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Make It So: The Search for the Next Assistant Game Designer

Make It So: The Search for the Next Assistant Game Designer is an online competition that will award the winner a spot as an Assistant Designer position on the design team for a future virtual expansion. The 2013 edition is the third incarnation of the competition, with less focus on elimination and more focus on education and training. Make It So 2013 is designed to be more streamlined, more efficient and easier to follow for contestants and participants in the community as well.

Make It So 2013 is the first competition designed for First Edition, as both prior installments recruited for the Second Edition design teams. In the 2010 edition, Keith Morris (Foreman) emerged victorious and has gained a regular position on the design team. Likewise for his brother, Mark (BaronMorrath) who won the the 2011 version. Who will emerge victorious in the 2013 edition as we focus on First Edition?

The Make It So 2013 application process ran from 6 September until 27 September 2013, and saw a total of eighteen (18) different people apply for the competition. Though we are no longer accepting applications, you can download a physical copy of the online application. If you'd like to design cards for fun or practice based on the application, why not do so and post them on our Dream Cards forum for comments?

Make It So 2013 will be made up on three "phases" of competition. In Phase I, each of the nine (9) contestants will compete individually in a series of four (4) challenges designed to educate and help contestants develop their "design chops." Each card will be reviewed anonymously and scored by both our panel of judges and the community and the scores will be tallied throughout the competition. Unlike in previos years, there will be no eliminations during Phase I!

In Phase II, the contestants will be grouped up into three (3) teams of three (3) members each. These teams will then have to work together to complete larger, team based design challenges that will continue to educate and train the aspiring designers, but put their skills to the test. Just as in the previous (4) challenges, the submissions will be rated by the judges and the community and the team's scores will be added to the contestant's individual scores. Again, throughout Phase II there will be no eliminations. All nine (9) contestants will compete in all four (4) of these team challenges.

Phase III, a.k.a. The Final Challenge, will see the top two (2) contestants advance to recruit their own design teams and lead them in the design of a fifteen (15) card boutiqe-style virtual expansion. The finalists will concept, design, and develop their own expansions with very little restriction and will present them both to the public and the judges. However, only one of the finalists will be declared the winner of Make it So 2013 and will join the First Edition design team as The Next Assistant Designer!