As miserable as this time was - I, barryp, saw opportunity - I knew that a storm was brewing. A perfect storm of endless free time, relentless boredom and the need for escapism. With that in mind, I took the plunge and decided to host the first ever Cream Pie Cup. A ‘world cup of pipes’ if you will. And what a spectacular plunge it was, akin to a perfectly executed reverse 4½ somersault in pike. Many kuskis grinded. Fans witnessed man after man pour their blood, sweat and tears into 20 gruelling pipe levels and after a grand total of 11 weeks, we had our winner. jblaze was declared the King of Pipes.
As special as these 11 weeks were, ever since we downed our pipe tools back in late March 2021, two things happened:
1: Inescapable emptiness - Life became dull. I couldn't focus on my daily tasks. It was as if a big black void had silently grown inside of me, growing only bigger by the day. Some would say you could find a wild barryp aimlessly wandering the local moors at dusk, howling towards the moon such things as "What ever could be after Cream Pie Cup??" or "Cream Pie, where for art thou??" A harrowing thought, I know.
2: Crippling regret - Was the cup recieved well by the community? Did I play to my full potential? Was there a serious problem with the format? Were all the levels good enough for a weeks hoyl? Endless questions of this nature filled my brain and lived rent free like harambe or each and every vertex of Smibu80.lev. This obviously led to me contemplating another rodeo. Round 2. But what would it even look like? Would anyone even play? Would it be the same without the death virus restricting kuski movement? The questions. The endless questions...but also the possibilities, the endless possibilites...
Now. Cast your minds forward to January 2025. We will have a black female American president who doesn't grab pussy. Putin will have been dethroned and the war in Ukraine will be over. Australia will have finally melted due to global warming. All will seem right in the world again. However. The last remaining bug bounce in the matrix, the passive yearning for a new pipe world cup, will remain. I, barryp, refuse to allow it. Not for a second longer. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why I am thrilled, delighted, jubilant and ecstatic to announce, 4 years on from our first adventure, the second installment of the Cream Pie Cup - coming to cinemas near you with the witty title of: Cream Pie Cup 2. Hosted again of course, by yours truly!
Oke so yes, the void and the regret got to me, and as a result I have spent every waking minute of the past 4 years planning, replanning and replanning again the new format and belligerently bothering various potential levelmakers to ensure that CPC2 will not dissapoint. Strap yourselves in for a wild ride. Further detailed details can be found below, but first please allow me to summarise this summary. It is again time to find the best piper in the world presently. Every new king needs his coronation. Cream Pie Cup 2 will commence on Sunday 5th January 2025. I bid you all good luck. May your efforts be rewarded and know I am confident in your every success.
“So barry, what about the format, any changes from last time?” Short answer is yes.
This time the cup will have 17 events *only* (3 less than last time). We will continue with the existing mantra of two events per week, with a 1-week break now introduced after the 4th week. So total number of 9 weeks. Two levels will be uploaded to elma.online cup site each Sunday evening, leaving you to play both at your own leisure throughout the week. For those of you with keen maths skills, you will be shouting at your monitor something along the lines of "you have an odd number of events in an even number of weeks barryp you idiot, you f*ked up". No. I did not fuck up. I never fuck up. This is because this time round, we have a special event running the entire duration of the cup. This event is worth double points, and it's a behemoth. Another marathon pie, similar only in length to my recent world cup 9 pie, The Planetarium. As Veronica says in The Fly, Be afraid, be very afraid.
Thanks to the hard work of the community devs in recent years, there is no longer the requirement to upload your replays before the deadline on the cup page. Just play online, and these will be uploaded automatically. Please take note that apple results do count, so even if you don’t make it to the flower, your furthest run (or run with most apples) will count and could score big points. The points system is the same used for World Cup 9, other than the double point event for the beast .lev. Given the reduced volume of events in this cup, there will be a reduction of total skips available to each player from 3 to 2. Your 15 best results therefore count to your overall points talli.
How to participate
- Go to the Cream Pie Cup 2 website on https://elma.online/cup/CPC2
- Download both current events from events tab or frontpage (or DL in game with ctrl+F4)
- Play the level online in EOL
- Wait for the results to see how you placed
I plan to use the discord #events thread to share the Renaults of each event. Events close at 6pm GMT every Sunday. As was the case in CPC1, I hope to have both sets of results ready for you by 6.30pm, however there will be a number of recs to check, so please bear with me if these are a little later than planned. One man can only do so much. Regardless of the results being relayed, the next two levels will always be available for DL at 7pm GMT (1h after previous event concludes).
Note: As is the industry norm nowadays during cup events, kuskis and best times are forced hidden automatically. You can still choose to show yourself to team mates. Consider wisely your playing partners as there will undoubtedly be moments where encouragement and motivation will be required.
“Yo bp, can you tell us anymore about the levels this time round?” Sure thing.
I have lifted some of the restrictions that were placed on designers last time out. Soft, cringey ideas of making the pipes accessible to every man and his dog are gone. If the pipe is too hard, it's clearly because you suck. This is a world cup of pipes here and we are NOT messing about. Saying that, I have not directed designers to make them hard either, so we are all simply at the behest of the designers and their evil / not so evil minds. There will be long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones, straight ones, curved ones. Just like a gaming community.
Another thing to note is that none of the designers that made a level for CPC1 are providing a level for CPC2. I have managed to get a number of 'old skool' designers signed up for this project, so this should be an awesome deep dive into the past world of pipes. Those who have that individuality and antiquated midus touch have been targeted relentlessly to get involved (to their loss and everyone else's gain). I am officially dubbing this one as CPC 'Legends'... which I'm sure you will agree is a fitting title once we reach the end of this journey.
Also note that the levmakers involved are not limited to designing only, they are able to play the cup too (if they want to of course). Only difference is designers will have to skip their own lev. I have asked that designers DO NOT send me their levels yet, instead these will be sent to me promptly before they are due for upload to cup site for a final sense check, i.e. lev name is correct, internal name also. Excluding this, levels will be completely up to the designer, with no tweaks from anyone. If there is a small flaw in the lev, say a badly placed killer or some such instance, but the lev is still playable, this will be on the designers head, and their fate will be sealed in the elma history books forever. Note to designers: No idiot mistakes!!
I won't go into all the finer details here, but backup strats have been considered for such things as:
- 1: designer not being available before lev upload
- 2: big flaw in lev which needs more than 1 hour to fix
- 3: designer sending horrendous lev that cannot be used
We will NOT be Postponing events. That shit sucks big time.
“barryp, why should I play? I hate pipes even more now in 2025 than in 2021”
Hey look, I STILL get it. Some people just don’t care for pipes, usually because of repeated head donking and lack of pipe brain. That is fine. But have you considered that this could be another perfect opportunity for you to work on those skills? I cannot guarantee that you will enjoy yourself when playing, but I'd like to think you are capable of expanding your horizons a little. Contrary to popular belief, you can teach an old dog new tricks, its just harder due to them being stubborn and bitter about the new world they find themselves in. Also, if you really don’t want to be involved then that’s cool. But try not to be a dildo about it, all I’m trying to do is bring some post virus, post apocalyptical new year fun to the elma community.
“barrik, can I support in any way?”
Please spread the word, I would like to see as many players as possible taking part and proving their pipe minerals. Tell friends, old kuskis and discuss on online chat, discord and mopolauta so people are aware. This is no joke.
After numerous requests from the community last time out, I will be again running a donations page for Cream Pie Cup 2, and will throw some money in there myself too. The idea being to reward the top players for their skills, recs and commitment. Plus a little bonus for best designer too (there will be a post-cup voting poll to determine). Unfortunately, paypal have discontinued their money pools function so i am currently researching a new place for donations - i'll report back on this in coming weeks. If anyone has any ideas on this, do let me know!
Please do not feel any pressure to donate at all. Just for you guys who earn the big bucks. Its always cool having a prize fund, and as I said last time, I like the idea that the community bought the top players a giant pizza or something as a reward for their efforts. You can add any amount that works for you and this will find its way to the winners.
Any further questions / discussion points please ask on this lauta thread. Or feel free to direct message me at any time, in-game or on discord. If that doesn't work, direct your queries to juka, he loves pipes and will be happy to help.
Time to get this show on the road. I hope you all are as hyped as I am for Cream Pie Cup 2.
Over and out,
barryp
#pieordie
