This year at GDC our team walked the convention floor several times. Out of everything we saw, the booth that stood out the most belonged to a game called Scorched Nebraska. While the booth was what drew us in, it’s the story behind the game that brought us back to do a story.
The project started with a book written by Janusz Jeremiasz Filipiak, a computer engineer who studied at Virginia Tech and Cornell. As the story developed, his wife, Ashl’y Mims – Filipiak, began exploring what it might look like to turn the world of the book into a video game.
Last year, the couple attended GDC Festival of Gaming to learn more about the industry. That visit helped push the idea forward.
“We came to GDC last year and absolutely loved it. We loved the vibe and the people,” Ashly Mims-Filipiak said. “That gave us the green light that we were going to make a game.”
One year later, they returned with a working demo, a growing team and a booth that quickly caught the attention of people walking the convention floor.
The game itself is described by its creators as a post-post-apocalyptic MMO set about 400 years in the future. In the world of Scorched Nebraska, modern infrastructure has disappeared. Players survive by paying attention to the environment and learning from the world around them.
The design centers around a simple loop: scan the environment, infer what is happening, act on that knowledge and leave a trace that shapes the world for others. Players explore plains and fragmented towns, searching for resources and uncovering clues about what remains.
The booth presenting that world stood out immediately.
Instead of a traditional convention display, the team built an environment around a shipping container that had been transformed into part of the game’s universe. The structure felt rugged and detailed, drawing people in to figure out what was happening inside.
Even the story behind the booth reflected the same homegrown spirit as the game.
Mims-Filipiak lives in Wyoming, where one of her neighbors happened to have several shipping containers sitting in their backyard. When the team began planning their presence at GDC, the neighbors stepped in to help.
Tristan and Lindsay welded and built the entire structure that eventually became the booth we saw in San Francisco.
“They built it from the ground up,” Mims-Filipiak said. “The welding, the design, everything.”
Those same neighbors traveled to GDC to help run the booth during the conference.
Mims-Filipiak’s sister helped promote the project. Her husband, Janusz Jeremiasz Filipiak, worked with developers who stopped by to discuss the technical side of the game and what it would take to help build it.
Cedric W. Fellows, an account manager with Informa, the organization that produces the Game Developers Conference, praised the team’s presence during the event.
“Congrats to your Scorched Nebraska team and thank you for bringing the experience and wow to GDC Festival of Gaming 2026,” Fellows wrote on LinkedIn. “Can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2027.”
Others walking the floor had a similar reaction.
Tom Shelley, a AAA video game professional, shared a simple review after seeing the booth.
“This was the coolest booth on the convention floor,” he wrote.
Beyond the booth itself, the project is drawing attention because of how it’s being built.
Bypassing the traditional hiring channels, Mims-Filipiak is actively meeting developers at conferences like GDC and inviting them to help shape the game from the beginning.
“I want people who are passionate about game development,” she said.
The team is exploring talent across many roles including engineering, voice acting, music, design and other specialties that go into building a modern game.
Beyond the incredible booth, the thing that caught my attention was the pattern forming around Scorched Nebraska.
A story that began as a book has grown into a game. Neighbors stepping up to weld a shipping container into a booth. Family members helping build/support the project. Developers discovering it at conferences and offering their skills…
The amount of detail going into the booth, the community around it, the character development, the entire story is packed with purpose and I love how the team is approaching the entire project.
When I look at the crowd response at GDC and if the attention to the overall quality so far is any indication, Scorched Nebraska is going to be special.