Make it So Challenge #4 Results

by Charlie Plaine, Make it So Host

17th January 2014

The fourth challenge, Mission Accomplished, tasked each of our challengers to create a mission based on a rebellion or terrorism-based story. As an added wrinkle, the winning mission would be added to the file for Project Boomer, the upcoming Maquis-themed expansion. But as the contestants found out, designing missions can be very difficult! Striking the right balance between playability, requirements, span, and benefits - all in less than a line of game text - is a tall order. Let's see how the contestants did!

Results
Here are the collected results from this challenge:

Congratulations to James Monsebroten! His mission, Interrogate Kidnapped Prisoner, has already been added to the file for Project Boomer. While we can not guarantee it will see print, or do so unchanged, the mission will be tested! 

For detailed results, check out the Challenges page of the Make it So subsite. You can find a breakdown of the public votes for each card, as well as all of the comments from the judges and those from the public.

Leaderboard
Here are the standings after the individual challenge phase of the competition:

Unfortunately, David Wong-Faull (Dogbert) has had to drop from the remainder of the competition. We wish him the best, and hope that he will participate in any future installments of Make it So.

Overall Comments

Finally, the public was given the opportunity to offer any comments on the challenge and the submissions overall. Those appear here, unedited:

• I really hoped to see something exciting this time. I did - Scrape by. The rest is just very mediocre missions that dont really stand out when looking at other missions. I really feel that there should be something to protect your universal missions - no one uses them anymore. 35 points seems to be the starting point for all missions from which points are reduced if you gain something (personnel dl / equipment) The bonus provided in those missions is not worthwhile. We already have many, many missions, so every new mission should provide something that the old ones didn't already. I feel that only a few contestants have reached that goal.
• Balancing missions is really tough, and fusing story with requirements with space with special text is a delicate art. Some of you did interesting things and some of you did solid but boring things; good work from all, though.
• There's a lot of stuff that does have potential here, including some stuff that could be used in future Non-Aligned and Maquis cards that would avoid some of the issues that came up with the TNG Block Non-Aligned missions. Not to mention a very cool idea in regards to getting missions that don't see a lot of use in decks. Unfortunately none of these missions do jump out at me in a 'I have to use this in a deck' kind of way.
• Useless challenge. Nearly perfect entries from everyone. A good challenge should find differences and weaknesses of the contestants. Mission design is relatively easy as was that flavor objective challenge. I hope the players who honestly deserve to advance in this competition do.
• For some reason missions are way harder to judge. There are so many moving parts to the cards that a clear number seems to be hard to pin down. All in all I think all contestants did good here. Top down design can be really hard but missions tend to be the best way to explore that design space. Sure they could have dared to go a little bit further but I think the promise of a slot in the next expansion made some designers hold back on their designs. I'm a bit sad that only one designer took the leap out of the two regions that they frequent when we know from the show that they need to go outside to get what they need more then once. As this could be our 4th DMZ OR 5th Badlands region and we will probably see a couple more with the Maquis expansion looming round the corner. So with that in mind it's interesting that all but one designer chose to go with the Maquis as backdrop and not anything else that's probably already in the design file (pure speculation from me of course). A thing that occurred to me is that all missions in the DMZ and Badlands regions never have the focus of the Maquis.
• Some really great ideas here, best submission yet!
• Pretty Lame People, you all got too caught up with the idea that the next set is focusing on the maquis and made missions for such set but missed doing some things that could have been awesome and showed some talent had you ignored that just made a mission.
• No Gozars! A decent attempt from all. It would've been nice to see some guts from some of you and attempt to create a non DMZ/Badland mission for this set. All the best to you all
• It is difficult to create missions that represent armed conflict in a compelling way.
• One that is just So far over the power curve I would have given it a zero if I could have, one MIA, but the rest were all good my variance was only 3 points top to bottom not counting the one outlier, none of the previous challenges saw this much good work imo to have so many be that close together.
• Overall, the cards are good.

Thank you to everyone who participated in voting for this fourth challenge of Make it So! Join the discussion of this challenge and the results on our forums. The contestants have earned a break, and will have this week off to decompress and debrief their results from their previous challenges. Stay tuned for the latest and details on what will be coming for the team challenges!

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