Play the GLASSHOUSE Demo Today! 

Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it
without using the usual genre labels?

GLASSHOUSE is a game about people trapped together at the worst possible moment in history. You're a terminally ill man living in a decaying apartment block, just as the world stands on the brink of another global war. A triple murder takes place next door, and what begins as an investigation gradually unfolds into something much larger, involving political conspiracies, ideological conflicts, and the uncomfortable realities of human coexistence. At its heart, GLASSHOUSE is about how people think, what they believe, and how far they're willing to go to defend those beliefs. Politics isn't just something you discuss. It's something you embody, something that shapes your relationships, your abilities, and even the way you confront others. And sometimes, the most dangerous thing you can do is simply talk to your neighbour.

Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?

The idea came directly from my experience during the COVID-19 lockdown. I had just moved to Milan and was sharing a rather cramped apartment with three other people. Every day, we'd sit down for lunch in front of the television, watching the news as the world seemingly fell apart outside. And almost every day, lunch would turn into a political battlefield. Four people, four different perspectives, endless arguments, and absolutely nowhere to escape. We were stuck together, forced to confront each other's beliefs, contradictions, and frustrations on a daily basis. At some point, I started thinking about how fascinating, and occasionally terrifying, human coexistence becomes when you remove the possibility of simply walking away. That was the seed of GLASSHOUSE.

Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?

I think it's the way we treat ideology as something inseparable from the human condition. In GLASSHOUSE, your political beliefs aren't simply dialogue options or moral alignments. They're part of your character's identity, influencing how you speak, fight, grow, and interact with the world. We also wanted to challenge the traditional idea of combat. Every confrontation can be resolved peacefully, and sometimes a convincing argument is far more effective than a weapon. Ultimately, we're trying to build an RPG where understanding people is just as important as defeating them.

Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?

Absolutely. We originally designed an expedition system where you could send your flatmates outside the building to scavenge for food and supplies during a nuclear winter. Back then, GLASSHOUSE was supposed to take place over an entire in-game month, with survival and resource management playing a much larger role. After rebooting the project, we significantly reduced the scope and cut several mechanics, including this one. I still love the idea, but sometimes you have to kill your darlings to actually finish a game.

Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?

Making everything react to everything else. GLASSHOUSE is built around interconnected systems: political ideologies, character progression, knowledge (crafting blueprints), dialogue, quests, and combat. A seemingly insignificant decision can influence something much later in the game. Making these systems work individually is relatively straightforward. Making them coexist without breaking each other is an entirely different nightmare.
And then there's QA. So much QA. They're the brightest stars.

Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?

Discomfort, but the productive kind.
I don't necessarily want players to agree with our characters, or even like them. I want them to understand why those characters believe what they believe, even when those beliefs are fundamentally opposed to their own. If someone finishes GLASSHOUSE questioning an opinion they previously considered unquestionable, I think we've accomplished something meaningful.

Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?

Your first game doesn't need to be your magnum opus.
We started GLASSHOUSE four years ago with enormous ambitions and very little understanding of what those ambitions would actually cost us. Scope is probably the most dangerous enemy of independent development. You can have all the creative freedom in the world, but without discipline, that freedomcan become your biggest obstacle.
Also, please, document everything.

Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?

That it wasn't afraid to ask uncomfortable questions.
I don't particularly care whether people remember GLASSHOUSE as a political game, a detective story, or an unconventional RPG. I'd rather they remember its characters, its world, and perhaps a conversation that stayed with them long after they stopped playing. Games don't need to provide answers to be meaningful.
Sometimes asking the right questions is enough.

Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?

Because you can actually play it. Right now.
We've spent four years building GLASSHOUSE, and our free demo is available on Steam and GOG, featuring roughly an hour of gameplay, branching dialogue, unconventional combat, and some very unpleasant neighbours.

Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?

It has dialogue, combat, quests, bugs, and a Steam page. By most legal definitions, I believe that qualifies as a video game