Spare interview FULL text

How did you find out about osu?

I found out about osu through a game called Call of Duty 4, I was playing in the promod scene for quite some time and there used to be an application called XFire and one of my friends was playing osu on there, and I questioned him what it was, and it just kinda started from there.

What's the skill set you care the most about in osu?

The most important to me is probably accuracy, but that's because I've always tried hard to get the best accuracy I can and achieve the best I can on any map really.

Where does the name "Spare" originate from, do you have any story related to it to tell?

Yeah I have a really funny story about the name "Spare" actually. So before Spare I used to be called Sparrow, but as a joke in a Skype call I was like, "hey guys I have a free name change, what should I change my name to?", and we had #osu opened at the time and I said whatever the first word is to appear by someone I'll change my name to, and it was Spare.

Did you have any other nicknames before "Spare", would you share some with us?

Uh, I had moon2k as well, but that was just some random name and it didn't really follow me through anything, it's just basically Sparrow.

What is, in your opinion, the most fun thing about osu?

The fun thing about osu is self-improvement, like seeing yourself improve at different aspects of the game, which osu has a wide range to offer is really fun and exciting. There is always something new to challenge yourself on.

Do you have any tourney experiences? If so, what were they like?

Yes I have, I've played in a couple of tournaments. Show matches were really fun, that was my first kind of a tourney experience, I was really, really nervous. I think I played against Astar and that was really fun. The next tourney for me was, I think it was UK CC, that was really fun and obviously OWC last year which was nerve wracking but one of the best tournaments I've ever played in.

You have tried quitting osu! before, but always came back, what would you say is the most addicting thing about osu?

Just clicking the goddamn circles! *laughter*

What is your favorite play that you have ever made in osu?

Um, that's a good question. I'm not really sure, I don't really have a favorite play of mine, most of my old, old scores like on older maps, maybe 2014-2013, they are my most favorite. One of my favorite scores would have to be probably "Floating Darkness" with HDDT. It was a score I've wanted for many years and being able to achieve that meant a lot to me.

So you have recently announced a 1v1 tournament in Madrid with Filsdelama and ThePooN, wanna tell us more about it?

Yeah so, the general stuff it kinda entails is that we'll all fly out there and in the next day we'll play in front of quite a lot of people. And it's a 1v1 tournament so we've got a set list of maps, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about them so we'll just leave them out for now and the prize pool is 2000 euros I believe, so that's pretty cool. ScoreV2 as far as I know and we're also gonna have a DJ like, doing stuff in the background and people dancing and so forth, so forth. It's quite fun and it will be live streamed for you guys so you'll be able to see it and hopefully I can keep you updated.

How did you three come up with an idea for the 1v1 tournament and how did you guys make it happen?

Yeah so, it was actually organized by a gaming company and Fils got invited to it first I believe, or PooN, and one of the people that was helping out to find osu players messaged Fils to message me to see if I was interested and it kinda started from there. So we were randomly chosen and I'm sure there was supposed to be another person who was meant to come but couldn't make it because he was busy, but yeah, that's kinda how we got chosen.

You played osu since December 2011, what is the biggest or most significant change in osu that you witnessed or experienced yourself?

It would definitively have to be the PP system and what mapping is now to what it used to be. Mapping before seemed to a lot more creativity but in a very different way, I felt like maps could offer a lot more then just emphasis between 1 or 2 jumps which we see in today's era of mapping a lot more frequently when it comes to the generic kind of stuff. I will admit, nowadays there is a lot more versatile maps, you've got like tech maps and people doing crazy stuff with sliders and all that stuff. So um, it would definitively have to be the PP system, it is a massive change, especially when I come from the time where your score would matter the most and then they implemented an element where basically you have to really improve to get better and get higher ranks.


How was it getting adjusted to the new pp system, how did players start finding about what yields the most pp?

Yeah, so, people didn't really didn't have much of an idea, as far as I know people thought it was related to speed because of when osu!tp was released, this was before the actual PP system was implemented, people were putting it on their user pages of said system, and it used to have a speed category and people used to play those maps a lot and that used to give PP. So Flower Flag for example... A few other maps, uh.... Trying to think now. Move your body, stuff like that. Maps you probably wouldn't have heard of but back then they were kind of the shit if you feel like...

Have you achieved everything that you wanted in osu, do you have any end-game goals that you would want to achieve before you actually completely quit the game?

Um, I've achieved more then I thought I ever would in the game, I'm still obviously... I never give up striving to be a better player because in my opinion, like the ultimate goal is to always be pushing yourself and never giving up really. I've got most of my crucial achievements like, I've never thought I'd get into the top 10 in the game at any point, I couldn't believe for how long I've kept #1 UK for... It was a lot of effort and it's really paid of with the game, so I'm really happy with how I played and will continue to play.

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