Sean Murray
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'The Last Campfire' is a haunting twilight stroll through the forest
The Last Campfire, the next game from No Man's Sky Developer Hello Games, captures the haunting aspect of a twilight forest stroll.
'No Man's Sky VR' is the purest way to explore the universe
There's been at least one moment in the past year when Sean Murray, the creator of No Man's Sky, has been seated around an awards-ceremony table with the people behind Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege or Warframe, and they've all shared a moment of incredulity. "We're like, 'Yeah, so, two years ago was pretty rough, right?'" Murray said, laughing. "And everyone's in the same boat."
No Man's Sky is a sci-fi exploration roguelike in a consistent universe
For the last nine months, a team of four at Hello Games has been working hard on something called "Project Skyscraper," which we now know as No Man's Sky – the upcoming first-person sci-fi exploration game revealed during the VGX video game awards show this past weekend. It was one of the bigger, more interesting, surprises of the show. And Hello Games managing director Sean Murray is quite ecstatic to be able to finally talk about the studio's ambitious new universe.
Joe Danger 2: The Movie - the Nintendo-flavored XBLA game with jetpacks
The only place Joe Danger hasn't ended up is on a Nintendo console. Which made Hello Games founder Sean Murray's statement on the game's inspirations distinctly confusing when he told me this last week during Gamescom: "What we always talk about is a kind of 'Nintendo-y' feel. The Nintendo thing for me is they make it look effortless – they just throw in things. If you're playing Mario Galaxy, you're like, 'That one five minutes, most people would make that an entire game.' That's what I really want so badly for people to play unicycle – or any of those ... we've got skis and it's only like two levels – you want someone to play that and think, 'This could've been a whole game and I would've played it. You know what I mean? But I've just had this one little nugget, and it's left me wanting more. And they move on to the next thing, and the next thing, and they feel like – when they unlock a level – 'I wonder what this one's gonna be.' So we've really stuck to that."Like Mario Galaxy, Joe Danger 2: The Movie is pocked by one-off (or perhaps "one or two-off") gameplay vignettes. "The unicycle has that unique lean thing to stay upright, and it's a really fun vehicle. But we just use it once, don't put it anywhere else, and it's a really cool thing when you find that," Murray said. Of course, if you're just way into the unicycle, you can always create levels just for it in the game's revamped, online sharing-enabled level editor.%Gallery-162157%
Joe Danger 2: The Movie flipping to XBLA 'probably in the next month or so'
Joe Danger 2: The Movie from UK dev Hello Games is leaping to your Xbox 360 in the not-too-distant future. "We're pretty much complete," Hello Games head Sean Murray told us at Gamescom during a demo of the upcoming 2D Xbox Live Arcade racer. "We're showing the full game here, and hopefully people like it. Hopefully that means we're nearly finished," he said with a smile.Thankfully for fans excited for the new game, reception at Gamescom was very positive. "It's been good, so the game is actually probably gonna come out in the next month or so. Something like that," Murray said. There's only one thing standing between Joe Danger 2: The Movie and launch – certification. "That's where we're heading into now. We're doing the final, 'We shouldn't be changing anything, but we are.' Don't tell our QA!" And what about PlayStation 3 or PC versions? "At the moment, we're just showing and talking about 360. We kind of haven't made any other announcements or anything like that," Murray said. But? "But obviously the original came out on PS3 and 360, so ...," he trailed off. Take that as you will!You'll also be glad to hear that the game is a load of fun – expect a full writeup from Gamescom 2012 later today.
Hello Games: 10% of Joe Danger players have actually finished it
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.
Joe Danger dev explains why publishers don't get downloadable games
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 introduces itself and 'Joe Danger'
Opening up an ongoing dev diary and announcing its new game Joe Danger, nascent developer Hello Games has officially entered the gaming industry. Edge recently spoke with the four gents behind the fledgling company and previewed its new game, drawing comparisons to Trials HD and Road Rash in the process (what, no love for Motocross Maniacs?).Aimed at digital distribution channels (specifically: XBLA, PSN and PC), Joe Danger has got a tentative release window of Spring 2010. Hello Games isn't rushing things though, as the game's already been in-development for over a year. It'll be done "as soon as it feels right," says Hello Games' Sean Murray on the first dev diary. With any luck, it'll "feel right" next Spring -- but at very least, we'll have more screens and info for you on Joe Danger tomorrow.
