Yucca's Stories (5)

Employee #01

Aapo, or Kyrpov/Pasimaailma/JormaOllila is known as "Aapo Kyrölä", 1 of the Co-Founders of Sulake. He is official the first Sulake Staff. Aapo was since the beginning Chief Executive Officer. He managed everybody inside Sulake. In september 2001 Aapo changed position and became Chief Science Officer. By this, he is the Head of "Reasearch & Technology Developments". Nowadays Aapo also is a Board Member. Together with Sampo, Aapo made Habbo as we know it now. So, when he started Sulake Labs with Sampo, soon other employees popped in.

- Question from an old interview; What is your biggest dream considering Habbo?
- Habbo has become much more popular and bigger than I ever expected. My dream is that Habbo would be longlife and that it would spread into users own pages, and we could create some new ways for the users to express themselves and develop their own stuff. At some point the users could really participate in creating the content, for example design their own furniture and maybe even sell them to other users.

Employee #02

Apparatus, known as "Sampo Karjalainen" is the second part of the co-founders. He is official the second Sulake Staff. Right from the beginning, Apparatus is “Chief Creative Officer”, he is the Head of all “Visual Concept Designing”. Together with Aapo and HeadFuse (which I will mention later) they are still the Heads of Sulake. You can see Apparatus on lots of screens from the beginning of Habbo, where you do not see Aapo somewhere. Some say he also acted as the UK Hotel Manager in the very, very beginning of Habbo UK (January 2001).

- Question from an old interview; Reveal something about the designing of Habbo.
- In the early days everything was different: you could swear, hack and steal in Habbo. Hacking was considered great at start - a phenomenom, which was started by the users: we found it interesting to see how the users would modify the stuff we created into something completely different. Then the hacking started to take away the credibility of the service and also disturb other users so it had to be forbidden.

Employee #03

So.. We started the story with 1 May 2000, and now I will continue with half May / June. Aapo & Sampo created their ideas, and decided to invite an other person. ArmasK (Zepelius) aka Ilkka Kallasmaa joined the duo in May 2000, as the Graphic Designer. He, together with Sampo made the first draws of Hotelli Kultakala, which Aapo developed. ArmasK became Senior Graphic Designer on May 2002, he became the head of a part of Graphic Designers. In may 2004 he was, again, promoted to Art Director. Thereby he was the Head of an whole Graphic Team. Noticing a little funny fact, armasK designed the original Habbo Duck! It was supposed to 'Quaak', and if you put the duck higher in the room - it would 'Quaak' higher too.
- Question from an old interview; What has been the funniest bug in Habbo?
- I wonder what has been the funniest... Well, nobody felt like laughing at the time, but when we first sold the posters, you could easily copy them by clicking and moving them. We were in a hurry to fix everything the next day, but the posters had been copied so much in just one night that they were worthless. We had to draw a completely new set of posters.

Drken (NOSSCIRE) aka Tuukka Savolainen joined as the #4 Employee in June 2001 as Graphic Designer. Hereby he designed the Hotelli Kultakala along with Sampo & ArmasK. He said that the first days of his work was living on energy drinks, there wasn't that much to do. We do know of him that he designed the original Dutch Hotel View (and much others). The Dutch Hotel View was based on Amsterdam, but Drken told me that they also made one of Den-Haag! He also made the furni 'Mode & Plasto'. Drken left Sulake in March 2007, which he ended with the titel 'Art Director' for Mini Friday (He was also involved in the early stage of VMK).

- Question from an old interview; What is the most enjoyable piece of work you have done?
- Coke Studios, which was up in 2002. There you could create really showy rooms, light effects and other specialities. It was awesome, because before that Habbo had had a phase, where the development wasn't so visible and thus not very interesting for a graphic artist. It was really nice to do pencil sketches and send them to clients, who were always excited about everything. In a way the early period of Habbo was the most fun, but still Coke Studios - maybe because you could do much more vibrant and visually better looking things. It had much more liberty on the rooms and furniture than Habbo had, which still seems to move in the direction Apparatus has decided.

Toto, the #5 employee is just a variations of letters compared to his real name, Otto Nieminen. Toto joined the Sulake Labs Oy in October 2001, where he was the (Senior) Lingo Programmer till December 2003. In January 2004 he got promoted to Team Leader of the Development Unit, and a half year later, in June 2004, he became Director of Development. So everything what is build in Habbo (Versions, Applications, Software et cetera) are under the commant of Toto. Tiny detail, Toto was also responsible for Lido Diving & The 30-seconds-flooding-ban. Nowadays you can still find Toto somewhere / sometimes in the Hotel.

- Question from an old interview; What moment in Habbo's history has best stuck in your mind?
- Many moments, for example when we figured out a name for Habbo, made the UK Hotel and started to internationalize. I remember reading "happo" from a soda can as we were thinking about the name and someone - was it Retiisi - twisted it into "habbo". The name was better than the rest, even though nobody was really satisfied with it either. Apparatus drew the first logo and after a week the name started to feel good.

Retiisi (Jyrki Myllylä) is the 6th employee of Sulake, also joined in October 2001. Retiisi is thé man who came up with the name "Habbo". After reading "happo" on a soda can in the office, he twisted the word into Habbo. The first week nobody felt comfortable with the name, nowadays everybody admires it. Retiisi joined as an Graphic Designer, and is now Senior Graphic Designer. So he manages and controlles other Graphic Designers. Remember the commercial spots of Snouthill? Retiisi has almost everywhere "Emperor of Snouthill" in his mission. Seems he was involved in that too. Retiisi is still at Sulake, and enjoys creating every little pixel for it. Retiisi is also known as Radish in the Hotel, for the Dutch Readers; Radijs. Seems he has an obsession for it?

- Question from an old interview; What moment in Habbo's history has best stuck in your mind?
- A third memory is related to Kultakala's most legendary hacker, MikkoTheBoy's - banning. I guess the boy has still nearly ten years of ban ahead of him. All the people at Sulake gathered to MikkoTheBoy's laboratory to see Kultakala's worst hacker leave. He was one of the firsts to know how to hack before actual hacking devices. Those kinds of people were considered as kings in other habbo's eyes. (Note by Yucca: MikkoTheBoy was actually Sulake Staff! How thrilling must that be for him.. but I will talk about this soon.. ;-)).

Opium, aka Tommi Musturi, joined Sulake in October 2000 as an Graphic Designer. Somehow every fansite seems to forget him, because he was mentioned nowhere for working at Sulake in any habbofansite. Opium was promoted to Art Director sometime, and left the Company in May 2005. Noticed here that the interview questions were from 2005, and unfortunately Opium already left the company during that time. There isn't much known about him further.

Laiskimus, aka Mikko Väyrynen did not seem to be quite sucessfully. He started around 2001 as an Graphic Designer, and left Sulake somewhere after September 2003. His habboname has never popped up somewhere, and there are not any works of him known. He was the #8 Employee of Sulake. We only managed to get his avatar in pieces, some christmas hat was in front of his look ;-), ok - it was ArmasK his christmas hat. Unfortunately we also don't have a question from the interview, because he also had left the company during that time.

Tuu, aka Tuulikki Uotila was the first female employee. She was employee number 9. She started as an Office Manager for Sulake in February 2001. Later, she became the Community Manager for Habbo FI, right after Belly (who was the Hotel Manager & Community Manager. Tuu took her Community tasks over. In February 2003, Belly left as Hotel Manager and Tuu became Hotel Manager in April 2003. She was internationally famous. Tuu left Sulake in Augustus 2009, handling her duty to Seitikki. We also have her old character only in pieces, because this time there was a sledge in front of her shoes.

- Question from an old interview; What moment in Habbo's history has best stuck in your mind?
- At some point information about beta-Kultakala started to spread through MSN, and I, with my Mobiles Disco-pals, tested it with excitement. I used the console to tell kyrpov about bugs and I played a lot of Battleship. At the end of the year 2000 kyrpov asked me, via the console, would I like to work at Sulake, and I sent my details to him with the console (oops, now you shouldn't do that!) and we arranged an interview. Kyrpov and Apparatus interviewed me at Taivas. Kyrpov still laughs at me, coming to the interview wearing a jacket suit, which I wore at work of that time. And then I was hired at Sulake. It didn't have an own office yet and the first month I had to arrange a new office space for Sulake. In March we got to Hietalahti in our first own office. On the first week the Internet connection didn't work and I remember, how Sulka worried about not being able to do anything.

Painimies, aka Timo Ahde is probably well-known in Habbo. He started working for Sulake in February 2001 as an Graphic Designer, and is there by the #10 employee. He is promoted somewhere to Senior Graphic Designer. He was responsible for some hotel views (Brazil, Canada, USA, Germany & China). His first own piece of furniture made was the Holo-Boy (I still think that's the most prettiest designed furniture). The Holo-Boy was released in the Hotel as an gift for the users (UK's first birthday). It was also one of the first pieces of rare furniture. Fact here that Painimies also designed Snowstorm - Yay Painimies!

- Question from an old interview; Reveal something about the designing of Habbo.
- Nearly every old and new hotel view I’ve designed has a stone statue as a detail. Some hotel views have it hidden, but nearly every one of them have it. I’ve also designed a public space where I’ve hidden a birthday congratulation for my godfather, but I won’t tell which room it’s in or where it’s hidden. (Note by Yucca; You can probably find the message in an public room, where a tiny "ball" is in. Also named as "Painimies Ball").

Sulka, aka Jussi 'Sulka' Haro is the current Lead Concept Designer for Sulake since late 2003. He started working for Sulake in February 2002. Note; Sulka is just his nickname, which he also uses instead of his real name. Sulka means "Feather". He is also known as Developer Fragwyz, who introduced the merge on CA / US. He started at Sulake as an 'Technologist' and further positions are unknown / not clear. You can see Sulka online when there is a new version released on Habbo UK. Note by Yucca; Imadj told me he also made the concept for the Moderation tools

- Question from an old interview; What moment in Habbo’s history has best stuck in your mind?
- The opening of the Japanese Hotel was quite jokey. It was the fourth Hotel and all the Finnish users invaded the Hotel. The Japanese users were a bit frightened of course, because they didn’t even have the same langauge. We had to create a block, which prevented Finnish users to enter the Japanese Hotel. That block was created by me.