October 2025
An exhibition, a unique commission, and lots of game news.
Hey everyone,
I have tons of news since the last update so let’s jump right in!
Exhibition at Rød Herregård
Last month I did an exhibition at Rød Herregård in Halden, here in Norway. This in itself was a huge honour, and an absolutely wonderful experience, but on top of that it was a chance to work with a former colleague and good friend, Berit Swensen.
Berit and I worked together for several years and had countless adventures with microscopes, in the field, attending and hosting courses, workshops, and other events focused on soil life in agriculture. It’s hard to put into words the impact she has had on my life; she’s a huge part of how I ended up where I am today.
Berit is now working at Rød Herregård, and she organized the Høstmarked 2025 event. We filled the gallery with soil life prints and also set up a couple of microscopes with living roots, and a big screen with my soil life compilation playing on a loop. We had a steady stream of curious and fascinated visitors coming in to explore and chat throughout the event.
I also came prepared with a little demo of my microbe game, and was thrilled to see both kids and adults getting super into it!
It was wonderful to be part of this event and to work with Berit again. I hope we’ll get a chance to do it again soon.
A New Kind of Commission
Commissions are usually requests for completely new drawings, but this one was a little different.
If you’ve been here for a while you may recall this post from last year, with a very complex soil food web illustration that was not in my usual style:
A few weeks ago I received an email from Isabelle Jenniches, co-founder of the New Mexico Health Soil Working Group. They’re a nonprofit organization focused on public outreach and education to encourage better soil health stewardship.
Isabelle wondered if it would be possible to adapt that drawing to represent the semi-arid environment of New Mexico. We could keep the microbes the same, but change the above-ground flora and fauna, and adjust the colour palette to work with the organization’s existing soil life graphics.
What an interesting new challenge! Thankfully, I had designed the original artwork to be very modular and layered, so it would be relatively simple to swap out specific parts without having to worry about affecting others.
We decided to replace the robin with a curve-billed thrasher, the pumpkin with a melon, and add some patchy grama grass in the background. I also adjusted colours to match their palette wherever it was suitable.
Here’s the updated illustration:
I love how this turned out! The colours are so much bolder and more vibrant than what I’m used to working with, and all the soil life really pops against the richer, more saturated terracotta soil colour.
Big thanks to Isabelle and the NM Healthy Soil Working Group for this lovely project!
Game Updates
Controller Support
I guess I’m old school for preferring mouse and keyboard in games; I had no idea how common it is for people to prefer controllers. At the event in Halden, almost everyone who tried the game was unfamiliar with using the WASD keys to move. That blew my mind!
So the first thing I did when I got home (after vegetating for a day or two) was add controller support to Cellscape. Adding controller input for the gameplay was easy, but navigating the buttons and tabs in the menus has turned out to be rather complicated.
So for now, the game is playable with a controller, but a mouse is still needed for the menus. I do plan to fully support controllers, it will just take some extra work to make the UI compatible.
Biofilm System
In my previous update I mentioned I was itching to get started on the next big game mechanic, biofilms. I’m happy to say they are coming along very nicely!
Biofilms are patches of bacteria and slime. In real life, you fight against them every day when brushing your teeth. In the game, biofilms can be either beneficial or hazardous, depending on the type. Most will cover you in slime that has lingering effects until it wears off.
Biofilms will bring more colour into the game, and you’ll be able to learn which biofilms do what based on the colour.
Press Coverage
In August, Cellscape was featured in the Norwegian gaming news site, Spillhistorie.no. You can read the article in Norwegian or English.
Public Playtest
The event in Halden was good motivation to finish a playable demo, and when I did that I realized the game was ready for its first public playtest.
Since this is my first game dev project, I want to make sure I don’t get too far ahead with new features before the existing mechanics are working well. At this stage the core mechanics are pretty solid and there is about ten minutes of meaningful gameplay.
The test has been open for a little over week now with 33 people having tested it so far (wow!!). Feedback has been very positive and constructive.
There was one thing in particular that really proved the value of public testing, if there was ever any doubt about it. I had received several comments that while the character control felt smooth, it moved a bit too fast. I was skeptical at first because to me it was just right, but there were enough comments about it that I decided to try some adjustments. I did slow the character down a little, but then I also made some changes to the camera and physics that make movement feel smoother and more stable.
I played with these adjustments for a couple of days, and then when I went back to try the old version I was shocked by how bad it felt! Everyone who commented on the speed was absolutely right, and I’m so glad I listened. After hundreds of hours of development I was just so used to the movement I couldn’t see the problem. This was amazing proof of just how important public testing is.
If you’d like to join the playtest, there is still time!
The playtest will be live on Steam until this Friday, October 10th, and everyone is welcome to join. I’ve also set up a Discord for feedback, and as a place to chat or just follow the game’s progress more closely if you’re interested.
Instructions to join here:
Release Plan
I’m starting to think more about how and when to release Cellscape. Running the playtest has felt like a practice run for early release, and I now feel pretty confident that I’ll be able to release the game in Early Access sometime next year. With that in mind, I’ve updated the Steam page to say 2026, instead of just “To Be Announced”.
That’s all for now. I’m off to squish some more bugs. Digital ones only, of course :)
Wish you all the best,
Kate
Congratulations on your progress!
Thanks for the update and good luck with further developing the game!