tabitha writes

author of queer fantasy romance & other queer things! | traditional fiction at tabithaoconnell.com | interactive fiction at alyshkalia.itch.io

[tabitha-writes]

Blood Play by Tabitha O'Connell

Lyle's new crush isn't really a vampire... or is he? (short story)

Previously featured in Unthinkable: A Queer Gothic Anthology, my short story "Blood Play" (which was the basis for my IF works about Zach and Lyle) is now available for free on Itch!

Lonely grad student Lyle is excited to instantly hit it off with Zach, whose claim to be a vampire is just a joke... right? A contemporary gothic story with a nonbinary ace MC and an ace-spec love interest.

[tabitha-writes]

Blood Play by Tabitha O'Connell

Lyle's new crush isn't really a vampire... or is he? (short story)

Previously featured in Unthinkable: A Queer Gothic Anthology, my short story "Blood Play" (which was the basis for my IF works about Zach and Lyle) is now available for free on Itch!

Lonely grad student Lyle is excited to instantly hit it off with Zach, whose claim to be a vampire is just a joke... right? A contemporary gothic story with a nonbinary ace MC and an ace-spec love interest.

[tabitha-writes]

Blood and Silver by alyshkalia

So you bought your vampire bf a silver ring as an anniversary gift...

My latest IF release, a new Lyle and Zach game!

[ifcomp]

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 should experience work created by humans. Accordingly, all player-facing content in IFComp entries, including cover art, must be entirely created by humans. Authors may continue to use tools of their choice, including generative AI tools, for development assistance such as editing, debugging, accessibility support, research, limited translation assistance, or coding. Entries may not require judges or players to interact with external AI or generative services during play. This rule was informed by results from the 2025 post-competition survey and discussion within the IFComp Committee. We thank everyone who shared their feedback; this post-comp survey received the strongest response we have ever had, and it helped guide the Committee’s deliberations. That's the update! If you're interested in some of the information from the post-competition survey that helped inform the decision, keep reading.

Survey charts on the GAI use-case questions from the survey are shared below to give a clearer picture of the feedback we received. Alt text on these images provides the complete percentage breakdown.

And, finally, we asked "Which of the following best reflects the approach you think IFComp should take regarding GAI in entries? Think of this as the bottom line for a potential new Author Rule." These are the responses we received:

38.4% - Technical and editorial assistance only: GAI may be used for support tasks such as grammar, translation, brainstorming, or debugging. GAI may not be used to create text, art, or music assets, and entries must not require judges to interact with an external AI system to function.

32.2% - No generative AI: Entries must not include or rely on any GAI-generated material in any form beyond spell checking.

10.9% - Transparency only: GAI may be used for any purpose, but authors must disclose how it was used.

5.7% - Human-reviewed but with limits: GAI may be used for art, music, or code, but not to generate text or dialogue that appears in the final entry, and entries must not require judges to interact with an external AI system to function.

4.7% - Human-reviewed creative use: GAI may be used for any element (text, art, music, code), as long as the author edits all AI-generated text before submission.

3.3% - No restrictions: Authors may freely use GAI for any purpose (including text, art, music, or code) with optional disclosure.

The following responses were unique / 1 response each:

Transparency with ethical source requirement: GAI tools *trained on ethically sourced or open-licensed data* may be used for any purpose, but authors must disclose how it was used.

Technical and editorial assistance only. Debugging is a valuable service and people shouldn't be penalized for limited programming skills. I also would prefer either no AI cover art *or* an opt-in to allow AI cover art. This would be a tricky thing to add on the entry form, but ... ideally I'd like human-made art to appear and then, only if the judge opts in, AI art.

No generative AI use.

mix of transparency and limited: should be disclosed, but no live connection allowed

Live APIs and multimedia only: GAI may be used for supplemental multimedia assets (with disclosure) but not for text, *unless* the text is being generated in realtime in response to player input.

It shouldn't even be allowed to be used for spellchecking.

I would be equally happy with "Technical and editorial assistance only" or "No generative AI." The last two options to be clear.

I don't think IFComp should dictate what tools authors can or can't use for tasks like brainstorming or debugging; I’d consider that outside the purview of what the comp organizers should be allowing or disallowing. My preferred rule would be the second-to-last without the "may be used for" sentence and with banning translation: GAI may not be used to create text, art, or music assets, or to translate your writing from one language to another, and entries must not require judges to interact with an external AI system to function.

Full transparency for any use as well as a complete ban on external systems. If someone manages to create a stand-alone IFchatbot that fits into Glulx, I'd want to see that. ;)

Between Tech Only and No GenAI, with an emphasis on no exceptions for text.

[kithj]

Announcing the third Queer Vampire IF Jam!

This is a month-long game jam that will run from January 10 - February 20th, 2026. The goal of this jam is to create more interactive fiction games about queer vampires, focusing both on queer relationships and queer experiences, and exploring them through various vampiric narratives.

Check out our 2024 entries here, and the 2025 entries here!

🦇 🥀 🕯 🪦 🩸 JAM RULES 🩸🪦🕯🥀🦇

Your project must focus on queer characters and vampires. Relationships, romantic or platonic, as well as queer experiences, whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, ace, aro, trans and nonbinary - this is an inclusive jam. 

You can write from a human or vampire perspective (or both!) The vampire is a versatile tool, and you are not restricted to any one specific depiction of it.

This jam will accept any program/medium, so long as the work is an Interactive Fiction.

Interactive Fiction is hard to define, so in this instance as long as the game is recognizably interactive fiction - the game has a narrative focus primarily with text, and the player can interact (whether that be with direct choices, clicking through links, or allowing the player to choose how to move around and interact with the world/the game, like in bitsy) then it counts. Parsers, visual novels, choose-your-own-adventures are some of the popular examples of IF, but there are plenty that don't fall within any category, and we're not interested in trying to police a rigid definition. I suggest checking out past entries and browsing the IF tag for examples!

This jam will accept adult content as well as games covering heavy & uncomfortable topics, but please be sure to properly list trigger warnings either in-game or on the game page.

Entries that promote any kind of bigotry will not be accepted.

Games should not include any AI generated content. This includes both art and writing.

There is no language requirement; we will accept games in any language.

You can submit as many entries as you'd like.

You are allowed to start working on your project early! This is unranked and it's not a contest, this is just for fun.

Submissions open midnight, January 10th EST. They'll close February 20th at 11:59pm EST. 

A few possible resources for creating Interactive Fiction:

Twine

Ink

Ren'Py

Bitsy

Inform 7

Narrat

Choicescript

Join the jam here!

Hosted by me, @nyehilismwriting, and @damnation-if

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

[tabitha-writes]

ECTOCOMP 2025

A game jam from 2025-10-01 to 2025-12-01 hosted by rubereaglenest, alyshkalia & Passerine. There's a full moon rising Let's go dancing in th

ECTOCOMP 2025 is halfway over! 2 weeks left to rate the 62 spooky games. There are English and Spanish games, long and short games, puzzley games and story-focused ones, strong horror and ones only lightly horror-touched. Come play one, just a few, or a few dozen--all votes are welcome!

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

Today's weekly roundup!

[golmac]

Have you filled out the IF Comp survey yet? Please consider completing it.

Your Opinion Matters to Us - Gold Machine

I know we're all tired of talking about this, but. But!

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

A late share of the Weekly Roundup, October 4th edition!

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

It's another IFWR!

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

It's another IF Weekly Roundup! This week includes the announcement of the 2025 ECTOCOMP and a post about the proliferation of generative AI content in IFComp.

[tabitha-writes]

The 2025 edition of ECTOCOMP, the interactive fiction community's annual spooky competition, is here! Submissions open on October 1, but you can begin working on your spooky IF now. Rules and more info at the link!

ECTOCOMP 2025

A game jam from 2025-10-01 to 2025-12-01 hosted by rubereaglenest & alyshkalia. There's a full moon rising Let's go dancing in the light We

[tabitha-writes]

This week's IF news

Another weekly roundup!

[tabitha-writes]

The September 6th edition of the weekly roundup is here!

This week's IF news

[tabitha-writes]

Another Saturday, another IF Weekly Roundup!

IF Weekly Roundup, 30 August 2025