EA Staff (Retired)I have enjoyed the design challenges and really looked forward to seeing the creative efforts in the Spooky City challenge. When I ventured in this morning I immediately went to vote, somewhat excited to see what creativity awaited…much to my chagrin I found only 1, yes one of the 10 cities that had anything close to addressing the theme of this challenge, and that was a clown merry-go-round…one clown merry-go-round. Everything else was the same old same old, very disappointing.
I recognize the voting system is terribly flawed…but come on, at least pretend to address the theme. Maybe the contractor should change the criteria to have 5 theme related buildings or better yet, a 3rd voting option…neither. I know folks are enthralled with rivers & lakes, and castles, and trees and trees and trees (but not the dead ones - which are theme related) - but what criteria of “spooky” does this meet, NONE. I keep seeing the same design constantly regardless of the challenge and I must say I’m disappointed, but I’ll go back and vote again because maybe I’ve seen all the ones that don’t comprehend the importance of “theme” to a challenge - but some how, I doubt it.
Just a quick followup…I voted as much as I could yesterday and I found 8 of the 60 or 70 cities I saw showed any indication they knew what the theme was and only three actually set the stage for a spooky city…the winning city at least had a clown carousel centered in the front of the city on an island, but no other representation of the theme was visible. This was not the worse “winning” city I’ve seen, probably a 3.5 on a 5.0 scale…
Maybe the next challenge folks will vote fairly…I don’t expect to win, but when I vote for a very good design that represents the theme, is well laid out and shows a great deal of effort put in and has a 2.5 rating…it irritates me. Then I look at 2 pitiful designs and choose the less worse which is a close view of a section of their city (little effort at all) and see a 4.0…something is seriously wrong.
