Features Have Names.
Names Have Stories.

One of my first memorable moments in Brunch Hackers came from a weekly Hack Jam live session.

Luana asked if we could chain interactions together, which sparked a complete rethinking of a feature I had just introduced.

I spent days working on a whole new concept of chained switches. It was one of those early moments where I realized I wasn't just doing one-off hacks anymore. We were glimpsing the beginnings of a more cohesive system.

And in a fun twist, Luana even showcased it with a Halloween-themed room, making secret elements appear in sequence.

It became a cornerstone of what was to come.

Marissa was the first original hacker in the GoBrunch world, long before BrunchHackers existed. She was already tweaking seat transparency and size through code before I had even joined GoBrunch, let alone before there were UI options for that.

The real story began when I joined one of her popular sessions. People would land in random seats, sometimes even in the organiser's spot without realising it. On mobile, they couldn't see where they were sitting. It created chaos in big rooms.

So I went deep studying the structure of a GoBrunch page. I broke so many rooms! But that rabbit hole led to organiser-only seats, predictable numbering, and full control over auto-seat logic.

Later, I spotted a subtle trick she used in her co-working rooms: dedicated "quiet seats" to show, "I'm here, but not available." Just a visual cue.

When I built the official Quiet Seats feature, I knew it would raise questions. It doesn't mute. It just shapes the seat order.

But I built it anyway.

Only for the two of us.

Jessica had this wild idea: what if we could move seats around the room when we change scenes?

At first I said no. Too complicated. Avatars, labels, webcams. Too much going on. She asked three times. Still no.

Then one day, while hanging out in one of her rooms, I started playing with the layout. Stacy joked, "I could totally eat popcorn while watching Claudio do his thing." And somehow, I saw a path.

A few days later, it was done. I could move seats around, save those layouts, and bring them back whenever I wanted. An elegant solution to a complex problem.

When I showed it to Jessica, she got emotional.

"You have no idea how many people in my community this is going to help."

That's when I knew it wasn't just a fun feature.

It was something that mattered.

I had just created a brand-new background dialog that made it easy to handle multiple scenes.

Then, in a conversation, Julie said, "You know, there are so many images now. We really need a way to isolate each scene's assets."

That was the lightbulb moment.

I added a single checkbox that let us focus on one scene at a time, and just like that, everything became so much simpler.

That's how Julie's Checkbox earned its place as the most useful checkbox in the history of humanity.

I had just created the GoTo Navigation feature. You could click an image and jump to a link, go to the top or bottom, or scroll to a specific section of the page.

Peggy instantly put it to work. First in her Global Business Plaza directory, then in the Expo.

Her pages were long, with clear sections and categories. GoTo let her turn those into smooth, clickable hubs. It was the first time I saw this kind of feature used not just for creativity, but for real business flow.

That's when I realized we weren't just hacking like kids for purely abstract pursuits.

We were building tools for grown-up problems.

Even before Dr. CK joined, I'd built a way to heavily customize seats with custom images.

When she came along, she wanted to do a variation (2 different custom seats) that would require some custom coding.

I told her, "You can't do that. But, just follow the playbook lesson to set them up first. When you're done, I'll fix them for you."

If I learned something that day, it was never say "you can't do it" to anyone, especially Dr. CK!

She took that as a challenge and, with a bit of help from ChatGPT and some creative ingenuity, she turned those seats into absolute works of art.

They were so stunning and perfect for her virtual museum that no one else in Brunch Hackers could match their beauty.

So when I think about custom seats now, it's definitely Dr. CK's signature feature and her fearless attitude.

Dr. Hermi has a way of making magic out of constraints.

Even before he joined, he was using clever little tricks to customize his rooms in ways that made me wonder how he did it without custom coding or BrunchMagic Pro.

He found ways to add semi-transparency on images by using a little GoBrunch quirk, then put it to good use in his rooms.

Now, every time I use the extension to change opacity with a slider, I think about Dr. Hermi.

All his rooms use the page background customization hack I created. That feature is his too.

I had just introduced custom speech bubbles at the very last Hack Jam of Wave 3, replacing GoBrunch's default icon with your own in real time. An elegant solution using a JavaScript observer. Pretty technical.

Jamie suggested, "What if you could link it to an external image? Like, say, a heart. I'd love that. Then a room helper could swap the icon live just by changing the link."

At first, I saw all the reasons it wouldn't work. But then it hit me.

What if I could hack the chat to send a command?

Then a local observer could pick up that command and apply the change across the entire room!

I said it out loud, not sure anyone understood the scale of what had just realized:

"Oh my... I think I just figured something out."

Two days later, I had it working. I got my first Nobel price for that, LOL.

We could swap icons dynamically. More importantly, chat commands could now control switches and scenes across everyone's screen.

That was the birth of /bh commands.

And when I think of it, I still picture Jamie's heart.

Long before GoBrunch built-in browser notifications were a thing, Stacy had this idea: what if we could get an alert the moment someone stepped into the room?

I set it up through a little integration with Pabbly, sending a push notification to our phones so we'd know someone is there without them having to do anything.

It's a feature I use to this day in all of my rooms.

I always enjoyed my occasional chats with Frank about gamification and instructional design.

But I admit, I was caught off guard when I heard that he and Julie were bringing two more colleagues to the next wave.

BrunchHackers was originally built with solopreneurs in mind. So I had to ask: what job were they trying to get done?

I said, "Frank, I know why I built this. But why are you here?"

He said, "Claudio, what you're doing now could replace a much more expensive enterprise tool we normally use. It's more lightweight, and because of the nature of GoBrunch, it's also different."

That got me curious. So, with Julie's help, I looked into their platform and asked,

"What's the low-hanging fruit?"

Variables.

They had them. I didn't.

Their version felt too scripty, so I built something that followed the same philosophy I'd used for other features. Simple, not simplistic.

It's early days and we're only scratching the surface.

But when I started using them to control animation, I knew that they'd be the cornerstone of our next Brunch Hackers revolution.

Susan wasn't the first to ask for operator-only visible chats. You see, hackers use the chat to send commands across their rooms: changing scenes for everyone, updating speech bubbles, and more. But sometimes it's just not appropriate to leave the chat visible to attendees, especially if the room is left unattended. You never know what someone might type in.

When we discussed it during a weekly Hack Jam, another hacker was baffled:

"What??? What kind of members do you have in your community?"

Well, if you knew Susan, you wouldn't be surprised. Ah ah.

So I built the feature with her in mind.

Her response?

"Great! Can you name it after me? LOL."

Already there, Susan.

For the glory of the next centuries.