Sackboy

Sackboy
Other names:	SackBoy SackGirl (female) Sack Thing (neutral)
First appearance:	LittleBigPlanet (2008)
Latest appearance:	Ultimate Sackboy (2023)
Portrayed by:	(2008-2014) Kenneth Young (2020-present) Darin Nagada Leo Hart Dexter Norbury-Bell Elliot Cundy

“	On the LittleBigPlanet™ you're a little SackPerson.	„
— Introduction

Sackboy (sometimes formatted as SackBoy, female counterpart SackGirl, neutral Sack Thing) is the main protagonist of the LittleBigPlanet series and Sackboy spin-offs, serving as a mascot for both as well as for the PlayStation brand. Since his debut in Media Molecule's 2008 PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, Sackboy has been portrayed in marketing as a humanoid rag doll crafted from knitted wool, decorated with button eyes and a metal zipper. Sackboy's simple appearance allows him to function as a massively customizable character designed around player personalization, with this being a core gameplay mechanic of nearly all the titles he features in. Throughout the LittleBigPlanet series' story modes, Sackboy's is characterized as a silent protagonist; this design allows for further personalization. The 2020 PlayStation title Sackboy: A Big Adventure explored his characterization as a young, creative artist embarking on a journey to becoming a Knitted Knight; a title given to heroic protectors of Craftworld and the Imagisphere.

History

Development

Predating Sackboy and LittleBigPlanet's conceptualization, Media Molecule developed a rough prototype referred to as Flathead, — a rudimentary tech demo operating in a two-dimensional physics engine. The Flathead demo remained an internal project at Media Molecule until the prototype received graphical changes and a rebranding to CraftWorld. The CraftWorld demo starred Mr. Yellowhead, who was a geometric, two-dimensional humanoid derived from Flathead's featureless debug character. Within the limitations of the two-dimensional play space, Mr. Yellowhead could grab, push, and displace objects freely, using his surroundings to overcome obstacles and solve puzzles. This build of the prototype would be publicly showcased before Media Molecule began preliminary work on LittleBigPlanet, with nearly all of Mr. Yellowhead's core gameplay mechanics expanded on in the following stages.

Media Molecule experimented with multiple stylistic concepts for LittleBigPlanet following CraftWorld, many of which landed on a hand-crafted look. Around this time, LittleBigPlanet had expanded to adopt a three-dimensional engine that could accommodate for more advanced graphics while simultaneously expanding on the physics engine that had become a core element of the game's prototypes. Sackboy evolved with these changes, albeit then referred to as a "Craftling"; a plump, stumpy-legged creature with a model drastically different from Sackboy's final design while retaining many of the core features. Throughout LittleBigPlanet's development in 2006, the Craftlings became the customizable, player-personalized characters synonymous with LittleBigPlanet.

Between 2006 and 2007, the Craftling's design continued to change into Sackboy's iconic shape. Now no longer referred to as the Craftling, LittleBigPlanet featured Sackpeople as their player protagonists. With his new design, Sackboy was given a diverse array of expressions to his model, as well as costumes. Sackboy's development culminated in one of the first public demonstration for LittleBigPlanet at GDC 2007 following the game being greenlit by Sony, where Sackboy was now identical to his retail appearance. At this point, Sackboy had still retained a few features from previous milestones, such as his bobble-head physics and multiplayer collision.

Sackboy underwent minimal changes to his design between 2007 and 2008, and Media Molecule gradually finalized the game's player mechanics. LittleBigPlanet's UI continued to receive updates until the game's release.

Appearances and cameos

See also: LittleBigPlanet References in External Media

• LittleBigPlanet – 2008
• LittleBigPlanet PSP – 2009
• Everybody's Golf 5 – 2009
• ModNation Racers – 2010
• Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves – 2010
• LittleBigPlanet 2 – 2011
• LittleBigPlanet PS Vita – 2012
• PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale – 2012
• LittleBigPlanet Karting – 2012
• PlayStation All-Stars Island – 2013
• Joe Danger 2 – 2014
• LittleBigPlanet 3 – 2014
• Run Sackboy! Run! – 2014
• Minecraft – 2015
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure – 2020
• Ultimate Sackboy – 2021

General information

Physical appearance

Sackboy is a stuffed humanoid rag doll measuring eight centimeters tall. In most of his depictions, he is constructed from a brown knitted yarn, though sometimes described as being made from hessian fabric. Light-colored thread stitches hold his body together, placed along the seams of his forehead, torso, and appendages. His body is composed of a plump, stuffed torso sporting a metal zipper and large zipper pull on the front; two arms and legs are stitched to his body. While his legs are absent of any features apart from flat stumps, Sackboy's arms include five-fingered hands that allow him to grab onto his surroundings and perform gestures. Connected directly to Sackboy's torso is a disproportionately large head. His facial features include two black buttons for eyes, and a slit-shaped opening for his mouth; a pink, star-patterned tongue sits inside. Sackboy is capable of expressing emotions through wrinkling, creasing, and deforming the materials of his face. In compatible titles, players can use the Playstation's microphone feature to communicate during online play, where Sackboy will dynamically mimic syllables based on sounds detected through the microphone.

Sackboy's body is entirely customizable and can be dressed in a multitude of clothing and other accessories; other features like his hands, feet, eyes, arms, and craft material are able to be replaced. Additionally, stickers and decorations can be applied to Sackboy and will remain there until the player resets or manually removes them. Sackboy is able to equip powerups and enhancements that he wears on various parts of his body; these changes are cosmetic while also impacting Sackboy's abilities.

Sackboy's design has remained visually consistent throughout nearly all the games he has starred in, but improvements in graphical technology over the years has led to his models gaining higher visual fidelity, particularly in more recent titles such as Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Some of these standout additions include fuzzier knit material, more prominent stitching, and greater texture detail on Sackboy's materials.

Personality

Although Sackboy often serves as a reflection of the player and their actions, in-game cutscenes and scripted sequences give a glimpse into his personality. In nearly all the games he stars in, Sackboy is a force of good, helping out others and frequently saving Craftworld or its neighbors from evil. LittleBigPlanet features numerous creator curators throughout the series' story modes, many of which Sackboy befriends on his adventures. He is usually in a positive mood, but can get mean, grumpy, frightened, or sad given the occasion. As Sackboy is mute, most of his emotions are conveyed through facial expressions and body movements.

Sackboy is shown to be social with others. In Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Sackboy is one of the residents of Loom, a town populated with sackpeople. A Big Adventure portrays Sackboy as an avid artist, drawing in other sackpeople with his creations. In LittleBigPlanet 3, Sackboy's friendly, easily-trusting temperament makes him a quick ally to Newton Pud, who uses Sackboy's naivety to manipulate him into carrying out a dangerous plan that results in the reawakening of Bunkum's Titans.

Voice actors

Despite not having a proper speaking role in any game, Sackboy has been voiced by small handful of people, mostly in the form of small exclamations and vocal noises. Through the LittleBigPlanet series, Sackboy was voiced by composer Kenneth Young for contextual sounds, such as those when holding to retry. In Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Sackboy was given more active vocal cues to suit the action focus and expanded characterization of the game. Sackboy was voiced by Darin Nagada, Leo Hart, Dexter Norbury-Bell, and Eliot Cundy. While Sackboy is voiced in cutscenes and single-player game sessions by Darin Nagada, Hart, Norbury-Bell, and Cundy can be heard in multi-player depending on the number of players present in the session.

Gallery

Main article: Sackboy/Gallery.

Name translations

Language	Untranslated	Rough Translation
Japanese	Ribittsu	N/A

Trivia

• According to the Playstation Network tutorial in LittleBigPlanet 2, Sackboy's birthday is April 1st 1992.