not mailman
about 1 year ago

----BEGIN MESSAGE FROM JASON----

It’s a bazillion degrees out in Brooklyn and our internet went out for a bit, but we still managed to update the game.

Some of you were eerily correct when you guessed what the new character would be. Today we added Explorer Guy. He rides in a mine cart which can attach to the new rail item by pressing the space bar. It’s the first character I made and I’m pretty happy with it. I hope people make fun obstacle course levels with these new additions.

We also added a FAQ and release log. We’ll keep these updated so people can stop asking the same questions over and over.

(Hopefully) On Monday, July 25th, the website will be temporarily down while we migrate to the new server setup. The site should run more smoothly after that.

We should also have a couple cool new things added to the game by next Friday.

Thanks for being patient and continuing to play through all these server woes. And shut up to everyone who has not been patient.

A few notes about Explorer Guy:

The mine cart wheels only attach to one side of the rails.
Press and hold space bar to attach to the rails.
Shift is stand.
Ctrl (Command for mac users) is duck.

hi
about 1 year ago

Hi guys. Sorry for being absent. I actually have been doing work, so I will ramble on a bit about that.

There have been a few things we've been working on, but they are all going in parallel, so nothing has been finished first. There will be an update this week. There should be two new breakable items and one new hazard.

Drawing/animating explosions sucks. I drew the one mine explosion like years ago, and I forgot how horribly tedious it was. I've spent the last week drawing this goddamn new one and it's still not finished. I'll not do this again. It looks ok, but most of the time explosions send you off screen anyways so you don't even seen them. In any case, I've started it and now must finish.

Jason has been working on a new character, and that will most likely be the next following update.

I hired my friend Caroline to start doing some illustrating. She'll be doing some more static art, starting with some buildings and new backgrounds. So far she hasn't made me angry and remains unbruised.

I've ordered a new additional server, but that seems to be taking quite some time in actually arriving. It's been a bit of a pain for the past 2 weeks, and I'd really like that situation to be resolved as I don't like spending my time on that stuff. This will make it easier to upgrade the site going into the future and will hopefully eliminate headache puppy for quite some time.

I'm going to Berlin for a month in August. Jason is going as well. I've not gone on any sort of vacation for 3 years. I think we'll bring laptops. If you're from Germany, I'll hope to see you at the airport wearing a happy wheels shirt for my arrival.

I'll make a new post when the updates arrive.

sooo
about 2 years ago

Hello everyone. I was a bit lazy this past week, but here is some news.

If you hadn't noticed yet, a new character was added to the game. He rides a lawnmower. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, although I really need to get some new voices. The next few characters will most likely not be as gruesome.

With the new character came a lot more traffic, and the site has been performing pretty shitty again during peak hours. I'm pretty tired of that happening, so I will be purchasing a second server. However, I need to find help with load balancing and all this other crap I've never done. In the meantime, I've disabled search. It's very inefficient, and was a big cause of the site problems. It will be back up as soon as resources are a bit better.

At some point today I will put up a small update. There are some bug fixes for the lawnmower man. There shouldn't be any more disappearing body parts or green boxes. The lawnmower itself was also nearly indestructible (I forgot to set that to normal again), so that will be fixed. Shapes can now also be entirely invisible, and you can set them with certain collision values. This should make it a lot easier to make moving puppets of characters and stuff like that. If my priorities are poor, I will spend time making an example.

GLORIOUS SHIRT DAY
about 2 years ago

Hello,

Thanks to the very helpful Tom Fulp, there are now some shirts for sale on newgrounds.com. You can buy one here. I believe the there are only around 75 or so in the initial batch, so buy one before your awful, jealous friends do.

Please don't revolt, but the new character is not yet ready. It's pretty close though, and it's probably the most upsetting thing I've made. I've just gotta add in sounds and a few details. There is another minor update though with some street signs that will most likely be up today. We'll try to make updates weekly (no matter how small).

Jason's big boy post
about 2 years ago

Writing news is very tiring, so here's Jason instead:

----BEGIN MESSAGE FROM JASON----

In the last month some cool stuff has happened. First off, Happy Wheels now has an office. This means that Jim can get out of his apartment and stop bitching about how being a hermit is driving him insane. It also has allowed him to hire me to help develop the game. Between having an office and an employee he pays to show up on time, things should remain on schedule. So far it's been pretty great. We plan on updating the game more frequently. You may have noticed we've added a few new breakable items: television, boombox, bottles, and a chair. It's a minor update, but I feel pretty honored to be the first person to work directly on the game itself. Also, we think breaking stuff in the game is fun.

Second, a new character is coming. Jim has finished most of the illustration. Without ruining the surprise, I think it's going to be pretty hilarious. It's a single character and it should feature a modified jump. We can't say exactly when it will be released, but he's working hard to get it out as soon as possible. Jim really wants to focus adding new characters.

Third, t-shirts and other merch will be available pretty soon.

Forth, we're working on addressing the server issues. Please be patient.

And finally, a bit about me (you can skip this part as I'm done talking about the game). Jim and I met at our last full-time job. He was leaving to work on a game and I was hired to take over his position. The game wasn't even "Happy Wheels" back then. It was simply an old man in a wheelchair rolling down a hill. But as Jim developed it, I became a big fan. I too quit my day job and vowed never to work in advertising ever again. And then some time passed and Happy Wheels had become more than a game, but a community of people creating awesome levels. Because I know Flash/Box2D, can illustrate and also develop iOS apps, Jim hired me to help out. This story is riveting. Anyway, I’m pretty excited to be a part of this.

My name in the forums is Jason Schymick.