Why This Matters

Yet many young people still struggle to talk openly about their emotions or understand what they are feeling. While awareness around mental health has improved, many existing approaches can still feel clinical, intimidating, passive, or disconnected from lived experience. At the same time, young people are already turning to games for comfort, creativity, connection, and escape.

At Mental Jam, we believe games can become more than entertainment. They can become safe and welcoming spaces where young people can express themselves, share experiences, build creative skills, and feel seen and understood.

A Cozy Space to Create Together

Mental Jam is raising funds to run free game co-design workshops with young people in Banyule in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

Our game, Bobarista, is a cozy narrative game about mental health and wellbeing where players run a magical bubble tea shop and meet characters navigating real-life emotional challenges through heartfelt stories and calming gameplay.

Research increasingly shows that young people are often excluded from the design of mental health technologies and wellbeing initiatives created for them. Through these workshops, young people will directly contribute to the development of Bobarista through characters, stories, artwork, music, and gameplay ideas inspired by their own experiences, emotions, and creativity. The workshops are designed for young people aged approximately 12–21, supporting participants across a broad range of teenage and young adult experiences, creative interests, and stages of emotional development.

The workshops will directly contribute to the development of Bobarista as the game continues toward future public release. Participant-created ideas, stories, characters, artwork, music, and gameplay concepts will help shape the final game, allowing young people to meaningfully contribute to a real creative project that will be publicly launched.

Creative Spaces We’ve Already Built

Over the past several years, Mental Jam facilitated creative game design workshops, talks, and community activities with young people and communities through organisations and spaces including, Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum, Altona North Library, and Braybrook Library. We also facilitated paper prototyping workshops at PAX, helping people explore game design through hands-on creative activities.

“It was absolutely life-changing and mind-changing for me. This game jam made me realise that not everything bad that happened in the past has to stay bad. It can be turned into something positive and inspire other people.”

These sessions explored how games can be used as tools for emotional expression, storytelling, creativity, and connection, helping participants turn personal experiences into interactive stories and playful experiences that help others feel seen and understood.

Help Us Bring These Workshops to Life

Our goal is to deliver multiple workshops for young people in Banyule, helping participants safely explore storytelling, emotional wellbeing, creativity, and game development together.

Each workshop program includes facilitated creative sessions, accessibility support, workshop materials, and opportunities for young people to contribute directly to the development of Bobarista. The workshops will be free and accessible, and participants will be remunerated for their time and creative contributions, recognising and valuing lived experience, ideas, and participation.

This is also an all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign, meaning we will only receive the funds if we successfully reach the campaign goal. If we don’t reach the target, the workshops cannot go ahead.

Be Part of the Story

By supporting this campaign, you’re helping create safe and welcoming creative spaces where young people can feel heard, represented, and connected through storytelling and play.

You’re also helping young people directly shape a real game about mental health and wellbeing through their own creativity and lived experiences.

Our Story

Mental Jam is an Australian independent games studio creating cozy narrative games that support mental health and wellbeing through storytelling, gameplay, and lived experience participation. Founded through Dr Michelle Chen’s PhD research at RMIT University, we are a multidisciplinary team including Michelle Chen (Creative Director and Programmer), Emma Losin (Product Owner, Game Designer, and Marketing), Fitriani Revanda (Narrative Designer, Artist, and Animator), Cheryl Budiman (Game Artist and UX/UI Designer), and Nicholas Rinaldi (Composer and Sound Designer).

Together, we combine professional game development experience, participatory design, psychology-informed practice, and community-focused creative work to help people feel seen, understood, and connected through play. We’re currently raising funds to deliver free game co-design workshops with young people in Banyule, helping participants directly contribute to the development of Bobarista, a cozy game about mental health and wellbeing.

Mental Jam has been supported by organisations including Breakthrough Victoria, RMIT Activator, CSIRO, Museums Victoria, Study Melbourne, StartSpace, and the City of Melbourne.

Learn more about us here: https://hellomentaljam.com/

Rewards

To thank supporters for helping bring these workshops to life, we’ll be unlocking new Bobarista-inspired merch designs and rewards throughout the campaign, including tote bags, T-shirts, hoodies.

Please note: actual item and final design may differ slightly from image. Additional designs may also be unlocked throughout the campaign, and supporters will be able to select from available designs inspired by different Bobarista characters.