Gamejam spotlight:
Beneath The Gate
As part of the “thatgamecompany x Coreplazer” gamejam 2025, I was lucky enough to meet a very talented VFX/Environment artist called Alexandre Durocher who proposed making an ambitious project with a beautiful and touching description:
“A quiet, emotionally driven exploration game about giving everything you are — to awaken a sealed world from within.
You play as a lone, glowing being called a Kindred, who descends through five sacred levels — each one reflecting an element of life: air, light, water, growth and creatures.
To progress, you must sacrifice parts of yourself — literally give away your energy to restore systems long dormant.”
It sounded like a gift for any composer and I was immediately on board- only to be blown away by the concept art he had already made.
His requirements for the music were simple and clear:
“The music must: Reflect the Kindred’s gradual fading. Grow in harmony and richness as the world awakens. Tie each area to its element (wind, light, water, flora, fauna, sky). Convey moments of resonant stillness, release, and quiet grief. Players must feel each note not as reward — but as memory.”
And his musical inspirations happened to be four of my favourite soundtracks:
“Journey – emotional arc through instrument layers. Outer Wilds – quiet memory-driven melody. Ori and the Blind Forest – light/soft darkness balance. Clair Obscur – swelling, fading, sacrifice-bound textures”
I responded with the following couple of sketches, trying to reflect everything above, with an emphasis on the changing instrumentation between two sections:
We spent the next couple of days sending material back and forth, as Alexandre blocked out levels and translated his art into 3d versions within Godot. I worked on making three main themes, all of which had 3-4 layers of complexity which would transition as the player progressed.
An early prototype of the external and internal vault sections
As with all gamejam projects, there wasn’t enough time to fully realise the vision, but considering Alex was providing all artwork, programming, and game design, the results were impressive, and the process itself was extremely gratifying. Both his vision and his ability to communicate it were on a level I rarely get to see in the industry and his artwork speaks for itself. It’s rare to get an opportunity this inspiring but I now feel the need to enter as many gamejams as I possibly can!
You can check out the submitted project here:
https://bloodthirsty91.itch.io/beneath-the-gate
And Alexandre’s linkedin page is below: