Interview of a JetPunker #12 - Crem

Hello dear JetPunkers!

It's already time for an other interview. And for this one, I chose one of my favorite map creators: Crem!

baptistegorce: Hi Crem!

Crem: Hi Baptiste! Happy (late) Easter!

baptistegorce: Thank you a lot! I have a little question: would you like to become my 12th interviewee?

Crem: Sure!

baptistegorce:  So let’s start this interview! First, could you present yourself on JetPunk quickly for our readers who don’t know you?

Crem: Sure! I am 22 years old and I live in North-Eastern Italy. I discovered JetPunk around two years ago, and I posted my first quiz in September of 2019. I particularly enjoy making quizzes with SVGs, for example some people might recognise me from my series of Pokémon map quizzes.

baptistegorce:  You live in Italy, so Italian is your mother tongue, right? What can you tell about the Italian JetPunk section?

Crem: Yep, Italian is my first language, although I frequently speak dialect with my family. I would describe the Italian section of JetPunk as "sparsely populated". Jokes aside, Italian is one of the featured languages with the fewer active users, so we don't get nearly as many user-made quizzes as, say, French, and quizzes get few takes. That being said there are also some very talented users who create great quizzes.

baptistegorce: You are famous for you awesome spinning globe. Can you quickly explain why this quiz didn’t become featured, although it was first on the nomination leaderboard? What were the consequences?

Crem: My "Spinning Globe" quiz got 89 nominations (thanks everybody!), but unfortunately it could not be featured. I received an email from the Quizmaster saying that it caused his computer to glitch, and he feared this would happen to other users as well, so it sadly couldn't get the feature. I was a little disappointed, especially since I even bothered Stewart for help regarding the SVG size, but I understand QM's point. He also offered to look over some quizzes I believed could be featured in its place (I proposed the first version of the Spinning Globe and the Pokémon Galar region quiz), but he probably didn't like those since I never got a reply. I suppose I'll try making better quizzes that don't have a massive, glitchy SVG !

baptistegorce: How did you create this quiz, and how did you get inspiration?

Crem: I was inspired by Stewart's "Countries Loading in the World Map" quiz. I remember seeing it in the Most Recent section, and immediately thinking "Wow, CSS animations would make for an amazing quiz!". The first thing that came to  mind was a countries of the world quiz with a spinning globe.

This quiz idea turned out to be quite the challenge; I won't go into too much detail since it would be boring to most readers, but basically I had to get involved with the Python programming language to map out the frames correctly prospectives-wise. After that it was mostly repetitive work, as I had to clean all the paths and give each country the correct classes to make it work with JetPunk and spin using CSS. First, I made an example SVG with six frames, but since it didn't look the way I wanted it too I moved on to making a full 36-frame version. The final SVG with all the frames was 2.7 Megabytes, so I got in touch with Stewart who kindly agreed to help me reduce the file size and upload it.

baptistegorce: You also began to become famous for some users with your Pokémon maps. What can you say about this important part of your JetPunk life?

Crem: I really enjoyed making the Pokémon quizzes, and got great feedback from the users. The Kanto and the Johto quizzes were also my first time dealing with more advanced quizzes and SVGs (when I made these first two quizzes, Click Map quizzes weren't even a choice in the editor!), so they were extremely important in my "JetPunk life".

Note: Crem recently received a spotlight on one of the quiz of this awesome series.

baptistegorce: Are you a Pokémon fan? Can you describe your “relationship” with this video game series?

Crem: Yes, I am! I started playing Pokémon as a kid, with Pokémon Emerald being one of my first videogames ever, as well as one of my favourites. I kept up to date with the series up until the 5th Generation games, when I started to get into other genres too. After that I sort of stopped playing since I never bought any game console after the DS, but I kept my interest in the Pokémon universe, and I still like watching streamers or youtubers play it every now and then.

baptistegorce: What is your own quiz you are the proudest of?

Crem: It's kind of hard to say. If I really had to choose, I'd say the quiz I'm most proud of is the Pokémon one on the Galar region (and its multilanguage counterparts). I remember tracing path after path for well over a month, and seeing it all come together little by little was great. It was by far my biggest project at the time.

baptistegorce: Do you have big projects of quizzes in preparation?

Crem: Actually, I do! But it's again a very big project for which I have to do actual research before I start making the quiz (and you can bet there's going to be a special map!). However, for these very reasons I have no ETA on it. It might come out in a month, a year, or maybe it never will.

baptistegorce: “JetPunk actuality question”: What do you think about the huge blog update?

Crem: I think it's good! It will definitely make it easier for everyone to create blogs, and better blogs at that! Support for languages other than English and Blog Series are also great additions to the site.

baptistegorce: What is the most important event in your own life of JetPunker?

Crem: That's a hard question... if I had to say, probably when I made the first quiz in the Pokémon series, since for some reason it got attention from some great users whose quizzes I enjoyed (and still enjoy) and pushed me to make more quizzes. Or maybe when Stewart took up my offer and asked me to collaborate on the Italian section of JetPunk as a translator.

baptistegorce: If you had to resume your JetPunk adventure in one word, what would it be?

Crem: I have no idea, maybe "nice"? I'm really bad at this kind of questions haha

baptistegorce:  If you had to choose just three JetPunker for their quizzes, who will it be?

Crem: If I had to choose three, the first one would probably be Jiaozira. His quizzes are just so very interesting, and extremely well made too. The second one would be elijahwade; not all of his quizzes pique my interest, but his SVGs are probably the best looking ones on JetPunk. Since I've mentioned two users that are often talked about even in these interviews, for the last one I'm going to say one some may have never heard of (although he's starting to get recognised), NeongenesisXp; they are an Italian user (I think), but they also post quizzes in English, and many of them have very good maps.

baptistegorce: And for their blogs?

Crem: To be honest I don't really like most JetPunk blogs currently, but I really enjoy reading your interviews, Baptiste! I also like Jiaozira's (again...!) blogs and kiwirage's puzzle blogs, although they don't post very frequently.

baptistegorce: Thank you!  And what are your passions in life, except JetPunk?

Crem: Outside of JetPunk-related stuff, I'm a bit of a techie. As I said I also like videogames (mostly strategy nowadays), and I'm also a fan of comics, both Disney and Japanese manga.

baptistegorce:  What do you hope for JetPunk development in the next months?

Crem: I don't really have anything specific in mind. I'd like more freedom with the quiz types and editor, but that would require re-coding the entirety of JetPunk... I'm sure QM and Stewart will find other ways to make the site even better.

baptistegorce: Do you have a message to pass to the whole JetPunk community (or at least to the few users reading these blogs…)?

Crem: Err... If I had to say something, it would probably be along the lines of "Have fun with JetPunk and make great content!". And also "Don't translate quizzes from other users into languages you don't know!". Seriously, stop doing that  : P

baptistegorce: It's the end of the interview. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you a lot for the time you spent answering all of these questions!

Crem: Thanks for the interview and have a nice day!

This interview is now finished! I personally really liked making it (mostly because I'm a fan of Crem quizzes). I think he deserves more attention. And you, what do you think about it?

I'll choose the next interviewee, and I've also contacted a mystery user (no, you won't know...!) who accepted the interview, but later. So the next WITJ should be for the 15th interview, but it can change. I hope you understand!

Thank you a lot for reading, and have a nice day!

P.S.: I didn't write a lot since Stewart give us the awesome blog update, so some elements aren't the same than in the other interviews. I'll try to improve my knowledge of blog editing, reading the Stewart's blogs about it. Thank you for your comprehension!