ROBERT
THOMSON

Technical Animator / Unity Game Designer

robertthomsondev@gmail.com

| Technical animation systems | Character controllers & motion | UI animation & feedback | Interaction polish & feel

| Technical animation systems | Character controllers & motion | UI animation & feedback | Interaction polish & feel

| Unity | C# | Animation pipelines | Rigging | Character Animation

| Unity | C# | Animation pipelines | Rigging | Character Animation

| Unity | C# | Animation pipelines | Rigging | Character Animation

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| Game Designer | Programmer | Technical Artist

| 2D & 3D Animator | UI/UX Design | Concept Art | Rigging | Character Design | 3D Modeller

| 2D & 3D Animator | UI/UX Design | Concept Art | Rigging | Character Design | 3D Modeller

| 2D & 3D Animator | UI/UX Design | Concept Art | Rigging | Character Design | 3D Modeller

| 2D & 3D Animator | UI/UX Design | Concept Art | Rigging | Character Design | 3D Modeller

Obsessed with creating magic in Unity — bringing together animation, code and design to make games feel great!

I handled most of the technical art implementation, from shader work to rigging and creating the entire Balatro-inspired card interaction system. Anything that involves specialized UI interaction was my work. I was also responsible for a large part of the codebase including networking, game states, UI animation and more. I was also responsible for all the character design and animation you see in game. The game was made in Unity using PlayroomKit for networking. I am also the creator of this game.

Banana of Doom is a party game where you combine and battle words in quickfire 1v1 tournaments. You are given a contest like "Most likely to secretly be an alien" and you must draw and rearrange word cards to come up with an answer to win that contest.

Techinal Animation

Coding and networking

Animation & Rigging

Character Design

I worked as the Game Director on this title. From concept to launch, I oversaw development on all fronts, as well as creating the 3D art and animation for the game.

‍Death by AI is a free to play Jackbox-like party game for up to 10 players. Players are given a life or death scenario and are tasked with coming up with a survival strategy. The AI then narrates what happens and decides who lives and who dies, almost always resulting in surprising and funny outcomes! Death by AI has been played over 10,000,000 times in its first weeks on Discord.

Game Design & Direction

Animation & Rigging

Character Design

Bug Testing & QA

I was the Director and solo developer of this party game for iOS and Android - It has a 4.8/4.9 star rating on both stores in all English speaking countries (4.6 worldwide), and recently hit 400k downloads in total.
In Gogogo! there is a new challenge every round, all of which are designed to create a level playing field by challenging players to test skills that they have naturally but wouldn't necessarily train, so that no matter your age or ability, you won't feel out of your depth.

Game Design & Code

Bug Testing & QA

I briefly worked on the wonderfully British and proudly northern indie hit Thank Goodness You're Here! by Coal Supper. My work was in both 2D Animation and Technical Animation.

If you don't know what Thank Goodness You're Here is, I suggest you check it out.

It's reyt good.

Thatgame.exe

ThatGame.exe is a cryptic puzzle game that I made in 7 days. It was made as part of a challenge in collaboration with Logitech. In thatgame.exe you play as a struggling indie game developer who's code is so bad that he is sucked into it. The bad code is displayed in mid air, giving you a clue as to how to solve each puzzle.

Game Design & Code

Animation & Rigging

Character Design

Level & Puzzle Design

You can see the making of this game here:

Platwormer

Platwormer is a 3D platforming game I made a few years back as a result of asking my YouTube audience for videogame ideas using a generic male character I had designed.

In the game you play as a man-worm climbing a man-mountain, sticking to surfaces of any angle.

The game features online speedrunning leaderboards and became popular among Korean streamers for a while.

The game was made in less than a week, and while not the most polished (I was still learning), holds a special place in my heart as one of my first games to go viral.

MASSIVE LEGEND

Massive Legend is my latest ambitious project, a game where you roam the land slaying ancient beasts of legend in order to become King of the World and save your people - 'The Younger Race', from their tragic fates.

The game will incorporate elements of 3D platforming and climbing akin to Shadow of the Colossus, albeit with snappier movement.

The creation of the climbing controller took some considerable effort, but once these systems are complete I'm hoping game design will become quite straightforward.

The controller is very performant, running at 300 fps on a mesh with over 10k triangles

Character Controller Design

Animation & Rigging

Editor Tool Design

You can see the making of the climbing controller here:

This is a 3D character controller that I developed in Unity, inspired by platformers like Mario Odyssey. My goal was to create satisfying, tight movement that would appeal to speedrunners. This was my first real foray into Technical animation, but still holds a special place in my heart.

Character Controller Code

Animation & Rigging

ABOUT ME

I’m an Annie Award–nominated animator turned Technical Animator & Interaction Engineer, with 10+ years in professional animation and 5+ years building games in Unity professionally (and more experience long before that)

I bring animation, design and code together — shaping how games feel.

My strengths lie in movement, clarity and design principles, as well as controllers that feel natural, UI feedback players instantly understand, and systems that communicate intent without needing explanation.

After a decade in animation, I moved into games because I wanted hands-on control over how movement actually behaves, not just how it looks — shaping the player's experience.

Since then I’ve worked across gameplay and presentation systems: character controllers, animation-driven mechanics, UI feedback, and interaction polish. I’m interested in perception — making systems feel readable, responsive and satisfying to use. I've also worked extensively on the game design side, creating 3 ideas that are now full fledged titles.

I primarily work in Unity and C#, and my production background makes me comfortable collaborating across disciplines. I’m most effective inside Unity, solving feel problems and turning design goals into behaviour players can immediately understand.

I’m particularly interested in:

‍Technical Animation & Gameplay Interaction
Character controllers and movement systems
UI feedback & presentation clarity
Puzzle and systemic gameplay

Get in touch!

ROBERTTHOMSONDEV@GMAIL.COM