A sit down chat with community creator SwampBanjo

It’s only been a few weeks since we launched the YAHAHA Early Alpha. However, in that time we’ve been amazed by all of the creations that the community have made. From futuristic apartments to snowy wonderlands, and even a workshop that looks a little like the one owned by Tony Stark, the community really is creating a universe of wonders inside Yahaha.

Honestly, if you haven’t seen some of these yet, then you should definitely join our Yahaha Discord Server for creators where these are all being shown off by the extremely talented community.

However, speaking of our amazing community of creators, we thought what better way to not only showcase this talent but also learn more about their creative journey, would be to sit down and chat with them. So without any further delay, first up we have SwampBanjo, one of the very first creators to enter YAHAHA and the winner of the Special Community Member award for the very first Community Feedback Bounty Challenge.

Hi SwampBanjo, thank you for talking with us. So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey within game creation prior to being a part of the Yahaha community.

You’re very welcome. If there is a way I can help the Yahaha community, you can bet I will be the first to lend a helping hand. My name is C.G. Ballard. I am an American that has been living in Finland for the past 11 years. I am originally from Georgia, though before you ask, I charge €1 for anyone who asks why I moved here. I get asked this question so many times, that I thought I should capitalize on it…. literally!

I give my father all the credit for getting me into this field. Before Dr Google, he worked part-time for a computer repair shop and would bring home towers upon towers of PCs. Me being a kid, he would say “if you can fix it, I will pay you $50 per computer you fix”. As a kid, that was a lot of money, so that gave me the drive and sparked my interest in computers in general.

My journey with game creation came before I was out of elementary school. It was about the year 2000 when I started to play around with creating speed maps and custom skins client-side for the classic Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. By the time Command and Conquer: Renegade which was released in early 2002 and was the 1st person shooter instalment of the series, I was creating custom client-side skins for all the different units using an old photo editing program which I can’t remember the name of. I would then upload them to forums dedicated to the game, and 1000s of people were actually downloading and commenting on my work. Again, making that spark even larger. Upon the release of Steam, which I believe my Steam account dates back to November 2004, I did quite a bit of client-side and even server-side modifications for many FPS games. After high school, I made the strange decision that I wanted to become a lawyer. I decided to major in Political Science at The University of Central Florida. Well, let’s just say Law did not keep my interest for even a month. I changed my major to Computer Science. The climax of my journey into game design/creation was when I got an internship at Disney World working on the hardware side of Computer Generated Graphics. But due to personal issues, I left University.

Flash forward to the current day, I have worked for two separate Star Wars Galaxies Emulator communities doing custom 3D work. I have also dabbled on the steam workshop with a few games, though under a different name to protect my main account from being bombarded, as I have with many other games. Recently, GTA V and custom FiveM servers have been where most of my creations have been. I have connections across many communities and if they are in need of something, I am always there to lend a helping hand.

Now I am here in the world of YAHAHA. Learning the interface, and keeping notes of the bugs and glitches I have noticed (which is a lot less than I expected).

How did you discover YAHAHA?

I owned a Samsung S8 before my current phone. You know when you go to google and it has articles and recommendations that might interest you below the search bar? Well, I saw something about a Finnish based company that got funded via this, that, and the other. So it sparked my interest. And the rest is history.

What were your expectations when it comes to Yahaha and how do they compare to your time with the Early Alpha?

Having been part of many Early Alphas/Early Accesses. I expected what is currently instilled into the current version. There are bugs, there are glitches. There is room to improve, there are features to focus on. No game or platform is perfect out there. Some bugs in games are literally older than I am. My expectations of an Early Alpha are just that. It’s Early Alpha. It is a step or two up from a prototype. You literally had it on paper and presented it with your vision. That is what is important. I have a lot of respect for those at Yahaha for releasing the platform at such an early stage of its development, and for having absolutely no NDA. This lets streamers like me, and content creators take complete advantage. Muahaha!

All jokes aside, it shows me, and hopefully the entire public, that the developers are not afraid of criticism. And that is something I can deeply respect.

What do you like most out of what you have seen so far, and what would you like to see improved and added as development progresses?

First I would like to say I have loved the Discord community. It has such a friendly and helpful atmosphere with some of the best staff I have seen. Game-wise, I do wish there was a bit more documentation. But to my understanding that will be released soon. I know this is on the roadmap, but I cannot wait until I can start importing from Blender. It will be a change of pace for me. I am not used to making cartoony/pixel models. So that will be a challenge for me in itself. As for improvements, I think I can speak for the community on this matter. We appreciate all the pre-fab models you have given us for free at our disposal. But deeper search options can only help. The interface is quite easy to use from a design standpoint, though I cannot comment much on the “intelligence” portion as I have not dabbled in “codeless scripting” yet. I like to take my time and not overwhelm myself too much at first. I do sometimes wonder how I survived those 100s of hours of blender tutorials.

Obviously, this is all about creation, so it would be odd if we didn’t talk a little bit about creation. So, on that note, what have you created so far, and do you have any goals or hopes when it comes to future creation within YAHAHA?

I have only messed with the interface and haven’t clocked an extensive number of hours inside YAHAHA yet. Though those hours will start to increase rapidly. I am way too embarrassed to show it but I attempted using the pre-fabs to create a medieval church scene (as I love making 3D scenes), but I am going to need I would say another 5–10 hours in YAHAHA to get a great looking scene together.

In the future, when Blender importation becomes available, I do hope to release a “line” of something that is in my area of expertise — Hard Surface Modeling. Whether it be cars, furniture, you name it. That is what’s great about these games. You see amazing talent from all walks of life. As for a personal goal though. I see myself making assets in a 3rd party program and bringing them to YAHAHA. Creating a brand so to speak.

How did you find Yahaha’s very first Community Feedback Bounty Challenge and how did you feel about winning the Special Community Member award?

I found the Community Feedback Challenge to be a wonderful foundation for the community to make connections with one another. It brought the community together to find bugs, and squash them with the quick response from the Yahaha team. I hope to see more and more of these community events. Non-stop even if that’s possible. They also bring in great prizes, and the prizes help out indie devs a lot too. In fact, a hopeful colleague of mine and YAHAHA community member Solarsheep was the overall winner. He said he was ecstatic the whole day and nothing could possibly make that day turn bad because he had won the competition and the cash prize that came with it.

As for winning the Special Community Member award, I was very surprised to see this when I got the tag. I was shocked at first. I have a lot of experience with people and have been called a people person. I can be super informal talking and joking about a range of things, and then I’ll get a phone call from a client and “click”, I’m in professional mode. I suppose it has something to do with my extrovert personality. I actually used to be incredibly shy until I got a job as a waiter in a restaurant during high school, and in the US if you aren’t making tips, you’re going hungry. So I give credit to that job for opening me up. Either way, whoever is in charge of choosing these special community members, you made my day, including a hopeful colleague’s day as well. Again, this is one of the best communities I have been a part of and cannot wait to see what the future holds. Especially as we are only laying the foundations.

Do you have any advice for creators when it comes to getting started in game creation, or even for improving their skills?

Take it with a grain of salt. You will fail. And you will fail more than once. Never work until you get frustrated, never overwork. Your project will always be there to work on. One step at a time. Creating games should be a fun challenge. Skyrim wasn’t built in a day. And Elder Scrolls VI wasn’t built in a decade. Talking of which, don’t even get me started on Star Citizen…..

Finally, how can we follow your creative journey? Is there a place where you share your creations for the world to see?

Of course. I do not have a straight schedule as of yet, and I am still working on getting higher quality audio for my audience. Though no one seems to complain about the quality I have now. I do have my Twitch where you will see me stream YAHAHA quite a bit from now on. Even more when further content is released. My Twitch is: twitch.tv/swampbanjo

Stop by and join the family tree. I am a variety streamer. You may even see me stream inside of Blender one of these days (when I don’t get an NDA project which is rare). But I hope to see you all there.

Of course, we here at Yahaha want to say a massive thank you to SwampBanjo for sitting down and chatting with us.

Interested in jumping into YAHAHA? Want to be a member of the Yahaha UGC community and possibly be interviewed by us, or maybe even win a prize or two in one of our regular competitions? Well if so you should definitely join our Yahaha Discord Server for creators.

Within our creator community, not only will we be announcing new roadmap updates every two weeks, but if you’re based in Europe or North America (we’ll be adding more regions in the future), then you can sign up to be a part of our Early Alpha right now and secure your unique username at the same time.

Hopefully, we’ll see you there very soon!