,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, An interview of insane guy (Kuski of Month on February 2005): ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' -= When did you start playing? =- I played some Across before Elma, that must have been somewhere around 1998. Like 2 years later the same friend that showed me Across gave me Elma, so I`ve been playing for 6-7 years now (more or less active). -= Ex-teams and why did you change teams? =- My first Team was [tcw] - Team Cup Winners. Together with iob and some other sucky German players we founded it to participate in Kopaka`s Team Cup. Now I`m in team [LaME]. -= Current total? =- 01:02:58:26 insguy (finished every lev once) -= Top5 newest and oldest personal records? =- As I don`t save any Internal Replays, i don`t really know. Must be the most annoying levs like: Level 54, Apple Harvest: 03:53:80 insguy Level 51, Tricks Abound: 01:31:56 insguy Level 48, Downhill: 01:31:03 insguy Level 39, Haircut: 00:55:68 insguy Level 35, Labyrinth Pro: 03:54:05 insguy I think no one is interested in my times on the first 5 levs.... -= Across Career briefly. Any WRs?, World Cup I and II and so on.. =- Naaaaa... If I remember correctly I finished all levels of Across Shareware. -= Elma career? =- I`m not a good player, so the only achievements i`ve made came through my levs. The first time I "appeared" in the scene was when I ranked 2nd in Level Of Month Theme "Jungle" (March 2002), then maybe some more people noticed me because of my lev in WCup4 (11th Event) which was disliked by the majority of players... I´ve made a lot of Battle levels what got me into Top10 Designer Nominees for GAA04. -= Do you still like Across? Why/why not =- I dunno. Haven`t played for atleast 3 years and don`t know at all how it felt. -= How did you get Across/Elma? Was it your worst mistake? or the best? =- A friend showed it to me, we were laughing a lot at the sounds :) Neither a mistake, nor a bad thing, this game gave me 100s maybe 1000s of very enjoyable hours of playing. I would have sticked to EGO-Shooters if i wouldn`t have started playing it... -= Favourite internals / most irritating internals =- Hm, I dislike most Internals, allthough most of them are nice levs. Must be AH or Lab Pro cause of the lenght... -= Your own best WRs? =- None. -= Best WRs in your opinion? =- Every Apple Harvest below 1:30, Serpents Tale with bounce... i mainly admire the styles which are used. -= What's the limit of WR times? =- 35:58,47 -= 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 loved King Cup by MP and Ville J, that was the point where i first played seriously, until then i was only cruising around. I usually check out the levs from all External Contests (except really small ones with no participants), but don`t play. No Favourites besides KC. -= Best lgr in your mind? What lgr do you use? =- I use Default. I remember some coal LGR with some funky african guy grinning at you. That was cool. -= Mention some good things you have gotten with Across/Elma? =- Fun. -= Mention some bad things you have gotten from Across/Elma? =- Getting too involved in the scene, spending a lot of time in front of my PC. -= What is the most frustrating thing you have faced in your career? =- I found Psy`s Level site by chance (i think even before Moposite). On that site he said that anyone can send him levs and if they are good enough he would add them to his site. Well, I sent him insane11.lev which was imo the best lev I ever played so far. He said something like: "I can see that you put a lot of effort into this and if you work hard your levs will be better in future, but this lev sucks hard, because no one likes Rollercoasters...". I was totally frustrated and started making non-semi-auto levs (insane16-2x or something), which sucked even more. -= The biggest mistake of your Elma career? =- None. -= Cheating, what feelings? Do you use level unlocker/1.11hb/1.2 etc? I use alovolt button and 12xp patch. Cheating: Insert most ppls (official) opinion here. -= How many cheaters do you think there are in the top100? =- 4 -= Elma tuning, have you tested? Opinion about it? =- No, I still haven`t figured out how to change VSync. It´s kinda unfair for lazy people like me, but since everyone CAN use it, it´s quite ok for me. -= Map on/off, timer on/off, resolution, centered camera on/off, sounds on/off, animations on/off, high/low details? =- Map ON, Timer ON, normal game resolution, centered cam OFF (tried ON only once, very weird), sounds OFF (OMG annoying), animations ON, High Detail (ofcourse). -= Best kuskis and teams? What are the things you value in another kuski/team? =- Markku best player imo. As I am a battle-freak I admire the Skillz of finding styles fast, try very hard styles (and perform succesfully), keep cool after a perfect 1 minute run and do all this under the pressure of time. Internal playing is just höyling styles (which I don`t claim to be easy at all) but to me not as cool as battling. -= Your best achievements? =- As I said above, LOM Theme Jungle 2nd place, Top 10 Designers in GAA04, maybe being the first guy that won KOM only for the levs(?). -= Do you do any other neat finger-related stuff like playing violin, repairing watches, pick pocketing etc? I used to play Tabletop games and painted a lot of these small miniatures. Nowadays not much of that kind... -= How much did you play in your sickest period? How much these days? =- When I made some of my old insaneXX.levs I sometimes spent 4 or more hours a day on the editor. Actual playing time maybe max 3 hours a day (hasn`t happened too often), but I use the Editor a lot (like avg. 30mins - 1 hour every day). -= Have you had Elma dreams? =- No. -= Strengts and weaknesses as a player? What moves you like/dislike? =- I suck. I think I am an average Pipe PLayer, what maybe is my "greatest" Strength. When I am playing a battle I often finish once, but then lose interest and stop playing. Maybe 1 out of 8 battles I play seriously till the end. -= Tips for average players? =- What Tip should i give myself? Play harder to come closer to No-Life or Quit to become cool. -= Best memories with Elma? =- Dunno. -= First time at #across? =- * insanegu has joined #across Hello insguy I´m glad you made it to IRC finally :) hi!!! Was kinda cool. Some days later someone said: "hey everyone come play battle!" i was like: "battle???" "#battle you idiat!!11!!" Soon I made my first battle lev, and thats it.... -= Best Elma friends? =- I wouldn`t call anyone from the scene a friend but I think you wanna know (does anyone actually want to know? :)) whom i like and who helped me and stuff. Well there`s Chris Penrose (inactive nowadays?!?!) who helepd in some way I already forgot (damn brain), iob is just ony fuckin cool guy and Kopaka is always kind and funny, too, just like Xhomaz is. -= Thoughts about Elma meetings? =- I would really like to do that, but It ain´t easy (nor cheap) to come to Finland or wherever the coolest are held. In Germany there are only a few players (most of them like 12-14 years old) so that would suck a lot :) Maybe I can come to the next Danish Meeting cause my sister lives in Denmark. -= What do YOU think should be improved in an eventual new version of Elma? How are your feelings towards there coming a new version? =- I don`t want a new version, wouldn`t feel good i think... Best thing that could be improved (ok, I haven´t thought about it very much) would be that you are able to check what replays are available for a lev and the other way around. No more stupid 8 char limit would be cool, too.. and maybe the possibility to add some more text for a lev, not only the lev title... -= How about battles? =- Battling is the best thing about elma. I would be like 90% less active without battles. -= Have you got any negative feedback about playing Elma from your mates? =- My gf is always wondering why I only play this game (she still hasn`t touched it), for the rest of my friends it doesn´t matter cause elma has a low prority in my life, so I don`t miss any partys or activitys because of elma, and I don`t play when I have guests... -= What games do you like beside Elma? =- Best Game Ever: Half-Life 1 (especially the mods like Natural Selection, Specialists, Action HL...CS sucked after 1.3) Yes, it`s true (TRAITOOOOR!!!!), this game has brought me a lot more fun and joy than elma has done and ever will do, but thats just because it´s a totally different kind of game and has a much greater variety. Other cool games (no specific order): Starcraft, Doom3 (played only 15 mins, was great), North VS South, Warcraft 2, Alone in the Dark, and many others I forgot. To be honest I have only elma on my PC at the moment, I´m just too lazy to install other games... -= Did you buy Elma? Why not? =- No, I am a lazy anti-social fuckhead. -= Have you thought about if you could stop playing Elma soon, or anytime? =- Jep. I said that I will quit elma when I have made 1000 inra levs (my battle levs). It might be even sooner because I`m moving to Berlin, away from my parents home in like 1 month (Sept. 2005, dunno when this Interview will be put on the site) and I don`t think that I will have Internet there... so maybe I`m gonny say good-bye soon :) -= What gets you still playing Elma? =- #battle, Skint0rs battlebot -= Are you at the top of your career now? If not, when? =- Na, I think I had my moments but I wasn`t at the top and won`t ever be... Level-making isn`t honoured enough to speak of a "career"... -= How high would you rate yourself as an Elma player? Top100? Top10? Honestly. =- Top400 -= You are highly regarded as a level maker, especially your battle levels seem to be very popular. Feelings about this? =- IT`S COOL MAN! (imagine rastafari pronounciation) Seriously, I`m happy some people like my levs, especially those I spend less than 5 mins on seem to be cool. -= What are your goals in elma these days? =- Make cool levs so I can watch cool recs on them :) -= Forecast the future of Elma. How the scene will be in five years? =- OMG impossible to say. If Elma 2 will be made (/released) the scene will split up into "old-fashioned-guys" who stick to elma 1 and those who get used to the "new" feeling, play the new levs and höyl times... after some years the old ppl will become extinct (die out). Besides that I don`t know at all because there are so many new ppl joining the scene, many lose interest after a few months, others will stick to it for years (like me), so it WILL be different but I don`t know how much and in which way. -= Was it a surprise to be voted for the kuski of month? If it was who should have won in your opinion and why? =- HUGE surprise. Kopaka joined #lamelma (Team LaME channel) and said: "ins gimme op" ... +o Kopaka ... Kopaka sets Topic "insguy for teh kuski of month!!1!1!11!1". I thought he was in funky mood and only wrote that because of +o but after a while I checked Lauta, checked KOM-Poll (still with no idea) and saw that SveinR nominated me... funny :) The other ppl were nominated because of playing skillz, I think veezay should`ve won, but it´s cool that a designer finally ranked 1st (or was there another in the past? I don`t know..). -= Mopolauta, thoughts? =- I have almost 1000 posts so I can`t say that I dislike Lauta.... -= Opinions about Elma Crime, MUe's animations and stuff like that. =- Very cool stuff that brings alternation and fun into the scene :) -= What's your favourite Elma website (not moposite)? =- Dunno, not checking any others. Mine sucks for sure. Seriously: Skints, Xhomazs and Zebras Sites are cool. -= Your relation to OLP? =- None. -= Why that nick, insane guy? =- Maybe I am. Atleast many people that know me irl say so. -= How much do your parents know about you/elma/the scene? =- I told my Parents about iob being a 38(?) years old australian playing this game every day and they were quite amused. They still think that its a bycicle and they don`t know about my "success" (there must be some succes, otherwise i wouldn`t be writing this) in Level-making... -= Your real life. Do you have it (school/work, other interests etc)? =- I have a quite coal life, many friends, gf, i even do some sport (football), i make music (i play Didjeridoo), Draw a lot (maybe you`ve seen some of my works, surrealistic stuff), all in all I am very satisfied with my life today, unlike 3-4 years ago, but thats another story. I just finished my Civil-Service in a Sleeping-Laboratory, maybe I´m going to study in Berlin if any University accepts me. -= Write something about the game, fellow kuskis, moposite, #across, etc =- I like me banana! Oh Please Mister, Don`t you touch me tomato!!! Keep on tokin` onward through the fog!!!! (Rastafari Language again) -= How did this interview make you feel, like a moviestar? =- Na, but I enjoyed it :) insane guy 19. July 2005