Sackboy: A Big Adventure
PlayStation’s cutest mascot returns in his very first 3D platformer as a launch title for the PlayStation 5. Winning multiple BAFTA awards for Best Family and Best British game, Sackboy and his friends are brought to life with expressive keyframe animation that leans into the crafted aesthetic.
Some of my animation work including the NPCs, level objects and the infamous Sackboy dab are featured in the music video trailer.
Stitching Adventure Together
On Sackboy I wore many hats, I took on lots of small features that ended up meaning that I touched almost the entire game! Creating keyframe animation was a completely different style compared to the realistic motion capture of HITMAN. I was trusted to create animations to characterise our many level objects and characters which bring the world of Craftworld to life. Additionally, I worked on the unique 3D UI animations supporting the UI team’s illusion that they are hanging objects that exist in the world, alongside the world map which was a small scale hub with hidden secrets.
Bringing kinetic movement to the world
I was offered an opportunity to be a feature owner (even though typically feature owner roles are on design at Sumo) of a small team on the animated “cardboard stickers” 2.5D NPCs that brought life and kinetic movement to the environment. We developed an art pipeline for these NPCs as we created hundreds of unique animated characters and worked with design to create set pieces using these characters to add surprise and delight to levels.
Supporting The Team
During my time on Sackboy I performed scrum champion duties for multiple features for the majority of the project. Building my confidence running stand ups and proactively seeking leadership advice from my peers.
