💬 0 🔁 14 ❤️ 41 · IFComp 2026: Generative AI Policy Update · For IFComp 2026, we are introducing a new rule addressing the use of generative AI. The guiding principle is that judges and players s…

It’s been six months since I’ve published a dev log. Progress has been steady– as is self doubt and anxiety. This is by far the longest adventure game I’ve ever made. There are currently about 30 rooms, and 40 characters, and still a lot more to do. Act 1 is programmed and playable start to finish; Act 2, the most nonlinear section, is designed, and I’m starting to work on scripting and creating assets for it. Much of what I’ve been focusing on is modeling and exploring the city. The first adventure game I played that allowed you to explore a city was Quest for Glory 2 – and most of the city consisted of empty alleyways with locked doors and only the occasional wandering NPC. More modern adventure games, from Gabriel Knight onwards, start with a city map and points of interest to explore. This works well when it’s your home city– but misses the rather frustrating experience of getting lost that anyone who’s moved to a big city is likely aware of. City of Glass has four main plazas – the university district, the square outside the cathedral, the wealthier Lady’s district, and the docks. There are other ethnic neighbors within the city– for Jews, Greeks, Turks, Slavs – but the dominant language is Italian. All of them have a day and night cycle, and each background is designed and painted individually. I’m working on making character designs more modular and reusable– but the architecture of the city is more distinct. There are open side streets, cramped alleyways, slums, open plazas, fountains, and construction sites. Moving from the much-more-limited village to the city was overwhelming for me. I spent some time blocked, before resorting to modeling things in 3D in the Neverwinter Night’s toolset. This helped the spatial relations in the city make more sense to me. In any game that features a city this strongly, it becomes the main character. The exteriors are now explorable, dynamic, and hopefully, memorable.

I released an interactive short story called Dad’s Shiva last month, as part of the 2025 EctoComp. In it you play a character, estranged from their abusive father, who visits their sister who’s had him in hospice care for the last five years. EctoComp is a yearly Halloween-themed IF competition. There were some great entries this year, including: * I Got You by Kastel Complete with 1940s comic cover art and a smarmy narrator, this choice-based short story takes the structure of a dating sim and goes to explore transphobia in an uncomfortable and vivid way. * Kinophobia by Bruno Dias A deep, meaty parser-driven entry, this mystery/exorcism game lets you explore a haunted movie studio and try to put to rest no less than 24 ghosts. It took me five hours to complete. While ther are some supernatural elements that I missed on the first play through, most of it involves digging through old documents and online archives of the history of a doomed film producer couple between 1974 and 1997. * Beneath the Weeping Willow by Lamp Post Games I’m still astonished that this was created in 4 hours. The plot of the dead child needing to be laid to rest is familiar, but the polish and charm of the presentation made it memorable. Makes heavy use of Ink’s dynamic text. * Stage Fright by Dercomai Another parser-driver adventure, this one heavy on puzzles and comedic horror. You play a homunculus understudy at a theater company that recently had a tragic accident. Alludes to _The Phantom of the Opera_ , _Into the Woods_ , _Dracula_ , _Sherlock Holmes_ , and other theater staples. * Costumes and Candy by Leon Lin This one was cute. Very cute. You play a kid competing with a rival to collect the most candy on Halloween, while knocking on houses in a neighborhood block. Each house expands into its own minigame. I particularly enjoyed the Twine game-with-in-a game where you help your neighbors playtest their EctoComp submission. EctoComp is open for judging until the end of November, so take a look at all 63 (!!!) submissions here.

Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.

www.katherinewilliamson.co.uk available for teaching, weddings and corporate events.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is ready to work to make New York safe and affordable for all of its residents.

AdventureX, the narrative games conference, is back & bigger than ever! Taking place on 22 - 23 Nov in central London at the LSBU Hub building. As always, we'll have a great selection of game demos and talks/panels to experience, AND our legendary afterparties with (limited) free food & drink!