June 14th 2000 | John Dalziel

Yes Papa, it’s Banja!

Behind the scenes at Banja.com It's the mother of all on-line games! It's arguably the most ambitious Flash project ever! It's Banja!

John Dalziel goes behind the scenes for Flash Magazine at French developer cHmAn to find out more...

FM: Firstly, for those readers who missed the beta tests, can you tell us a little bit about Banja?
cHmAn: Banja is the first free game exclusively online, evolving in real time, in a 3D cartoon interactive environment. It offers a new way to have fun on the Internet, for players of any age. Banja represents a step forward in on-line gaming, with a multimedia environment and playability never before achieved on the Web.
Banja is an entertainment server where players navigate through an interactive environment in 3D animation.

Plunged into the heart of the imaginary universe of Itland - a parallel world of mysterious dimensions - surfers guide Banja, a little peace-loving Rastafarian, through a long story which is broadcast monthly.

Banja is an evolving game for all, with regular new events. Each surfer moves through a dynamic environment that is gradually personalized over time. Players generate the evolution of their own world, through their choices, knowledge and behavior towards the other characters.

We have pushed current Internet animation technology to its limits:
To create Banja, we had to invent our own ''production'' tools, in the cinematographic sense of the word. The ''BWIPI'' tool enables all camera movements, such as zooming, dollying etc. to be created in Flash in the final phase, and movements of characters and objects in the scene to be managed. In its ''BWIPI-online'' version, this tool allows the administrator to remotely administer all game components on the server: new events, new scenes, new (automatable) objects etc. The second version of BWIPI will considerably improve all motions, with characters moving much faster.

FM: The production values and attention to detail are easily on a par with the computer games industry. Do any of your team have experience in games development?
cHmAn: The cHmAn teams' original experience comes from webdesign, but basically we are all hard-gamers, and we have learned a lot by spending nights on network games, comparing them and determining what mistakes should be avoided. The evolution of webdesign technologies led us to focus on the interactive and multimedia potential of the new media and to develop more and more elaborate online entertainment programs. So we fully exploited the flash techniques and developed several flash games. One of the most famous : is a multi-level platform game where you have to kill penguins and seals to save Santa Claus' daughter.

FM: Ah yes, a true classic, but it's the sheer scale of Banja that really sets it apart from your previous work. Just how long has it been in development?
cHmAn: The original concept was born in 1998 with a team of only 2 people. 2 years later the production part is almost finished and now we have 20 people working at the cHmAn Factory. Almost everybody has worked on Banja at different phases of the project!

FM: The French games industry has often been criticised for placing too much emphasis on striking visuals while neglecting gameplay. What elements have you included to ensure the games' long term playability?
cHmAn: It is obvious that the graphics are a big part of the project and that we gave special attention to the visuals. This was in order to make the game as fluid as possible for the player, as if they were watching a cartoon.

The long term playability is guaranteed by the very specific concept of Banja. It will take a very long time to fully explore Itland, as new zones will be opened every month. In each episode surfers will meet a host of characters and players' behavior will determine the events to follow.

They can also discover a large number of game modules, measure themselves against other surfers with whom they can communicate using the various community tools, listen to music and win prizes.

FM: cHmAn have always been at the forefront of Flash innovation. Have you made use of any of the new Flash 3D plug-ins and tools?
cHmAn: Although being in the "avant-garde" of flash development, cHmAn still uses traditional tools like 3DSMax for 3D modelling. But we have improved the techniques of integration of 3D objects into Flash with some personal and secret recipes... The main reason for not making use of 3d tools and plug-ins like Vecta or Swift is that the render is never really satisfying.

FM: You have clearly made a conscious effort to ensure the game is playable in as many languages as possible. This must have presented you with some unique problems.
cHmAn: We invented a new and innovative language specifically for Banja. All the dialogue is illustrated by a logical system of sound iconography which can be understood by players all around the world. Online help, Itland News and Banja books will be available in various languages : French, English, German, Spanish and Italian. Portuguese and Japanese versions are already programmed.

FM: One of the most prominent features of your work has always been your use of original music. How have you used music this time round?
cHmAn: Music is the main element in the Banja world. Music is always integrated in the game, or is even a game in itself. It plays a great part in the characters life and will take an even more prominent place as time goes by. There will be great musical events on the beach with Sydney, or even some more famous artists, mixing for the inhabitants and visitors of Itland.

The streaming for each track has been optimized so that it starts playing before it finishes to load.

The groovy musical background was created by Funk4Sale. Their 12 funky tracks will be released soon on Guest/BMG.

FM: Banja can be both a single player and multi player game. What sort of unique problems has this presented?
cHmAn: The main problem to solve is the administration of the players database with the deployment of servers in several countries. The multiplayer aspect is handled through the scoring system which will allow all players to measure themselves, compare their high scores, and compete to become the first "Banja Star". Also a set of communication tools are integrated into the gaming world of Banja, with all the usual Internet functions (Mail, news, forum, community management etc.) set "on stage", at the very heart of the imaginary world of Banja. All this has required large-scale server developments.

FM: Sounds very ambitious; we wish you all the best. Good luck with Banja and thanks for talking to us!

Banja launches on 1st June 2000 on www.banja.com

Banja credits:
Concept and gameplay: Seb Kochman
Artistic direction: Tony Derbomez
Scenario: Seb Kochman, Gauthier Malou
Development direction: Stephan Logier
Programming: Stephan Logier, Olivier Van den Bos, Frederic Gay, Sylvain DeprÃ©
Flash development: Tony Derbomez, Sebastien Giuli, Guillaume Renard, Sebastien Jacob, Frederic Gay, Stephan Logier, Seb Kochman
3D modeling: Yan Blary, Sylvain DeprÃ©, Seb Kochman
Architectural design: Ludovic Smagghe, Laurent Zimny, Frank Guesquiere (Digital Koboyz)