I’m excited to announce that my first ever commercial game comes out next month.

Haunted (A Slip Story) is a branching narrative game about decorating for Halloween. You build all your decorations by hand and want this year to be special. The local farm had some choice pumpkins, so you want to feature them front and center in your design. From there, you decide how to interact with the props and the design process.

Haunted explores three yard haunts with three very different implications for what is to come. Think of it like an interactive weird fiction collection. When you finish one story,  you'll have the opportunity to turn back time and choose one of the others yard haunts to explore. The order you choose impacts how the stories connect, so choose wisely.

There’s so much to break down here.

1) I’m a home haunter. I’ve been doing it since I was 13 and I’m 35 now. The story is packed with real details based on decades of haunting because I lived it. It makes the horror elements hit harder and the sci-fi actually have a basis in science.

2) The perspective. It’s a second person past tense narrative. Your character has lived this. You know in your heart of hearts what happened already. When you turned back time to try another pumpkin, you remembered things you shouldn’t even know. That stuff’s spooky.

3) The music. Right now, the demo has one song, and even that’s a temporary track. This game will be fully scored, with the music shifting to match the different storylines you’re exploring. I just think that’s neat. Again, over 15 years of theatrical underscoring experience has its benefits. The soundtrack will also be available on the same day.

4) The stories. I don’t mess around with fiction. Each story is its own experience. They start at the same point, the introduction to the game, and branch off in three completely different directions. Sure, the lines blur a little as you turn back time, but that’s a feature, not a bug. If you read the third version of the story about the classic orange pumpkin, you’d just be getting more world-building, suspense, and scares from hearing about the other two.

5) The collection. Haunted is an interactive weird fiction collection. I love that. I’ve wanted to write, code, and design this sort of meta-text for a long time. Haunted will also be a short story collection. This will feature alternate versions of the stories to make them work better outside of the framework of the game. That should also be available on the same day.

6) Joy. I’ve had a rough go the past few weeks. Pulling all these pieces together when I had to step away from the outside world for a few days made a huge difference. We all process things in our own way. This was what let me find meaning when I felt lost. There are other projects, too, that aren’t quite ready to announce.

If you’d like to try the game out, I have a demo available on the itch.io site to download. Extract the zip file and double click on Haunted Demo. The game will load in your web browser. There is a volume control in the left hand panel. Just press the white arrow and you can adjust the volume or mute it. The rest is point and click.

The full game will release on 25 October for $2.50. It will be available for PC, Mac, and Linux. Pricing for the soundtrack and the short story collection is not available yet. It really helps if you comment, add to your collection (basically liking), and follow the Sketching Details itch.io page. I’m excited for you all to experience this game.