Green Hawk Platoon is a fast-paced single-player and multiplayer FPS that throws players into the world’s smallest army. From the kitchen table to the backyard, plastic toy soldiers clash in battles both imaginative and chaotic. Players pick their favorite class and join teammates to fight for control of everyday spaces transformed into miniature warzones. The game was created by RetroPixel Digital, co-founded by Nick Romick, who wanted to make a game that felt playful, alive, and surprisingly tactical.
Nick Romick, co-founder of RetroPixel, knew that traditional animation alone wouldn’t deliver the responsiveness or expressiveness he wanted. Using MANUS gloves, the team recorded every finger movement and grip, ensuring that interactions with weapons, doors, and environmental objects felt precise. These hand motions were combined with Xsens full-body tracking to create a complete performance that animators could translate directly into the game. The combination of MANUS and Xsens allowed even the smallest soldiers to move convincingly, turning ordinary household spaces into playful yet dynamic battlefields.
Once the motion data was collected, animators integrated it directly into the characters. The subtle gestures captured with MANUS gloves became key gameplay moments: a soldier signaling a teammate, preparing to throw a grenade, or reloading a tiny weapon. Because the motion was performance-driven, the movements retained a natural flow and rhythm, giving players a sense that each soldier had its own personality and responsiveness. MANUS made it possible to combine realism with the game’s playful scale.
Green Hawk Platoon demonstrates how motion capture can bring even the tiniest characters to life. The combination of MANUS gloves and Xsens full-body tracking gave RetroPixel the tools to create expressive, precise, and playful animations that set the game apart. The project shows that attention to performance detail, combined with imaginative worldbuilding, can turn something as simple as a toy soldier into a fully realized, engaging character.
