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Ben_Schultz_11 AKA ska is an inactive, veteran, Dronie-nominated highscorer and semi-active, Dronie-winning N mapper, as well as a casual speedrunner, hailing from Australia; currently the only player to be nominated for a Dronie as a player and a mapper. On 2 January, 2013, local time, he was also the first player to complete the N 2.0 beta; less than 8 hours after its release, at a rate of less than a minute per level.
In late 2012, ska successfully sought Mare's approval to lead a campaign which involved selecting a shortlist of user-made maps for a single secret column for N 2.0. Mare and Raigan decided on making 2 user-columns based around ska's campaign to include user-levels, when initially they hadn't intended to include any at all. They are unlockable upon successful completion of episodes 00-99. Four of ska's maps were included in the final release.
Ben_Schultz_11 was the name of an old account formed on Numa in September 2005; and although he has used ska on Numa and the Metanet forums since April 2006, he still uses the Ben_Schultz_11 account for highscoring in both N and NReality.
He announced his retirement from highscoring on 9 January, 2015.[1]
Highscores
As of 9 January, 2015, ska holds 462 Metanet highscores (ranked #8th) using his Ben_Schultz_11 account and 10 0ths (ranked #5th), and has purportedly held highscores as early as November 2004, including a peak of 32 0ths as late as November 2012.
In 2012, ska reached 70,000 seconds of Total Level Score; the 12th player to accomplish this. By the end of 2012, ska managed to reach the 70,500 mark; only the 9th player to do so.
Ska took his first 0th off jg9000 on 85-3 on 1 January, 2007. On 2 November, 2011, he took a 0th on 17-0 before further improving the score again a few days later. A couple of weeks later, ska engaged in a skirmish with arch-rival vankusss by reclaiming the 0th on 08-1; a level ska had initially innovated. vankusss — who had lost an episode ownage as a consequnce, (i.e. a 0th on every level in an episode, including the episode 0th) — was evidently displeased with this, and edged out ska by a few frames, with a score of 186.525 from ska's new 186.400. Ska fought off the response by posting a 186.950, which officially cemented ska as the oldest continually active highscorer around today. (Highscoring grandmaster, EddyMataGallos, eclipsed this score in 2014 with a score of 187.075.
On 30 January 2012, ska got an episode top-20 on episode 92 ― completing his set of all 100 episode top-20s; with eru_bahagon and lookatthis being the only other players to hold 100 episode top-20s at the time.
Ska still occasionally highscores custom levels from Numa and highscores on the Metanet levels. He also has a knack for innovations; such as 31-1, 16-0, 27-1, 46-0 (twice) and 13-1, as well as 12-0 a while before that; which has since been re-innovated by Kool-aid. All of these aforementioned innovations ― whilst 0ths at the time ― have since been improved by other players, with the exception of 46-0. On 2 September 2010, ska also innovated 29-2, smashing a 3 year old 0th held by retired, former grandmaster, johnny_faneca, and is currently engaged with a battle for the 0th with the current grandmaster, EddyMataGallos. He also innovated several parts of 87-1, including both gold chambers. These were used by Eddy to attain an almost 2.5 second lead over 1st.
Ska's 06-4 0th run was nominated for a Dronie in the 'run of the year' category for 2009, but the 0th is currently held by macrohenry.
Some of ska's more recent highscore innovations include various runs from his episode 09 run, (which at the time, was the least improvable episode in the game, with a difference of only 0.425 between the episode run and the total of all the individual level 0ths). This run included a complete route change on 09-1. It was his last remaining episode 0th, until it was taken by EddyMataGallos. He also innovated 27-1, when he altered the beginning part of the level to secure a 1.1 second lead, and subsequently took the 0th for episode 27, which has also since been taken by EddyMataGallos. On 11 November, 2012, he innovated 64-2 by collecting an extra piece of gold, but this 0th run was clinched by a frame from who else but Eddy.
ska's flag for season four of Blur.
He sometimes innovates levels without the intention to take the 0th, but rather showcase it for a player that is better suited for the level, such as his recent non-0th innovations on 87-1 and 61-2, as well as a short-lived 0th with a more optimal route on 31-1. He has also formerly held 0ths on 67-0, 18-0, 34-1, 23-0, 61-4, 33-4, 34-0 and 86-3 amongst others.
His current 0ths include: 09-1, 09-4, 11-3, 17-0, 34-0, 34-1, 34-3, 36-1, 46-0 and 67-0.
Ska was also a semifinalist for both sections in season 4 of Blur; a highscoring and speedrunning tournament. Ska also achieved all 600 NReality top-20 highscores and was the 5th player to complete NReality.
Mapping
Ska has been mapping since the oldschool days and has submitted over 400 maps to NUMA. He started mapping in September 2005 with his old Ben_Schultz_11 account and created over 90 maps before April 2006, when he transitioned to his current ska account. Ska has never stopped mapping since then, with the exception of a 6-month hiatus from map making in 2009. He has since submitted over 328 maps published at a variable rate. Ska gradually gained more and more quality over time, and nowadays, he is known for his remarkably skilled and polished maps.
As a highscorer himself, his maps are usually designed for the best highscoring experience without disregarding all the rest of the important factors, such as style and ambience. This is one of the reasons that ska is the only person to have been nominated for both highscoring and mapping Dronies, having won a mapping Dronie. In 2009, ska earned his first Dronie nomination for his DDA, iKara. In 2010 ska earned 3 Dronie nominations, including a Dronie win for puzzle map of the year 2010 with his map Vinyl Spritzer.
To date, ska has six featured maps, including five on his new account located here, and 2240 rates on his new account.
On 18 June, 2010, ska announced that he'd be releasing his own map pack soon, codenamed: "Medieval Myriads ", which he released under the same title on June 24, 2010. It's composed of 50 levels in column structure. He also announced that there'd be a prize for the first player to complete the column, and this player was EddyMataGallos, who completed the column less than 5 hours after the release of the map pack and received a map dedication for his efforts; it was called Japanese Game Show. The next day, Izzy completed AGD runs on all the levels in the pack. Medieval Myriads went on to be nominated for map pack of the year in the 2010 Dronies, where it placed 3rd.
As of 28 August, 2013, ska has 427 maps, including his old account.
Other contributions
Ska created the N Sidescroller. An experimental port of N into sidescroller format and has had over 2,500 downloads as of September 2010.
Ska also created the acclaimed Best of N Video which contains some famous highscores and other interesting exhibitions of N's unique gameplay.
Other forum contributions by ska include hosting highscoring tournaments such as Elimination, Elimination 2, Blur 4, Bounty Hunters, Holy Grail and regular contributions to the Metanet Podcast .
On May 19, 2009, ska became a reviewer on Numa, although he was demoted almost a year later, due to a parody review he made satirizing a contest created by Skyline, as well as general reviewing inactivity. However, on 1 February 2013, ska successfully had his reviewer position reinstated, only to lose it again.
ska also regularly contributes to the N wikia pages — especially the highscores section.
On September 22, 2010, ska formed a mutiny against vankusss on Blur 4 when he overthrew him as the host of the contest. Ska placed 4th in both highscoring and speedrunning categories.
In April 2011, ska said that he had planned to complete a sequel to the Best of N Video; a preview of which has since been leaked.
The Rap
ska produced a satirical rap about the N highscoring community (For TheRealOne).