He spent part of his childhood in Tunisia and other places, depending on where his father (a career soldier) had been posted.

From early childhood, he was fond of the Russian, Chinese and Japanese stories and fairy tales that were read to him: "All those stories whisked me off into the universes which today inspire my décors. Some of the heroes of my games look like the heroes I imagined when I heard the tales."

As a teenager, he spent his evenings with friends huddled round the first video games of the period. Ever since, he's been keen on those early adventure games where "you're constantly wondering what'll happen if you open this door or go down that tunnel - and we tried to imagine what there was in all those places you couldn't access."

In Montpellier, where his family settled, he taught himself programming to fulfil his deepest ambition: to create a game that was something more than yet another car race or fight simulation. And so, outside school hours, he developed various puzzle games which soon got him noticed. Thanks to an animated sequence he produced on his own for a young game creators' competition, he was invited for interview by Ubi Soft.

In 1989, at the age of 17, Michel joined Ubi Soft's teams where he began work as an independent graphic designer. With the many new encounters he made, he rapidly broadened his artistic knowledge and created the Rayman character. The first Rayman game, developed by a team of nearly 30 people, came out in 1995 on PlayStation®. Other games in the range, for various platforms, soon followed, achieving their now celebrated success.

In 1999, when the Rayman 2 project had been completed with the development team, Michel wanted to explore new universes and create new worlds by giving free rein to his unbounded imagination. Thus, while acting as consultant to new Rayman developments, he embarked on a new and ambitious project, an action-adventure game code-named 'The BG&E Project' - this time centred on a young woman …

 Ahmed Boukhelifa - Project Manager - PlayStation®2, X-Box, PC.

As a student at a reputed management school, Ahmed was bored among the "future elite of the nation". During his studies, he was more interested in making video films and playing with his rock band than in his accounting classes. He decided to put his management skills to work on something he felt more passionate about - video games.

He started to work at Ubi Soft as producer on 3rd party games (Critérion, Smart Dog).

Since 1999, he has been Rayman project manager. He is in charge of a team of 50 happy lads and lasses and is responsible for keeping the joviality alive in the developers and making sure Rayman 3 is a "rigolo game" - as the French would say. Don't be surprised then to find him in a cafe laughing with his team - he's only doing his job!

A szerkesztőknek: aki szeretné, az segíthet a fordításban!