Jetpack Joyride
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Jetpack Joyride was almost 'Machine Fun Jetpack'
During his GDC talk Depth in Simplicity: The Making of Jetpack Joyride, Halfbrick Studios' chief creative officer Luke Muscat shared the story of the 11th hour name change for Jetpack Joyride, which was originally supposed to be called Machine Gun Jetpack. "I'll tell you, we almost changed the app to this name because we thought by making it too drastically different we were going to undermine all of our marketing effort, but we actually had this name for a while: Machine Fun Jetpack," Muscat said. "At the time, we were like 'that sounds alright, maybe I could live with that.' Then I got in the next morning, and I walked up to Phil's desk, and we both said the same thing at the same time: 'What the fuck were we thinking?' I'm so glad we didn't go out with that name."
Jetpack Joyride straps on Air Barrys
Alongside finalizing a major content update coming this April, Halfbrick has released a teaser and some screens for the upcoming Jetpack Joyride 1.3. The game, which has seen 16 million downloads since launch, will gain "gadgets" in the upcoming patch.
Halfbrick working on new iOS game, 1.3 update for Jetpack Joyride
Halfbrick Studios' Phil Larsen is a happy guy. Not only has his company scored a huge hit with Fruit Ninja (with over a million copies sold on Xbox Kinect alone), but the studio's Jetpack Joyride is a hit as well, garnering over 19 million across various free and paid incarnations. Halfbrick, says Larsen, is working on a new IP for iOS that we'll see by the end of the year. Until then, the group is working Jetpack Joyride version 1.3, which introduces an entirely new feature: Gadgets. Gadgets are perks that can be added to Barry's jetpack. They're purchased with coins picked up during play (which ties in to the game's in-app purchase system) and tweak the gameplay in several ways. For example, the "Freeze-o-matic" allows Barry to slide farther when he dies. The "Flying Pig" turns slot machine coins into pigs that explode into fireworks of rewards, and a gadget called "Gemology" converts coins into gems, which give five times the reward when collected. You can have three gadgets running at a time, and when they're all combined, they can either help a lot (by making some very challenging missions relatively easy), or make the game crazier than ever. Gadgets aren't just add-ons to the jetpack. They affect the game in several ways, which Larsen says will allow Halfbrick to expand the game a lot going forward. Fifteen gadgets will be introduced when the update goes live, with more coming after that. "We can definitely support this game lots more." I asked Larsen about the Jetpack Joyride knockoffs on the App Store. Larsen shrugged them off. "They're not as good as Jetpack Joyride, so why bother?" he asked with a smirk. Halfbrick is an independent company, though obviously it's been growing, even as the Australian game economy is in a downturn. Larsen says the developer has about 57 employees right now, and given the games' popularity, they could stand to grow a bit more. But Larsen also says Halfbrick isn't interested in being purchased by a larger developer, either. Of course there have been offers, but in the end, he says, "We like what we do." Taking a deal with a larger developer might upset that, so it definitely seems like Halfbrick is more interested in making its own games than pitching in, no matter how big the potential payoff may be. As for that impending new iOS title, Larsen won't say much more than that he "...would love to release another iOS game this year." Certainly Halfbrick is working on something (and maybe even more than one thing), but the current focus is Jetpack's update. As for whether a new game would be paid (like Fruit Ninja has been) or freemium (like Jetpack Joyride has been for most of its success), Larsen said both strategies are still valid, depending on the game. "We've made more money on Fruit Ninja paid than we've ever done" selling Jetpack Joyride's in-app purchases, says Larsen. "We can sell games and we can do freemium. Does that mean Fruit Ninja's more universal? Probably yeah." Larsen admits that Jetpack Joyride could probably have skewed more towards a casual audience. It originally started paid and then was sent free to find its audience. But it's hard to second guess Larsen and Halfbrick given all of their company's success, and Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride still set quite a few bars for app quality on Apple's App Store. The company has done really great things so far -- we're intrigued to see just what's coming next.
Fruit Ninja Kinect sells a million units; Jetpack Joyride update in April
Halfbrick announced today that Fruit Ninja Kinect has reached a million sales, solidifying it as a very successful "console experiment" for the company. The company announced a month ago at DICE 2012 that sales had surpassed a half million.Phil Larsen, chief marketing officer at Halfbrick, also told us that the Jetpack Joyride 1.3 update is coming this April. It will add 15 gadgets that are "kinda like perks," which players can choose at the beginning of the round to assist.Gadgets include Air Barry shoes, allowing Barry to jump instead of glide up. Along with the "Freeze o Matic," which turns Barry into a sliding ice block when he crashes for extra distance. There are also magnets which allow Barry to collect coins. Still no item that allows you to actually stop playing Jetpack Joyride.
Fruit Ninja Kinect sells a half-million copies; Jetpack Joyride reaches 14 million downloads
Australian developer Halfbrick is flying high on the success of its Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride franchises. Chief Marketing Officer Phil Larsen told us at the DICE conference in Las Vegas today that Fruit Ninja Kinect has reached a half-million sales and has been a very successful console experiment for the company. The company also plans to continue supporting Fruit Ninja on iOS with more updates rather than cannibalize its momentum with a sequel.As for Jetpack Joyride, which went free to play in mid-December, Larsen notes the game has seen significant growth since the change."There's an update coming in the next month," Larsen said about Jetpack Joyride. "It's the biggest one we've done so far."He told us the previously $1 app reached about 1 million paid sales before going free and has since seen 13 million downloads as a free product. He estimates about 5-10 percent of customers will spend at least a dollar on the app through its in-game store, so revenue has been higher since the game went "free."
Daily iPhone App: Blot
There's a lot of buzz around cloning apps lately. Zynga recently received some flak for making a clone of Tiny Tower, and there's a big lawsuit around Triple Town and its clone Yeti Town. I would argue that there's a right way and a wrong way to clone an idea. Blatant rip-offs are obviously wrong. The right way is to lovingly borrow some of the core mechanics of a certain game, but add in your own aesthetic, insight, and style. Blot is an example of the latter. Ostensibly, it's a clone of the very popular Jetpack Joyride. You play as a little ink blot that's flying along, tapping the screen to make it rise, fall and collect power-ups and coins. One could argue that Blot is a ripoff of Jetpack Joyride, but aesthetic is unique, combining some beautiful hand-drawn environments with a bouncy, joyful soundtrack. The game employes new ideas, too. For example, the inky spot can combine with colors for extra abilities, and the upgrade system is even more complex than Jetpack Joyride's, allowing you to pick up mechanics that can completely change the way the game is played. I would also argue that Blot's rewards are too spaced out. Even after several runs, I haven't collected enough coins to "buy" anything interesting. But everything else in the game is very well done, and the little add-ons (like Blot's hilarious costumes) are worth chasing down over time, even though that curve is steep. Blot is available now for US$0.99 as a universal app. It does borrow from Jetpack Joyride and what you might call the "hover Canabalt" sub genre, but its infectious style and unique features make it worth a download.
2011 Best App Ever winners announced
Jeff Scott of 148 Apps has announced the winners for the Best App Ever for 2011, and you can review at the official site right now. Jetpack Joyride from Halfbrick was the overall winner in the iOS devision (which is a great app, but probably also benefited from actually promoting the Best App Ever vote inside the app itself). There are several other winners across various categories like Most Innovative (Codea), Most Useful (Amazon Mobile) and Best Time Killer (Tiny Wings). Scott tells us that 148 Apps received a record 1.5 million votes this year, which is three times the total of last year's choices. Before voting began, there were 287,643 nominations across 7,243 apps. This year also featured Android winners in many categories, but Scott says that iOS topped the Android votes by a factor of 10:1. The Best App Ever awards are always an excellent check of what's available on the App Store, so review the list and find some great new apps. Congratulations to all of the winners, and thanks to 148 Apps for putting the whole thing together.
Best of the Rest: Ben's picks for 2011
Battlefield 3 The time I've spent with Battlefield 3 this year is only bested by the many, many hours I've spent stalking dragons in Skyrim. The hours with BF3, however, were distinctly more dense, while I shouted at teammates to provide cover fire, slowly inching towards a heavily-guarded objective, or lead the charge on an enemy base from the driver's seat of a large, mobile, metal death box. It's a crime that Battlefield 3 isn't on our top 10 list, because it's by far the best multiplayer shooter experience available, and it's certainly this year's best (in yet another year with several genre entries, including an Infinity Ward-developed CoD title). The main campaign isn't very good, sure, and the co-op is even less impressive, but the "Battlefield Moments™" you'll experience in multiplayer more than make up for the package's shortcomings. Worried you've been waiting too long and won't be able to compete? BF3 mitigates that with support classes, allowing players of all types to participate. Squad up on Team [JOY]!
Jetpack Joyride zooms to the top of TUAW Best of 2011 game app voting
Barry Steakfries has to be one happy camper today. The hero of Jetpack Joyride (US$0.99) from Halfbrick Studios was the runaway (or shall we say fly-away?) winner of the voting for the best iPhone game app of 2011. Barry's adventures trying out experimental jetpacks came away from the TUAW Best of 2011 voting with 39.2 percent of the votes, handily beating second-place winner W.E.L.D.E.R. That $1.99 word game was surprisingly popular as well, grabbing 26.9 percent of the reader voting. Many thanks to the TUAW readers who nominated their favorite iPhone game apps and then voted in the competition. Congratulations to the team at Halfbrick Studios for winning this category in the TUAW Best of 2011.
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPhone game app
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your vote for the best iPhone game app of 2011. The apps that made it into our final voting have provided hours of fun for millions of iPhone users. The first app on the list is Jetpack Joyride (currently free) from Halfbrick Studios. Barry Steakfries, the protagonist of Jetpack Joyride, would love your vote. This app has a 4.5 star rating out of 5 possible with over 15,500 ratings on the App Store, so it is an incredibly popular iPhone game. Next in the lineup is the popular word game W.E.L.D.E.R. (US$3.99). This app has been a past iPhone Game of the Week on the App Store, and according to Tested.com, it "takes Bejeweled, Boggle, and Scrabble and smelts them into one mining-themed word puzzle." Want a board game in your pocket? Ticket to Ride Pocket ($0.99) has sold over 2 million copies, achieved Apple Game of the Week in Europe, and was #1 in the strategy games category in 32 countries. I'm betting that we'll see a lot of votes for Ticket to Ride. Scribblenauts Remix (currently on sale for $0.99) is another big hit in the App Store, gaining a 4.5 out of 5 rating with over 10,800 total ratings. It's one of the few games out there -- perhaps the only one -- where you can create just about any sort of object. The latest update even supports creating objects using voice dictation on the iPhone 4S. Our last entry in the voting for the best iPhone game app of 2011 is Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing ($1.99). It's an app that made it into an iPod touch ad, and it features Sonic the Hedgehog and a bunch of other SEGA characters racing in cars, monster trucks, bikes, planes and bananas... Be sure to vote for the iPhone game that you think is the top for 2011. The winner will be announced in a few days. %Poll-72086%
Take a free Jetpack Joyride on iOS today
Did you miss the offer of a free copy of Jetpack Joyride back in October? You have another chance to avoid the exorbitant 99-cent price, and you don't even have to go through Facebook. Free App a Day is featuring Halfbrick's coin-grabbing test flight, so you can just go into the App Store right now and download it at no cost. To be absolutely clear about it, you should go get this free game. We were quite fond of it even when we thought of it as a 99-cent game.
2011 Holiday Buyers Guide: iOS
You'll forgive us, but we're banking on the concept of Aunt Eileen stuffing your stocking with iTunes gift cards rather than, say, a Zune Marketplace one. Perhaps that depends on if you've been naughty or nice? We're not quite sure how this holiday stuff works, but we're trying our best here. Anyway, below the break we've compiled another year's worth of great games on both iPhone and iPad platforms that we hope you'll love as well. Even if you don't get those gift cards, these games should still be affordable -- even after buying all those presents. Good luck with the relatives!
App updates roundup: Jetpack Joyride, Spelltower, more
Thursday on the App Store brings another round of new app releases, as well as some big updates. We've got news on some of those releases elsewhere, but here are a few of the app updates currently waiting for you in the App Store on your iOS device. Jetpack Joyride has gotten what Halfbrick calls "our greatest update ever" with a new mission system, a new forest area to play through, and lots of other add-ons and tweaks. Great game, only 99 cents, so go grab it if you haven't yet. Anomaly Warzone Earth is another great title that now boasts iCloud syncing for saved games, as well as some graphical and gameplay tweaks. Spelltower (above) is getting a (surprise!) universal update that brings this really terrific and well-designed word game to the iPhone's smaller screen. Minecraft for iOS hasn't updated yet, but Mojang has lots of plans for future releases. Zombie Gunship has gone free, as has The Adventure of Timmy. Pix'n Love Rush has an entirely new mode to play with, and the graphics look a little different at night apparently. Rebuild is a nicely polished strategy game for iOS that will push an update soon that includes support for the original iPad, as well as Game Center support. Attention, Alec Baldwin: Words with Friends for iPad has gotten an update with a few new metrics for showing how well your words are doing. And speaking of Zynga, that company's Poker app has been updated too, including some changes that make it much more independent of the Facebook game. There's lots of new content for some of your favorite apps this week. Not all of these are live just yet, but stay tuned, they'll be posted soon.
Jetpack Joyride content update takes Barry to the woods, adds stuff to the store
If you haven't stolen a top-secret experimental jetpack in a while, good on you for sticking to your post-prison rehabilitation program. We know how tough it is for a jetpack thief to give up the glamor of "the life." ... Oh, wait, sorry, we got our files mixed up. We meant to address Barry Steakfries -- you can leave now, other person. Barry, we'd like to inform you that the latest content update for Jetpack Joyride adds 125 new mission badges to unlock, a new forest environment and some new achievements and store items. Halfbrick also managed to squash a few bugs, because we all know about your insect phobias, Barry. %Gallery-141188%
Daily iPhone App: Sea Stars
Sea Stars is Hothead's latest game on the App Store, and it's really good. You play as a little fish who can swim and jump through water with a touch of the screen. Your goal is to swim as far as possible while avoiding obstacles. It's quite fun and well done. There's just one big issue: The game is basically Jetpack Joyride. Now, it's not exactly Jetpack Joyride, since you're not riding a backpack, and in practice, the controls are more or less upside down from JJ's float-up-when-touched controls. But the other similarities are undeniable. First, you collect coins which can be spent on upgrades (coins can also be bought via in-app purchase). You'll also find "friends" which work like JJ's vehicles, making you survive an extra hit and switching up the control scheme. Finally, the obstacles move and turn like the electric spheres in Jetpack Joyride. It's possible Hothead was working on this before Halfbrick's big title, but not likely. This game is essentially Jetpack Joyride re-skinned. That's not necessarily bad. Jetpack Joyride is a great game, and if you've already prestiged in that one a few times, Sea Stars will definitely float your fish (though I do have to say that I don't understand the "hurt your tail" reference when the game ends, whatever that means). But this is a blatant ripoff. I would rather have seen Sea Stars try to improve on Halfbrick's great formula rather than borrow it. Perhaps I'm complaining too much, especially considering the app's current price. Sea Stars is a great title that just happens to be free thanks to a promotion in the App Store right now.
Get Jetpack Joyride for free from Apple via Facebook
I've never heard of a deal like this, but we'll take it anyway. Halfbrick's great game Jetpack Joyride (one of the best iOS games of the year, honestly), is being given away for free by none other than Apple. You have to be a Facebook member, but if you 'like' Apple's official App Store Facebook page, you can get a code that will nab you a free copy of the game from the App Store. The one catch is that you have to essentially allow Apple access to your information on Facebook, but all it's asking for is to have that information (which might be public on your profile anyway, depending on your settings). It's worth nothing that the company doesn't ask for the right to post things on your profile, though those concerned about that probably won't take the deal anyway. At any rate, as long as you're OK with seeing your name attached to Apple on Facebook (and this is an official Apple account), you can get a free Jetpack Joyride code! Enjoy.
Get Jetpack Joyride free via App Store Facebook page
Jetpack Joyride is one of the more delightful jetpack-based games to come out this year -- and for a "limited time," you can grab it for free. The official Facebook page for the iOS App Store is offering the game at no cost for reasons unknown; probably as an altruistic gesture, since human lives are inherently enriched by the presence of propulsion-based backpacks. There's no telling when the deal expires, so we'd suggest getting it ... like, right this instant. Seriously. Go.
Jetpack Joyride update injects new jetpacks, reaffirms our loathing of Game Center friends
Our love for Jetpack Joyride is well documented, but we're not above admitting that accessing the game's leaderboard system is a bit on the cumbersome side. That's why today's surprise update with in-level leaderboard implementation is so, so exciting. Now, while flying along in your jetpack of choice, sign posts will point out friends' scores as you soar past them, maniacally laughing in the bathroom, all alone. The update also adds a pair of new jetpacks and a trio of wearable items for Señor Steakfries, giving players even more stuff with which to dress up the chronically murdered main character. Another bonus: The update is totally free, and the full game still costs $0.99.
Jetpack Joyride hits 350k downloads, releases free update
I think that Halfbrick's latest title, Jetpack Joyride (formerly known as Machine Gun Jetpack), is one of the best games I've played this year, and apparently I'm not the only person who ran to pick it up -- the game has earned over 350,000 downloads in the short time it's been available. To celebrate, the company is dropping a new free update for the game today, featuring a brand new vehicle called Mr. Cuddles (which happens to be a fire-breathing dragon), a "fruit jetpack" based on Halfbrick's popular Fruit Ninja title, and a new skin featuring "Honest Phil," a character designed after Halfbrick's real-life Chief Marketing Officer Phil Larsen. All of those items are available in the game's in-app store, where you can buy them with coins picked up in the title itself (or extra coins bought via in-app purchase, if you don't want to put the time in, and have some extra money sitting around). Jetpack Joyride itself is available as a universal app for just 99 cents -- if you haven't checked it out yet, you definitely should.
Jetpack Joyride update adds new jetpacks, one Phil Larsen
The thing about joyriding is that it's a chaotic act, one that has no motivation or plans beyond the need to take a ride in the name of joy. Halfbrick's latest, Jetpack Joyride, embodies that spirit -- only with jetpacks. And today, a new update adds a couple new rides to race around in, MTV Multiplayer reports. One of them is a new vehicle named Mr. Cuddles, a giant fire-breathing dragon. Also added are a new jetpack which pays homage to the company's original hit, Fruit Ninja, and Halfbrick's head of marketing, Phil Larsen, who makes an appearance as a playable character skin. He's perfect for crossing two things off on your bucket list: playing a game as a head of marketing and playing a game as a former Joystiq employee. Congrats, Phil!
