Happy 2026!
Today, we’re going to bring you behind the scenes for one of our favorite annual traditions: the Highrise Internal Game Jam!
Why We Jam
Unsurprisingly, here on staff, we’re gamers. From Baldur’s Gate to Love and Deepspace, our team lives, breathes, and dreams all things gaming. But, when we’re collectively juggling feature development, art production, and QA testing, it can be hard for most folks to find time to roll up their sleeves and dive into the game development process.
Enter our internal Game Jam. Just like our community-wide World-building challenges, these are friendly competitions for our staff to join in a mini hackathon.
This December, we had 9 teams of Highrise employees join forces across disciplines from engineering and product to recruiting, live ops, art, and more. As a company, we’re scattered across the world (20 countries total!), so many teams operated across time zones from the US and Canada to Brazil and Poland.
Teams worked together to create shipped, playable worlds fast, learned a ton, and (most importantly) put our own tools through the exact kind of pressure test our creators face every day.
While there were prizes for the top creations (congrats, y’all! 
), the goal wasn’t perfection. The goal was to ship something playable, show it off, and learn what breaks when you build at speed.
And this time around, there was a fun twist: every team also built with Rosie, our internal AI agent for making Highrise Studio games. 
Rosie: Meet Your AI Building Companion
Every team used Rosie, our internal AI agent, as part of their workflow.
Rosie is a work-in-progress, and not publicly available – YET.
Rosie is a Claude Code plugin built in-house by our World team developers. In plain terms, it lets you work with an AI that understands the unique moving parts of a Studio project (Lua components, UI, networking, Unity editor workflows), so you can build faster, debug quicker, and get unblocked.
Rosie walks you through game set-up, step by step
Rosie is tailored to the way Highrise Studio projects are structured and built, so she can help move projects along even if you’re not a hardcore programmer.
The best part is that Rosie is working with the exact same Studio interface that you are. You can see everything she does, provide feedback, and make any edits you want.
She’s coming to you in the next few weeks, so please stay tuned!
Rosie At Work
Our Game Jam was the first time we got to see Rosie used across multiple projects, team styles, and experience levels, all at once.
One of our winning entries, Neighborhood Sugar, being made in Studio
This was a real-world test run, not a sandbox demo. Many of our teams were comprised of staff from disciplines that never touch code, like Marketing and Product Design. Since Rosie is meant to be totally user-friendly for code newbies, having novice world-builder teammates get down in the weeds was the perfect way to dogfood the experience.
The term ”dogfooding” means that we’re eating our own cooking, so to speak. As staff, that means we’re using our own tools, actually playing Highrise and socializing in-app, and sometimes even submitting to HR Concepts or Ideas.
It’s a good way to close the gap between staff and player, and build real empathy for you, our community and creators. When we build with the same tools you use, feeling the same wins and frictions, we get sharper instincts about what to improve, and what’s already working great.
The moment you’ve been waiting for: THE GAMES
Over just a few days in late December, our teams cranked out some impressive builds, and just a few claimed top spots for Most Shippable, Best Overall, and People’s Choice.
Check out our gorgeous spread of entries! We have everything from kart racers to city builders to laser tag.
You can play our top Game Jam creations right now:
Dance Revolution Extreme HR: a slick multiplayer rhythm game
https://highrise.game/world/69480d926fe50a3d429c0623?id=69480d926fe50a3d429c0623&shared=true
Neighborhood Sugar: a cozy bakery sim with adorable Snugglin customers
https://highrise.game/world/694889cd6fe50a3d429c16fc?id=694889cd6fe50a3d429c16fc&shared=true
Risecraft: a seriously impressive world-building game
https://highrise.game/world/6944bee248ed09af9dbc4081?id=6944bee248ed09af9dbc4081&shared=true
The Little Ones: a social “god game” with tons of polish and interactions
https://highrise.game/world/694564c1b9d56d47ba24b0c8
Your Turn!
If you want to see what Highrise Studio can do, these worlds are a great place to start: go explore, poke at mechanics, and steal inspiration.
Ready to build your own?
Get started in Highrise Studio!
https://create.highrise.game/learn/studio/basics/getting-started
Plus, hang out with us in Discord in the Highrise Create community. There, you can collaborate with other creators, ask questions, and share feedback directly with our own developer team.