Garten of Banban Reimagined: Full Story
A few months ago I made a video where I decided to give reimagining the first Garten of Banban a shot as a writer. I made a handful of posts sharing some of the art and ideas, so I think it's time to make a full master post with the art and story. So let's do this.
If there's one thing I've noticed with the games, it's that
has become more of a reminder to the player of why the character is there. Since the game's decided to follow the shady experiment route, I decided to see if I could make a story around the plot of being a concerned parent looking for their child in this place. I've worked it in a way that, if it were to be a game, it would still make sense to some extent.
My version would take place in more of a daycare. While I didn't come up with a new name, my take has this place being a new location that's an upgrade from an older daycare.
It had been taken over by new owners that are connected to a brand pushing a line of security toys that are like a combination of Teddy Ruxpin and the FurReal toys. They can move and interact with children as well as keep them safe.
The biggest changes I made were to the character designs and the number of characters. I decided to narrow it down to Jumbo Josh, Opila Bird, Banban, and Banbalina. I definitely feel the games have a bad habit of introducing too many characters making it too hard to keep track. So I stuck with the ones people recognize the most and have latched onto. I've also changed up the style to something more like a children's cartoon and more of a professional looking mascot design. For mine, these are pre-existing characters to sell the security toys.
I've made them seem more like actual animals and characters children would easily recognize, but also inspired by the designs from the original game. So Banban and Banbalina are now cats based on the spike ear things the game characters had. Jumbo Josh is now a giant teddy bear essentially and he's my favorite out of the rework. And for Opila I mostly just reworked the design to fit the flamingo aspect mentioned in one of the files from the other games.
The toys would be a big part of the daycare facility. They'd be working alongside of the staff, entertaining the kids and keeping them safe. I've based the designs on some real toys, especially Opila's being based on a toy I saw a commercial for where the neck extended.
The more plush toys, Banban, Banbalina, and Jumbo Josh, would have those rubber dot pads on the bottom of their feet for traction while walking. Their mouths open and close like Teddy Ruxpin toys. Opila can walk and go into a sleep mode where her neck and legs fold in and her eyes close. She has a speaker and microphone in her beak to speak, and her wings will flap.
The story would go something like: The daycare is a new facility opened to promote a line of security toys. It had previously been a well established chain that had been purchased and taken over by a bigger company focused on security. The first facility is opened in a new location forcing the original staff to move with the location. One day one of the staff became fed up, feeling that they were being replaced and questioning the toys saying things like "What can those toys do better than we can? We've been caring for children for years." They stay a little later and tamper with the toys, unknowingly causing them to see that staff member as a potential threat to the children.
The following day things start off fine for the most part until the toys see the staff member that tampered with them and go rogue. In an attempt to save their fellow coworker, other staff members tried to help them and fend off the toys causing them to be seen as threats to the children as well.
The toys lead the children into the naptime room and lock the door, Banban being the one to stay with the kids. Going back to the floorplan earlier int he post, you'll see that each toy takes a position on the map. Jumbo Josh guarding the front from behind the main desk, Banbalina in the reading area, and Opila in the play area out back. They'd barricaded parts of the daycare with toys and bins. Things like that.
During all of this, the main character's kid manages to call their mom or dad, either with their own phone or someone else's, and explain that something happened to the teachers, they don't know what happened, and the toys have them and other kids trapped in the naptime room before the call cuts out.
When we, the main character, get to the daycare the main doors are locked and blocked, but you can see Jumbo Josh sitting behind the main counter/desk, his head turning left and right like he's scanning the area. So we go around the side and manage to get in through a side door that leads into a storage closet. This closet has two other doors, one that's locked which would lead into the daycare itself, and the other leading into the staff area where there are small offices and a break area. Through here we make our way to the main entrance where we fight off Jumbo Josh, who swings at us from behind the desk. Maybe we use a purse or something to take them down. From there we make our way into the main room of the daycare.
This is where we'd find my replacement for the drone, a RC car our kid named Rover.
I initially thought that maybe it could be used to navigate through dark areas and the headlights would actually work, but I think it being more of a distraction for the other toys with a camera being in the headlights instead and a screen being on the remote being a better choice.
We make our way around a set of bookshelves set in a U shaped formation and find Banbalina. This would be where we start to use the car as a distraction to take her down. She's sat on a beanbag that the staff usually sit on for reading time. Eventually we take her down and go to the doors to the naptime room only to find they're locked. In a final glitchy breath, Banbalina says that we'll never find the keys and that they're safe with Opila out back.
Out back we find Opila is guarding the playground. This would be more of a stealth area using a combo of Rover and waiting for Opila to go into sleep mode to get by. We eventually find the keys and then have to fight Opila to get back inside. This is where we end up using Rover to lead Opila to a part of the playground where they get destroyed.
Once back inside we find Banban standing by a fallen Banbalina. This is where we fight Banban for the first time to get by him. We take him down and get the kids out safely. We let the kids go first, but before we can catch up Banban comes back one last time. This could be a chase scene leading to the front of the building where the kids have managed to unblock the door, they're just waiting for you. When we get near the front we manage to take down Banban once and for all and unlock the main doors.
Mine would obviously be more of a one game story, but if there were to be a sequel they'd probably upgrade them to be more like the toys of the early 2000s and be like the iDog and Robosapien and things like that. Maybe they'd switch up the characters to avoid being linked to the incident of the first story/game. It would be interesting to see play out.
I hope you enjoyed this reimagining. I don't intend on making a game of it, my coding abilities are next to none and the same goes for my 3D modeling abilities. If anyone ever does decide to make anything inspired by this, I'd love to see what you can do.
