Dennaton doesn't want to make Hotline Miami 3, so how about you do it instead?

It's a hell of a sign off to the series, giving fans the tools to make new levels forever. Yesterday I met Dennaton's Dennis Wedin in a caravan next to Hooters at E3 and he talked me through it. The level editor is comprehensive and clearly designed with the aesthetic of Hotline Miami in mind, allowing players to create a decent level for the game in under ten minutes.

Wedin illustrates this for me by doing just that, dropping some basic floor tiling in, picking objects to decorate each room then placing enemies around, too, choosing between the different types and selecting individually what weapons they carry. Lastly, Wedin drops the enter/exit vehicle in there, selects play then expertly slays everyone in sight. That was very cool, and fans are undoubtedly going to get a lot out of a toolset that's been kept so accessible.

"It's built from scratch by Jonathan, our programmer," Wedin tells me. "We feel that it's super simple. We can't make it any simpler than this, which feels nice, because we want people to pick it up right away. If you want to make hard levels for your friends, it's going to be super easy to do that, then we're going to add a lot of tweaking to it when people dig deeper. All they need to do is follow five steps and the level is done."



Players will be able to make collections of levels, and the plan is to offer storytelling potential, too. "We hope to have it so you can basically recreate Hotline Miami, that is the plan. We'll see how much will be there upon release, we might add stuff later on, see how people treat it. We want to add it so you can make intros, outros, and stuff like that." I ask Wedin if any of his developer friends have thrown up any interesting levels, and he says people are creating cool patterns along the floor. As for me, I sit wondering if I can create a dog shelter level where the prisoners have taken over the asylum. It looks perfectly possible.

All of this will bring some closure for Dennaton, who will end Hotline Miami as a series with Wrong Number. "We feel like it's a good way for us to complete it, because Hotline Miami 2 will be the game we make in the Hotline Miami universe, So it feels nice: 'we're done. Here. just keep on going if you want to. You can make Hotline Miami 3 if you want to. Just do it.'" I think this will ensure the fiction of Hotline Miami lives long after the second one comes out later this year.

Every one of the 500-600 assets are indexed in the editor, and easy to find by keyword. "If I want to build a kitchen, I type in kitchen and you get everything that has kitchen in the title." You can also select any music you like from the game's soundtrack, which I'm convinced will be a popular choice. "We wanted the editor to feel Hotline Miami-ish, so it doesn't look Windows grey or anything like that." Look at the screens for evidence of that it's a pretty level editor. "I erase walls by holding the right button. All the commands are listed , so you don't have to go to a manual, so here's what you can do at a certain stage."



I ask about Steam Workshop support, and that's one thing that hasn't been figured out yet. "How we share the levels is still a thing for the future, but of course the point is to be able to share your levels with friends. But how it's going to be made, if it's in the game? We'll see."

I ask Wedin if players can import their own sprites. "That's something I'd love to see and if we could work it out. I would love to give them a sprite sheets of all the enemies and their animations, and they can just paint over it. So a good animator could just screw your animation. But it's one thing I can't say will be in there."

I love what I saw of the editor, and I seriously want to try my hand at creating a Hotline Miami level that's of a professional standard, as it were. While Dennaton isn't looking to talk about the story of the main game, it feels like this is the component of Hotline Miami 2 that we'll be talking about for years to come.

It's bad form to be vulgar in your opening paragraph, and so I'll save my natural reaction to this video for the untamed wasteland below. In the meantime, it's just the facts, sir: a new Source Filmmaker video recreates the spectacular top-down action of Hotline Miami 2's most recent trailer, only in three-dimensions and with Team Fortress 2. It is fu- no, no, save it for the next sentence Phil.



Holy shit this thing! I have an almost uncontrollable reaction to well-made SFM flicks, and, at times, have sat watching the End of the Line trailer on repeat. This has the benefit of drawing from some already exciting looking source material, but the choreography and animation has been pulled off perfectly. All credit to its maker, "Nonamesleft".

For comparison, here's the original Hotline Miami 2 trailer:

In an age of vague naming, it's reassuring to discover a game like The Hong Kong Massacre, which barely requires further elucidation. Nonetheless, we don't get paid without some elucidation, so it's a top-down indie shooter that caused a stir with its first screenshots on TigSource last month, and now it has a trailer. Inevitable comparisons to Hotline Miami aside, the most impressive thing about Hong Kong Massacre is how deftly it captures the chaotic, super stylish vibe of classic '90s Hong Kong crime movies, but only using a few frames of animation.

Also: there's the quite ridiculous amount of blood being splashed around. Each bullet seems to make the person it hits explode like a McDonalds strawberry milkshake that has been stamped on by a fat giant. Seriously, I can't overstate how much blood there is on show here. Put on your best Patrick Bateman raincoat and see for yourself:



Paper flying through communal cubicles, windshields shattering, endless bullet time, and a figure in white wielding pistols akimbo: it s effectively John Woo s greatest hits on loop, which means I couldn t love it any harder. Those geysers of blood also have a touch of Tarantino about them too, which is no surprise given how much he's lifted from Asian action cinema. I'm also pleased to note that someone over at indie dev Vreski Games clearly has their priorities in order:
Working on the most important feature for HKM now: Dove behavior and animation. #indiedev #gamedev

VRESKI (@vreskigames) February 26, 2014

 

 
You can keep up with the game s development at TigSource, where there s an ongoing devlog with more stuff like this

Ahhhh, the music! For all Hotline Miami's poking and prodding of its players' moral core, it was the first game's faux-80s Drive-a-like soundtrack that propelled me through wanton violence and gore. On the basis of this new trailer for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, the same is set to happen again.



Cara had some serious reservations when she played a demo of the game last year, and it'll be interesting to see how (and if) the full experience contextualises its narrative extremes. It will also if the previous game is anything to go by be an absolute joy to gun down murderous maniacs to some "thumping" "beats".

Hotline Miami is due out in "Q3", which is industry speak for "around September".

As someone prone to procrastination, game jams remain an inherently impressive undertaking. Given 48-hours to create something from scratch, I'm far more likely to emerge with nothing but strong feelings on a trending Twitter topic. Five hopefully more dedicated teams are about to squeeze an entire game out of a two-day period as part of Devolver Digital's Super Game Jam. The documentary series will follow a selection of developers, including Hotline Miami's Jonatan S derstr m, LUFTRAUSERS' Jan Willem Nijman, and Gunpoint's (and, once upon a time, PC Gamer's) Tom Francis.



Releasing episodically through Steam, the series will comprise of five 30-40 minute videos and their corresponding games. The five teams each contain two people who have never worked together before, and who seem to have been picked to ensure a variety between each game.

Super Game Jam will kick off in April, with Devolver planning to release one episode each month. In addition, they're promising a series of extras, including early builds, extended interviews, and a soundtrack. You can find more details on the Super Game Jam site, and see cute caricatures of each team below.

We last heard about the remake of PC gaming classic The Chaos Engine a couple of weeks ago, and we’re delighted to hear that the game will be making its way to a speedy release later this summer. Gamers of the appropriate age (read: old) may remember The Chaos Engine, a top-down shooter from 1993 for the Amiga. It featured a steampunk setting, two-player gameplay and blazing-fast 16-bit programming. Sixteen whole bits! Imagine.
The good folks at Eurogamer snagged an interview and gameplay footage from developer Devolver Digital, formerly of Hotline Miami. The new remake of the classic cooperative shooter, which will be coming to Steam in early August.



“The idea was just to bring the original game back as it was. We’re not trying to change too much... We just want to bring back that sort of hardcore, top-down shooter, tough game that people remember,” says producer Stuart Martin.

The game features all of the original voicework and gameplay conventions of the original. It will also come bundled with the usual complement of features, including leaderboards and achievements.

Check out the game’s website for more details. Thanks, Eurogamer.

As predicted earlier, The Steam Summer Sale is now. From today until July 22nd, daily deals and flash sales will flood the Steam store with prices that are lower than the usual prices. To get the best deals, you may want to be patient and gamble on there being heavier discounts as the sale goes on—a good way to pass the time is to chart prices across a giant blackboard, mixing in the Fibonacci sequence now and then and muttering about "Gabentropy."

Currently, you can get BioShock Infinite for $30/£17.50, Counter-Strike: GO for $5.09/£4.07, Hotline Miami for $2.49/£1.74, and tons of other crazy dumb deals. You can also vote on the Community's Choice sale every eight hours—the currently leading game is something called "Heavy Load."

Following on from Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number's expectedly violent teaser trailer is a particularly unsettling first glimpse of the sequel proper, filmed off-screen at this weekend's Rezzed expo by VG247. As you might expect, the actual goon-killing doesn't appear to have changed too much from the original game, but the story seems fascinating, and there are couple of songs from the sure-to-be-excellent new soundtrack featured too.



Powerful, shocking, miserable stuff. In related news, Eurogamer's cracking Hotline Miami 2 preview has dug up some more info about the game. There will be Super Meat Boy-style Hard versions of each stage, accessible by achieving a score of C+ or above. Also, as you may have noticed from the video, the character in the Tiger mask will no longer be able to pick up weapons (however, they can still kill people with a single punch). The new Zebra mask, meanwhile, will allow you to leap through windows - something zebras are particularly famous for.

Were you worried that Dennaton Games would, on completion of Hotline Miami, take a step back, look at their game, and think, "bloody hell, that's violent! Let's make the next one about knitting or something." Well, here's the first trailer for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Spoiler: it is not about knitting. It's about kicking and bludgeoning and slicing people into pieces. Hooray?



Hooray!

"A brutal conclusion to the gruesome saga, Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number follows the escalating level of violence through multiple factions born from the events of the original game and driven by uncertain motivations," teases the trailer's description.

"Step into the murderous mind of several distinct characters - each with their own motivations and methods of execution -- as storylines intersect and reality slips away into a haze of neon and carnage. Blistering combat, an unmistakable visual style, and a powerfully intense soundtrack will once again push you to the limit and questioning your own thirst for blood."

It's that soundtrack that I'm personally most excited for. Frantic, gruesome violence is all very well, but if you can't do it to some sick beats, what's the point?

Hotline Miami 2 is due out later this year. "Maybe."

Coked-up neon murderfest Hotline Miami was originally a one-off project from developer Dennaton, but fans took to trial-and-error spree killing well enough to prompt co-creators Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin to start development on a sequel. The duo shares a few extra details with Joystiq, saying the the setting moves on to the quieter early years of the '90s.

No, this doesn't mean bemasked protagonist Jacket will don faded cutoffs and wax angst on teenage hardships while Pearl Jam blares in the background—in fact, he's not the focus of Hotline Miami 2 at all, though he'll play a minor role with whoever his trigger-happy replacement turns out to be. Don't expect a grunge-encrusted score, either, but do expect to hear some "sweet tunes."

Hotline Miami 2 will also be Dennaton's "grand finale" for the storyline, and it hopes to start work on a new concept beyond having you rip the faces off nameless goons over and over until your ballet of death is just right.