No Super Meat Boy 2 planned

Team Meat's next game will not be Super Meat Boy 2, the two-man indie developer has revealed.

When asked about future plans, co-CEO Edmund McMillen told Eurogamer, "There will be another game but it won't be Meat Boy. It'll be totally new.

"We'd be lying if we said we hadn't talked about the next game – because we very much have. But thinking about it right now makes me want to stab myself in the stomach as hard as I can. With a gun."

"I can safely say we're not going to hire more people," he added. "I seriously doubt we'll ever try to get a publisher deal as that seems like the most awful thing ever. That just means we have to have more people telling us what we can and can't do with our game and that seems bad."

McMillen and partner-in-crime Tommy Refenes are clearly ready for a little downtime. The pair told Eurogamer just how much Super Meat Boy has taken out of them.

"We get five or six hours of sleep a day, max," McMillen explained of the development process. "As time drags on and you get sleep-deprived things get really crazy. I can't even count the amount of times I had breakdowns and my wife had to convince me that I need to finish the game and I'll be ok.

"Realistically, for indies especially, in order to really make your dream game you have to sacrifice your life. And we quite literally sacrificed a good 18 months of our lives for the game. And I hope it shows."

Further shattering any illusions that life as an indie game developer is all sunshine and roses, Refenes added, "The first payday is going to be awesome because I haven't seen a cheque in like five years."

Super Meat Boy launched on Xbox Live Arcade last week, with PC and WiiWare versions to follow later this year. It's on sale for 800 Points for a limited time. As you'll already know if you've read Tom Bramwell's gushing 9/10 review, you'd be a fool to pass that offer up.