Robby Leonardi Portfolio
The original viral interactive résumé — a side-scrolling platformer built in hand-authored HTML5/CSS3/JS where visitors literally play through his skills and work history. Still cited as a benchmark creative portfolio more than a decade after launch.
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
The résumé as a playable game, not a page
Visitors control a character running through side-scrolling levels — underwater, jungle, space — each representing a career chapter. The format itself proves the exact skill set a creative hiring manager is screening for, before a single word of copy is read.
A structure that guarantees full attention
Content is gated behind gameplay, so visitors who want the next section have to interact with the previous one — pulling people through the entire résumé instead of the usual 10-second skim.
Built from fundamentals, not a game engine
The whole experience runs on hand-authored HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript sprite animation rather than a framework like Phaser — for a portfolio meant to prove raw front-end ability, building the mechanism from scratch is the entire point.
What Frontend Developers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
A gimmick only works if the fundamentals under it are solid — this résumé is memorable because the animation code is genuinely well-crafted, not just because it's a game.
Gate content behind a small amount of interaction if you want visitors to actually engage rather than skim.
Build the interactive core in vanilla JS/CSS before reaching for a heavy framework — it keeps things lean and proves the underlying skill more directly.
A strong creative concept can carry a portfolio for years with almost no updates.
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