Turf insider Januari 2019

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Turf insider Februari 2019 »

Round Winners

The winner of round 102 was securing a second place during the first three weeks of the round, then the turfer in first position changed his strategy and Bont could bike his way past and win his third gold! Will there be another winner zone at the lake Nydala in Umeå? recycling from Linköping got enough points for his first silver medal and GW007 from Kalmar could add another bronze to his row of medals. Well done mates!

Bonanza 2019

The annual Bonanza event will be held in Stockholm on May 18th. Compete by foot or bike in the lovely royal Djurgården area in the center of Stockholm. This is a great opportunity to meet and greet fellow turfers from everywhere. The competitions ends with a festive dinner party.

The registration period is between February 5th and April 10th. All the information you need is available at: http://nyheter.turf08.se If you want your public event featured in Turf Insider, write to: insider@turfgame.com preferably at least two months in advance and add a web page if possible. After the event it is always fun to read a paragraph about it (winners, weather, funny episodes) and remember that a picture is always worth more than a 1000 words.

En skånsk klassiker

Turf Skåne is arranging ”En Skånsk Klassiker” for the third year in a row. En Skånsk Klassiker is a turf event and adventure that runs for a full calendar year in the Öresund region and you decide when you want to complete the various turf achievements. Participation is free, each completed achievement will give you a real medal, and should you complete all four achievements in one calendar year you will win a real cup. Read more here (in Swedish) where you also sign up for this exciting turf event.

Turf Awards

Turf Award is awarded to turfers who have made significant or particularly attentive achievements during the previous year or have been involved in an especially noted or spectacular zone takeover. Candidates for awarding the Turf Award are nominated by all turfers who also participate in the final voting to appoint the winners. Turf Award is handed over to the winners by Turf Crew during the Bonanza banquet in Stockholm on May 18, 2019.

Nomination procedure: In January 2019, all turfers will be given the opportunity to make suggestions on which ones should be nominated for the Turf Award in the different categories. A nomination proposal must include nickname and a brief motivation based on the nomination criteria. Link to forms for proposing candidates can be found here (starts January 1 and closes January 31, 2019): https://goo.gl/forms/SqlcrBUDWQeIBPMM2

Voting procedure and announcement of winners: In February 2019, Turf Crew nominates a maximum of five candidates in each category. During March, all turfers will be given the opportunity to vote for which of the nominees who should be awarded the Turf Award in each category. Link to voting form can be found here (starts March 1 and closes March 31, 2019): https://goo.gl/forms/VAFenyDiz6W7LoPv2

The voting score determines who will be the winner of Turf Award. Under the Bonanza banquet, the winners are announced. If the prize winner is physically present they will have the opportunity to leave a short comment.

//Turf Crew

An interview with a developer

To start off the new year, I thought it would be interesting to run an old interview (with updated answers) with one of the developers of Turf.

Name Andreas (Drassen) Age 35 City Linköping

First obvious question: How did you guys come up with the idea of Turf and how did it all start?

• Back in 2005-2006, before the smartphone-boom, we had an idea about triangulating phone signals to get a position. And then use that position to make some sort of king of the hill game. Later on when the technology took a huge leap forward and it was time to start the process.

When you first came up with the idea for the game, how did that idea look?

• Not at all like today. We tried some concepts that differed a lot from what we can see today. One idea was to divide the entire world into a grid of zones, so that zones were everywhere. A very interesting process that has given us a lot of guidance when new problems has arisen. Here is an old concept image that i just found btw: old image

Did you expect that lots of people would use Turf as an exercise tool?

• No. The most insane thing I've heard was that one person lost 28 kilos in 2 months of turfing. Would be nice if developing the game had the same effect on us developers :-)

Could you even imagine that turfers after a couple of years would grind up to 5000 zones in a round in order to win? And once even 10000 zones?

• Definitely not. But we started to see the potential of the game quite early after the first release, when Eddyueue roamed the streets at night using inlines.

What's the most rewarding thing about developing Turf?

• Seeing users actually want to play your game was an unbelievable kick in the beginning. Nowadays it’s pretty awesome to hear stories from users playing the game. Solving issues and making the community happy is also quite awesome.

How much time do you spend on developing?

• Nowadays the job on my behalf is more organizing, marketing and planning. Also, having kids tend to reduce time available:-) (For those of you who didn’t already know, Turf is made by volunteers on spare time.)

If you look into the past, what feature and/or bug fix etc was your favorite?

• Making the game cope with much bigger amounts of users is something i believe has been of huge importance to the game. I can’t take any credit, but it was sure needed when new users flooded the game. A few years ago we had problems with the takeover-process, with takeovers taking several minutes. That one was also nice to leave behind us.

If you look into the future, what is the most exciting new thing to come?

• We currently haven't decided on the next big step. Might include the community here in the coming months.

How do you think Turf will continue to grow and evolve over the next couple of years?

• We still aim towards making the concept of Turf time-proof. Even if android and iOS cease to exist, we believe that the specific zones and the Turf-gameplay can continue onto other platforms. Adapting to the long promised AR-glasses and such will be very interesting indeed.

What's your best turf memory?

• Seeing someone we didn’t know take the first zone ever via the app. Quite a feeling.

What's your favorite in-game medal?

• Order of Aquamen.

What's your favorite zone?

• Skinnarzone. A must-take if you ever go to Stockholm.

How has your view of Turf changed over the years?

• In the beginning we had to do everything ourselves since there was no-one else. It was extremely fun and challenging but rather introvert. Nowadays the huge community makes the game more alive but it also makes the whole thing harder to grasp and lots of different inputs on how to proceed forward. Since our goal is to make the game time proof, we try to make sure to handle everything on a reasonable level of effort for those involved.

Did you expect that lots of people would use Turf as a tool to explore the world, both near and far away?

• Yes and no. We had ideas to make the game more of just unique zone-taking to mark your conquests on a map, but decided on a more interacting gameplay where taking from each other was the key component.

Best Turf moment of 2018?

• Interactions with different people who want to promote the game and create possible new opportunities. And attending the Bonanza in Västerås.

Thank you Drassen!

Crew's Best of 2018

Some members of Crew have shared their ”Best of 2018”, things that keep them going with Turf and with their job as volunteers to keep Turf the awesome app it is!

Maqqan: ”This year, Turf has been left behind. My new life as a dad to a beautiful daughter have taken over. From her birth in March I have had an average of 10 zones per round, that say a lot. No more quest for round medals or such. I only participated in one event this year, Turf Open Hammarö. My choise of best turfing memory of 2018 can be found in the forest in the event area were we decided it was time for a break after taking 5 zones. Do I have to say that we didn't reach top 10 this event? Best regards, turfing dad”

HappyF: ”For me the best of Turf 2018 was by far that I found love again. I and and the fellow turfer Gusi become a couple in the beginning of the year and have spent a lot of time turfing since then. Thanks to assist, our trips have been even more enjoyable. Together we have travelled through parts of Europe, Israel and of course a lot in Sweden. We have also participated in some events.”

Kingslayer: ”As a zonemaker I am used to getting requests for this or that zone placement in the forum which of course is nice. But we rarely get feedback on zones we have planted ourselves. I did however notice a post on facebook where the turfer AiNeko in Perstorp expressed her gratitude for the zone HinniksZon which I recently created. She did not know who the zonemaker was, but the placement and surrounding meant something special to her. It is moments like that which makes it fun to expand the Turf gameboard.”

Calmare1: ”The big breakthrough for school turf events. Now over 100 event accounts, approx. 250 schools and just over 500 sports teachers who let the students turf in school time.” (Calmare1 is co-ordinating the school turf events)

MasterOfTurf: ”The best turf memory of 2018 was when Turf08 said yes to arrange Bonanza 2019 in Stockholm on May 19th. We are now looking forward to a new Turf party with another new record regarding the number of participants.”

Mani: ”The 24 h event in Kalmar was a real high light. I participated in the individual class. Kalmar is a fantastic city to turf in and their events are always well-organized. The inspiration from other turfers I meet in one reason why I continue with Turf.”

LesFleursDumal: ”I've used Turf with my pupils at school several times – just the ordinary zones in Helsingør – and they thought it was good fun – they appreciated that they could actually learn something new aobut their home town. I then took some of them to Paris for an exchange with French pupils and they asked me if there were any zones in Paris as well – so they took some zones in Paris and tried to explain the game to the French pupils.”

PaltN: ”One of my favorite moments of 2018 was the first local Turf meeting where I got to meet the local players in my area. It was truly awesome!”

Shitty: ”I've moved! Physically it was a long time ago but now finally also in Turf! It took 2.5 years to accumulate more takes on my new home zone "Alléplan" than my old home zone "Ullerzone". So now even if you ask warded, I am a Tyresö dude! Another milestone during the year has of course been my fatherhood, the first take with the pram was both strange and powerful. Unfortunately, the child's Muggle mother is a bad influence and I cannot yet present a Turf nick for the offspring...;)

I hope 2019 will offer some more time to both active turfing and building new zones - cool places and stupid names, I hope I have contributed to at least some fun experiences for people out there! See you in the app, at the Bonanza or in a zone!”

And that sums up 2018 quite well I think. I hope all of you turfers out there have your own ”Best of 2018” moments that will keep you going. For me it has been great fun to shoulder the task of writing Turf Insider every month. Several times during 2018 I have met with turfers who did not know I was the one penning Turf Insider and they told me how much they enjoy reading my words, that felt good. My aim during 2019 is to hopeully, with the help of the community, add more stories from events, Turf meetings, and personal highs. Give me something to write about by sending your story to insider@turfgame.com

Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!
Munin