Joe Danger Message Board

Hello PlayStation.Blog!

I’m Alex! I work with Sean and the gang at Hello Games. We made Joe Danger, the super-colorful, super-challenging racey platformy series starring a fat little stuntman! People have seemed to like it loads, calling it all kinds of nice things like “astounding” (Official PlayStation Magazine) and “perfect” (Game Informer).

So, you might remember that we’re bringing Joe Danger to PS Vita, and I’m here to tell you that we’re nearly finished! Also, I wanted to tell you some super special news.

So first up, both of our big-console games, Joe Danger and its sequel, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, are running on PS Vita at a smooth-as-butter 60 frames a second, looking clean as you like, and they play so, so nicely in your hands. 60FPS has always been so important to us, because that’s how the games we grew up with ran. So it’s fantastic that Vita can make it happen, especially since it totally looks just as good as the PS3 version. We’re pushing about 400k polys a frame, which is pretty amazing. It loads real fast too. :)

You won’t believe the work that’s gone into making this happen – our friends at Four Door Lemon have done an amazing job squeezing Danger into such a small form factor. We’ve always prided ourselves on our games running perfectly, and we’re so happy that Vita totally lives up to it.

So what will you get with the two games? Let’s talk numbers. Joe Danger features 84 levels, including the Director’s Cut and Laboratory stages, and 25 characters to play as. Joe Danger 2 features 85 levels — including 15 from the Undead Movie Pack we originally released as DLC for the PS3 version — and a whopping 35 playable characters. Seriously, there are dozens of hours’ play in these two releases. It takes our tester, Gareth, nearly three solid days to play through them both. Honestly, this makes him really happy.

We’ve also brought loads of improvements we made in Joe Danger 2 to the original, so both games automatically download ghosts to race against, plus they have online leaderboards and there’s a full complement of Trophies to collect. We wanted these games to be the best versions you can get.

“Alex!” you’re potentially shouting. “I’m stoked to hear this, even if it’s little more than I’d expect of Joe Danger. But there’s one more thing I need to know about. The original games somehow use pretty much every button on a DualShock, so how the heck do you play it on Vita?”

A fine question! We’ve spent a long time tweaking the controls to feel great on Vita, and we think you’ll like the results because they’re really simple! First, we’ve added touch controls for the menus and the Editor mode! This makes the games really easy to navigate. And in play, the only differences are that Circle now tricks as well as punches, while Triangle is a second trick button. The bottom line is that it feels so natural; we’ve been racking up some crazy scores already!

OK, so that’s the main course. Now onto the pudding: that special news. Following a little pub chat with our friends at Media Molecule (and then some rash late night promises) we’re really excited to announce that they’ve have helped us to put three new characters in Joe Danger 2!

You’ll be able to play as Tearaway’s Atoi and Iota (Tearaway is a completely lovely game that everyone should play, btw).

And there’s some guy called Sackboy, too? Maybe you know about him.

They fit so nicely in Joe’s colourful world. Sackboy is in our game! Sackboy! It’s so good. Thanks, Media Molecule! Hey, maybe Joe can take a holiday in LittleBigPlanet sometime?

So that’s us. We’ll be following up with release dates really soon, but for more news on all things Hello Games and Joe Danger, why not follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and maybe come visit our website! Thanks so much for reading!

No Man’s Sky is easily one of the most intriguing game prospects in development right now, what with its claims of atomic-level procedural generation and galaxies of planets to fly between – sea to land to sea of stars – at your leisure. It’s about as “next-gen” as anything I’ve heard about, and I want nothing more than to get lost in the crevices of its titanic toes. Unfortunately, developer Hello Games isn’t doing so hot these days. Over the holiday break, the Joe Danger creator’s entire office flooded, and the total monetary value of PCs, laptops, dev-kits, and equipment lost would’ve apparently been enough to “fund a small game.” Procedurally generated props to the four-person studio, though: they’re not slowing down. Not for a second. Heck, they’re even ruling out Kickstarter for now.

(more…)

Joe Danger Infinity is an endless racer and motorbike stunt-er coming to iOS "really soon," developer Hello Games says. Infinity is the first Joe Danger made just for iOS. After launching Joe Danger Touch, Hello Games felt it had "unfinished business" in the handheld space, studio founder Sean Murray says.

Infinity features Joe Danger as a tiny, gumball machine toy that comes alive when popped open, and he races across bedroom floors, through family dinners and over a variety of relatively giant objects. It features endless gameplay, two dozen playable characters pulled from childhood nostalgia, a fresh emphasis on competition, and 20 new vehicles - including a tank, airplanes and a runaway firework.

In related Hello Games news, Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2: The Movie are on their way to Vita from UK developer Four Door Lemon. Joe Danger is expected to hit Vita in Q2 2014.

In even more related Hello Games news, the studio is currently working on No Man's Sky, the stylish sci-fi exploration game introduced during this month's VGX awards. If we could remember just one thing from VGX, it would probably be No Man's Sky. If only that's how memories worked.

The Joe Danger studio unexpectedly switches to procedurally-generated, Chris Foss-inspired sci-fi on a grand and beautiful scale.

No words to describe it. Poetry. And from a four-person indie studio too. This has jetted straight to the top of my Most Wanted list.(more…)

Is this some sort of joke? What the hell are they playing at? Halloween was last year. What’s to be gained from releasing a Halloween-themed game now, in this, the year of Luigi? Might as well put out a London Olympics update, Hello Games, if that is indeed your real name.

The Undead Movie Pack is the first DLC for comedy bike/harrowing personal injury escapade Joe Danger 2, and despite being a full 363 days late for the event it’s celebrating it goes the whole hog with six new toonishly spooksome characters. One of which, perfectly, is Ghost Rider. Though no doubt there are any number of careful differences included in order to keep hotshot Marvel lawyer Matt Murdoch from Hello’s door.(more…)

Oh man! It’s so good to be back on the PlayStation.Blog! PlayStation is where Joe Danger and our little studio began, so it feels really good to be able to announce that we’re bringing Joe Danger and its sequel, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, to PS Vita next year! Our team owes so much to the PlayStation community…

We released Joe Danger on PS3 all the way back in 2010, which seems pretty much like a decade ago now. To us, anyway. Joe Danger was inspired by our love for the fun, colourful, and challenging games that we grew up playing on SNES and Megadrive, and with your help our little fat stuntman gained a load of fans and highscore chasers, which made us incredibly happy (and frustrated with our skills at our own game).

Anyway, the game did well enough to give us a chance to release Joe Danger 2 last year, which was the Joe Danger we had in our heads (before the realities of our little team actually getting it finished got in the way). With loads of vehicles, scenarios and settings, we’re incredibly proud of it.

This should all explain why we’re so pleased to be able to announce Joe Danger for PS Vita. It’s something we’ve been quietly (but excitedly) working away on for little while (If you could play it right now, you’d be excited too!).

One of the reasons we’ve fallen in love with PS Vita is its power. It’s super, super important to us that our games run really smoothly. Like, 60 FPS smoothly. There’s nothing like the super-slick movement and sense of responsiveness of a really well-made game. That screen just looks so lovely showing colorful, vibrant games too.

Another big reason why Vita’s perfect for Joe Danger is in its controls. On PS3, Joe Danger uses pretty much every button, stick and trigger for something, so all Vita’s inputs — from its touchscreens to its dual analog sticks — are essential. We’re aiming for Joe on Vita to play at least as well as it does on PS3! We’ve got some surprises in store for our level editor, too.

We want to bring the console game across without losing a single bit of what I’m proud of, so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. But hopefully I’ll be able to tell you guys more as we get closer to launch. Maybe there’ll be a few surprises! (There will be.) Until then, thanks so, so much for all your support over the past few years. Without you guys, we wouldn’t be here, so I hope we do you proud.

Speak to you again real soon!

Joe Danger mobile has peeled off 66 percent from its standard price of $3 on the App Store, and is now $1 for a limited time.

The sale is in conjunction with the game's biggest update yet. Update 1.0.3 adds 50 percent more content: a new game mode called new Calendar Tour, new levels, five new characters (bringing it to 32 total) and universal iCloud support. Calendar Tour offers players a new level to run through every day of the week. Complete all the levels in one weekly round and the next week's batch will be tougher to beat, and snag big coin rewards.

And then use those coins to buy one of the new characters, two of which are a pirate and a ninja.

Much like JLS, the cast of Team Fortress 2 will put their faces anywhere. Though unlike JLS, they’ve yet to put them on the front of a box of Johnnies.* This time they’re showing up in the long-awaited, far too long in happening PC versions of lovely Hello Games’ lovely Joe Danger games. Tiny cutesy Heavy on a motorbike! Aww! Hello claim they initially only put the TF2 characters in for fun, but I DON’T BELIEVE THEM ONE BIT.

Also there are Minecraft levels, and the option to make your own ones, just to double up on the whole PC gaming Zeitgeisty thing.(more…)

Splendid side-scrolling stuntman game Joe Danger’s two episodes will arrive on PC for June 24th. Hello Games send word that they’ll be enjoying a Steam release on that date, and also teasingly add: “We’re actually having to rush pretty hard to finish it because we keep adding new stuff. I’ve talked about sharing levels over Steam Workshop, Big Picture support and mouse and keyboard controls, but we’ve got a couple more surprises planned!”

Surprises, eh? Hmm. There’s plenty already been revealed in our detailed interview with Sean Murray.(more…)

Guildford-based developers Hello Games have spent the past few years crafting the delightful Joe Danger, but only for those console things. Now, though, they’re bringing their colourful stuntman to PC, and they’re promising a PC version with shiny knobs on.

We spoke to Hello’s Sean Murray to find out more.(more…)

#playthis When I first caught wind of Hello Games bringing their stunt-racing hero Joe Danger to iOS, I imagined a straight port of the original PlayStation Network release, complete with a screen cluttered with virtual controls. Instead they've delivered a game that fully embraces the touch-based platform, one that's as refreshing to play as it was for the company's founder to develop. More »

Joe Danger Touch is leaping through rings of fire and App Store red tape to land on iPhones and iPads this month. Speaking to CVG, developer Hello Games said the iOS trickster features new characters which can be unlocked either by progressing through the game or via in-app purchases. Touch also lets players set challenges for each other via Game Center.

"I don't think Joe Danger Touch feels like anything else I've played," Hello Games managing director Sean Murray said. "I want it to feel like it could only work on iOS, because we've built it specifically for the device. Towards the end of the game, it gets super difficult, probably more so than the console version. I'm amazed what levels I can handle sometimes, and the subtlety possible with just a touch interface."

That touch interface sees players swiping to make Joe wheelie, flicking to knock obstacles off the track, tapping to jump, and holding down to crouch. Presumably you have to blow on the screen to put him out following the inevitable ring of fire mishap.

It’s great to be back on the PlayStation Blog so soon! I’m here to tell you something surprising! Joe Danger 2 is coming to PlayStation gamers very soon, next week in fact! That’s October 9th in the US!

PlayStation owners are getting a huge exclusive DLC pack of bonus content too. I’d love to tell you more about it, but first I’m going to have to explain a little about how we make games.

When we make a game, we make it for ourselves. We play it every day, getting better and better at it. The great thing is that you get rid of every snag and rough edge, but then we let our friends play, and realise it has become too hard!

That’s what happened when we made the original Joe Danger, as four guys sat in a room playing our own game. We actually first made a very tight, very challenging game that took about 10 hours to complete. It was pure and intense! No tutorials, no handholding, just fun arcade gameplay. Our friends loved it, but only the most skilled players could master it. In fact no one was able to complete it!

We knew we had to go back to the drawing board, we wanted Joe Danger to be more accessible and easier to get into. We scrapped about half of the levels, and toned down the rest. Then we added a huge amount of new content, to make the original Joe Danger the 25 hour fun-fest that was such a hit on PS3!

The sad thing is, no one ever got to play this prototype game we now refer to as “Joe Danger Gaiden”. It was an alternate Joe Danger for a true fan, and I still play it every now and then. When we came to make the PS3 version of Joe Danger 2, I thought it would be a great opportunity to let our original fans play this unseen version.

So what is it? Well, it’s a complete game that takes easily ten hours to complete. Many of the levels will be familiar to fans of the original, and others are experiments that we loved but were too challenging or quirky for the main game.

We’ve gone back and added all the cool new things from Joe Danger 2, like Pro Medals, Ghosts, new leaderboards and hidden challenges where you become a monkey on a jetpack!

All the levels use the scrambler from the original, which isn’t normally in Joe Danger 2. You play as Team Nasty (Joe’s rivals), and each one of the 5 members gets their own tour with 5 levels each! It starts out easy, but it really does get intense!

It is set in the Motion Capture lab from Joe Danger 2. This is a pure, abstract environment, and is where we develop all our levels and experiment (we use the grid markings to make the levels flow perfectly). It allows you to focus on the challenge!

As well as that extra content, we’ve taken the time to add a few new features and tweaks for Joe Danger 2 on PlayStation 3! I’ll do my best to remember them all…

Replays and Youtube Support
What’s the point of being the World’s Greatest Stuntman, if you can’t show your friends? Now you can save, playback and upload to youtube your greatest stunt spectaculars.

Developer Picks
On Joe Danger 2, you can share your own levels globally online. As well as all the extra content in Joe Danger 2, we’re also getting ready some exclusive developer levels which will be ready on launch day!

Custom Soundtracks
We love the Joe Danger music, but we think we’ve heard it a few too many times now. Personally we like to listen to eighties rock, while we take over the leaderboards.

Level Editing
The Sandbox was one of our most popular features. Now that you can share your levels across the globe, we wanted to make the Level Editor even more powerful. Every Friday we’ll be picking the 5 best user levels, and highlighting them on our front page.

Unlocking Joe Danger
If you own the original Joe Danger, then you’ll unlock the original Joe and his bike for Joe Danger 2. Then you can play the entire game as him if you want!

Downloadable Tours
On PlayStation 3 we’ve created an area which allows us to release new Downloadable content straight into your game. This is where you’ll find “Joe Danger Gaiden”! We already have another pack planned in the next month…

Lots More
We’ve tried to make everything just a little bit better, from big things like how the leaderboards work, to little things like making one annoying sound a little quieter. If someone has noticed it, we’ve tried to fix it.

Hidden Stuff
We couldn’t resist putting in some surprises for people who have already played Joe Danger to death. Especially if you 100% completed the game, or think you have gotten all the Pro Medals, you might want to have a another look.

Hello Games wants to genuinely thank the community again for their amazing support. We really hope you enjoy the new features and content! Go and spread the word :)

We are releasing on October 9th in America, and the price is $14.99. It’s a huge game, with this content it has 125+ levels and will take over 50 hours to complete!

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!

Hello world! It’s incredibly exciting to finally be back on the Playstation Blog. It’s even more exciting to be able to announce that Joe Danger: The Movie is coming to PS3 in the very near future with exclusive new content!

Two years ago, three friends and I made the original Joe Danger. The PlayStation community then took us under their wing and helped make it the huge success it became. Since then we’ve been working incredibly hard to create the follow-up, Joe Danger: The Movie. Finally, today we can announce that Joe is coming home to the PlayStation Store very, very soon.

What I really can’t wait for is the surprises we have in store for PlayStation gamers. This has been a total labour of love for us, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what people think of the game.

If you want to know more about the game, you can read some previews here and here, but first let me tell you a bunch of stuff you might not know.

Make your own Movie!

In the original, Joe Danger was a washed up stuntman, living in a caravan in the middle of the desert. Now he has been discovered by a mysterious director, and brought to Hollywood. As the player you perform every stunt in the film, scene by scene.

Exclusive Content!

PlayStation was where Joe Danger started out, and as a thank you to all the fans of the original we’re bringing over 10 hours of exclusive content to PSN, bundled with the main game. We’re putting the finishing touches on this at the moment, and I don’t want to give too much away, but I think fans of the original will really love what we’ve done.

Stunt, Create and Share

In the first Joe Danger it was only possible to share levels with your friends, and even doing that was quite difficult. Surprisingly though, people used the level editor a lot. Over 160,000 levels were created in the original, but never shared! Isn’t that heartbreaking? That’s why I’m so excited that this time round we’ve implemented global online level sharing. You can view the world’s most popular levels, highest rated, your friends, sort them in lots of different ways. Every week Hello Games will be picking the five best user levels from the week, and highlighting them on the front page!

Joe Danger: The Movie is a BIG game

We want to blow you away with a game where you dodge avalanches, stop nuclear missiles, fight robots, chase dinosaurs and fly jetpacks! Every level in Joe Danger 2 has a different gameplay mechanic, different environment or different vehicle. It’s really varied, but it’s also a huge game – twice the size of the original. Once you finish the main career “Movie Mode”, we also have “Deleted Scenes” which is a little like our challenge mode. It’s full of our most difficult and craziest challenges.

Ghosts

Ghosts on Joe Danger: The Movie means you are you are playing every level against all your friends on PlayStation Network, as well as the best players in the world. Joe Danger is all about playing with friends, because playing Joe Danger together is how we’ve built this game. That might also mean passing the pad on a heart-breakingly difficult Time Attack, or punching your sofa rivals off their unicycle in the new hilarious four-player same screen multiplayer. Sometimes it’s crossing the finish line to immediately see all your online friend’s highscores, and instantly restarting.

We want this to be a competitive game, something to play together and one we hope you’ll want to tell everyone about.

You can keep up to date with Hello Games and Joe Danger on our blog, follow us on Twitter or even just send us mail! Oh, and feel free to ask questions below and I’ll do my best to answer!

The worlds favorite cartoon stuntman is back!

Hello Games is preparing to bring its big-movie stuntman, Joe, to the small screen. Joe Danger Touch! is an entirely new game built specifically for iPhone and iPad. It doesn't use a virtual joystick. Instead, you swipe to make Joe pop a wheelie, flick to knock obstacles out of his way, tap to jump, and hold to crouch.

Joe Danger Touch will feature original levels and mechanics - nothing from the console games will be reused for the iOS entry, according to Hello Games. We don't know when it'll be out, but we've got some of the first screens in the gallery below.

#joedanger Slowly but surely, Hello Games' lovable stuntman Joe Danger keeps making his way to new platforms. After debuting on PS3 and then hitting Xbox 360 last year, the Super Dave of video games will be defying death on iPads and iPhones soon. More »

#joedangerthemovie The coolest part of an action movie is, well, the action. Carefully choreographed and filmed stunts and effects make the impossible seem downright easy, when splashed on the big screen. More »

It was just a week ago when the Korean Game Ratings Board kind of, sort of implied that PSN hit Joe Danger was on its way to Xbox Live. While everyone involved was maddeningly silent amidst requests for confirmation or denial, developer Hello Games announced this morning that Joe Danger: Special Edition is in fact on its way to Xbox Live - and published by Microsoft, no less. This is unusual, given Microsoft's generally restrictive policies with regards to first-party publishing on Xbox Live.

Development duties on the port are being handled in-house at Hello Games, but it's not a simple translation. Hello have, in the words of Studio Managing Director Sean Murray "revisited the original," in an attempt to sand off some of the rough edges. "I think we knew that Joe Danger was a hard game, but it could be frustrating [too]," Murray continued. "I think we've really changed that, it's a much more joyous game now, through like a thousand changes big and small."

Hello Games has also spent time adding "new environments, gameplay modes, characters - lots," said Murray. "I'm not sure it would be possible for someone to complete in under 30 hours now... the game is huge."

#joedanger Former PSN exclusive Joe Danger has made a very rare jump to the Xbox 360, Microsoft seemingly content to play second-fiddle for once in exchange for some new goodies. More »

Live in the UK and looking to work somewhere with an adorable logo? Nope, we're not talking about Cadbury -- Joe Danger dev house Hello Games is looking for a new tester, and this new tester will spend all of his or her time making sure the studio's next, unannounced title is up to snuff.

The Hello Games blog asks that said tester "loves gaming, is hard working, ambitious and enjoys learning," though it doesn't necessarily require all applicants to be super experienced. "You'll be testing our latest games day-to-day, but you'll also be exposed to things that will astound you ... think of it as a gateway drug for the games industry," it reads. We have to imagine, if Hello Games is the "gateway drug," presumably AAA, 3D, and motion titles are soon to follow -- a dark path indeed!

With an impeccable, topsy-turvy career of stunt racing behind him, Joe Danger's certainly no chicken -- we've heard that his middle name is "Danger," despite the obvious redundancy. Still, if you insist that Joe "Danger" Danger make a fool out of himself and don a costume of the poultry persuasion, you'll be pleased to learn that Hello Games is introducing "Chicken Joe," along with several new characters, to the PSN's bike bounce-'em-up.

You'll be able to download four new characters, who all have access to unique collectables, bikes and stunts, from the PlayStation Store following today's update (and tomorrow's in Europe). "We actually asked the community for suggestions for characters, which has been eye-opening," said Hello Games MD Sean Murray in an announcement. "Apparently monkeys really are as popular as you might think, but zombies are on the wane, which is long overdue ..."

Aside from Chicken Joe, the community has conjured up undead knight Sir Bonehead, Geronim-Joe ("We're from the UK," said Hello, "so Indians eating turkey is as far as our understanding of Thanksgiving goes") and, by popular demand, a monkey. If we're not mistaken, the desire to put a monkey on a motorcycle and send it through a cartoonish obstacle course is what prompted Harold Video to invent the Video game in 1987.

Joe Danger will be discounted to $7.49 from today's update until next Tuesday's update in the PSN Fall sale. While Hello Games did not confirm whether the new DLC characters will be free (we assume so!), we'll know soon enough.

Hello, It’s great to be back on the PlayStation.Blog!

When my three friends and I first got together as Hello Games and started work on Joe Danger, we never expected the amazingly supportive response we’ve had from the PlayStation community. So what better time to have some fresh news than at Thanksgiving :)

First off some people still haven’t even played the multi-award winning Joe Danger yet! Just for those patient people, between the 23rd and 30th of November you can purchase Joe Danger in the American store for HALF PRICE. That’s just $7.49 for what many are calling the “Game of the Year” on PSN (mainly this was our Mums… but they know their games). If you don’t trust our Mums, then you can check out IGN, GameInformer or Destructoid. That’s the cheapest 30 hours of death-defying, stunt-biking, high-octance gameplay you can get ANYWHERE.

To celebrate the sale, we’re releasing some awesome new characters for Joe Danger, each of these comes with their own unique style, new motorbike, crazy new moves and special collectibles. Grab a new character to show off your new skills in multiplayer or use them to record hilarious replay videos!

We thought it might be nice to ask the community for their suggestions for new characters and here is what they came up with (don’t blame us). Firstly we have the ghoulish, undead Knight “Sir Bonehead’, collecting Holy Grails to undo the curse of the Lady of the Lake. We’ve also got Joe wearing a Chicken suit, with egg-cellent new special moves like “The Red Rooster” and “Cock-a-Doodle-Danger”!

The most popular suggestion by far was for a playable Monkey (of course), so say hello to “Chuckles the Chimp”, you mightn’t know his name, but maybe his Fez will be familiar.

We don’t have Thanksgiving here in the UK, but Hello Games really like food, so we celebrate it anyway. That’s why we decided to let loose Joe Danger’s turkey-chomping, Native American brother “Geronim-Joe”. Prepare your best War Cry and have a happy Thanksgiving as you gobble down some tasty turkey on your trusty steed!

Hello Games wants to genuinely thank the community again for their amazing support. We really hope you enjoy the new characters or grab a copy of Joe Danger at half price! Go and 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 e-mail!

You want more Joe Danger levels, right? Why not get some more multiplayer levels, too? And level editing props? How about support for replays and uploading them to YouTube? You want custom soundtracks? Costumes? Level sharing? Okay, you're getting all of that ... right now.

Hello Games has released a "People's Patch" for their PSN game which adds all of these features, and more. Best of all, all you have to do is launch the game to download the patch. This isn't premium DLC you have to pay for! However, this is but the beginning of future updates for the game. Sean Murray teases on the PlayStation.Blog that "we're also working on much larger packs with new props and game modes. So keep an eye out for those."

Hello!
It’s great to be back on the PlayStation.Blog!

When my three friends and I first got together as Hello Games and started work on Joe Danger, we could only dream of the success it’s already achieved.

More important than any of that is the amazingly supportive response we’ve had from the PlayStation community. That’s why, for the last couple of months, we’ve been trying to cater to as many requests from the community as we can. Lots of people asked for a trial, so we put a huge one together with hours of gameplay, for those people who still can’t decide if Joe Danger is awesome or not. As of Tuesday, it’s now available worldwide.

Yesterday we also released something we call the “People’s Patch”. It answers pretty much every piece of feedback we’ve had from the community. It’s something for fans to get really excited about, and if you haven’t played the game before, you’re in for a treat. It’s totally free, and all you have to do is boot Joe Danger up to get all this new cool stuff.

For instance, now you can save, playback and upload your greatest stunt spectaculars to YouTube. After all, what’s the point of being the world’s greatest stuntman if you can’t show your friends?

Here’s something else we’re really excited about – we’re going to be showcasing the very best user created levels at joe-danger.com. Go there now to find out more and enter our level building competition.

Also, there is a totally new, free level made by Hello Games available for download right now.

Here’s some of the key new features:

• Level sharing and more Levels
• Replays and YouTube support
• Custom soundtracks
• More multiplayer levels
• New level editing props
• Costumes
• Downloadable tours
• Hidden stuff!
• Lots more

Hello Games wants to genuinely thank the community again for their amazing support. We really hope you enjoy the new features or just take the time to try out the trial! Go and 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 e-mail!

Usually, when we purchase a game, we intend to experience as much of it as we can. Call us crazy, but isn't that the point? According to a blog entry over on Edge from Hello Games' Sean Murray, his studio's recent PSN release, Joe Danger, only had a 10 percent completion rate.

"Only about 10 percent of people who bought Joe Danger have completed it (their average play time is well over 20 hours)," he relayed. "Most journalists didn't get past the halfway mark. Was it a wasted effort to add those last few levels that most people don't see though? Is it valueless?"

It's a hot topic in the games community -- how long does a game need to be? How much of a game's value is specifically tied to how long it takes to complete it? Then you add in Trophies and Achievements and you've got a whole new layer complicating the argument. It's a good read, so hit up this link and give Murray's essay a gander.

If you're the kind of person who loves high-flying, risky stunts, but doesn't like the risk of buying downloadable games without checking them out first, Sony has something just for your oddly contradictory interests. A demo of Hello Games' PSN-exclusive stunt game, Joe Danger, will be available tomorrow on the North American PlayStation store.

A demo of this stunt game may not just be for those hesitant to drop e-dollars: perhaps you like motorcycle stunts, but have a heart condition that requires you to experience thrills in tiny, bite-sized portions. Perfect! Hello Games has you covered.

#review Over the next month, we'll be reviewing games we didn't get around to earlier in the year. PlayStation Network exclusive Joe Danger is the first dirtbike off the rank. More »

Hello Games' Sean Murray learned a lot when looking for a third-party publisher for his company's recent PSN critical and sales success Joe Danger. But the final takeaway from all those lessons seems to boil down to the same thing: most of the big publishers do not know what they're doing in the downloadable games market.

Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton today, Murray presented much of the personal research and anecdotes that convinced him and the three friends that make up his tiny company to self-publish on PSN rather than attach themselves to an established third-party publisher. Chief among those reasons was the fact that digital downloads from big publishers don't tend to sell very well on the download services.

Excepting established franchise re-releases like Galaga and Street Fighter 2, which skew the data, Murray's research found that an overwhelming majority (77 percent) of original IP from third-party publishers sold a paltry 25,000 copies or less on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. These weren't underappreciated critical gems either -- 68 percent of original IP third-party downloadable games earned a 65 percent or lower average on Metacritic, Murray said.

Hello Games' cunning stuntman the pick of this week's downloads