Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

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Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby PirateSteven » Fri Feb 07, 2014 9:52 pm

It was 3rd time lucky for Finn-Warrior when his Extreme Sports Toy Box Challenge entry took 1st place.

On behalf of all of the interested Disney Infinity Fans we asked Finn-Warrior some questions.

What is your real name?

Olli-Matti Oravainen (Finland)

What is the origin story of your Toy Box submission username?

My nickname dates back when I was actually 10 years old. At the time, I was watching the dubbed version of Duel Masters on TV, and to a 10-year old, naive kid, can get some wild ideas. Yet, that "spark" didn't ignite, until I was introduced to Duel Masters trading card game, and since it had a variety of monster types, visually printed on the cards (and not poorly pronounced like in the dubbed anime), it wasn't too hard to pick something epic, like Warriors. Some people think that the Finn-part in my nickname was inspired by Finn in Adventure Time, but the Finn-part actually comes from the fact that I am an actual Finn from Finland.

What made you decide to buy Disney Infinity?

I wasn't going to invest into Infinity at first. I was diving head first into Skylanders during the time when Skylanders Giants was introduced. To me, Infinity sounded like a cash-in, that was trying to ride on the success of Skylanders. At the time I was working in a retailer,,and we got a shipment of Infinity Starters, figures and power disc packs. I was instructed to put them on the store shelves once we were allowed to sell them, and I took a closer look at the figures and starters while on breaks. I was actually quite impressed with the product quality, and took interest. That's when I started to search for more information about it, and was surprised that it was actually trying to separate itself from Skylanders by having a different type of game play in general + Minecraft-styled toy box mode, with more expressive tools at your disposal. That really sold me the concept of Infinity. I asked my boss if I could get a discount on the only Wii U starter we got, and bought it after a couple of days it was released worldwide.

What is your favorite play set and why?

I think the Toy Story set is the best, simply because you got Buzz Lightyear with it, my favourite character in the story (reasons to why he's my favourite are listed below). Also, they got almost every original voice actor from the movies to play in the video game cast. That was really mindblowing, since their voice acting had a huge impact on my preferences in animated films at that time, and they still do.

Who is your favorite Disney Infinity character and why?

Actually, I have two favourite characters in the Disney universe. As I said earlier, Buzz Lightyear was really cool, a space ranger who worked alone in order to stop his nemesis, Emperor Zurg. I liked him as a character, + he has an armor that shoots lasers, how cool is that?

The second one is a bit new, and he's Wreck-it Ralph. Ex-villain, who rises above his wrongdoings, defeats the legendary Turbo and with that, becomes a hero of the arcade.

Which character would you like to see included that hasn't already been and why?

As Disney has acquired Marvel, I'd like to see X-men to appear as a playset, but when looking for a character in particular, that has to be Deadpool. Madman with regenerating body, and full arsenal of weaponry and humour, what's not to like? An antihero of my liking.

When you hear of a new challenge, what steps do you take to make your idea for a Toy Box a reality?

When starting on a toy box, I first brainstorm some ideas that could go with the challenge. When I've figured out the basis of the toy box, I usually go with the flow of current motivation and available time and build my entries accordingly. I'm not so thorough with the planning stage, as some people in these forums, but I like the working style I currently use.

I usually get some good ideas I want to implement in midst of making an entry, and I pick and choose which ideas are worth my time. It's a pain to get something done, and realize afterwards that it wasn't so good of an idea after all. While I go with the creative flow, I still try to leave out redundant ideas, that are either not worth going for, or too complex/counter consuming.

I then do some quick testing with the "final product" (sometimes I invite my younger brother to try them out) and try to fix any issues with the toy box before sending it to Disney (most of the time used in making my boxes comes from this stage, bugtesting. Yet, as I try to be very strict with this one, there's still some oddities here and there).

How long did each of your featured Toy Boxes take to build?

Ten Tough Trials - 7 hours 52 minutes
McDuck In Danger - 4 hours 38 minutes

What do you consider to be your specialty when building Toy Boxes?

When it comes to making a toy box fast and make it functional too, I guess that's my speciality. As you can see above, I've never used more than 8 hours in making my entries. One could think that I'm just rushing them and in a sense, I can partially agree with that. Yet, I think I can make something playable fast, since I've learned some new tricks with the Creativitoys.

What is your favorite Toy Box that you have built?

My favourite toy box out of any project that I've been doing, is my version of Andy's Room. It was never picked as a victor, since in my opinion, Big Room was so impressive! Yet I like the gameplay mechanics I put in it; it's a 4-player shooter map, and whoever scores 10 knock-outs, wins. I'm actually very proud of it.

What is your favorite Toy Box that someone else has built?

My absolute favourite is Enrem's Big Room, obviously. Also, I usually play, whatever MightyGitis and PapaEcho have in store, I can always expect something great from these fellows!

Your Extreme Sports Challenge Toy Box won 1st place. Tell me some interesting stories/facts about "Ten Tough Trials".

A Disney representative told me that Ten Tough Trials was the first Toy Box from Europe to be selected for a Top 5 featured Toy Box. Ten Tough Trials didn't have so many obstacles originally. I had just purchased the starter kit, and started experimenting with the toy box in general. Because of this, I had my younger brother help me with some aspects of the game (mainly words of advice and playtesting, but without him, the end result could have been VERY different. He's awesome like that). For example, I had finished 5 or 6 trials by the time he first tried it. It didn't have fireworks, checkpoints or anything fancy like that yet, and even without those, he finished it in a split second, and his first response was "And then what? Is this it?"

I realized that with its current state, my toy box was too easy and didn't really offer any reward of completion. That's why I raised up the difficulty a bit, added more challenges and checkpoints + fireworks to indicate progress. And since I had a total of 10 trials in the end, I was thinking of a time limit, so that you'd have to complete them all in 10 minutes (1 minute was reserved per challenge). That way, if you're not fast enough in completing all of the challenges, and feel like trying again, that thing alone added replayability.

I felt like I had accomplished a goal of sorts; I managed to create something that'll keep you invested in something and made you try for a better score. I didn't want it to end up with 1 gimmick which would get old really quick.

When I first watched the Top 5 countdown video, I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was, in first place, my creation? I thought to myself that I didn't deserve the nomination, since every other work in that countdown was REALLY impressive, and mine was really... well, not. I've tried to make much refined toy boxes since then, and I think I've succeeded in that, in some respect.

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You had a featured Toy Box in the Duck Tales challenge. Are you a big Duck Tales fan? What is your favorite episode? Tell me some interesting stories/facts about "McDuck in Danger".

Am I a big Ducktales fan? I wasn't introduced to Ducktales directly. We had a subscription to Donald Duck comics since I can remember (and we still have that subscription, after 22 years!), and it had some adds about Ducktales + some comics dedicated to it. Since then I checked the show and liked it enough to watch it weekly. It wasn't until I was introduced to the Ducktales NES video game. That blew my mind as a child and it holds a dear part in my childhood. As of today, I still think it's one of the best licenced video games out there. Even the Remastered version is awesome!

My favourite episode is actually a 4-part episode named Catch as Cash Can. In it, Scrooge is battling Glomgold in an attemp to score a deal which would score him some Macaronian flashlight-fruits. To prove his title as richest duck in the world, he sends his fortune to Macaroon disquised as an ice-cream delivery. I don't want to spoil it any more than that, but be assured, hilarity ensues.

With McDuck in Danger, I wanted to try an objective-based game, in which you try to save Scrooge from the enemy. Originally, instead of robots, he was supposed to be held captive by the Beagle Boys, but since their character in the game is quite underwhelming (+ you can't summon them through enemy pads), I had to compromise a bit. I tried to create Duckburg with accuracy, and I think I did it pretty well. I also added Gyro Gearloose's place, which houses the laser gun. It's the wooden house in the middle of the map.

While working on McDuck in Danger, it was also the first time I've ever used a replayer. Good thing I only needed that one, luckily it did what it was programmed to do. After McDuck In Danger, I've started using logic toys more often, with mixed results.

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What are some of your classic Toy Boxes that have not been a featured top 5 Toy Box?

One is the Andy's Room box I meantion earlier. There's also one I prepared for the Pirate Challenge, "Treasure Island", I liked that one too. I wanted to do a "better" version of McDuck in Danger (better programmed replayers etc.), so in this toy box, you're looking for 5 treasure chests scattered in the island. Once you've done that, the giant X marks the spot for final reward. It's loosely based on Tortuga island, and I added pirate stronghold and pirate town.

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You entered a Toy Box in the Winter Sports Challenge. Are you a big fan of winter sports? Which winter sport is your favorite? Which winter sport is popular in Finland? Please share any fun or interesting stories about this Toy Box.

I am not a fan of winter sports, since I really do not like winter in general. However, since ice hockey is a big thing in Finland, I've learned to like at least one sport assossiated with winter. I actually watch local ice hockey once they're on TV (I prefer championship games though. I do not watch NHL, sorry).

I entered in the Winter Sports challenge with a toy box that I had finished earlier, but I added new events. Funny thing is that the hockey arena was actually my very first piece of work made with Disney Infinity. I didn't have too many toys unlocked back then... Obviously it was much more arena-like, when I first made it, but with the way the toy box formed, I had to drastically delete various parts from the original.

I decided to name my toy box The Olympic Fire. You had to reignite the torch at the end of the toy box, and you got there by completing some winter-themed tasks. It took me 7 hours and some minutes to get it finished, partially because, and this is true story, I kinda accidentally re-textured my entire hockey playfield and I had to do that part over again. Didn't want to risk my progress with other events, so I had to suck it up, and just do that part again... Well, that's to be expected eventually, when working with blocks.

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Fun fact:I added some famous DIsney Infinity Fans forum members in the balcony of the team booths, can you guess who I pay tribute to?

What is your dream Toy Box challenge?

I would say that a Challenge dedicated to other Disney video games would be awesome! I loved their older video game titles (such as Toy Story 2) and THE crossover with Square-Enix, Kingdom Hearts. We've already seen one featured toy box inspired by Kingdom Hearts, I would definitely like to see more!

Do you place any hidden tributes in your winning Toy Boxes?

I usually don't do stuff like this, but after I heard Modeltrainman does it in the form of forum member tributes, I've tried to add something this community can find familiar. But, since none of my entries have been featured since the Ducktales challenge, those cameos are yet to be seen!

Share a story of adversity from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes that you had to overcome.

Replayers are a pain to work with! In my opinion, they work when they feel like. I don't use them too much because of this reason, but when I do, I try to make sure that they would work as intended.

Share a funny story from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes.

While making Ten Tough Trials, me and my brother were playtesting it together, even though it wasn't intended as a 2-player game. Everytime there's a section that used a car (there was always just 1 car), he hogged it from me, and I had to use power disc vehicles to get across. But the one single thing that takes the cake, is one certain glitch that happened in front of a wooden house. Since there's a trigger in front of the door and some floor panels, there's a chance that your character can get stuck in the floor tiles. I laughed my butt off when I tried to get out of the floor, and my brother found it to be mildly amusing struggle. To this day, we've never encountered this glitch again.
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby itstimechicken » Fri Feb 07, 2014 10:18 pm

Yay, another interview, time to start reading!
Featured Toy Boxes: Extreme Racing, Most Wanted, Mulan's Race
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Chewbacca » Fri Feb 07, 2014 11:34 pm

Cool
Chewie is best character
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby tangled&tron » Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:00 am

@Finn-Warrior - IMO DuckTales is still the greatest kids cartoon of all-time... they always had the best adventures. I'm a big X-men fan as well, but mostly only 90's X-men. Also, that balcony with all the DIF tribute blockheads is so cool... I think I know who most of them are. :lol: And I think maybe you just had a lot of bad luck because it seems your version of Andy's Room lost to Enrem's Big Room... your Pirate treasure hunt map lost to PapaEcho's one and your Winter Olympics map lost to Infinite Mickey's version.
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Sorrcer Mickey » Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:12 pm

Cool toy boxes congrats I haven't played the new one yet because waiting for Mickey who will be available tomorrow and then Ill play it
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Elmo STM » Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:15 am

Is your Andy's room now featured? Think I've played it very recently
 
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Re: Finn-Warrior, Disney Infinity Toy Box Artist

Postby Finn-Warrior » Fri Jul 25, 2014 8:06 pm

^ Actually, I used it as a part of my movie crossover entry. So yeah, I finally have it featured!
~ 13 featured toy boxes so far!
 
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