RotGear

The Brackey’s Game Jam runs twice a year, offering developers a chance to experiment with new ideas and connect with others. Participants get one week to create a game from a chosen theme, submitting them at the end to be rated by other participants. I entered into the 2025.1 jam as part of a three-person team I met through the Brackey’s Discord server. The theme was "Nothing Can Go Wrong". Our team really wanted to make a horror game. So after deliberating we landed on a game where the player must complete tasks to keep a mysterious facility running smoothly.

During the jam, I handled all the art except for the enemy models. Our programmer TonyTheDanker not only coded the game but also designed the puzzles and enemy models. FunkySwampRat our audio designer, crafted the music and voiced the very trustworthy disembodied voice. These two were fantastic to work with, and we kicked off the jam by bonding over Arcane memes. Choosing our name, BookStreet, from said memes. A reference to shot of Jayce and Vi firing Jayce’s hammer. Tony called them bookstreet, combining street smart (Vi) and book smart (Jayce). To be honest it took a second for us to put it together, but I feel like that’s part of what made it a good name for us.

We are all in very different time zones so we were pretty much working on the game non-stop. The few hours that we did overlap were really fun. Sending updates and seeing the game slowly be refined and come to life was a very rewarding experience. Towards the end I was working very late. Being in the group chat late at night with them really reminded me of my college days late in the studio. The vibes are just different — it’s exhausting but unmatched.

After submitting our game, RotGear, seeing player reactions was surreal. I had never experienced that level of engagement with something I had created before. Feedback varied wildly; for instance, the final conveyor puzzle was divisive—some found it satisfying, while others struggled to solve it. Video games as a medium is so much fun, because the way people interact with a game will never be the same. Seeing people react to RotGear made the project feel more tangible, like it had it’s own life. We got really lucky and even had a few people making youtube videos playing our game!! I am an OG youtube kid, and if 12 year old me could have seen this happening they would have lost it.

Overall the Jam challenged me in a lot of really good ways. I didn’t have time to sit and make everything perfect, something I fought against for the first few days. I met two new people and made a whole project with them a week later. Tried a completely new art style and workflow that I had not done before. I often fail to believe in my own ability to do stuff. With the time limit there was no room for doubt. I have wanted to join a game jam for a while but kept pushing it off for one reason or another. I’m glad I finally dove in and entered. I definitely see myself completing more game jams in the future.