Kumba: Now I know you are from New Jersey and you play RCT LL/2, but not that much else is known about you, so how old are you? And other then RCT what are some of your hobbies?

Phatage: I’m 17 years old, and other than Rct my major hobby is other rollercoaster related things; as some people know I used to be a mod at a site called Six Flags News until it got hacked into during a declining period, so the admin Steven decided to hell with it and I guess in a way it made me pursue Rct more. Other than that, I’m doing a lot of stuff to get into college that I wouldn’t usually do, just hanging around with friends at taco bell and Dunkin donuts all the time, and to escape my life I play my trumpet. I until this year did school and travel soccer, but I’ve since realized it sucked and I’ve been a happier man ever since quitting. And in the summer I’m a lifeguard.

Kumba: I know you have been around the RCT community for a long time. I know this because in SF: WOE you used a few objects you could have only gotten from downloads of my crappy scenery at RCT Central from way back when I worked there. So how long have you been around and where did you get your start? Also have you always gone by “Phatage” and what does Phatage mean?

Phatage: Always finding a way to include yourself in there, huh Rct Kumba? Phatage was my screenname for aim when it first came out when things like the aol were new, and that name was from me and my friends saying words like “phat” back in 5th grade and putting the suffix “idge” at the end, so that’s how Phatage came to be. And that’s how you pronounce it also, to solve the mystery of the world. Oh yeah and there’s no “n” either.

Kumba: When it comes to contests you might have the best resume there is. You won an RCPro Design, 2 NE Designs (RCT2 and LL), an NE PT1 Prelim, 3 Rounds of QFTB-X at NE, an RCT Station contest (but that second place entry was really good too!) and even a Contest at RCT2.com on your second try after getting robbed by a questionable X250 entry. Why do you enter so many contests and which entries are you the most proud off?

Phatage: Well just to add one to boost my ego, before all of those I won a coaster net contest which isn’t even on the site anymore. Anyway, I enter contests at so many sites because there are different people there, and I get to experiment with different site’s styles fused with my own creation; if you notice, my rct2.com entries are much different than my NE ones that were made during the same time (Epica was the same time as prophecy). The ones I’m most proud of have to be Unfriendly Invador for just being able to make the damn coaster work and Fright Nights for jumping on the Intamin accelerator coaster before most of the amusement parks did even.

Kumba: When looking at most of your parks it is clear you have a great grasp of realism and how to capture it in RCT. How much theme park going experience do you have, about how many parks have you been too and what parks have you enjoyed the most?

Phatage: - Even though NJ isn’t too rich on the quantity of parks, we do have arguably the best SF Park as well as easy access to the classic PA parks and boardwalks like Coney Island and Wildwood. Everybody’s been to the Florida parks, as well as I, and I’ve hit some other major ones like CP, BGW, SFMM, KBF, and even this park called Ocean Park in Hong Kong. I entered Rct park making to recreate my home park SFGadv, so I guess my work being realistic is a direct cause from it being the way I entered the game. I’m not sure how many parks I’ve been to, but I have ridden some of the best coasters out there according to most other enthusiasts, and am probably going to get the chance to ride another top 10er when Toro opens. My favorite park has to be Hershey, for its keeping of old traditions while investing in new rides and such, and for having the best coaster ever created in the Wildcat. Its so good that I’m basing my college essay for UPenn on it, so if any of you like me, wish me luck and if you don’t like me, still wish me luck because a lot of time there is studying and I’ll have less time to be an asshole on the site.

Kumba: You placed 8th in NE’s first Pro Tour last year with your awesome entry, Epica. You mite have placed much higher if people had understood it better, an example of this was PyroPenguin marking it low because he did not think it was a very good futuristic city. I was un-able to get a hold of the read-me for this park and I know due to file size many have not read it, so can you please give a bit of a summery of what the park really was?

Phatage: Well, the name came from my feelings on how the growth of the rct community, let alone the human civilization, was and is an Epic. The thing was/is but not as much as it was that parks were all looking like carbon copies, and people like me, Posix, cg, and others were frankly pissed. In human civilization, it also seems like people group up in ways that you don’t have to speak to individuals on aim for example but rather address an entire group and get your point across. To elaborate, it’s like having a conversation with a million people, only you respond the same thing back to everybody and it works because they are all the same and are unwilling to make their own person. Of course, the way I see things is that it didn’t exist like this at the beginning, where the place has a clean palette and architecture and whatnot, with the gates at the heaven portal saying the names of the 4 Rct fathers as said by sacoasterfreak, where even if I’m not in total agreement with them I used them to symbolize this as it was more well known. I then progressed on though time as I built the rest of the map, making things get gradually darker symbolizing the creativity needed to be an individual, while adding other representations such as the wooden “coaster” to symbolize people like Posix and cg and the epic “coaster”, which really was a satire on unnecessary hacks as well as sort of a story seeing the different areas the ride traversed. Then there’s the tend tower, which the name reversed will reveal its true meaning, with each NE spotlight in order built up from the base. The length of the tower was also another way to mock the length of the spotlight page, especially when parks like Visions make you scroll all the way to the bottom pits of the page. Anyway, with Epica, had the readme been ready by release date I’m still not sure I would have just waited and let everybody figure it out for themselves, but I apparently didn’t make it obvious enough. I guess nobody was really looking for any meaning in it, which was due to the fact that so many works in the time period even lacked a point to begin with.

Kumba: I really enjoy viewing Six Flags: Worlds of Excitement, Fire Dragon, Fright Nights and Unfriendly Invador (btw why is it purposely misspelled?). Which of these works would you say is your favorite? And why is there a rampaging elephant in them all!?

Phatage: thank you for noticing the elephant! And the invador was not misspelled on purpose, it was just something I noticed and wanted to acknowledge it I guess. My favorite released work is still woe, just because I can visit there in real life practically, and thus I feel I nailed my target. My favorite work though, even if its not that much completed, is my pt…

Kumba: Recently at the NE Awards you took home some heavy hardware and stunned many people by winning the award for being the best realistic parkmaker and award for being the best fantasy parkmaker. How does it make you feel that people consider you to be the best at two very different styles? Also if you had to pick between the two styles which would you be more likely to go with and why?

Phatage: I was very flattered to find out I won all the awards I did win, as I though I might have had a shot at one of the four at most. Anyway, I purposely don’t announce whether most things I release are realistic or fantasy for 1, I don’t feel that I should have to make a distinction and 2, I’d like to let the viewer decide what they interpret it to be. I still don’t know what I consider Fright Nights to be, but I really don’t care. I think I prefer realism a little more because I love my real life ATM and building a real theme park/coaster/whatnot wouldn’t take me away from that, if that makes sense. Its not that I build fantasy because my life sucks then, but more to just let go; when playing trumpet, I switch between symphonic and jazz music all the time, and while I generally prefer a well written symphonic piece, I love to sometimes let loose and jazz things up.

Kumba: Not only have you nailed both of the main parkmaking styles, but you have the ability to make outstanding things in both RCT1 and RCT2. As of now I know you have projects going with both games, but how do you decided witch game fits what you want to make? Also in what ways do you think each game is better then the other?

Phatage: I prefer rct2 because I prefer realism, and in my experience realism can be achieved at a higher level in the sequel than the original. I still love the original though for improvising as well as learning the “basics” as most call them and using techniques from one game in the other. The fact that there are two main games played on NE gives variety and keeps things fresh, something I like to do in every aspect of my life. Its very interesting how the two interact with each other when building in them, and one can always learn a thing or two from the game they play less.

Kumba: As I just mentioned I am aware that you are working on projects in both LL and RCT2. What if anything can you reveal about these projects? And can you please share a screen shot to give some visual aid?

Phatage: Well the rct2 project that I’ve been public advertising is a recreation of Drachen Fire at Busch Gardens Williamsburg as well as its reincarnation, a B&M dive machine that is tentatively named DR: Resurrection. The LL project is pretty much under wraps from the public ATM, but all I’ll say is that it is far from a conventional theme park. The theme is pretty much recognizable from the pic.

Kumba: It’s a bit hard to tell where you mite get parkmaking influences, I see some aero21, Mala, Ed, Mantis, even some Jacko Shanty (or rollerjunkie as you know him). Who are your biggest influences? Also from 1 to 5 who’s parks do you enjoy viewing the most in LL and RCT2?

Phatage: Definitely from those you mentioned, but SA and JH, names often mentioned together, have to be in there was well. But the thing is my inspiration from other park makers is usually just for basic techniques, but most of the conceptual ideas I get from the life I live in. For example, visiting salt mines in Poland helped me to come up with the Hades QFTB, vacation in China for Fire Dragon and prophecy, obvious influences for woe, and even seeing a clip of a town bordering a cliff that drops into the ocean from Darkness Falls I think set the scene for Fright Nights. All my work has been inspired from things I’ve seen or been to, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Parks I enjoy viewing the most, well… 1) Rob, pretty much self explanatory really. There really is like ten times as many little touches in this park as there are in woe, yet people are too wowed by the coasters to realize it. 2) Fantastic Wonders, because the ideas and concepts used in this park seriously rival Disney. Yes, the skills of TC were not nearly as refined as SA in the above park but I think Cross might be the best concept and execute person ever to play the game. 3) Stratford Fair, I think Toon to be one of the most underrated park makers ever, people just say it’s because he can make scenery but this obviously proves them wrong. He always goes for an idea never done, like Shakespeare in this case, and yet always creates architecture a step above all others and is brilliant with path layouts and other theming ideas. 4) EgypTopia is the epitome of realism mixed with creativity, and as set an incredible bench mark I can only dream of ever coming close to. 5) Escalante River Falls, yeah I know it’s smaller than a mega park but this still beats out 99% of rct2 parks released to this date, even rift valley IMO. Not only had Mala come back from the dead, he did so in such an evolved style from even MT sinister that I was totally blown away. It set the trend for how a lot of scenery would then be used.

Thanks for the interview Kumba and all that voted for it, watch out for my pt.