Sad Owl Studios’ ingenious, mind-bending puzzle game Viewfinder won best British game and best new IP at the BAFTA Awards earlier in 2024, and now the studio’s lead artist, Sophie Knowles, has just been selected as a BAFTA Breakthrough. “It’s been a pretty good year for me!” she laughs.
Made in Unity and released in PlayStation 5 and Steam Viewfinder is one of the year’s best indie games. This unique puzzle game that plays with 3D space and 2D art, in which players can alter the game’s would through photography.
Although Sophie is grateful for being chosen – “It’s nice to have what I’ve done recognised” – she’s also aware that as an artist, she’s one of the more visible contributors to a collaborative effort that involves people from many different disciplines. “When people think about what goes into making a game, people only really think about the art and the programming,” she says. “A lot of other people that make games are a bit more invisible, and I don’t think [they] get the recognition that they deserve.”
She adds that it’s “weird” to think of her name among the BAFTA Breakthrough cohort, bearing in mind that stars like Tom Holland and Florence Pugh have been participants in the past. “I’d never really consider myself part of that world,” she says. “Games doesn’t really have the same celebrity that film and TV has. We have our big names and everything, but it’s not a scratch on Tom Holland.”
(Image credit: BAFTA / Manuel Vazquez)
Sophie is hoping that the year of support, industry introductions and career development that comes with being picked as a BAFTA Breakthrough will help her to decide her next steps. “I’ve kind of stumbled my way throughout my career,” she says, going from being a 3D generalist to an art lead, so she’s looking forward to picking the brains of experienced mentors about future directions. “I think it’s going to be incredibly useful to help visualise what I my next step should be.”
But in the meantime, “things have been going pretty well” at Sad Owl Studios, she says. “The studio was put together to make Viewfinder, but we still exist, and we still want to make more games. So hopefully we do get to make more games together.”
Even though Viewfinder has two BAFTA wins to its name, she acknowledges that Sad Owl’s future success can’t be taken for granted. “The industry right now is in such a weird position,” she laments. “The fact that we have had some critical acclaim for the game and we’ve got a lot of players who’ve loved the game, I hope that means that [we can get] funding to make more games. But it’s hard to say with how the industry is right now, because it’s a bit of a mess, to be honest.”
