Not content with writing a new novel, a bunch of short stories, kids’ books, television shows, commencement speeches, and new Sandman comics this year, author Neil Gaiman will also pen the story for an upcoming video game titled Wayward Manor.

According to Mashable, Wayward Manor follows:

The misadventures of a ghost who wants nothing more than a peaceful afterlife, and to kick out the motley crew living in the house he once called home. A gothic New England estate is the setting, with the storyline running from the 1920s all the way to the not-too-distant future. As the ghost tries harder and harder to get rid of the squatters, he also unravels the mystery of his own death and the after-life.

We’re imagining… Beetlejuice starring Arthur Dent?

Gaiman wasn’t seeking out a video game project, especially after being burned in the mid-90s by start-up game studios that would go bankrupt before Gaiman’s work could be seen, but Wayward Manor became so much fun to work on that he shifted his schedule around to accomodate it. “It just got fun and I had to make time.”

Wayward Manor is coming out from indie game developers The Odd Gentleman and Moonshark and will be available for PC, Mac, and mobile devices.

Neil Gaiman explains more about the project below.

Although essentially a story about a haunting and murder, Gaiman took his tonal cues from movies like Blithe Spirit and Arsenic and Old Lace, keeping for a relatively lighthearted adventure. The story of your own history unfolds as you play, but Gaiman is mum on the details, saying only this.

“It’s safe to say you were killed in the 1880s and you were killed for a reason.”

Hmmm. This makes us very curious as to whether Neil Gaiman’s recent Tor.com poem “House” sprang from the same seed as Wayward Manor….