Lise- How was this project born? Why did you choose Call of Antia for this project?
Lise – Actually, the project started from Call of Antia and its community. Call of Antia is a match-3 RPG (Role Playing Game), and most of its players grew up in front of animes from the 90s that had emblematic beginning credits with those epic songs viewers used to know by heart.
To celebrate Call of Antia´s first Anniversary, we wanted to offer our players our own beginning credit that tells Antia’s story in one minute.
Lise- Why anime style? Which were your inspirations?
Lise – Call of Antia has a strong lore, with many heroes and stories we wanted to share with our players. Heroes’ quests, fantasy worlds, and epic battles match very well with the Anime style and it was only natural that we went for this aesthetic. We took inspiration from Japanese anime’s opening credits from the 90s of course, but also from more recent amazing works, such as The Legend of Vox Machina, whose fantasy world is close to Antia’s..
Lise- How did you select which Call of Antia Characters would be included in the video?
The game lore was the starting point of our story, indeed. We wanted to remind our Community of the beginning of their own journey in Antia, as a player. In Call of Antia, players start the Campaign mode with Alia (the hero on the game icon), her best friend Roland, and Malfort, who joined them shortly after a few battles. To complete the team, we added Garabeth and Pu-Feng, two popular heroes among our Community, as in the game, you have to build teams composed of five heroes. Then, we wanted our heroes to fight against Dark Forces represented by Morella (who is in love with Call of Antia’s Great Villain McHaab), Samol, Aldin, and Snafe. Zania (the blindfolded hero) isn’t actually a villain, but she’s a popular in-game character who belongs to the Dark Force Faction.
Marc- How many versions of the intro or the characters were made?
I think it is better to comment on how many scenes have been repeated, especially in the blocking and layout process, the phase before the animation and coloring. In some scenes, we have modified the backgrounds, or we have changed the composition and the expressions. In the end, we got what we expected.
Marc -FunPlus is an international company, and while our publishing office is located in Barcelona, the development team is in China. How was the collaboration among the teams for this video?
The whole project started as a nice collaboration between the Community team and the creative team here in Barcelona.
Then we presented it to the team in China, and during this time, we worked together. During the process, we shared all the creative stages with the team in China to compare opinions and comment on the production of the characters, the animatics, the designs and the song. The China teams gave us very valuable feedback on some details of the characters that helped us to create this magnificent animation.
Marc- And what about the music that accompanies the anime intro? Was that created specifically for it?
Roman Schoenbichler is the composer and author of the song “Bringer Of Hope”, and Anna Blasco did the voice. We gave Roman the main story theme of Call of Antia so that he could better understand the structure and find inspiration to accompany the animation. Then Roman, with his talent, transformed it all into a song.
We also have a Karaoke version to remind us of similar themes that live at the end of some Japanese video games or Japanese Credit videos from the 90s. It’s another reference for our Community.
Marc- This kind of video used to have hidden references & easter eggs. Have you included any of these in Call of Antia’s anime intro?
During the process, we tried to introduce and reproduce some gameplay scenes. The most important thing is to reproduce the game world. For example, the landscape at the beginning is Antia; the background of Malford in the Dragon Nest; the Light Tower with Aldin and Snafe; and the last part of the anime trailer, with all heroes looking to the Volcano mountain, where you can see the dark forces.
Marc – Do you think that Call of Antia’s unique gameplay, a Match-3-RPG, has influenced how this project has evolved?
Yes, of course, the world of Antia is an RGP, so it has many stories to tell, and each character has a biography. When we planned the animation, at first, we wanted to put more scenes that tell the story, but of course, we only had one minute. That’s why we base the story on the telling of the friendship between Alia and Roland, the assets of the heroes fighting against the forces of evil.
Marc -Let’s finish this interview with a more personal question: Which are your favorite characters in the anime intro and Call of Antia?
Marc – Of course, Pu-Feng is my favorite and helps me win a lot of long battles. For me he is the best healing member of my team. But there are more that are interesting:
Lise – Zania is one of my favorite heroes! She’s great because of her ability to steal Mana and Health. She’s the only one able to do that in-game, making her gameplay pretty unique! Also, I love the way the Creative team brought her to life in this video!
That’s all Dragoneers, I hope you like the animation.