“I have a great idea for a game….”

If you only knew how many times producers hear those words it would honestly amaze you. We hear them all the time and we have to try our best to get excited about the words that follow that phrase. When we (Sony San Diego Studios and Idol Minds) stopped building PAIN expansions those words were music to my ears… Okay, what’s next?

When I started working in games 20 years ago, I worked as an RPG designer/tester. So when we decided to make a social action-role-playing game you KNOW I was on board. When the decision was made to make it a PS Vita product I got even more excited. Even among the nerds here in San Diego Studios I am branded nerdy. So making a game based in fantasy is right where I want to be. RUIN (Working Title) will be that fast-paced action-RPG that I have wanted to build since I first played old-school action-RPGs.

There will be some unique differences. Social networks and constant net connections make your victories (and losses) more public. The ability to talk, trade, and compete allows your dungeon-crawling exploits to be seen by everyone. Building a lair as well as a character will be a welcome addition. Rivalries will also factor heavily in RUIN (Working Title). It’s not just about winning it’s about making others KNOW it.

Oh… and how cool is it to be able to play RUIN on your PS Vita or your PS3? Just like we showed in our press conference, you can save your game on Vita to the cloud, go to your PS3, download that save file, and continue the exact same game on PS3. That’s what we are calling cross play. Save anywhere and resume anywhere, on either system. That’s pretty exciting stuff!

I’m sure you have lots of questions but rest assured we’ll have many more details to unveil in the near future so stay tuned for more news.

I have a great idea for a game!

I told the producer of that game he better come correct. I know where he sits. That game looks AWE-SOME! You think he would let me put some PAIN characters in that game? Ed, Cookie, Jarvis and Tati would be sooo awesome as Mods!

Anyways.. where wuz I?

If you have been keeping up with our PlayStation Network game PAIN lately you would realize we just released SORE SPOTS. This particular release has been good for us in that we really got to address some core improvements to PAIN as a whole as well as create a multiplayer mode filled with player suggestions we have had for a while now.

Some of the improvements to PAIN include:

• Revamped Menus
  We’ve added so much content that the old menus just were not working for us anymore.
• Trophy lists inside modes
  Players hated leaving modes to figure out how to get all the trophies. So now you can see those requirements inside the mode you are playing.
• PAINalympics!
  It’s a good exercise to browse our message boards and pick out some of the wackiest ideas we have gotten from the community. I remember one player wanted a mode where you could see how long you can go without touching the ground. Another player wanted to swing and kick people… I could go on for a while here, but the request list usually starts to disturb me.

One user suggested we make an Olympic mode.. (And everyone else agreed) So this was a good excuse to tie a bunch of insane acts together and compel people to become good at them. PAINalympics is now my go to mode to play with my friends. As a thanks to some of our community helpers we gave them some love in our new video. Enjoy it!

Thanks again everyone for making PAIN such a joy to work on!

Now where is that ModNation E3 version….?

PAIN design is liberating. We don’t have to worry about context, story, logic, or even reality. In a lot of ways, PAIN development is about as chaotic and creative as you can be. So before I dig into what’s next, let me thank all of you for buying PAIN because it really has granted us freedom to try new concepts.

November is an exciting month for us as we are launching the next environment for PAIN. It’s called Movie Studio, and it’s our take on the wackiness of movie making.

So to directly contradict my earlier statement … PAIN development is (at least somewhat) a democracy. We have listened to what you wanted and tried our best to make sure all the things that you wanted are in this area. That includes (but isn’t limited to):

• More than one launcher location (There are three that you can dynamically switch to)
• Single Player Fun with Explosives
• New Cratetastic Mode
• Unlockable FREE Character
• HORSE Mode
• Bowling Mode (With all new distractions)

Movie Studio is the first area that we created after hearing all your input (democracy again). Amusement Park was started before PAIN was released (and took quite a while to make). Movie Studio was made in a third of that time, and I think it shows how much better we as a team have gotten at this since the original PAIN area.

We also have a new single player mode in the Lot called CRATETASTIC. I think you will love the mode if you were in any way a fan of Spank the Monkey. Take Spank the Monkey and replace the monkeys with explosives. This mode gets hectic because you can switch launch locations.

We heard everyone comment about the lack of a free character with a purchased area so we kidnapped Buzz and locked him up inside the Movie Studio. Unlock the Afterparty area and get enough points, and he’s all yours.

Bowling and HORSE are also back. There are no mimes in this Bowling mode, but I am confident you will enjoy what we victimize instead.

You can thank your collective outrage for the Fun with Explosives inclusion (democracy + demonstrations = action). The Movie Studio just entered testing when Amusement Park came out. You all really went off about the lack of Single Player FWE inclusion. I called Jeff and told him how I wasn’t willing to explain why it wasn’t in Movie Studio. The funny part was how we all agreed that it was our favorite mode. So the designers burned the midnight oil, and it was added to the content push.

Lastly, you always vote for the PAINdemonium like areas as your favorite modes. So instead of doing two of these, we made three of them. Strangely enough they are easier to design than all the other modes. We thought it might be a good idea to give you more than what we usually do.

Watch the movie. Check out the screenshots and most of all, keep making your opinions heard. It helps us make better content. Stay tuned for the next couple weeks too. We will have some more cool content to share with you.

…and GO VOTE! I sure am.

The NEW PAIN Amusement Park represents quite a bit of gameplay evolution from the development side and substantial input from people who post here and on our community site: www.painps3.com

We also took a long hard look at the trophy requirements and after your extremely candid reactions to them decided that it was much better to dial them down. Not everyone who plays PAIN is as good as the top 10%.

Today, we have four NEW content additions:

• One new PAIN Environment: The Amusement Park ($5.99 USD)
• Three new launchable characters: Tati, Yeony and Kenneth ($.99 USD)
• The Amusement Park: A new PAIN environment means you have new modes to cause PAIN, havoc and mischief all over again. Some familiar modes are back (HORSE, Fun With Explosives, Abusement Park) Some brand new modes are here to mix it up (Call da Shot, Clown Toss, Trauma, Hot n Cold) There’s more content in this add-on than there was in the original PAIN release!
• We also have a fantastic new experimental PAIN mode called PAINLabs. PAINLabs will be our chance to give YOU new PAIN-Based experimental environments EVERY WEEK. FOR FREE! Here we will work with the community (you guys) to build new and improved game modes that will make their way into future expansions. Make sure you are there to grab those Lab experiments when they are posted. We will change them every week! And when you see something you like, post to our boards. I can assure you we read them.

We’ve spent enough time in the incubation stage now. PAIN content is now starting to hit a stride. I hope you guys enjoy The Amusement Park. We have a lot more in store. See you very, VERY soon.

Peace

The last trophy I ever “earned” was in ROTC. That was way back in High School (tragic I know). So, I have been really excited to see PlayStation 3 trophies make their way into games both old and new. It’s a new way to show your “ePump-a-tude”. PAIN already features internal trophies that make the modes challenging. That’s why it’s so awesome to get to make a whole new set of trophies. Here’s a list of some of the Trophies you will see next month. If the names seem sophomoric or juvenile to you, then you clearly haven’t been playing PAIN enough. That’s kinda “How We Do.”

To answer some questions before they come up…

Q: When will Trophies be available for PAIN?
A: When the Amusement Park ships on 9-4-2008 we will update PAIN to include trophies.

Q: When does Amusement Park ship?
A: Duh

Q: Are Trophies retroactive?
A: Most of the trophy requirements are new so we haven’t tracked your progress until now. Some work you will get credit for.

Q: Are you CRAZY?!
A: Yes… Yes I am.

So here they are…a “somewhat” complete list of PAIN Downtown Trophies. I say “somewhat” because PAIN keeps getting bigger and bigger. There are more trophies for the Amusement Park, but I’ll talk about them some other time.

PAIN Trophies

Gold Trophies

• Affliction Addiction: Get one billion points (Good Luck)

Silver Trophies

• Dude Abides: Use “The Dude” to score 50 Strikes in Bowling

Bronze Trophies

• 10 Mill Club: Get “PAIN in the Park” and “D-Town Destruction”
• Harder Dick’s Balls: Get all of Dick’s Balls in the Block Party Dumpster without resetting
  (Heh heh heh) I really need adult supervision.
• D-Town Destruction: Get 10,000,000 score in PAINdemonium and Aftermath
• Combo Mambo: Get 20x Combo in PAINdemonium, Aftermath, Block Party and Demolition
• Attention Spam: Get every type of PAIN (Groin, Head, Arm, Hand, Leg, Foot and Body) combo in PAINdemonium, Aftermath, Block Party and Demolition

PAIN Add-on Character Trophies

• Trill: Get PAINful Tosser Trophy with Scurv Dogg or Hung Lo
• Grenade-A-Maid: Get Exploded 500 times with any female launchable character.

That’s it for now… We’re going to be releasing a lot of information in the coming weeks about the Amusement Park. New modes, new launchable characters and the brand new PAINLabs. When you have some time mosey on over to www.painps3.com that’s where you’ll get more info on all the new content!

Peace!

PAIN is a game that picks up where other games leave off. In every other game when you are smacked so hard you fall down the game dusts you off, and makes you try again. When you get smacked so hard you fall down it’s time to START playing PAIN! You’ve barely gotten warmed up!

Now you know how to OOCH. Your MONKEYS have been SPANKED. Your FUN WITH EXPLOSIVES skillz are legendary. And MIMES … they get weak in the knees when your PSN Name is whispered. You’re quite the master of disaster.

DOWNTOWN … has so been destroyed.

Now it’s time to hit The Amusement Park for some rest and relaxation right?

WRONG! This Park needs to know your name.

What’s this?

HOT n COLD teddy bears that do the robot? Bouncing CLOWNS that need tossing and smacking? How about a little SHOT CALLIN’ to prove your skillz are better than anyone else around. What kind of Amusement Park is this?

It’s the PAIN ABUSEMENT PARK. This time you can invite your friends to join you. We have online multiplayer capability so you can finally pit your skills against other people on the PLAYSTATION NETWORK. We also support the new PlayStation Trophies. This might be useful to see how awesome your competition is before you challenge them to a PAIN game. There’s a whole lot of content in this Park. For a first preview of the PAIN Amusement Park, head on over to GamesRadar.

I’m very proud of this add-on. A lot of these ideas came from us .. and quite a bit from YOU, our players. If you haven’t been heard, I suggest you get over to www.painps3.com and make your presence known … I already posted a brand new blog about how we came up with this add-on.

See you at the Fun Spot … and keep your “Pimp Hand” strong. You’ll need it.

My name is Travis Williams and I am the Senior Producer for PAIN for the PlayStation Network. It’s been a while since I last posted on the Official PlayStation blog. Every time I have it’s been a great experience. You all have shown me “da-love” so I wanted to make sure that when there was something cool to share with you that I would be back. I want to tell you what we’ve been doing with PAIN and why you should pay attention to us in the months to come.

Before I continue let me say welcome to the new PAIN users that have come via the Metal Gear Solid PlayStation 3 bundle. We’re happy to have you. Between your covert world saving missions you might want to take some time to pass a little gas. I won’t tell.

Snake SNAKE SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

Ahem…. Where was I? Oh yeah….

Tomorrow, the 19th of June we are releasing our next free update to PAIN. This will be a two-week process where each week we release new features and content to PAIN. This is a two-week process because we are perfecting our content delivery process. We have always had this goal with PAIN that we should be able to move faster with our content delivery than most games. If you are a normal PAIN blog reader you might laugh at that comment. They have been waiting for months for us to pick up the pace. Some of them were wondering where I’ve been lately.

While we are not completely done with this exercise I believe we have come a long way in making sure that the PAIN content delivery process is ironed out. In the coming months you will see new modes, characters, environments, and content options that everyone has been asking (or demanding) since we released in November (in the US). The great part about all of our future work is that it is worldwide. If I knew it was going to be this hard I would have shut my face before making such bold comments.

Oh well.. at least I am finally makin good right? Right?!

So what’s in the 6-19 update then? Here you go…

Jukebox Play – Now you can play your own tunes inside of PAIN. If you have some time go back to my previous blog posts and you will see where you users took us to task about including this option. So it’s DONE.

New Downtown Layouts – We have new configurations for downtown. Demolition and Block Party. Go to the trophy room after your update and you will see how to unlock these areas. You can also play these areas in HORSE now too.

Multiple Character Selection – Many of our players wanted to play two player games with different characters. So there you go.

Logo Skip – Now you don’t have to wait for the logo sequence to get right to the game.

The next PAIN update will happen a week later… This will include…

Nigel – A nod goes out to Sony Europe for helping us make a hoodlum the right way. Nigel will be available for download.

Platinum Club – If you are awesome at PAIN and earned all your Platinum medals then you will get brand new layouts for Spank The Monkey, Mime Toss and Fun with Explosives. You even have an exclusive leader board. Now that’s elite. If you are in the Platinum Club trust me… you have skillz.

That’s all for now. The PAIN content train is gaining speed. I’ll be back next month to tell you all about our brand new “Abusement” Park and how we are still as ridiculous as we were when we made Downtown.

I really should have more supervision… *Evil Laugh*

Peace

PAIN is an evolving game and how it grows will largely depend on what people like you want to see (and play). I wish that I could tell you what plans we have for the next theme, but in the meantime, I can tell you that some of your responses to my first blog post made my arguments to management more “convincing.”

Imagine me screaming, “LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE SAY WE SHOULD SHOOT (THIS PERSON) OUT OF A LAUNCHER! Please go make it happen!”

To know me is to know that this is totally something I would say. I’m really not well, you know. I am 6’3” and Super-Sized – this is sooo not a pretty picture.

ANYWAYS… I digress.

The reason I am posting now is because we made a new trailer for PAIN. We are close to the release date and it’s time I stopped talking about PAIN and started showing you PAIN. This video will show you the six modes of play available when we ship.

Single Player
PAINdemonium – This is your PAIN sandbox. Go nuts in this mode and collect points. The better you are in this mode, the harder you will be to beat in Multiplayer HORSE.
Mime Toss – Fly through the air and toss French Mimes through glass. (My fave single player mode). Do it in record time for trophies.
Spank The Monkey – Monkeys are taking over the city. Spank ‘em. You know you want to. This mode separates the kids from the adults in PAINful (the most difficult) mode.

Multiplayer
HORSE – All those smooth moves you perfected in PAINdemonium are worth points. Go head to head with your friends and see if they can make all the sweet launches you can.
Bowling – 10 Pins + Explosives + Cereal + Anvils – Common Sense X (1-4 Players) = The New Hotness
Fun With Explosives – Dude, it’s all about blowing yourself up as many times as you can. How can that possibly be ANYTHING but right?

So a common misconception people have when they see PAIN is to think it’s a 5 min experience. It’s so not that way. We’re shipping with six gameplay modes that keep you interested for a LONG time. You’ll see very soon. Until then watch the video.

And if you find yourself playing as Jarvis in PAIN and someone “doesn’t get it” press L2+X and tell them that “Team PAIN” has spoken.

So who would you like to see in PAIN? Vote in the poll on the right side of the blog.

1. What game do you have at E3 this year?
PAIN for the PlayStation 3 PlayStation Network and it’s being released soon. I would love to give myself the “finished game” Christmas present.

2. Tell us more about your game. What’s the story?
PAIN is cool in that there is no story. I could come up with a reason why seemingly “normal” people climb inside of a huge slingshot and fling themselves into dangerous situations, but you wouldn’t buy it.

The “more” I would like to say about PAIN is that although PAIN is meant to be funny it’s really a skillful sandbox game. The challenges start off pretty easy but trust me the game gets pretty daunting at the PAINful levels. You can play for five minutes or five hours.

3. If you could sit one person in front of your game for an hour, who would it be?
I dunno. Maybe Super Dave. That dude could take a hit for real.

4. What did you do on this game that you couldn’t do on another platform?
PAIN is different in that it’s made specifically for the PlayStation Network. Before PSN, we didn’t really have a dialogue with the people who play PlayStation games. That’s changed with PS3. That means we’re looking to the PSN community to help us shape future PAIN themes. So there’s a level of interaction with the game players that we couldn’t achieve until now. We’ve got cool ideas, but I’m really looking forward to see how other people play PAIN. We are also always making launchable characters for PAIN so if you guys have some ideas for characters you wanna fling (famous or not) chime in here on the comments thread. Of course, no guarantees, but we’ll do what we can.

5. Do you have any “firsts in this game that have never been done before?
If you can find a game where you can Toss Mimes and Spank Monkeys for points that I can play then I can stop working on this one.

6. What do you think is the coolest aspect of this game?
I’d say the coolest part of PAIN is how I never get tired of playing it. I know that might sound self-serving but it’s true. I’ve made some games that I was just sick of playing near the end. I can actually sit down with Coker (the associate producer on PAIN) and play for hours. When you first start playing PAIN it’s all about the funny. Soon, it’s all about your skillz.

7. What game do you most want an hour to sit in front of yourself (besides your own)?
Killzone. I hear it looks AMAZING.

8. How many E3’s does E3 2007 mark for you?
Been to EVERY one. Man I am old.

9. Describe the pre-2007 E3 experience in five words or less.
It’s hectic, but exciting too.

10. Most overused phrase(s) or expression during E3 Season.
- Dude! Have you seen the new Metal Gear Trailer?
-Huh? I can’t hear you. (Because there are explosions in the background)
-So, what company you working for NOW?
-I’m not waiting in that line to see a demo (and then you go wait in THAT line)

11. You are asked to make suggestions for an E3 survival kit- what three
items HAVE to be included?
Breath mints – To make sure you’re fresh to def
Comfortable shoes – To make sure you’re a Gellin
A Backpack – To make sure you can carry all the schwag

12. What advice would you have for someone who has never experienced E3?
Don’t ask me for Sony Party tickets. I don’t have any!

13. Describe what you anticipate from 2007’s newly formatted E3 in five
words or less.
A lot less booth babe-age.

14. What’s your favorite part about developing games for a living?
My mother told me that my knowledge of elves and magic was would never pay off…Having the last laugh on that one makes my whole career worth while. IN YOUR FACE MAMA!!

Was that disrespectful? Sorry Mom….