Alumnus Update: Sreekanth (Sunil) Thankamushy — Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation Blog

Sreekanth (Sunil) Thankamushy is a 1994 Inlaks Scholar who pursued an MFA in Animation Films at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a video game-industry based animation director and creative executive who has been part of core teams that developed highly acclaimed, and successful video game franchises such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park™, Medal of Honor™, Call of Duty™: Finest Hour™, to name a few.

In this week’s post he writes about his journey through animation and gaming and his current endeavor, Sky Village. Sky Village is a game filled with knights, spells and mysteries created by Sunil to help children with dyslexia overcome their reading disorders.

Improving Lives with Animation and Gaming

Videogames can act as drivers for solving challenges in the contemporary world, and for Sunil Thankamushy, who has worked in the video game industry for over two decades, this has been the primary compass of his career. “Using animation and gaming to improve lives, is what I do basically,” he says simply.

Despite his work today in the video game industry as an animation director and creative entrepreneur, it wasn’t a clearly defined path that led him to animation. His main passion had always been in creating comics and storytelling. Even during his bachelor’s degree in physics and electronics in Kochi, he was publishing cartoon columns for The Indian Express newspaper and a psychology magazine in Mumbai. The desire to pursue animation came about sometime during those heady years of drawing cartoons while in college. However, options in India were limited in the early ‘90s.

After receiving the INLAKS scholarship in 1994, barriers broke and doors flung open to Thankamushy. He studied animation at the fabled Animation Workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles. Upon receiving his MFA degree, Sunil was hired by the games division of DreamWorks as one of its first animators. Here he animated over fifteen dinosaurs on the game version of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and later as an animation director played a key role in launching the Steven Spielberg-inspired Medal of Honor™ game series which eventually became a hugely successful gaming franchise.

After several years of working at DreamWorks Interactive, and later at Electronic Arts, Sunil joined hands with other game veterans to co-found Spark Unlimited™, a game studio based in Los Angeles. Spark developed Call of Duty™: Finest Hour™, Turning Point™: Fall of Liberty™, Legendary™, and Lost Planet 3™, among others.

When his first child was born, Sunil decided to change his life direction. He decided to turn away from games that were about blowing stuff up, and make knowledge-based games and products. With this as the goal, he launched companies and teams to create smart and fun products that expand the mind. Forming coalitions and partnerships with fellow creative entrepreneurs across the world, he designs and produces innovative game-like products using virtual reality, mobile, and animation technologies.

This included developing a dinosaur and nature-themed world for Discovery Communications, VR experiences for ReimagineWell to help children overcome fears of medical therapies in children’s hospitals; and working with Embodied Inc. to help develop Moxie, the world’s first AI robot for children on the Autistic spectrum. These innovative ventures led to meeting dyslexia advocate Bill Allen in 2018.

As an person suffering from dyslexia, Allen had not learned to read properly until he was 43 years old. Allen knew what it was like to have an unhealthy dependency on others to do his reading for him, and its negative effects on his self-esteem and life experience. Allen was aware however that the key to unlocking reading is the mastery of Sight Words (words like, ‘the’, ‘was’, ‘or’, ‘therefore’ etc – words without pictures to associate with). For a number of years, he struggled to find the right medium to engage children with Sight Words. Eventually, he hit upon the idea that games were the right medium to correct reading disorders.

The game that Sunil came up with to respond to the challenge became SKY VILLAGE – Trail of Spells.

“My best work is done in coffee shops!”, says Sunil. A full summer of drinking black coffee in cafés in and around Los Angeles, and hundreds of hours later, 24 separate short stories, 30 to 40 different characters, fascinating story arcs, game mechanic ideas, and a preliminary game prototype all fell into place. This was the core of Sky Village™ – Trail of Spells.

After four years of game development overseeing a creative team comprised largely of his former top students in Los Angeles, and technology teams based in Chennai and Bangalore, SKY VILLAGE- Trail of Spells is ready for the public.

SKY VILLAGE™ is an innovative role-playing adventure game for young children struggling to read. Using patented techniques, technologies, innovative game design, and good old-fashioned storytelling, SKY VILLAGE™ engages the young player with word puzzles, and brain-twisters, and builds up their reading.

The key technique used in SKY VILLAGE is, of course, Sight Words mastery. As the child masters Sight Words, and reads their way through SKY VILLAGE, their scores and improvements get sent to the parents.

In this charming adventure game done in an adorable pixel-art style, the player takes on the role of a young warrior known as Knight. Together with faithful companion Lance the dog, Knight goes on a quest to uncover the great mystery about their curious little village perched up among the clouds. In the process, they encounter various characters, quirky friends, magnificent wizards, and fearsome forces.

Knight is mentored by Marcela the wizard as she teaches Knight how to recognize and master Spells (Sight Words) and builds up Knight on an increasingly challenging journey. Marcela also coaches Knight to calm his/her mind by taking deep breaths every time she detects frustration in Knight. She also guides Knight in focusing on his/her internal “Mind’s Eye” to regain focus at times of stress. SKY VILLAGE™ – Trail of Spells is thus the first role playing game we know of that uses game conventions to teach children breath control, and manage self-awareness.

“Bill Allen has always insisted that the key to reading for dyslexic children, or people with reading disorders is learning to manage the Mind’s Eye”, says Sunil. This resonated well with Sunil, who has been a practitioner of deep breathing techniques and meditation himself for over twenty years. The innovative game-mechanic “Bindu Mind’s Eye Tech” that came about from their collaboration was granted a US patent recently.

Other innovations in SKY VILLAGE include “Adaptive Content Casting™” (which updates content based on the child’s progress, allowing the child to continue at a pace that is natural to them), ..” and a few other technologies in the works.”

As Knight the Warrior, the player cares for their home, doing tasks and chores to nurture plants and creatures. Periodic puzzles challenge the player’s memory and word usage skills and are used to unlock fun and exciting activities. As Knight discovers more of the fantastic world of Sky Village, the challenges become more complex and engaging. Knight must tackle obstacles and acquire Spells (sight words) to unlock mysteries, tools, and activities. The secrets are revealed little by little as Knight works to uncover all there is to know about Sky Village.

The game allows parents and teachers to monitor their child’s progress through periodic reports sent to them.

There is never a dull moment in Sky Village, as fun, mystery, and adventure can be found behind secret doors, hidden in concealed areas, and past prickly plants. Sky Village is filled with remarkable charm as Knight collects odd items, magical keys, chats with eccentric characters, reads stories tucked away among the caverns, and uncovers mysterious messages sprinkled throughout this beguiling land. Parents have discovered that children who play the game become so fully engrossed in the adventure that they don't even notice that this is actually a computer game that is about reading!

Thankamushy considers this project to be a most rewarding experience and a refreshing challenge. “This is by far the most interesting product I have ever designed and is a fantastic use of animation and gaming to improve children’s lives.”, he says.

Along with his entrepreneurial ventures, Sunil is on the faculty of Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) near Los Angeles, ushering in hundreds of new young minds into animation and gaming each year energized with the optimism that like him they too may use the medium to improve lives.

Cover Image: Sreekanth (Sunil) Thankamushy