Echoes of Nyx
A narrative-driven puzzle game exploring memory and perception through procedurally generated dreamscapes. Built with a custom engine, Echoes pushes the boundaries of emergent storytelling within a hand-crafted aesthetic framework.
Kai Vasquez
Lead systems designer and generative audio specialist. Kai builds the mechanical hearts of MiRiS projects -- intricate rule-systems that produce emergent behavior from simple premises. Known for late-night jam sessions that blur the line between music composition and code.
systems · audioMidnight Jam #47
72-hour collaborative game jam. Theme revealed at the stroke of midnight. Tools provided, ambitions unlimited. Last jam produced three playable prototypes and one surprisingly functional card game about interstellar bartending.
The Origin Story
MiRiS began in 2019 as a Discord channel between five friends who kept arguing about game design philosophy at 3AM. The arguments became prototypes. The prototypes became projects. The projects became a circle -- a group with no hierarchy, no formal structure, just a shared conviction that games are the most interesting medium of the century and that making them together is better than making them alone. The name MiRiS was chosen because it sounds like "mirrors" -- reflecting each member's ideas back amplified and transformed.
Phosphor Trail
A multiplayer exploration game set in bioluminescent cave networks. Players cooperate by literally sharing light -- their characters glow, and staying close illuminates the environment. Moving apart means risk and darkness, but also discovery.
Sable Okonkwo
Visual artist and world-builder. Sable paints environments that feel like places you half-remember from dreams -- impossible architecture that somehow makes emotional sense. Her sketchbooks are legendary within the circle.
art · worldsPlaytest Parlour
Monthly gathering where works-in-progress meet their first outside eyes. Feedback is honest but kind -- like a good cocktail, it goes down smooth but has a kick. Snacks provided. Opinions mandatory.
playtest · monthlyVelvet Mechanics
An experimental tabletop RPG system designed for improvisational narrative play. No dice, no stats -- just a deck of evocative prompt cards and a shared fiction space. Velvet Mechanics strips role-playing to its essential social magic: collaborative storytelling with just enough structure to surprise everyone at the table. The system has been playtested across 200+ sessions and continues to evolve with every game night.
The Discord Era
From 2019 to 2021, MiRiS existed purely as a Discord server -- channels for brainstorming, voice chats for prototyping, and a bot that tracked everyone's game ideas (there were hundreds). The server became a living design document.
discord · 2019-2021Ren Matsuda
Narrative designer and dialogue wizard. Ren writes characters who feel like people you know -- flawed, funny, and achingly real. Specializes in branching narrative structures that actually matter.
Demo Night
Quarterly showcase where finished (or "finished enough") projects get their moment in the spotlight. Projector, speakers, and an audience of friends who genuinely care. The applause is real even when the framerate is not.
showcase · quarterlyTidepool
A meditative simulation of a living tidal ecosystem. No goals, no scores -- just an ever-evolving pocket of marine life that responds to time of day, weather data, and player presence. Equal parts screensaver and philosophical statement.
Going Physical
In 2022, MiRiS rented its first shared workspace -- a converted storage unit with fairy lights and too many monitors. The physical space transformed the circle. Proximity breeds collaboration, and suddenly half-finished prototypes found their other halves.
workspace · 2022Jules Park
Sound designer and composer who scores every MiRiS project. Jules turns gameplay into synesthesia -- every interaction has a sonic texture, every environment a ambient frequency signature that players absorb without noticing.
sound · musicThe Manifesto
In late 2023, the circle published its creative manifesto -- not as a set of rules but as a collection of questions: "What does it mean to play?" "Can a game be a poem?" "When does interaction become art?" The manifesto became the circle's compass, referenced before every major design decision. It lives as a living document, amended after every project retrospective. Current version: 4.7.
Dev Okafor
Programmer and toolmaker. Dev builds the custom engines, editors, and pipelines that make MiRiS projects possible. Believes that the tools shape the art, so the tools must be art too.
code · tools