Squirrely Roo Rabbit is an in-development puzzle-platformer game relying on color theory to solve environmental challenges. It features a visual style reminiscent of hand-drawn and -watercolored pop-up storybooks. Squirrely Roo’s prologue illustrates the daily life of Roo and how an unexpected intervention informs her of the sudden change in the world around her. In this intro scene, Squirrely Roo intervenes in the pursuit of her future sidekick, Cammie, by a group of the chameleon gang's grunts.
This short animation was created with a combination of Maya and After Effects for animating, and After Effects for compositing. The most challenging parts of this project were learning how to rig a book, how to integrate 2D animation within Maya, and later how to utilize Arnold renderer to get to best overall look. Squirrely Roo Rabbit is produced by Boba Studios, a women-owned, Baltimore-based game developer founded by MICA and Peabody students. Combining indie games' boundless innovation and AAA games' fully-realized polish, its debut game invites gamers often overlooked in the mass market to play.
