I’m wicked excited to share some details about our new game, The Baconing, DeathSpank’s greatest and most delicious adventure EVER! The game will be available to download tomorrow from PlayStation Network. The Baconing is part of the PSN PLAY promotion so if you purchase the game before September 19th you will also receive co-op character DLC, Roesha – One Bad Mutha. Also, if you are PlayStation Plus subscriber, you can still get 20% off the full game price!

When we started developing The Baconing we didn’t want gamers to feel like they HAD to play through the previous DeathSpank games before taking onThe Baconing. We decided to make this game accessible for anyone to jump straight into, ensuring that new players and returning fans alike can both equally enjoy this game. Those familiar with DeathSpank will certainly experience just as much familiar fun plus a bucket-load of improvements too.

This is, by far, the funniest DeathSpank to date. We had an absolute blast making it, and it was an unwritten rule that we needed to laugh every day while working on the game. We added our comedic touch which was brought to life brilliantly by some incredible voice acting.

The world and characters we have created for this game are, let’s say….colorful to say the least! Mix this with some of our favorite, familiar sci-fi themes and references — from Tron to Mad Max to The Jetsons — and you’ve got a porky recipe for hilarity.

It just wouldn’t be a DeathSpank game without a new co-op sidekick for a friend, co-worker, lover, spouse, stranger-on-your-couch, or all of the above to help vanquish the hordes of evil. And have we got a guy for you: Meet Bob from Marketing! He’s a hammerhead shark in a business suit with an ferocious appetite for justice and leveraging a target market!

Bob wields a swordfish to poke holes in bad guys, shoots lasers from his eyes, devours enemies for health (he doesn’t care if they’re dead or alive), and can stealthily swim underground to take enemies by surprise. All in all, an incredibly deadly sidekick.

And one of the best things about Bob is that he was a suggestion from one of our fans. What better way to show we listen, than to create something in the game they suggested. We love our fans!

The Baconing is a game Hothead is incredibly proud of, because we created the entire adventure ourselves. Every mechanic was reviewed, and nothing was off limits when we looked at revamping many of the game systems. If it didn’t fit properly, we cut it. If it worked already, we improved it. If it was frustrating, we streamlined it. If it was edible, we ate it. You get the picture. And we’re certain everyone will be pleased with the results.

So before you download it tomorrow, enjoy our sizzling launch trailer for The Baconing above.

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Hi I’m Mike Inglehart, producer at Hothead Games and I am really excited to be able to share some insight on our exciting and meaty game The Baconing coming out August 31st, 2011 as part of the PSN Play promotion, which runs until September 19th!

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We’re super excited that Swarm is finally about to be released on PlayStation Network. The genesis of the original idea for the game stretches all the way back to 2006, shortly after we started Hothead. There was an indie video game developer contest we wanted to enter, so we brainstormed a ton of ideas on what to submit. Dr. Mike Hayward, Hothead’s resident Ph.D., brought forward a concept based on his doctoral research in artificial life. He called it Swarm and it had plenty of science cred. We thought this was our contest winner, so we came up with a cute adorable character to go with his tech, the swarmite, and got to work on a prototype.

In the end we did very well in that contest, placing in the final four, winning the people’s choice vote, and garnering $300,000 in winnings. Every time we wore a Swarm t-shirt in public, invariably someone would ask us about the character. People really seemed to like it. So we knew we were onto something. We just had one problem: what we created wasn’t really a game.

The prototype was cool. 50 pudgy, blue swarmites milled around and waited for you to act. You took control of a single swarmite and the rest watched attentively. You’d take some action, like picking up a rock, and the rest of them would frantically run around, trying to find rocks. There were never enough rocks to go around, and so the swarmites would absentmindedly pick up other items or even their fellow swarmites. Then you’d throw the rocks at a target and they would all follow. Every time you did something, they learned, and as you progressed through the level they used all their learning to move you forward. So the tech was very cool and the way the swarmites behaved was funny, but because you were teaching them, the further you progressed through the level, the more time you spent simply watching and the less time you spent playing.

Our response to this was to park the uber-smart Dr. Mike in a corner and let him play for three years or so. “Turn it into a game!” was our direction. He kept at it, finally hitting a big turning point when he started playing with the idea of directly controlling 50 swarmites at once. Suddenly Swarm started looking like an action game and a platformer. And there were cool examples of emergence that he kind of stumbled on. For example, if you huddle the swarm together and then jump repeatedly, they stack on each other’s heads and form a tall totem. That wasn’t planned in any design document, it just happened by accident in one of Mike’s prototypes.

Armed with some cool new control schemes, we put the game into production and set out to make the coolest PSN game ever. Then we hit our next obstacle. Turns out if you move 50 characters at once and put them in a ridiculously dangerous world with explosives, fans and other things that tend to blow them all over the place, it can get a tad confusing for the player just what is going on and where their swarm is when all hell is breaking loose. So to address this, we did what we always do: lots and lots of playtests. We’d bring in four or five fresh players that have never seen the game before, put a controller in their hand and let them give it a go. Certainly it can be a humbling experience when you watch players get frustrated with your game, but we persisted at iterating and improving it a little each week. It wasn’t long before we had something that users reported was intuitive and fun to play… no small feat for a brand new type of gameplay mechanic!

With our deadline quickly approaching, we turned our attention to replayability. What would give players a reason to want to go back and replay levels they’ve already completed? The epiphany here turned out to be our scoring system. Swarm has multipliers, multipliers on multipliers, checkpoint bonuses, time bonuses and lots and lots of shiny pickups. The upshot of all of it is that whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player, you can always work to make your score better. There is no natural maximum score on any level. And the great benefit of that is it makes the leaderboards in the game naturally quite competitive. We put your results right in your face as frequently as we can so you always see how you’re measuring up against your friends on each level. We even have the game automatically facilitate a bit of smack talk.

We’re proud of what we’ve made in Swarm: it was wrought from our indie blood, sweat and tears. We’re confident you’ll like what you see when you play it.

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Hello to one and all across the ocean!

This is Joel DeYoung of Hothead Games in Vancouver, Canada. This is my first time posting on the EU PlayStation blog – nice to meet everyone. I’m here today because Hothead is bringing Jonathan Blow’s Braid to a whole new audience of gamers this Thursday via the PlayStation Network – you!

Yes, indeed, European players can pick up the title for €9.99 (or £7.99) in just a few days. The Hothead team focused on working closely with Jonathan to retain his original vision and getting Braid into your hands as swiftly as possible. Plus, Sony was a brilliant partner in ensuring that Europe wouldn’t be left out in the cold, delivering it just in time for you to cozy up on the couch for some holiday season game play.

We’re pleased with how the game turned out on this platform and look forward to offering even more great indie content soon. Cheers!

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