What is your real name?
Mandi Scott (USA)
What is the origin story of your toy box submission username?
I actually stole my husband's username. I didn't realize I could submit under a silver xbox live account, so I just used my husband's account to play Disney Infinity and he had already made a submission name. I'd rather continue to build than go back and earn everything again in my account. My husband used to live in Finland and is left-handed. Vasuri means lefty in Finnish. 83 is his birth year, but he only added it because Vasuri was taken. If I ever choose to use my profile, my name is MysticKirppu. Kirppu means Flea in Finnish. When my husband and I were dating, we had an inside joke about "my little flea" being a term of endearment in France and he would call me his little flea in Finnish. I like mystical things, so I added that to my username for fun.
What made you decide to buy Disney Infinity?
A friend of mine posted a video of the very first DI trailer on Facebook, and I knew right then I would be getting it. I love Disney, I love to create, and I love to collect Disney things. A few years ago they had a 100 years of Disney going on at McDonald's. I hate McDonald's. But I went there everyday and got a Happy Meal just so I could collect the figures. The figures they have for Disney Infinity look a lot like the figures I got at McDonald's. This is the perfect game for me. I can just buy my collectable figures, AND I get to create with them. Not to mention it's a game I can actually play with my son. Bonus
What is your favorite play set and why?
I have loved Pirate's of the Caribbean since it came out in 2003, and the play set didn't disappoint. What's not to love? You get to go explore a bunch of different islands, fire canons, sword fight, and you can be Jack Sparrow. (Whom I actually was for Halloween)
Who is your favorite Disney Infinity character and why?
Sorcerer Mickey. His magic sparks are awesome. My husband hates playing with me when I play as Mickey because whenever we're fighting enemies I end up shocking him too, haha. I think Mickey would be my favorite regardless of his fighting abilities, though. Mickey has always been my favorite Disney Character, and Sorcerer's Apprentice was my favorite Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Which character would you like to see included that hasn't already been and why?
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. She's my all time favorite Disney Villian. I already have her planned out in my head. She could use her staff to hit enemies with and (if she can't turn into a dragon) she could shoot fire. I'd also like to see some more classic characters. Donald, Goofy, Robin Hood, Merlin, to name a few.
What is your favorite power disc and why?
My favorites are the terrain and sky discs for customizing the toy box. But for abilities, I like to use C.H.R.O.M.E Armor Shield with Pieces of Eight so I can get a lot of sparks.
When you hear of a new challenge, what steps do you take to make your idea for a Toy Box a reality?
1) Brainstorming: I usually brainstorm a little bit and, of course, and the idea comes to me when I'm trying to sleep at night. Then I think about it all night and can't sleep. I usually try to think of a specific part of a movie that I liked and focus on how to make it into a game. It's really hard for me to start a toy box without a clear idea in my head of where I want it to go. Sometimes I'll write down what I want to do, or draw a picture. For my Muppet Babies I actually went on You Tube and watched the episodes I wanted to focus on.
2) Build: I usually have something big planned in my head and it doesn't always translate well in DI. I generally have to downsize things to make everything fit as I'm still not very good at managing my toy box space. I'm kind of a perfectionist, so when things don't look like what's in my head, I get frustrated. I'm still learning all of the different tools and blocks, and I think I'm getting better, but building for me is not as easy as I would like it to be.
3) Testing: I go through the level many times while building, actually. I check everything multiple times. I have my husband go through it as well. Testing can take a long time for me, especially when replayers glitch out. My son generally plays with me when I'm building and replayers do not like multiplayer.
4) Submit: Then think about it for a week and become discouraged if I don't win and super excited if I do. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel more of a desire to continue building toy boxes if I win.
How long did each of your featured Toy Boxes take to build?
High Noon Duel -15 hrs
Pearl's Adventure - 7 hrs
Muppet Babies - 8 hrs
What do you consider to be your specialty when building Toy Boxes?
I like doing objective toy boxes with combat thrown in. I don't know if I'd consider it a specialty, but it's what I like to do. I really like rpg's so I kind of try to make something of a story. It doesn't always come across in the way I have it in my head though. Like for Pearl's Adventure, I wanted to have to take Pearl everywhere with you. But I also wanted some combat and you couldn't carry her while fighting. You also can't climb while holding things, I found out. So she ended up being taken from a fence to a pen. Which is kind of silly, but she was tiny and I wanted the player to be able to find her, so I made little fences.
Your 1st featured toy box was in the Ultimate Battle Challenge. How excited were you to see that you were selected as a featured Toy Box Artist?
It's kind of a funny story. I honestly wasn't expecting anything to come of High Noon Duel. It was just a simple idea, to me. And I didn't know that Disney posted the winners the night before the Toy Box TV episode, so when my husband went to submit for the next challenge he noticed a Toy Box listed as High Noon Duel, we couldn't believe someone had chosen the same name. It was only when he scrolled down to it that we noticed our name on it. I was really excited, but still shocked that we actually won. And then I was excited to see the toy box episode the next day, but of course they had technical difficulties and it wasn't on until the afternoon.
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You had a toy box featured in the Underwater Challenge. Please provide some additional details on that toy box.
I really wasn't too interested in this one because I couldn't think of a good idea. The only thing I could think of is a ride on the EAC. And then I had a random idea to make jellyfish you could bounce on. That was all I had. So I made the jellyfish, and my husband helped me come up with an idea for the sea turtles. I then worked on the canon EAC. I still didn't have a clear idea of what to do with it, but eventually decided to make it a "travel on Marlin's adventure" type thing. I went through all the npcs looking for a fish, and all I found that I thought might work was a little pink squid thing that I thought I could use as Nemo's friend, Pearl. After I got the "Marlin's Adventure" figured out, I wanted to do so many things. I wanted to make an anemone to start in, then go across Mr. Ray's back, then have a giant Bruce greet you, to where you fall into a dark pit and a replayer would make that scary light bulb fish appear, then to the jellyfish and so on. Of course I didn't have room for all that, so I made do. And I really didn't think it would win when I submitted it. It was really short, compared to what my eventual plan was. I wish I would have had more space.
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What is your favorite Toy Box that you have built?
My favorite Featured Toy Box is Muppet Babies. I just had a lot of fun doing it. I actually wasn't even planning on doing a Muppet toy box. I had thought of doing A Muppet Christmas Carol, but I didn't have the Frozen stuff yet, and I thought of Muppet Treasure Island, but I honestly thought that everyone would do that. I was trying to sleep one night, and the idea of Muppet Babies came to me. I loved that show when I was younger. I loved the idea of make believe, and I thought it would be perfect to build the nursery and use the doors to go into make believe worlds. I remembered there was an Indiana Jones episode and a Star Wars episode, and thought they would probably be the most memorable. So I got on YouTube and found the episodes and watched them with my son. They super summarized the movies, so I figured it would be pretty easy to do. The Indiana Jones one is a lot like the episode, but I added the boulder rolling after you because it's so iconic of Indiana Jones. I also watched parts of both Star Wars and Indiana Jones to remind myself how the actual scenes were so I could try to model them after the movies. It was my first pixel art too. I really like my Animal head haha.
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What is your favorite Toy Box that someone else has built?
I really liked MightyGitis' Al's Quest. I loved how she told the story. As I said before, I really like making stories. And her ending with the "magic carpet" rail was pure genius. I also really liked John Reid's Rainbow Connection. It was such a good race track. It reminded me of Mario Kart and has made me want to try to make more races.
What are some of your classic Toy Boxes that have not been a featured top 5 Toy Box?
My first toy box was one my husband and I worked on together. We made the entire Neverland map. I honestly can't remember which challenge we did it for, but it was before I realized Disney was looking for a "game" aspect. So it was just a map, but I love it.
I also was really proud of our Super Arcade. Another one my husband and I worked on together. We had 3 different games. The first was a brawler where you fight a bunch of monsters. As you move forward through the side scrolling level, more and more monsters appear, until you get to the end where we had a bunch of Omnibots attack you. Then another game was an Air Hockey game using canons to shoot the puck, and the other was a simple race track.
What is your dream Toy Box challenge?
I'd really like if they did more movie themes. And I didn't get to enter the Theme Park challenge, so I'd like for them to do that again.
Share a story of adversity from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes that you had to overcome.
During Pearl's Adventure, my son was playing while I was building, and was using things that were hooked up with replayers. Namely, the car and Pearl. Everytime I'd restart the game after he'd been playing the car would appear in the middle of the track, or Pearl wouldn't appear anywhere. (Well, she was tiny so I suppose she could have been somewhere.) At any rate, I had to keep going in and fixing replayers.
Share a funny story from when you were building one of your Toy Boxes.
When I had my husband go through my Cave of Wonders toy box, weird things would happen to the spinners. They would get all squished together. I don't know how to explain it other than it wasn't a straight spinner, it was in more of a V shape. So I had a rail that, if you were lucky, you would land onto the spinner from it. (or fall into lava) Well, since it was all squished my husband couldn't get on it for a really, REALLY long time. He finally did manage to get onto it, but then when he got to a part where you can climb up onto a cliff, he tried to cheat and take a shortcut. I had already planned on that, though and had put in a mine and some spikes. Let's just say he wasn't too happy with having to start over. Again.
Do you have any advice for aspiring Toy Box Artists?
I'm still learning the ropes myself. I'm always shocked when I win. I think the biggest thing for me is to pick a subject/challenge that is enjoyable to me. If I'm just doing a challenge to do a challenge, my heart isn't into it and it becomes a task rather than something fun. I've still won on a challenge like that (Pearl's) but it wasn't my favorite. So just keep working at it. But do it for fun, not to win a challenge. I really need to take my own advice, though. Sometimes I just want to try to see if I can make something for a challenge because it challenges me to create something new that I wouldn't have thought about doing before. At any rate, I've learned a lot by working on challenges and it helps me to create better things later. You know the old saying, practice makes perfect. I think it's true of Disney Infinity. And you may not win, but hopefully you're able to learn something from it and feel like you've accomplished something by completing your very own Toy Box.