Embedded animation support — large suites of character emotes for Night School's stylish trip through hell.
With our extensive experience collaborating on game projects in different engines, we adapt quickly to new pipelines and understand each game's unique needs. Afterparty was already deep in production when Night School brought Well Told on board — they needed help building out large suites of character emotes for a wide cast. We quickly understood both the technical animation pipeline and the stylistic art direction of Afterparty's special version of Hell.
Lola and Milo are two best friends who couldn't be more opposite — Lola confident, sarcastic, and assertive; Milo timid and skittish. Our aim was to build emotes for each character in a way that made those personality differences shine. There's real appeal in contrast, and we leaned into it fully.
Having met in college, we were perfect candidates to capture the vibe of two kids partying their way through hell. Our team — built of people with genuinely differing personalities — pulled all kinds of actions and mannerisms from video reference. Animation Director Jen Re, notably introverted, was perfect for finding the timid nature of Milo. Other animators on the team knew exactly what pose to strike for a confident demon sinking the last ball in beer pong.
In narrative games, world building matters. Crafting story moments not just within, but around the main cast, is key to good environmental storytelling. On this project we got to animate some of the bite-sized moments that helped immerse the player in this world and its story.