,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, An interview of zebra (Kuski of Month in January 2005): ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' -= When did you start playing? =- I think the year was 1998 when I first time encountered across. We were playing some games at school when suddenly one guy told he had a new game, so little that he had brought it on a floppy diskette. Not so much later, everyone was playing across 1.0, including I. There wasn't a level editor in the first version, and I played the game for a long time without knowing its existence. Then suddenly I noticed someone had made his own (crappy) level and I was instantly curious and asking where I could get the editor. Then I heard it wasn't only the editor, instead there was a totally new version of across where it was included. Some days after I managed to get it from one of my friends. And the world hasn't been as before since I opened the level editor. It was love at first sight. So incredible, so amazing. Now I could even make levels to the game I loved and put all my ideas and skills into practise. In time I got used to across, sometimes played it little more, usually not so much. But then I maybe did the most stupid thing in my life: surfed myself to moposite.com. Like everyone else, I was amazed by the quality of the recs I found there. I decided to download all the levs I found. I had to do that in school because I didn't have internet at my home those days. At that time I didn't 'know' I was somehow better in levelmaking than most of us and just wondered how ppl had sent such bad levs into those levpacks I downloaded. Then, after I had nearly forgotten the whole across thing, Elma came. The new name, 'Elasto Mania' was so hard I remember that it got me many weeks before I learnt the new name - even my sister learnt it faster. At first I didn't like elma at all because it didn't work in DOS and I had to start windows to play it. Anyway, I got pretty fast used with elma and finished all the 54 levs in one night. I even remember it took me totally three hours to finish the whole game. That was it? Unfortunately not. I played and played, and when I finally got used with the editor as well, I started to really like making levs. Very soon I also discovered myself being very bad at höyling levs, I just couldn't understand how ppl could get under 3 minutes in apple harvest and so on. Now, 5 years later, I have finally learnt all head-turning, pipe-driving and bug-bounce things. The more I have played, the more I have learnt to play of course but also the more I have realized that I'm not as good höylä that I could get wrs or such. I'm just a level designer, and hopefully you think a good one. -= Ex-teams and why did you change teams? =- For a long time I played without team, without even knowing of teams. After I was 2nd in LOM 2003 some people began to ask me joining their teams and I joined PP, 'polygon producers'. I remember we had a nice team and some good level designers including me, juble and Figure.09, Kopaka and soup_can. But the team died after been alive about half a year because no-one was active and soup_can wasn't very keen to update our homepage. I just noticed our team page still exists, see the link below. After being without team about half a year Behk and jonsta asked me to join their team, TAP, 'the apple placers', in february 2004. Nowadays we have 6 members: me, jonsta, juble, devan, 8-ball and Sowjet. I think we are pretty active at the moment and designing levs and stuff. Lately I arranged Mastercup with my team, and jonsta have been doing his internal remix pack and, of course, we have been making battle levs. Teampages here: http://www.geocities.com/polygon_producers/index.html http://www.freewebs.com/theappleplacers/ -= Current total? =- 48:07:74 -= Top5 newest and oldest personal records? =- (check the last modified times of your replays) Hmm, took a while to find my old records. Luckily i haven't deleted them :) So, here they are: Oldest: Level Time Date -------------------------------------------------------- 44: Freefall 34.95 24.6.2001 at 1:10 02: Flat Track 17.29 8.3.2002 at 17:51 01: Warm Up 14.38 9.3.2002 at 20:32 05: Uphill Battle 23.64 23.6.2002 at 21:53 07: Hi Flyer 37.30 25.6.2002 at 11:32 Heh, you can easily see that i haven't been playing internals much. I don't even remember driving freewall. I have couple of times tried the shortcut but those tries haven't been successful. And the rest of those old records are result of höyling well.. 3 years ago. Newest: 04: Over and Under 31.10 22.9.2005 at 17:34 03: Twin Peaks 19.23 11.1.2005 at 23:49 27: Shelf Life 39.17 27.8.2004 at 0:01 54: Apple Harvest 2:07:24 26.8.2004 at 19:49 37: Jaws 1:13:66 19.8.2004 at 19:12 Over and under is one of my favourite levs, one of the few I randomly choose and play when I have nothing else to do. I had to get better time in Twin Peaks when axxu said to me that I would easily get that style. And he was right, and I got that time approximately in half an hour. Those Shelf Life and Apple Harvest records maybe came when I tried to do 24h total time. If I remember correctly, the TT was 49.xx.xx. -= Across Career briefly. Any WRs?, World Cup I and II and so on.. =- Yes, indeed, I have played also across. But I was a real noob at that time, so not any good times and definately not any WRs. I didn't play in World cups I and II, I may had not found moposite by then. Shortly: not any across career. At least nothing specific to be proud of. I don't even remember any TTs or so, there were so many versions and all. But I remember that I downloaded MUCH levels and MUCH those bike pictures. I had .bat -files so that I could easily change whatever levelpack I wanted to my across folder. And of course I had some of my own levels too. If you want to examine them, here is the link: http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/zebra_across_levels.zip -= Elma career? =- My career is mainly a level designing career. Though I have also improved my playing skills, I have always been better at designing. My journey to elma scene started mainly by participating in LOM 2003 competition and being 2nd in it. Maybe that's still my greatest achievement. I didn't participate in World cup 3 because I wasn't very active that time. But I participated in World cup 4. Though the result wasn't very good: 0 points. There was World cup 5 lately, and the result there was much better. I got totally 184.5 points and was 38. in total standings. My best position was 13. in the pipe level. I haven't played much any other cups. I'll soon publish my new Uni level pack. Check my old levs from my homepage: http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/elma.html -= Do you still like Across? Why/why not =- Yep, across is a cool game. Though I haven't played it in last 5 years. And most of the non-elma ppl still remember across better than elasto mania. -= How did you get Across/Elma? Was it your worst mistake? or the best? =- I don't remember how did I get Elma full version, but across I copied from my school friend. It was definately a good thing, I have had so much fun playing this game and ircing at #battle and so on. If I hadn't found elma, I think I would have played more other games and would have real life as well ;) -= Favourite internals / most irritating internals =- Favourite internals: Over and Under, Tunnel terror, Loop-de-Loop, Hangman, Apple harvest Most irritating: Downhill, Haircut, Ramp Frenzy, Freefall -= Your own best WRs? =- I don't have WR's in internals, but I do have some WR's in my own levels ;) For example the great drive in 'Looking For Apples', my time was 7:16.xx. -= Best WRs in your opinion? =- They are all so amazing that is hard to put them in order. To mention some of them, I really appreciate long levels' WRs like ZigZag, Apple Harvest and Labyrinth Pro. -= What's the limit of WR times? =- Some years ago I thought no-one could ever go under 39.xx.xx. Now that I have seen Toringe and Zweq and others höyling under it, I just have to say that there is no limit. Once you say a limit, those guys are already under it. Certainly there is a limit like 30:00:00 which nobody could ever get. For me the limit could be something like 45:00:00. -= Are there some kind of external contests you like? What kind of contests do you like? Are there any new competitions you would like to see? =- I like to play battles. And I like cups too, but I suck at them. But I like to arrange them. That's why I usually arrange TTbattles, mopobattles and cups. I would like to see elma olympic games. There could be all kinds of competitions from battles to cup levels and from 1vs1 battles to 1htt:s etc. They are just very arduous to arrange so I think I have to leave the arranging to someone else. And I want to see kahvicup 2 as well. -= Best lgr in your mind? What lgr do you use? =- I use the default lgr. I don't like any other lgr. (well, highq is so close that you could say that's the same lgr as default lgr) -= Mention some good things you have gotten with Across/Elma? =- Friends, playing&designing skills, something to do on long nights :) -= Mention some bad things you have gotten from Across/Elma? =- Lack of spare time, not having real life, always thinking of elma. -= What is the most frustrating thing you have faced in your career? =- Maybe internals. Some years ago I really tried to höyl and get good times. What I got? Just some crappy times. Or maybe it was the WCup515.lev. Tried to finish it, but no, got only 49 apples. -= The biggest mistake of your Elma career? =- I can't remember any big mistake right now. Maybe the time has gilded my memories. Or maybe it was that I on the whole started playing elma ;) -= Cheating, what feelings? Do you use level unlocker/1.11hb/1.2 etc? How many cheaters do you think there are in the top100? =- I use 1.2, and I don't consider it as cheating, because nearly everyone is using it and it's so much easier to play with it (replay control, centered camera). But I hate those guys who use save/load and stuff. It's doping, it's like stealing from store, those guys should be shot at once. Well, cheating for fun isn't that fatal, for example nitro patch is fun, and it's easy to detect, so i don't mind if you play with it. But don't use it if you are playing battle or cup of course ;). -= Elma tuning, have you tested? Opinion about it? =- I have tried to turn vsync on and off, but haven't noticed any difference. I have as well tried to get higher frame rate by changing directx and some graphic options, but haven't noticed any difference there either. But as I mentioned, I use elma 1.2, if that is considered as tuning. After all, I think tuning is acceptable, because there are differences in different PCs and you might be using tuned elma even if you didn't know anything about vsync and stuff. -= Map on/off, timer on/off, resolution, centered camera on/off, sounds on/off, animations on/off, high/low details? =- Map is usually on, especially when I'm playing battle and the level isn't familiar. But if I'm playing cup level or internals, I switch it off if I remember to, which is very seldom. Timer is always on, because it's nice to see some interval times. Resolution is 800x600 Centered camera is always on, it's horrible to play with that moving camera. Sounds are off, because I'm always listening to some music or radio while playing. Animations are off. Details are high, because I'm a designer and I have to see the pictures which I place ;) -= Best kuskis and teams? What are the things you value in another kuski/team? =- Well, if you are talking about best team, there is no doubt: TAP is the greatest team of all times! To say some kuskis, I have to mention axxu, who is always very good at battle and in external cups. And of course tor and zweq with their great TTs. And Jalli and John, the best pipe drivers. And Markku and Jeppe, the best battlers. I did forgot someone, but look best kuskis from moposite and best battlers from http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/battles.html And because I'm a designer, I have to mention some good designers as well. I think jonsta is maybe the best designer in our team, always up with interesting lev. Devan, insguy and jp are the best designers at #battle. I like their levs very much. From older designers (not anymore very active) I like MP, Ville J, BarTek and skint0r's style. There are also other very good ones, like Ali, Juble, 8-ball, etc. I hope I didn't forget any good one this time. Oh, and I think I'm a good designer too. In other kuskis I value if they are kind, helpful, honest, not flooding any shit on channel, active, good at playing battles, good at designing, and if they are positive, comic and playful and have some good jokes. -= Your best achievements? =- I think the best 'achievement' is Mastercup which I arranged with TAP members last winter. There were much kuskis playing and all went well. And I have to mention my great program, mergestats, which I made mainly for making battle statistics (see url above). -= Do you do any other neat finger-related stuff like playing violin, repairing watches, pick pocketing etc? Yes, I play piano. I have played since I was 4 years old, and I'm pretty good at it and also kinda good at making music. You can listen to my music at mikseri.net. My older pieces are at http://www.mikseri.net/zebra and some of my newer ones at http://www.mikseri.net/djellipse Please go there and comment those pieces. -= How much did you play in your sickest period? How much these days? =- 24/7. To elaborate, when I'm home, I play elma or design some levels or chat with elma ppl or program some elma-related stuff, if I don't have homework. When I'm at school or at work, I always think of new kind of competitions, new level ideas and new styles in levels. So, I'm totally hooked on elma. Maybe a little less all the time, but still it takes a whole lot from my usual day. If you count only the time when I'm actually playing the game, you get something like 1 hour/day. And maybe another hour for designing levs. Though the designing time varies, sometimes you just have more ideas than other times. And during wcup, the playing time was maybe average 2 hours/day. -= Have you had Elma dreams? =- Yes, few times. I have never had dream that I would have been playing the game itself, but I have had elma related dreams. Once I had dream that 8-ball won an Mastercup event and Ali was second. Well, it wasn't an predictive dream. I had also a dream where I was driving car, apparently to axxu's place. axxu lived somewhere in forest, and suddenly we where in our place playing elma with my brothers. I don't remember what levels we played but I think axxu won them all (as usual). -= Strengts and weaknesses as a player? What moves you like/dislike? =- Well, mainly I suck at every move, but the moves I suck most are hanging and really fast places. I like moves like brutal and bouncing, but I'm not very good at them either. What I really like is piping, and I'm not very bad at that anymore. -= Tips for average players? =- Hmm, maybe I should give here some tips for average designers. So here they came: First of all, forget these things: invisible walls, gravity apples, speed rails. Try to design first an easy level with long vertices. It's always good to have just small amount of vertices instead of very much. Especially, when you are making speed loops, try to remember this thing. The main thing in levels is playability. I hate levels with lots of pictures and stuff if there are no styles at all. A good levels is always possible to finish with multiple styles. In order to make a good level, you have to test, test and test your lev. The more you test the lev, the better it will be. If a level is fun to play, there has been a lot effort done when making it. After the level is fully tested, it's time to add the grass and pictures. At least grass is mandatory part if you want to make your level playable, but remember that the design is even more important. -= Best memories with Elma? =- My best elma memories are undoubtedly those many many nights I've been at #battle. I have always found battling very interesting and I love to make some battle levs now and then. -= First time at #across? =- Well, I don't remember the first time. And I haven't ever been very active at #across, mainly at #battle. -= Best Elma friends? =- My team members, especially jonsta, and some finnish friends, axxu, cyre, Abula, Ismo etc.., and #battle people... can't remember them all. -= Thoughts about Elma meetings? =- Of course it's nice to see the friends you have been talking to in irc for years. Battling is nice and having those meetings is a good thing, although I haven't been in FEM or other big meeting. Once Abula, px and Ismo visited my place and we had some battles etc. -= What do YOU think should be improved in an eventual new version of Elma? How are your feelings towards there coming a new version? =- As a designer, I want some improvements in the editor: merging/copying/ moving polygons, add multiple flowers, add text in the lev and autograss. I feel confident about the new version, I think it's always good thing to have new versions. As long as it has centered camera, resolutions and other things which are in the elma 1.2 patch. -= How about battles? =- Battles are the most important thing in elma for me. Without battles, I think I would have quit elma already. Nothing can beat the feeling when winning a tight battle :). I am so addicted to battle that I have even make statistics about it (see the link above). -= You have been more innovative than most when it comes to new contests in the Elma scene, with stuff like TT battles and the Free Design contest. How is your view on this and new types of contests in general? Well, sometimes new ideas just pop into my head, like those TT battles and Free Design contest. At the moment I have some new ideas as well, you will see TAP Challenge soon and maybe some other things as well. I think new kind of contests are always a good thing. Though people seem to play more old kind of cups and battles. -= Have you got any negative feedback about playing Elma from your mates? =- hmm, not that I remember. There is sometimes some kind of arguing at #battle about some matter, but I think I haven't ever been mocked of bad playing or designing skills (maybe because i'm good :)). -= What games do you like beside Elma? =- I like rally/formula games, like colin mcrae rallys, richard burns rally and GP4. I also play sometimes mini-car games like slicks and generally with my brothers. I also like to play other simple games. I seldom play FPS games like farcry, half-life or battlefield etc. I don't either like role games. -= Did you buy Elma? Why not? =- No I didn't, because I got it from my friend, and never bothered to send money to balazs. I don't have anything against giving some money of elma, just lazy to find out how i could order elma legally. -= Have you thought about if you could stop playing Elma soon, or anytime? =- No, I haven't thought it much. I was having a long brake about three years ago, when I was in army and such. But as I started to study, I hadn't much else to do than to play elma and design levs, so that's why I'm still addicted to it. I think I don't have any troubles to quit this when I find it necessary. But not now, because it's still fun and I feel myself important when keeping all kinds of cups and battles :). -= Are you at the top of your career now? If not, when? =- Maybe I am, because I am now a better kuski than I've ever been before and I arrange mopobattles and make much levs and so. Keeping mastercup was also nice. -= How high would you rate yourself as an Elma player? Top100? Top10? Honestly. =- Top10 kuski? Never. Top100 kuski? I think not. Top300 kuski? Yes, I might be in that list. Top 10 designer? Yes, why not. -= What are your goals in elma these days? Coming Wcup5 or 24h tt? Or driving WRs and improving tt? =- Well, one goal is to win some golden apple awards, that would be nice. LOM would have been nice to win, but BarTek beat me then and I'm not angry with him. Wcup5 was my best cup achievement ever, because I was 38. in total standings and in top15 in pipe level. One goal would be to win a cup level, but I think that's impossible for me. I don't play internals much and won't get any WR ever, so that's it. -= Forecast the future of Elma. How the scene will be in five years? =- I think it will be like it's today. Some old kuskis will have quitted elma and some new rookies may have entered the scene, but I think the amount of kuskis won't be smaller than today, maybe even bigger. -= Was it a surprise to be voted for the kuski of month? If it was who should have won in your opinion and why? =- Yes it was, I didn't expect that at all, because normally kuskis like me who doesn't have WRs or any cup wins don't win KOMs. But seems that I got lucky :) -= Mopolauta, thoughts? =- Yes, it's very important to have an elma forum. It's the best place to advertise new cups :) -= Opinions about Elma Crime, MUe's animations and stuff like that. =- Heh, Elma Crime was very good indeed. I wish there were more videos like that. -= You are the updater of your own page and battle stats. How's that feeling? =- Well, of course I update my own page :). Sometimes it's boring to update them but usually it's not a big thing, and it's rewarding to see people looking those pages and commenting them. And of course it's nice to read those pages and statistics by myself as well. -= You are the organizer of mopobattles. How's that feeling? =- After I got my program (mergestats) working, it has been very nice to organize them. I would just like to see more people battling there :) -= At the time of writing you are holding your own Elma cup; the Master Cup. How is that going? -= I think it was nice, and lot of people played it. I think it was maybe even bigger success than we (TAP) expected. And I'm pretty sure there will be Master Cup 2 sometimes, we'll see :). -= What's your favourite Elma website (not moposite)? =- Well, of course I like my own page much, and also mopocorner is nice. And of course VK's uploading page. To be honest, I don't check any other pages than moposite very often. -= Your relation to OLP? =- eh, what's that? Ok, I have heard that's an official level pack. I have tried some levels but not even finished them all, because I think they weren't very good. I haven't played it because there are so much other (better) level packs and battle levels available. -= Why that nick, zebra? =- Hmm, just randomly chose it from dictionary many many years ago, when I needed to invent a new nick which would have some exotic letters and suitable for me. I don't know is that very good nick but at least now I'm used to it and everybody already knows me by that nick so why to change it anymore. -= How much do your parents know about you/elma/the scene? =- They know I'm playing this game a lot, but they really don't know anything about the scene or my part in it. -= Your real life. Do you have it (school/work, other interests etc)? =- Yes, at the moment I study in Tampere University of Technology, majoring in software engineering and mathematics. Sounds a bit dull but I have liked to study there. And I'm good at mathematics, maybe that's in relation to my good designing skills? I also play piano (and little guitar) and know how to make music. And I do some sports too, jogging in summer and ice hockey in winter. -= Write something about the game, fellow kuskis, moposite, #across, etc =- Well, I could mention my brothers, Risto and Jarmo, who have also been playing elma. Though they are not very good and I don't even know do they have a total time. And they are not so addicted to elma as I am, but at least Jarmo is already good at making levs (not as good as me) and maybe he has an elma future, maybe not. About moposite, you have really done good work! I bet elma scene would have been died without moposite crew. -= How did this interview make you feel, like a moviestar? =- Ye, kind of. But writing this interview was arduous and took far too long, over half a year. That's why there might be some conflicts in the text. As you can see, I was very keen to write in the beginning, but the answers in the end are kinda short. Anyway, it was nice to write some information of my elma career and it will be nice to read this in the future. I also realized how long I have played this game and how much I have already managed to do. And I got a nostalgic feel when writing this :) For more information about me, check http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/elma.html http://koti.mbnet.fi/zebra/ http://koti.mbnet.fi/hluoma/ (in finnish) zebra 22. October 2005