What is SkyChasers?

Several years ago, SkyChasers began as a tabletop role-playing game that I've fiddled with off and on. After years of mucking around, I'm finally close to playtesting it. With all the screenwriting and other work I've been doing, it just hasn't been that much of a priority.
Today, I realized that it's time to make SkyChasers a priority.

Call me cazy, but the idea of space commando kids battling ferocious dinosaurs and giant robots while the grown-ups cling to a rag-tag refugee existence in the stars has always stuck me as marketable. What kid doesn't want to be the hero?

First, I've got to get this game finished. There's a handful of artists I've met who I'd like to involve in the project, and once this draft is done I plan to see about luring them in. Together, we can use the game as a bible to nail down the look and feel of the universe.

When it's ready, we start selling copies of the game and start in on the web comics.

At the same time, we start producing animated web shorts. I know a guy who might be perfect to collaborate with me on that, and with his training, the sound resources I have access to, and the unbelievable cast here at 8 Sided... we could do some bang-up Voltron-esque stories for distribution online and on the phones and whatnot.

Kids are all about the social media. I heard that somewhere.

My uninformed hope is that within a year or two, we can build enough of an audience to make selling action figures a financially viable possibility. Again, I go back to kid space commandos. While some of the action figures will obviously be specific characters from the comic, I'd like to sell toys that the kids can relate to - that they can literally see themselves in. By selling toys where a kid can literally go "this one is me and this one is the bad guy", we let the world we're building become much more real and fun. As the action figures take off, we can get into cool stuff like the scaled t-rexes and giant robots and vehicles and stuff.

By the time those things are humming along, 8 Sided Films should be in a good place to produce a television series. Eventually, I'd like to do a live-action movie. Clearly, that's decades into the future.

There are spec scripts I could be working on, but why should I? Right now, this seems like a better use of my time than another spec script. This has unlimited potential to bring money into the company, to build buzz and attention for 8 Sided, to put our actors to work... Plus, it connects me with kids. That's keeps me on the cutting edge of social media, and it helps me keep tabs on what's cool.

Most importantly, SkyChasers is just heaps of fun.

Social media is the future, and nobody is more about getting media on their phones than the kids - the same folks who would love what we're doing the most. This might just be the perfect way to get ourselves out there and start generating money.