Well, so much for expanding the content of my blog and frequency of posts–it’s been nearly a month since my last update!

Oi.  I blame it on holidays.

For anyone sticking around, I figure it’s about time I put in concrete my next major project.  I’ve alluded to it pretty strongly before, and you’ve probably figured it out from the title, but just for clarity’s sake: Why Am I Dead 2!

I wouldn’t normally jump at the opportunity to do a sequel to something; I’ve got enough ideas for new content that I’m itching to make.  So when I say that I’m making a sequel, that comes with the implicit statement that I believe the original left room for either improvement or further exploration, or, in this case, both.  And, of course, that comes with the implicit statement that I’ll be aiming to make a sequel that substantially improves or expands the original, or, in this case, both.

So with Why Am I Dead 2, I’m raising the stakes.  The game will be considerably longer and have higher production value: better graphics, better writing, better audio.  A mostly new cast with lots of characters that I think you’ll love (and/or hate).  Instead of approaching it as a side-project, as I did with my last game, I’ll be approaching the development of this game as its own full-time job.

As a result of this, the game will not be free.  This is mainly just to support the time I spend developing the game–the original Why Am I Dead, although I enjoyed making the ever-loving crap out of it, earned a laughably small amount of money.  Which is fine, of course.  And that doesn’t mean I’ll be charging a lot–I don’t have a particular price worked out yet, but you can be assured that it will be very very cheap by anyone’s standards.  I’ll definitely be releasing a long-ish free demo as well, so you can try the game out and get a good idea what it’s all about first.

(Note, this doesn’t mean I’m done releasing free flash games forever!  I just think that for this project, that model doesn’t really make sense.)

I know what you’re probably thinking now.  When on Earth is this coming out?  I want to give you all my money!!!  Okay, I may have embellished your thoughts a little bit, sue me.  Still, the basic time-line that I have for development is about 2 months of full-time core development, and another 2 months of full-time buffer, which means taking into account things not going as planned (because they never ever do), beta-testing, and polishing.  So that puts me at 4 months of full-time work.

But regardless of the exact timeline, when I release the game it will be polished and tested to death; I have no plans to repeat the stormy release of the original.

During this time, I’ll be hoping to market my game, which is something totally new to me.  I may even do little teasers and release info about the cast, story, and gameplay in episodes.  Who knows.

So, yeah.  This is a big step for me — going from releasing a free Flash game as a side project, to making a not-free game as my main thing.  But it’s really exciting, and it’s gonna be fun as hell.