Concept and design
Sackboy was originally concepted as Mr. Yellowhead, the main character of an early precursor of LittleBigPlanet dubbed Craftworld, which was envisioned as a physics-based 2D side-scrolling game.[7][8] On 1 December 2005, the four founders of Media Molecule, Kareem Ettouney, Alex Evans, Mark Healey, and David Smith, met with Phil Harrison, the head of development for Sony Worldwide Studios at the time, to pitch Craftworld. Harrison's subsequent enthusiasm for the game involved him participating in a three-hour brainstorming session with the Media Molecule representatives, which was extended from the original half an hour presentation.[9][10] At this stage, Mr. Yellowhead had a small pink square body and a triangular yellow head, and was described as consisting of a set of "simple shapes" which is essentially placeholder debug programmer art" created by David Smith for the first playable CraftWorld code. Yellowhead's arms were controllable with the right analogue stick of the PlayStation 2 controller that Media Molecule had connected to their PC,[9] whilst his legs were controlled with the left stick. The object of the game was to guide Mr. Yellowhead past many obstacles by grabbing onto objects and pushing or rolling them around.[11] Although merely a stand in concept, Mr. Yellowhead would pave the way for Sackboy's proportions as well as the things the character would need to be able to do. Ettouney recalled that Smith had an attention to detail when it comes to the character's "personality and very subtle things"; he discussed the initial pitch where Mr. Yellowhead was depicted as straining when pulling a rock, "his little debug arms stretching as he pulled” even though there was no supporting animation, which showcased the character's cheeky personality.[8]
By August 2006 the project, now known as LittleBigPlanet, was greenlit and funding is secured from Sony for the project.[8] In order to would evolve the character concept into a proper character to fit the game's developing art style, Healey worked with Ettouney, who handled concept art duties as well as character designer Francis Pang to come up with further concept art for the character, who was still called YellowHead and still had the eponymous yellow head.[8] Ettouney approached the character's design in an anatomical manner with legs and arms, pinching Healey's original abstract design for the character's short and pointy legs, and often drew him[12] with a little mosquito antennae on the head. Pang explored how the head relates to the body, and worked on making the character's body proportions and shapes more aesthetically pleasing. Healey would insist that each design iteration of the character retain a "handmade look" with the buttons, patches, and hessian fabric, aspects of the character which is retained in Sackboy's final design.[8]
A design goal for Sackboy was for the character to help define a game and be "infinitely customisable": the plain version of Sackboy had to be tiny, but still distinctive and ironic, with the option for players to add or amend various facial features or the character's gender markers without changing the body shape.[8] A distinct and prevalent visual feature of Sackboy is the zip fastener, which once had an important gameplay function. According to Ettouney, it is a legacy part of the character's design process, and he noted that the team wanted to explore "a concept of a place where you play, and a place where you build that eventually became the Moon".[8] Healey proposed that Sackboy would have the ability to open his zip, fold in on himself and undergoes a creation process inside himself, the idea being that creativity and ideas are all inside an individual, ideas which were ultimately unused.[8] Smith contributed to the design process through his doodles, which explored the character's personality and introduced some subtler shapes to the visual design process like Sackboy's trapezium head, and the wrinkles in the cloth from his expressions.[8] Ettouney credited Smith, a programmer for LittleBigPlanet, for helping to finalize the design process and solidify the efforts of the artists and as an example of teamwork dynamics in the early days of the company.[8] Pang refined the final design of Sackboy by combining 4 distinct concepts from himself, Healey, Ettouney and Smith.
After the concept is finalized, creation of the character model commenced, which would then be textured and prepared for animation. While the animation process of Sackboy helped contribute more character, they evolved only when the designers started making levels and the character is seen in different situations.[8] Pang said the final version of Sackboy's legs felt cute but stumpy and very different from the language of his arms; more importantly, running and jumping movements came across as "weird" when animated.[8] A solution is implemented in the form of the character's little peddling motion as seen in the games.[8] According to Pang, animating Sackboy is a fragmented process which does not feel as satisfactory compared to animating a whole movie, as it involves designing procedural animations rather than animating a scene that gets played out the same way each time. Pang noted that since the player is responsible for controlling the character's actions, he finds satisfaction in seeing what other players do with the character's potential animations.[8] Pang observed that players would use Sackboy's basic acting emotions to communicate to each other whilst playing, which he compared to a structured system of communication not unlike the concept of language.[8] Pang particularly enjoyed working on Sackboy's death animations, as each potentially fatal situation Sackboy encounters required a unique animation to accompany it.
Following the game's release, the developmental team were astonished by the level of creativity and effort players have invested into their characters. Pang in particular did not expect that customisation for Sackboy would become a key aspect of LittleBigPlanet's gameplay.[8] In response to the popularity of customisation efforts of Sackboy by fans, the team implemented free game updates to assist players, such as the addition of zoom in and rotation features to make it easier to sticker Sackboy. Following the release of the first game, Media Molecule started working with other brands to make licensed downloadable costumes as DLC purchases.[8]
By 2011, Media Molecule made the decision to move on from the character of Sackboy and the LittleBigPlanet franchise, leaving other studios to take over in developing video games for the franchise on Sony's behalf.[15] Nevertheless, Media Molecule staff commemorated the "10th birthday" of the character and the first LittleBigPlanet game on 2 November 2018, and recreated The Garden level in their most recent game PlayStation 4 video game Dreams.[13]
