"Project Juliet" Runner Up at The Rookies 2026

"Project Juliet" Runner Up at The 2026 Rookies

Congratulations to the makers of  "Project Juliet", which has won the "Runner Up" award for Game of The Year in the category of Console and PC at The 2026 Rookies. 

In "Project Juliet", an unfortunate lab tester is forced to undergo a dangerous trial, with horrifying consequences.  

Project Juliet was created by "Team Psychosis" at Escape Studios, produced by Pahiya Rahman, and was inspired by The Outlast Trials, a survival game created by Montreal-based games company Red Barrels.  

Project Juliet 

You can watch the Project Juliet cinematic below:

Project Juliet 

In "Project Juliet", an unfortunate lab tester is forced to undergo a trial, with horrifying consequences.  The short is is inspired by The Outlast Trials, a 2024 first-person psychological survival horror video game developed and published by Red Barrels. 

The cinematic was a collaboration between our graduating class of students studying the Art of Video Games, The Art of Animation and also Character Creation - working together to create a team project. 

Metahumans

The team used Metahuman characters for their character rigs. Metahumans are advanced, pre-built skeletal systems designed by Epic Games to bring photorealistic digital humans to life.

 

Modular Design

The team created multiple re-usable assets to ensure maximum efficiency in the games pipeline. 

Software

"Project Juliet" was animated in Maya and rendered in Unreal Engine.  Editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

Project Juliet - Credits

Project Juliet was created by "Team Psychosis". It was produced by Pahiya Rahman. The Art director was Samuel Baker.  Leona Lu and Lewis Sims were

Scene from Project Juliet

lead animators. Blake Owens did the storyboards.  

• Samuel Baker - Art Director, Writer
• Pahiya Rahman - Producer, Editor, Tech Artist 
• Oliver Coote - Environment Artist 
• Lana Glendenning - Environment Artist 
• Milly Proudfoot - Environment Artist 
• Harry Amatt - Prop Artist 
• Edie Thomas - Prop Artist 
• Lilli Sempers - Character Artist, Co-writer
• Leona Lu - Co-writer, Lead Animator 
• Lewis Sims - Lead Animator
• Alexandra Cornwall - Animator 
• Tommy Goodwin - Animator 
• Jason Cole - Animator 
• Blake Owens - Storyboards, Co-writer 
• Sofia Malpeli - Character Artist 

Industry Feedback

Locksmith Animation - industry feedback

Industry feedback was generously provided by Shelley Page from Locksmith Animation, and by Sam Little from Hammer Creative. 

Project Juliet at The Rookies

You can find Project Juliet here at The Rookies. https://www.therookies.co/entries/50720#comment-form

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for one of our courses, follow this link.