Joe Danger Jumps to PSN Today!

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Hello! I can’t describe what this feels like: Joe Danger is released exclusively to PlayStation 3 today. This is both the most exciting and nerve wracking day of my life.

Two years ago, three friends and I decided to make a game together. Hello Games formed and sat around playing with a box of toys. One stunt cycle in particular. Firing it out windows and imagining a game featuring that hapless rider.

The truth is, back then we didn’t really know what we were doing. We didn’t know if we could make the game we wanted with just four people. We had worked on some big titles before, games like Burnout and Black, and those were huge teams of hundreds. All of us had been dreaming of making our own games, probably since we could play them. In the end it was just something we had to do.

Last Friday night we all sat up waiting for our first review. It turned out to be a 9.5 on IGN, their highest ever rated PSN game. Then we got a 9 in GameInformer, their Game of the Month (the first ever for PSN). Amazing! Check out some more awesome reviews here and here.

We’ve literally poured everything we have into Joe Danger. It’s been an incredibly difficult two years, but to see people enjoying what we’ve done is the most rewarding feeling in the world. It’s why we’re so excited for the release. This is the game we’ve always wanted to make, for each of us it’s every game we’ve loved crammed into one innovative and tight package. I thought I’d let the others members of Hello Games describe what they love about the game.

Grant: “I’m the sole Artist and I designed most of the levels for Joe Danger. Christmas ‘92 I got Sonic, and played it straight ‘til Christmas ‘93. I wanted to create levels with that crazy feeling of speed, those sudden leaps of faith and the fluid feeling when you are in the zone. You might be on a Bike, but for me Joe is a platformer at heart. Just one at 200mph.”

David: “I’m the Gameplay guy on Joe Danger. Before I had my C64 and California Games, I was Pinball obsessed. I’ll basically do anything for a multiplier. Tony Hawks Pro Skater and Jet Set Radio were huge for me at Uni when I was learning to skate. It’s all about that extreme tension when you’ve built up some huge score Combo, and just one mistake will wipe it all out in an instant. Joe Danger is fast and frantic, but really it’s all about highscores for me.”

Ryan: “I’m the main technical dude at Hello Games. I’m that guy who loves nothing but racing games, speed-runs, time attacks. Excitebike, Trackmania, Crazy Taxi and Burnout have been big games to me and I guess that’s rubbed off. Joe Danger is never anything but fast, whether you’re trying to grab every coin in Coin Dash, or neck and neck racing for the finish line. It’s all about Boost. Stunts feeds your boost, allowing for even bigger air and crazier Stunts. Boost is that glue between racing, comboing and platforming.”

Once again, Joe Danger is on the PlayStation Store in America later today and we really hope you enjoy it! Spread the word.

You can keep up to date with Hello Games and Joe Danger on our blog, follow us on Twitter or even just send us a mail!

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155 Comments

7 Author Replies

  • Instant buy for me. Can’t wait.

  • looks like a cool game !! getting it today !!! see you online!

  • what time is update?

  • Game of the Forever? I think so.

  • Don’t worry to much Sean, Everyone’s hard work at Hello Games will not go unnoticed. Time to celebrate!!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

  • hi sean, How much cost the game? :)

    • I’ve forgotten to put the price in the post again! :)

      The price $14.99 in the States. As I say in the post, it’s a big game, with lots of gameplay. We’re a small indie and as such not totally in control of pricing, but we think it’s really good value ;)

  • Cant wait!

  • I would like to know how bad is the framerate in Split-Screen and also how many single player levels can we expect?

  • @ 5 – I think I saw the answer in comments section of the last post. I believe he said $19.99 then, but I could be wrong.

    Think I will be downloading this today. Looks like a lot of fun.

  • The game is 14.99

  • I’ve been hearing big things about this game, can’t wait to get my hands on it!

  • Sean! Always awesome to see a blog post from you :) Can’t wait to see how you answered the questions in that interview I sent you a while back :D (I’m the guy from psnstores.com :P )

  • @V_Ben, i love your Official thread on NeoGaf. Still wish they would let me register there. Add me on PSN for some Joe D. later?

  • Will there be a demo?

    • Thanks for all the awesome comments everyone!

      Regarding the demo we are a really small team and totally focused on just finishing Joe Danger and releasing it at the moment. After this we’d definitely like to look at doing a demo if we can though. I think they’re a good idea!

      It might take a while to put together, but in the meantime we’re going to try to release lots of videos and information so people can get a good idea of what the game is before they hopefully buy it ;) That’s one of the reasons we put together the three new videos in the post!

  • Met some of the team at PAX East, played the game and love it. Must buy title for me. Thanks guys.

  • cheers Unknown_Hero! I’m in the UK, so i have to wait until tomorrow for this little puppy :)

  • I will definitely be supporting the hard work Hello Games has put into this game!

  • Johnny_iS_A_bOy

    Is there going to be a demo? I honestly would like to try the game out before buying it. Its getting great reviews but honestly just watching from the trailers isnt selling me on it.. I’d hate to see your hard work not get into more gamers hands cause the lack of a demo.

  • Told all my friends about this. Hope it’s a success.

  • Hah, I’m hurting for you there, ill send you a request just so you can feel worse seeing me play all day :P

  • At what time will it be realesed? I can’t find it….

  • ShatteredRaven77

    Sweet! I’ve been waiting for this ever since the PSN Blog first posted about Joe Danger!

  • I’m actually really looking forward to this game! I can already tell from the little bit of footage I’ve seen that this game will be great. Good work “Hello games” I can’t wait. Hurry up psn store…update! lol

  • I’ll be there this afternoon. Thanks for bringing this out!

  • Come on PSN update already!!!!!

  • tell me more of the influence of CRAZY TAXXI on JOE DANGER….

    • I can’t speak for Ryan (who mentioned it), but I think most of us became obsessed with the Crazy Taxi, Crazy Box challenges for a long time at some point. Those were awesome, incredibly difficult, short, sharp, but with that instant must-have-one-more-go addictiveness. That’s something we’ve really tried to capture with Coin Dashes in Joe Danger.

  • Can I jump over a dog doo stick like Lance Murdoch?

  • while (!playing.JoeDanger()){
    load.JoeDanger();
    playing.JoeDanger() == true;
    awesome++;
    fun *= fun;
    }

    Yes. It’s an infinite loop of Joe Danger.

    • What an awesome comment! You speak my language :)

      I’m also happy to see that fun is exponential.

  • hahaha win

  • why does this look so much like excite bike! Now I have to get it.

  • This game looks good, but I don’t understand why Sony doesn’t enforce trials or demos for PSN games. I mean I like to check the game out before spending my cash. I’m sure most of you feel the same and I have mentioned this time and time again but Hey what do I know, Im just a customer. Anyway good luck with the game and hopefully it will sell well.

  • I have excite bike on my Wii but was always looking for something more up to date and Joe Danger is it! Come on PSN update!!! LOL

  • After reading those developer comments, I think now I understand why the game has that “Super Dave” feel to it… I’m pretty sure they were watching that show as they grew up.

  • demo?

  • Deal Breaker….. Is custom soundtracks supported for this title? If not, it is overpriced. The game looks excellent. (Please respond to this, i am not expecting a demo, and I’m sure others would like to know.)

  • anotherdae look at #14 ;)

  • I might have to go out to the store and buy a PSN card just for this!
    It looks amazing guys.

  • Hello Nathan!

    Thanks so much. That means a lot coming from you guys. Especially because you also have a massive red box.

    RedBox++;

    • Hey Sean,

      I wanted to express my studio’s **supreme excitement** for Joe Danger… but then i realized my expression came in the form of a red box! I didnt want it to look like i was responding in your thread, so i got rid of the post :)

      In short… JOE FREAKING DANGERRRRRRR

      and sorry for redboxing in your thread Sean

      and also JOE FREAKING DANGERRRRRRR

      <3

  • Joe Danger looks more like a 16-bit Sonic than actual Sonic titles have in the last decade. Great graphics with a retro inspired gameplay. SOLD. Can’t wait!!!

  • I will definitely be getting this game!!! as soon as the store updates.

    I think this was asked before can’t remember but this game looks like it would be perfect for PSP. Is there anyway to code it so that it works on both similarly to the PSOne classics and Mini’s?

    “Blog Stalker”
    WrekGar

  • 14.99, wasn’t expecting that price point. Game looks to be worth it though. If I can’t get it this week then next week for sure.

  • Trophylist anyone? :)

  • I’ll just assume that there are no custom soundtracks in this game. Hopefully if enough people download the title, then you can add custom soundtracks with an eventual update?

    Like Critter Crunch did, and that was only a $6.99 game.

    It would be nice if you could confirm or deny the custom soundtracks.

    Customers appreciate honesty, and answers. (Either way, I’m planning on buying this game.)

    • Custom soundtracks aren’t currently supported, but is something that we are adding in a patch we are working on right now. That will also add a whole bunch pretty cool and exciting new features, that we can’t talk about just yet :)

      Even though Joe Danger is about to release we haven’t ever stopped working flat out on it and as long as the support is there we hope to continue to do so!

  • How sad is it that PSN is an enviroment most developers think a demo isn’t worth their time and money?

    If Sony’s not going to require demos like XBLA they need to do something to incentivise them since the number happening is getting less and less.

  • Will be available on amazon.com today?

  • Looks awesome. The look of the game is great! Can’t wait for payday to pick this one up! Looking forward to getting this ;)

  • Hi guys,

    Will definitely be picking this up as it seems like a great little gem, and I like to support small studios. One small question though:

    Is there any chance that somewhere down the line you guys might implement an online multiplayer option? As much fun as local multiplayer is, I have family that I play with online a lot that live halfway across the world. No biggie if not, but I think it would be a lot of fun for a game like this.

    • Regarding online, one thing that isn’t always always obvious straight away is that Joe Danger is all about Highscores. As Dave says in the post, as well as being a racer and a platformer, it’s got an awesome “Tony Hawks”-esque combo mechanic. Even though Joe Danger has a lot of levels and different game modes, every one of those also has a whole other layer of replayability just for Highscores.

      The moment you cross the finish line you see your friends scores, and you’ll know if a records been beat. I think we’ve integrated that in a really interesting, clever way.

      In terms of online competition, that’s what Joe Danger is already all about. We’ve really focused the gameplay around that, and it’s been amazing to watch folks from the press already having some intense competition on the tables over the last few weeks.

      Level sharing is also why having that online community is so important. People being able to make levels, share them, create their own challenges and actually compete for Highscores on them is pretty awesome.

  • Can’t even wait to get home from work to download this. I’ve been waiting for Joe Danger since its unveil months ago. So much style, so much nostalgic fun…all crammed into one nice PSN package. You can bet my Facebook will be updated the minute I purchase this tonight.

  • Congratulations guys ;-) Always nice to see new indies getting their chance to shine. Consider JD purchased on my end!

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