Interviews
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We have a real good treat for you today, an interview with one of the http://www.themagical.nl/ simulation development team!
As you may already know themagical.nl has released their latest sim: who wants to be a millionaire play it.
This brings the total number of Sims up to 5
“[its the] enjoyment and the excitement of playing your own favourite attraction online”
So here is the interview!
Q1) can you tell me a bit about yourself?
I’m 21 year old male (turning 22 this coming April 12th) who enjoys working on computers, creating graphics; create logos and simple websites for friends or myself. I love to draw on my free time. I work part time and full time college student. This September of this year I’ll be graduating as the degree of graphic design. I have also graduate from a bible college with the youth pastor degree and as well extended pastor studies major. I love being with friends and family. I love the summer time and going to local amusements parks during the summer.
Q2) the simulations are part of www.themagical.nl so could you tell me a bit about the site?
Themagical site is a huge Disney, theme parks, coaster news, rumours of rides and attractions coming soon to parks, local and international amusement parks around the world fan website. PHEW! It’s a huge site that is in Dutch but mostly half of the users are English speaking. This is usually updated with Disney information of the latest stuff that is happening right now and other parks related information. This site is a must visit to get all your source of park and theme information. 
And also you can by Disneyland tickets at discounted prices one-day admission tickets too! This site is based on the passion of the webmaster to the love of Disney and theme parks around the world.
Q3) why did you decide to create simulations on the site?
Well actually the first 4 simulations that you see on the site were made by the webmaster/ simulations creator Martijn Wesserman. From his own free time he has created these Sims out of passion and the love of the attractions from the Disney parks around the world. For me, I joined the team June 2007 for a networking requirement by my college to help people with their graphic work. So out of my free time from the college atmosphere, I have help Martijn with the latest simulation and as well future simulations and graphics to his site.
Q4) what gives the inspiration to create the Sims and how did you decide to create MPI?
The inspiration of creating these Sims were from the thrill of riding them from the times we rode them and as well to bring that love and thrill from reality to online so we and others can relive the dreams and the excitement all over again to run our favourite rides online! MPI (Millionaire Play It) was inspired by me to suggest making another new simulation for the site. With my requirement of my college, Martijn was thrilled to create another new simulation with my help on his team. Martijn and I have never got a chance to play the attraction in real life but wanted the sound of bringing it back to life sound like a great simulation to play. And by the results so far on the site, we are reaching 3.000 hits by 2 days of being online already. By the first launch online, 64 hits were already clicked in a half hour of being online on March 24, 2008.
Q5) all 5 Sims are from the Disney parks, why Disney?
Disney is what drives us to passion and love by the experience of enjoying while we went there years ago or previously. Since mostly our site is a lot talk about Disney, you’ll understand why we want to continue to make more Disney attraction simulations in the future. In our site, Themagical arcade is other games added so you can play against other people from the site to see who’s has the higher scoring points in the end. MPI will be having that soon as well but right now we are working on how the scoring system will be. The arcade games are hosted from the hosting site for themagical. So these games have been added from the hosting site and not Themagical. We just made it so you can play against others by the points system. But future simulations suggestions are always welcome. Just email me through the site and we’ll think about if that’s a possible simulation for Themagical site.
Q6) how did you go about collecting sounds etc for the simulations?
How we get our sounds from our simulations is through online search through Google, sound downloading sites, Disney music download sites and/or having cd’s that we already have by buying them long time ago. And that’s how we got a lot of sounds for MPI by the cd that I got along time ago. We also get our sounds via youtube from people who have hosted their videos of the attractions that we are working on. So that comes really handy for us. These resources help us to give the simulations life to them. Without them, its would be a dull and boring game. Take MPI for an example, without the sounds in MPI it won’t even feel like the real thing. It would be just animations and graphics. How fun is that?!! You get my point. 
Q7) can you please explain the process of creating a sim?
The process of how we create our Sims is a very long process in the first phase. The first phase, we look online for hours and days on end to get as much possible of information about the attraction we are making. From books, online reviews, wiki’s site, fan pictures on photobucket, etc… Whatever we can get our hands on is the thing that makes our simulations come to life! Second phase is finding from our research is looking for a blue print of the attraction itself. If we can, we’ll see from fan-drawings online to help us give us a nice foundation of the attraction inside and out. If not, then from the pictures we got from online, we’ll make a drawing of it. A sometimes Google map via satellite view helps us to give us an accurate version of the attraction itself. That depends on what attraction we are making. Sometimes Google maps help and sometimes not!
Q 
how long does it take from start to finish?
From Martijn doing the first 4 simulations, it took him about a year and half. With me helping along his side, it took us to make MPI about 9 months to build. We have another guy joining us recently but not official yet since he’s busy with schooling in HS and as well trying to get the software he doesn’t have so he can help us. It’s just me and Martijn right now for the time being.
Q9) how many people help you when creating the Sims and what sorts of jobs they do?
Right now it’s just me and Martijn. Now we have anew guy part of the team but not officially. But once official he’ll be my assistant to the coming soon Sims at themagical.nl site and help me in the simulation development process. You can see I’m an overseer of him to create ideas or graphics and then me and Martijn works on the simulation actions, animations, and beta testing’s. Here goes the ladder status position: Martijn (Head of website/Creator of Sims), Randy (Me- Simulation Development Team), Carter (New un-official team member- assistant to simulation development).
Q10) what does the future hold for your Sims? And is there any more on the way?
The future of the simulations is to bring enjoyment and the excitement of playing your own favorite attraction online. We are trying to capture the heart and story of the simulations that the real Disney attractions in real life. We want to bring that realism back to online so you can relive your memories of your favourite attractions all over again. Coming soon Sims is possible and right now in the works. Look at themagical.nl site for more details sometime in April! For now, that’s all I can say for the time being. If you have ideas or suggestions for new simulations for themagical.nl please email me at sdt@themagical.nlso I can look them over and add them to our growing possible list of simulations that may be coming to the site!!
Q11) so what’s your favourite sim so far?
Ouch that’s a tough question. All of them are great! But before MPI came out I have to say Tower Of Terror. That’s was my first ride that I rode at WDW and playing it again online brought me the memories of how I felt riding that ride for the first time. So that attraction means a lot to me. But as a huge Millionaire USA version fan, that’s a hard one. Since MPI is really addicting for me. *Laughs* Well, still I have to say Tower Of Terror for right now, but that may change. *Winks*
Q12) how can the we access the Sims?
For those who are wanting to play. There are two versions, one normal version and arcade version. The arcade version you must sign up at the site to play since we’ll be adding the scoring system real soon. But if you want to play the regular normal version without signing up at the site. Normal Version: http://sims.themagical.nl/Arcade Version: www.themagical.nl
update
please note that you can download this interview including exclusive images here
