All I need is something the developer of the game has touched, a screenshot, press release or even just their previous game. Of course, with mild power comes minor responsibility and I have always tried to use mine accordingly. I like to flick through the preview section of games magazines (I don’t need to read them) and tot up everyone’s fates for the next year. If I overhear a new game being discussed, I feel compelled to interrupt with my divined review score (“that new Capcom game? Yeah, solid eight”). I am that guy.
When I try to focus my powers on our own game, though, they just completely die. I guess we all lost perspective long ago and have no idea now how the game will be received critically. Luckily, there is another way to find this out. While I’ve always kept my talent to myself, there is a place where gifted people like us can come together in anonymity to talk freely. Behold the oracle of video games forums.
Knowing this, when we decided to announce Joe Danger, we did so with a mixture of pant-wetting excitement and pant-soiling dread. Finally, we were sending our precious baby to its first day of school. It would be a huge step, but as we kissed our little game goodbye, we could see a playground with ranks of bullies waiting near the bike sheds. We spent three or four sleepless nights preparing screenshots, a press release and interviews. Then another sleepless night waiting for someone to notice.
“Found one!” Grant shouts, having been Googling for several hours. Lebowski on NTSC-uk.domino.org doesn’t know it, but he’s the first person to write “Joe” and “Danger” together on a games forum. Hello Games is listening, Lebowski – tell us what you think. He sums up Edge 207 like this: “Ton of reviews this month awful cover nothing of interest in the features really, war devil, Joe Danger, new Castlevania, Assassin Creed 2, Jeff Minter”. I’m sure Jeff Minter can take it, but that genuinely stung the four of us, and I can’t imagine the mood with the 300 strong Assassins Creed II team would be any better right now.
“Now we’re on NeoGAF!” Oh God. “It’s not that bad,” Grant reckons, but by the time the page loads for me, it is. SamBishop has spotted that the press release mentions Kuju as a previous employer and hates to admit that this means that Joe Danger will probably be “shit”. It's good to see a fellow mystic at work, and I have long suspected the same of Joe Danger myself. Of all of us, Dave spent the longest time at Kuju, and true to form he’s an absolute liability. For instance, we have to unplug his machine to stop him posting his four page ranting response.
Now the US websites are waking up. The people of Joystiq spot that it mistakenly says “3ND” instead of 3rd in our screenshot, which they have correctly taken as a sign that Hello Games is “half-assed” and Joe Danger is “shovelware”. Not just here either, but on 27 other websites, across three continents and in seven languages. Amazing given only one of those languages even uses the abbreviation “3rd”. If you Google “3ND” then Hello Games is one of the top search results.
We spend an entire week on this rollercoaster. We celebrate every positive word, and fret at anything remotely negative. We don’t actually take any of it too seriously, but we know that while we haven’t gone down in flames, we haven’t set the world alight either.
We decide what’s needed is to present the game live in front of real people, so when the opportunity to show at the Eurogamer Expo comes up, we jump at it. At the Expo, I’m reminded of the other side of hardcore gamers and that’s their passion and childlike glee for new games, the kind that most six year olds would reserve for Christmas. We have a cracking time there and the people who play the game seem to love it.
We’re on a total high afterwards and it’s gone to our heads. So when we see that someone has leaked a video from the Expo, we’re excited. Quick, check the comments.
Top of the page, before it got voted out, is “Looks Boring. It’s one Little Big Planet mini-game. If not... is free?”. Oh well. You might dismiss MoiseAlmeida and think, “What poor English”, but it’s not easy to cram five separate insults into 12 short words (I count boring, derivate, short, repetitive and valueless). On the other hand, elsewhere ShitfaceRed says that “Joe Danger is the game I been waiting for all my life”. Now this is more like it. “I will buy if not more $10 and will buy no DLC,” he adds. Well, ShitfaceRed, pricing is a complex issue, but your point is well made.
After this, we take the decision to stop reading the comments. Fun as it can be, it’s also confusing and a little scary.
Grant’s just checking one last time when it happens. Aptly, it comes from someone called Gandalf, and like at the Battle Of Helm’s Deep, he has come to our rescue. He has revisited dormant Joe Danger forum threads, resetting the balance. “I played Joe Danger at the Eurogamer Expo” he booms. “Looks polished and Handling was nice. 10/10”. And it’s not just him – members of an apparently newly assembled army on every thread jump on any new piece of Joe Danger information.
We still have no idea how our game will be received, but we have found out the hard way what people like the Behemoth have known for years. Press releases aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, but people like Gandalf, Calbob79, Majora, CorporalKitty and Sigourney Beaver are everything. If any of you beautiful people are reading, know this, Hello Games is your biggest fan.
Hello Games contributes a fortnightly column to Edge and is a small, new independent game developer based in southern England. Its first game, Joe Danger, aimed at XBLA, PSN and PC, will be released just as soon as it feels right. Let’s say spring next year.