Well folks, a year later and I’m back. Last year I promised myself that I wouldn’t do another overly ambitious Werewolf House project once Halloween rolled around. As soon as that crisp LA fall air creeps in (nights go below 70 degrees! I love seasons) I am so entranced by the coming spooky season that completely forget what a draining ordeal these projects are. In an effort to stop my future self, I made it clear to the world that last year’s game was the final chapter in the Werewolf House saga (“the skullmination of the thrillogy”). It did not work.
Though, technically, I kept my promise.
Not heeding my own warning, I got the bright idea to look into the tools at my disposal if I were to try and make another Halloween game. After a couple days of poking around, trying out different game making programs, I realized that creating an even more interactive game for this year’s Werewolf House may not be possible in a month and a half. Even after a lot of research, there were still too many variables and unknowns (platformer? first person shooter? VR??) to know if I could even finish it by Halloween… or at least that’s what I told myself. But the truth probably is just that I didn’t yet have an idea that excited me enough to really dive in and put in the necessary effort to finish something. Given past Werewolf Houses and beyond, it’s become pretty clear that I will get something done, sleep and sanity be damned. It’ll be sloppy as hell, but it will get done. What I discovered though is that making a real, interactive game is shockingly doable, and all the resources to do so are shockingly free. And I will not-so-shockingly end up making one in the near future and hate myself for doing so.
So, no Werewolf House. Warning heeded, I was free to live my life. But I still had a sneaky little loophole up my sneaky little sleeve: I also had an unproduced Crypt Keeper musical just sitting there on my hard drive, beckoning… daring me to do something with it. Plus, since it was already written and rough demos were already recorded, how much more work could there be right? Ha ha ha yep only easy street from now on, welcome to hell.
September 16 at 12:41 PM I texted my girlfriend and now suddenly the lead of the production: “OK fuck it let’s do the crypt keeper musical for Halloween.” Oops.
So, through a technicality I was able to keep my promise to myself by instead making a musical. Simultaneously deviously clever and a huge dumbass, tricking myself into doing another exhausting project. But now, basking in the afterglow of the whole thing, I’m very glad I am so gullible and crafty all at once.
In a similar effort from last time to purge myself of this project once and for all and put a giant, sloppily written bow on the whole thing, let’s recap how this thing got made. And yep it will be hellishly long, enter at your own peril.