in short order. Well, that's if I win.

I imagine there will be thousands of people trying to enter this competition, so it'll be tough to stand above the rest of them when Wizards is picking participants. However, I've entered a Magic design contest before (designing a Magic card), where Wizards has judged, and won. The image below is my winning card:



So, I at least got some potential!

And thank goodness I finally got something rolling. I'll be making this blog look nicer, too, when I get to it. When the contest is going, I'll update at least once a week, for each round that happens (for as far as I get), showing a candid view of how I approached tackling that round's design challenge. 

But, until September 29th, I'll be updating this sporadically. 

Next time: a chicken.

Cheers,

Bradley

2 comments:

  1. I had no idea you submitted and won! That's awesome.

    When you designed the card, did you playtest with it a bunch to ensure it wasn't over/underpowered?

    PS nice self-referential comic

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  2. I'm not sure if you'll see this since I don't know if 1) this is even replying to your comment, and 2) you get notifications through e-mail or some sort from this.

    But, here we go: I didn't playtest the card. I probably should have, but it worked out. It seems like I did a lot of things right by accident. The fact that, with the mana cost of the planeswalker, how the first ablity works meant that you couldn't choose the final ability until at least two turns after you cast Stitch was a plus (except for the unusual situation where you have eight mana and four other one-cost spells. Or a series of cantrips cantrip-ing into each other.).

    But, I intended two things: The first and final ability working in synergy with each other (yeah, you have to cast a lot of spells to get to the ultimate ability, but they are also going to be a part of the massive-casting), and the second ability being able to be used right away to make this planeswalker, effectively, an "expensive Stitch in Time", if you really wanted to (or needed it).

    Cheers,

    Brad

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