Joe Danger has a whole hell of a lot going for it. Between an IGF nomination, a small but experienced team (consisting of talent from studios like Criterion, EA and Climax), a fantastic art style, and refreshingly straightforward gameplay, it’s hard to find anything to worry about in Hello Games’ premiere title.

Bytejacker was fortunate enough to get an interview with Managing Director Sean Murray to talk about Joe Danger‘s surprising inspirations, the distinction between simple and casual games, and the “hidden subtlety” of  uncomplicated control schemes.

So right off the bat, folks looking at Joe Danger might immediately make a couple superficial comparisons; namely, to stuff like Excitebike or Trials. What were some of you guys inspirations that people might not expect?

Joe Danger actually started life when we first got together as Hello Games and Grant [Duncan], our artist, brought round a bunch of toys. There was this one old Evel Knievel stunt toy that he had as a kid and we just spent all day playing about with it. Instantly, we started talking about this hapless little stuntman character and remembering the kind of world you pictured while you are playing with toys as a kid.

It’s funny, designing Joe Danger, we talked about toys and cartoons as much as we did other games. I guess it’s kind of hard to talk about games though without using comparisons and referencing other games. Like, I’d definitely say we’re a lot more Excitebike than Trials. We come from that generation; we grew up with the SNES and Sega Genesis, so those games are our cornerstones. For people like us, bright and vibrant means fun, and you know, not necessarily casual. Probably the opposite, like Sega used to make some of the world’s most hardcore games, but still with that distinctive, happy-blue-sky style. I’m totally not ashamed to have huge nostalgia for those types of titles. Super Monkey Ball is the epitome of that Sega design philosophy: it’s welcoming, accessible and really simple but it’s also really deep and pretty hardcore. Oh, and the mini-games were perfect; it had something for everyone.

I loved the fact that those early consoles had more quirky, slightly surreal and imaginative games at the top of the charts too. Games like Toejam & Earl or Earthworm Jim were diverse and charming in a way that you don’t really get now.

Apart from that, games that we take a lot from are things like Unirally (which was totally underappreciated), Enduro Racer, Crazy Taxi – especially Crazy Box, Paperboy and Sonic, that comes up a lot.

That makes us sound stuck in the past, doesn’t it? I think Mario Galaxy is a masterpiece. That’s one of those modern games, isn’t it?

The track editor for Joe Danger seems surprisingly beefy. There’s a video of you playing it at the Eurogamer Expo wherein you drop literally dozens of pickup trucks on the stage to build a level upon, and the game doesn’t miss a beat. How powerful is this tool?

The track editor is something that just came about from us playing about with that little Evel Knievel stunt cycle. We were building ramps and firing it down corridors and out of the windows. Actually setting up ramps and loops was part of the fun. Like I’m someone who in real life loves to make things and build things, and I really enjoy playing games, but if I’m totally honest, I never really get drawn in by editors in games. You can do really cool things in some editors now, and user generated content is becoming a buzzword, but in general, I never actually find making a level as fun as actually playing the game it’s for.

So playing about with our little stunt toy we started to think, wouldn’t it be cool to have an editor that was actually fun to use, one that was tactile and gave you some feedback and let you enjoy that creative process? So all our levels are made with the in-game editor, and the editor is fully integrated into the game. That’s actually pretty cool, so for instance you can jump a ramp, and lay down a shark tank just before Joe lands in it, or lay down the perfect trail of coins in his wake. What I really like is that having a fun editor is helping us actually enjoy making the game more. Hopefully that’s going to show through.

I know there are a couple examples of Microsoft being strict with some of the more generous level editors; they apparently pulled the sharing feature from N+ at the last minute. Will players be able to share tracks they’ve built in this game?

Well, we don’t know what platform we’re going to be coming to yet, but we’re very much hoping to have content sharing. You are right, though; it’s not something that is totally under our control, but it’s something that we’re fighting to have. It’s a very hard feature to support, for us and for the platform holder, but if it doesn’t make it in, then it definitely won’t be for lack of trying on both sides.

Joe Danger has some pretty simple controls, with the triggers for speed and the stick for leaning, plus a boost button. In games like these, it tends to come down to getting the ‘feel’ of the controls just right. How much emphasis have you guys put on that?

You’re right! For me, controls are so important. The unique thing about games is that they are interactive. Without a good interface to that, they are nothing, but it’s this intangible thing that people seem to overlook sometimes.

To begin with, you just need those simple controls, trigger, lean and boost to start playing, but we actually use every button on the pad for something. It was cool to see people freeze framing that leaked video to figure out what everything did. I particularly like people’s excited comments about buttons marked “Punch” and “Special”.

Something like Canabalt though shows you the control you can get with just one button. Virtua Tennis was a great example too. It gave you amazing control with like two buttons, but whatever you wanted, you could do with them.

I’m a big fan of that hidden subtlety. So, for instance, we have a bunny hop button. You tap that to hop, or you can hold it down to charge a jump. Let that go at the top of a ramp and you’ll do a super-jump. So there’s a lot of subtlety to each button we use. Oh! And while you hold down that button you also crouch, so you can use that to duck under hurdles. That gives us these almost rhythm action sections, where you duck under and jump over obstacles that come whizzing past. There’s lots of other subtlety to it as well, you can double jump, or charge a jump and release as you hit a spring to reach hidden areas.

Initially the player won’t realise that subtlety is there, but I’m really looking forward to seeing videos of people playing on some of the later levels.

Hello Games is literally just four guys, right? With many of you coming from much larger studios, how are you guys adjusting to creating a game in a much smaller environment?

There is just me, Ryan, Grant and Dave. It is literally a much smaller environment; we are crammed into a tiny room and knock elbows quite a lot. We worked on games like Burnout, Geometry Wars Galaxies, Sega Superstars Tennis and Black, then started doing our own thing in 2008. We started working on my dining room table to begin with, then crammed ourselves into this tiny office.

It has been super exciting, something we have all been longing to do since we started working in the games industry. There is always that desire to go and make your own thing, and when we met, our heads were all in the same place at the same time. We didn’t even discuss it that much to begin with, it was just assumed we’d work together and make our own games.

We’re a tight little band and we kind of feed off each other in terms of design. I’d love to say we’re suffering for our art, but it’s actually really good fun. We work incredibly hard though, mostly because we’re trying to make a pretty big, polished game, and also because we’re really passionate about what we’re doing. It’s a really personal project for us.

Joe Danger was selected earlier this month as an IGF finalist for both the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the award for Technical Excellence. Congratulations! What’s the atmosphere around the Hello Games office like right now?

Getting any nomination for the IGF was totally unexpected. When it happened one of the others texted me in the middle of a night, and I thought it was some sort of twisted prank, but it wasn’t! We’re so incredibly excited about going to GDC and showing people the game, I can’t even describe it. For any indie like us, it’s such an incredible struggle to actually make a game that it’s an overwhelming feeling to get any sort of encouragement. Getting to see people playing our game is our motivation for everything, so being able to exhibit to folks at GDC is incredibly exciting.

Awesome! Thanks very much for talking the time to talk to us!

Joe Danger will be coming to a downloadable platform near you later this year.

Readers! Do you think Joe Danger look like nostalgic gaming incarnate? Let us know what you think in the comments!