Big, special news today! We’re incredibly happy to finally announce that Joe Danger is coming to PC! Through Steam, you’ll be able to play both of our our babies, Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2: The Movie! Finally!

We’re bringing a bunch of new PC-specific features to Joe Danger on Steam. Actually I think we have some sort of OCD because we can’t just port games. Our rule is to always add something new.

So there’s new content, including new levels. Joe Danger has never looked so good because we’ve added lots of graphic quality and resolution settings. It supports gamepad, and now mouse and keyboard, too. Full Steam Big Picture Mode means you can play it at 1080p with 16xAA on your TV (this looks soooo nice). And we’ve added ghost recording to both Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2 and integrated it with Steam, so you can compete with people right in the game.

Those ghosts are other players’ runs. Beat them!

But I think the big thing for any PC game is editing and modding. Joe Danger has always had a level editor, but now it’s really fully featured. It’s got mouse support and all the secret controls we made both games with. It’s also integrated with Steam Workshop, so you can really easily browse levels and click to see them pop up in your game.

PC is actually Joe Danger’s birthplace. I coded my first ever PC engine when we started making the original Joe Danger back in 2009, and when we showed it off at game expos and to game journalists it was running on a PC we had to lug around. It’ll be so good to finally get to see Joe Danger released on the platform it was made on!

This looks so incredibly good in full 1080p!

This isn’t all we’re bringing to Joe Danger on PC, though! Keep an eye out for some announcements about some really special extra things we’re working on… These are so exciting. I can’t wait to tell you more. Follow us on Twitter or friend us on Facebook in case I blab my mouth off!

What’s been keeping us working is this guy, though. Hazel has had him on her screen permanently for days now. Her productivity has gone through the roof.

This collection of anime backgrounds is incredible, though Ryan couldn’t resist noticing stuff like a glass that doesn’t have a shadow, the old pedant.

We’ve also stared at these videogame art coffee milk froth picture things and wished our morning brews were the same.

Then we’ve been thinking about space via this trailer, which is for a documentary called Continuum, which is about what astronauts who’ve seen Earth from space think about our planet. Super beautiful. Obviously, we’ve also been obsessed with Commander Hadfield’s tweets from the ISS. We really want to go to space.

Finally, our favourite thing on Twitter is currently Unfinished Scripts, maybe enough to inspire us to write some really bad cutscenes, maybe for that game about wizards we’ve been sitting on.

Killing goblins in Candy Quest is a fine sport

First up, did you ever play Progress Quest? Candy Box is EVEN BETTER than the RPG that plays itself. That merchant’s so creepy that we threw all our candies on the ground to make him sad. That’s winning isn’t it?

After seeing the new trailer we’re all scarily excited about GTA V, because we had our funnest times driving about in San Andreas and trying to find Bigfoot. We identify with Trevor most, obviously. By the way, we would like to think that we wouldn’t have made these comments on GTA V stories and videos if we were younger but we can’t guarantee it. Come to think about it we can’t guarantee we didn’t make any of them today either.

Remember how exciting facing down this guy in Shadow of the Colossus was?

Speaking of Bigfoot, Eurogamer’s feature about the quest to find the secrets of Shadow of the Colossus is awesome. We hadn’t heard of most of these. Oh god we have to go and play it this weekend now.

This crazy guy lived without the internet for a year. Bet he had to spent the whole time laughing at keyboard cat. Apparently he can somehow be reabsorbed into society. Who’s going to tell him about Ed Balls and Gangnam Style?

Finally, we’re into this GPU-powered water physics demo. Needs more sharks/squid though.

Demoparties are massive gatherings of coders, artists and musicians, who show, create and compete demo productions, which are pure and sublime feats of realtime digital art. What that breaks down as is basically four days of loud music, drinking, sitting in the dark and writing code (so, yes, I took a holiday from programming to go do some programming).

Actually, most proper programmers take interest in the demoscene, but going to a demoparty is an awesome experience. There’s a constant friendly party atmosphere, but the biggest thing is watching incredible demos with hundreds of other people and realising that this is the first time they’ve ever been shown off in public.

What were the best demos this year? I’m glad you asked! Here are my picks!

Brain Control – Turtles All the Way Down (64k PC Intro)

This is awesome because it zooms from a microscopic level to a massive scale. There’s loads of variety for such a small executable – just 64k. Also, there’s a great writeup with details of how much collective work went into creating it here.

Five Faces – Fairlight & Cloudkicker (PC Demo)

This is really consistently stylish, and of course amazing from a technical perspective too. It won first in the PC demo category. REFRACTIONS PORN!

Pattern Skank by Hoffman (Tracked Music)

Demoscene isn’t just about code and visuals; here’s some nice music, which won first place in the Tracked Music category.

Smoke and Mirrors by Ghostown and Loonies (Amiga Demo)

I am not old enough to be able to tell you exactly why this is cool (Sean is but he’s too busy grumbling about the good old days of the Amiga demoscene to comment), but there’s some amazing 3D work and lighting. It got first place in the Amiga demo category!

Have a great weekend!

Good news! Today we released an update to Joe Danger Touch!

Last week we realised players have collected eight billion gold coins in JD Touch. If we had a dollar for every gold coin collected, that’d be like EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. No wait… Less? For the record Mum, we don’t get a dollar for each for them. Only Shigeru Miyamoto was smart enough to get that kind of deal. MIYAMOTO!

The update is going to add our most requested feature, iCloud support, so you can play on your iPhone then continue on your iPad, or vice versa. We’ve also fixed every bug reported so far, as well as made a bunch of tweaks to gameplay and such.

Do you want to see iCloud support in action? Watch this!

It’s actually taken way longer than we expected to finish this update! We got a bit excited adding a few new game mechanics, and now that has potentially become something far, far bigger. But it’s not quite ready yet. I probably shouldn’t say much more at the moment, but I’ll be in touch as soon as I can (it’s super exciting).

Also, look out later for a chance to tell us what you’d like to see in Joe Danger Touch’s next update. Engage imaginations … now! We’re super excited to find out what crazy stuff you come up with. Also a bit scared!

Last year a beautiful person called Stevie joined our little group of creative misfits. He played with the idea of making a new version of Joe Danger for iOS and then together we created a chart topping success and one of the highest rated iPhone games EVER! It’s been a liberating and bohemian development, but also so rewarding for everyone involved. If you’ve played it, you’ll know it’s a total labour of love.

We really want to continue building on the magic we’ve started, and like Joe Danger Touch we never just do a straight port of our games. It’s always something new and unique.

We’ve got so many other ideas and opportunities like that, but we’re too small ( right now ) to do them all!

That’s where you come in.

Programmers!

We’re looking for programmers with experience, or maybe even an existing team to take on a project start to finish.

Perhaps you are a programmer sat in the plush offices of a proper games company browsing jobs pages, wishing you had the chance to go indie (maybe it’s even you and your friends). Maybe you already broke away to do your own thing, but you are getting lonely… and realising that baked beans get a bit samey after a few months. We’ve been there… have you tried them with cheese?

Hopefully you enjoy freedom, but also need some support. Ideally you have industry experience, you actually like bringing existing games to new platforms, but want to create something fresh while you are at it.

APPLY HERE!

Looks lovely, but gets dead cold in winter..

Producer!

Sean doesn’t believe in producers, he thinks they are mythical creatures. Like platypuses. On iOS though, he realised he spent a lot of time doing a job that sounds an awful lot like production. Sometimes he did a schedule, sometimes he wrote support emails, sometimes he got an eighties tribute band to record them screaming “DANGER”, and one time he organised QA/localisation across 23 territories.

You would almost certainly be better at this than him. Maybe you have a year or twos experience and are so enthusiastic it hurts. Maybe you have lots of experience, and you are going to turn us into a proper company.

You are infinitely more organised than us, you enjoy spreadsheets, spinning plates, talking on the phone and helping facilitate people getting the highest quality games made.

APPLY HERE!

Also doubles as an IKEA showroom..

Everyone else!

You can find our general jobs listing here. Don’t let the serious corporate speak you find there fool you though. Hello Games is actually a very small little group. We’re not super actively hiring and we can’t reply to every email as quick as we’d like. We do read every CV that’s sent to us though and if you are as good as we think you are, then we’ll definitely get in touch.

APPLY HERE!

RIP Dreamcast, gone but never forgotten..

Joe Danger Touch is out now on iOS devices everywhere!

Also, Joe Danger Touch made it to #1 on the App Store! We couldn’t be more happy. It’s such an amazing feeling to know that people are playing and enjoying our game! And if that wasn’t enough, here are some of the incredible reviews we’ve been getting:

Modojo:

5/5

“Joe Danger Touch represents everything about mobile gaming at its best.”

Touch Arcade:

5/5

“I honestly can’t think of anything I don’t like about it, it’s a shining example of how to do games right on iOS.”

Digital Spy:

5/5

“one of the most fun games to download on iOS”

Appgamer:

10/10

“Joe Danger Touch is easily my first big recommendation of 2013″

App Spy:

5/5

“An absolute must play for iPhone and iPad users alike.”

Pocketgamer:

9/10 Gold Award

“a tense, unblinking, white-knuckle thrill”

Kotaku:

App of the Day

“I love Joe Danger Touch.”

Eurogamer:

App of the Day

“constantly, thrillingly, teetering on that knife-edge between joy and disaster, success and failure”

]]> http://www.hellogames.org/2013/01/joe-danger-touch-reviews/feed/ 1 http://www.hellogames.org/2013/01/joe-danger-touch-is-out-tonight/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=joe-danger-touch-is-out-tonight http://www.hellogames.org/2013/01/joe-danger-touch-is-out-tonight/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:38:30 +0000 Grant http://www.hellogames.org/?p=2192 Joe Danger Touch is a brand new game that we’ve build from the ground up specifically with lovely touch controls in mind, and we’re rather excited about it. We’re particularly excited because it comes out at midnight tonight for all iOS devices!

Here’s a trailer we made!

If you have an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, then check out some of these lovely words – we are getting super excited about how positive people are being!

 
Pocket Gamer
“Shockingly… Joe Danger iPhone might be even better than the amazing console version”
“Does for Joe Danger on console, what Rayman Jungle Run did for Rayman!”

Modojo
“It’s a faithful homage to the original games, while at the same time making a virtue out of touchscreen technology”

The Gamers Hub
“You’ll be pleased to know that it plays out like a dream”
“Frantic, classic, Joe Danger fun – and I can’t wait for it to arrive”

TouchArcade
“All I can really say is: WOW. It’s simply fantastic so far”
“Can’t wait to review it, so I can gush about it some more”

148Apps
“There’s no reason to think Joe Danger Touch won’t be one of the year’s best on any platform”
“With a multitude of levels and an amazing variety of tasks to complete in those levels, this two finger game could be the next big hit”

Over the last few months we have never slept less, or drank so much tea. We even finished off our first sack of 1200 tea bags.

I’m so excited to tell you that we’ve just gone Gold. GOLD! GOLD! That means it will be released to gorgeous PS3 owners everywhere really soon.

Over the next few months we have even more surprises planned. We’ll have more content to surprise you with, and don’t forget about Joe Danger on those iPhone things. Be excited!

Here are some of our favorite quotes. Doesn’t this game sound good?

ZTGD – 93%
“The game play is fun and addicting, and the small problems I had with the first game have been ironed out completely. Buy Joe Danger 2: The Movie without any doubts.”

1up – 91%
“Joe Danger 2 shines with an impeccable amount of polish. Blockbuster season (and Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade) might be over, but the spirit lives on with Joe Danger 2′s goofball, Bruckheimery gusto.”

Videogamer – 9/10 
“A definitive and generous downloadable title that I can’t imagine where Hello Games could possibly expand on.”

Destructoid – 9/10
“Hello Games has gotten closer than ever to making a videogame Nintendo would be jealous of.”

Strategy Informer – 9/10
“There’s a fantastic sense of humour behind Joe Danger’s daring escapades and it shines through within moments of loading the game”

PlanetXbox – 8.7 
“an addictive and completely captivating experience that turns out to be a highly polished platforming experience with overlying driving gameplay”

Eurogamer – 8/10
“Joe Danger 2 is an easy recommendation… one of the most enjoyable games on any platform… fun at a very deep and instinctive level. ”

Gamesradar 4/5
“A brilliant lesson in sequel-making… It’s a worthy successor and one of the most standout XBLA titles this year.”

The Gamers Hub – 5/5
“This is the closest to gaming perfection you’ll find on Xbox Live Arcade – and on your local store shelf if it ever makes it to retail”

Front Towards Gamer – 9.5
“Even if you haven’t touched the original game, get your hands on Joe Danger 2, it’s one of the best downloadable titles of the year, hands down.”

XBLA Fans
“we can’t recommend it enough. Order your tickets and hold onto your butts, you’re in for a crazy show.”

This is my Joystick
“This is, without doubt, the game to own on XBLA this year. Undeniable quality and immense replayability, this has everything a great game should have and it comes at a bargain price. It does everything a proper sequel should, keeping the playability fresh and making it impossible not to come back for more… Essential in every sense of the word.”

VG24/7
“To have a game that looks so simple, yet offers so much depth and intricacy is no mean feat, and it’s this depth that will really sell the experience to gamers.”

Joe Danger 2 is out NOW on XBLA! You can go and buy it and play it right now, for 1200 Microsoft Points!

We’re really proud of it and think you’ll enjoy it too.. Please log-on to XBLA and give the trial a go! (bonus points if you can find the hidden credits level )

Also, we were on gametrailers tv!
The bit about Joe Danger 2 starts 16 minutes in. Be sure and watch the part about Media Molecule too, they live down the road and we love them lots.

For this week only you can pick up one of the highest rated, most fun games on XBLA for a teeny 600pts. Then you can play it, finish it, all in time for Joe Danger 2 to release. Whoop whoop!

Hey everyone!

If we could fast forward time, we would fast forward to Friday the 14th of September… Because that is when Joe Danger 2 releases on XBLA. Everything between now and then will be filled with anxious waiting, which we’d rather skip thanx.


It will be 1200pts, and it will be the best thing we’ve ever done.


We’re too excited to sit still right now. We honestly cannot wait. If you are in the future reading this, and have a time machine, please do get in touch.

When you pressed it, Joe threw a stick of dynamite. I think it’s perhaps the best thing ever.

We had a BMX that Joe cycled… and now he could throw things… so we knew we had to change the dynamite to newspapers and make a paperboy level.

We grew up playing games like Paperboy, and watching cartoons like Duck Tales, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Teenage Mutant Hero (Ninja) Turtles and Defenders of the Earth. There was something very special about the 1980s, it’s that type of “cool” that is trying so hard. It’s radical.

Poochie D from The Simpsons captures the 80s perfectly. The kung fu rapper surfer hippie, who is totally in your face.

The Paperboy level is our love letter to the 80s, we were singing cartoon theme tunes and shouting out catchphrases when we made it, and here’s what happened:

This week we’ve been getting lots of messages from people asking for the game! “Where is it?” they say! “Give it to us now!”. We like all of those people immensely, and we’re sorry to disappoint them. We are genuinely really sorry.

All we know is soon. Real soon. But not quite yet. It’s looking real good though, and it’s coming out in September. We promise. We will try to make it worth the wait.

In the meantime, we recommend playing the original Joe Danger while you wait :)

Normally we post happy fun silly things, but I want to talk about someting serious. Post-Gamescom Stress Disorder. The last taboo of videogames.

This is a genuine thing, for the last 5 nights since I came back from Gamescom I’ve woken up with the same nightmare. I’m back at our booth, I’ve fallen asleep on the floor, I’m naked and hundreds of people are waiting to play the game.

Every time I dream there is the same noise, I wake up hearing it. Anyone who visited our booth at Gamescom will know it. Our booth was sat beside this:

At game shows like E3, PAX etc. each booth has a strict noise limit. Nobody can blare out whatever they want… I mean that would be crazy… At Gamescom no such limit exists. Every 15 minutes the WarFace helicopter would turn on two jet engines, and the world would shimmer a bit in front of my eyes.

At one point, I was taking a break. Sat under one of our tables at Gamescom, the helicoptor starts taking off again.. then the Sony guys next door decide to try and drown it out with their own music.

This is pretty much exactly what I wake up to every night…

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this post, please contact david@hellogames.co.uk

We all survived Gamescom, and it was AWESOME. Here are some things we liked about Gamescom:

1. 275,000 people attended, I’m pretty sure we demoed to every one of them.

2. Cheesy pretzels, they were GREAT.

3. Everyone is super friendly, it blows my mind how nice people are at these kind of events.

4. We got to meet Sackboy and Sonic, they’re bigger in real life.

We were really pleased with how much people enjoyed Joe Danger The Movie, we had 3 machines running multiplayer and armies of people went away with big smiles on their faces.

Here are some of the awards we won:

We’ve made a trailer showing some bits of the game (there is plenty we aren’t showing though!) We hope it gets you as excited as we are!

Here’s a few ways you can help us, if you want to:

• Tweet about it.
• Share it on Facebook.
• Call everyone in your mobile contacts. Tell them.
• Stand on the street corner shouting the URL, letter by letter.
• Fake your own death, leave a mysterious note with a series of puzzles leading to the youtube link.
• Call an elderly relative who can’t use the internet, and describe it to them.
• Get the URL tattooed on your bottom (butt).
• Write it on toilet walls.