Who builds it
Founder
Robert Brownstein founded Gnarled Helix in 2022 while working for Boston Dynamics and leads engineering across the studio's products. He began prototyping Open Sourcerer in 2018 and rebuilt it in 2021 as a from-scratch TypeScript engine architected for web-first delivery — the engine the studio's later products are built on. He is the author of its open-source rendering packages, three-aseprite and protosprite, both released under MIT.
Engineer
I'm a software engineer who got my start in game development through Game Maker Studio. That early curiosity grew into building my own 2D game engine from scratch in C, and into contributing to the games we make at Gnarled Helix! The work I'm proudest of lives in the Open Sourcerer engine. I introduced behavior trees for entity AI, giving designers a composable way to author enemy logic, and overhauled the camera system to drive cutscene sequencing and dynamic camera zones throughout our levels.
Lead Pixel Artist
Bruno Cortés is a lead artist and pixel animator with over 10 years of experience across games, advertising, and interactive media. He's built his career on adapting to a project's visual language and pushing it further — blending craft with a sharp eye for mood and atmosphere. Based in Mexico.
Lead Concept Artist
Jan-Nikolay Jäckel, better known as "Hatwolf," is a Concept Artist at Gnarled Helix LLC, specializing in character, prop, environment and UI design, as well as high-polish illustrations. Alongside their work at Gnarled Helix, they continue to work as a freelance artist for a range of clients, including YouTubers, Streamers, and independent game development teams, contributing artwork to visual novels and other games. Their work is rooted primarily in fantasy, drawing on their background in the furry art community and a long-standing passion for expressive, character-driven designs. They are also the creator of the award-winning worldbuilding project After Silence, for which they develop both the writing and artworks.