The History of Elasto Mania (1993–)

Table of contents

I. Corfu (c. 1993) II. Motor (c. 1994–1997) III. Archaic Across (1997–1998) 1. Action SuperCross 2. World Record 3. Website 4. Country 5. Player 6. Replay Summary IV. Classical Times (1998–2000) 1. Action SuperCross 1.2 2. Level editor 3. Nation 4. Team 5. PeXi's Across Page 6. Total time 7. World Cup (1 and 2000) 8. Abula, Tuska, Ultra, Carju 9. Meeting 10. Communication 11. Cheating (1st wave) 12. Stuff Summary V. Elma Forever (2000–2001) 1. Elasto Mania 1.0 2. New physics 2.1. Gravity apples 2.2. Head position 3. Bounce 4. Supervolt 5. Let's play (internals) 5.1. WR tables 1-72 5.2. WR statistics 5.3. Record lists 6. Replay (again) 7. Cheating (2nd wave) 8. Multiplayer 9. Battle 10. OLP 11. More Levels 12. World Cup 3 13. Moposite 13.1. Abula's Elma Site 13.2. PeXi's Elma Site 13.3. Moposite v1 13.4. PeXiBBS 14. MC 15. In real life 16. Forever CD Summary VI. Golden Era (2001–2006) 1. Elasto Mania 1.2 2. Golden Apple Awards (2003-2006) 3. TorInge, Zweq et al. 3.1. WR tables 73-254 3.2. dz under 40:00:00 3.3. 24 hours total time 3.4. Forecasting the WR future 3.5. Blossom of multiplaying 3.6. Records systems development 4. Revolutionary WR styles 5. Vsync tuning 6. Cheating (3rd wave) 7. Brutal volt, deadbounce... 8. Pipe Kings 9. Slesk replays 10. World Cup 4 11. World Cup 5 12. Mopobattles 13. #battle 14. More contests 15. Moposite (under construction) 16. Community 17. Anti-establishment 18. Meetings 19. FM 20. Art Summary VII. Belma Period (2007–2010) 1. EOL (2006) 2. Belma 3. #ballelma 4. It's getting tight 4.1. WR tables 255-314 4.2. John under 36:00,00 4.3. Multiplayer in LAN 4.4. pawq and jonsykkel 5. Crazy WR styles 6. Zweqspin 7. Uphilling 8. Pipe Princes 9. Active contests 10. Community reformation 11. Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010) 12. Gameplay videos 13. Ultimate DVD Summary VIII. Age of EOL (2010–2018) 1. Elasto Mania 1.3 2. elmaonline.net 2.1. EOL Battles 2.2. Apple Battles 2.3. Battle Cups 3. The Last Warriors? 3.1. WR tables 315-396 3.2. Almost under 35:00:00 3.3. 1 hour total time 3.4. Multi is closed 4. Five minutes on Sunday 5. Amazing WR replays 6. Wheelpop 7. Spinboost 8. Science 9. World Cup 6 10. World Cup 7 11. Traditional contests 12. New contests 13. Fancy levels 14. Fancy replays 15. Pipe Royals 16. First Finish 17. More videos 18. Documentaries 19. Misc 20. New generation 21. Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017) 22. Friendly contacts 23. Dark moments 24. Tool-assisted speedrun Summary Utopia Final Results Conclusion Bonus Afterword Comments

Briefly

The screenshots below show two motocross computer games, Action SuperCross, published in 1997, and its sequel, Elasto Mania, published in 2000. This article provides an overview of these two unique games, and the digital subculture around them, the community.

In case the reader wants to just play, check out Introduction to Elasto Mania Versions (reference), Elma Online Help (reference), Official Website (reference), and Moposite (reference). A browser version of Action SuperCross is available (reference). Real-time chats are on Discord, IRC, and within the in-game chat. The party is still going on. (2024-06-08)

Article history

• 2024-06-09 Add welcome screen of Across 1.0.
• 2024-06-08 Add a screenshot of the possibly oldest internal level (Slippery Slope). Add screenshots and a video about the first graphics, both public and hidden ones. Add old names of Action SuperCross (MOTOR, Motoros, SuperCross). Add information about Doom, another inspiration source. Add information about the first (known) replay trade (by Hordasc) (1998-09-21). Add information about the first (known) usage of "höylä" (by PeXi) (1998-07-05).
• 2024-06-03 Add team logos of Da, KDF, MOTOMEN, TEG and tMM.
• 2024-06-02 Add the first (known) CD including Across (Score 52) (April 1998). Add information about the possibly first five replays (dw17.rec, dw20.rec, dw21.rec, dw23.rec, dw25.rec)) and the five rew files (w4.rew, w10.rew, w15.rew, w17.rew, w23.rew).
• 2024-06-01 Add Rex, a game by Balázs before Action SuperCross.
• 2024-05-30 Add a new chapter: "Motor (c. 1994-1997)".
• 2024-05-24 Add a new wish (Website Snapshots).
• 2024-05-22 Add GET Kupa (won by MGen) (organized by GET) (August 2001). Add information about the non-deterministic nature of Across and Elma. Add a screenshot of the Across Skins collection (by Abula).
• 2024-05-21 Add screenshots of the acpack10 best times list (by KDF) (1999-04-04).
• 2024-05-19 Add the first (known) climbing level (1998-09-23).
• 2024-05-12 Add a new chapter: "Corfu (c. 1993)". Divide chapter "Across Days (1995-2000)" to "Archaic Across (1997-1998)" and "Classical Times (1998-2000)". Add a new chapter: "Website". Add Action SuperCross 1.1 online browser version (reference). Add the first Hungarian meeting (Jan-Feb 2001).
• 2024-05-11 Rewrite "Introduction" chapter. Add a screenshot of Action SuperCross being The Game of the Month in October 1997 in MikroBitti magazine. Add a screenshot of Action SuperCross being The Second Best Shareware Game of the Year 1998 in MikroBitti magazine February 1999 edition. Add a new chapter: "Player". Add Hordasc's Action SuperCross Homepage (1998-04-15).
• 2024-05-10 Add information about the first bounce levels. Add the first (known) ski jump level (by Pekka_T) (1998-04-28). Add the first (known) invisibile level (by Hunter) (1998-05-02). Add the first roller coaster levels by Michael P. (1998-04-12) and Pekka_T (1998-05-16).
• 2024-05-09 Add the second oldest (known) file (BENA.PCX) (1995-11-01). Add Across Future (by Hordasc) (1998-05-27). Add the first (known) Across forum post (by ShaD) (1998-05-05). Add the first (existing) evidence of ICQ chatting software (1998-07-31). Add a new chapter: "Communication". Add Nitro records (by BMX) (2001-02-07). Add the oldest (known) Elasto Mania record (by Dr_Luni) (2000-06-07). Add the Elasto Mania game graphics development versions (by MUe) (1999-03-20).
• 2024-05-07 Add the oldest country records (UK Speed Records) (1998-06-20). Add information about the oldest internal level by hard evidence (Uphill Battle) (1995-11-17). Add four screenshots of the different development versions of the motorbike in the game. Add a screenshot of the development version of Elasto Mania (1998-12-04). Improve the 1st and the 2nd Hungarian Elma Party sections (July-August 2001). Add PC Guru Hungarian Cup instructions (February 2001) and final results (July 2001). Add a list of the first players who started. Add a list of the first countries. Add the first (existing) unofficial Across website allegedly possibly existing already in 1997 (by Team O.G.P). Add the first Guestbook (1997 or 1999-10-06) (by Team O.G.P).
• 2024-05-06 Improve "Team" chapter. Add a link of the Discussion of alovolt (2002-04-29). Add alovolt program concept (by twipley) (2002-04-29). Add the number of different (known) Across WR players (109) (2024-05-07).
• 2024-05-05 Improve the "WR table" chapter. Add the first occurrence of the hooked-bug (1998-08-11) (by AnabOle). Add the first occurance of the start-bug (1998-12-10) (by DaRed). Add the first (existing) Across Total Times Top 21-60 list (1998-11-25).
• 2024-05-04 Add the first occurrence of the battle term (by Tony) (1998-12-27).
• 2024-05-01 Add WACT, one of the first three teams.
• 2024-04-21 Add the first Hungarian Cup (won by Tibity) (organized by MUe and PC Guru Magazine) (video by iCS) (2000-12-24).
• 2024-04-18 Add the first Moposite logo (by Abula) (2000-11-03).
• 2024-04-14 Rewrite "Elma Forever" chapter. Rename chapters "First WR statistics" to "WR statistics", "Bounces" to "Bounce", "Supervolts" to "Supervolt". Merge chapters "Mysterious WR replays" and "Funny replays" to a new chapter: "Replay". Rename chapters "Pre-battles" to "Battle", "New versions" to "Elasto Mania 1.0", "Modified physics" to "New physics", "Country, Average and top-X lists" to "Record lists". Add a new wish (Teams Database).
• 2024-04-13 Add a link to A (huge) list of teams (by SSC) (2001-04-18). Add How to become an elastomania cheater in 21 days (by SirEvilX) (2002-07-12). Add two Slowness replays (by Alazorn and Crazy).
• 2024-04-10 Add the author of fu9h (MUe) (1999-05-20).
• 2024-04-07 Add a screenshot of the mod.com WR table #22 (2000-03-03). Add the concept of finding secret areas. Add information of the level Invisibility being finished (by adi) (2024-01-04). Fix Freefall being the most improved level by 45 records (instead of 42). Add a screenshot of the 24H TT contest (by Abula) (2000-09-03). Add World Cup 3 video (by iCS). Add alias nick (SirEvilX).
• 2024-04-06 Rewrite "Across Days" chapter. Rename chapters "Software versions" to "Software", "Total times" to "Total time", "Teams" to "Team", "Official level packs" to "Level editor", "Early meetings" to "Meeting".
• 2024-04-06 Add videos of World Cup 1 and World Cup 2 (by iCS). Add the first existing supervolt (by zeth) (c. 1999-08-08). Add the first existing bounce (by Nikke) (c. 1999-01-19). Add the first existing WR replay (by Kaje) (1998-02-16). Add a link to Across WR Development (by Arzenik). Add a new the oldest Across WR table screenshot (by px) (before "Near x-mas 1997"). Add a link to Across Replay to Elma Replay Converter (by sunl) (2022-03-11). Add the first occurrence of The Official Total Times Top-20 list (1998-07-11).
• 2024-01-04 Add screenshots of the first discussion forums, PexiBBS (2000) and Mopolauta v1 (2001).
• 2023-12-01 Add Elasto Mania Done Quick (2023) (34:21,73) (by iCS). Fix Gasmaker's nation (SWE).
• 2023-10-19 Add Across Done Quick (2023) (32:24,94) (by Labs). Add Introduction to Elasto Mania Remastered feat. Elma Online (by Abula) (reference). Add Labs being the first player under 34 minutes and 33 minutes in the across total times list. Add the winner of LOS Cup 1 (Tapzu).
• 2022-04-03 Add text about game console versions.
• 2021-07-29 Improve text, grammar and presentation. Fix a bug in #ballelma battle results. Fix the image of Across times on paper (1999).
• 2021-01-03 Fix the picture of FM meeting 2007. Fix picture of sunl's Elma wiki profile. Improve text and grammar.
• 2020-06-09 Fix errors in Most WRs in one table statistics (2000-2019).
• 2020-05-29 Add Steam Elma to relevant chapters.
• 2020-05-27 Improve text. Add Spef under 35 minutes. Add Zweq having 51 different WRs. Fix broken videos (e.g. Elma Done Quick v2). Add Elma Crime. Add screenshot of the Community history from 2004. Add a song from MC Studios' second recording session (Vi hoyler mer). Add Instagram and Twitch to Social media chapter. Add a few saveload replays to "Dark moments" chapter. Add new WR statistics to "Final results" chapter: Longest time having the most WRs, Most WRs in one table (2000-2019) and Most different players/teams/countries in a single WR table. Add new observations to "Conclusions" chapter (The most fundamental question, The Mystery of Islands in the Sky).
• 2019-06-02 Add the screenshot of the development version of the game (1995-05-30). Add the fact zyntifox getting six WRs in a row, not five (Warm Up). Add the fact Zweq have had 50 different WRs (not 49). Add more credits for Internal Memories (Jappe2, nIN).
• 2018-04-12 Publish text.
• 2018-04-07 Finish "Age of EOL" chapter.
• 2018-03-08 Finish "Belma Period" chapter.
• 2018-02-21 Finish "Golden Era" chapter.
• 2017-11-11 Finish "Elma Forever" chapter.
• 2017-09-26 Finish "Across Days" chapter.
• 2017-09-21 Start writing.

Show full article history

Disclaimer🔝

As I myself, Abula, the author of this text, am one of the most active players of all time, the text might be a little bit subjective, perhaps even biased. On the other hand, a personal twist can make it more interesting to read. I refer to myself in the third person when it's relevant for the context.

I join the community in February 1999, so the events before that is second-hand information. Also, after 2007 I've been inactive except for 2017-2018 while writing this article. Fortunately, practically all relevant information and material, even from the very early days, exist. Events after 2018 are missing for obvious reasons.

Many players end up in the article because they are the first to do something, or in some way original, not always achieving the best results in terms of the game itself.

Everything in the article is written based on hard evidence when possible: IRC logs, forums, websites, interviews, file timestamps. Soft evidence is also used, especially when it's the only available source. Five interviews of the creator exists: by MOTOMEN (1999-01-22) (reference), by MUe (2001-07-21) (reference) (reference), by Kopaka (2002-11-14) (reference), by spillhistorie.no (2018-08-24) (reference) and by hungame.blog (2023-02-19) (reference).

Apart from the text itself, the lion's share of the multimedia material in the article is not owned by me. The original authors and sources are mentioned when possible and reasonable. It has been a common practice in the community to distribute material freely: levels, replays and other stuff. In legal terms, The History of Elasto Mania (1993–) is a popularized scientific presentation (reference) (reference). The replay viewer used in the article is programmed by Maxdamantus (reference). It's possible to zoom in and out in the timer area of the replay viewer.

The date format used in the article is YYYY-MM-DD, year-month-day. The text utilizes a few widely recognized abbreviations: aka (= also known as), sic (= quote contains error or errors intentionally), c. (= circa) and e.g. (= for example).

There's a discussion topic about the article (reference). The shortest web address to this page is: lev7.org/60.

Introduction🔝

A Hungarian programmer Rózsa Balázs creates a computer game that looks very simple at first glance but in essence has extremely complex and clever gameplay.

The first version of the game is named Action SuperCross (also known as Across) and it's published in February 1997. The next major version is named Elasto Mania (Elma) and it's published three years later, in February 2000. Several improved versions, both official and unofficial, have been published since the first versions. At the time of writing (June 2024) the most popular versions are EOL (v1.0.13) and Elasto Mania Remastered (8088026) which both use the same physics as the original Elasto Mania and only add new features on top of it (+ bugfixes), effectively keeping the world records table open for decades.

A fundamental goal in the game is to drive best times. However, you can also just relax and play through the levels like in a platform game. The sequel, Elasto Mania, the game the majority chooses to play since it's released, contains 54 original in-game levels, also known as internals. A player holding a world record in any of these levels, currently or in the history, is the The King of The Hill, The Champion of All Oceans, Godlike, Top Tier, Max Pro, The One, who shall be NEVER forgotten. At the time of writing there are 161 WR players in the history of Elasto Mania, including myself, Abula the Great, and at least 109 WR players in the history of Action SuperCross. There may be some players with duplicate nicknames, but the magnitude is around these figures. A total number of active players ever is a few thousands which can be calculated by finding the intersection of the players ever submitted something to Moposite and the players who appear in the EOL database. Many more have played the game at a friend's place or in a school class, and never realized a community exists.

Saving recorded video files of the gameplay (replays) (.rec files) (recs) is a crucial feature in the game. Replay files can be easily sent to other players and uploaded to the servers online – since 2010 it happens automatically.

Since the release of the second relevant version of the game, Action SuperCross 1.2 in March 1998, a level editor allows players to create custom levels, known as externals, and yes, the community produces thousands and thousands levels. What's more interesting than the total number of levels ever created are the various competitions that have emerged around the external levels: cups, battles and leagues, to name a few.

To finish a level, players must collect all the apples and then touch the flower with one of the bike's two wheels or the rider's head, generally speaking with any of three functional parts of the motorbike and the rider. Player dies by touching a killer by one of the functional parts or hitting their head on a wall (polygon). Other parts of the motorbike and the rider, also known as "kuski", are purely cosmetic.

Here are links to all the important Elasto Mania speedrun videos featured in the article and published so far, along with the first and current world records tables for reference.

• (2000-03-06) (TABLE) 44:26,47 (+10:04,78) The first WR table (#1) (reference)
• (2006-01-17) (VIDEO) 36:56,80 (+2:35,11) (by skint) (reference)
• (2007-07-28) (VIDEO) 35:58,33 (+1:36,64) (by skint) (reference)
• (2012-11-13) (VIDEO) 34:58,49 (+0:36,80) (by Kopaka) (reference)
• (2023-07-15) (VIDEO) 34:21:73 (+0:00,04) (by iCS) (#420) (reference)
• (2024-05-09) (TABLE) 34:21,69 (+0:00,00) The current WR table (#421) (reference)

If you plan to read the whole article, you can skip the videos for now. We'll be examining all the relevant styles, tricks, and routes in their historical context in the upcoming chapters, and the videos will be revisited as well.

Many Elasto Mania videos, like the ones shown previously, use high details graphics, like the first screenshot in the very beginning of this article. This is in contrast to most top-ranked players who usually prefer low details for better visual clarity, TorInge, one of the greatest of the greatest players, being the most notable exception.

The motorbike's controls are simple: gas, brake, left rotate, right rotate and turn. The gameplay is straightforward in principle, but what makes it possible to improve the original levels even after 20 years, is the fine granularity of the game physics. A tiny difference in timing, like pressing a right rotate 0.001 seconds earlier, can affect the next key press, and the next, ultimately granting the player just enough speed to finally make the big jump everybody has been aware of but no one ever nailed before.

There are three different ways to get a new record time. Either you find a new route, a new style, or improve the current record by doing the exact same moves, the same key presses but in a little bit more ideal way. The latter method is called "höylä" in the game slang, both as a verb and a noun. Two Finnish words, "kuski" and "höylä", are widely used in the community, but don't worry, these two are the only ones you need to know. Another relevant concept is trick, which generally means the same as style – a combination of moves, key presses to perform a complete style – but the term (trick) also has a more specific meaning. Community has identified and listed over 300 different tricks the bike can perform, and some of them have even been named after their founders, like deadbounce by deadnite.

Finding a new style, route or trick is great. The feeling is like landing on the Moon. It happens frequently when new levels are played for the first time, but if you play some of the original in-game levels from 2000 (or even 1995), finding a new style is very hard, practically impossible at the time of writing (June 2024). These days, the community competes mostly in battles and cups. The original world records have been "höyled" to the ultimate degree of what is humanly possible – and a bit more.

The game is programmed in Hungary, as already mentioned, but most of the active players come from the Nordic countries. The current total times list represents quite well the variety of the players' countries: Finland, Russia, Sweden, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Norway, Argentina, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, United States of America, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Belarus, France, Germany, Iceland, Ukraine, Denmark and Latvia.

The reason why Across and Elma become extremely popular in Finland, even to the degree that many people believe the game is made by a Finnish programmer, is most likely the gaming magazine named MikroBitti, which has a circulation of over 100,000 in its peak years. The magazine has a website called MBnet where the readers can download shareware versions of the games that are introduced in the magazine. MikroBitti also maintains a top-20 list of the monthly download numbers, and both Across and Elma are often among the most popular ones. Even some external level packs get into the top-20 of the most downloaded files in MBnet.

The first time MikroBitti writes about the game is when Action SuperCross 1.1 is introduced and titled as The Game of the Month in October 1997, eight months after the initial release. The next version, Action SuperCross 1.2, is mentiond for the first time in May 1998, in an advertisement of MBnet (reference), one month after v1.2 is released. The next edition, MikroBitti June-July 1998, mentions Across 1.2 twice (reference) (reference). Half a year later, Action Supercross [sic] is nominated The Second Best Shareware Game of 1998. Elasto Mania is also nominated The Game of the Month in April 2000 and one year later The Game of the Day (2001-03-03) (reference). Across and Elma are the most downloaded software in their peak months in MBnet.

According to the screenshots above, Action SuperCross 1.1 (shareware) is downloaded 4021 times, Action SuperCross 1.2 (shareware) 3030 times, and Elasto Mania (shareware) 7188 times. The months when the games don't get into the top-20 are missing in the numbers. Surely, many copies are also distributed through physical contacts among real-life friends, for example by spreading floppy disks in schools, even full versions of the games, warez so to speak.

I. Corfu (c. 1993)🔝

Since 2023-02-19, it's known that Balázs, the creator of the game, is inspirated by motorcycles in Corfu, specifically by an 80 cubic centimeter scooter (reference). Date of the trip is not exactly known but Balázs tells the idea becomes in spring (reference).

Balázs mentions in the interview that he starts riding a real motorcycle after the Corfu trip and using all vacations on that (reference). Climate in Corfu before May is rainy. The first hard evidence is a screenshot of the development version in 1995-05-30.

It's also known that Balázs is inspirated by Doom, a computer game released in 1993-12-10. Balázs tells to be playing Doom for a while and later wanting to create a game of his own (reference).

Rex, another computer game by Balázs, at least a television game, a minigolf game, is broadcasted in 1993-06-30 (reference). Balázs tells in two interviews that he has created simpler two-dimensional physics simulation programs before Across, a fact backed up by two company names commented out in the source code of Across (Epic MegaGames, Broderbund Software, Inc.) (reference).

Circumstantial evidence include the programming language used, Borland C++ 3.1, published in 1992, and tourism from Hungary to Corfu, increasing in the 90s, for several reasons, one being the collapse of USSR/CCCP in 1991-12-26 (reference) (reference).

Corfu trip may happen after Doom is released, basicly in 1994 because 1995 would mean Balázs visits Corfu in rainy season and programs very fast but this scenario is, in addition, contradicted by the fact of Balázs telling to use all vacations on riding a real motorcycle after Corfu which reduces the time even more. A more realistic scenario for Corfu trip is year 1993, possibly celebrating the Rex in TV which means Balázs is riding a real motorcycle in autumn 1993, playing Doom in winter 1993-1994 and then, in spring 1994, getting the idea of combining two great passions, motorcycles and Doom. One year later a working development version exists.

Theoretically it's possible that Corfu trip happens already in 1992 or even in the 80s but there is nothing to back up this hypothesis when the year 1993 is supported by the facts of the broadcast day of Rex, economy growing, especially in Eastern Europe, making travelling more affordable year by year, and why to program a minigolf game at first place if you are inspired by motorcycles?

In summary the most realistic timeline of the beginning is as follows: Rex in television (1993-06-30), Corfu trip (1993), Doom (1993-12-10), programming starts (spring 1994) and the first existing screenshot one year later (1995-05-30).

It's not known if Balázs keeps on riding a motorcycle while programming Across but because that's likely it's necessary to underline the fact. A man is programming Action SuperCross while riding a real motorcycle in the streets of Budapest. What a legend.

Corfu, derived from Greek (Coryphe) (Κορυφή), means "peak". Corfu is a Greek island having a Venetian fortress, built on the local mountain's twin peaks. Yes, on Twin Peaks of Corfu. Twin Peaks is the third original in-game level, and the first one having any character, because Warm Up and Flat Track are more like training levels (reference).

Action SuperCross has common with Doom at least the in-game timer (visible after the level is finished), menu graphics and wording, and three demo replays (reference). Doom is created in Texas.

II. Motor (c. 1994 – 1997 February)🔝

Programming Action SuperCross starts in 1994, most likely, as explained in the previous chapter, but the oldest existing hard evidence of the game is the screenshot of the development version in 1995-05-30.

The second oldest (known) file is BENA.PCX, the exit object before the flower (1995-11-01).

The oldest internal level by last modified date is Uphill Battle (1995-11-17) (reference) (reference) but by analyzing the level format evolution and by looking at the levels it's highly likely the first internal level is Slippery Slope (refenrece), although it's made by Barzci, not the creator of the game so it's also likely there are also levels created before Slippery Slope, perhaps just none of them got into the internals levelpack (reference). The screenshot of the first development version above looks like the start in Hill Legend (1995-05-30). Tunnel Terror is visible too (1995-11-30).

Three internal levels use older graphics than the other levels: Slippery Slope, On Top and The Turnaround. There are even older objects than that included in the game source files but they are not visible or usable in any level (reference).

Three replays are known from the era of Motor (c. 1994–1997), the in-game demo replays: Flat Track 0:26,72 (1996-08-14), Islands in the Sky 0:38,18 and a cool hang in Circuitous (1996-08-14) (reference). The replays contain only a few push key presses (rotate), Flat Track none. Balázs informs in a game file named TIPS.TXT (1997-02-11) that the rotate keys (left and right push) aren't included in the game in the beginning so the first three demo replays may be by him, representing the first playing style, later called no volt playing style.

Out of the first three replays Islands in the Sky (10.REC) is available only in the shareware version of Action SuperCross 1.0 and 1.1 versions. It's not included in the version 1.2 presumable because of the legendary reverse off-by-one error (reference) but there is no information why it's not included in the full version 1.0 or 1.1. And why Islands anyway? Flat Track is clear - it's a basic easy level, and Circuitous's cool hang is probably included for marketing reasons, especially because the level is not available in the shareware version, but why Islands? Later the mystery will go deeper. Flat Track replay is the oldest finished replay, 6 minutes younger than the Circuitous cool hang. The date of the Islands in the Sky replay is not known.

Since 2023 it's known that five replay files are mentioned in the source code that were never included in the demo replays (dw17.rec, dw20.rec, dw21.rec, dw23.rec and dw25.rec). There are also five rew files (w4.rew, w10.rew, w15.rew, w17.rew, w23.rew) (reference). The five or ten replays can be the oldest replays, just unpublished.

The game is programmed for the MS-DOS operating system. Most of the development is done using Borland C++ 3.1, and later Watcom (reference).

Action SuperCross is named "SuperCross" in 1996 (reference). The file list of Across 1.0 suggests the game is also refered to as "MOTOR" (1997-02-09) (reference). "Motoros" being the first name is also suggested (2014-11-03) (reference).

III. Archaic Across (1997 February – 1998 March)🔝

This chapter explores the first public steps of the game originally named Action SuperCross and its first two versions (1.0 and 1.1).

1. Action SuperCross

The first version of the game, Action SuperCross 1.0, is released in 1997-02-11. The game contains 24 levels and no level editor. Saving replays is supported. The main file is called ACROSS.EXE, so the alias, Across, exists by now.

Action SuperCross 1.1 is published 41 days later and it contains only bugfixes (1997-03-24). It's common to refer to the first two versions by Across 1.0/1.1 because from the gameplay's point of view the versions are practically same.

In the beginning, the cost to buy a license for the game is 29.95 USD (reference).

Editor's note: To play Across 1.0/1.1 in the year 2024, you need an MS-DOS emulator (e.g. DOSBox) or you can play via Steam (reference). The game can also be tested in a browser version online (reference). To get a world record, you must publish a video recording of your physical playing, with a clear view of your fingers in particular.

2. World Record

For most players, the first observation about the game is the crazy suspensions of the bike and the strange physics in general. However, to become truly interested, the player must notice the timer and the current local record times in the top corners of the playing screen (visible in most of the screenshots above).

It may seem almost unnecessary to even have a timer in the first place, since it's enjoyable enough to cruise through the levels, perform big airy jumps, swing nice hangs, and go full speed around the loops. However, after a while, this can get monotonous. Essentially, the timer adds much more depth to the game.

After the player has driven some good times, even records in the local database (state.dat), they usually want to know if there is a world records list online. And yes, there definitely is. The World Records list (WR table) has been running since the game is published (1997-02-11), and after 27 years, it's still going strong (2024-05-25).

In the existing Across 1.0/1.1 WR tables Mikko and Nikke have most of the WRs but does it tell more about their driving skills or screenshot taking skills, is not known. During the next era, Classical Times (1998–2000), Mikko, Nikke, Jouni and Kaje found a team. Pekka_T (aka PeXi) (aka px) has a WR 0:14,22 in Slippery Slope in 1998-02-08, 43 days before the next era, which will be the oldest WR on table six months later (reference).

Number of Across WRs by player (1997-1998)

#     Player     WRs
--------------------
1.    Mikko       35
2.    Nikke       18
3.    Jouni        6
4.    Kaje         5
5.    JyPPe        4
6.    Atte         3
7.    BaSSe E      2
      DiskJet      2
      Janne        2
      JJSaari      2
      Zamppa       2
12.   Pekka_T      1
...

Updated: 2024-05-25

More

• Across WR table archive (reference)
• Across WR statistics (reference)

3. Website

The official website shown in the WR table screenshots above is obviously the first Action SuperCross website. The web address of the website is provided in the README.TXT file. The official website, or at least the web address of the official website, exists at least in 1997-02-10 (reference).

The official website has probably always looked the same, styled with the colours of the Hungarian flag, featuring the classical red–white–green theme.

The second oldest Across website is an official website as well, or at least semi-official, called Pik, a website that distributes Action SuperCross. Pik is also the first (existing) occurrence where Action SuperCross is mentioned outside the game files (1997-04-11) (reference).

The oldest unofficial website is unclear, but Team O.G.P from the USA and Joni from Finland have the year 1997 mentioned in the footers of their websites (reference) (reference) (reference). The oldest unofficial website by the actual content, a contemporary snapshot, is from February–March 1998 by hlaner from Finland. In addition, PeXi mentions in the Kuski of Month interview that he had a section for Across in his own homepage "ages ago", but at least before April 1998 (reference). Besides the four, no other websites are known during Archaic Across (1997–1998).

Team O.G.P may be the first team ever and the only team created during Archaic Across (1997–1998), but the team or any of its members is never seen in any other unofficial website. There is no evidence if the team existed when the footer's "1997" is written or only in 1999 when the website is last updated (1999-01-23) (reference). The first team by hard evidence is ASC, which declares to be the first team ever in 1998-03-23 or earlier (reference).

Joni's website shows the world records between the WR tables in 1998-02-14 and 1998-03-15 (reference) (reference). The website lists Hangman WR by Kaje (0:18,78) which may be a typo because no other source mentions the time. Instead 0:18,76 is a world record by hard evidence. The replay time accuracy in Across is 0,03.

The oldest full snapshot of any Action SuperCross website, by hlaner, is amazingly still online. The website doesn't have any other title than The Best Times Of Finnish Action Supercross Players [sic] (reference) (2024-05-25). The exact date of the snapshot is between the same WR tables as Joni's website but it's probably slightly older because three of the records are slower (Long Haul, The Turnaround, Hangman).

In summary there is no hard evidence who publishes the first (unofficial) website in the history but it's probably O.G.P, Joni or hlaner.

4. Country

At this point we have seen the flags of Hungary twice (WR table, welcome screen background), United States of America and Finland but at least two more countries exist during Archaic Across (1997–1998): New Zealand and Poland.

The first Action SuperCross README.TXT states the fastest player in the world is Dylan Cooper, and Csaba, Balázs' brother, is the second fastest (1997-02-11) (reference). LEV#01.DIZ connects Dylan Cooper to New Zealand (1998-05-19) (reference) but it's also known that Dylan probably doesn't live in New Zealand anymore in 1997 (but in Budapest) (reference).

Drawing the line between the countries is harder than one could think of but let's ignore the differences between country, nation and origin, for now.

Finland presents at the latest in October 1997 (MikroBitti) but someone must have written the text published in the magazine, most likely a Finnish person, and most likely at least one month earlier. The screenshot in MikroBitti shows someone playing Twin Peaks where the current local record is 1:25,74 (reference).

freak from Poland announces in 2002-10-08 that Fair Trial WR 0:13,40 is by him, QrusH (in the WR table "Near X-mas 1997") (reference).

The first Action SuperCross countries

1. Hungary (1995-05-30) (reference)
2. New Zealand (1997-02-11) (reference)
3. Finland (October 1997) (reference)
4. Poland (Late December 1997) (reference) (reference)
5. United States of America (1997) (reference)

If we accept soft evidence, Czech Republic appears in May 1997 (reference), Finland already in Summer 1997 (reference), Norway in Late 1997 (reference) and Australia "maybe" in 1997 (reference). Additionally, kind of, USA appears already in 1993-12-10 and Greece even before that.

Outside of the development crew Hungary presents first time in the acpack06 (1998-05-06) (reference).

5. Player

The first player outside the development crew, by hard evidence, is the unknown MikroBitti player in October 1997 who is playing Twin Peaks or at least writing an article about the game. The article is written most likely a few months before October 1997. Since December 1997 the WR table screenshots introduce many more players.

1. Balázs the Creator (1995-05-30) (reference)
2. Barczi the Uphill Battle (1995-11-17) (reference)
3. Csaba the Brother (1995-12-29) (reference)
4. Dylan Cooper – "The Fastest Player in The World" (1997-02-11) (reference)
5. The unknown MikroBitti player (October 1997) (reference)
6. Tupe, Alzi, Pollution, Mikko, Jouni, Skeletor, HazE, Janne, BaSSe E, Myssi, Itchi, DiskJet, Stepkid (Early December 1997) (reference)
7. Atte, Jay, Janne, QrusH, Kimble (Late December 1997) (reference)
8. Nikke, MikTor, Kimble, JJSaari, Kaje (1998-01-25) (reference)
9. Perkele, Pekka_T, JyPPe (1998-02-13) (reference)
10. Zamppa, Fre0n, Mazor (1998-03-15) (reference)

By soft evidence it's known that mrickx starts in May 1997, Pekka_T, Jokke, Markku, psy and Zweq in October 1997, skint0r in late 1997, Mick "maybe" in 1997 and Abula watches the game over a shoulder in October 1997 (reference).

Dylan almost gets his name included in one internal level because the acpack01 version of Downhill has a text "Slow down, Dylan!" when in Elasto Mania the text is just "Slow down", without "!".

6. Replay

The official WR table contains occasionally a few WR replays like one of the WR tables above (1998-01-25) but those replays have not preserved (Long Haul, Tunnel Terror). The oldest existing WR replay is 22 days younger Hangman 0:18,76 by Kaje (1998-02-16), which is the only existing replay from the Archaic Across (1997–1998) era.

Summary

Number of hard evidence during Archaic Across (1997–1998), the era of Action SuperCross 1.0 and 1.1 – the first 405 days the game is available for the public – is scarce and limited. Because of this, it's not possible to tell if the chapter actually reflects the reality very well. However, at least since December 1997, when the first WR table screenshots exist, the picture begins to become clearer.

It's evident by now that when MikroBitti introduces Action SuperCross in October 1997 it has a big impact amongst the Finnish players resulting not only to the WR table domination but also streaming energy into the community as a whole which will be seen more clearly during the next era.

IV. Classical Times (1998 March – 2000 February)🔝

(ATTENTION: The article is being rewritten. The process is currently at this point (2024-10-04).)

The chapter looks at the classical era of Action SuperCross, the period between a new relevant version, Action SuperCross 1.2, and the next major version, Elasto Mania.

1. Action SuperCross 1.2

Version 1.2 is published in 1998-03-23, 364 days after Across v1.1 and 405 days after Across v1.0. The new minor version introduces a level editor and 21 new internals, total being 42 now. Three old levels, Fair Trial, Slippery Slope and On Top are dropped out and The Turnaround and The Enigma are modified radically and renamed to Turnaround II and Enigma II. Version 1.3 includes only updated registration information 289 days later (1999-01-06).

The game costs 29.95 USD in the beginning as mentioned but later the price is lowered to 19 USD (1999-04-21) (reference).

In summary there are four different Action SuperCross versions technically (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) but practically just two: 1.0 and 1.2, or more explicitly referred to as 1.0/1.1 and 1.2/1.3. According to the semantic versioning principles the version numbers should be 1.0, 1.0.1, 2 and 2.0.1 because the total times of Across 1.0/1.1 and Across 1.2/1.3 are incomparable, breaking the backward compatibility, although the concept of the total times is not existing yet, so the versions could be also: 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0, 1.1.1. The most straightforward way to refer to the different versions is using "Across 1.0" and "Across 1.2". By dates the unambiguous versions are "1997 February", "1997 March", "1998" and "1999".

More

• Information about Action SuperCross (2006) (reference)
• History of the internal levels (2024-06-02) (reference)

Across 1.2 is published in 1998-03-23 but the date of the first Across 1.2/1.3 WR table (shown below) is not accurately known but ShaD, a player having three WRs in the table, writes in his website: "When the new Best Times table in the Action SuperCross Homepage was first released at April, I had three World Records at the start." (reference) Also Csaba, the brother of the author, has two WRs. An educated guess for the accurate date is 1998-04-26 because it's Sunday and like in the next major version, Elasto Mania, published 33 days after the game is released (although that happened on Monday).

As visible in the screenshots, Finnish players Mikko (from Nokia city), Nikke (Nokia), Mazor and Jouni rule in the beginning. Jokke (Espoo) and psym0rph (aka psy) (Turku) are also very successful in the Across years. Later more players join such as Champi0N, BoBBo (aka KingKong), Mandel, TuA, DeG and Ntc from team PRA (Piteå, Sweden) and zeth, loX, JohnDoe and Omni from team tLD (Norway).

The first preserved WR tables including the famous table numbers are #315 (1998-12-10) and #321 (1999-01-06). Since #337 practically all tables exist up to the current one #439 (2024-05-05). It's rumoured the table numbering started from #300.

As can be deduced from the data the world records list is updated about 1-3 times per week at this point.

Since 2024 Across WR statistics exists thanks to Arzenik (reference).

Number of Across WRs by player (1997-2024)

#     Player       WRs    Modern
--------------------------------
1.    Mikko         64
2.    Labs          46       X
3.    Nikke         43
4.    Stikky        39       /
5.    ChampiON      36
6.    Mazor         33
7.    Fulgore       21
8.    Arzenik       20       X
      Jouni         20
10.   Kaje          19
      Mandel        19
      Jokke         19
13.   Joni          18
14.   PeXi          17
15.   zeth          16
      KingKong      16
      Jyppe         16
18.   JohnDoe       15
19.   TuA           13
20.   DMC           12
      psy           12
22.   mr            11
23.   Barbapappa    10       X
      JJSaari       10
      Robeloto      10       X
26.   Karlis         8
      Omni           8
28.   Ufo            7
29.   DeG            6
      Eppu           6
      Peddo          6
      Sventurbo      6
      Zamppa         6
      zyntifox       6

Updated: 2024-05-07

More

• Current Across WR table (2024-05-21) (reference)
• Across WR statistics (reference)
• Across WR table archive (1997–) (reference)

Team KGB has a page to contain professional level replays for every internal, but generally speaking replays were scarce, even discouraged to be spread, not only revealing the style and losing the edge but also demolishing other players joy of finding. Later this is considered as bullshit and replays are encouraged to be spread. Elma Ultimate DVD and Arzenik's Across WR Statistics Sheet contain some Across replays (2024-05-11) (reference).

More

• Across Replay to Elma Replay Converter (2022-03-11) (reference)

2. Level editor

Playing Across isn't only about driving best times. Level designing part of the community is also strong. Level editor is added to the game and released in 1998-03-23. Doom contains also custom levels, called as WAD files (reference).

Making levels in Across (and in Elma) is very simple, yet there is plenty of room for creativity. Experienced level designers can make decent levels in minutes but it's also common to use hours to improve details, polish and test different route variations.

Both Across and Elma have one bonus level as the last level that is virtually unfinishable: the 43rd level in Across and the 55th in Elma. Both levels advertise the homepage of the game, the so-called official website, and the extra material.

The official website didn't only share more levels made by the Rózsa brothers, such as Hooked and Downhill, the two levels which are published as Elasto Mania internal levels two years later, but also lots of new levels made by other players. The idea to give a platform for players to get their levels published to the world is a big boost for the community, even the level makers' nations were told when known.

Levels in the first Across external level pack (acpack01) are created between 1998-03-20 and 1998-05-19. The pack includes a level by Pekka_T (1998-04-30) (reference), two levels by Hordasc (1998-04-24), one by ShaD (1998-04-23), one by Basse E (1998-04-16), one by JohnDoe (1998-04-26) and one by Dylan Cooper (1998-03-20) (reference).

At this point it's possible to say that Hordasc and Pekka_T (aka PeXi) (aka px) are the most active all-around players in the beginning, both creating web sites and external levels, Pekka_T even having a WR during Archaic Across (1997–1998).

The most common level a new player creates is the infamous speedloop level type because what could be more fun than a MEGA speed level? In reality speed levels are discouraged because controlling the bike at high speed is close to impossible. The level packs released in the official website are full of speedloop levels but they exist also amongst the internals, such as Spiral and Bumpy Journey.

The quality of the official website's level packs (aka official level packs) levels is moderate but the official levels are ... official. Rumours tell that the official website had also the best times lists of the official levels, but at least in December 1998 (and in 1999-04-04) team KDF maintains the records list (reference) (reference) (reference).

Big names in the official level packs during Across Days (1995–2000)

Level pack    Designer     First level
--------------------------------------
acpack01      BaSSe E       1998-04-16
acpack01      ShaD          1998-04-23
acpack01      Hordasc       1998-04-24
acpack01      JohnDoe       1998-04-26
acpack01      Pekka_T       1998-04-30
acpack03      Myssi         1998-05-09
acpack04      Toble         1998-05-16
acpack06      Kumiorava     1998-08-02
acpack07      TonyLee       1998-08-11
acpack12      Orcc          1998-10-04
acpack15      onlainari     1999-01-21
acpack17      psy           1999-01-24
acpack17      Timmo         1999-05-01
acpack19      ZanguiZ       1999-05-25
acpack20      Blake         1999-06-29
acpack21      Stikky        1999-07-09
acpack22      veezay        1999-07-09
acpack21      Matte         1999-07-25
acpack22      DC            1999-11-06
acpack24      zo3non        1999-12-02

First level types during Across Days (1995–2000)

Level            Created        Author
--------------------------------------
SKIJUMP.LEV      1998-04-28     PeXi
INVISIBL.LEV     1998-05-02     Hunter
BOUNCE.LEV       1998-05-17     Janne P.

Source: acpack01.zip (etc.)

Blake, psy, Petri and umiz publish level designing guides during Across Days (1995–2000).

More

• Blake's Level Designing Tips (1998) (reference)
• Official level packs (reference)

Good levels during Across Days (1995–2000)

Elma Ultimate / Zebra's All levels
--------------------------------------------------------
Misc level packs     >  Blake's levels
Misc level packs     >  Hordasc's levels
Moposite levels      >  Custom levels (1-21)
Official levelpacks  >  acpack17: APEASY, APGURU, APHARD
Team TAP levels      >  Old across levs
World Cup levels     >  Wcup 1, 2k

External levels made in Across work also in Elasto Mania.

The first official level pack (acpack01) includes levels made by BaSSe E (1998-04-16), ShaD (1998-04-23), Hordasc (1998-04-24), JohnDoe (1998-04-26) and Pekka_T (1998-04-30) (reference). Hordasc and Pekka_T (aka PeXi) (aka px) are the most active all-around players in the beginning.

The first (existing) external level made outside of the development team is 5.lev which is created 18 days after the level editor is released (reference) (1998-04-10). 5.lev is made by Nick from England which is interesting because the WR table mentions United Kingdom in the "Late April 1998" WR table. In addition, UK Speed Records in 1998-06-20 is preserved (reference) so which one is it: England or United Kingdom?

3. Nation

acpack25.zip includes kaavik.lev (reference) which designer is connected to Qassimiut, a small village in Greenland, where lives 61 people at that time (2000-02-19) (reference). Greenland belongs to Denmark but do Greenlandics form a nation?

There is no consensus even today if the community should use countries or nations, current or original. Is it more interesting to know where the record is driven geographically or what nation the player represents? Today or originally? For example the first acpack01 connects Dylan Cooper to New Zealand when he is living in Hungary at that time (reference).

The previous era, Archaic Across (1997–1998), introduces the five first nations (by hard evidence): Hungary, New Zealand, Finland, Poland and USA. The next lists shows the nations mentioned for the first time during Classical Times (1998–2000).

6. Sweden (1998-04-09) (reference)
7. Norway (1998-04-20) (reference)
8. United Kingdom (Late April 1998) (reference)
9. Czech Republic (April 1998) (reference)
10. Spain (1998-05-08) (reference)
11. France (1998-05-11) (reference)
12. Slovenia (1998-06-21) (reference)
13. Australia (1998-07-24) (reference)
14. Luxembourg (1998-08-04) (reference)
15. Canada (1998-08-12) (reference)
16. Estonia (1998-10-23) (reference)
17. Denmark (1999-01-06) (reference)
18. Israel (1999-04-27) (reference)
19. Uruguay (1999-08-12) (reference)
20. Netherlands (1999-08-20) (reference)
21. Portugal (1999-08-28) (reference)
22. Italy (1999-09-10) (reference)
23. Argentina (1999-11-06) (reference)
24. Ireland (1999-12-01) (reference)
25. Iceland (1999-12-19) (reference)
26. Lithuania (2000-02-09) (reference)
27. Germany (2000-04-24) (reference)

The American part of the community is relatively active in the beginning. There are even three different American Records websites: Tony's "U.S. Best Times" (1998-12-27) (reference), Blake's "USA Best Times" (1999-10-29) (reference) and Team O.G.P's "The Best American Times" (1999-01-23) (reference).

Nine different nations are known in the Across WR tables: Finland (Early December 1997), Poland (Late December 1997), United States of America and Hungary (Late April 1998), Norway and Sweden (1998-11-17), Australia (1999-09-13), Canada (2002-02-04) and Czech Republic (2020-07-07).

4. Team

The WR table allows animated team logos already in 1998 and the tradition has lasted ever since. Every serious Across or Elma team must have a cool GIF logo. All the existing logos during Across Days are presented next. The list is sorted by the dates of the first appearances.

There isn't 100 % objective and clear evidence when the first team is founded and whose idea it originally is but we do know that in 1998-03-15 the WR table does not contain teams but eight days later a visitor counter is (allegedly) reset in a webpage containing ~asc in the website address (1998-03-23), in the exact same day when Across 1.2 is released. The "~asc" website contains a statement that Acrossive SuperCrossers is the first Action SuperCross team ever (from Mikkeli, Finland) (reference). In addition the original filename of the ASC's team logo is named as logo.gif suggesting it's the first team logo.

In 1998-04-09 Team TAC, The ACrossers (Luleå, Sweden) decleares to be a new team (reference).

Team O.G.P which is never seen in WR table, nor World Cup results or anywhere else, has a website, including guestbook, that has a "1997" text in the footer (reference). Technically Team O.G.P can be the first Across team ever, publishing the first (unofficial) Across website ever and maintaining the first Across guestbook ever (1997 or 1999-10-06). Team O.G.P is from the United States of America.

The "Late April 1998" is the first WR table containing team logos: ASC, EMT (Nokia, Finland) and WACT (Kauniainen, Finland). Team karihola (origin unknown) exists in the WR table of 1998-07-19 and team FIN (Haukipudas, Finland) is founded in 1998-09-23 (reference).

Teams founded during Across Days (1995-2000)

Quarter     Team(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998/Q1     ASC
1998/Q2     TAC, EMT, WACT, NC
1998/Q3     karihola, KDF, TGR, tMM, FIN
1998/Q4     TE, SAM, KoC, CM, CC, KA, FOX96, ISS, ICS, CIA, TAM, KSC, MOTOMEN, PRA, T98
1999/Q1     IAC, ahf, HC, TC, TEG
1999/Q2     GA, CWS, FFH, Da, MMX, DL, NN, tLD
1999/Q3     SAT, UA, DIA, TTS, AAF
1999/Q4     AA, MoA, SSC
2000/Q1     FM, HfK, MC, APP

The data above is based on the first existing appearances of the teams: ASC (1998-03-23) (reference), TAC (1998-04-09) (reference), EMT (April 1998) (reference), WACT (April 1998) (reference), NC (1998-05-16) (reference), karihola (1998-07-19) (reference), McT (1998-05-25) (reference), KDF (1998-07-16) (reference), TGR (1998-09-10) (reference), tMM (1998-09-10) (reference), FIN (1998-09-23) (reference), TE (1998-10-14) (reference), SAM (1998-11-09) (reference), KoC (1998-11-14) (reference), CM (1998-11-14) (reference), CC (1998-11-19) (reference), KA (1998-12-02), FOX96 (1998-12-02), ISS (1998-12-02), ICS (1998-12-02), CIA (1998-12-02), TAM (1998-12-02), KSC (1998-12-02) (reference), MOTOMEN (1998-12-08) (reference), T98 (1998-12-10), PRA (1998-12-10) (reference), IAC (1999-03-06) (reference), ahf (1999-03-06) (reference), HC (c. 1999-03-13) (reference, the Across WR development), TC (c. 1999-03-20), TEG (March 1999) (reference), GA (1999-04-14) (reference), CWS (1999-05-04), FFH (1999-05-04), Da (1999-05-25) (reference), MMX (1999-05-28) (reference), DL (1999 June), NN (1999 June), tLD (1999 June-July), SAT (1999 July), UA (1999-07-24), DIA (1999-08-26), Fed. (1999-08-30), TTS (1999-08-30), AAF (1999-09-13), AA (1999-10-27), MoA (1999-11-30), SSC (1999-12-12) (reference), FM (2000-01-15), HfK (2000 January), MC (2000-01-25) and APP (2000-02-04) (reference).

ASC is the first (significant) Across team. It is founded by Zamppa and Mazor in the very same day or at least near to the day when Across 1.2 is out (1998-03-23). This is a convenient fact for the long history because now we see the first 405 days of Across 1.0/1.1 is a very primitive era, early antiquity, not even teams exist, close to stone age.

There is no hard evidence in what order TAC, WACT and EMT are created. They all exist during the "Late April 1998" WR table. According to general life experience there might have been one WR table where only ASC is present because that would explain the burst of so many new teams in March–April 1998. ASC may have appeared first time even already in Across 1.0 WR table but on the other hand Zamppa and Mazor don't have any world records in the existing Across 1.0/1.1 WR tables. In addition Jouni and Mikko, the members of EMT, do have world records in those tables, even in the oldest existing WR table ("Early December 1997") so eventhough ASC is the first team decleared, the teamwork is already happening at least four months earlier by a group later named as EMT.

Team PRA (Piteå, Sweden) appears in the WR table in 1998-12-10 and the first news in their website is dated to 1999-02-05. PRA is often considered the best Across team.

Typically teams have own webpage containing a history section, members information and team records. The primary communication tools are IRC (1998-05-31) (reference) and ICQ (1998-07-31) (reference), later Discord (2018).

Dynamics of the Action SuperCross make teams strategically wise to have because by sharing routes and styles within a limited group of people (e.g. team members), the fastest routes can be developed more effectively.

The number of different teams in World Cup 1 is 26 (1999-08-01) and 32 in World Cup 2 (2000-01-29). In the existing Across WR tables total of 44 teams are present.

Initially the first teams consist of real life friends but soon after teams start to emerge with members living in different cities, even in different countries. SSC (Scandinavian SuperCrossers) is the first international super team where all members are from different geographical locations.

More

• ASC team page (1998-03-23) (reference)
• TAC team page (1998-04-09) (reference).
• WACT team page (1998) (reference)
• PRA team page (1999-02-05) (reference)
• A (huge) list of teams by SSC (2001-04-18) (reference)

5. PeXi's Across Page

Community as a term doesn't exist at this point but communal steps can be clearly seen already during the Across days. The first steps are the world records table and the official level packs which offer players methods to find others, create material and share it.

The second step in the community maturation is the first central (unofficial) website containing all kind of bonus material for the game: PeXi's Across Page. PeXi's first major version ("green version"), is published in 1998-04-26 and during the service it gathers about a hundred daily visitors. In the Kuski of Month interview PeXi reveals he had one more website even before the green version that had own section for Across (reference). Other websites published before the PeXi's Across Page are websites of team TAC (1998-04-09), team ASC (1998-03-23) and possibly team O.G.P (1997).

The second major version (grey version) is published one year later (1999-05-09) and it's titled as PeXi's Across Site. The daily number of visitors is three hundred now.

PeXi updates the websites regularly, write news about the Across world and initiates several popular concepts such as total times (first evidence in 1998-05-05), #across IRC channel (1998-07-14), World Cup (1999-04-04) and a page called Stuff for all kind of random miscellaneous art work (1998-12-20). The first roller coaster level, at least after TRACK.LEV (by Michael P. from Michigan, USA) (reference) (1998-04-12), PEKKA_T'.LEV [sic] locates in acpack03 (1998-05-16) (reference). PeXi invents also the first ski jump and pipe levels after the level editor has been available two months.

Balázs likes PeXi's work and adds a link to his website under the world records table. KGB, ahf, Tumex and Yoobydoo get their links added too (reference).

PeXi lists the number of visitors in his websites in the Kuski of Month interview (August 2002) (reference).

PeXi is a strict ruler and during his reign publishing replays is slightly discouraged and it doesn't happen very much, yet the official WR table shares a few samples ones to prove new players the world records are actually possible and real. Throughout the history some websites have always been giving away some good replays free of charge, even when it is discouraged. In later years practically all styles and relevant replays are published. Hordasc mentiones replay trade in 1998-09-21 (reference).

More

• PeXi's Across Page (1999-05-09) (reference) (reference)
• PeXi's Across Site (2000-02-07) (reference) (reference)

6. Total time

One of the most important early innovations is the concept of total times (TT), player's all (internal level) records summed up to one aggregated total time. Across doesn't have a built-in total time counter but it's possible to calculate it manually.

PeXi's The Official Total Times Top-20 list is referred to for the first time in 1998-07-11 (reference) and the first preserved screenshot is taken ten months later (1999-04-28) but the first evidence of the total times concept is RecPage program, mentioned in the TAC's website (1998-05-05) (reference). The first existing output of the program is Sniper vs. Pekka_T (1998-06-07).

Since 1998-09-25 every total time minute limit breaker is known.

Total times minute limit breaks in Across Days (1995–2000)

Limit       Player         Nat.    Date
---------------------------------------------
40 mins     Nikke          FIN     1998-09-25
39 mins     Mazor          FIN     1998-12-19
38 mins     Joni           FIN     1999-02-10
37 mins     Champi0N       SWE     1999-05-28
36 mins     Champi0N       SWE     1999-06-26

... Elasto Mania is released ...

35 mins     Stikky         USA     2003-01-21
34 mins     Labs           HUN     2022-06-04
33 mins     Labs           HUN     2022-07-13

Total times are great because they can be used to rank players. Practically every player has a public total time and it's based on the official levels.

When Elasto Mania is released in 2000-02-03, virtually no one keep on playing Across – except three years later Stikky applies styles found during the Elma years and goes under a new minute limit barrier (35 mins). Nineteen years later Labs does the same and goes under 34 and 33 minutes.

In Across 1.0/1.1 total times are not competed.

More

• Across Total Times top-20 list (current) (reference)
• Across Total Times ranking list from 21 to 60 (2001-07-30) (reference)

7. World Cup (1 and 2000)

The first World Cup (aka WCup, aka WC) lasts four months (from 1999-04-04 to 1999-08-01) and the winner is BoBBo from Sweden.

The idea of the world cup or cups in general is publishing a new external level every Sunday which is played during the next week. The results are broadcasted on live. Because the styles and replays are not usually shared outside of the teams during the week, the results are surprising to almost everyone. The positions are revealed one by one, starting from the bottom, to maintain tension and boost hype.

Top-10 players in World Cup 1

#    Player        Team    Nat.   Points
----------------------------------------
1.   BoBBo         PRA     SWE     422
2.   Jokke         HC      FIN     416
3.   Mandel        PRA     SWE     350
4.   kuiva         FIN     FIN     311
5.   Mazor         ASC     FIN     309
6.   Nikke         EMT     FIN     284
7.   Dr.Across      -      SWE     278
8.   Fulgore       FIN     FIN     277
9.   Jyppe         ASC     FIN     251,5
10.  Gasmaker      Da      SWE     243

Teams are very effective in cups because it's faster to find better styles when you co-operate with other players. And the faster you find the right style, the more time you have for improving all the little details and get the time you are satisfied with.

The first World Cup gathers 204 players, 26 teams and contains 15 events. The top players in the final standings are typically slightly different players than the ones dominating the internal level lists, world records table and total times. Cups are more about the team work and endurance than super höyling.

World Cup competition is the most popular contest type, at least after battles. At the time of writing the ninth World Cup is running (2024-04-05). The first two World Cups are organized during the Across days, in years 1999 and 2000.

World Cups are good status checks of the community because the competition tends to gather hundreds of players including both contemporary pros and old masters.

World Cup 2000

The second World Cup, World Cup 2 (aka World Cup 2000) is organized right after the first World Cup. It lasts four months (from 1999-09-26 to 2000-01-29), gathers 246 players, 32 teams and contains 15 events. Dr_Luni from Sweden dominates the cup.

Top-10 players in World Cup 2

#    Player       Team    Nat.   Points
---------------------------------------
1.   Dr_Luni      FM      SWE     920
2.   psymorph     FM      FIN     714,5
3.   Champi0n     PRA     SWE     675
4.   zeth         tLD     NOR     652
5.   YeeS         FM      NOR     606
6.   loX          tLD     NOR     602
7.   Stene        FM      NOR     550,5
8.   BoBBo        PRA     SWE     531
8.   Jokke        FM      FIN     531
10.  Karlis       FM      FIN     477,5

8. Abula, Tuska, Ultra, Carju

My personal career starts in summer 1999 when we (Abula, Tuska, Carju, Ultra) found our first team, FAST – Finnish Action SuperCross Team. Before buying my first computer a day before 2000 I update my personal records on paper.

FAST manages to find PeXi's Across Site, the grey one, and see two professional replays, Circuitous and Over and Under, which are much better we have seen so far. It's a shock. Also seeing a picture of Mandel inside the Headbanger pipe is a mind blown. How that is possible?

Headbanger, one of the original internal levels contains an accidental shortcut when the gaps between the polygons are wide enough to be used as an alternative route. The gap used in the WR route is a very hard shortcut but also very beneficial because it saves over 15 seconds.

In fact many internal levels have these kind of hidden shortcuts, intentional or unintentional, and tricks which players will find during the upcoming years. Headbanger pipe is most likely the first one discovered out of the big shortcuts.

Eventually Ultra makes the pipe half way through. In that moment we fully understand the crazyness of the game. The bike is so flexible that unbelievable tricks can be done.

Using the Headbanger pipe shortcut is rare in the Across days and only a few players are able to do it. In Elma it's an easier trick and a few hundred players have done it – including myself, Abula the Great.

FAST is renamed to Mahti Crossers (MC) soon after and Tuska creates a team logo for us. The greatest achievements of MC during the Across years are Tuska's WR in The Enigma (version 1.0/1.1) and the 10th place in the World Cup 2 team standings (out of 32 teams).

In the late 1999 a new player appears in the Top-20 total times list: Markku. Markku submits his best times and takes the 3rd position out of blue. To do the Markku has a special meaning in the community which means to achieve something big out of nowhere.

Markku doesn't have a team so I email him a several A4 pages long story and he agrees it. Markku joins MC in 2000-01-06 and takes 39 out of the 42 team records.

They teach us in the school how to use IRC after which we find the #across channel. There we see and even talk to the great heroes such as Karlis, psy and the toughest of all, Tisk, the channel operator.

Another boost for team MC is the random coincidence that PeXi, the administrator of the biggest central Across website, happens to live in Haukipudas, only 20 km from Oulu where we live. It gets even crazier when Tuska sees a person looking like PeXi sitting in the computer class in Tuska's school, Karjasillan lukio (autumn 1999). There are about twenty upper secondary schools in the Oulu area, not to mention in whole Finland, so it is a miracle to be in the same class. The detective work is completed when Tuska recognizes PeXi's real name in the running results. A meeting is arranged and the rest is history.

9. Meeting

Most of the first teams are founded by real life friends but the term "meeting" refers to an event where players meet each others after they have met online first. It's no problem to participate in the community and be very active without ever meeting anyone in real life, but it's a nice bonus to share live moments around these crazy games.

The only meetings during Across Days (1995–2000) are PeXi's swimming trip to Tampere in 1998-11-08 and a bus trip to Piteå in 1999-07-29. In Tampere PeXi [FIN] and T0rPeD0 [FIN] meet Mikko [EMT] and Lusu [CIA] and in Piteå PeXi meets several members of PRA, the best Swedish team at that time.

10. Communication

Meetings are great place to have discussions but to talk with players around the world it's easier to do online where sharing replays and other files is also possible and fast. The first signs of any online discussion platforms are team O.G.P's guestbook which may have been published in 1997 but at least ShaD, a WR player, is having an active discussion in the USA Forum half year later (1998-05-05) where is also mentioned IRC, for the first time known.

The first (existing) IRC log is from 1998-07-31 (reference).

PeXi tells in the Kuski of Month interview that he founded the #across IRCnet channel with blue in 1998 (reference).

The first (existing) evidence of ICQ is the same log (1998-07-31) (reference).

MOTOMEN's ->LUKE<- starts publishing interviews in 1999-01-12 (reference), including Balázs (1999-01-22) (reference).

PeXiBBS will be published in the beginning of the next era (2000-02-27).

11. Cheating (1st wave)

When the community matures it is only a matter of time when the first cheaters appear. The first sign of cheating being possible is the infamous hooked-bug by AnabOle 0:32,76 in Long Haul (1998-08-04) (reference) (reference). The game has a bug since Across 1.0 (1997-02-11) that one apple is registered as two (or three) when it's picked by two wheels at the very same time (or by one wheel and the head, generally speaking by at least two of the three functional parts of the bike). During Elma Forever (2000–2001) the bug is named after the internal level Hooked where it happens regularly. AnabOle gets the WR because replays were not mandatory to prove a WR or total time at that time.

The hooked-bug still exists at the time of writing (2024-05-06) but it's not a big problem anymore because since Belma the system can check if the record time is legit (2007-02-22). Yet the bug can spoil the ride like what happened to AnabOle, and for example to Orcc in WCup912 (2024-05-06) (reference). In addition the hooked-bug can be also utilized intentionally in level designing because if an apple or several apples are added to the start of the level in a way the player automatically picks them when starting the level, effectively creating a level where all apples must not be collected, thus giving more depth to level designing and complexity to route finding.

The next step in the history of cheating is a text in the official world records list telling that state.dat, the encrypted database containing player's (local) record times is possibly cracked and WRs have been achieved by the help of a bug (1998-12-10). Since then a replay file is required to get a world record. 36 days later PeXi writes news about the bug as well (1999-01-15) (reference). Later the bug is named as start-bug. The trick is done by dying in the previous run with braking in high velocity and pressing brake at the start of the new run, boom. The trick is demonstrated in the "WR table" chapter above but also below.

In the third event of the first World Cup (1999-04-29) two Finnish players submit another player's replay as their own, namely Dr.Across's. The cheat is rather easy to catch because the times and styles are 100 % same.

The first significant cheating tool is called mod.com and it appears in 1999-12-02. The patch changes the physics of the bike radically and doesn't require apples to be collected to finish a level. All this makes it possible to drive unbelievable times like 0:03,90 in Uphill Battle.

After mod.com is out the total times list gets frozen because the state.dat files can't be trusted anymore. The problem becomes trivial soon after because the next major version, Elasto Mania, is published a few months later and everyone moves to play it. (UPDATE 2023-10-19: The total time list is open again since 2022-02-05. The players must prove their times by recorded video films.)

Two special tricks, bounce and supervolt, are suggested to be considered as cheating but this opinion never received much support because the tricks actually improve gameplay.

Another cheating type from the early days is implicitly accepted because it is nearly impossible to catch and at least not worth it. Level makers can lock a level if they want to prevent other players to open it in the level editor in order to train the level in parts or just to protect the copyright. The lock is cracked already in 1998 and since then unlockers are available in the community underground. Elasto Mania version 1.2 doesn't respect the lock anymore which makes the level locking irrelevant (2003-03-08).

More

• mod.com WR table (2000-03-03) (reference)

12. Stuff

On top of riding the bike, making levels and building websites, the players also create random art work. Some of the best pieces during Across Days (1995–2000) are presented next.

Text

• Across Target times by PeXi (1999-08-23) (reference)
• Forecast of Elma future by kuiva (1999) (reference)

Audio

Image

Summary of the chapter

The second part of the saga, two years from 1998 to 2000 consists of the release of the second major, at least minor, version of the game, Action SuperCross 1.2, and the first real steps of the community maturation. Many important concepts such as world records, total times, teams, cups, contests and meetings are initiated.

Let's close the chapter by Across Done Quick (32:24,94) speedrun video, released in 2023-07-12 by Labs (reference). The video contains all contemporary Action SuperCross World Records (#435).

V. Elma Forever (2000 February – 2001 July)🔝

The first epoch of Elasto Mania (aka Elma), the sequel of Action SuperCross, spans roughly 18 months from the release to the publication of the Elasto Mania Forever CD by MUe (2001-07-21), the first collection of all the art work existing. July 2001 happens to be also the last time the greatest Across team, PRA, is last time seen on the (Elma) WR table. The tail of Action SuperCross is cut off after this era, Elma Forever (2000-2001).

During the era a lot happens when players learn what the new game offers. There are worries about the new version being a disaster but Elasto Mania turns out to be a better version of Action SuperCross, way better.

1. Elasto Mania 1.0

"Across 2" is a common topic in the community during the Across years. There are fears of new features such as 3D, teleports, turbo boost, gravity and other too cool features which would probably only decrease the playability.

Author has always been moderate of revealing facts but PeXi knew something in 1999: "I only know that they are making it, trying to at least remove the bugs and improve graphics, maybe a multiplayer mode will be true too." (reference) There is another clue of the possible release in August 1999 when PeXi announces to draw ten copies of Across 2 between the participants of the World Cup 2, which is scheduled to end in January 2000.

Indeed in 2000-02-03 Across 2 is out. The name has changed and it is Elasto Mania now, street name being Elma, same as PeXi's grandma. In later years we will know that Elasto Mania is under development already in 1998.

Main differences to Across are slightly modified game physics, fancier graphics (sigh), gravity (SIGH), 12 new levels, one computer multiplayer mode and minor improvements. Elasto Mania requires Windows operating system.

Fancier graphics can be turned off (PHEW) but the gravity apples are what they are. Life is brutal. The new gravity apples can't be distinguished from the normal apples so since now we have surprises in the levels. Gameplay is based on pure luck now, partly. In reality you will remember the apples after playing the level for a while. Three internal levels out of 54 use gravity apples (Gravity Ride, Upside Down and Bowling). There is no consensus whether the gravity apples increase or decrease the gameplay.

The graphics of Elasto Mania can be customized via a file named LGR which also enables a new concept: finding a secret area.

New additions are an integrated total time counter, top-10 best times are saved (instead of top-6) and external levels' best times are saved as well. Replay length is extended to five minutes and keyboard controls can be configurated.

Elasto Mania and Action SuperCross are demanding games in the keyboard wise because there are levels where you must press five keys at the same time effectively, like in the start of Hang Tight (left, right, gas, turn, enter).

Out of the twelve new levels Hooked and Downhill are only semi-new because slightly different versions of the levels were published in the official website's level packs during Across Days (1995–2000). Many of the old 42 levels get modified in minor way. Enigma and Turnaround have been modified now three times including the level names (The Enigma, Enigma II, Enigma). Octopussy is added into Animal Fram [sic]. Even though the changes of the internal levels are marginal but because the physics got changed, basically all the old internals are new and fresh.

Eight months later three new versions are published: 1.1, 1.11, 1.11a. All the patches include minor bugfixes only.

The game costs now 9.95 USD (reference) which is the last price Balázs keeps for the game. He has told in two interviews that he earned a lot of money in Hungarian standards but also mentioning that for the same amount of work he would had made more in the more boring industry (reference) (reference). Since 2020-04-20 the game has a new price.

More

• History of the internal levels (2024-06-02) (reference)
• Elasto Mania information page (reference)
• The Game of the Day in MikroBitti (2nd time) (v1.11) (2001-03-03) (reference)

2. New physics

The physics in the Elma world are different to Across world. As the new name hints, Elasto Mania is more elastic. Elma gives you smoother, faster and more powerful rides – even the character is standing.

2.1. Gravity apples

A big change in the laws of the Elma world is the concept of gravity apples which change the gravity to one of the four directions (up, down, left, right). Unluckily the apple doesn't indicate the direction change in any way so the player must find it out and remember the direction.

On the positive side the gravity apples give more opportunities to design levels. On top of that it's common for level designers to add polygon arrows next to gravity apples in order to eliminate the surprise problem.

2.2. Head position

The position of the head is mirrored related to the wheels. In Across the character has to look to the wall to keep the head as far as possible from the wall but in Elma to do same the character must look away from the wall. It takes some time for the community to figure out the change and before that even world records are driven the hard way.

3. Bounce

Because of the smoother and more elastic bike, bouncing gets easier in Elasto Mania. A bounce is a special trick where the bike is popped up by braking while pressuring a wheel when there is enough speed to do that. And you know what? Bouncing feels so good.

A bounce can be done by the back wheel and by the front wheel, from the wall, from the ground, from the roof and well, from every polygon if the angle and speed match. Many of the bounce types are named, for example alobounce, brutalbounce, bugbounce, deadbounce, half-deadbounce and o-bounce.

Bouncing is much harder to perform in Across because the ground touch is more uncontrollable and jerky. Only a few Across world records contain a bounce. In Elma over half of the world records, at the time of writing (2024-04-07) contain a bounce or four like in Jaws.

Bouncing isn't a totally new thing in Elasto Mania but since now it becomes a day-to-day trick when in Across a bounce is more like a monthly miracle. The oldest external bounce level (BOUNCE.LEV) is made in 1998-05-17 (by Janne P.) (reference) (reference). The internal level Bounce Back is created in 1997-09-17 (reference), a level where there winning style does not include a bounce, in strictly speaking. Below is the first existing bounce, at least a semi-bounce. Later at least the winner replay by Dr_Luni in WCup213 contains a pure bounce (2000-01-16) (reference).

Bounce is actually a bug in the source code, a good old division by zero error but it is decided to be left unfixed because the error actually improves gameplay and a fix would mean a WR table reset.

Sometimes bounces can be extremely powerful, labeled as bugbounces but there is no consencus where's the limit. It's not possible to draw a line by choosing some official mathematical number, a constant, to define the maximum acceleration allowed because it depends on the situation. The solution of the bugbounce problem is jury at the time of writing (2024-04-06), a table updater who decides if a certain bounce is a bugbounce or not.

There aren't many internal levels where the question of bugbounce is relevant but in Enigma it is. Stini has a world record in Enigma for 214 tables (4653 days) (13 years), longer than any other WR ever. The replay has been under hard debate.

More

• Discussion about Stini's Enigma WR (reference)
• Poll of Stini's Enigma WR (reference)
• MEGA Bounce 1 by Mawane (2009-12-05) (reference)
• MEGA Bounce 2 by Mawane (2010-05-02) (reference)

4. Supervolt

Bounce isn't the only trick that become more usable in Elma, but it's not right time to discuss brutal volt yet, or zweqspin, wheelpop or spinboost. The basic moves like accelerating (gasing), braking, turning, volting, climbing, dropping, hanging, jumping, rotating (pushing), streching, picking (apples) and dodging (killers) are skipped because at first they are obvious and boring plus The Elasto Mania Tricks Collection (aka Moposchool) introduces them in more detail. But there is one trick which we want to look at now: supervolt, and the special case of it: supervolt alone (aka alovolt).

Supervolt is a special volt that works only in clockwise direction. It's done by pressing both right and left rotate keys at the same time. It's very easy to perform if you first press, let's say right rotate, keep it pressed and then press left rotate. There you have a supervolt.

Supervolt is more powerful compared to the normal (right direction) volt and it's also faster to do.

Supervolt trick is possible already in Across but it's rarely used. For example in the first World Cup none of the winner replays use it. In World Cup 2 loX [tLD] uses one in his winner replay in the 7th event (1999-11-21) and Dr_Luni in the 9th event of the cup (1999-12-12). Champi0N uses one in Steppes in Across WR table #371 (c. 1999-09-12) and zeth in Turnaround WR #367 (c. 1999-08-08).

The first Elasto Mania world records utilizing supervolts are Champi0N's Hi Flyer and Tookai's Bumpy Journey in WR table #1 (2000-03-06) (reference) but let's look at Tuska's Hang Tight #20 instead (2000-06-04) (reference) because it shows clearly how the supervolt works.

There aren't many internal levels where the supervolt can be used because it must be preceded by a normal (right) volt so typically it requires a big airy jump, like in Steppes or Turnaround, or being usable right in the start of the level, like in Hang Tight or Bumpy Journey.

One year later someone notices that in fact supervolt can be done without the preceding right volt first if the keys are pressed at the same time enough. It is also discovered that slow computers make the supervolt without a preceding volt, much easier to perform. The new trick is called alovolt, supervolt alone. In addition some players like mr [FM] discovers that right and left keys can be mapped to one key which can be pressed by leg, for example via an external gamepad controller.

In the end of Elma Forever (2000-2001), Pipe WR by dz (#70) (2001-06-24) (reference) is the first WR to include an alovolt that is not in the very start of the level – but after two seconds. swos uses alovolt twice in the Over and Under WR two weeks later (#71) (2001-07-08) (reference).

Rumours say dz and swos didn't use technical aids in the WRs in summer 2001 but performed the alovolts al natural by pressing the keys at the very exact moment by two different fingers. The very hard trick is easier to get done in the beginning of the level.

The finding of alovolt and the technics around it is top secret information in 2001 because the players want to get new world records by using the knowledge before the competitors find the new powerful trick.

Later the concept is discussed in Mopolauta and for example an alovolt program is suggested (by twipley) (2002-04-29) (reference). An ideal solution is introduced (by Hibernatus) in the first unofficial Elma patch (1.11h) (2002-10-07) which allows configuring a new key to perform an alovolt. Since then everyone will been able to use the trick no matter of their hardware but that happens after this chapter's era, Elma Forever (2000-2001).

We haven't talked much about the unofficial Elma versions yet and even now it's too early because the version 1.11h by Hibernatus is published during the next era but in the context of supervolt it's a very relevant patch. It's the first unofficial patch the community starts to use widely. You can't really skip it because alovolt is a very remarkable move.

In the end it takes about one year from finding a new revolutionary trick, supervolt alone, to utilize it by everyone on daily basis. The trick evolves from the secret knowledge of few to a new key added to the game, without the original source code.

Many old Across world records are beaten after the alovolt is found. Some people see that as sacrilegious act but the records are legitimate.

There has been discussion about implementing a left alovolt to the game because it's unlogical to have it only in clockwise direction but because the change would mean a WR table reset, the idea never gained lots of support.

More

• Discussion of alovolt (2002-04-29) (reference)
• Elasto Mania 1.11h information (2002-10-17) (reference)
• Poll of left alovolt (2012-09-23) (reference)

5. Let's play (internals)

The official in-game levels (internals) have always been the center of attention even though World Cups 1 and 2 moved many players to play externals as well. After Elasto Mania is released, the internals pull the focus back not only because of the twelve new levels but because actually all the old internals are fresh because of the changed physics, the better physics.

Two important events happen during the first 18 months, during Elma Forever (2000-2001), from the world records' point of view. Moposite starts to update the official WR table (2001-04-08) and Moposite's first discussion board is opened (PeXiBBS) (2000-04-07).

5.1. WR tables 1-72

The era of Elma Forever (2000–2001) consists of 72 world records table updates during the 18 months period. That is exactly four tables per month but updates don't occur weekly as a regular basis as the number suggests. In the beginning the WR table is updated more often, almost daily when the world records are constantly improved.

The first 72 tables have 522 new WRs, c. 7.3 per table, 29 per month.

The first WR table update is told to be done one month after Elasto Mania is released. Before the deadline everyone can submit their personal best times to be checked by the authors, the Rózsa brothers, who build the first WR table. The period is like one month long World Cup event where players don't know other players' times until the table is published.

FM takes 25 and PRA 9 world records. MC gets 7 and to my greatest surprise: Pipe by Abula [MC]. AMAZING. The players of most WRs are psy (10), Champi0N (9), Jokke (6), Markku and Stene (4). WR total time is 44:26,47 (#1) (2000-03-06).

The next table six days later has 31 new WRs, following 35 WRs in #3. People are active and play a lot. The WR total time is dropping fast.

WR table total times during the first (second) month

Date          Table    Total time
---------------------------------
2000-03-06      #1       44:26,47
2000-03-11      #2       43:45,46
2000-03-17      #3       43:03,96
2000-03-23      #4       42:50,84
2000-03-29      #5       42:48,71
2000-03-31      #6       42:44,21
2000-04-05      #7       42:43,12

I'm forced to mention my two other world records now because they happen during Elma Forever (2000-2001): Loop-de-Loop WR (#38) (2000-09-23) and Loop-de-Loop WR (#39) (2000-10-01).

There are 80 different players from 7 different nationalities and 36 different teams in the first 72 tables. Only 26 out of the 522 WRs are driven by a player without a team (5 %).

Number of new WRs per nationality (#1-#72)

#    Nat.    WRs
----------------
1.   SWE     224
2.   FIN     170
3.   NOR     113
4.   HUN       7
5.   USA       5
6.   POL       2
7.   AUS       1

Number of new WRs per team (#1-#72)

#    Team    WRs
----------------
1.   FM      107
2.   PRA      79
3.   SC       39
4.   SSC      28
5.   ukc      27
6.   tld      23
7.   SAT      22
     MC       22
9.   WRS      19
10.  TWN      15
...

Number of new WRs per player (#1-#72)

#    Player      WRs
--------------------
1.   Jokke        39
2.   Champi0N     32
     zyntifox     32
4.   Jeppe        31
5.   KingKong     24
6.   Karlis       20
     psy          20
8.   elg          15
9.   Markku       14
10.  pajen        13
     Stene        13
...

zyntifox has world records in the first four levels in table #37 (1. Warm Up, 2. Flat Track, 3. Twin Peaks, 4. Over and Under). Many players must have thought about getting all the WRs starting from the first level at some point. zyntifox takes the idea to the furthest missing only the last 50 levels – or 49 because he has also The Steppes at that time. In the current WR table Spef has the first three levels (#420) (2024-04-07).

zyntifox improves Warm Up WR six times by 0:00,01 in a row starting from the table #28. He does the same with five improvements in Flat Track starting from the table #15.

Total time competition is intense too.

Personal total time minute limit breaks during Elma Forever (2000–2001)

Limit       Player       Nat.    Date
-------------------------------------------------
45 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-03-11 (#1)
44 mins     Champi0N     SWE     2000-04-05 (#7)
43 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-06-04 (#21)
42 mins     zyntifox     NOR     2000-11-21 (#47)

PRA is dominating the total times competition in the beginning. FM is passive after the first WR table but becomes number one after Jokke, Karlis, Stene, YeeS and Ufo from FM starts to play seriously. Later more players enter the competition and especially zyntifox, pajen and Dezz (aka dz) rule the list. Other successful total time oriented players of the early days are elg, Elbono and Markku.

5.2. WR statistics

All the WR statistics shown in this article so far are something that didn't exist back then, just the WR table and the total times list. mrickx is the first player to write down the WR development and Petri publishes it in the SSC team page in 2000-09-05. Seven weeks later the list is moved to Moposite (2000-10-26).

• The oldest WR development (2000-09-02) (reference)
• Old WR development (2001-04-07) (reference)

5.3. Record lists

More extensive internal level playing in Elma leads to more records lists. Tier [AAF] from Australia is the first player to maintain a world top-5 list already in Across days and later in Elma as well. The list contains the top-5 world best times of each internal level. Later the list is hosted by mrDJ (aka EML) (aka SirEvilX), team ahf and Tonylee who expands it to top-10. Moposite adopts the list during Golden Era (2001-2006).

Another new list type is average times introduced by Abula in 2000-10-15, namely the average of the player's top-10 times per level. Balázs creates a program to count the average times.

Country (aka national) records have existed since the Across days. United Kingdom records is the first one (1998-06-20). Oulu records by Abula is the first city records (2000-04-01). The country and city lists are updated by many different players around the Elma world. There are also a few top-30 lists for single internal levels.

• UK Speed Records (Late April 1998) (reference) (reference)
• Slovenian best times (1998-06-21) (reference)
• Norges Rekord (1998-12-02) (reference)
• Swedish records (1999-01-05) (reference)
• U.S. Best Times (1999-02-02) (reference)
• Oulu records (2000-04-01) (reference)
• Top-5 records of every internal level (2000-05-20) (reference)
• Finnish records (2000-06-22) (reference)
• Swedish records (v2) (2000-06-22) (reference)
• Top-5 records of every internal level (2001-02-01) (reference)
• Espoo records (2001-01-21) (reference)
• Top-30 of Pipe (2001-03-09) (reference)
• Finnish records (v2) (2001-04-18) (reference)
• Danish records (2001-04-22) (reference)
• Average records (2001-04-30) (reference)

The records lists above are published during Elma Forever (2000-2001). Let's look at a few more because this chapter is good place for all the internal level record lists updated manually.

• Top-30 of Loop-de-Loop (2001-09-23) (reference)
• Average records v2 (2001-10-02) (reference)
• South African records (2001-12-21) (reference)
• Norwegian records (2002-01-04) (reference)
• Top-30 of Headbanger (2002-01-27) (reference)
• Top-10 records of every internal level (2002-04-07) (reference)

6. Replay (again)

It's time for the best replays driven during Elma Forever (2000-2001). The replays below are the most iconic world record replays during the first 72 WR tables. All styles and replays shown below were top secret back then and people would have sold their grandmas (both) to get to see the replays.

Moposite v2 (2001-08-25) has a section named as Funny Replays to list different kind of interesting replays which are not records of any level.

More

• Funny Replays in Moposite (2001-12-26) (reference)

7. Cheating (2nd wave)

The local record times database of the game, state.dat, is cracked soon after Elasto Mania is published, so like in Across the file cannot be trusted. The record list maintainers must ask and verify the replays to be sure the submitted times are legit.

Next step in cheating is the Nitro patch, released in 2000-06-25. It can modify game physics such as acceleration, spinning and the magnitude of gravity. The patch adds 10 minutes to the finish times and the replays created in Nitro don't work in normal Elma. Nitro supports also immortality and driving in slow motion (e.g. 0.5x).

Nitro is fun to play for a while but it opens dangerous gates. What to do if someone is able to remove the 10 minutes addition?

Nitro offers also a feature that revolutionize gameplay: replay merge. Since now it's possible to watch two replays at the same time, see the differences, learn and improve more easily. The same idea is used in this article when multiple replays are shown simultaneously.

And then it happens what was feared. In April 2001 two norwegian players get caught on cheating nine world records with a patch like Nitro but without the protection features. The cheaters adjusted the bike physics very little like gravity 999/1000. They also use immortality and slow motion.

Because of the 2nd cheating wave some old WR tables don't have any new world records anymore, like table #27 (reference).

More

• Nitro Records (by BMX) (2002-02-07) (reference)

8. Multiplayer

Multiplaying is a new feature in Elasto Mania 1.0. It's a split-screen offline mode where players finish the level in one computer by doing co-operation. For example the first player can collect the apples (or some of them) and the second player goes to the flower.

There's also a Flag Tag mode for two players. The idea is to hold the flag as long as possible while the other player is trying to steal it by touching the first player.

Local multiplaying is an interesting addition to the game but it has always been only that, a bonus. To play multi one needs another player to be present physically, whose skill level is on the same ballpark, a level that has any point to play in multi and finally not mind of being more frustrated than normally because of the other player's mistakes.

If a level doesn't have any apples, it's practically the same level both in multi and single mode. There are also levels where the other player's part is so trivial, like in Freefall and Ramp Frenzy, that the level can be multiplayed in solo as well. There are internal levels which are good for multiplaying like Apple Harvest and What the Heck although the split screen makes complicated levels (like Apple Harvest) very hard because of the lack of visibility.

All levels, both internal and external, can be played in multi.

The author never updates the multi world records in the official website but gives it to Tumex who starts updating the list in March 2000. The earliest existing screenshot is from the table #28 (2000-12-20) which is most likely the last one by Tumex. SveinR adopts the multi table in 2001-02-07 and the first screenshots from his website are #18 (2001-04-22) and #22 (2001-05-22). Table numbering is reset in the adoption.

Some of the best multi players from the early days are MoorZe & JAnen, Dezz & NPhoBiaz, Abula & Tuska & Ultra and Terrace & Phillip.

9. Battle

As told, Elasto Mania supports multiplaying for two players in one computer, out of the box, but during Elma Forever (2000-2001) the community discovers other unique ways to play multi, even over internet.

The first World Cup is organized in 1999-04-04. It's the first competition where players have a limited playing time in one level, typically one week. In World Cup or cups in general, the players don't need to play at the same time – in that sense World Cup is multiplaying only loosely.

Another contest type having a multiplaying aspect is the 24 hours total time competition (aka 24H TT) (reference). The participants are playing the internal levels at the same time for 24 hours, from the scratch (fresh state.dat). Players are typically online all the time but that's not required. The competition is invented and first time organized by Abula in 2000-07-08.

Abula and Tuska plays the first "local proto-battle" (leikki01.lev) in 2000-06-13, 25 days before the first 24H TT is organized. Winner replay is not existing but Zweq has improved the time by 3,01 seconds (reference). The idea is to create a new short level and compete in turns, in one computer, in single mode. Playing time is not strictly limited but levels aren't played for several hours, certainly not for several days, except kisma43.lev. Abula, Tuska and PeXi play a three player local proto-battle in 2000-12-21.

MUe starts to organize one hour (H), half-hour (HH) and half-half-hour (HHH) challenges in 2000. The chosen levels (e.g. h6.lev) are published in PC Guru magazine with sample replays and reference playing times. The oldest challenge winner replay is H6ELBONO.REC (2000-10-30). The readers of the magazine can't submit times. Essentially HH-challenges introduce the concept of short preset playing times: 15, 30 and 60 minutes.

h28.lev is a level that is published in PC Guru magazine 2001/02 as a Hungarian proto-battle challenge but it is also played as a normal battle in IRCnet channel #30minsHH in 2000-12-11. Battle results are made and the winner replay is shared. The competition is not called battle but HH (half-hour) but conceptually it's a normal 30 minutes battle organized by MUe, Abula and PeXi (reference). Eliaz wins, Tuska is second and Rasu also participates.

Action SuperCross and Elasto Mania are demanding games from the technolocial point of view. We already discussed the importance of good keyboards and slow enough computers to do alovolt. The third technological requirement relates to multiplaying: internet connections. Before players get reasonable priced internet plans, unlimited preferrable, the real-time online multiplaying can't really happen. But it's actually the years of Elma Forever (2000-2001) when unlimited 24/7 connections, at least in the Nordic countries, are becoming more common.

The term battle first appears in the "Action Supercross in the U.S.A." [sic] website in a page dated 1998-12-27 (by Tony) where features desired for "Across 1.3" are being voted on (reference).

The second existing occurrence of the battle term happens in the #across log in 2000-12-21, five days after the Battle Royale movie is released (in Japan) and ten days after the first concept battle is played (h28.lev) (#30minsHH). At that point the term refers to a local proto-battle.

[2000-12-21] [21:02] <Abula> otettiin tuskan ja pexin kanssa battlea ja kukaha tietenki voitti :p 

The first normal battle that is also called battle, proven by hard evidence, starts 32 days later in 2001-01-12 at 19:04 EET, and the second at 19:45 EET. Results are made and the winner replays are published (reference). Ari [ahf] wins both battles. Noteworthy are the supervolts Ari uses in both victories, very professional moves in January 2001.

Now, after the first battle, that was also called a battle, we can finally define what is a normal battle. It's a playing time limited competition where the winner replay and the results are published, and the level is new and fresh for every participant. The level is played at the same time and everyone has own computer – theoretically a battle can be organized in one computer if the players don't see others playing. Typically a battle is organized by one player who makes also the level. Normal battle length is 15-30 minutes.

# Timeline of the first battles

Date           Name                          Contest Type               More
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1999-04-04     World Cup (event)             event                      playing time limited (1 week), played offline
2000-06-13     leikki01.lev                  local proto-battle         playing time limited (about 30 minutes), played offline
2000-07-08     24h TT                        24h tt                     playing time limited (24 hours), played online
2000-10-30     H6ELBONO.REC                  magazine challenge         playing time limited (30 minutes), played offline
2000-12-11     EliazH.rec (#30minsHH)        (concept) battle           playing time limited (30 minutes), played online
2000-12-21     "battle" (#across)                                       first (existing) usage of "battle" term
2001-01-12     batleari.rec (#30minsbat)     battle                     first (existing) battle that is called battle
2001-01-12     AE01.zip                      #battle battle             first (existing) battle in #battle IRCnet channel

World Cup 3 is running from 2000-06-26 to 2000-12-17 which is slowing down the progression of battles when the players are busy with the world cup levels.

2001-01-12 is important day in the longrun battle development because that's the day when the #battle IRCnet channel is existing by hard evidence (reference). This is also the first evidence of Abula having an unlimited internet plan (during the hours of 17-08).

The first existing #battle IRCnet channel log (#battle.ircnet.log) is commented next because the origin of the battles is disputed.

# IRCnet channel #battle (2001-01-12)

Session Start: Fri Jan 12 23:04:41 2001
[23:04] *** Now talking in #battle
[23:04] *** onla sets mode: +o Abula
[23:05] <Ari_ahf> THIS IS 30 MIN OFFICIAL ELMA BATTLE
[23:06] *** Orcc changes topic to 'subscribe: www.myleague.com/elma'

COMMENT (in 2024-04-13): "myleague" system is tested during the session. Petri calculates the results manually too.  

[23:06] *** Karlis (karlberg@kh47u2hel.dial.kolumbus.fi) has left #battle (moimoi, nähää ens vuonna ku saatte asiat järjestykseen)

COMMENT: During the first battles it is common to criticize and storm out when the rules are not clear.

[23:24] *** onla changes topic to 'www.kolumbus.fi/ensiputkitus/AE01.zip level by iDeA :O'
[23:30] <onla> name the rec like battle01  or something :)
[23:44] <onla> no joo..nyt tuli sellanen mieleen..sovitaanko näin että kaksi parasta pisteitä
[23:46] <Abula> systeemi on ihme, taso aika kumma
[00:14] *** Petri- changes topic to 'Battle #1 results: 1. Petri 21:68, 2. Orcc 21:84, 3. Abula 22:19'

COMMENT: The first (existing) #battle IRCnet channel battle has been played. Winner replay is missing (in 2024-04-13).

[00:14] <Orcc> mut kannattaisko tää kannu pistää autojoiniin?
[00:19] <onla> sovitaanko että 3 on minimi määrä pelaajia yhessä kisassa mukana?
[00:25] <Orcc> mut siis pidetäänkö tätä kanavaa pystys aina?
[00:27] <onla> mä nyt vaihan noita sääntöjä tuolla
[00:27] <Ari_ahf> pistetää vaan uus battle eikä tapella täällä
[00:30] <Ari_ahf> kuka abula pitäs jollain sivulla vaikka mopositellä sellasta (tosi tosi pientä) taulukkoa battleista
[00:32] <Abula> varmasti jaksan alkaa pitää
[00:32] <Abula> et ainaku joku haluaa ni meikäpoika on paikalla
[00:32] <Petri-> no sulla kiintee:)
[00:32] <Abula> mulla on 17-08
[00:32] <Petri-> vois tehä näin
[00:32] <Petri-> jos 6 pelaajaa
[00:32] <Petri-> saa pisteitä 5,4,3,2,1,0
[00:42] <onla> check out http://www.myleague.com/elma/?p=rules  and middle of the page there is GAME SPECIFIC RULES
[00:43] <Ari_ahf> voi taso olla 15-60 min

COMMENT: No consensus of rules. 

[00:55] <Ari_ahf> kotisivu.raketti.net/pheiskanen/battle05.zip
[00:55] <Ari_ahf> noni älyskö kaikki
[01:24] <Abula> www.saunalahti.fi/punahai/battle07.zip
[01:45] <onla> ettekö ota statseja noista?
[01:45] <Petri-> onla, oon pistäny notepadiin

COMMENT: Notepad wins.

[01:53] <Karlis> http://www.saunalahti.fi/~karlberg/battle08.zip
[02:13] <Abula> tohonku sais jonku botin laskee tai jotain ni ois hieno
[02:14] <onla> niip

COMMENT: Battle bot is mentioned (2001-01-12).

[02:21] <onla> toimiva taulukko kiinnostaa jossa on ilo lähteä tavoittelemaan #1 rankkia :)
[02:22] <onla> ja itsestään uploadautuva ois jees niiku ladder ois tosin se ei oikein sovi tähän elmaan vissiin ihan näin :(
[02:25] <Petri-> vois tehä qb ohjelman joka tallettaa kaikki pisteet:)
[02:26] <Petri-> 1. Petri   x  x  6  2  3  x  #  11
[02:26] <Petri-> 2. Abula   0  0  3  4  0  2  #  9
[02:26] <Petri-> 3. Ari     3  2  1 -1  1  0  #  6
[02:26] <Petri-> 4. Orcc    1  x  4  x  x  x  #  5
[02:26] <Petri-> 5. elg     x  x  2  x  x  x  #  2
[02:27] <Petri-> 6. swos    x  x  x  1  x  x  #  1
[02:27] <Petri-> 7. henrey  x  x  0  x  x  x  #  0
[02:27] <Petri-> 8. onliz   x  x -1  x  x  x  # -1
[02:27] <Petri-> 9. Karlis  x  x  x  0 -1 -1  # -2
[02:27] <Petri-> 9. Tisk   -1 -1  x  x  x  x  # -2
[02:27] <Petri-> siinä o complete
[02:36] <Petri-> pitäs huomenna pelata joku iso
[02:36] <Petri-> siitä sais points
[02:36] <Petri-> joku 12 tyyppiä;P

COMMENT: The first (existing) #battle session is done.

[15:18] <Abula> illalla vois taas vähä taistella
[15:19] <onla> kyl varmaan ois iha jees jos mopolle tulis joku juttu
[15:20] <Abula> mutta en varmasti jaksa alkaa uppaa semmosta
[15:20] <Abula> ois botti
[15:20] <onla> se ois aika rulse
[22:40] <Abula> http://www.saunalahti.fi/~punahai/battle19.zip
[22:40] <Tisk> ---TIME STARTED---
[23:25] <Orcc> kuinka vitun monta pelii täälä on jo ollu?!?
[23:25] <Petri-> orcc, 8
[23:25] <Abula> mä oon ollu 7:ss
[23:32] <Petri-> niin, ja kuka teki kentän #1?
[23:33] <Tisk> mä tein 2. kentä
[23:33] <Abula> 01 tais oll amun
[23:33] <Abula> jos se oli toi baatle

COMMENT: baatle.lev and headbang.lev were played 3-4 hours earlier.

[00:17] *** Petri- changes topic to 'http://members.xoom.com/gareplays/battle/elma_battle.htm: temp, files don't work'
[01:20] <onlis> www.kolumbus.fi/ensiputkitus/b10.lev    lol you dont like this AT ALL :) hahah
[03:08] <Petri-> 1. Petri       x  x  6  2  3  x  2  5  1  0  4  1  3   #  27
[03:08] <Petri-> 2. Abula       0  0  3  4  0  2  x  1  0  4  0  5 -1   #  18
[03:08] <Petri-> 3. elg         x  x  2  x  x  x  3  2 -1  2  1  3  1   #  13
[03:08] <Petri-> 4. Ari         3  2  1 -1  1  0  x  3  x  x  x  x  x   #  9
[03:08] <Petri-> 5. swos        x  x  x  1  x  x  0  x  x  x  x  2  5   #  8
[03:08] <Petri-> 6. onlainari   x  x -1  x  x  x  4  x  x  1  2  0  0   #  6
[03:08] <Petri-> 7. Orcc        1  x  4  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x   #  5
[03:08] <Petri-> 8. Tisk        -1 -1  x  x  x  x  6 -1 3 -1 -1  x  x   #  4
[03:08] <Petri-> 9. henery      x  x  0  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x  x   #  0
[03:08] <Petri-> 10. Karlis     x  x  x  0 -1 -1  1  x  x  x  x -1  2   #  0
[03:08] <Petri-> 11. Kumiorava  x  x  x  x  x  x -1  0  x  x  x  x  x   # -1

COMMENT: The second (existing) #battle session is done (2001-01-14).

As shown just above, the first battles that can be proved by hard evidence, are played outside the #battle IRCnet channel, a concept battle 32 days earlier and Baatlee 4h 20min [sic] earlier. onlainari (aka onla) remembers that he invented the battle term and started the channel with a few testers but no hard evidence exists, at least not yet because not all #across logs have been discovered.

(Editor's note: Hypothetically onlainari can remember correct but by hard evidence and also by the soft evidence just presented, I, the author of this article, see it more realistic the #battle IRCnet channel hasn't existed long before the AE01.zip and battle05.zip because during the discussion in 2001-01-12 no one mentions that battles have been played before, except Abula's baatlee.lev and Tisk's headbang.lev. In #battle.ircnet.log onlainari is asking players to name the replays as "battle01" and Petri updates the topic to include "Battle #1" but later this is told to have been meant to be the first "myleague" battle, the system tested in 2001-01-12. onlainari remembers 100 % that "AE01.zip" is not the first battle in the #battle IRCnet channel and Orcc supports the idea in 2024-04-14. The second battle in the existing #battle IRCnet channel log is by Ari and the level is named as battle05.zip, suggesting that somewhere are levels battle01-04.zip. Two "baatlee" and "headbang" replays are named as bat01Abu.rec and bat02ari.rec, suggesting that only battle03-04.zip are missing.)

In conclusion and accordance to hard evidence, h28.lev, made by TL (?), won by Eliaz and organized by MUe and Abula in the #30minsHH IRCnet channel is the first normal battle played online where results are made and winner replay is published (2000-12-11), ten days before the first occurrence of the "battle" term. 32 days later the first battle, that is also called battle, is played in the #30minsbat IRCnet channel, won by Ari and organized by Abula (2001-01-12). Four hours later happens the first battle that is called battle and also played in the #battle IRCnet channel, AE01.zip, which is made by iDeA, won by Petri and organized by onlainari and Petri (2001-01-12). Theoretically it's also possible, in accordance to soft evidence, that the first battles are played in the #battle IRCnet channel long before any other just presented.

So, what is the first battle? There are four candidates: the first concept battle (h28.lev in #30minsHH) (2000-12-11), the first battle that is called battle (baatlee.lev in #30minsbat) (2001-01-12), the first (existing) battle which is called battle and played in the #battle IRCnet channel (AE01.zip in #battle) (2001-01-12) and the hypothetical battle of zero evidence that is played in the #battle IRCnet channel before any other battles or concept battles.

The oldest existing #battle.ircnet.log ends to 2001-02-01 (reference). The next existing #battle log is called #battle.aapeli.log and it contains a battle played in 2001-02-15. In 2001-03-10 the channel topic is "WeShouldDecideOnADayDedicatedToABattle.OtherwiseItNeverHappens.>Sundays?". Next (existing) log files start in 2001-06-01, 2001-06-16 and 2001-08-10 but that's already the next era.

Battles are short living competitions and the results are quickly forgotten after the next battle is started. Many players see battles, at least in the beginning, more like a training camp for the internal levels.

Elma Forever CD has three battle related images (battles.gif, battlesk.gif, battlesp.gif) but the purpose of them is unknown. MUe is also asking PeXi in 2001-04-05: "can you say sg about sommer mopoupgrade, especially about built-in battle feature?"

We have discovered now the concepts of the infinite time competitions (internals, external level packs) and finite time competitions of three different durations: one week cup events, 24 hours total times and 30 minutes battles. All the different competition types require specialized skills and strategies. Internals are more about the höyling power, world cups more of team work and battles about fast style finding and performance under high pressure.

10. OLP

Original internal levels, at least most of them, have been widely considered to be very good levels, even great. We wouldn't be here otherwise. For some players it's a disappointment to have only 12 (10) new internals in Elasto Mania.

MUe, a Hungarian player and the author of one internal level (Bowling) launches a project called OLP (The Official Level Pack). MUe collects levels from the community and Moposite creates a records page that looks like the original WR table.

OLP is released in 2001-03-03. The level pack is played alot but the levels don't really catch the feeling of the original internals except a few ones (e.g. 0lp07.lev). The level pack contains also one of the most annoying levels ever published in a normal level pack (0lp21.lev). The name of OLP is conflicting with the official website's official level packs.

More

• OLP records (2007-05-19) (reference)

11. More Levels

It's not only the Moposite crew who are creating Elma websites and organizing contests but many other teams and players contribute as well.

Team Cup by MOTOMEN (2000-04-16) is organized three months after World Cup 2. Kahvicup by Sathy and psy (2000-12-10) has strange rules, on purpose (reference). The first LOS Cup is also organized during Elma Forever.

Cups organized during Elma Forever (2000-2001)

Start          Name                    Winner     Organizer(s)
------------------------------------------------------------------
2000-04-16     Team Cup                FIN        MOTOMEN
2000-06-11     Short Level Cup         Jamo       TSC
2000-12-10     Kahvicup                Tisk       psy & Sathy
2000-12-24     Hungarian Cup           Tibity     PC Guru Magazine
2000-12-31     Middle European Cup     Raider     TonyLee
2001-02-22     LOS Cup                 Tapzu      LOS
2001-05-14     Meaningless Cup         MadMan     MIF & BarTek
2001-06-11     League                  -          EML

• Video of Hungarian Cup (January-July 2001) by iCS (2022-11-10) (reference)
• LOS Cup (2001-02-22) (reference) (programmatically translated into English)
• Hungarian Cup instructions (February 2001) (reference) (programmatically translated into English)
• Hungarian Cup results (July 2001) (reference) (programmatically translated into English)
• Short Level Cup (reference)
• Middle European Cup (reference)
• League (reference)
• Meaningless Cup (September 2001) (reference)

League is a new contest type where players compete with each others in groups. The best and the worst players of every group change their groups to higher and lower divisions. Unfortunately the first league is terminated by the organizer during the first season. Later similar competitions such as Duel, Elimination Tournament and Elimination Cup will be arranged by Zebra, Zworqy and Landlord. The contest type is demanding to organize.

Another interesting contest in the first Elma years is the mini internals which Totalnew started already in Across (Mini47T.lev is created in 1999-12-03). The idea is to replicate the official internal levels but make them smaller, mini versions. The mini internals are interesting to play because you know the levels by heart but they are also very bizarre. In later years the mini internals will be created programmatically to replicate the levels by 100 % accuracy but during Across Days and Elma Forever it's manual work all the way.

Many team pages include traditional level packs for visitors to play, such as FM and SSC. There are also dedicated level pages by individual level designers such as psy, skint, Olliz and RiZ. The best levels or level designers are not nominated or voted in polls.

Prominent level packs during Elma Forever (2000-2001)

Elma Ultimate DVD:
------------------------------------------------------
Internals            >  Mini internals made by players
Misc level packs     >  kahvi
Misc level packs     >  Laina (1-90)
Misc level packs     >  Olliz levels
Misc level packs     >  RiZ's levels
Misc level packs     >  sex levels
Moposite levels      >  Custom levels (22-72)
Official levelpacks  >  elma top10packs (26-66)
skintatious levels   >  Skint (1-67)
Team LOS levels      >  The LOS Levels (1-45)

First appearances of famous level designers in the official website's official level packs

Level pack    Designer     Alias      First level
-------------------------------------------------
empack26      VJ32         veezay      2000-02-05
empack35      Olliz                    2000-06-02
empack37      SveinR                   2000-06-30
empack39      RiZ                      2000-03-23
empack44      TL                       2000-05-17
empack49      skint0r                  2000-08-13
empack53      umiz                     2000-12-31
empack61      Zworqy                   2000-09-26

12. World Cup 3

Five months after the release of Elasto Mania PeXi starts the third World Cup (from 2000-06-26 to 2000-12-17). It contains 20 events this time.

Top-10 players in World Cup 3

#    Player        Team     Nat.    Points
------------------------------------------
1.   Dr_Luni       FM       SWE     1655,5
2.   Elbono        SC       SWE     1366,5
3.   Karlis        FM       FIN     1004,5
4.   Jokke         FM       FIN      959
5.   AAL-Owen      SRX      NOW      840
6.   Tapzu         POP      FIN      820,5
7.   Jarkko H      swos     FIN      786,5
8.   Kumiorava     POP      FIN      745
9.   Matte                  SWE      734,5
10.  Markku        MC       FIN      727

In total 208 players participate in the World Cup 3 and 45 teams get points. Dr_Luni keeps on dominating and takes the second World Cup victory. Jokke is third time in the top-10 final standings. Team FM is the best team, overwhelmingly.

Most of the levels in World Cup 3 are designed by other players than PeXi, the organizer. Two levels are by Abula, and the latter of them is the first pipe level in a world cup (Impsybility).

At the time of writing (2024-05-10) Dr_Luni's winning time in WCup302 is the oldest (known) Elasto Mania record (2000-06-07) (reference).

13. Moposite

Between February 2000 and July 2001 Abula and PeXi creates four Elasto Mania websites.

13.1. Abula's Elma Site

The creation work of Abula's first Elma site takes one month. The first news is written in 2000-01-26. The website remains active till 2000-06-25. MC Studios, Höylä Mission, Hill climbing, Slowness, Hanging and Impossibility are released, as well as the first city records (Oulu Records) and the first players list (ElMaKuskit) where the term "kuski" is used first time.

The number of daily visitors is roughly 50.

More

• Abula's Elma Site (2000-04-01) (reference)

13.2. PeXi's Elma Site

PeXi is also renewing his website in the beginning of 2000 in order to add new sections for Elasto Mania such as Replays, Finnish and Swedish records, FAQ, "Hints, Tips & Cheats", Programs, LGRs and a discussion forum, PeXiBBS. The new website is released in 2000-02-27. About 400 visitors opens the site daily.

More

• PeXi's Elasto Mania & Action SuperCross Site (2000-06-22) (reference)

13.3. Moposite v1

In April 2000 PeXi asks Abula to co-operate in websites and so we do. We live close to each others so why not combine our forces? We meet, make some plans and start to work. The contents of our websites get merged, the famous green blue theme is created and a few new sections are added such as the 24 hours total time, Average records, Kinglist, Invisibility, Top-10 official level pack ratings, more stuff and the WR table archive and the WR development page.

The first Moposite is published in 2000-06-25 meaning the previous Elma sites of PeXi and Abula are up and running only for four months.

Moposite v1 gathers about 500 daily visitors.

In 2001-04-30 Moposite is taken offline. The plan is to calm down the activity while making the next major version of Moposite. Temporary offline version provide updates to the most important sections like world records and news.

Moposite v2 will be ready one month after the end of Elma Forever (2001-08-25). The tradegy of web development is that once you get a new website running, you already know many things that could be done better. Both your skills and web technologies are evolving so fast that you are never satisfied with the current version.

More

• Moposite v1 (2001-04-30) (reference)
• Moposite offline version (2001-07-22) (reference)
• Moposite history (reference)

• PeXiBBS (reference)

14. MC

Mahti Crossers (MC), Abula's second team, is doing very well during the first 18 months, the era of Elma Forever. The team drives 26 single world records, many multi world records, becomes the 7th in World Cup 3 team standings and be very active team all-around. Especially Tuska's Across and Cemetery LGRs, Abula's website projects and the production of MC Studios are widely noticed by the community. Abula and Tuska participates also the second Finnish Across meeting in Nokia in 2001 (AC-Meat3k).

Markku leaves MC in December 2000 after World Cup 3 and in the same month mr joins in.

mr lives in Joensuu, 460 kilometers from Oulu. At this point Abula moves to internet. Other members of the original Mahti Crossers, Carju, Ultra and Tuska, found metal music and quitted, but new internet friends, MUe and mr, for example, are present in the new dimension, internet, effectively trading thoughts and material virtually but also via snail mail (reference).

More

• MC team page (1999) (reference)
• MC team page (2001-11-25) (reference)

15. In real life

Real life pictures of other players are desired in the early days when Facebook doesn't exist or any other social media, except IRC-Galleria in December 2000.

As seen earlier in the article some real life pictures of the players have been published already in the Across days but during Elma Forever (2000-2001) Petri publishes the first photo collection of the players in July 2000. Elma Forever CD contains a photo collection including NJU (2001-07-21) (reference).

Player interviews titled as Kuski of month (KOM) are started in January 2001 by Abula. The interviews give insight to the real lives of the most active players. The first Kuski of month, in the history is zyntifox (reference).

First two AC-meats, the predecessors of the Finnish Elma Meetings (FEM) are organized in Tisk's home (Ulvila) (June 2000) and in Toble's home (Nokia) (May 2001). The participants are Finnish actives from the #across IRCnet channel and the meetings are more or less invite only.

Because of the heavy old-school cathode-ray tube monitors (CRT) it is not trivial to bring own computers to the meetings these days so meetings tend to be more about drinking beverages. There are a few Elma competitions as well but with one computer ten players can't do much.

16. Forever CD

The era of Elma Forever (2000–2001) is closed by the Elasto Mania Forever CD by MUe (2001-07-21). MUe is the only player who has been deep in both sides of the Elma world, the official and the unofficial.

The CD is the first collection of the greatest Elma art work created so far. The biggest effort is put to a movie of 35 minutes, titled as Elma Crime.

The filming day of Elma Crime is the first big Hungarian meeting organized in the city of Budapest and at MUe's home (July 2001). The second Hungarian Elma Party is organized at MUe's home and PeXi's Elma poster with a signature of Balázs is handed to the winner of the Queeze game by MUe (CovBoy) (2001-08-12) (reference). MUe also organizes a smaller meeting already in January-February 2001 where PeXi's posters are handed to the participants by Balázs (reference). It's a miracle.

• Elasto Mania Forever CD by MUe (reference)

When talking about CDs it's noteworthy to mention that the first (known) CD including Action SuperCross is published in April 1998, in Czech Republic (Score 52) (reference).

LGR

Custom graphics can be created via a special file (LGR) in Elasto Mania. Let's look at some of the LGRs created during Elma Forever (2000–2001).

Program

When records list and cheating tools are excluded the first relevant Elma programs are game property modifiers, enabling to change internal level names and menu texts.

Background and foreground texture changer by ASF fixes the contrast problem some internals have (Downhill, Turnaround, Headbanger, Double Trouble). Later the problem is fixed in Elasto Mania 1.2 (2003-03-08).

Text

Textual work is still moderate and mainly technical.

• Running Elasto Mania in UNIX by fotn (2000-02-26) (reference)
• Interview of Mandel [PRA] by ->LUKE<- (2000-03-25) (reference)
• Interview of Balázs by MUe (2001-07-21) (reference) (reference)

Audio

MC Studios records six new songs in the second session in June 2000.

Video

MUe is the only one making Elma videos in the early days.

Image

Interesting Elasto Mania related images before July 2001 (in chronological order).

Summary of the chapter

During the first 18 months of Elasto Mania, Elma Forever (2000-2001), a lot happens. The new major version attracts more players which results richer community and crazier playing. Two new concepts which later become very essential parts of the game are invented, battle and alovolt.

Moposite and the predecessor of Mopolauta, two central places in the community, are established during the era. Meetings of ten players are organized, in Finland and Hungary.

Elma Forever CD closes the era by welcoming more people to join in. It's getting big.

VI. Golden Era (2001 July – 2006 December)🔝

The most prosperous period of the Elma saga lasts roughly five years from July 2001 to December 2006, from Elma Forever CD by MUe to Belma by milagros, the first relevant online patch.

The first public speedrun video Elma Done (Fairly) Quick is also published in the end of the era. The video reveals first time (almost) all world record replays including several legendary styles.

During Golden Era (2001–2006) many big things happened. Lots of new world records are driven, 357 participants in World Cup 4, more than ever, five total time minute limit breaks, dozens of meetings and very active Mopolauta discussions. Battles get popular – yet it is still very different experience without the modern patches of the later eras.

Golden Era is also Moposite's most active time.

The third discussion forum (Mopolauta v2) is started in 2002-05-19. It's an information treasure for this era.

1. Elasto Mania 1.2

As mentioned earlier there was a huge demand to get an upgrade to the game after the alovolt trick was found in summer 2001.

The creator of the game wasn't able to fix the inconvenient situation by open sourcing the program code or making a new version. This could have been the end of the story but then a player named Hibernatus reverse-engineered the essential parts of the source code and found a way to add a new single key to perform the alovolt. The first unofficial Elma version 1.11h was released in 2002-10-07 and 1.11hb in 2002-10-17 with a few bugfixes.

Hibernatus added also a replay merge, a feature that was introduced first time in Nitro patch. In addition there were VCR-style controls to rewind, pause and watch replays in slow motion. The patch gave a significant boost for the community because the new features improved the gameplay radically without altering the core physics which means the world records table remained open.

A year later in 2003-03-08 Hibernatus released one more version, Elasto Mania 1.2, which introduced more useful features like different screen resolutions and a centered camera which eliminated the annoying camera moves when turning the bike. Hibernatus' effort was remarkable not just because he improved the gameplay a lot but he also proved the community can change the course of the Elma history when it's about to end.

The creator of the game wasn't excited about the violations of his copyright but he never went against us, thankfully.

More

• View Elasto Mania 1.2 README (reference).

2. Golden Apple Awards (2003-2006)

A new useful concept for the article was initiated during the era: Golden Apple Awards (aka GAA) is an annual event to find out who's the best in 10-16 different categories such as the best player, team, rookie, level and contest. A player named Sprocket suggested the concept in 2002-12-25 (source) and Moposite started to organize it.

The basic idea of GAA is that the community and a jury of five members nominates ten candidates per category and after that the community votes for the winners. The gala is held in IRC and the winners can have a speech. Even physical trophies have been handed out.

Golden Apple Awards in 2003

   Category         Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Rookie           Juish               CAN
2. Comeback         kuiva               FIN
3. Level            Barbapappa          SWE     ADVENTURE LEVEL (MOPSI005)
4. Replay           Jalli               NOR     Impsybility Hard version (slesk059)
5. WR               IRK                 CZE     Apple Harvest (54_081IR)
6. Contest          px                  FIN     World Cup 4
7. Site             Abula               FIN     Moposite
8. Designer         Barbapappa          SWE
9. Contribution     Abula               FIN
10. Kuski           DarMoeD             RUS


Golden Apple Awards in 2004

   Category          Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Internalist       Zweq                FIN
2. Externalist       Axxu                FIN
3. Battler           Markku              FIN
4. Rookie            Axxu                FIN
5. Designer          Juble               AUS
6. Team              ICE                 -
7. WR                psy                 FIN     Apple Harvest (54_133ps)
8. Multi WR          Ramone &            SWE    
                     Barbapappa          SWE     Enigma 18,37 #97
9. Style             mr                  FIN     Quick Round (23_123mr)
10. Replay           Luther              SWE     Downhill (48_151Lu)
11. Level            MP                  FIN     WC Flush (KingC04)
12. LGR              Lucian              ?       HighQ
13. Contribution     Viper_KillerGuy     DEN     Scripts
14. Achievement      TorInge             NOR     24h tt under 38 mins
15. Site             Abula               FIN     Moposite


Golden Apple Awards in 2005

   Category          Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Internalist       TorInge             NOR
2. Externalist       Axxu                FIN
3. Battler           Markku              FIN
4. Rookie            Tm                  LTU
5. Designer          Zebra               FIN
6. Team              ICE                 -
7. WR                TorInge             NOR     Apple Harvest (54_199To)
8. Multi WR          Stini & Stini       FIN     Pipe 21,62 #127
9. Style             Axxu                FIN     Apple Harvest alt. route (54012769)
10. Replay           Jalli               NOR     Impsyjallity 49,47 (jalli15)
11. Level            skint0r             NOR     Mada Mada Dane (WCup504)
12. Contest          px                  FIN     World Cup 5
13. Contribution     Zebra               FIN     Battles, contests, programs
14. Achievement	     MP                  FIN     2nd World Cup victory
15. Site             MP & Ville_J        FIN     MopoCorner


Golden Apple Awards in 2006

    Category         Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist      John                SWE
2.  Externalist	     Axxu                FIN
3.  Battler          jaytea              USA
4.  Rookie           A.K.B.              AUS
5.  Designer         Zebra               FIN
6.  Team             WNO                 -
7.  WR               John                SWE     Apple Harvest 1:23,35 (#248)
8.  Multi WR         Zweq & Juzam        FIN     Apple Harvest 0:39,41 (#136)
9.  Style            Xiphias             ISL     Animal Farm start (31XiNf04)
10. Replay           John                SWE     Impsybility Easy Version 1:09,12 (MC19John)
11. Level            jonsta              POR     Brick Chili (MC209)
12. Contest          TAP                         MasterCup 2
13. Contribution     Viper_KillerGuy     DEN     Paprika, scripts, active in DEN scene
14. Achievement      TorInge             NOR     13 new WRs in #232, 27 WRs in #232
15. Site             skint0r             NOR     skintatious

During the era Axxu was the best individual with five awards, TorInge got four and Barbapappa, Abula, MP, John and Zebra came third with three.

3. TorInge, Zweq et al.

Playing the official internal levels heavily was obvious right after the game was released but it's interesting that it wasn't about to stop in the next years, quite the contrary. During Golden Era from July 2001 to December 2006, 686 new world records were driven in 181 WR tables (#73-#254).

There were many active top players during the era, actually more than ever. New super teams were founded and tactics developed in order to get better results. While playing skills improved, many new styles were also found by the most innovative players.

One important milestone in the internal levels playing is 2002-03-29 when Moposite published all internal levels as editable external levels. The levels had been available in the underground community for a while but now it became possible to anybody to use them to train different parts of the internal levels.

This was also the era when technical assistance became widely used. Hibernatus' unofficial version was utilized by every professional player because the alovolt key couldn't be missed. The other features such as centered camera, VCR-controls and replay merging were useful tools particularly in style finding.

3.1. WR tables 73-254

The WR table total time was dropping fast. It was a common debate to forecast what's the absolute limit of the world records. The current records always seemed to be close to perfection until something new was found again.

WR table total time minute limit breaks in Golden Era (2001–2006)

Limit       Date
-----------------------------
45 mins     2000-03-06 (#1)
44 mins     2000-03-11 (#2)
43 mins     2000-03-23 (#4)
42 mins     2000-06-03 (#20)
41 mins     2000-12-09 (#49)

... Golden Era begins ...

40 mins     2001-12-01 (#77)
39 mins     2002-10-26 (#99)
38 mins     2003-07-13 (#135)
37 mins     2004-10-30 (#189)

... Golden Era ends ...

36 mins     2007-06-14 (#265)
35 mins     2012-10-21 (#354)

An overwhelming contribution of the internal levels höyling was done by two new superstars who dominated both the WR table and personal total times list: TorInge and Zweq. TorInge's first world record was driven in 2002-04-27 (#83) and the last one in 2006-10-15 (#250). Zweq got his first WR in 2003-01-18 (#109) and at the time of writing (2021-07-26) he is still active, last WR in 2021-04-12 (#416).

TorInge won the Internalist category in Golden Apple Awards 2004, Zweq in 2005 and John in 2006.

TorInge's and Zweq's times and skills were beyond of everybody else, so the guys were widely suspected to be cheating until they were met in real life and their playing skills were documented.

686 new world records appeared in 181 tables in five years, meaning roughly 11 new ones per month. The total number is a bit higher than in the previous chapter (522) but back then the rate was 29 new WRs per month. The number of active hardcode internal players was on its peak but it simply took longer to drive world records now. However you could always ease that by finding a new route, trick or style.

Number of new WRs per nationality in tables 73-254

#    Nat.   WRs
---------------
1.   FIN    297
2.   NOR    159
3.   SWE    122
4.   HUN     27
5.   AUS     22
6.   RUS     14
7.   SVK     11
8.   POL      8
     CZE      8
10.  DEN      7
11.  NED      4
12.  CAN      3
13.  ISL      3
14.  LIT      1

The top-3 countries remained same, just in different order. Only one country had disappeared compared to previous era (USA) but seven new ones entered the main stage: Russia, Slovakia, Czech, Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland and Lithuania.

Most different WRs in one table goes to Finland with 38 WRs out of 54 in table #136 (2003-07-23) which is still a record (2020-05-19). Norwey had 30 WRs in #232 (2006-01-21) and Sweden 24 WRs in #81 (2002-02-23).

Number of new WRs per team in tables 73-254

#    Team   WRs
---------------
1.   ICE    101
2.   WNO     97
3.   IC      88
4.   FM      77
5.   EM      38
6.   REM     24
7.   TTT     17
8.   .       15
9.   tb      14
     TEA     14
...

In team standings FM lost leadership but it was the only team remaining from the previous era's top-10. It's notable that all top teams are now kind of international super teams where players co-operated with other players from different cities, even countries, and not with their neighbourhood friends like it was during Across Days (1995–2000).

Most WRs by one team goes to ICE with 31 WRs in table #232 (2006-01-21). IC had 26 WRs in #151 (2003-11-01) and WNO had 16 WRs in #150 (2003-10-25).

Number of new WRs per player in tables 73-254

#    Player      WRs
--------------------
1.   TorInge     122
2.   Zweq         97
3.   Karlis       45
4.   John         41
5.   Cloud        24
6.   dz           23
7.   Jeppe        22
     Mick         22
9.   Jalli        20
10.  psy          17
...

Karlis, Jeppe and psy withstood from the previous era. TorInge and Zweq joined the competition. Out of the top-10 Mick is the only one not coming from the nordic countries but from Australia.

Most WRs in one table by one player goes to TorInge with 27 WRs in table #232 (2006-01-21) and Zweq with 22 WRs in #152 (2003-11-08). John had 13 in #254 (2006-12-23). The previous leaders were Jeppe with 12 WRs in table #78 and psy with 10 WRs in table #1.

The most WRs by two players is table #201 (2006-01-21) where Zweq and TorInge had 31 WRs combined. The number is surprisingly low compared to their personal records (TorInge 27, Zweq 22) but it's because they competed pretty much in the same levels with each others.

Another mind-boggling record is that Zweq has had a WR in 51 different levels out of 54. TorInge's record of 42 different levels isn't bad either.

During Golden Era (2001–2006) seven world records crossed the stricking one minute limit barrier. After Upside Down in 2004 no more have been seen.

One minute world record breaks of all times

Level                     Time     Player      Date
----------------------------------------------------------------
51. Tricks Abound        58,00     Fulgore     2000-03-23 (#4)
50. Expert System        59,77     loX         2000-05-23 (#18)
24. Ramp Frenzy          59,90     Jokke       2000-06-30 (#24)
37. Jaws                 59,93     Tookai      2000-10-14 (#41)

... Golden Era begins ...

43. He He                59,78     Karlis      2001-10-22 (#74)
36. Fruit in the Den     59,10     TorInge     2002-10-26 (#99)
9. Tunnel Terror         59,92     IRK         2002-12-07 (#105)
46. Bowling              59,79     Cloud       2003-05-24 (#128)
15. Serpents Tale        59,37     Zweq        2003-06-28 (#133)
33. Zig-Zag              59,76     Ramone      2004-03-13 (#166)
20. Upside Down          59,71     Zweq        2004-09-05 (#181)

... Golden Era ends ...

Eight of the top-10 oldest world records were driven during the Golden Era (source).

Oldest world records (by number of tables)

#   Player       Level             Tables     Driven                Broken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Stini        Enigma               214     2004-05-29 (#175)     2017-03-01 (#389)
3.  Bokhylle     Freefall             114     2004-05-29 (#175)     2008-08-30 (#289)
4.  Zweq         Bumpy Journey        109     2003-05-24 (#128)     2006-04-01 (#237)
5.  Phillip      Spiral               108     2004-09-25 (#184)     2008-10-25 (#292)
6.  mr           The Steppes          100     2003-06-14 (#131)     2006-01-15 (#231)
7.  Luther       Downhill              97     2003-11-01 (#151)     2006-09-03 (#248) 
8.  John         Enduro                97     2006-09-03 (#248)     2012-01-23 (#345)
10. niktata      Loop-de-Loop          90     2004-01-04 (#157)     2006-08-26 (#247)

... after Golden Era ...

2.  Zweq         Warm Up              122     2007-03-17 (#259)     2015-04-13 (#381)
9.  Jarkko       Uphill Battle         96     2009-10-09 (#301)     2018-04-24 (#397)

More

• Read WR analyses (2003-07-11) (reference).

3.2. dz under 40:00:00

As much as the world records, the total time competition was also intense and profound. The top-100 personal best total time list saw a minute limit break five times – including the most legendary one: 40:00,00.

Personal total times minute limit breaks of all times

Limit       Player       Nat.    Date
--------------------------------------------------
45 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-03-11 (#1)
44 mins     Champi0N     SWE     2000-04-05 (#7)
43 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-06-04 (#21)
42 mins     zyntifox     NOR     2000-11-21 (#47)

... Golden Era begins ...

41 mins     pajen        SWE     2001-10-14 (#75)
40 mins     dz           FIN     2002-05-02 (#85)
39 mins     TorInge      NOR     2003-04-11 (#122)
38 mins     Zweq         FIN     2003-09-28 (#147)
37 mins     TorInge      NOR     2005-03-16 (#205)

... Golden Era ends ...

36 mins     John         SWE     2009-07-13 (#298)
35 mins     Spef         FIN     2018-05-09 (#405)

TorInge's personal total time was only 0:11,33 seconds behind the world records total time when he got under 37 minutes which most likely will be a record that won't get beaten. John was 0:17,92 and Zweq 0:23,92 seconds behind when they went under the limit.

TorInge has uploaded all his best time replays to Youtube, total time being 36:38,93 as it was in 2006-11-27.

• TorInge's best times replays, part 1/4 (2006-11-27) (reference)
• TorInge's best times replays, part 2/4 (2006-11-27) (reference)
• TorInge's best times replays, part 3/4 (2006-11-27) (reference)
• TorInge's best times replays, part 4/4 (2006-11-27) (reference)

3.3. 24 hours total time

Total times were also battled in the 24 hours competition. TorInge proved to be an overwhelming master in this competition as well and Zweq was the only one getting even close. By driving under 38 minutes in 24 hours during the Finnish Elma Meeting 2005, TorInge earned the Achievement category in Golden Apple Awards 2004.

The idea of the competition is to drive as good total time as possible in 24 hours and it was organized first time in 2000-07-08 by Abula. The first participants were Tisk, onlainari (aka onla), Karlis and mengerle.

Best personal total times in 24 hours (by difference to contemporary WR total time)

#   Player    Total time        WR tt     Date
-----------------------------------------------------------
1.  TorInge     37:39,71     +0:51,98     2005-06-14 (#212)
2.  Zweq        38:12,84     +1:16,14     2004-12-22 (#195)
3.  dz          40:55,93     +2:07,21     2003-01-04 (#107)

... before Golden Era ...
	
5.  Elbono      44:45,71     +2:56,34     2000-07-11 (#26)
7.  psy         44:59,67     +3:10,30     2000-07-14 (#26)

... after Golden Era ...

2.  Zweq        36:41,75     +1:04,93     2009-10-13 (#301)
4.  Raven       37:55,98     +2:13,90     2009-07-24 (#298)
6.  adi         37:38:87     +2:56,92     2016-08-24 (#385)

More

• Read TorInge drives 37 mins in 24h topic (2005-10-15) (reference).
• Read chat log of the first 24 hours total times session (2000-07-08) (reference).

3.4. Forecasting the WR future

Forecasting the world records future has been always an interesting question. Usually the last limit has been thought to be the next one but there have been also attempts to estimate it in more analytical way.

Moposite v2.0 introduced a new section titled as Forecasting Elma future where the deadline to submit was in 2002-01-01. The participants were requested to give estimations to about 20 questions and the last checking date was set to far future (2006-01-01) when probably no one is playing anymore. Unfortunately the checking did never happen but hold on, let's do it now. We can use the current date as well (2018-01-30) because it was meant to be the final check anyway.

Two questions of the forecast are particularly interesting: the WR total time and the number of World Cups organized. Abula got World Cups right (7) but the total time guess failed badly: 38:50,99 when the current one is 34:35,50. To closest got Sathy out of the 37 participants by guessing the lowest number (37:04,23) but even that is two and half minutes worse than the real one. In 2006-01-01 the WR total time was 36:40,53 so actually Sathy got it pretty close.

The estimations were also done on Mopolauta discussions. When the WR total time was 39:06,96 in table #95 (2002-09-30) Abula published an estimation how to get 37:23,24 (reference). People considered many of the predictions impossible but today 50 out of 54 are better (2020-05-19).

Another attempt was Phillip's mathematical estimation model which he published in 2004-11-01 in the same topic where Zweq were also speculating the times according to his professional experience and opinion (reference). The model predicted the total time being 35:59,99 in table #500. Today we are now at table #411 and the total time is 34:26,65. The model should be updated to use real dates instead of the table numbers.

Elma programmers have also tried to brute force the records by creating an AI bot to optimize replays. However only small improvements have been managed to do. In the next chapters, a saveload patch will give a new viewpoint of what is possible at least theoretically.

3.5. Blossom of multiplaying

Not many multiplayer statistics exist but we do know who dominated the lists during the Golden Era (2001–2006): first Miguel and Uube from Raahe (Finland), then TorInge and Tantal from Namsos (Norway) and finally Zweq and Juzam from Kokkola (Finland). In the 107th multi WR table (2004-04-24) TorInge and Tantal had amazingly 45 multi world records out of 54.

Multi total times minute limit breaks of all times

Limit       Player(s)            Nat.    Date
---------------------------------------------------
27 mins     MoorZe               NOR     2001-04-20

... Golden Era begins ...

26 mins     TorInge              NOR     2002-05-16
25 mins     TorInge & Tantal     NOR     2003-01-18
24 mins     Zweq & Juzam         FIN     2003-03-12

... Golden Era ends ...

23 mins     Zweq & Juzam         FIN     2007-04-25

• Watch multi replays by TorInge and Tantal, part 1/2 (2010-02-13) (reference).
• Watch multi replays by TorInge and Tantal, part 2/2 (2010-02-13) (reference).

Most of the multi world records were driven by local real life friends but quite many in meetings too.

Multi WRs in AC-meat1

Level                    Time     Players
---------------------------------------------------
43. He He               45,54     Karlis & Tisk

Multi WRs in Finnish Elma Meeting 2002

Level                    Time     Players
---------------------------------------------------
19. Turnaround          39,71     dz     & mrickx
23. Quick Round         15,21     Jokke  & Karlis
24. Ramp Frenzy         55,40     dz     & Jokke
31. Animal Farm         41,99     mr     & mrickx
35. Labyrinth Pro     1:31,07     Karlis & mr
38. Curvaceous          18,88     Karlis & mr
43. He He               44,33     Karlis & Tisk
49. What the Heck       25,69     dz     & Jokke
50. Expert System       31,91     dz     & mr

Multi WRs in Finnish Elma Meeting 2003

Level                    Time     Players
---------------------------------------------------
9. Tunnel Terror        29,97     Jokke  & mr
10. The Steppes         12,08     mr     & mr
28. Bounce Back         22,56     Karlis & mr     
41. Framework           38,96     mr     & Terba
42. Enduro              34,97     Jokke  & mr

Multi WRs in Finnish Elma Meeting 2004

Level                    Time     Players
---------------------------------------------------
32. Steep Corner        26,96     axxu   & mr
33. Zig-Zag             45,60     mr     & Ramone

Multi WRs in Finnish Elma Meeting 2005

Level                    Time     Players
---------------------------------------------------
9. Tunnel Terror        28,78     TorInge & xp
22. Slalom              16,49     TorInge & Jalli
30. Pipe                21,78     TorInge & Cubein
32. Steep Corner        26,53     TorInge & skint0r
39. Haircut             38,24     Stini   & Juzam

3.6. Records systems development

In the beginning updating the records lists was manual work all the way. During Golden Era (2001–2006) new programs were created to help the updating work.

CSabi published a program to generate a stats.txt file for the external levels in 2001-08-15. Zebra programmed ElmaTimes (2002-03-06) and Mergestats (2004-09-15) to generate record lists from stats.txt files.

The WR statistics got a few new additions in 2001-10-22 when Moposite added the oldest WRs, the most improvements and the WR owner lists. The biggest absolute and relative improvement lists were added in March 2002. A player named partybear coded a software in 2003-04-11 to generate the WR statistics automatically.

Another huge technological step was Moposite's record lists generator programmed by Hibernatus in 2002-06-26. The manual work was not needed anymore and Moposite introduced many new lists: country, city, average and personal top lists every week.

One more system must be mentioned, namely Viper_KillerGuy's (aka vk) elmatimes.php which also earned him the award of Contribution category in GAA04. The online script was published in 2003-03-07 and it calculated the record lists automatically and dynamically after the player uploaded his times. Later with the help of another Danish programmer named Kopaka, the script was converted to Moposite.

There is even one older dynamic records system that I'm aware of. It was made for the Czech community by Bobisek in 2001. I haven't found the website anymore but Bobisek has dated the Czech meeting report on the same background as the records system was running on (2001-10-06). I can assure you that I remember the background because I was so excited about his advanced systems that I even bought a book to learn to program PHP by myself in 2002.

4. Revolutionary WR styles

Golden Era saw several new, even revolutionary styles which challenged what we thought was possible. World records in the first years tended to be more about driving the obvious routes but now it got crazier.

One of the classics are "left first" WRs. A few world records have been improved by changing the driving direction at the very start. Each of them are grandiose.

World Records of all times with a new start direction

Level                  Player       Date
-----------------------------------------------------
44. Freefall           Karlis       2000-08-19 (#33)

... Golden Era begins ...

54. Apple Harvest      IRK          2002-02-23 (#81)
40. Double Trouble     IRK          2002-09-21 (#95)
38. Curvaceous         milagros     2004-09-25 (#184)

... Golden Era ends ...

32. Steep Corner       Zweq         2008-05-11 (#284)

IRK is an interesting character, similar to Joni, because all WRs by him, perhaps Headbanger excluded, were exceptional. His Tunnel Terror WR got mentioned already as a one minute limit breaker which was also almost his third "left first" world record because he took a completely new direction after the first six seconds. Additionally IRK's Apple Harvest WR is the fifth biggest absolute improvement of all times.

Another interesting aspect is that two very short and easy internals, the levels number 2 and 3 which everybody knows over and out, revealed new earth-shaking styles. Both Flat Track and Twin Peaks are among the biggest relative improvements of all times.

Zsolt's Flat Track style was found after the Mirror internals level pack was published in 2003-03-25. When Flat Track is mirrored, you are able to use alovolt and the time improves easily by a few seconds. Many players must have thought about doing the style in normal level without the alovolt possibility but it was Zsolt who actually nailed it.

I must take the credit of the Twin Peaks style by spreading the idea to everyone in #across after I wasn't allowed to break WRs anymore in 2003.

A few more new fascinating routes were driven in Serpents Tale and Quick Round.

5. Vsync tuning

Elma is a simple game but there are situations when technical tweaking such as vsync tuning can give some advantage. Many top players ignored tweaking totally such as TorInge and MP, so the importance shouldn't be overstressed but when going for WRs, particularly in shorter levels the tuning may give you the last 0,1 seconds.

In 2002-09-01 a player named DarMoeD published an article how the vsync setting affects Elma gameplay. DarMoeD was revealed to be a cheater two years later but vsync tuning has nothing to do with cheating, even though many people don't like it.

There isn't hard evidence when vsync tuning was utilized in a WR but because we know from Mopolauta discussions (reference, reference) that Karlis, dz and Zweq were the first ones to be interested in the topic, Karlis' Freefall WR 0:12,24 in table #97 (2002-10-12) could be the first one.

Two years later in 2004-12-02 Zweq published a list of the best settings for every internal level (reference).

Technically vsync setting determines if the refresh rate of the game (FPS) is limited by the monitor setting (vsync on) or the computational power of the processor (vsync off). The higher FPS, the smoother the bike goes, because the rendering logic of the software is calculating faster when the active parts collide, a wheel and a polygon, for example. Vice versa the lower the FPS is, the better grip the wheels have on ground.

When vsync is off, FPS doubles if the timer is set off.

Later in 2010 a new unofficial version (Elma Online) introduced a configurable setting to change the vsync. Before that people just had to find out a way to change the setting in their system which wasn't always easy. For example it was found that certain applications such as Quicktime changed the setting which made people to keep it running on background when they needed vsync on.

It was also figured out that it's possible to change the refresh rate in the middle of the drive by turning off external hard drive or giving the computer a scheduled task to calculate something (reference).

Slightly similar topic is the non-deterministic nature of Across and Elma which is not significant but it exists. If you start for example Headbanger and leave the bike fall without doing anything you will probably see deaths both at 12.5x and 14.0x seconds. It's because the games have different logics for calculating the physical behaviour of the bike and rendering what happens on the screen, and the latter one is dependant on the current calculation power of the computer which is varying so sometimes the collisions between the active parts, for example wheels with the ground polygon, happen at a slightly different time, and then again the collisions affect back to the physical calculations.

6. Cheating (3rd wave)

While technical knowledge of the game was increasing among the players, more sophisticated cheating was also developing but so was anti-cheating tools as well.

Since April 2001 we had had MGen's histogram analyzer which caught a few cheaters but in December 2002 both MGen and milagros were programming new tools. They were able to detect replays with altered physics or different timescale used. Now we were able to catch all slow motion, early ESC, deleted frame, missed apple, immortality, modified acceleration and gravity and even cracked state.dat cheats. It was also possible to see whether the replay was driven in the original or somehow patched Elma.

And yes, surprisingly many people had cheated world records. Different methods had been used and sometimes a player would have gotten the WR even without the cheat. Before December 2002 the times of replay files were shown in 0:00,03 accuracy so it was fairly easy to cheat 1-2 centiseconds just by lying.

mrDJ and Weird-AAL, also using names EML, SirEvilX, Nostrada and Deadelous kept on cheating during their penalty which gave them a lifetime ban. mrickx the updater of WR statistics who also came to Finnish Elma Meeting 2002 from Czech Republic had also cheated several WRs. In total nine cheaters were added to the Blacklist and over 60 world records had to be cleaned up.

The patched Elma detector was crucial to catch the biggest fish of all-time cheaters, DarMoeD in 2004-08-05. He used autoplay, a patch which reads the timestamps of each key presses from a data file. By using the autoplay DarMoeD won a World Cup 4 event while getting five new WRs during the same week. Results like this put him even above TorInge and Zweq until everything collapsed.

DarMoeD had cheated 56 world records and the victory of World Cup 4. He was also voted for the best Kuski in the Golden Apple Awards 2003. He had got also some real money by selling his replays.

Hooked-bug becomes mainstream during Elma Forever because Hooked is a level where it happens now and then. Many rookies have tried to get the WR by sending a replay using the bug.

More

• Read about Third cheating wave on Mopolauta (reference).
• How to become an elastomania cheater in 21 days by SirEvilX (2002-07-12) (reference)

7. Brutal volt, deadbounce...

Back to the brighter side of the game. A few new tricks were found during Golden Era (2001–2006). Alovolt (2001) and bouncing (1999) were the previous revolutionary tricks.

A player named Capo who has been rumoured to play only after drinking 15 beers and even then only on standing, invented brutal volt in June 2002 (reference). The trick was used a year earlier in Kahvi Cup but Capo gave it a name.

A new trick discovery led to finding new styles in the internal levels and actually a few were found: 5. Uphill Battle (reference), 33. Zig-Zag and 23. Quick Round. In later years some more world records will utilize the trick: 24. Ramp Frenzy, 10. Steppes, 51. Tricks Abound and 30. Pipe.

In addition deadbounce (2002-11-27) (reference), juishpop (2003-01-29) (reference) and o-bounce (2005-09-11) (reference) were discovered as well but none of them have been utilized successfully in any internal level world record.

• Watch Special tricks part 1/2 by Jappe2 (2007-09-16) (reference).

8. Pipe Kings

We haven't talked yet about driving inside narrow pipes. A totally new way of driving became common during the era. The primary goal of driving inside pipes isn't to finish the level as fast as possible but to survive the longest way possible. Since World Cup 3 (2000) every world cup has had a pipe level and there are several level packs dedicated only for pipes.

The first known pipe levels, 26. Headbanger the original level and Da Pipe were already played during Across Days (1995–2000) but it was a level named Impossibility by Abula in 2000 to introduce the idea of driving in narrow pipes as long as possible. psy was the first player to finish the level.

psy's replay isn't preserved but his winner replay of the 17th event in World Cup 3 is, another pipe level made by Abula in 2000. Both levels are easy in today's standards but back then the finishers were gods with exceptional superhuman skills.

A much harder pipe level was created by me in 2000-11-21 (Impsybility hard version) which finally seemed to be hard enough to not get finished.

A year later a new player entered the stage who was later called the Pipe King. Jalli finished the level in 2002-01-27 and he also won the pipe events of both World Cup 4 (2002-12-22) and World Cup 5 (2005-08-09). The latter one is titled as Impsyjallity. Jalli was also the first finisher of Impsybility easy version in 2004-10-17.

9. Slesk replays

Funny replays got renamed to slesk in 2001. The quality is better but still moderate in today's standards.

10. World Cup 4

The fourth World Cup was running from 2002-08-31 to 2003-02-24 and there were 20 events. The cup gathered 357 players which is more than any other cup ever. 61 teams and 22 countries got points. The country list is fascinating (ordered by points): FIN, SWE, NOR, RUS, HUN, DEN, CZE, CAN, AUS, SVK, ISL, POL, ISR, GBR, LAT, USA, ROM, GER, ESP, SUI, BUL and MIR. Yes, MIR, we will get back to it.

MP won the cup after DarMoeD was cleaned up from the results. kuiva did a comeback and was second. Jokke reached top-10 again which he had done in all four cups by now—Karlis was third time in top-10. MP was also the first player to make a hattrick by winning three events in a row.

MP never had a WR, a pattern that applies with some other great world cup players too such as kuiva and Dr_Luni. Well, Luni had one (Tunnel Terror).

World Cup 4 is also my personal best: I was 8th in the final standings.

Top-10 players in World Cup 4

#    Player       Team    Nat.    Points
----------------------------------------
1.   MP           CF      FIN     1279
2.   kuiva        FIN     FIN     1249,5
3.   Karlis       FM      FIN     1141
4.   Jalli        FBE     NOR     1133,5
5.   Jokke        FM      FIN     1017,5
6.   magicman     CF      SWE     901
7.   Barbapappa   CF      SWE     879
8.   Abula        FM      FIN     871
9.   Tapzu        POP     FIN     862
10.  ZeiZei       EM      FIN     841,5

Jappe2 created a film about World Cup 4 in 2010, eight years after the cup.

• Watch World Cup 4 by Jappe2, part 1/2 (2010-06-23) (reference).
• Watch World Cup 4 by Jappe2, part 2/2 (2010-06-23) (reference).

11. World Cup 5

Another World Cup was organized during Golden Era (2001–2006). World Cup 5 was running from 2005-05-02 to 2005-08-09 and it gathered 235 players from 22 countries and 58 teams. New countries were France, Portugal, Ukraine and Belarus.

And the winner was MP again! This gave him also the victory of the Achievement category in Golden Apple Awards 2005. He repeated also the famous hattrick by winning three events in a row, an achievement only he has done.

Karlis was fourth time in top-10 and sharing the achievement now with Jokke.

After five world cups, one team had got points in all of them: Team Finlandia.

Top-10 players in World Cup 5

#    Player     Team    Nat.    Points
--------------------------------------
1.   MP                 FIN     1116
2.   axxu       AC      FIN     1111
3.   Jalli      ICE     NOR     1000
4.   Luther     ICE     SWE      869
5.   Karlis     FM      FIN      832
6.   J-sim      EMA     DEN      616
7.   Munkki     MAN     FIN      561
8.   Red        AC      SWE      541,5
9.   Ramzi      GF      POL      529,5
10.  DaemoN     GF      HUN      497

• Watch World Cup 5 by Kopaka, part 1/2 (2006-03-17) (reference).
• Watch World Cup 5 by Kopaka, part 2/2 (2006-03-17) (reference).

12. Mopobattles

The first online battles are organized in #30minsHH, #30minsbat and #battle IRC channels in Elma Forever (2000-2001).

Battling is a big success and for two reasons. First it's a way to see who are the most skilled players, at least in fast style finding, because everyone has the same playing time and there is no time to co-operate with other players, at least not much. Secondly battles are good for chatting because they gather players online at the same time.

The first comprehensive battle results are from 2001-10-16 when the first Mopobattle was organized by Abula. It gathered 20 players and the winner was psy. Two long time active players, Tisk and onlainari (aka onla), were present.

Mopobattles were organized manually in the beginning and in total there were only ten battles in year 2001. MGen created a program to calculate the statistics in 2002 but still only seven battles were organized in year 2002.

skint0r adopted the organizing work in year 2003 and by then the total number of annual Mopobattles was 51. The most popular one gathered 44 participants (2003-04-20).

No Mopobattles were organized in year 2004 when the more casual battles satisfied the demand in the #battle IRC channel. Zebra started to organize Mopobattles again in year 2005. Mopobattles are different compared to casual battles by pre-arranged schedules, extensive results and statistics and the playing time was always the same, 30 minutes.

42 Mopobattles were played in 2005, 27 in 2006 and 26 in 2007.

Top-10 players in Mopobattles by total points in 2001-2007

#   Player     Nat.  Battles   Won   Points
-------------------------------------------
1.  dz         FIN      74      10     1418
2.  axxu       FIN      78      35     1221
3.  Abula      FIN      90       4     1085
4.  MP         FIN      46      10     1068
5.  mr         FIN     112       3      942
6.  Ismo       FIN      88       1      930
7.  Zebra      FIN      83       0      784
8.  Jalli      NOR      36       4      777
9.  Orcc       FIN      51       2      744
10. cyre       FIN      61       1      739

The best teams were FM (most total points), AC (most battles won) and TTT (best average points). The best countries were Finland (most total points, most battles won) and Iceland (best average points).

In total there were 376 different player names. Because Mopobattles were played during seven years, the top players tend to be those who were active all the time. That's why the average points are interesting too.

Top-10 players in Mopobattles by average points in 2001-2007

#   Player [1]   Nat.  Battles  Avg. pts
----------------------------------------
1.  Cloud        FIN      11       27.64
2.  Zweq         FIN      23       26.78
3.  Raider       DEN      24       24.96
4.  LazY         NOR      23       24.96
5.  Markku       FIN      12       24.83
6.  psy          FIN      11       24.64
7.  Jokke        FIN      14       24.57
8.  TomCat       HUN      21       23.71
9.  swos         FIN      10       23.30
10. MP           FIN      46       23.22

[1] Ten battles played at minimum.

Top-10 players in Mopobattles by battle win ratio in 2001-2007

#   Player [1]   Nat.  Battles   Win-%
--------------------------------------
1.  axxu         FIN      78      45 %
2.  Cloud        FIN      11      45 %
3.  Markku       FIN      12      42 %
4.  swos         FIN      10      40 %
5.  Zweq         FIN      23      35 %
6.  MP           FIN      46      22 %
7.  The_OooO     FIN      44      20 %
8.  Munkki       FIN      15      20 %
9.  Zox          FIN      16      19 %
10. LazY         NOR      23      17 %

[1] Ten battles played at minimum.

Zebra resurrected Mopobattles again in 2012 by organizing 20 more. The most popular one gathered 61 players in 2012-02-13.

• View Zebra's Mopobattle page (reference).

13. #battle

Thanks to Zebra the #battle data is preserved (reference). Another big helpers have been Viper_KillerGuy's vkprivupload.php and the work of <@battlebot> by MagnusB and skint0r.

Because Mopobattles were organized seldom, people started to play them spontaneously in IRC channel called #battle. Points were not calculated and no one was an organizer particularly. Thereby we don't have data of the years 2001 and 2002 but we do have year 2003 onwards.

Battlebot is an IRC bot that calculates battle results automatically from the IRC chat. The bot was launched in July 2003. During the first month the bot reported only the playing time left but in 2003-08-09 it was also generating the results. skint0r adopted Battlebot development in February 2004 and kept it serving till April 2007 when Belma was released. As a concept the battle bot is mentioned first time in 2001-01-12 by Abula.

More

• View the first preserved battle log (and MopoGirl) in #battle (2003-01-01) (reference).
• View the first results by battlebot (2003-08-09) (reference).

2003—2004

2329 battles were played in year 2003 and 7018 in year 2004. On average six battles per day were organized in 2003 and 19 battles per day in 2004. Because we know the average lengths of the battles (18.29 and 14.59 minutes) we can calculate that there was a battle running 8 % and 19 % of the whole year, day and night. Now it was possible to compete in real-time competition around the clock. The number of participants per battle was relative low thought: 4.72 in 2003 and 4.86 in 2004. In Mopobattles 30 players was normal.

It's difficult to determine the best battler of all times but it's certain that Markku could be one—at least he ruled the first two years. After he joined the channel in August 2003 he was the best in total points up to April 2004 in every month except in January 2004 when he took a break. The ratio how many battles he won out of the ones he participated during the entire era (2003-2007) is amazing: 75 %. His longest winning streak is from year 2006 when he won 23 battles in a row.

The years 2003 and 2004 were Markku's total dominance which was also recognized in GAA04 and GAA05. Other successful players of the first two years were SkedoR (4 times The Battler of Month) and veezay (2). MagnusB and Jalli had success in the very beginning in January 2003.

MagnusB wrote in 2003-08-04 (source): "Markku is the best battler ever. It's that simple. Out of the approximately 18 battles he has participated in the last couple of days he has only lost (not won) two. It's not just that he wins, he is also frequently so overwhelming that he completely discourages his opponents, often winning by several seconds (...)"

2005 — 2007 April

Battles became even more popular between 2005 and April 2007. 13686 battles were played in 2005, on average 37 per day which means 32 % running time in the whole year. Year 2006 was active as well but the numbers of year 2007 are not comparable because people started to move to Belma in January 2007.

jaytea won the battler of month 17 times out of 24 since May 2005 when he joined the channel. jaytea also won the Battler category in GAA06. Other battlers of month were Zox (2 times), axxu (2) and The OooO (2). jaytea kept on dominating in #battle until everybody moved to Belma.

Annual statistics

Annual statistics of battles in #battle period

Year     GAA Battler   Most points     Avg. pts [1]     Win-% [1]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2003     -             Markku          Zweq (10.62)     Markku (59 %)
2004     Markku        veezay          ?                ?
2005     Markku        jaytea          ?                ?
2006     jaytea        jaytea          ?                ?
2007     Zweq          jaytea          ?                ?

[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

Annual meta statistics of battles in #battle period

Year   Battles   Running   Players    Length [1]  Designer [2]
---------------------------------------------------------------
2003     2329       8 %      4.72      18.29      2fast
2004     7018      19 %      4.86      14.59      insguy
2005    13686      32 %      4.14      12.12      talli
2006    12088      27 %      3.53      11.55      kestas
2007     1003       8 %      3.04      14.54      jds999

[1] In minutes
[2] By number of levels

Total statistics (January 2003 — April 2007)

Top-10 players by battle total points in #battle period

#   Player     Nat.  Battles   Points
-------------------------------------
1.  jaytea     USA     7000     24824
2.  Markku     FIN     3002     16871
3.  terb0      FIN     5034     12813
4.  Zox        FIN     2918     12213
5.  talli      FIN     2888     10815
6.  axxu       FIN     1750     10641
7.  Jeppe      SWE     2287      9788
8.  aavv       POR     2638      9426
9.  Zrex       FIN     2259      9384
10. John       SWE     1613      8850

Top-10 players by battle average points in #battle period

#   Player [1]   Nat.   Battles    Avg.
---------------------------------------
1.  axxu         FIN      1750     6.08
2.  zaraptor     GBR       432     5.65
3.  Markku       FIN      3002     5.61
4.  John         SWE      1613     5.48
5.  Zweq         FIN      1107     5.43
6.  MadMan       SWE       296     4.93
7.  Jalli        NOR       393     4.87
8.  cyre         FIN       432     4.81
9.  veezay       FIN      1838     4.80
10. Ali          CZE       113     4.76
	
[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

Top-10 players by battle win ratio in #battle period

#   Player [1]   Nat.  Battles   Win-%
--------------------------------------
1.  Markku       FIN     3002     75 %
2.  axxu         FIN     1750     63 %
3.  Jeppe        SWE     2287     62 %
4.  Kuper        RUS      640     61 %
5.  Zweq         FIN     1107     59 %
6.  zaraptor     GBR      432     59 %
7.  John         SWE     1613     58 %
8.  skint0r      NOR      622     55 %
9.  ANpDaD       RUS      716     52 %
10. kd           HUN      543     51 %

[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

Markku and axxu were the best battlers in the #battle period unless you weight total points over everything else.

Top-10 most productive battle level designers in 2003 - 2007 Apr

#   Designer   Nat.  Levels   Players
-------------------------------------
1.  Jeppe      SWE     1951      3.67
2.  jds999     USA     1765      2.88
3.  kestas     LTU     1625      3.56
4.  insguy     GER     1364      4.34
5.  talli      FIN     1318      3.40
6.  Jappe2     FIN     1061      3.68
7.  iob        AUS      988      4.34
8.  Rasken     NOR      933      3.93
9.  Zebra      FIN      908      5.54
10. Devan      CAN      906      4.29

14. More Contests

During Golden Era (2001–2006) there were numerous other contests too besides World Cups and battles.

The best external level player of the era was axxu. He dominated several cups and contents which earned him hattrick in the Externalist category in GAA04, GAA05 and GAA06. He also won the Rookie category in GAA04.

Level reviews

PeXi had a level review page named Custom levels in his Across page in 1999 (reference). Level reviews were continued in Moposite v1 since March 2000 by selecting and publishing top-10 levels of the official level packs. Moposite v2.0 introduced the Single Level Rates page in August 2001. Level of Month (LOM) by Abula was started to be organized in January 2002 (reference).

In Level of Month competition the designers had one month to create a level in a given theme and the winners were chosen by the jury. Barbapappa and Juble were triple winners and Xhomaz, Zebra, Ville_J won it twice. In total points Barbapappa and Zebra would be the top-2 if the points were calculated.

Internal styled levels

One very popular contest type has always been external levels which imitate the official internal levels.

Mini internals is the first pack in 1999-2000 and OLP is second in 2001-03-03 but there were many more. Oldschool routes (aka no-shortcut) internals where created in 2002-05-31. All the difficult shortcuts of internal levels were blocked in those levels. Antz removed the apples and published the Nofood internals in 2002-11-02. milagros mirrored the internal levels programmatically in 2003-03-26 and also new mini internals were created programmatically in 2003-06-07. Max internals were published in 2003-09-07. Killers and apples got reverted in 2004-09-11. bob reversed start and end positions in 2005 and Tilted Internals were created in 2006.

There is another way to create new internal levels by designing new levels to simulate the feeling of the original levels. The first popular internal style level pack was named Lost Internals and the story was that the creator of the game had lost some levels which were found. The levels were published in Moposite in 2002-01-25 and the designer was Barbapappa.

Ville_J released Internal-ish levels in March 2002 and skint0r created skinternals in July 2003. Team TAP published Internal Feeling Level Pack in 2004 and Team LOS released Almost Internals in 2005. More of these will be published in the coming eras.

Mopo Corner, skintatious, Zebra's Elma site and more

A few high quality level sites were founded during the era. Mopo Corner by MP and Ville_J was launched in 2002-06-20 and their levels Alternative Level Pack (ALP) and King Kon Tests were widely played. They also organized two popular cups: King Cup in 2003-10-05 and Kon Quest in 2005-10-01. MP and Ville_J won the Site category in GAA05.

Another remarkable level site and designer is Zebra who launched his Elma site in 2002-08-13. Zebra has been one of the most productive players in the community. He has organized Mopobattles, generated statistics of #battle and Belma battles and organized several contests such as Master Cup (2005), Master Cup 2 (2006) and The TAP Challenge (2006) (reference). He has also created the biggest level pack archive out there (Zebra's Level Archive) (2008) and finished the Moposchool project, the most sophisticated collection of Elma bike tricks, which was started by Abula and Barbapappa in 2002.

skint0r won the Site category in GAA06.

According to the statistics of Moposite's Links section, dz's, GuyB's, TonyLee's, Olliz and Kopaka's websites received most visits.

Cups

Besides two World Cups many other cups were also played.

Cups organized in Golden Era (2001–2006)

Start          Name                         Winner       Organizer(s)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2001-08-25     Elmaduel                     ?            Landlord
2001-08-?      GET Kupa                     MGen         GET
2001-09-15     EC cup                       EML          MUe
2001-09-30     Magyar Kupa 2                MGen         CSabi
2001-11-26     Mitik Cup                    EboNitE      mitik
2002-01-16     EAM Cup 2                    Trabi        EAM
2002-02-03     Höylä Cup                    ?            ?
2002-07-15     Summer Cup 2002              MGen         CovBoy & CSabi
2002-09-29     Dragstrup Cup                GuyB         Kopaka

... World Cup 4 ...

2003-04-14     MET Flag Tag Cup             Marci        Flatley & Zsolt
2003-08-17     Vicious Cup Summer           MP           Dezz (dz)
2003-10-05     King Cup                     TorInge      MP & Ville_J
2004-01-14     Mopo Kup                     axxu         Zworqy
2004-03-17     LOS Cup 2                    axxu         Xhomaz
2004-04-17     Elimination Tournament       psy          Zworqy
2004-06-22     Smash Cup                    Red          Kopaka
2004-11-14     Elimination Tournament 2     Munkki       Zworqy
2005-01-15     Master Cup                   axxu         Zebra

... World Cup 5 ...

2005-10-01     Kon Quest                    The OooO     MP & Ville_J
2006-01-29     Mopo Kup 2                   axxu         Zworqy
2006-02-06     TAP Challenge                Homer        Zebra
2006-08-13     Master Cup 2                 axxu         Zebra

More

• GET Kupa (August 2001) (reference)

Unusual contests

A few more contests must be mentioned because of their uniqueness.

A one post man Pityka shared his Warm Up times driven by his toes and nose in 2003 (reference). John's JoPi is probably the most popular pipe level pack. There are also Olimpic Elma levels (2005-01-11) in Zebra's Level Archive (Russian ElastoMania Club levels) which got to the closest of the Olympic games so far.

The first chain level was started in 2002 by Barbapappa. It's a level type where several designers participate in making the level. Barbapappa also created the first adventure level which won the Level category in GAA03.

Winners of the Level category in Golden Apple Awards (2003-2006)

Winners of the Designer category in GAA 2003-2006

Year     Designer
-------------------
2003     Barbapappa
2004     Juble
2005     Zebra
2006     Zebra

Level editors

This was also the era when level designers got the first community made level editors.

Especially Advanced Level Editor (ALE) by Nicolas (2003-09-02) (reference) and ALE 2.1 (2004-12-17) (reference) were popular.

radim's levelmaker was the first level generator (2003-04-13) (reference).

15. Moposite (under construction)

Golden Era (2001–2006) was prosperous for Moposite as well, although the website was continuously under construction. Three major versions were released and the updates happened weekly, even daily.

Regular updates and lots of new material established Moposite's status as a central place of the community. Number of daily visitors rose from 500 to 1500. Balázs the author also recognized Moposite's status and gave us the world records table and free licenses of the game.

Moposite has always received lots of help from other players. Especially the programmers tura, MGen, partybear, Hibernatus, milagros, Viper_KillerGuy and Kopaka have been great help. Close to a hundred players have helped us. Thank you.

Moposite v2

Moposite had been running about one year when the second major version was published in 2001-08-25 (reference). The moposite.com domain was purchased, color scheme got adjusted and the SSI technology (Server Side Includes) was used. Apart from that the website was still pure static.

Some of the new sections were Mopobattles, Lost Internals, Level of Month, Funny replays, Articles, Blacklist, Videos and Meetings sections. The number of daily visitors was about 700.

This is also the Moposite version which welcomed the official WR table.

2002-02-19 was a big day when Moposite was moved to a new and more professional host (Sigmatic) (reference). Now it was possible to use PHP, perl and MySQL. The first dynamic page was programmed by tura: Links. The Site Navigator and new email addresses were initiated. The number of daily visitors was about 900 now.

Moposite v3

The third version of Moposite was published in 2002-07-25. It was a huge technical uplift in the first place. The number of daily visitors was still increasing and it was 1100 now. An elma2.exe file was downloaded 1035 times from Moposite during 24 hours in April Fools' Day in 2003.

Because the manual work of all the updates was getting more and more time-consuming, a programming help was requested in the Moposite news in 2003. And yes, Viper_KillerGuy from Denmark was ready to rock. His first script to Moposite was Kuski gallery where players were able to chat, upload pictures and share information, one year before Facebook was launched.

Moposite v4 (Paprika)

Building the fourth version of Moposite was started in 2004. Viper_KillerGuy was programming and Abula made the layout and ran the "business". Moposite reached the popularity peak of its whole history: 1427 daily visitors in average in November 2005.

Paprika was a very ambitious project, maybe too ambitious. Dynamism was added even when not really needed. More should had been concentrated on what matter most: records, replays and contests.

Building Paprika was started from the core: the technical foundations of the website was the highest quality (reference). The website is still running quite nicely after the release 15 years ago. The website uses the three-column layout succesfully (Holy grail of web design) (reference) and works in all major browsers without any rendering flaws. On top of that, the main area of the contents, the central column is first in the HTML source code making it to serve the actual content first even for text browsers.

Moposite v4 was a great website in technical terms but it took almost two years to get the early release live in 2006-03-24 (reference).

More

• View Moposite v2 (2001) (reference).
• View Moposite v3 (2002) (reference).
• View Moposite v4 (2006) (reference).
• View Moposite history (reference).

Mopolauta

The first discussion forum, PeXiBBS, is opened during Elma Forever in 2000-04-07 and the second forum, Mopolauta v1 in the end of the era (between 2001-04-01 and 2001-08-30) but Mopolauta v2 on phpBB software makes the breakthrough in May 2002. Polls are used to find out the Kuski of the Month and Golden Apple Awards candidates. Mopolauta is a part of Moposite and administrated by Abula and SveinR.

Although most of the sub-forums of the discussion board were actively moderated, the discussion was quite free. Community was maturing and evolving. The most active moderators have been dz, MagnusB, axxu and later Orcc, roope and Sla.

More

• Mopolauta v1 (reference)
• Mopolauta's the most popular topic (2002-05-19) (reference).

16. Community

The term "community" was first time mentioned in 2002-05-22 (source). For sure the community had existed since the first communication between the first players in 1997 but it was year 2003 when Moposite started to use the term.

This article is a comprehensive historical overview of the game and the community but the first something similar was the Community history page in Moposite v3 in year 2004 (reference). It listed the best players, the greatest teams and the most important historical dates.

Golden Apple Awards had also a few community specific categories.

Winners of the Contribution category in GAA 2003-2006

Year     Player
------------------------
2003     Abula
2004     Viper_KillerGuy
2005     Zebra
2006     Viper_KillerGuy

Winners of the Site category in GAA 2003-2006

Year     Player
------------------------
2003     Abula
2004     Abula
2005     MP & Ville_J
2006     skint0r

The community developed also a unique slang. The Elma slang is called Acrossish and it's mostly a mix of English, Finnish and Swedish. Some common terms to have a special meaning in the community are höylä, kuski, balle and pie. The first occurance of höylä term is from 1998-07-05 (reference).

International meetings were also more common during the era but more on that a bit later.

More

• View ElMa Dictionary (2000) (reference).

Kuski gallery

Kuski gallery was released in 2003. The section was upgraded and renamed to Players in Moposite v4. People were able to upload personal pictures and send messages.

Kuski of month

As already mentioned the first Kuski Of Month poll (KOM) was won by zyntifox in January 2001. I won it in April 2002 after Moposite v2.1 was released. The polls were very popular and most of the winners wrote long interviews to tell their Elma stories. Karlis was the first one to win it twice after we allowed players to get renominated three years later since last win.

Winners of Kuski of month in 2001

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     zyntifox
Feb     mrDJ
Mar     MUe
Apr     Stikky
May     Karlis
Jun     pajen

... Golden Era begins ...

Jul     MGen
Aug     ciph
Sep     CSabi
Oct     deadelous
Nov     psy
Dec     dz


Winners of Kuski of month in 2002:

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     Jeppe
Feb     Barbapappa & ribot
Mar     mrickx
Apr     Abula
May     Cloud
Jun     TorInge
Jul     GuyB
Aug     DarMoeD
Sep     px
Oct     Nostrada
Nov     Jokke
Dec     kuiva


Winners of Kuski of month in 2003:

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     milagros
Feb     Ramone
Mar     Mick
Apr     Zweq
May     Zsolt
Jun     Jalli
Jul     SoC
Aug     MP
Sep     Markku
Oct     skint0r
Nov     Luther
Dec     mr


Winners of Kuski of month in 2004:

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     TomCat
Feb     MJXII
Mar     Juzam
Apr     Tantal
May     Axxu
Jun     John
Jul     Stini
Aug     nh
Sep     SveinR
Oct     Viper_KillerGuy
Nov     Karlis
Dec     MadMan


Winners of Kuski of month in 2005:

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     zebra
Feb     insage_guy
Mar     Raider
Apr     Crazy
May     Jeppe
Jun     TorInge
Jul     J-sim
Aug     Dariuz
Sep     The OooO
Oct     xp
Nov     infected
Dec     Homer


Winners of Kuski of month in 2006:

Month    Player
---------------------------
Jan     milagros
Feb     Memphis
Mar     Kuper
Apr     Zweq
May     petsen
Jun     ANpDaD
Jul     proDigy
Aug     Raven
Sep     Xiphias
Oct     Markku

... a break begins ...

More

• View Kuski Of Month (reference).

Blogs

The first Elma blogs were started in 2004 by skint0r and dz. Abula's Applelane blog was online from 2005-01-21 to year 2017.

Wikipedia

The first Elasto Mania Wikipedia article was created in 2004-12-07 (reference).

17. Anti-establishment

Elma community had an opposition too, an anti-establisment movement which wanted to revolutionize the system by several methods. For us, PeXi and Abula, dictators of the Elma world, they were annoying troublemakers. But we didn't fall to totalitarism. There was freedom of speech, sometimes even democratic polls (reference).

When looking back now and reading old Mopolauta posts, I can better understand the actions of the troublemakers who had even good points once in a while. Debate is important. In addition they were often the early adopters of the new patches and other (potentially) next things which wasn't always the easiest job.

There was a three level resistance structure against the Moposite regime: underground world, anti-establishment movement and the established opposition. Cheating tools and other illegal actions belong to undeground. Anti-establisment movement refers to the players who tried to hack the systems, participated the contests "in wrong way" or againts the spritit. The established opposition consists of people who had different views but accepted the rules.

I'm not sure if people want their names to be listed in this section so I mention only the leader of the movement who has been around for ages. ribot, interesting work and legacy created. ribot won the Kuski Of Month title before me and by doing it in his style: tie with Barbapappa is the only one in the KOM history.

For an obvious reason I haven't saved lots of material the movement created but they got to Moposite in quite many places which some of them were already mentioned in the article. ribot's country, Miranda (MIR), got 1.5 points in World Cup 4 and he was also the last one in the first Level of Month (January 2002).

One famous way to sabotage was the team and nick name changes which forced website updaters to do extra work to fix the statistics. And the harder the name, the better. For example ribot is known by several different names but to mention a few: csybe, rQ-E% and △.

Another interesting political case relates to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. One player asked me to replace the country flags of some other players living in the new Balkan countries to the old yugoslavian flag. I couldn't care less about the politics back then but quite soon I figured out that some people do. The flags got changed back.

18. Meetings

More and bigger meetings were organized during Golden Era (2001–2006). Finnish, Danish, Hungarian and Czech players were particularly active and almost all meetings gathered players over the borders. Several smaller meetings were also organized.

Quite a lot of material has preserved but let's look at a few meetings in more detail and the rest through some pictures and basic facts.

Zweq in Kokkola (2004)

Usually the greatest top players haven't been the most active participants of the meetings. Champi0N, Jokke, Karlis and Dz were met in the early days but it was 2004 when the best Elasto Mania player at that time (and of all times) let our documentary group to enter his home. After meeting Jeppe first in Haparanda, Abula, mr and terb0 drove to Kokkola to meet Zweq (reference).

During the meeting Zweq drove multiple world class times giving usually only 2-3 tries: Over and Under 0:30,33 (+0,35 behind WR), Tricks Abound 0:44,30 (+1,11) and Headbanger 0:45,37 (+0,83) which was also filmed. It was another key moment in my life. Now it was 100 % clear. Some players are from different planet.

Finnish Elma Meetings

There are six players who participated all Finnish Elma Meetings organized during Golden Era (2001–2006): Abula, Jokke, Karlis, mr, Orcc and Tisk. PeXi and terb0 were in three meetings and axxu, dz, Juzam and MP participated in two. Because so many old actives were present, let's create some combinated statistics—new material coming!

Details of Finnish Elma Meetings 2002-2005

Year     Location     Multi WRs   Participants [1]  1h tt      6 first    BB win    Battler
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2002     Lammi           9           10 (1)         Tisk       dz         -         dz
2003     Polvijärvi      5           11             Jokke      Orcc       Abula     Jokke
2004     Lammi           2           16 (3)         Ramone     Abula      Abula     axxu
2005     Leivonmäki      5           24 (8)         Markku     Stini      MP        Markku

[1] number of foreigners in brackets
BB = Beer Battle

6 first internals in FEM 2002-2005

#    Player        Nat.       Time       FEM
--------------------------------------------
1.   Stini         FIN     2:44,04     05
2.   Abula         FIN     2:51,77      04
3.   veezay        FIN     2:55,50     05
4.   Orcc          FIN     2:56,42      04
5.   Markku        FIN     2:56,50     05
6.   Tisk          FIN     2:58,27      04
7.   Jokke         FIN     2:59,03      04
8.   MP            FIN     3:02,49     05
9.   onlainari     FIN     3:03,29     05
10.  Jeppe         SWE     3:07,23     05
11.  xp            NOR     3:08,07     05
12.  Cubein        NOR     3:10,62     05
13.  terb0         FIN     3:11,26      04
14.  Karlis        FIN     3:16,00       03
15.  dz            FIN     3:17,75        02
16.  Ramone        SWE     3:27,98      04
17.  krychek       HUN     3:34,62      04
18.  OME           FIN     3:38,34     05
19.  Barbapappa    SWE     3:49,07     05
20.  mr            FIN     3:50,35     05
21.  psy           FIN     3:52,79      04
22.  axxu          FIN     3:54,28      04
23.  mrickx        CZE     4:05,14        02
24.  skint0r       NOR     4:11,39     05
25.  px            FIN     4:21,96     05
26.  Luther        SWE     4:32,34      04
27.  Tapzu         FIN     4:48,00       03
28.  Juzam         FIN     4:50,92     05
29.  MIF           SWE     4:57,53     05
30.  Hapa          FIN     5:36,00       03
31.  Pallukka      FIN     6:27,40       03

1 hour total time in FEM 2002-2005

#    Player     Nat.    Total time       FEM
--------------------------------------------
1.   Ramone     SWE       52:58,84      04 
2.   Markku     FIN       54:39,70     05
3.   Tisk       FIN     1:01:57,70     05
4.   Jalli      NOR     1:03:21,86     05
5.   Jokke      FIN     1:08:10,87      04
6.   veezay     FIN     1:09:43,29     05 
7.   Orcc       FIN     1:10:25,39      04
8.   Abula      FIN     1:18:52,12     05
9.   dz         FIN     1:41:53,08        02
10.  axxu       FIN     2:10:51,46      04
11.  Luther     SWE     2:11:51,41      04
12.  Stini      FIN     2:20:44,64     05
13.  mr         FIN     2:37:23,53      04
14.  Karlis     FIN     2:58:22,29      04
15.  terb0      FIN     2:38:06,88     05
16.  mrickx     CZE     2:53:31,97        02
17.  Juzam      FIN     3:46:15,81      04

Battle total points in FEM 2002-2005

#    Player        Nat.   Points   Battles   Avg.   Meetings
------------------------------------------------------------
1.   axxu          FIN     494       58      8.52       2
2.   Tisk          FIN     451       85      5.31     4
3.   Jokke         FIN     419       64      6.55     4   
4.   Orcc          FIN     417       76      5.49     4   
5.   Abula         FIN     401       74      5.42     4   
6.   Karlis        FIN     393       78      5.04     4   
7.   terb0         FIN     291       88      3.31      3  
8.   Markku        FIN     262       31      8.45        1
9.   veezay        FIN     234       38      6.16        1
10.  dz            FIN     222       42      5.29       2 
11.  Ramone        SWE     211       28      7.54        1
12.  mr            FIN     188       39      4.82     4   
13.  Luther        SWE     183       30      6.10        1
14.  xp            NOR     150       29      5.17        1
15.  Jalli         NOR     104       10     10.40        1
16.  Pallukka      FIN      97       16      6.06        1
17.  Tapzu         FIN      70       12      5.83        1
18.  Barbapappa    SWE      63        9      7.00        1
19.  skint0r       NOR      57       12      4.75        1
20.  Juzam         FIN      55        9      6.11       2
...

Beer battle total points in FEM 2002-2005

#    Player      Nat.   Points   Battles   Avg.   Meetings
----------------------------------------------------------
1.   Abula       FIN     374       40      9.35      3   
2.   Karlis      FIN     287       39      7.36      3   
3.   MP          FIN     282       28     10.07        2  
4.   Orcc        FIN     282       32      8.81      3  
5.   Tisk        FIN     251       37      6.78      3   
6.   terb0       FIN     229       37      6.19      3   
7.   Jokke       FIN     196       27      7.26      3   
8.   px          FIN     157       25      6.28       2  
9.   Jeppe       SWE     139       14      9.93        1 
10.  skint0r     NOR     128       15      8.53        1   
...

A Czech player named mrickx joined FEM02. No international players came to Polvijärvi, the deep east (2003) but in 2004 there were three: Luther and Ramone from Sweden and krychek from Hungary.

Finnish Elma Meeting 2005 was a blast: eight international players and one particularly interesting: TorInge, one of the greatest Elma players of all times. He drove his legendary 24 hours total time (37:39,71) including one WR during the meeting. Additionally he drove four multi world records. TorInge was also able to drive unbelieavable times by his strange game pad. And high graphical details on. Magic.

Other meetings

The biggest meetings in 1998-2006

Date         Location          Participants
-------------------------------------------
1998 Nov     FIN, Tampere           4      
1999 Jul     SWE, Piteå             5      

... Elasto Mania is released ...

2000 Jun     FIN, Ulvila            6      
2001 May     FIN, Nokia            10      

... Golden Era begins ...

2001 Aug     FIN, Helsinki          4      
2001 Aug     HUN, Budapest          9
2001 Oct     DEN, Frederica         7
2001 Sep     CZW, Vermerovice      15
2002 Mar     HUN, Budapest         24
2002 Aug     FIN, Lammi            10      
2003 Apr     DEN, Frederica        15
2003 Jun     FIN, Polvijärvi       11      
2003 Jul     SWE, Falkenberg        4      
2003 Aug     DEN, Aabenraa         10
2003 Dec     SWE, Gothenburg        6
2004 Jul     FIN, Lammi            16      
2004 Aug     HUN, Siófok           17
2004 Sep     RUS, Moscow           10
2004 Dec     FIN, Kokkola           8      
2005 Feb     DEN, Aabenraa         14
2005 Jun     FIN, Leivonmäki       24      
2005 Oct     DEN, Fjelstervang     21
2005 Dec     DEN, Aarhus            6
2006 Apr     DEN, Aabenraa         20
2006 Aug     FIN, Espoo            11      

19. FM

Even though I'm very biased, I argue that Flowertouching Men (FM) is the most successful Elma team ever, at least in overall results. Throughout the history FM has had a WR in 362 tables out of 396, more than any other team. FM has had most different WRs (44), most improvements (188) and the biggest aggregated total time improvement (1:08,45) if Zweq [WNO] is excluded.

FM was the best team in World Cup 2, World Cup 3, World Cup 4 and 3rd in World Cup 5. Moreover FM has the most team points in Mopobattles.

The members of FM team have been active in many different areas of the Elma world since 1999 when the team was founded. The members of the team have organized four Finnish Elma Meetings and kept Moposite running for two decades.

FM didn't ever win the Team category in Golden Apple Awards because the dominance didn't last to year 2004 when the first team trophy was given. Team ICE won it twice during Golden Era (2001–2006).

Flowertouching Men, an international super team, was founded by Dr_Luni [AA], Jokke [HC], Karlis [HC], psy [Fed.], Stene [tLD], Ufo [AA] and YeeS [SOA] in December 1999. All the members were the top players of the Across era. FM got 25 WRs in the first Elma WR table when PRA was second with 9 WRs.

There have been 13 members in team FM in total. YeeS left and Sathy joined in 2000. Ufo and Dr_Luni disappeared. Stene got kicked out. psy and Sathy quit and Tisk joined in 2001. Abula and mr joined in 2002. dz joined in 2003.

After Golden Era (2001–2006) Jokke quits and MP joins in. Karlis is the only one staying since foundation, although the situation is unclear at the moment (2021-07-27).

So mr and Abula joined FM in 2002. We were the only active players in Mahti Crossers (MC) when Tuska had quit in November 2001 and Markku was having a break. When Finnish Elma Meetings were not organized in 2006 and 2007, FM organized team meetings.

20. Art

The best art work created during Golden Era (2001–2006) is presented next.

Program

Amle is an Elma inspired platform game released by Cossades in 2004 (reference). There are videos online (reference).

Text

In August 2001 a new section named Articles was added to Moposite where people could publish texts about the game and the community.

• Cheating in Elma by Ambulance (2001-09-02) (reference)
• Elma is a lifestyle by nemo (2001-09-06) (reference)
• elma & drugs by rQ-E% (2002-02-20) (reference)
• Balázs interview by Kopaka (2002-11-15) (reference)
• About internal level designing by Barbapappa (2003-02-02) (reference)
• Elma is a new religion by Barbapappa (2003-02-02) (reference)
• Programmers destroy the game by Barbapappa (2003-05-30) (reference)
• The nature of Elasto Mania skill by sierra (2005-08-30) (reference)

Audio

Video

The first videos of the actual Elma gameplay were filmed in meetings, at least since Finnish Elma Meeting 2002. Back then it was more about fooling around than documenting anything interesting until December 2004 when Abula and mr videographed Zweq playing. The video was already shown in the "Meetings" chapter.

TorInge and Jalli the Pipe King were filmed in Finnish Elma Meeting 2005.

After a screenshot dumper patch got released in 2005, External Ways by Kestas was the first gameplay video (2005-07-30) (reference). The video scene of Elasto Mania will bloom in the next eras.

• Watch External Ways by Kestas, part 2/2 (2005-07-30) (reference).

Image

Chronological order:

Summary of the chapter

Golden Era (2001–2006) was full of big moments: dz under 40:00,00, TorInge having 50 % of WRs, TorInge under 38 minutes in 24 hours, Mopobattles started, brutal volt found and nine Golden Apple Awards trophies were handed out in Finnish Elma Meeting 2005. Zweq, TorInge and Jalli were proved to be clean and documented on video. Dozens of meetings were organized and World Cups gathered the most players in its history. Hibernatus and milagros programmed the first unofficial Elasto Mania versions.

We have reached year 2007 by now. Fourth version of Moposite had been just published but the community was already in a move from Moposite centricity towards online playing. The move will only accelerate when Belma is published in the beginning of 2007.

Let's close the era by watching the first speedrun video, Elasto Mania Done (Fairly) Quick, made by skint0r (2006-01-17).

VII. Belma Period (2007 January — 2010 July)🔝

The era of this chapter spans three and half years from January 2007 to July 2010, from Belma release to first EOL battle in the database. The game had been played for ten years by now but it wasn't even near to end.

During Belma Period (2007–2010) milagros programmed his famous (unofficial) online patches which revolutionized the game and the community. Battles were running almost around the clock. Zweq the Great went bananas and nailed records that shall shine forever.

The number of new crazy WR styles found during the era is astounding. Once again the complex and fine-granular physics of the game was proved to be just uniquely perfect. Players became more skilled while playing battles and having the fast feedback loop.

There are many high quality videos created during the era. Belma Period (2007–2010) is documented very well.

Golden Apple Awards were organized every year and the second exclusive Elma collection was published (Elma Ultimate DVD). Moreover the biggest level collection ever created was released in 2008 (Zebra's Level Archive).

Belma Period (2007–2010) didn't see a World Cup and Finnish Elma Meetings were skipped. Focus was again on playing like it had been in Elma Forever (2000–2001). The community was truly reforming.

1. EOL (2006)

bob was the first player to mention the term Elma Online (2002-06-11) but he didn't really mean the same concept how the term is understood today. Four months later Karlis presented the actual Elma Online idea (2002-10-04).

The first working Elma Online patch, Elma Online (2006) or EOL (2006), was released in 2006-02-15. It enabled the original in-game multiplayer mode over local internet (LAN).

2. Belma

After programming EOL (2006), the multiplayer patch over LAN, milagros kept on developing. The next Elma Online version was named Belma and it was released in 2007-02-22. Belma was the first Elma Online patch to support battles over internet between several players.

The playing experience in Belma was totally different. It was almost a new game that just happened to have the same physics. The old levels and world records were comparable and the WR table remained open. milagros did an amazing job. Many players helped him with testing, servers, results and other organizing tasks.

In Belma you could see other players, chat with them and get the battle results automatically inside the game. Other notable new features were custom T-shirts, in-game file downloads and uploads, new contest modes such as first finish, one-life and one hour total time. The infamous hooked-bug got fixed, the replay filename was extended to 15 characters and the replay length to one hour.

Belma was a huge step forward in battle playing but it had also severe flaws to deal. Most of the problems were fixed in the next patch, Elma Online (2010), but that's a topic of the next era.

More

• Read belma_readme.txt (reference).
• Read "BELMA - Battle Elasto Mania" discussion (reference).

3. #ballelma

Belma made battling much more popular. People were able to upload and download levels and replays inside the game and the results were real-time and automatic all the way. Previously you had to write your times to IRC and upload and download the files manually.

There wasn't any established website or database to collect the battle results in Belma. The patch echoed the results to #ballelma IRC channel and Zebra generated some statistics out of the logs like he had done with #battle channel battles since 2003.

skint0r made also a website for the results but it was taken offline after some players hacked Belma.

The #ballelma battle results are not 100 % clean but clean enough to make some analysis.

58395 battles were played during Belma Period (2007–2010). The average number of players per battle was 13.91 and when the average length of the battle was 16.61 minutes, it means that there was a battle running 51 % of the whole period. The running time is just amazing. Battles were running almost all the time for four years.

The numbers of the previous four years (2003-2007) were 36093 battles played, 4.08 players on avarage per battle, 12.95 minutes length and 21 % running time. The popularity and activity of the battles roughly trippled compared to the #battle era.

Markku and jaytea dominated battles in 2003-2007 but when more people joined in, Markku and jaytea weren't overwhelming anymore.

Annual statistics

Annual statistics of Belma battles

Year     GAA      Most points   Avg. pts [1]    Win-% [1]
------------------------------------------------------------
2007     Zweq     Zweq          Zweq            Zweq  (48 %)
2008     Zweq     adi           Zweq            Zweq  (50 %)
2009     Zweq     Grob          Zweq            Zweq  (50 %)
2010     Grob     jonsykkel     Ali             talli (48 %)

[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

Zweq won about everything in Belma battles.

Annual meta statistics of Belma battles

Year    Battles   Running   Players   Length [1]  Designer [2]
---------------------------------------------------------------
2007      9225     29 %      11.05     15.47      jds
2008     17965     55 %      13.79     16.11      barryp
2009     19277     63 %      14.90     17.14      Mawane
2010     11928     59 %      14.73     17.36      Mawane

[1] In minutes
[2] By number of levels

Total statistics

Top-10 players by total points in Belma battles

#   Player           Nat.   Battles   Points
--------------------------------------------
1.  talli            FIN      7220     89519
2.  adi              FIN      6793     86938
3.  Pab              URU      8078     85955
4.  Lumen            RUS      6632     82623
5.  Bjenn            SWE      5643     74941
6.  Nekit            RUS      6505     71371
7.  FinMan           FIN      5041     69825
8.  GRob             HUN      4705     69077
9.  Smibu            FIN      5189     67331
10. nick-o-matic     FIN      5622     65594

Top-10 players by average points in Belma battles

#   Player [1]   Nat.   Battles   Average
-----------------------------------------
1.  Zweq         FIN      3844      15.93
2.  Kazan        FIN      4229      15.38
3.  Madness      SWE      2967      15.33
4.  Markku       FIN      3781      15.23
5.  axxu         FIN      1623      14.95
6.  GRob         HUN      4705      14.68
7.  Ali          CZE      3187      14.43
8.  Bludek       CZE      2195      14.55
9.  LazY         NOR      2226      14.38
10. VT           GER      2466      14.24
	
[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

Top-10 players by battle win ratio in Belma battles

#   Player [1]   Nat.  Battles   Win-%
--------------------------------------
1.  Zweq         FIN     3844     49 %
2.  Markku       FIN     3781     43 %
3.  jaytea       USA     4654     36 %
4.  talli        FIN     7220     35 %
5.  Kazan        RUS     4229     35 %
6.  BoneLESS     CAN     4113     34 %
7.  axxu         FIN     1623     34 %
8.  Raven        FIN     3136     29 % 
9.  adi          FIN     6793     28 %
10. Xiphias      DEN     3570     28 %	

[1] Player must be in top-100 in total points.

By looking at the results I would argue the top-3 best battlers during Belma Period (2007–2010) were Zweq, Markku and Kazan. Next comes axxu, jaytea, talli and Madness.

Top-10 most productive battle level designers in Belma battles

#   Designer   Nat.   Levels
----------------------------
1.  Mawane     CAN      2305
2.  Barry      GBR      1830
3.  Ramone     SWE      1559
4.  Pab        URU      1471
5.  Bjenn      SWE      1299
6.  bEAT       POL      1142
7.  Jappe2     FIN      1076
8.  umiz       SWE       960
9.  Jeppe      SWE       923
10. k0en       NED       861

More

• View Ballelma page (reference).

4. It's getting tight

There were 180 new world records in the internal levels during Belma Period (2007–2010) and one total time minute limit barrier was broken (36 mins). During the era the magnitude of the new world records was roughly one third compared to Golden Era (2001–2006). It was getting tighter.

Some levels particularly were near to their maximum.

Less improved WRs during Belma Period (2007–2010)

Level               Improved
----------------------------
42. Enduro           0:00,00
47. Enigma           0:00,00
48. Downhill         0:00,00 *
37. Jaws             0:00,00 *
14. Loop-de-Loop     0:00,02
11. Gravity Ride     0:00,04 *
1.  Warm Up          0:00,05
21. Hangman          0:00,05
53. Hooked           0:00,05
30. Pipe             0:00,06 *

*) Level will be greatly improved in later years.

Many internal levels looked like they had reached the maximum. Only about half are short höylä levels which styles are very obvious but interestingly there are even four levels which will be improved quite much in the coming years: 30. Pipe four seconds, 48. Downhill three seconds and 11. Gravity Ride and 37. Jaws almost one second each. Additionally 5. Uphill Battle and 1. Warm Up are top-2 the oldest world records ever at this point.

Oldest WRs driven in Belma Period (2007–2010)

#   Player     Level            Tables     Driven                Beaten
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.  Zweq       Warm Up             122     2007-03-17 (#259)     2015-04-14 (#381)
9.  Jarkko     Uphill Battle        96     2009-10-09 (#301)     2018-04-24 (#397)
14. Zweq       Loop-de-Loop         83     2008-10-25 (#292)     2014-05-24 (#375)
18. mr         Freefall             80     2008-10-05 (#291)     2014-01-11 (#371)
19. Zweq       Bowling              77     2009-09-06 (#300)     2014-12-10 (#377)

[1] Age is measured by number of tables

4.1. WR tables 255-314

WNO remained in the WR table but ICE didn't, well except The Stig (Cloud?) with his Bumpy Journey WR. Kazan's first WR appeared in 2007-10-28 (#273).

Just a random note but for some reason the world record of 12. Islands in the Sky has always belonged to not very well known internalists: Gazoline, jx, Krus, proDigy, Honza anda zaraptor.

Number of new WRs per nationality in tables 255-314

#    Nat.   WRs
---------------
1.   FIN     84
2.   SWE     34
3.   RUS     28
4.   CZE     13
5.   SVK      5
6.   GBR      4
     DEN      4
8.   NOR      2
     LIT      2
10.  NED      1
     CAN      1
     ISR      1
     USA      1

Thirteen different nationalities was only one less than during Golden Era. Finland is still number one but Norway has collapsed. Russia is clearly doing better by improving by two positions. Czech seems to be a solid performer and milagros carries the Slovakian flag. Hungarians are missing.

Number of new WRs per team in tables 255-314

#    Team    WRs
----------------
1.   WNO      74
2.   EPO      18
3.   NK       11
4.   SPEED     9
5.   27        6
     EF        6
7.   SET       5
8.   FM        4
9.   WTC       3
10.  SC        2
     WAW       2
     EM        2
     MiE       2
...

WNO was overwhelming. The previous leader ICE is gone. FM and WNO were the only teams to survive from the top-10 of previous era.

Number of new WRs per player in tables 255-314

#    Player     WRs
-------------------
1.   Zweq        46
2.   John        28
3.   Kazan       20
4.   Raven       12
5.   Jarkko      11
6.   Madness      7
7.   Cap          6
     talli        6
     Bjenn        6
10.  milagros     5
...

Out of 180 new WRs Zweq got 26 %, John 15 % and Kazan 11 %. Zweq and John are the only ones in top-10 of both Golden Era and Belma Period.

During Belma Period (2007–2010) Zweq won three times and Kazan once the Internalist category in Golden Apple Awards.

4.2. John under 36:00,00

John got his first WR in table #139 (2003-08-09). In Golden Era he drove the fourth most WRs and was second in the total times list. In Belma Period (2007–2010) John passed TorInge in 2007-01-07 to become the number one in the personal total times list (reference). John kept the leading position for four years and two days. He also reached the ever-lasting achievement: the first player under 36 minutes.

Personal total times minute limit breaks in Belma Period (2007–2010)

Limit       Player     Nat.    Date
------------------------------------------------
45 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-03-11 (#1)
44 mins     Champi0N     SWE     2000-04-05 (#7)
43 mins     KingKong     SWE     2000-06-04 (#21)
42 mins     zyntifox     NOR     2000-11-21 (#47)
41 mins     pajen        SWE     2001-10-14 (#75)
40 mins     dz           FIN     2002-05-02 (#85)
39 mins     TorInge      NOR     2003-04-11 (#122)
38 mins     Zweq         FIN     2003-09-28 (#147)
37 mins     TorInge      NOR     2005-03-16 (#205)

... Belma Period begins ...

36 mins     John         SWE     2009-07-13 (#298)

... Age of EOL begins ...

35 mins     Spef         FIN     2018-05-09 (#405)

The WR table total time went under 36 minutes already in 2007-06-14 (#265). It's the table where Zweq drove the new crazy styles in 7. Hi Flyer and 24. Ramp Frenzy which improved the total time over ten seconds. The speculation how to get under 35 minutes started right after (reference).

4.3. Multiplayer in LAN

Elma Online (2006) patch enabled multiplaying over network so players were able to use their own computers. During Belma Period (2007–2010) the multi WR total time improved 0:25,93 seconds – mostly by Zweq and Juzam who also broke the 23 minutes limit barrier (2007-04-25).

There was a discussion if the community should accept WRs driven in the online mode (reference).

4.4. pawq and jonsykkel

As mentioned earlier Moposite became inactive somewhere in 2006-2007. The Records section was updated 11 times in year 2006 but only 4 times in 2007. During the years 2008-2010 there was only one update per year which was too little considering the new activity around the game and Belma patch.

Luckily there were players like pawq and jonsykkel who started to update the Elma records in their platforms. pawq created a combined total times list on Mopolauta in 2008-11-21 (reference) which is still updated at the time of writing (2020-05-23). jonsykkel's elmastats page was released in 2010-10-17 (reference).

5. Crazy WR styles

Zweq drove his first new crazy WR (31. Animal Farm) during Belma Period (2007–2010) in the WR table #255 (2007-01-06). In total Zweq drove nine ridiculously amazing world records during the era.

6. Zweqspin

Many new tricks such as bounce, supervolt, alovolt and brutal volt were already discovered in the earlier eras but there was at least one more trick left that was even utilized in a world record.

First public zweqspin (aka spinning) replay was driven by Barhom in year 2001 but it was Zweq's 9. Tunnel Terror WR (0:54,98) in table #262 (2007-05-07) which popularized the trick.

Zweqspin is a good example of the new skills the Belma Period (2007–2010) teached to some players. Zweqspin is also an example of one great player whose innovation and skills were just beyond everybody else. The previous two sections (5. Crazy WR styles and 6. Zweqspin) make you think there was only one player around during the period but that's not the case at all. Yet Zweq's performance is not even at end.

More

• Watch Zweq zweqspins in Warm Up (2008-09-04) (reference).

7. Uphilling

Besides zweqspin there was another new driving style that was popularized during Belma Period (2007–2010). Uphilling means levels where the goal is to drive upwards and often very slowly. The levels are usually very hard levels and not liked by everyone.

teajay was probably the first one with his Fish levels (2007-05-28) to introduce the uphilling levels. In battles the uphilling levels are often set as first finish contest type (FF) so you didn't have to be super fast if you could just keep on climbing.

There were some pre-uphilling levels in Moposite Special Contests such as Hill Climbing and Kiskotus and of course there's the internal level 5. Uphill Battle. The first known climbing level is MOPOCU018 (1998-09-23) (reference).

More players will join the uphilling competition in the next era.

8. Pipe Princes

Pipes were also played more than ever before. Pipes were common in battles but also a few level packs and even a cup were dedicated just for the pipes (reference). The replays got crazier when the new pipe royals finished extremely hard levels and even some of the classics in a way that overshadow the old Pipe Kings.

• Watch Chain Pie by talli (2009-04-26) (reference).

9. Active contests

Three events related to the external contests during Belma Period (2007–2010) are essential: Kopaka's Interactive Levelpack Records system was published in 2006-11-14 (reference), Kopaka's Open Source Automated Cup script was released in 2009-08-15 (reference) and Zebra's Level Archive was published in 2008-06-13 (reference), the biggest level collection created (2020-05-23).

Numerous cups were organized.

Cups organized in Belma Period (2007–2010)

Start          Name                          Winner                Organizer(s)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007-10-04     LOS Cup 3                     axxu                  LOS
2007-12-06     Goliath Cup                   adi                   teajay
2008-01-28     TAP Elimination Cup           axxu                  Zebra
2008-02-06     Error Merry Cup 2             Deestent              error
2008-12-03     MasterRacer II                Memphis & BoneLESS    nIN
2009-01-22     Banana Cup 4                  BoneLESS              Zebra
2009-06-21     Spring Run Cup                Yorki                 coc0k & error
2009-?         Hungarian Summer Cup 2009     GRob                  Binder
2009-08-12     TEH Cup                       NightMar              Igge & Kopaka
2009-10-20     Thorze Cup 1                  Are                   Hosp
2009-10-12     MawCup 2009                   adi                   Mawane
2010-02-01     Rambo cup                     Bjenn                 Ramone
2010-02-28     Talvi Cup                     romy4                 Ville_J
2010-05-06     MiE pipe cup                  FinMan                MiE

Zebra's One Year Level Pack (OYLP) was a new concept in 2008-09-22 to have a level for each day around the year (reference). Banana Cup 4 had strange rules like Kahvicup in the early days. TEH Cup was the first to use Kopaka's Cup script. Goliath Cup had exceptional long levels.

Two internal styled level packs were released by Ramone (Internal Edits, 2008-06-09) and jonsta (Instead Internals, 2008).

Ramone was a very active level designer overall and he won the Designer category in GAA08, GAA09 and GAA10.

Winners of the Level category in Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Winners of the Designer category in Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Year     Designer
-------------------
2007     Jappe2
2008     Ramone
2009     Ramone
2010     Ramone

Finally a list of videos of different cups and contests created during Belma Period (2007–2010). The quality of the videos compared to earlier eras increased both in resolution and in presentation.

• Watch Skintatious levels by skint0r (2007-08-12) (reference).
• Watch Spring Run Cup by Jappe2 (2009-06-21) (reference).
• Watch Banana Cup 4, part 1/3 by Jappe2 (2009-08-25) (reference).
• Watch Hungarian Summer Cup 2009 by Grindelwald (2010-04-02) (reference).
• Watch Talvi Cup 2010 by Grindelwald (2010-06-25) (reference).

10. Community reformation

When Moposite wasn't active anymore, there was more room for other websites and sub-communities to bloom. People who played mostly battles and chatted inside the game were clearly a new group but there were also some regional communities with their own contests and cups.

Finnish Elma Meetings and other big meetings were taking a break during Belma Period (2007–2010). Team FM organized smaller, invite only meetings at Tisk's student flat in 2006 and 2007 which gathered pretty much the same Finnish active players as in FEMs. Old veterans Petri [SSC], Ari [ahf] and kimitys were met first time. The meetings got even smaller in 2008-2010 but the next generation was already growing up.

After three years break Raven continued Kuski of Month polls for seven months. Zweq was first to win KOM three times (2003, 2006 and 2009).

Winners of Kuski of month in 2009

Month    Player
-----------------
May     Kazan
Jun     Raven
Jul     John
Aug     adi
Sep     Zweq
Oct     zaraptor
Nov     talli

A new community related category was added to Golden Apple Awards: Community Award.

Winners of the Contribution category in Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Year     Player
------------------------
2007     milagros
2008     Kopaka
2009     Kopaka
2010     milagros

Winners of the Site category in Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Year     Player
------------------------
2007     Kopaka
2008     Kopaka
2009     Zworqy
2010     jonsykkel

Winner of the Community Award category in Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Year     Player
------------------------
2007     milagros
2008     niN
2009     Kopaka
2010     milagros

Social media was still fairly simple during Belma Period (2007–2010) except the online videos in Youtube which were created in a new magnitude. The oldest video still online (2021-07-28) was uploaded by Tontsa84 in 2006-03-20 (reference).

The first Elma Facebook group was created in 2008-05-18 (reference) and a Twitter tweet was written in 2007-04-05 (reference). IRC and Mopolauta forums were still the primary communication methods.

Invite only

The last big and open meetings were organized in 2005 (Finland) and 2006 (Denmark). The meetings didn't stop but they were invite only after that. Organizing big meetings is a lot of work.

FM organized team meetings in Espoo in 2006 and 2007 with a few bonus players.

11. Golden Apple Awards (2007-2010)

Golden Apple Awards was organized first time in 2003 and the tradition continued during Belma Period (2007–2010).

Golden Apple Awards in 2007

    Category            Winner          Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist         Zweq            FIN
2.  Externalist         axxu            FIN
3.  Battler             Zweq            FIN
4.  Rookie              Bjenn           SWE
5.  Designer            Jappe2          FIN
6.  Team                WNO
7.  WR                  Zweq            FIN     Ramp Frenzy 42,85 (#265)
8.  Style               Zweq            FIN     Ramp Frenzy
9.  Replay              talli           FIN     mkup309 21,57
10. Level               Xhomaz          NOR     The Dead Scene (LC306)
11. Contest             LOS                     LOS Cup 3
12. Contribution        milagros        SVK     Belma
13. Achievement         Zweq            FIN     Hi Flyer, Ramp Frenzy WRs; multi TT 22 mins
14. Site                Kopaka          DEN     Kopasite
15. Community Award     milagros        SVK


Golden Apple Awards in 2008:

    Category            Winner          Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist         Zweq            FIN
2.  Externalist         adi             FIN
3.  Battler             Zweq            FIN
4.  Rookie              Pab             URU
5.  Designer            Ramone          SWE
6.  Team                EPO
7.  WR                  Cap             RUS     Zig-Zag 55,91 (#281)
8.  Style               Zweq            FIN     Steep Corner "left first"
9.  Replay              John            SWE     Labyrinth Pro 2:14,85
10. Level               Jappe2          FIN     Tyrant (TEC03)
11. Contest             niN             SWE     Mäster Räcer II: Pair Play
12. Contribution        Kopaka          DEN     EOL site, GAA jury
13. Achievement         Zweq            FIN     WRs, styles, most improvements ever
14. Site                Kopaka          DEN     Elma Online
15. Art                 Antz            FIN     Ecchi levels and battle levels
16. Community Award     niN             SWE


Golden Apple Awards in 2009:

    Category            Winner          Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist         Zweq            FIN
2.  Externalist         adi             FIN
3.  Battler             Zweq            FIN
4.  Rookie              Mielz           POL
5.  Designer            Ramone          SWE
6.  Team                WNO
7.  WR                  Jarkko          FIN     Uphill Battle 19,79 (#301)
8.  Style               talli           FIN     Serpents Tale
9.  Replay              Zweq            FIN     Hi Flyer, not finished (07zwoot7)
10. Level               Mawane          CAN     Chain Pie II MPFKBJKZB (ChainPII)
11. Contest             Zebra           FIN     Banana Cup 4
12. Contribution        Kopaka          DEN     EOL site, Kopasite, TEH Cup, scripts, GAA jury
13. Achievement         John            SWE     35 mins TT
14. Site                Zworqy          SWE     Zworqy's site
15. Art                 Jappe2          FIN     Videos
16. Community Award     Kopaka          DEN


Golden Apple Awards in 2010:

    Category            Winner          Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist         Kazan           RUS
2.  Externalist         Pab             URU
3.  Battler             GRob            FUN
4.  Rookie              jonsykkel       NOR
5.  Designer            Ramone          SWE
6.  Team                SPEED
7.  WR                  Zweq            FIN     Tunnel Terror 51,88 (#315)
8.  Style               John            SWE     Animal Farm 1:10,59 (#307)
9.  Replay              John            SWE     Animal Farm 1:10,59 (#307)
10. Level               jonsykkel       SWE     Deth Appels (jon001)
11. Contest             Ville_J         FIN     Talvi Cup
12. Contribution        milagros        SVK     EOL patch
13. Achievement         Pab             URU     Taking all JoPi records
14. Site                jonsykkel       SWE     jon's Elmastats
15. Art                 niN & Jappe2            Internal Memories Elma 10 years
16. Community Award     milagros        SVK

Zweq was overwhelming with 13 awards in four years, Kopaka became second with 5 and Jappe2, John and milagros got 4.

And how a level pack can win the Art category like Antz did in 2008? By tits.

12. Gameplay videos

Elma art incarnated in video format in Belma Period (2007–2010). Next we have the rest of the best videos which weren't already presented in more appropriate chapters.

The pioneers of Elma videos were MUe (2000), Abula (2004), Kestas (2005), skint0r (2006) and 8-ball (2007). Jappe2 was particularly active in Belma Period (reference). iCS will enter the stage in the next era.

Internal levels

Elma Done Quick v2 (35:58,33) was released in 2007-07-28 by skint0r (reference). All the replays are contemporary world records.

Internal Memories by Jappe2 and nIN (2010-09-22) explains the world wecords history. The video was created in honour of the 10th Elasto Mania anniversary (reference).

Art

• Watch Elma meets Super Mario Bros by Polarix (2008-08-08) (reference).
• Watch Zweq's Tunnel Terror top-10 merged by Jappe2 (2010-06-03) (reference).

Tutorials

• Watch Special tricks part 2/2 by Jappe2 (2008-04-22) (reference).
• Watch Level making by Pab (2009-11-28) (reference).
• Watch How to do the start in Animal Farm by John (2010-01-11) (reference).

13. Ultimate DVD

The second Elma data collection was made by Abula in 2010: Elma Ultimate DVD. The first collection, Elma Forever CD, was made in 2001.

Most of the files in the DVD from Belma Period (2007–2010) were already presented – except two.

Next images missed the DVD.

Summary of the chapter

Besides of the Belma patch itself, the highlights of Belma Period (2007–2010) are definitely Zweq's nine revolutionary WR styles, John under 36 minutes and Jappe2's videos. Golden Apple Awards were organized every year. Improved uphilling and piping skills were proofs of players becoming more and more skilled while playing online battles from day to day.

milagros' patch revolutionized the game and the community but Belma Period was also a decadence. Moposite was inactive, no big meetings or World Cups were organized and many players were having a break.

Belma was vulnerable to hacking and sabotaging the battles if someone wanted. And of course there was someone who did just that and kept on terrorizing and demotivating others for years. On top of that an undetectable cheat method was spreading in the underground (saveload) and the WR table was near to be frozen. It looked like the end of the story but there was some light left: milagros was working on a new version.

VIII. Age of EOL (2010 July – 2018/2020)🔝

The era we are going to look next, hasn't ended yet. It spans from the first EOL battle to this day (2018-03-14). We haven't yet seen the next big thing that will change the course of Elma history.

milagros had programmed two unofficial online versions already, the simple multiplayer LAN patch (2006) and Belma (2007) but he decided to make one more. Belma had severe flaws and a few new features could be implemented as well.

The third EOL version was released in July 2010 and it made Elma to flourish again. Skills improved, new tricks were found, even World Cups and Finnish Elma Meetings got revitalized. Hell, Elma was even seen in TV! New superstars rocked but a few old legends made also glorious comebacks.

1. Elasto Mania 1.3

milagros' newest patch isn't really known by the version number 1.3 but it's more logical in the long history of the Elma versions because Hibernatus named his last version as 1.2 and Balázs' official versions use 1.1, at least if we make an assumption that the version number 1.11 should be actually 1.1.1. Even though 1.3 is written in the start screen of the new patch, most people call it just eol.

Belma Period (2007–2010) was sort of decadence because some idiots abused the vulnerable system which got other people to stop playing, even quit. Belma didn't provide tools for moderators. Luckily milagros decided to fight back.

In addition to the moderating tools, EOL provided many new features to make playing more convenient and fair. Now all finished times were saved to the database as well.

Here's a list of the most essential features:

• Free camera to overview the level
• Fixed FPS to solve the vsync issue
• Centered navigation map
• Replay saving reminder
• New battle modes: last finish, flag tag, apple count, maximum speed, reversed keys, one turn, hidden times, one wheel and multiplayer
• In-game battle queue
• In-game file downloads and uploads (levels, replays)
• In-game chat (public, private and ignore modes)
• In-game viewing of all players' results in all levels
• In-game 24 hours total time contest and cups
• Speed-o-meter
• Last apple taken time
• Number of objects, polygons and vertices increased to practically unlimited
• Background, foreground and graphics settings to improve contrast
• Setting to stop the moving apples animation
• Showing and hiding other players and team members

Most of the new battle modes are not used very often: normal and first finish battles are the most popular which were available already in Belma patch.

Because EOL uses a server to send the data of all key presses, it became impossible to use the saveload cheat. Without this feature, the WR table would have been closed down because the saveload cheat tool was already spreading in the Elma underground in 2009. We'll get back to this.

The first recorded time in the EOL database was driven by NaDiRu in 2010-07-25 and the first battle was played in 2010-07-26 (reference). Multi WR table #143 indicates the patch was already in use by some players: Kopaka (DEN) & Labs (HUN) and axxu & Markku from different cities had driven new WRs that got published in 2010-07-21.

The next multi WR table a few weeks later (2010-08-17) had 29 new WRs by 24 different player combinations and eight days later 11 WRs more. EOL was a breakthrough. A big thing. A blast. Multiplaying was only a small part of the new patch—online battles were even more popular.

The patch was beta tested exhaustively by many players. It was officially released in 2011-08-12 with a promo video and an official level pack (reference).

More

• Read eol beta release (2010-07-25) (reference).
• Read New Features article (2010-09-24) (reference).

2. elmaonline.net

The elmaonline.net domain was registered in 2010-08-07 by Kopaka (reference) and the first version of the website was published in 2011-08-30.

The Elma Online website has all relevant information related to the (online) game: results of the EOL battles, results of the internal levels, results of the external levels + player profiles and news. Lots of replays can be viewed directly in the browser.

2.1. EOL Battles

The battling data has been collected since 2010-07-26 so it's quite a big set of data. Some players have been höyling a lot.

Annual statistics

Annual statistics of EOL battles (2010-)

Year     GAA Battler   Most points     Avg. points [1]    Won-% [1]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2010     Grob          NightMar        adi    (15.60)     Zweq   (48 %)
2011     Markku        Eddi            Zweq   (17.02)     GRob   (47 %)
2012     Zero          Zero            Zweq   (16.87)     Markku (59 %)
2013     Zero          iltsu           GRob   (15.44)     Zweq   (58 %)
2014     Zero          iltsu           Zweq   (15.15)     Zweq   (58 %)
2015     Zero          Blaztek         adi    (14.50)     Markku (61 %)
2016     Zero          Blaztek         ANpDaD (14.59)     Zero   (76 %)
2017     Zero          Blaztek         ANpDad (14.72)     John   (58 %)

[1] must be in top-100 in total points

Annual meta statistics of EOL battles (2010-)

Year   Battles   Running    Players[1]  Length[2]    Designer
-------------------------------------------------------------
2010      5811      38 %        284      14.78              ?
2011     19843      56 %        563      15.54
2012     18937      54 %        699      15.07       
2013     19150      56 %        654      15.28       
2014     17872      49 %        526      14.55
2015     17828      49 %        501      14.47
2016     13648      41 %        414      15.98
2017     11975      42 %        416      18.36

[1] Total number of players who finished at least one battle
[2] Average length of the battle playing time

Total statistics

Top-10 players by total points in EOL battles (2010-)

#   Player      Nat.   Battles    Points
----------------------------------------
1.  Zero        FIN     11169     146585
2.  Blaztek     NOR     14116     138415
3.  juka        FIN     11818     124627
4.  Eddi        RUS      9267     117530
5.  Luther      SWE     12104     106961
6.  Bjenn       SWE      7682      91079
7.  Vitesse     RUS     11117      86003
8.  roope       FIN      9291      85015
9.  Kiiwi       FIN      8627      83312
10. Lukazz      AUT     10952      83245
...

Data updated: 2018-03-14

Top-10 players by average points in EOL battles (2010-)

#   Player       Nat.   Battles      Avg.
----------------------------------------
1.  FinMan       FIN      1326     16.13
2.  Zweq         FIN      3852     15.85
3.  GRob         HUN      1529     15.62
4.  Markku       FIN      3451     14.72
5.  adi          FIN      5128     14.47
6.  Ali          CZE      1571     14.04
7.  Jeppe        SWE      2164     13.77
8.  NightMar     RUS      3109     13.71
9.  Smibu        FIN      1328     13.58
10. ANpDad       RUS      3879     13.25
...

Data updated: 2018-03-14

Top-10 players by win ratio in EOL battles (2010-)

#   Player       Nat.   Battles    Win-%
----------------------------------------
1.  Zweq         FIN      3846      55 %
2.  Markku       FIN      3451      55 %
3.  adi          FIN      5116      52 %
4.  GRob         HUN      1529      52 %
5.  Zero         FIN     11169      49 %
6.  John         SWE      1926      45 %
7.  Kazan        RUS      5287      44 %
8.  Leek         NZL      1595      44 %
9.  ANpDaD       RUS      3874      43 %
10. zaraptor     GBR      1392      42 %
...

Data updated: 2018-03-14

Many old veterans were mastering EOL battles but some new superstars were also in fire: Zero and adi are new names in the very top.

The next video shows clearly how skilled some players are. Most of the replays have been played in 10-30 minutes in year 2012.

More

• View statistics of EOL battles (reference).

2.2. Apple battles

The idea of an apple battle is to collect as many apples as possible and it doesn't have to be done in one drive.

2.3. Battle Cups

Battle Cup is another new idea initiated during Age of EOL (2010–). The idea is to have, let's say, 10 events, one per day and one event lasts for example 60 minutes.

Battle Cups in Age of EOL (2010–)

Start         Name                    Winner     Organizer(s)
--------------------------------------------------------------
2014-12-01    World Battle Cup        Zweq       Ramone & Zero
2016-04-08    World Battle Cup II     Zero       niN

3. The Last Warriors?

Since 2011-06-23 internal level world records must have been driven in EOL while connected to the server to prevent saveload cheats. We have come quite far from the release of Elasto Mania: to get an official world record, one must play it in an unofficial version of the game. But that's the way to keep the WR table still open.

When talking about the WR table, the outlook of it has interestingly remained the same since 1997. The Hungarian flag and the classic white background with team logos is something the community doesn't want to change. In 2011 even 17 % of players were against adding a WR total time below the table to ease browsing the WR history (reference).

The WR total time went under 35 minutes in 2012-10-21.

3.1. WR tables 315-396

There have been 205 new world records between WR tables #315 and #396 in about eight years which means roughly two every month. The activity peak was over but there was still a lot to improve.

• Read how to get WR total time under 34 minutes (2012-10-17) (reference).
• Read how to get WR total time under 33 minutes (2011-04-01) (reference).

Number of new WRs per player in tables 315-396

#    Player     WRs
-------------------
1.   Spef        42
2.   Zweq        37
     Kazan       37
4.   Bjenn       12
     Mielz       12
6.   Madness      9
7.   Bene         6
8.   FinMan       5
     GRob         5
     Nekit        5
...

Spef beat Zweq and Kazan. Spef's first WR was driven in 2012 and he won the Internalist category in Golden Apple Awards 2013, 2014 and 2016.

Zweq, Kazan, Bjenn and Madness survived from the top-10 of Belma Period (2007–2010). Zweq was present also in Golden Era (2001–2006).

Number of new WRs per team in tables 315-396

#    Team    WRs
----------------
1.   SPEED    65
2.   WNO      40
3.   EF       13
4.   dat      12
5.   NGT       5
6.   27        4
7.   TEM       3
8.   NK        2
     EPO       2
     MiE       2
...

SPEED, WNO, EF, 27, NK and MiE made it from the top-10 of Belma Period (2007–2010).

Number of new WRs per nationality in tables 315-396

#    Nat.   WRs
---------------
1.   FIN     91
2.   RUS     48
3.   SWE     24
4.   POL     12
5.   CZE     11
6.   HUN      9
7.   ARG      3
     LIT      3
9.   GBR      2
10.  DEN      1
     USA      1

Familiar countries in top-10 except Poland and Argentina being positive surprises.

The oldest WRs (potentially)

Age of EOL (2010–) has potential to become the cornucopia of the oldest WRs if the era doesn't end, people keep on playing and px updates the table. Quite many if:s but it's possible! At the moment it's not there yet.

Oldest WRs driven in Age of EOL (2010–)

#    Player     Level                Tables     Driven          Broken
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.  Kazan      Tricks Abound          77       2010 (#318)     2018 (#395)
27.  Zweq       Over and Under         73       2011 (#330)     2019 (#403)
28.  Zweq       Twin Peaks             72       2011 (#330)     2019 (#402)
32.  Kazan      Apple Harvest          69       2011 (#342)     2020 (#411)
33.  _Mika      Spiral                 67       2010 (#319)     2016 (#386)
42.  Kazan      Haircut                64       2011 (#333)     2018 (#397)
47.  Ded        Flat Track             63       2011 (#328)     2017 (#391)
...
70.  Zweq       Expert System          50       2012 (#356)     -

Data updated: 2020-05-23

91 tables is required to get to the all-time top-10.

3.2. Almost under 35:00:00

John was leading the personal total times list in Belma Period (2007–2010) and he kept the lead till January 2011 when Zweq became the number one again. Kazan passed Zweq in April 2014 and Spef took the lead in July 2016. Kazan stroke back in March 2017.

3.3. 1 hour total time

PeXi invented the concept of total time in 1998. The first 24 hours total time competition was organized by Abula in 2000. And the first record of the 1 hour total time (1h tt) is from 2001.

17 different players participated the one hour total time competition in Finnish Elma Meetings during the years 2002-2005. After EOL was released in 2010 the competition has been played by the best internalists but the results are not really comparable because it's very different to play at home as many times as you want than in a meeting when other people are watching. Nevertheless, let's combine the results.

Best personal total times in 1 hour

#    Player      Total time         WR tt     Date
---------------------------------------------------------------
1.   Kazan         38:46,01      +3:54,20     2014-05-18 (#374)
2.   Zweq          40:54,09      +5:12,01     2009-07-21 (#298)
3.   adi           40:03,43      +5:14,02     2014-10-05 (#376)
4.   Bjenn         40:06,74      +5:29,45     2017-11-30 (#392)
5.   Spef          40:28,47      +5:39,06     2014-09-28 (#376)
	
... in a meeting ...

6.   adi           40:43,30      +5:58,48     2015-08-14 (#382)
7.   Ramone        52:58,84     +15:44,26     2004-07-24 (#178)
8.   Markku        54:39,70     +17:51,57     2005-06-15 (#212)

... in early days ...

9.   IRK         1:03:23,25     +23:44,03     2002-03-15 (#81)
10.  TonyLee     1:10:33,44     +30:08,03     2001-05-01 (#65)
11.  Bobisek     1:46:45,64     +66:23,41     2001-06-06 (#68)

(Rank is by difference to contemporary WR total time.)

More

• View Kazan's 1h tt times (2014-05-18) (reference).

3.4. Multi is closed

Multiplaying got easier and much more convenient in EOL which activated players to drive lots of new multi WRs. The table #144 in 2010-08-17 had 29 new multi world records and there were 24 different player combinations.

4. Five minutes on Sunday

It's never been very common to reveal one's real playing time. It's much more likely to see comments like "I only played 5 mins on Sunday" no matter if the result required one or one hundred hours.

First time when we got hard data about playing times was in World Cup events and battles. No one could play more than the event lasted.

Since 2010 we have much more data, namely the exact timestamps of all key presses and apples collected of every play. And because the replay isn't even considered legal if played offline, the data is essentially complete.

Despite the vast amount of data available, quite little new information exists. It's probably not that interesting to know who pressed ESC or throttle key most which is probably the one who has played most in total. Perhaps Jarkko and 5. Uphill Battle?

Technically it would be possible to create statistics of, let's say, the easiest WRs: what was the total playing time required to get a world record after the previous WR was updated on the table? Ultimately, is there any real "first try" WR that can be proved by hard data? Who has played the most in total? Per year? Per level? What's the most played level in total by all players? The least played internal? My bets: 29. Headbanger and 25. Precarious.

Who has played the longest time without any break longer than 1 minute? Longest time having only maximum 15 min breaks? 24 hours? 1 week?

Because we don't have that kind of statistics now, let's look at some single facts which are public information. Jarkko published his top-2000 times in 5. Uphill Battle in 2011-11-17 (reference). The total time of his top-2000 is 11 hours and 5 minutes. First time he got WR under 0:20,00 was in 2006-06-03 (#244) and the current WR (0:19,79) was driven in 2009-10-09 (#301). His first Uphill Battle WR (0:20,11) was driven in 2006-04-01 (#237). It's impossible to tell how many times he got under 20 seconds out of the all attempts but I guess it's probably not very far-fetched to estimate it to one tenth or even one hundreth. So during four years he used something like 110-1110 hours in one level.

Another insane record in playing time wise (and in pipe skill wise) is adi winning the Achievement category in Golden Apple Awards 2016 by finishing 2593 pipe levels in 30 days.

Blaztek has played 14116 battles in eight years which is 1750 hours if we estimate that he played half of each battle's playing time.

5. Amazing WR replays

Now we must be careful because it's possible that some WR styles are not public yet. WR table has a five year rule which means that a WR replay can be published after five years when it appeared on the table.

Then we can finally watch the speedrun video, Elma Done Quick v3 (2012) which was presented in the "Introduction" chapter of this article. So the reader can go watch it now and after that come back here. Or actually all the interesting styles of the video have been introduced already at this point (or soon after) so the reader can also just keep on reading.

6. Wheelpop

Four major tricks were discovered before Age of EOL (2010–): bounce, supervolt (alovolt), brutal volt and spinning. But there was still one more left.

The oldest known WR having a wheelpop is Ded's 2. Flat Track WR in 2011-01-15 (#328) but it was Bene who popularized the trick in his 44. Freefall WR in 2014-01-11 (#371). Bene also used it in his 1. Warm Up WR in 2015-04-13 (#381).

Theoretically wheelpop can be used in almost every level but because it's so difficult to perform, it's mostly used in short levels.

Rumours say the current 2. Flat Track 0:14,64 WR contains three wheelpops (reference).

At this point we would read about the technical details of the wheelpop if I understood it myself. Bene has explained it on Mopolauta (reference).

It gets even more wicked when several wheelpops are performed in a row. Even terminology is murky here but chainpop seems to usually refer to multiple successive wheelpops in so short time that the trick can be performed only by technical aids. Player must tap brake very fast in right rhythm while changing the FPS on fly. Chainpop is practically impossible but wheelpop is not.

Bene invented the chainpop trick in 2016-08-10. Even though it wasn't useful in world records, Bene and Zweq decided to create an entertaining replay of the longest internal level, Labyrinth Pro, to be shown in Finnish Elma Meeting 2017. They pushed the time to incredible 1:55,48 which is 16 seconds better than the current WR. The best saveload time without any wheelpops is nine seconds slower (2:04,54) so wheelpop in general and chainpop specifically are very effective tricks but just too hard to actually use except in very short levels.

Bene introduced also reverse wheelpop in 2018-01-29 (reference) but it's not used in any world record.

7. Spinboost

This is getting ridiculous now but there is even one more trick which sunl introduced in 2017-01-10 (reference).

By swaping gas and brake while doing alovolt, the bike rotates 11.5 % faster in optimal case compared to normal volting. The trick is based on the fact that there is a 0.2 seconds delay before the alovolt is performed after the key is pressed and this time window can be used to gain more energy by turning the bike to different direction while pressing gas.

Sla used spinboost trick in his 2. Flat Track WR in 2017-09-03 (#392).

8. Science

After reading about Bene's wheelpop and sunl's spinboost researches, we need to look at the history of Elma science more closely. It looks like it has been brought to a new level once again. The fine-granular nature of Elma is indeed extraordinary.

The changed head position in Elma compared to Across is the first scientific discovery documented by Abula in 2000. It was shown in Elma Forever (2000–2001) chapter. In 2002 DarMoed published a paper about vsync and Moposchool is a comprehensive collection of different bike tricks and moves that was published in 2007. MGen, Hibernatus, milagros and other patchers have made experiments.

domi published a poster of his discoveries in 2010.

One player to have a clear scientific approach in his playing was Pab. He was a very active battler in Belma Period (2007–2010) who later specialized to hard and strange levels.

In addition sunl continued his hi-tech work in Scifi Level Pack (2016-12-09) (reference).

When playing Elma in low FPS, say 30 FPS, it means that a single frame lasts 0.033 seconds (and 0.034 every 31st time). And that means the wheel and head positions are checked every 0.03 second by the program code so it's possible to go through the wall in high speed if the collision happens between the checkpoints.

9. World Cup 6

World Cup 6 was running from 2013-09-01 to 2013-12-15 and there were 185 participants. 30 countries and 54 teams got points. px helped with organizing but most of the work was done by 8-ball, Kopaka, Ville_J and Ramone.

The previous World Cup was organized eight years ago so the top-10 had many new players. J-sim was the only one who has been in top-10 of previous World Cups.

Top-10 players in World Cup 6

#    Player           Team     Nat.    Points
---------------------------------------------
1.   Kazan            MiE      RUS       1130
2.   FinMan           dat      FIN       1020
3.   adi              MiE      FIN       1005
4.   Zero             dat      FIN        970,5
5.   Bjenn            EF       SWE        876,5
6.   hehe             WLA      SVK        852,5
7.   J-sim            EMA      DEN        623
8.   Zweq             WNO      FIN        621,5
9.   Tm               TEM      LIT        525,5
10.  nick-o-matic     MiE      FIN        524

One interesting detail is that there was one level by Csaba Rozsa, the designer of most internals, the original in-game levels (reference).

World Cup 6 was involved in half of the victories of Golden Apple Awards 2013 so it was a really big thing and it refreshed the community beyond measure.

More

• Watch World Cup 6 Trailer (2013-07-12) (reference).

10. World Cup 7

World Cup 7 was organized too. It was running from 2017-02-19 to 2017-05-21. 123 players, 22 countries and 46 teams got points. Italy got points first time. Ville_J was the main organizer.

Zero, adi, Bjenn and J-sim made the top-10 again. After Jokke (4) and Karlis (4) the most World Cup top-10s goes to J-sim (3).

Top-10 players in World Cup 7

#    Player           Team     Nat.    Points
---------------------------------------------
1.   Zweq             dat      FIN     1185
2.   Zero             dat      FIN     1069
3.   adi              MiE      FIN      998
4.   Bjenn            EF       SWE      979,5
5.   Mielz            SPEED    POL      787
6.   talli            MiE      FIN      760
7.   Mira             SLAM     CZE      679
8.   pawq             TR       POL      675
9.   J-sim            EMA      DEN      630,5
10.  Sick_Mambo       EMA      DEN      593

The 5th event had an interesting detail. The level utilized the ooked-bug in the start which made it possible to skip some apples in the level. It was also the traditional pipe level.

mengerle, onlainari (aka onla), terb0 and Tisk have participated in all seven World Cups.

11. Traditional contests

Age of EOL (2010–) mostly consists of playing battles but there have been also some traditional contests.

Cups organized in Age of EOL (2010–)

Start          Name                              Winner      Organizer(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011-02-14     Master Cup 3                      adi         Zebra
2012-03-10     10th Anniversary Cup Kopasite     Madness     Kopaka
2012-11-01     Peace of Cake Cup                 Eddi        dat
2015-02-01     MiE Cup 1                         Spef        MiE
2017-11-26     Rambo 2                           adi         Ramone

• Watch Master Cup 3 by Jappe2 (2011-07-07) (reference).

Internal styled level packs in Age of EOL (2010–)

Released       Name                    Designer
-----------------------------------------------
2013-04-18     Found Internals         Ramone
2016-04-28     Stolen Internals        Sla
2017-11-11     Misplaced Internals     Hosp

Official EOL Level Pack

Kopaka organized and community created 54 levels for the EOL patch. The levels are considered as official EOL levels. The levels were released in 2011-08-12 and competition is still on (reference).

• Watch EOL Done Quick (2012-07-29) (reference).

HALF

A level pack named HALF was made by Ramone the four time Level designer of Golden Apple Awards (GAA08, GAA09, GAA10, GAA17) and Zero (GAA15) in 2015-08-09 (reference). The quality of the levels was pushed to next level. The creation process was also interesting because the couple co-operated via Skype voice calls which is even more exciting when considering the ages of Ramone (35) and Zero (19). The fine result of different generations met.

HALF won the Contest and Art categories in Golden Apple Awards 2015. Moreover SkypeC05 by Ramone and Zero won the Level category in GAA16.

• Watch HALF part 1/2 by Ramone and Zero (2016-02-29) (reference).

Winners of the Level category in Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017)

Winners of the Designer category in Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017)

Year     Designer
-------------------
2011     TL
2012     yoosef
2013     Danielj
2014     umiz
2015     Zero
2016     kuchitsu
2017     Ramone

Level designing etiquette

The early day level designing guides and the modern knowledge was summarized to a few key points which everybody should respect.

12. New contests

In addition to traditional contests, a few new contests were also invented.

ReDesign

Orcc and Ville_J organized ReDesign Cup in 2011-03-15 where the idea is that the participants need to create the level by themselves and then drive the best time. Objects are not allowed to be moved. Tisk won the competition and other FM members did a comeback too.

ReDesign Cup 2 was organized in 2015-07-11 and FinMan won it (reference).

• Watch ReDesign Cup by jonsykkel (2011-03-15) (reference).

NoobStyl

Orcc's another new contest, NoobStyl in 2015 was asking for the most believable noob replay (reference). The competition was won by a real newbie who didn't even finish the level, but she used pink font color on Mopolauta. The long list of female Elma players (NJU, Katta, MopoGirl, Minna) got a new name: Laramie.

More

• View Elma Bingo by 8-ball (2012-04-03) (reference).
• View Couples Contest by pawq (2017-07-30) (reference).
• View Under - The Ultimate Challenge Pack by Ramone (2017-05-27) (reference).

13. Fancy levels

Not only the level designers pushed the limits to new dimensions but programmers also found ways to create even fancier levels.

Level editors

The most comprehensive level editor made is Smibu's Level Editor (SLE) which first version was published in 2010-08-15. It was inspired by ALE 2.1 (2004-12-17).

SLE is only one part of Smibu's entire Elmanager project which also includes Level manager, Replay viewer and Replay manager. The development of the project has been active throughout the whole period of Age of EOL (2010–) (reference).

Zebra programmed also a level editor which was released in 2013-04-22 (reference). Because it has also a level generator, we will see a screenshot of it in the next chapter.

Ville_J has created two online level editors: Yale - the collaborative level editor and Lousy Touch Editor (LTE) for touch screen devices.

Level generators

One of the ever-lasting goals of Elma programmers has been an automatic level generator. It's not trivial to create a logic to generate random levels which are possible to finish and fun to play. Since 2003 many programmers have tried to achieve the goal but community hasn't really adopted any of them in daily usage. It can be also because it's more fun to interact with level designers than with some boring bot which produces endless number of levels. However finding the best generator algorithm is again one more new aspect what makes the phenomenon of Elma so fascinating.

All level generators of all times

Released       Name                               Programmer      More
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-04-13     radim's levelmaker (vectrast)      radim            yes
2006-03-13     Ribot's Random Level Generator     ribot            yes
2007-07-17     ElmaLevelGenerator                 DaFred           yes
2011?          Uphill Generator Online            Ville_J
2011-02-23     new level generator                ribot            yes
2012-07-23     Stini's level generator            Stini
2013-04-22     ZLE                                Zebra            yes
2013-08-25     Domi's Lev Creat0r                 Domi             yes
2014-02-08     Quantum Level Generator            ribot            yes

FancyPic, FancyBoost

sunl's Scifi levels were already revolutionary but he went even further by releasing FancyPic in 2017-02-05. The second version is named as FancyBoost. It enables high quality images in Elma levels by patching the default LGR. The miracle was showcased in Dino Run 2 (reference).

• View more pictures of FancyBoosted levels (reference).
• Read about FancyPic (reference).

14. Fancy replays

Before watching the best replays of Age of EOL (2010–), we salute Recsource, the replay viewer platform working in browser which Ville_J published in 2015-03-21 (reference). Pretty much all replays worth remembering are saved after that date.

The history of external replay viewers goes back to December 2002 when milagros programmed Cheat detect0r. The first public replay viewer was rec2swf which Domovoy published in 2006-07-25 (reference). Maxdamantus' open-sourced viewer was published in 2015-01-16 which is used in this article as well (reference).

Also Smibu has programmed Replay viewer and Replay manager in 2009-2010.

Next we will look at some fancy replays after 2010 selected by me (Abula).

15. Pipe Royals

Driving inside pipes got even more insane in Age of EOL (2010–). Very tight, very long and even new pipe types were introduced. Some of the classics got smashed as well.

• Watch GAA14 replay, ChainPie III (32:02,99) by adi (2014-04-01) (reference). He finished the level for the first time in 2012-07-24.
• Watch Chain Pie (11:40,85) by jblaze (2018-01-01) (reference). We already watched talli's replay driven in Belma Period (2007—2010) but jblaze improved the time by two and a half minutes nine years later.

16. First Finish

The first finish battle mode (ff) was introduced already in Belma patch in 2007 but EOL's free camera feature made it possible to observe other players.

Markku, Nekit, adi and talli have been great in first finish battles. Here are some examples.

More

• Watch DAFF121 by Markku (2014-03-07) (reference) (reference).
• Watch Sanpo002 by adi (2014-08-11) (reference).
• View Dino Run (2016-12-14) (reference) and Dino Run 2 (2017-01-08) (reference) which are popular first finish battle cups by sunl.
• View Nice - The Ultimate First Finish Levelpack by Ramone (2017-07-24) (reference).
• Watch nekit uphilling (2018-03-28) (reference).

17. More videos

The rest of the best videos created during Age of EOL (2010–) which haven't been presented yet in other chapters.

Art

• Watch Secret leaked Elasto Mania 2 footage (by Jappe2) (2011-09-23) (reference).
• Watch Bugbounces (by Jappe2) (2012-01-26) (reference).
• Watch Spef the Batman (2014-08-14) (reference).
• Watch Elma in 4K (2018-01-21) (reference).

Tutorial

• Watch 24 Hour Levelmaking Timelapse (by DanielJ) (2014-10-26) (reference).
• Watch Road to Freefall World Record (by bene) (2014-12-29) (reference).
• Watch BaSk0256 making of (by skint0r) (2016-04-29) (reference).
• Watch Shirt tutorial (by iCS) (2017-11-22) (reference).

LGR

• Watch Sonic The Hedgehog (by astral-r) (2011-05-22) (reference).
• Watch Grassland by (Jappe2) (2012-01-31) (reference).
• Watch ElastoMania LGR (v3.1) (by iCS) (2015-12-09) (reference).

Speedrun

• Elasto Mania Done Quick (34:58,49) (by Kopaka) (2012-11-13) (reference)

18. Documentaries

There is also a documentary project ongoing and the first "rough cut" was presented in Finnish Elma Meeting 2016.

19. Misc

All the interesting files of Age of EOL (2010–) that wasn't presented yet are here.

Audio

• Watch A Girl named Elma by gimp (2011-03-23) (reference).

Image

Chronological order:

20. New generation

niN mentioned the term new generation in 2010-05-11 (reference) which describes very well the new community, for which playing online was taken granted. Many old veterans were taking breaks while new players took bigger roles to organize contests and meetings to push new energy to the community.

Community related categories were decreased in Golden Apple Awards but here are the ones that remained.

Winners of the Contribution category in Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017)

Year     Player(s)
------------------------
2011     Kopaka
2012     Kopaka
2013     Ramone
2014     nick-o-matic
2015     Ville_J & Maxdamantus
2016     nick-o-matic
2017     Kopaka

Winners of the Site category in Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017)

Year     Player
------------------------
2011     Kopaka
2012     Lousku
2013     Ville_J

Winner of Community Award category in GAA 2011-2017

Year     Player
------------------------
2011     Kopaka
2012     Kopaka
2013     Ramone

Kuski Map was initiated by pawq in 2017-03-08 (reference). It shows where the most active players live.

Social media

Across went to IRC in 1998 and Elma went to discussion forums in 2000. To Wikipedia and blogs Elma went in 2004, Youtube 2006, Twitter 2007 and Facebook 2008. During Age of EOL (2010–) the list was appended by Instagram (2012), WhatsApp and Twitch (2014), and Discord (2016).

Facebook group was fairly quiet in the first years but when EOL was released, the group was getting more activity.

#across IRC channel has been the primary chat for the community since 1998 but after 2012 Discord has been gaining popularity especially amongst the new players. The in-game chat has also developed a group of own.

Mopolauta has been the platform for discussions since 2001. The phpBB software was upgraded to v3.2 in January 2018 when the layout was also modernized suitable for mobile phones. Elma WhatsApp group was created by Orcc in 2014-12-26. Apparently some activity has been also in conference rooms. Elma fax, anyone?

Meetings

Years 2008-2011 were skipped in meetings but in 2012 Orcc and terb0 went to Kokkola to meet Zweq, Juzam and other Kokkola players.

In 2011 I started to travel around Europe and during the trips I met people like milagros in London (2011), Balázs in Budapest (2012) and teajay in Amsterdam (2013).

The new generation Finnish players gathered to Lousku's home in 2011-06-28 for two weeks but the meeting was invite only. However it was the first step of the upcoming renaissance of Finnish Elma Meetings. 2012 was skipped again but an unofficial Finnish Elma Meeting 2013 was organized in Lohja. It can't be really considered as official FEM because there wasn't a Mopolauta topic to welcome everybody and none of the classic competitions were organized.

Finnish Elma Meetings (2014-2017)

Nine years after the last open Finnish Elma Meeting 2005 the tradition was revitalized in 2014. Many of the best players attended including also a few foreigners. And like last time, year after year the meetings gathered more participants and new quality contests.

Details of Finnish Elma Meetings 2014-2017

Year     Location     Multi WRs   Participants (*)   1h tt     6 first    BB win      Battler     Quiz
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014     Sastamala        0          ~31 (4)           -          -       Ville_J     Markku      Orcc
2015     Sastamala        0          ~23 (4)          adi      Ramone     Ville_J     Markku      Orcc
2016     Sastamala        0           26 (6)           -          -       jblaze      Markku      Markku
2017     Sastamala        0           34 (11)          -          -       Zero        Markku      Markku

*) number of foreigners in brackets

No battle results have preserved but nick-o-matic's iconic FEM Quizes have:

• View FEM Quiz 2014 (reference).
• View FEM Quiz 2015 (with answers) (reference).
• View FEM Quiz 2016 (reference).
• View FEM Quiz 2017 (with answers) (reference).

Total points of FEM Quizes in 2014-2017

#    Player        Nat.    Points    Quizes
-------------------------------------------
1.   Markku        FIN     145.25     4
2.   Orcc          FIN     130.00     4
3.   adi           FIN     117.75     4
4.   Lousku        FIN     105.00     4
5.   Tisk          FIN      97.25     4
6.   Roope         FIN      80.00      3
7.   Ville_J       FIN      76.00     4
8.   axxu          FIN      66.50      3
9.   Zweq          FIN      64.25       2
10.  Abula         FIN      58.25      3
11.  Smibu         FIN      56.50      3
12.  terb0         FIN      49.25     4
13.  Zebra         FIN      45.75      3
14.  Ismo          FIN      45.50      3
15.  Zero          FIN      39.50       2
16.  Kopaka        DEN      38.00       2
17.  8-ball        LAT      34.50       2
18.  jblaze        POL      34.00        1
19.  insguy        GER      32.50      3
20.  Spef          FIN      31.75        1
21.  Ramone        SWE      30.00       2
22.  Bludek        CZE      28.50        1
23.  Hosp          SWE      28.00        1
24.  FinMan        FIN      27.50        1
25.  jonsykkel     SWE      27.25        1
26.  talli         FIN      26.75        1
     Quantz        FIN      26.75        1
28.  Polarix       NOR      29.00       2
29.  Mats          NOR      25.00        1
30.  Chaza         FIN      23.50        1
31.  Kortsu        FIN      23.50       2
32.  Luther        SWE      23.25        1
33.  jamppa        FIN      23.00        1
34.  Koo           FIN      22.75       2
35.  igge          SWE      20.00        1
36.  Stini         FIN      19.25        1
37.  veezay        FIN      19.00        1
38.  Mira          CZE      15.25        1
39.  Luther        SWE      14.25        1
40.  Jokke         FIN      12.50        1
41.  Barbapappa    SWE      11.00        1
42.  pawq          POL      10.50        1
     dz            FIN      10.50        1
44.  Nekit         RUS       7.00        1
     Ramses        FIN       7.00        1
46.  Ruben         NOR       6.00        1
     HaraldH       SUI       6.00        1
48.  ILKKA         FIN       0.75        1

In FEM15 Ramone beat Stini's old FEM record of 6 first internals (FEM05) and adi did same in 1 hour total time beating Ramone's old record (FEM04).

6 first internals in FEM 2015

#    Player     Nat.      Time
------------------------------
1.   Ramone     SWE     2:39,3
2.   adi        FIN     2:43,3
3.   Markku     FIN     2:48,5
5.   Roope      FIN     3:04,9
6.   Zebra      FIN     3:15,1
8.   Lousku     FIN     3:28,1
10.  Ismo       FIN     3:32,6
12.  insguy     GER     6:07,5

... not a new personal FEM record ...

4.   Tisk       FIN     2:59,8
7.   Abula      FIN     3:16,0
9.   dz         FIN     3:31,7
11.  Luther     SWE     5:03,1

1 hour total times in FEM 2015

#    Player     Nat.    Total time
----------------------------------
1.   adi        FIN       40:43,30
2.   Tisk       FIN       55:14,63
3.   Ville_J    FIN     1:29:55,17

... not a new personal FEM record ...

4.   Ramone     SWE     4:03:33,43

21. Golden Apple Awards (2011-2017)

Golden Apple Awards have been organized every year since 2003. Organizers have changed and categories updated but the core concept has remained the same: jury, candidates and gala with speeches.

Golden Apple Awards in 2011

    Category          Winner            Nat.    Reason
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist       Kazan             RUS
2.  Externalist       Jeppe             SWE
3.  Battler           Markku            FIN
4.  Rookie            Spef              FIN
5.  Designer          TL                FIN
6.  Team              SPEED
7.  WR                Kazan             RUS     Tunnel Terror 50,24 (#341)
8.  Style             Kazan, ANpDaD     RUS     Apple Harvest
9.  Replay            Zweq              FIN     The Steppes 11,54
10. Level             FinMan            FIN     Slavery (MC305)
11. Contest           Zebra             FIN     MasterCup 3
12. Contribution      Kopaka            DEN     EOL + levpack, Kopasite, GAA jury, movies
13. Achievement       Kazan             RUS     39TT in 1h, all 1min+ WRs, 35TT, 11 new dif. lev WRs
14. Site              Kopaka            DEN     Elma Online
15. Art               milagros          SVK     32TT project + videos (1, 7, 47, 48, 51)
16. Community Award   Kopaka            DEN


Golden Apple Awards in 2012:

    Category          Winner            Nat.    Reason
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist       Zweq              FIN
2.  Externalist       Jeppe             SWE
3.  Battler           Zero              FIN
4.  Rookie            bamilan           FUN
5.  Designer          yoosef            FIN
6.  Team              SPEED
7.  WR                Zweq              FIN     Expert System 49,67 (#356)
8.  Style             Zweq              FIN     Expert System 49,67 (#356)
9.  Replay (int)      Zweq              FIN     Expert System 49,67 (#356)
10. Replay (ext)      Zweq              FIN     ib9814 21,88
11. Level             Chip              AUT     feel free in every aspect of being (cp080ff)
12. Contest           Kopaka            DEN     Kopasite 10th Anniversary Cup
13. Contribution      Kopaka            DEN     EDQ 2012, Kopasite Cup, EOL work, GAA jury
14. Achievement       Spef              FIN     6 WRs by last year GAA rookie
15. Site              Lousku            FIN     Elma Monthly
16. Art               Kopaka            DEN     Elasto Mania Done Quick 2012
17. Community Award   Kopaka            DEN


Golden Apple Awards in 2013:

    Category          Winner            Nat.    Reason
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist       Spef              FIN
2.  Externalist       Kazan             RUS
3.  Battler           Zero              FIN
4.  Rookie            PELUSON27         SPA
5.  Designer          Danielj           NOR
6.  Team              MiE               FIN
7.  WR                Spef              FIN     Long Haul 29,91 (#368)
8.  Style             Bjenn & Bene      SWE     WCup610
9.  Replay            Zweq              FIN     WCup608 39,20
10. Level             MP                FIN     QueenCup07 (WCup614)
11. Contest           Ramone            SWE     World Cup 6
12. Contribution      Ramone            SWE     World Cup 6, Found Internals
13. Achievement       Kazan             RUS     World Cup 6 victory
14. Site              Ville_J           FIN     World Cup 6 site
15. Art               nick-o-matic      FIN     WCup613
16. Community Award   Ramone            SWE


Golden Apple Awards in 2014:

    Category          Winner            Nat.    Reason
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist       Spef              FIN
2.  Externalist       adi               FIN
3.  Battler           Zero              FIN
4.  Breakthrough      Bene              SWE
5.  Designer          umiz              SWE
6.  Team              MiE               FIN
7.  WR                Kazan             RUS     Pipe 30,29 (#374)
8.  Style             Zweq              FIN     33z5231, 33x5338
9.  Replay            adi               FIN     chainpi3adi
10. Level             Danielj           NOR     DAFF104
11. Contribution      nick-o-matic      FIN     FEM14 organizing
12. Achievement       Kazan             RUS     38TT in 1h
13. Art               Ville_J           FIN     Julkalendern
14. Juror's Choice    SveinR            NOR


Golden Apple Awards in 2015:

    Category         Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist      Bene                SWE
2.  Externalist      Zero                FIN
3.  Battler          Zero                FIN
4.  Designer         Zero                FIN
5.  Breakthrough     Mira                CZE
6.  Team             dat
7.  WR               Bene                SWE     Warm Up 13,97 (#381)
8.  Style            Zweq                FIN     MiECC101
9.  Replay           Spef                FIN     29sp4159
10. Saveload         Zweq                FIN     limpsy01oke
11. Level            insguy              GER     insHL
12. Contest          Zero & Ramone               HALF Competition
13. Art              Zero                FIN     HALF1 levels
14. Contribution     Ville_J             FIN
                     & Maxdamantus       RUS     Recsource
15. Achievement      Bene                SWE     Warm Up WR
14. Juror's Choice   Mawane              CAN


Golden Apple Awards in 2016:

    Category         Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Internalist      Spef                FIN
2.  Externalist      adi                 FIN
3.  Battler          Zero                FIN
4.  Designer         kuchitsu            RUS
5.  Breakthrough     Sla                 ARG
6.  WR               Spef                FIN     Zig Zag 52,73 (#385)
7.  Style            Zero                FIN     Tre547zerDONE
8.  Replay           adi                 FIN     VOU004adiJES
9.  Saveload         Madness             SWE     SL51Mad3291
10. Level            Ramone & Zero               SkypeC05
11. Contest          niN                 SWE     World Battle Cup II
12. Art              iCS                 HUN     World Cup 6 movie
13. Contribution     nick-o-matic        FIN     FEM16, femquiz
14. Achievement      adi                 FIN     2593 finished pipe levs in 30d


Golden Apple Awards in 2017:

    Category         Winner              Nat.    Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  Contribution     Kopaka              DEN
2.  Collaboration    Bene & Zweq                 Saveloading
3.  Art              iCS                 HUN     World Cup 7 movie
4.  Internalist      Kazan               RUS
5.  Achievement      Zweq                FIN     World Cup 7 victory
6.  WR               Kazan               RUS     Serpents Tale 46,63 (#389)
7.  Externalist      Zweq                FIN
8.  Style            Spef                FIN     33sp5273
9.  Battler          Zero                FIN
10. Breakthrough     AndrY               RUS
11. Designer         Ramone              SWE
12. Level            skint0r             NOR     WCup704
13. Contest          Kopaka              DEN     World Cup 7
14. Replay           Spef                FIN     33sp5273
15. Battle Replay    Zero                FIN     Black030_290Zer
16. Saveload         Bene & Zweq                 35zb15548

Most GAAs during Age of EOL (2010–) went to Zweq (14), Zero (13), Kazan (10), Spef (10), Kopaka (9), Bene (7) and Ramone (6).

22. Friendly contacts

Elma is a small community, a cultural bubble that has been isolated from the outside world most of time. There have been a few contacts with other gaming communities, mostly friendly but also some existential threats were faced, the most obvious being new cheating methods.

It has always been a controversial topic how many new players are wished to be joined the community. The new people are the energy to keep this going but they also change culture as they like which is not always what the old players hope. Promo videos for Belma and EOL were created but there has never really been put lots of effort to give people a warm welcome. For example the Wikipedia article about Elasto Mania or step-by-step guides how to start playing online haven't been top priorities.

A few gaming magazines have written articles about Elasto Mania. MikroBitti is most likely the reason why Elma became so popular in Finland since 1999 but there was also a Polish article in 2000. In addition a Danish newspaper published a small announcement about Rigger's World Cup results in 2002 and a Norwegian university magazine reported Finnish Elma Meeting 2005. During Age of EOL (2010–) another Finnish gaming magazine Pelaaja (2011) and a British PC Gamer (2017) published high quality articles.

Since about 2009 gaming channels in Youtube have been gaining lots of popularity and Elasto Mania has been also played in a few channels.

• ARHN.EU's video has over 100k views (2013-10-16) (reference).
• STAMSITE visited EOL in 2017-08-09 (reference).

There are also other games having similar characteristics to Elma and it has happened several times that some Elma players grouped with each others inside some other game community. I'm aware of Ski Jump International (reference) (second version published in 1996), TKEP (2001) (reference), #ranks (2004) (reference) and a bit later Aapeli Minigolf (reference) and Worms.

In addition there are games inspired by Elasto Mania like already mentioned Amle (2005) and a more serious one, X-Moto (2005) (reference) which even imported Elma internal levels in 2009 (reference).

A famous webcomic xkcd (reference) greeted Elma in 2014 and Leek replied by a custom LGR in 2017.

There have been also a few outsiders who wanted to buy the license of Elasto Mania: the most recent one in March 2017 (reference). The discussion got pretty far and the business model canvas had some realism but in the end the community and Balázs ultimately rejected it. Considering this and Balázs' iOS Elma projects it looks like he hasn't given up with the development of the game but there is no more information.

(UPDATE 2020-05-26: Balázs sold the rights of Elasto Mania (2020-04-20) and it was published in Steam yesterday (2020-05-26).)

Remember the paprika image? The one that Moposite used? I took it randomly from the Google image search to use it as a temporary placeholder while the website was in transition to a new platform. For some reason the alleged copyright owner of the image emailed and requested us to remove the image (reference). How did he find Moposite? Why does he care about a basic paprika picture and how did he bother to find our email address, send a message and not even trying to claim any money? Strange world.

23. Dark moments

There have been three cheating waves in the history before Age of EOL (2010–): mod.com in Across (1999), Nitro cracked (2001) and DarMoeD's autoplay (2004). Hibernatus also talked about his just finished autoload patch in #across chat in 2003-01-17 but apparently it wasn't spread or started to be used by anyone.

milagros' anti-cheating tools were capable to catch some cheats but the inconvenient truth is that it's possible that some players have used undetectable patches from day zero. Only since 2011-06-23 when the WRs were required to be driven online while connected to the EOL server, the WR history is 100 % clean, and saveload and other tool-assisted speedrun tools (TAS) could be used only in style finding and creating TAS replays.

WRs before 2011-06-23 must be based on trust. Luckily most of the best WR players are very well known and for example Zweq and TorInge, the most WRs driven players by far had active multiplayer friends, Juzam and Tantal. Also both of them drove similar results in meetings. It's very likely the WR history is ~100 % clean except maybe 38. Curvaceous by Djievis the letter (#172, 2004-05-01).

Even though playing online connected to the EOL server prevents most of the cheats, there seem to be methods to hack it somehow. A player named DEATH has demonstrated it.

• Watch invulnerability cheat by DEATH (2015-03-27) (reference).
• Watch gravity cheat by DEATH (2015-07-14) (reference).

There is no more public information about other cheats but before moving to the brighter side of using the tools to improve times, I must mention a few dubious events that happened before 2011-06-23. There are rumours that DarMoeD's autoplay patch was spreading in the Ukranian and Russian Elma communities and some players seemed to be well on map in discussions on Mopolauta.

The first two videos including several new styles and WR improvements were uploaded to Youtube in October 2009. Another TAS tool (Hourglass) was released in 2009-11-07 (reference) and Elasto Mania was one of the first games to be discussed in their forum. In addition milagros programmed a saveload patch in June 2010 which he and Zweq were using in the secret "32tt project" which was fully uncovered only years later.

• Watch 300 AVR, part 1/2 (2009-10-01) (reference).
• Watch 300 AVR, part 2/2 (2009-10-06) (reference).

By knowing these facts: saveload becoming detectable only in 2011-06-23 and the enthusiasm around the new TAS tools in 2009-2010, I can't be without checking the WR history of those days. The only one I see slightly suspicious is 7. Hi Flyer, a classic saveload level which was improved in 2009-03-08 (#295) by a player who has never had other WRs and who is from a country which is better known by technological knowledge than Elma WRs, and a country which is politically controversial making it tempting to be discredited of cheating (Israel). But because no evidence exists, it's only an interesting piece of Elma history.

24. Tool-assisted speedrun

Saveload and other TAS tools are superior in style finding and creating funny replays but because they ridiculate normal replays, we didn't want to look at them until all other replay and video chapters were discussed. But now it's the time to bring Elma to a new level once again. Next we are going to look at what is theoretically possible when everything is allowed and the most sophisticated tools used.

Keep in mind that for style finding the saveload patch is more effective than train levels but all the official records are still driven like normal because EOL server can verify it.

Saveload improves style finding and training difficult parts a lot because you get the correct start angle and velocity. For example the end bounce in 10. Tunnel Terror is very difficult to reproduce in a train level. And actually that is exactly the level where the first known saveload trained WR was driven: Tunnel Terror 0:51,88 by Zweq (#315, 2010-08-28).

Zweq using saveload in style finding since June 2010 was told in 2018 (reference). Smibu published the saveload patch on Mopolauta in 2011-06-17 (reference) after which the patch has been available for everybody. It's also known that two videos including several WR improvements and new styles were uploaded to Youtube in October 2009 and that Elasto Mania was one of the first games mentioned in the general TAS forum when Hourglass, a new tool was released in 2009-11-07.

Using saveload in style finding isn't illegal but moral can be questioned. It compares to alovolt, train levels, vsync knowledge and FPS limiter which all help with playing but isn't technically cheating because all those are theoretically possible to use by everybody. For example, you can always create your own version of Warm Up as a train level. But because saveload is so remarkable aid, it's fair to be available for everyone, so thanks to Smibu to publish it.

Just for the record I must mention here that FM had a secret foot pedal for alovolt in 2001. That was one year before the alovolt key was added to the game in October 2002.

So saveload patch was secretly used in style finding by some players at least since 2009 and it's possible that there are cheated WRs in the WR history before 2011-06-23. Back then the public discussion around saveload patch was not about speedrunning or training levels but about cheating until milagros tricked the community big time in April's fool day in 2011.

"32tt project"

milagros started a new topic named "32tt project" in 2011-04-01 claiming that he had driven almost three minutes better times than the current WR total time (reference). It was the April's fools' day and no one believed for a second that any of those times could be possible, even though just recently milagros had proved to be a phenomenal programmer with EOL and other patches.

The April's fool was forgotten for a while but in 2011-04-18 it became evident that something is actually happening. The seven seconds improvement to 48. Downhill WR was published in a Youtube video and it was soon followed by five seconds better 7. Hi Flyer, eight seconds faster 51. Trick Abound and 1. Warm Up first time under 0:14,00. The improvements were some of the craziest ever. The April's fool wasn't a fool after all and milagros had turned the community upside down once again.

• Watch saveload Hi Flyer 0:23,52 (2011-05-02) (reference).
• Watch saveload Trick Abound 0:33,93 (2011-06-17) (reference).

Spreading insane styles like those was a controversial topic. It's interesting to see what is theoretically possible, of course, but it's unfair for the current WR holders whose records are ridiculated. Moreover it demotivates the players who can't get the joy and fame of finding the styles anymore. Nonetheless milagros decided to start spreading the styles so let's accept the fact. Luckily it was done together with Zweq the Great so the outcome is the best possible. milagros claimed to be the player himself back in the days but the co-operation was revealed in 2014-10-28 (reference).

So the true story is that since June 2010 milagros and Zweq had been driving crazy times using all the cheat and tricks they had. The total time was told to got down to 32:29,44 which was almost three minutes better than the contemporary WR total time. Most of the replays have never been published so we can assume that the best ones were (48. Downhill, 7. Hi Flyer, 1. Warm Up and 51. Tricks Abound). The rest probably include more or less just very strong bug bounces and other not-so-cool tricks like in the next replays.

• Watch saveload Enigma 0:17,05 (2011-12-24) (reference).

The ultimate goal of Elma, what's theoretically possible, made a big step when saveload was started to be used.

The first known WR table allowing cheated replays was published in 2004-10-18 (reference).

The first WR table including saveload cheated WRs was published in 2012-08-23 (reference). The rules were well-grounded: no bug bounces, bug stretches or other humanly impossible tricks were allowed.

The saveload WR table got quite popular when many top internalists send in their records because they already used saveload for style finding anyway. At the time of writing (2018-04-01) the most recent table was updated in 2018-01-07 (reference) and it has a total time of 33:11,11 which was about 80 seconds better than the normal WR table.

After we have desecrated the WR table, there is no reason to limit anything at all. Let the orgy begin! Most saveload WR replays are public which means that pretty much all the possible WR styles are public as well. In addition some levels were finished in very unusual ways.

There is also a TAS WR table where everything is allowed. The best Elma WR total time utilizing all the possible hacks and tricks is 9:54,58 which is roughly one fourth to the normal one.

Saveload patch can be also used to finish very tricky levels or to create artistic replays.

• Watch Theoretical replays by Zweq (2014-11-04) (reference).

One more thing: please remember to always include "SL" or "TAS" in the replay filename to make a clear separation to normal ones.

Summary of the chapter

During Age of EOL (2010–) the game moved to new dimensions. Even though milagros' latest EOL patch was just perfect, even a miracle, it didn't give a big push to WR progress. Instead saveload patch did because it turned out to be very effective in style finding and training.

Spef and Zero progressed to the level of the grand masters during the era. Zweq and Markku of the older generation have been active and very successful. Elma Done Quick v3 was released in 2012.

Community was vividly creating new art work and better systems: for example elmaonline.net, Recsource, several new level editors, many gorgeous videos and level packs. Elma science was examined in projects like domi's Big Book, 32tt project and new tricks where found such as wheelpop and spinboost. Also sunl's Scifi and FancyBoost levels expanded the limits of the game to the new level.

Golden Apple Awards were organized every year and some old classics were revitalized like World Cups and Finnish Elma Meetings where old and new generations met. The outside world started to show some more interest to the game that had been played for two decades at this point.

Excluding a few more topics, the history of Elasto Mania is covered by now. Age of EOL (2010–) is a container chapter for all relevant events happened since June 2010 and it might need to be rewritten in the future when history is seen more clearly and in right context.

(UPDATE 2020-05-26: After writing this chapter in 2018 a lot has happened. Balázs sold the rights of the game and Elasto Mania was published in Steam in 2020-05-25.)

Utopia🔝

Several new Elma versions, even official ones were released during Age of EOL (2010–) but none of them made a breakthrough. This chapter is about the next popular version which doesn't exist yet and which I will refer to as "Elasto Mania 3" in this chapter. But before that let's look at the history and current status of the different versions.

(UPDATE 2020-05-27: Balázs sold the rights of the game and it was published in Steam two days ago so this chapter will be out-of-date very soon.)

The version which community plays at the moment (2018-04-03) is Elasto Mania 1.3 by milagros (aka EOL), released in 2010. EOL is created by patching the latest official version, Elasto Mania 1.11a (2001). The community has also actively used unofficial versions named Elasto Mania 1.2 by Hibernatus (2002) and Belma by milagros (2007).

New versions

Android Elma (2014)

Ropelli announced to have programmed Elma Android version in 2014-02-06 (reference). It worked but the project is apparently discontinued.

iOS Elma (2014)

Balázs the creator of Elasto Mania published an iOS version of Elma out of nowhere in summer 2014. The community wasn't aware of the development at all until Smibu accidently noticed it in 2014-08-24 (reference).

The game has no level editor nor advanced statistics but there are replays, although you need to take screenshots and videos manually to share with other people which is not very user-friendly. The physics got modified greatly and in common opinion the driving feeling got worse. The levels can be interesting for a new player because there are elevators, teleports and other fancy stuff but that wasn't really what community was hoping for. However some people enjoy the game (reference).

Elasto Mania II (2017)

Community wasn't involved this time either when Balázs published Elasto Mania II in 2017-12-13 (reference). The version is for Windows and it's titled to be sequel for the original Elasto Mania even though it's only a ported iOS mobile version.

Many players bought the $9.95 license probably just to support Balázs' life time work but once again only few continued playing. This was the first time Balázs joined Mopolauta and had a discussion with the community which was highly appreciated (reference). He also stopped the press by mentioning to work for MUe these days (2017).

Community didn't move to playing Elasto Mania II. There is some interesting work created around it (reference).

Elasto Mania II name was a problem for the community which was developing Elma 2 too.

EOL2 (2012)

EOL2 is a community Elma project started from scratch by Smibu in 2012-12-15 (reference). It was called Elma 2 until Balázs released Elasto Mania II in 2017. After that it was named to EOL2.

The latest version (0.5.1) supports most of the original Elasto Mania 1.11a features and some of Elasto Mania 1.3 (aka EOL) features. There have been approximately one big upgrade per year so it's progressing.

Libraries

There are also some Elma libraries written by sigvef (reference), domi (reference) and the GitHub crew (reference).

Artificial intelligence (AI)

It has been a goal of many Elma programmers for a long time to create a bot to improve existing replays or even finish levels by own. Yet it has been too difficult task. Especially if you don't want to allow bugbounces.

ribot published an experiment to figure out the designer of a random level in 2018-03-23 (reference).

Elasto Mania 3

I'm not going to list my favourite features that I would like to see in the next version. There are many good lists of those available. But I have another proposal.

By now I think it's clear both to Balázs and the community that Elasto Mania II wasn't a success. I don't want to list why it doesn't make justice for the original version which is actually much more interesting to talk about.

Why original Elma is so good and why it has been played thousands of hours by thousands of players and why it is still played by hundreds of players after 18 years? If you can reproduce the same, Elasto Mania 3 could be a success too, even a bigger one if it was marketed and sold in modern ways. I'm not personally involved in the game industry or even play any other game but I've got ideas.

Elasto Mania has a great brand. I can tell you that about 50 % of Finnish 30 years guys know it and liked to play it for a while. Same with many other European countries. It's because the game was quite widely advertized in the local gaming magazines. You can't get players unless people are aware of your game.

Many people know Elma not just because of marketing but because it was a really good game and people actually liked it, even finished all the levels. The internal levels are not that hard if you really play the game for dozens of hours like some do. Most players didn't just get addicted to the game, maybe because they didn't notice the timer or level editor or the website link or there just happened to be something else on the table. They would play Elma 3 if they saw an advertisment but they don't check elastomania.com or any other website of some old game. It's only us the hardcore enthusiasts who still check the original website.

We the most active players are not playing the game because we like it so much more than the other players but because the great community that has grown around the game. Others just haven't found the place. And because we actually have played it for 21 years, we know quite a bit about the game and the phenomenon. Elma is a great playground to learn new skills which has been proved in this article by many great works created in the community.

I think the next Elma version should be made in collaboration with Balázs and the community. Balázs has knowledge and the brand of his life work and community has data and knowledge. The actual programming work can be made by several people if they were paid.

Have you looked at what kind of games make profit? For example Hill Climb Racing is an Elma clone which has made millions for a Finnish software house. But it's for touch screen and I don't think Elma is good for that. Elma is good for "realistic" trial bike simulation. The complex physics is the point really, it has so much to discover. It's silly because no one would ever say Elma is realistic after seeing the first turn or hang, let alone a bounce, brutal volt or piping. It's only funny. But it is actually kind of realistic, because the touch to the bike is so sharp once you start to master it. The secret of Elma might be the evolution of the playing experience from funny to realistic in its own unique way.

To keep the sharp touch the game must be played on real keyboard but then it's competing with games of very different scale than mobile phone games. I don't know the Steam scene or if Elma could have any place there but it could be made more interesting with the special story that we have with Elma. If we could bring the old records, the old legends to the same records scope shared with the new players, it might be really fascinating. That means the physics must remain same or at least to have a mode to play with old physics to connect the old history with new times. It would be great if the physics were only expanded like moving polygons, left alovolt and stuff like that which doesn't change the original touch. The new players could learn the same touch and they could quite easily try to beat the old records if they wanted in one day. I have no idea if the new players would like to compete with the old times but at least there was the connection and the story of 21 years. I think this could be something special to stand out in a crowd.

In addition the monetizing model could be changed that you can play the full version of the game for $2 / month in the first year and then $5 / year or something like that.

I wrote this article in honour of the greatest game ever. I'm happy if the saga continues in any way like just having the periodical World Cups and meetings for the sake of good ol' times. But after researching the recent history of Elma, I'm starting to find all this very interesting. Elma 3 has potential!

The new version could have for example three different level packs: a tribute for the community, trial bike levels and adventure levels. Looks like Balázs wanted to create adventure levels in the new versions but those levels are funny only when playing first time. Waiting for the same elevator, going downhill full gas only or just flying around doing nothing, gets boring fast. Some of the best old classics like Zig Zag or Tunnel Terror have been played for 20 years and there are still new styles and tricks discovered. The level designing knowledge in the community is incredible and I'm just a beginner in this area but in my opinion the best Elma levels are kind of tricky trial bike levels which have always something more to improve and master.

(UPDATE 2020-05-26: Balázs sold the rights and the game was published in Steam in 2020-05-25. I wrote this chapter in April 2018.)

eSport

I'm even less an expert with esport than I'm with game industry but obviously Elma is good for competition. I would research the possibilities in this area as well. Any car games competed against timer for 20 years?

Elma Olympics could be interesting too. A polevault and so on. And not too many attempts per level.

Alumni

No matter what happens to Elma 3 or WR table, community will always exist in some way or another and it's only up to us. There could be a fund to pay salaries for some boring Elma jobs. Elma has changed lives of many people and once someone is fortune enough, he might want to fund the phenomenon.

Wish list

Finally my personal wish list.

1. Easiest WRs: Apparently it's possible to create statistics of the easist WRs out of the EOL data. Who needed the less time to beat a WR? And who the most? Any first try WR?
2. Playing hours: What is the most played internal by one player? Or collectively? The less?
3. Age of WR player: Who is the youngest WR player? Ded is the oldest at the moment. Many players have told their birthday in Kuski Gallery.
4. Across WR statistics: We have about 25 % of Across WR tables preserved so the statistics wouldn't be complete but I'm sure there is something valuable to be seen.
5. Recsource: The platform would be even more awesome if there were lists of the most viewed replays per year.
6. Elma Olympics: How this concept could be done in Elma? Somehow bring all special level types like hill climbing, polevault etc. together.
7. Teams Database: The teams and the members of the teams, joining days and leaving days, could be in one central database. All exact dates can be hard to find but let's of circumstantial evidence exists in cup results etc.
8. Website Snapshots: A handy list of all old website snapshots there are. The list can contain screenshots, archived versions and running versions of any old Across or Elma website. And why not newer ones as well?

Final Results🔝

Next we have some combinated results of all times.

Countries

Elma is played globally but how many countries have exactly participated?

All the countries to have participated somehow

#    Nat.    WRs     TT   Kuskis   In EOL
-----------------------------------------
1.   FIN     642     87     239      ?
2.   SWE     404     92     223
3.   NOR     274     58     139
4.   RUS      90     72     158
5.   HUN      43     48     133
6.   CZE      32     45      51
7.   AUS      23     26      68
8.   POL      22     32      61
9.   SVK      16     13      23
10.  DEN      12     28      69
11.  USA       7      9     114
12.  GBR       6     11      36
13.  LTU       6      3       9
14.  NED       5     11      21
15.  CAN       4     25      76
16.  ARG       3      3      17
17.  ISL       3      2       5
18.  ISR       1     12      23
19.  GER       0     18      29
20.  FRA       0     17      20
21.  UKR       0     15      29
22.  POR       0     10      23
23.  BLR       0      8      17
24.  EST       0      7      16
25.  ROM       0      5      24
26.  AUT       0      5      20
27.  YUG       0      4       8
28.  NZL       0      3      15
     SPA       0      3      15
30.  LAT       0      3       9
31.  CHN       0      1      11
32.  CHI       0      1      10
33.  EGY       0      1       7
34.  SUI       0      1       3
35.  SVN       0      1       1
     URU       0      1       1
37.  BRA       0      0      12
38.  GRE       0      0       4
     TUR       0      0       4
40.  BUL       0      0       3
41.  VEN       0      0       2
     BIH       0      0       2
     BEL       0      0       2
44.  JAP       0      0       1
     SRB       0      0       1

WRs = number of new WRs (Elasto Mania)
TT = number of players under 60 minutes total time
Kuskis = number of players in Kuski gallery
EOL = number of players in EOL database

Data updated: 2018-04-04

45 countries presented. There can be a few fake ones but no more than that. Western countries make the majority but there are also Argentina, China, Chile, Egypt, Brasilia, Turkey, Venezuela and Japan.

Most different countries in a single WR table were 10 in 2013-01-26 (#362): FIN, RUS, CZE, SWE, LIT, DEN, GBR, HUN, USA, POL.

Teams

Best teams by WRs and WCups (*)

#    Team      WRs   WCup pts
-----------------------------
1.   FM        188     14039
     WNO       211      1427
3.   ICE       102      3419
4.   PRA        79      4576
     IC         88       549
6.   SPEED      74      2152
7.   SC         47      1928
8.   EM         38      3024
9.   SSC        28      2549
     WRS        31       587
11.  MC         26      1479
12.  REM        26       452
13.  ukc        27       130
14.  tld        23      1528
15.  EF         19      2933
16.  TEA        19      1346
17.  EPO        20       837
18.  SAT        22       275
19.  TTT        17       887
20.  swos       16      1363
...

*) arbitrary combination by Abula

Data updated: 2018-04-04

Most different teams in a single WR table were 20 in 2002-08-24 (#91): EM, REM, FM, WRS, IC, tb, iht, TEA, ter, CART, swos, mEkK, tlt, SC, SSC, Fed., SRX, FRC, TEK, SET.

Players

Who was mentioned most times in this article?

Most mentioned players in The History of Elasto Mania (1995-2018)

#   Player       Nat.   Times
-----------------------------
1.  Zweq         FIN      170
2.  Markku       FIN       56
3.  Abula        FIN       52
4.  TorInge      NOR       50
5.  Zero         FIN       48
6.  John         SWE       44
7.  Kazan        RUS       42
8.  milagros     SVK       40
9.  Ramone       SWE       38
10. Karlis       FIN       37
...

Data updated: 2018-04-04

Designers

It's very subjective and disputable to determine who are the best level designers but at least we know the winners of the Golden Apple Awards.

Best designers by number of level designing Golden Apple Awards

#   Designer     Nat.    GAAs
-----------------------------
1.  Ramone       SWE      4.5
2.  Barbapappa   SWE      2
    MP           FIN      2
    Zebra        FIN      2
    skint0r      NOR      2 
    Jappe2       FIN      2
    Danielj      NOR      2
8.  Zero         FIN      1.5
...

Data updated: 2018-04-05

Battles

(UPDATE 2024-04-14: It was found out that battles are invented in 2000 and at least a concept battle is played in 2000-12-21. Additionally #battle battles are played also in 2001-2002. Read the Elma Forever for more information. This chapter needs to be rewritten one day.)

In total 219766 battles have been played during 2001–2017. Some of the battles played in meetings and offline are not included but those cover under 1 % of total number.

Number of battles played per year (2001-2017). Battles have been played almost all the time since 2005. © Abula

 (original, §) Number of battles played per year (2001-2017). Battles have been played almost all the time since 2005. © Abula

The problem of battles is that there is no single ranking to find out who's the best because it's very difficult to organize battles to have the best players to participate at the same time. And we can't really make the analysis out of a few battles when they were actually playing at the same time if the total number of played battles is hundreds of thousands. The same problem is also with World Cups but in smaller degree. WR table has been open for everybody for 18 years so it's the most unambiguous and self-evident. Get a WR and you are in the history.

It's extremely difficult to find a fair way to compare battle players of different eras. Total points can't be the criterion. In addition average points per battle is pretty much only a matter of number of players participated, meaning the winners of Mopobattles being the best battlers. Battle win ratio is the best of possible but it's easier to get high when there are less players like in #battle era (2003-2007). But if we weight the number of top-10s of different battle eras and after that take the player with the highest battle win-%, we get some list. It's 100 % objective at least. First time in the Elma history we have a list of the best battlers of all times!

Top-20 of best battle win ratios weighted by number of top-10s of different eras

#    Player       Nat.   Points   Win-%     Era
-------------------------------------------------------
1.   Markku       FIN       12     42 %     Mopobattles
                          3002     75 %     #battle
                          3781     43 %     Belma
                          3451     55 %     EOL

2.   Zweq         FIN       23     35 %     Mopobattles
                          1107     59 %     #battle
                          3844     49 %     Belma
                          3846     55 %     EOL

3.   axxu         FIN       78     45 %     Mopobattles
                          1750     63 %     #battle
                          1623     34 %     Belma

4.   zaraptor     GBR      432     59 %     #battle
                          1392     42 %     EOL

5.   John         SWE     1613     58 %     #battle
                          1926     45 %     EOL

6.   ANpDaD       RUS      716     52 %     #battle
                          3874     43 %     EOL

7.   adi          FIN     6793     28 %     Belma
                          5116     52 %     EOL

8.   Kazan        RUS     4229     35 %     Belma
                          5287     44 %     EOL

9.   Jeppe        SWE     2287     62 %     #battle
10.  Kuper        RUS      640     61 %     #battle
11.  skint0r      NOR      622     55 %     #battle
12.  GRob         HUN     1529     53 %     EOL
13.  kd           HUN      543     51 %     #battle
14.  Zero         FIN    11169     49 %     EOL
15.  Cloud        FIN       11     45 %     Mopobattles
16.  Leek         NZL     1595     44 %     EOL
17.  swos         FIN       10     40 %     Mopobattles
18.  jaytea       USA     4654     36 %     Belma
19.  talli        FIN     7220     35 %     Belma
20.  BoneLESS     CAN     4113     34 %     Belma
...

Data updated: 2018-04-05

World Cups

The number of event wins could be the best criterion for the best World Cup player of all times.

Most World Cup event wins

#   Player       Nat.   Event wins
----------------------------------
1.  Dr_Luni      SWE        11
2.  Jokke        FIN         8
    Kazan        RUS         8
4.  MP           FIN         6
5.  Jalli        NOR         5
6.  Karlis       FIN         4
    psy          FIN         4
8.  axxu         FIN         3
    Elbono       SWE         3
    Luther       SWE         3
    zeth         NOR         3
...

Data updated: 2018-04-05

World Records

Finally the greatest results of the most important competition: Elasto Mania World Records of All-times!

Most different WRs

#    Player       Nat.       WRs
-----------------------------------
1.   Zweq         FIN     51 (94 %)
2.   TorInge      NOR     42 (78 %)
3.   John         SWE     33 (61 %)
4.   Kazan        RUS     31 (57 %)
5.   Spef         FIN     27 (50 %)
6.   Jeppe        SWE     22 (41 %)
7.   Karlis       FIN     21 (39 %)
8.   Champi0N     SWE     16 (30 %)
     dz           FIN     16 (30 %)
     zyntifox     NOR     16 (30 %)
     psy          FIN     16 (30 %)
     Cloud        FIN     16 (30 %)
...

Data updated: 2020-05-26

Most different players in a single WR table were 37 in 2000-08-05 (#31): KingKong (aka BoBBo), zyntifox, Champi0N, Jokke, loX, zeth, mr, Hotwax, Tier, Petri, Mandel, onlainari (aka onla), Ntc, Fulgore, Markku, Doc, Tuska, Totalnew, Karlis, AnTTiM, mason, TheGepi, mengerle, powell, SoGe, Dr_Luni, psy, StIkKy, DeG, Garion, Ufo, LocDog, Joni, Jeppe, TuA, 3Litre and oizo!

Number of new WRs

#    Player       Nat.    WRs
-----------------------------
1.   Zweq         FIN     190
2.   TorInge      NOR     122
3.   John         SWE      72
4.   Karlis       FIN      65
5.   Kazan        RUS      59
6.   Jeppe        SWE      54
7.   Jokke        FIN      53
     Spef         FIN      53
9.   zyntifox     NOR      41
10.  psy          FIN      37
...

Data updated: 2020-05-26

Most tables with WRs

#    Player       Nat.    WRs
-----------------------------
1.   Zweq         FIN     303
2.   mr           FIN     280
3.   Karlis       FIN     249
4.   Stini        FIN     221
5.   TorInge      NOR     214
6.   zyntifox     NOR     210
7.   John         SWE     187
8.   Jarkko       FIN     157
9.   psy          FIN     157
10.  Jokke        FIN     152
...

Data updated: 2020-05-26

Most WRs in one table (2000-2019)

#    Player      WRs       Year     Table 
-----------------------------------------
1.   TorInge      27       2006      #232
2.   Zweq         22       2003      #152
3.   Spef         22       2019      #405
4.   John         19       2007      #260
5.   Kazan        15       2011      #342
6.   Jeppe        12       2002      #78
7.   psy          10       2000      #1
8.   Champi0N      9       2000      #1
9.   pajen         9       2001      #75
10.  Raven         9       2009      #298

... Top-10 ...

11.  Cloud         8       2003      #151
12.  Karlis        8       2005      #223
13.  KingKong      7       2000      #13
14.  zyntifox      7       2000      #49
15.  Jokke         7       2001      #60
16.  Mick          7       2002      #100
17.  dz            6       2001      #73
18.  Joni          5       2000      #3
19.  zeth          5       2000      #11
20.  Madness       5       2012      #344

... Top-20 ...

21.  Markku        4       2000      #1
     Stene         4       2000      #1
23.  elg           4       2000      #44
34.  YeeS          4       2001      #59
25.  MGen          4       2002      #86
26.  deadnite      4       2003      #136
27.  mr            4       2003      #156
28.  Luther        4       2005      #212
29.  axxu          4       2005      #221
30.  Bjenn         4       2010      #314
31.  bene          4       2015      #381
32.  StIkKy        3       2000      #1
33.  Garion        3       2000      #5
34.  loX           3       2000      #6
35.  TuA           3       2000      #15
36.  Totalnew      3       2000      #42
37.  swos          3       2001      #54
38.  Eliaz         3       2001      #65
39.  ZeiZei        3       2002      #85
40.  FatherGod     3       2003      #130
41.  oizo!         3       2003      #134
42.  Stini         3       2004      #185
43.  Jalli         3       2005      #220
44.  Jarkko        3       2008      #293
45.  GRob          3       2011      #339
46.  Mielz         3       2014      #373
47.  FinMan        3       2014      #377
...

Data updated in 2020-06-09

Number of WRs by players over time (2018-04-04). For reference: Forever: 1-72, Golden Era: 73-254, Belma: 255-314, EOL: 315-396. © Abula

 (original, §) Number of WRs by players over time (2018-04-04). For reference: Forever: 1-72, Golden Era: 73-254, Belma: 255-314, EOL: 315-396. © Abula

Nine different players (2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

 (original, §) Nine different players (2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

Nine different players again (2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

 (original, §) Nine different players again (2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

(2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

 (original, §) (2018-04-04) Source: Moposite

Finally, who has been the leader of the WR table for the longest time?

Longest time having the most WRs

#   Player         Days      Periods
---------------------------------------------
1.  Zweq           2565      #130-#179  (433)
                             #180-#198  (147)
                             #282-#286   (99)
                             #291-#340 (1106)
                             #354-#377  (780)

2.  Spef           1646+     #377-#389  (812) 
                             #395-      (834+)

3.  TorInge         981       #96-#130  (246)
                             #179-#180   (15)
                             #198-#256  (720)

4.  Kazan           719      #340-#354  (371)
                             #389-#395  (348)

5.  John            532      #256-#282  (442)
                             #286-#291   (90)

6.  Jeppe           408        #46-#48   (14)
                               #54-#60   (39)
                               #70-#75  (119)
                               #77-#96  (308)

7.  Jokke           135        #20-#22   (13) 
                               #36-#38   (14)
                               #60-#70  (108)

8.  zyntifox        112        #38-#46   (56)
                               #48-#54   (56)

9.  KingKong         88        #11-#12    (3)
                               #19-#20    (8)
                               #23-#36   (77)

10. Champi0N         61         #6-#11   (21)
                               #12-#19   (32)
                               #22-#23    (8)

11. pajen            42        #75-#77   (42)

12. Joni             14          #3-#6   (14)

13. psy              12          #1-#3   (12)

Data updated: 2020-05-26

Conclusion🔝

After writing the historical overview of Elasto Mania, two ultimate questions must be answered. What is Elma and what's the limit? What is this game that gets people so enthusiastic for decades?

What's the limit?

The ultimate goal of Elma is to find out what's the limit of WRs.

The first years of the community pass while players are improving playing skills, forming teams, trading styles, discovering alovolt, train levels, getting replay merge, centered camera, tuning vsync and just doing everything in more and more sophisticated way. The websites, statistics, art work and endless amount of interesting discussions keep community vibrant.

Elma is a good playground for programmers, the builders of the digital world. The game has complex physics, it's fun to test and the community is active. There have always been and still are several interesting programming problems to be solved.

The general enthusiasm is slowing down somewhere in 2006. Driving new world records is getting harder and harder, TorInge is inactive, Zweq is inactive and the first Elma Done Quick speedrun leaks (almost) all WR styles. Moposite is also passive and the greatest Elma party of that time is behind (FEM05). Then milagros enters the main stage and programs a new online patch to give community a push of one decade more.

Figuring out the limit of world records is done by educated guesses in the early years. The most optimistic estimations are 37:04,23 by Sathy in (2002) and 35:59,99 by Phillip (2004) when the WR total time is 39:49,86 (#80, 2002-02-03) and 37:05,78 (#180, 2004-08-29). Phillip's predict (-1:05,79) is based on a mathematical model and Sathy, apparently, relies on his distancial view about the internal levels (-2:45,63). All in all it felt like we had reached the end in 2002 and 2004.

milgaros online patches greatly revitalize the community since 2007 when Belma is released. Battling different levels all day long and having an immediate feedback loop improves the playing skills vastly. John, Kazan and Zweq particularly starts to improve the WR total time a lot. After three years the WR total time has dropped to 35:24,25 (2010), way better what were Sathy's and Phillip's (over-optimistic) estimations.

The release of EOL in 2010 and the saveload patch becoming available for everyone to be used in training in 2011 are big boosts again. Since then the WR total time has improved over one minute more: at the time of writing (2024-04-14) it's 34:21,69. This is the current limit of what is humanly possible.

After 2011 when speedrunning tools are released, some people start to update a saveload WR table. There are actually two tables: one where everything is allowed and another one where the rules are set for humanly possible, at least theoretically. So if we accept the speedrunning tools, we know the theoretical limit of the Elasto Mania world records is about 33:11,11 (2018) and if bugbounces and everything is accepted, the limit is about 9:54,58 (2015).

What is Elma?

It is answered what has kept community active two decades: the ongoing WR progress. But there must be more, a deeper meaning, a philosophical aspect.

One thing is obvious for everybody. Elma got us addicted: we wouldn't be here otherwise. We wanted to progress, compete and have fun. We played a lot until realizing some players are from different planets. Unless we happen to be one of the top players, we either quit or move to back seat to enjoy the ride.

Elma is ultimately about competition and trying to be the best or the most original. Elma provides several ways to do that.

But after all, in the end, what is Elma all about? I argue that Elma is something pure and beautiful in this cruel world. It's something exciting and thrilling in this boring world. It's only a game. And we have a community which is totally unique. Future will show what's possible.

What's the mystery of Islands in the Sky? Why all the WR holders in that internal level are relatively unknown? Gazoline, jx, Krus, proDigy, Honza and zaraptor. At least I haven't met any of them. Nevertheless the most fundamental question of Elma has been discovered. Is Stini's WR in Enigma a bugbounce or not? That's the question. Balázs is genious. The Enigma.

We are living privileged times in human history. Many of us belong to the generation who lived first years in the analog world but have been moving gradually to the new digital world which is changing human kind faster than ever before and which social and cultural impacts can't be seen clearly yet. Elma provides a fantastic viewpoint to the transition.

Do you remember the websites of the 90s, the internet connection of 5.1 kB/s, ICQ, mobile phone logos and CRT screens? Then became dynamic websites (cgi-bin, anyone?) and the first unofficial patches showing the Elma world can be greatly reshaped by programmers. Technologies used in Elma systems have been the forerunners in the digital world.

Also it looks to me that using your own name as a player name seems to make you to get better results, statistically, or is it just a coincidence that even though it's not that common to use your real name, we still see so many of them in the top results of the world records? TorInge, John, Jokke, Jeppe, Karlis, Mick, Joni and Bjenn. And how about Markku, MP and Ville_J? Again great results in their areas of expertise.

Elma is a very fascinating and inspiring digital sub-cultural phenomenon which has been possible only in our times and which at least I don't know any other similar. Elma is a collaborative art project. Elma is a cultural miracle created by us.

Bonus🔝

Does the reader remember the first image in the article, the pole level? It is The Steppes, one of the most legendary internal levels and also one of my own favourites. When I started playing in 1999 the best public replay is 24 seconds by zeth. In 1997 the record is 0:40,86 by HazE. Today it's 0:10,50 by Spef (2024).

Meanwhile the skills of the players improved, the WR style of The Steppes changes several times. The level name could be The Pole because that's really the point of the level, not the steppes.

While writing this article I checked my old elmaplans.txt and there was an idea of the Elma olympics and a pole level. I introduced this idea on Mopolauta in 2018-03-05 (reference) and it didn't take long until sunl creates a new contest and iCS makes a video of the winner. AMAZING. \\o o// \o/ (ascii-dance).

Polevault by sunl and Tm (2018-03-16)© iCS

In fact it's strange we never had a pole contest – except Bubka.

Bubka by Zweq (2012-07-17)© jonsykkel

Afterword🔝

The History of Elasto Mania (1995-2018) by Abula (2018-04-11) Source: This page

 (original, §) The History of Elasto Mania (1995-2018) by Abula (2018-04-11) Source: This page

It's been a long journey from the MS-DOS operating system to AI programming. Great moments. Great people. Pineapple.

– Abula, 11th April 2018, Helsinki

	Comment
Abula2024-05-11 05:01 SUOJATTU	Fixed, I'm gonna do lots of proof-reading soon
twipleyyyyy2024-05-09 23:08 SUOJATTU	the reference link in the article for that is not the right one, by the way ;)
twipleyyy2024-05-09 23:01 SUOJATTU	thanks, mate :)
Abula2024-05-06 03:50 SUOJATTU	Hello twipley, I just added the alovolt program concept suggested by you (2002-04-29). Great Finding! Lots of other new stuff added latelly - see the Article history for details. And there will be more. You can suggest new content also in Discord or Mopolauta which may be easier to use than this platform. I'm especially eager about the years 1995-2001 now.
twipley2024-04-15 17:53 SUOJATTU	here is the link for my post in the old forum board: https://web.archive.org/web/20030904151653/http://pub65.ezboard.com/fmopolautafrm1.showMessage?topicID=499.topic
twipley2024-04-15 17:52 SUOJATTU	Hi! This article is interesting as well as very informative. However, I was wondering whether I actually was the first player to come up with the idea for an alovolt key? I'm not sure if links are allowed here, but I will try to post it in my next comment: in the old, "b" mopolauta, in 2002 I suggested the alovolt key as a solution to the fact that it was possible only on few computers. I even explicitly requested a program for that, and at that time nobody in the forums had ever suggested that idea.
[Da]Gasmaker2023-11-14 18:35 SUOJATTU	Hi, This is [Da]Gasmaker that finished 10th in the first WC ever held. I just eant to correct that [Da] as a crew was from Sweden and I am wrongly states as a finish contestant! Btw I love this page and I will: forever regret not sending recs for all levels forever regret enjoy all the time spent in the game!
Pinkshit_002023-05-26 11:53 SUOJATTU	It's unbelievable that someone write this huge story of Across and Elma. Never thought that a Hungarian game can spread all over the world. :) On the other side of the hand, Across was my favourite game, back in 90's same as Street Rod. I'm glad that I've found Across again (because Elma was too new for me in those days - but I've finished it of course) so I can play the game in the office unlimited. :D Many-many thanks for this work, STILL impressed. I'm going to show this to my friends who loves Across same as me. Greetings ya'all from Hungary. :)
Homer2023-04-15 15:18 SUOJATTU	Simply amazing. So much work in this mega article, so many memories… I've got a little addition to Audio section teh: TomCat - Elmadal
Cory2022-12-03 05:17 SUOJATTU	Great to see this. Amazing work!
Raven / Korppi2020-12-23 18:25	Well done! It was great to read this and also thanks for the regular updates! I checked the WR tables from time-to-time but never thought I'd see ElastoMania 2 or an online version.
Kimsor2019-08-23 21:49	Read this. Good game. Good article. Played it alot at across and elma times (1998->) i made some levels then, which you have höyled: Drunken Men and Hord World are some of them. I was HordAsc. Hope to see Elma3 some day . I bought the Elma at time, by sending money to Balazs in snail mail. What times they were :)
KimblaZ2019-07-14 08:27	Awesome article! Made me get the game again after many years and do a bit of höyling
Marci2019-06-21 22:14	Great work!
kd2019-05-08 09:33	Awesome stuff Abu, a trip down memory lane for me.
frgr2019-03-08 23:58	terrific
Ryan2019-02-02 05:34	Excellent article!
CaHlAiIcNeS2019-01-16 00:54	This takes me back, thanks, Abula. Spent too much of my high school and college years playing this game. It wasn't really big here in the USA, but I'm really glad to have found it!
Erik2019-01-08 08:46	I'm a Swedish guy born 1981, so I'm in the right age group for this. Me and my friends played across (as we called it) and Elma a lot back in the day. Great article, brings back memories!!
Savvy2019-01-01 02:15	GAA material right here! Thanks a lot!
dimon2018-10-21 11:55	This was an amazing article! I have been playing since 2001 but was never active in the community, mainly because my times are so bad. I have learned more about Elma from reading this than from the countless hours I spent playing the game. So thank you. By the way, I believe Elma AI is possible. Being an AI researcher, I have suggested it in the past on the forums, but I couldn't find any code for Elma physics. If someone could give me access to the physics then I can have a good shot at it. Email me at dkamenetsky@gmail.com Let's hope Elma livers forever. It is simply one of the best games ever!
umiz2018-10-11 13:53	Really great article! Nice job!
petsenRDK2018-10-10 21:44	Nostalgic trip down memory lane. Thanks :)
BeyPokéDig2018-08-23 00:49	Amazing article, thanks for writing it. I just wish it mentioned Riders of the Lost Flowers in greater detail :P
nyymi2018-07-21 21:00	aika assburger
Uube2018-07-14 16:15	Thanks Abula! I had great time and memories playing the game and still checking new wr lists couple of times in year.
H82018-06-16 13:19	Great work, Abula! It's awesome that the community still lives on, with new styles and WRs being made. This article makes me wanna start höylin' again!
Abel2018-06-06 23:16	Amazing work, Abula, thank you for the contribution!
TarGEnoR2018-05-27 16:16	Nice job, was good to read. "One of the biggest tragedies of the Elasto Mania was OLP," Nah, was many bigger tragedies than OLP.
Abulaatikko2018-05-17 19:19 SUOJATTU	Thanks! Slalom was a joke because SL WR was same as normal WR when I wrote that part (at least according to some source) but because that's not true anymore, I removed the joke.
Orcc2018-05-16 07:20	Dr. Across was already taken 20 years ago, but this article should reward you the title of Dr. Elma. Amazing work!
niN2018-05-13 20:15	Nice one Abula. Your dedication to this game and it's community is impressive!
Petrenuk2018-05-11 22:40	Awesome article! Why is Slalom impossible to improve? Is that a joke?
zebra2018-05-11 09:46	Thanks Abula for the awesome article and your devotion! I read every word. The whole article was very interesting, especially the Across years which gave very nostalgic feeling. There was much to read but it was very rewarding. I hope Elasto Mania will live another 20 years!
tomator2018-05-10 21:51	Thanks Abula! Even though I've played elma on and off for many years I have never participated in community, so this was very interesting.
jaytea2018-04-23 13:39	Thoughtful conclusion. Amazing work all around. You're an excellent writer. Love, jt
ArSeNiC2018-04-22 13:27	I never read long texts like articles entirely but this one made me do so, becuase - well, Elma. I must say, this is simply fascinating, magnificent, extraordinary osv. Nice work Abula!
Tisk2018-04-14 14:41	was oke

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