super benji worlds developer commentary

Super Benji Worlds is an upcoming game by Family Comics Studios, a dev team composed of me and triangle5820. And, since the game is getting close to completion, I figured I would offer some commentary on the development of the game, the process of making it, and the previous versions of the game.

Super Benji Worlds was originally starting to be made shortly after the original Scratch series of Super Benji games. Like, Super Benji Universe, Super Benji World, Super Benji Castle, and Super Benji SURFACE era. The next game in the series was supposed to be a 2D side scroller game called Super Benji Worlds, which would be the first game like this in the series. The game was scrapped, but the idea stayed - an adventure where Benji would go around various locations on Benji Island and then defeat Dr. Banana. A second scrapped Super Benji Worlds game actually was in the works in mid 2021, using the Super Mario Z 5 engine, but this was also scrapped. Notably, this game was uploaded on the triangIe5820 (with an I, not a L) account as an archive - technically the only released Super Benji Worlds game as I write this!

The most important event following this original idea was the release of the Super Benji Show’s first episode (first airing in December 2021). This episode set off the metaphorical spark for the final plot of Super Benji Worlds - Defeat Dr. Banana and his minions, following the plot of the series, and reclaim the Banana Gem for Benji. The Super Benji Show was monumental for the idea of Super Benji Worlds, but the game stayed in the back of everyone’s minds for a little while.

In February 2025, Super Benji Worlds started development as a new 2D platformer engine created by Themadpunter. This engine was known as Zeta Engine. This prototype had a basic dialogue system, collectathon system with collectable orbs, and various minor platforming tweaks from the previous platformer engine used by Themadpunter and triangle5820 - the Super Mario Z 4 engine (which later evolved into the Super Mario Z 5 engine and was used as a stepping stone for most other engines used by Family Comics Studios). Notably, this engine was the first engine not to be based off the Super Mario Z 5 engine in some way. After this engine’s release, the current version of Super Benji Worlds officially started development.

Notably, the first things that were coded include Benji City, with what is currently the first area of the game staying almost 100% intact in its general design. Most of the things coded until the summer of 2025 were just engine things, like objects used to switch between levels, et cetera. By this point, the final Super Benji movie had released, ending the animated series, and freeing up time for more non-animation projects by Family Comics Studios. The game continued development up to the completion of the Leafy Canyons and Chestnut Mountain areas, after which the reveal trailer was released on triangle5820’s account to extremely positive reception. The game was announced to be released in 2026 on itch.io, with other platforms to be determined.

Work continued on the game until the second trailer in February of 2026, with a break in the winter for the creation of A Very Benji Christmas. By the release of the second trailer, the game was a little over halfway done. The second trailer set a release date of October 23rd, 2026, notably a very important date as this release date would allow us to release the game on Steam. And with the release of the second trailer came the Super Benji Worlds demo, featuring the whole game up to the Tempter boss fight (or all of the content from the reveal trailer). The demo was also met with positive reception.

The game development is continuing through the summer, with most of the work on the game this year being since the school year ended. The new areas not yet revealed are looking great - notably the areas after Crystal Cave. (Holy cow, there have been SO many new areas since then…) The game is on schedule for the October release date, and all that really has to happen is for all of the areas to be finished, and for the other characters’ quests to start development. Originally, the game was planned to release for free with Benji’s story and have the other characters’ questlines as DLC and the game’s main monetization, but this plan has mostly changed to have a full game release with the other characters’ questlines included for free. The only idea for a DLC is an adventure to Lake Geneva for bonus content, possibly introducing Jean and Dave as playable characters? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The development of the game is almost 90% designing the levels and placing the enemies/objects. One main limitation of the engine, TurboWarp, is that there is no level editor. The levels have to be drawn in the vector editor, and all dynamic objects have to be added by hand. If we were to make a new game, we would almost certainly not do this again. The drawbacks and bottlenecks of TurboWarp much outweigh the pros. At least the game is optimize- 4GB of RAM in the tab in the editor? Never mind then. (Rest assured, on release it will be packaged with a different rendering engine than is used in the game right now, which during testing has improved FPS to a fairly steady 60FPS.) The main bottleneck with TurboWarp is, as of right now, that there is no lazy loading. Every asset in the game has to be loaded at once. Thankfully, TurboWarp is working on an update that will fix this, and hopefully this will be out by release. But make sure your computer has RAM.

The soundtrack of the game is being designed by me. The soundtrack started to be designed almost immediately after the game started to be coded. The soundtrack was mostly designed by me in the Beepbox mod Ultrabox, but some of the later songs were designed in LMMS. And two of the Banana City songs were composed by triangle5820 in the original Beepbox. Hopefully once the game releases, the soundtrack will be released on YouTube, Spotify, and have a downloadable version on itch.io. (If you want, feel free to share the soundtrack with other people. Art is meant to be shared.) I’m really enjoying composing music for the game! I really feel like the soundtrack enhances the experience a lot in most areas.

The other difficult part of making the game is the sheer size of the source file. A little while back, the file hit the 1 gigabyte mark, and now we sadly had to stop using GitHub for source control - now it’s mostly shared with Mediafire links in me and triangle5820’s Discord DMs. This hasn’t been too big of an issue though.

To conclude, my hope for Super Benji Worlds is that it’s an enjoyable tie-in to the movie series and the rest of the timeline. The game will reveal a lot of super cool lore that, although it’s existed, really only exists in a bunch of physical comics that either me or triangle currently possess, and have never really been shared to the public at all. Super Benji’s story and lore are mostly in our minds, and there’s still a lot left to reveal. Thanks for reading this commentary, and I hope you enjoy the game when it releases! (Please buy it. There’s a $100 Steam fee.)

Bonus trivia question: Did you know that the Photograpper (the purple blob you see in the Super Benji Show) is a different character than The Photographer (a flying red camera)? Most people have never actually seen The Photographer (he never appears in any currently released media), but this split actually occured in 2019-ish from bad handwriting and a confusion about how the character was meant to look like. The Photographer lives on in my heart, though… (Note to self - add a The Photographer cameo in the game…)

Thanks for reading, have a good one!