Game Animation: Hack the Hat
Hack the Hat is a gamified project, in which up to three players can compete to try to get their CV past an artificial intelligence, shining a light on how these flawed systems work, which are already used by real companies.
This project was featured on, and created for the 2024 Ars Electronica Festival.
It was designed be played with a special set-up:
- a big screen, displaying a background and the player characters.
- three tablets, with which the player navigate through the menu and can edit their CVs.
- a talking hat, featuring a round screen with an animated face, who comments on the players actions.
I was hired as the solo artist for this project. I created all animations, assets and UI elements for the game.
The serious topic of this project is presented through a magical lens to loosen up the mood and create a fun experience.
The player becomes a wizard, who is presented on a TV screen where they mimic the players action through lively frame by frame animations, depicted over an animated city in the background, while the player types on a tablet, with custom made UI elements.
The Background:
The 4k Video loops after about two minutes, with multiple animated elements.
Sketch
to
Finished
UI Elements:
Assets used for the tablet menu and CV.
The elements where designed to seem like parchment to fit into the wizard aesthetic.
this was used
as a mask
Concept Art of the Wizards:
Design Phase
for the P.C.
and first BG sketch
Sent to team
for feedback,
+
key-pose sketches
of animation states
Animations of the Wizards:
Through the portal:
Triggered when a player joins the game:
a wizard is spawned as their avatar.
The same line-art was used for all three players, but a different colour-scheme was created for each one.
animated in
opentoonz
Summoning CV:
The wizards conjures their magical CV and start writing on it, played when the user edits their CV on their tablet.
The colours were created with colour-IDs, making it possible to quickly change the colours for each frame simultaneously.
frame by frame
animated
Sending it:
The writing animation loops until the player is done with their CV.
I created a small script to change between different writing animations in random intervals, because I didn't want all three wizards to play the exact same animation at the same time.
Once the player is done, the wizard will magically send their CV away and begin to nervously await the result of the game.
Winning or loosing:
The artificial intelligence rates the CVs of all players - highest score wins!
The animations were exported as spritesheets and the timing between the frames was redone in unity.
final touches
done in
Adobe After Effects
Disappearing spell:
After the game is done and the player leaves their tablet, the wizard too, disappears with a magical spell.