Ville Könönen

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Ville Könönen is known for his three-part Ski Jump International game series. His first attempt at game development was in 1994 on a Pascal when he worked on a ski jumping game for a day and published the 1.0 version of the game. Some elements have remained from the first game – landing buttons and the timing of the takeoff.

Published in November of the same year, version 1.02 was the first distributed version of the game. Known as “Lartza’s Ski Jump,” the game’s graphics routines were made by Könönen’s neighbors Mikko Aalto and Janne Heinonen.

Könönen started his studies at Teknillinen Korkeakoulu (University of Technology) in 1995, and in December the same year he created a website for the ski jump game when the version 1.7 was out. Anyone could copy the game from the website for free.

Könönen started designing a sequel to the game when he joined the army to enlist for conscription in 1996. In February that year he released version 1.71 of Lartza’s Ski Jump, which ended up being the last version of the game.

The sequel was released in December 1997. The name had changed to Ski Jump International and he’d made it in English. The game was distributed as a shareware game and it was circulated through the Internet and MBnet gaining huge popularity. Könönen’s cousin Lasse Makkonen made the graphics. It was released for free distribution in December 2013.

Games

  • 1994 Lartzan Skijump (DOS) (download)
  • 1997 Ski Jump International 2 (DOS) (download)
  • 2000 Ski Jump International 3 (DOS) (download)

External links


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