What's next

Night one went out a few hours ago and the hearse is still running. Before we disappear into bug reports, here's the honest version of what happens next. Please read every word of it with this stamped across the top: working titles; plans can change or get cancelled. None of this has a date, and none of it is a promise.

First: CLOSED CASKET isn't going anywhere

It's still the only thing you can actually play, so it still gets most of our time. The list from night one stands: host migration (so the room doesn't close when the host leaves), the four dispatcher lines we held back, more clients and districts, and turning on the crew radio relay. A 3D open world is still on the board too. The plan is to let you pick 2D or 3D, if and when it's ready.

Then: a shelf, not a single game

The idea behind this site was always "a hub", not "a game with a website". So we sat down with a long list of ideas, everything from cozy to chaotic, and asked three questions of each one: would people actually want to play it, can a tiny studio make it without cutting corners, and does it fit the rules we've set ourselves (free, no chat boxes, no accounts, 13+, no streaks)?

Five came out on top, and they're pinned up on the games page:

• Who Sits Where: a daily logic puzzle. Seat a feuding family at a funeral lunch so nobody's next to the cousin who "borrowed money in 1987." This is the one we're working on now.
• Contested Will: a bluffing card game for 2–6. Grandma left everything to "whoever can be trusted." Good luck.
• Carpet Club: mini-golf through a messy flat, with everyone putting at once and the balls bumping into each other.
• Bobber Club: a quiet moonlit pier for fishing with strangers, where you talk with lanterns instead of a chat box.
• Wallpaper Wake: hide-and-seek at a stuffy wake, where you hide by painting yourself to match the furniture.

That's one daily puzzle, one card game, one party sport, one place to hang out and one big silly party game. They each need something different from the game server, too, so each one teaches us something the next one needs. Two of the five have nothing to do with funerals. We like the night shift, but we don't want to be the "only dead people" studio forever.

Behind those are five more ideas on the drawing board: Floral Tributes, Pincer Move, Stairwell Sprint, Last Deckchair and Bank Shot Tanks. They're ideas, nothing more. Some will turn into something else, and some never will.

Why Who Sits Where goes first

It's small, it's solo, and it doesn't need a server at all. That makes it a good way to build the boring shared parts every future game needs (menus, the phone app, the downloads) without also juggling multiplayer. It's also a daily puzzle without a streak: miss a day and the old puzzles are waiting in the archive. Nothing to lose by having a life.

What every one of them will share

• Free, all of it. Same deal as CLOSED CASKET: no ads, no store, nothing to skip by paying, no accounts.
• No open chat. Random callsigns, preset signals and emotes, and opt-in crew radio where it makes sense.
• Bots, clearly labelled, so a room is never empty.
• The Paperwork. Every round ends with a deadpan little document: an amended will, an incident report, a fishing logbook page, a seating chart. It's the joke, and it's the thing you'll want to screenshot.
• Made by hand and by code: art drawn by our own code, sound and music synthesized by our own code, writing by us. Our plan for the new games is code-made "blip" voices rather than a text-to-speech model. If that changes, the AI use page will say so before the game is out.
• Browser, PC download and phone, all the same rooms where there are rooms.

What we're not doing

No dates, no countdown, no "wishlist now", no sign-up list. We'd rather show you something playable than sell you on something that isn't. The sketches on the games page are drawings we made in code to show the idea, not screenshots, because the games don't exist yet.

Tell us

Which of these would you actually play? Which would you skip? Leave a note, private or public, and pick "An idea". We read all of them.

Back to the stairs.

Night desk, CGH