Hey, if you just want to get a taste of the game, there's a playable teaser from Halloween 2021 that's a little less than an hour long, you can still check it out for absolutely free right here!

7/14 is the Arc Number for Backstage: murdered sleep. Before that it was the arc number for Sleep No More, a highly immersive, intensely atmospheric, slightly experimental horror (mostly of the Lovecraftian bent) TTRPG campaign I ran on and off using various game systems from 2010-2018. The name is a reference to was stolen from a truly haunting bit of high-end experimental interactive theater I had the privilege, pleasure and blessing of experiencing not just once but twice, in turn a reference to a famous line from the allegedly cursed Shakespeare play (which Sleep No More, the interactive play was a loose adaptation of) MacBeth , Act 2, Scene 2:

Macbeth.  Methought I heard a voice cry
'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep',
the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast

Lady Macbeth. What do you mean?

Macbeth. Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore
Cawdor Shall sleep no more;
Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

(This game's subtitle, murdered sleep (perhaps more faithfully rendered as "murder'd sleep", though I couldn't manage to be quite that pretentious) derives from the same lines in the play.)

 When I started the campaign back up in I'm guessing the early summer of 2014, on a wild bender of random inspiration, I created a bunch of creepy and mysterious clues and handouts (possibly using my own blood as an ingredient, the details are hazy) and then I stored them in manila envelopes, sealed and labeled in red sharpie with a phrase that came to me from I know not what or where: "Do not open until 714". I did not specify whether I meant 7:14 PM that evening, or July 14th, a few weeks away. That ambiguity delighted me out of all proportion to whatever accidental cleverness it might have represented. But more importantly, ever since then, the number 714 in every possible context has haunted and possessed me, not my dreams, but my waking life, most commonly whenever I should so happen to glance at a clock. I never thought it even possible to be haunted by something as vague and ambiguous as a number...until it happened to me.

MacBeth, Act 2, Scene 2. 7/14. July 14th, 2022. It had to be today. (PURCHASE LINK)

This Early Access build is an EXTREMELY rough alpha. If I thought that I had any market awareness or word of mouth, I might not feel comfortable selling it, but I think it's a very real possibility that few to no people will actually buy the game in its current state. Not because it's Early Access--selling Early Access games is undeniably a Thing by now in the greater games industry--but because I have not put in the necessary (and exhausting) legwork to create word of mouth and buzz. I am putting this on sale here because--MacBeth, Act 2, Scene 2. 7/14. July 14th, 2022. It had to be today--today is 7/14/2022, and because there are several people whose incredibly high quality free resources--music, sounds, graphics of any stripe you can imagine ,you name it!--made it possible for me to develop this project, and I am eager to give them the free video game featuring their stuff they so richly deserve. With the hopes that some of them can also be persuaded to act as alpha and beta testers for this project, which I sorely need (to the point where I am very much willing to give free copies of this Early Access version and every subsequent version up until the FINAL commercial release to anyone willing to help me with testing, even if they did not contribute amazing free resources that made the game possible). Like what I am saying is that if you want this game but don't want to pay actual money for an Early Access indie alpha, like, hit me up because I need beta testers.