Neil Gaiman is Making a Video Game
Why? Because he wants to and no one's going to stop him. Except maybe capitalism.
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Today, comic writer and author Neil Gaiman has announced his very first video game, entitled Wayward Manor. The best-selling writer is teaming up with The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom developer The Odd Gentlemen to develop the title. Mobile publisher Moonshark will release the game on PC, Mac, and tablet platforms this Fall.
Wayward Manor is set in 1920's Victorian Gothic estate and focuses on the trials and tribulations of its resident ghost, who is awoken by intruders. The ghost needs to scare the living squatters while also finding out more about them and his own demise.
"It's light hearted, its goofy, it's nice to flip points of view," Gaiman told Mashable. "I was playing around with an idea essentially about a man and a house over a period of 200 years, thinking how much more fun it would be if the story of this relationship was actually something you could get involved in."
"Normally in a game, if you're in a haunted house, you are going to be walking through it intrepidly with your flashlight, your bell-book and candle, and your copy of the Necronomicon and you keep going until you find the ghost," he explained. "In this one all you want to do is be left in peace with your lovely house and be left alone. I don't want to give anything away but it's safe to say you were killed in the 1880s and you were killed for a reason."
Gaiman enjoyed working on Wayward Manor, and he told Mashable that this experience turned out better that previous attempts.
"I think the biggest surprise is I did it and got involved in it. Nobody would have expected it and I didn't have the time. It just got fun and I had to make time," he said. "Back in the late 1990s I spent a lot of time working with various gaming companies. What tended to happen is I put an incredible amount of work in these things and just as something was about to happen, the company was about to go bankrupt."
Players can pre-order Wayward Manor at the official website. A digital copy of the game is only $10, but there are higher tiers with posters, t-shirts, and more. For $10,000 you can even have dinner with Gaiman himself! Unfortunately, like the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter earlier today, you have to pay for your own travel after shelling all that money out. Alas.