Playing

Table of contents
General Controlling Accelerating Braking Turning Pushing Volting Hanging Jumping Climbing Dropping Stretching Picking Killer avoiding Gravity Piping Bouncing Brutal volting Special tricks Extra tricks Files Download

General

Elma is mostly about getting the best times but people can also just cruise for fun. Pick up a level you like or some random one from external level packs and then just drive and enjoy the bumps and hills. Also level designing is part of Elma playing. However the biggest part of the Elma is trying to be the best player and driving for the best possible results. And that can be divided into three categories:

1. Style finding: The first thing is to get the correct styles. You can figure out them by watching the map, by copying replays you get from your team members, find public ones or trade with other players. Or of course find out them yourself by playing the level and test various things.
2. Training: In a very professional level people open the levels in the level editor and move the bike around the level to train parts one by one. Internal levels as external levels conversion helps here.
3. Höyling: For the last you need to get all the tricks driven perfectly in one drive. Usually that doesn't happen quite soon, actually it can take lots of time and that's called höyling. Most likely you never get everything perfect but only satisfying enough. Controlling oneself and pure luck play big role here. Usually training and höyling are combined.

Naturally people can improve on all these areas. You can develop your 'eye' to figure out the different styles immediately. Fortunately Elma is such a complex game that no one will be able to find out the fastests ones at first sight. Better bike control gives you more opportunities to know what's possible and what's not. And to be one of the best players you really have to rule almost all the tricks there are so better to learn them.

Playing Elma is much about controlling oneself. Try to stay calm and not lose your nerve even after failing the Labyrinth Pro end after doing the bounce for the first time. Be rational and unempathetic.

Controlling

As we know the controls of Elma are: gas, brake, left and right rotate, turn and alovolt. Alias brake, enter, alias ESC and normal ESC are not essential. The default keys and more about the controls on Elasto Mania information page

Pressing those keys after and before each other and also at the same time give thousands different combinations which will produce different behaviour and tricks for the bike. On this section most of the essential ones of those combinations and results of the key presses are introduced. Read, watch, practice, learn and invent new ones.

People find it funny to drive Elma without using some controls. For example all internal levels are possible to finish without the rotate keys - actually the very first version of Across levels were designed to be played without rotate keys. Moreover many internal levels are possible to finish without the gas. Brake isn't that important and it's very easy to finish the levels without the brake and even get satisfactory times. Alovolt is just a curiosity when it comes to finishing levels.

The different controlling categories are listed in order of difficulty. To beat the dream time you probably have to höyl quite a lot and it's not necessary at all, neither it's the primary purpose of this section. They are added just for the fun and are not updated here - at least not yet. Target times you should try to beat in order to be sure you master the certain controlling type or trick (in most cases just finishing the level without any critical flaws should be enough). There are four skill levels: novices should be able to beat most of the Easy ones quite soon after starting to play. Medium ones need more practicing, and to beat most of the Hard ones you probably have to play months. Finally the Expert ones need years of playing experience unless you are lucky enough.

The following list describes how each level should be driven, how it's played fast, and what's the point in the level. Each level is there for a reason, because each one of them presents a unique trick, a driving style or a bike controlling technique. The point hasn't been to make all kinds of level types but to include all kinds of playing styles.

Probably the best way to play these levels is to watch the target replays, copy the styles and do the höyling. Some levels or styles might fit to many categories. In that case, they are only in one category. We have to remember that there are many different kinds of players out there with different skills and therefore in some levels the Dream time may seem impossible while in some levels it's ridiculous.

Accelerating

Turning

Braking

Pushing

Picking

Volting

Hanging

Jumping

Climbing

Dropping

Stretching

Gravity

Killer avoiding

Bouncing

Brutal volting

Piping

Special tricks

Extra tricks

Files

The level filename pattern is PLxxyy.lev where yy is the level number in that category and xx is the category's two first letters, except for Picking which is PC because PI is reserved for Piping and Brutal volting which is BV because BR is reserved for Braking.

The levels are made mainly by zebra. In past years many other people have also been involved. The project started in 2002 when Barbapappa and Abula came with an idea of Moposchool which would teach tricks to newbies. Rigger and ciph were also helping them but as usually the project was taking time one more month after another. When Paprika was published the concept of the entire section was radically changed and zebra started to lead the project. Luther, Axxu and Abula have been helping in the second period of the project.

Download

• Levels
• Target time replays
• Playing levels records