Posted by Ross
Thu, 24th May 2012
Hi everyone. It’s been a busy week here at Laughing Jackal and Hungry Giraffe is coming on nicely. In fact I’ve just received what should hopefully be the final build of Hungry Giraffe before submission. Assuming that none of our testers, or our fabulous closed beta team, find any bugs then we will be firing it off to Apple for their approval very soon.
That’s not all that has happened today as I have just received word that our most critically successful PSN Mini, the awesome OMG-Z, is now available on the North American Vita Store. Now North American Vita owners can experience the gory fun of exploding vast quantities of zombies with a well placed shot.
Finally, a fun little fact for you: I’ve just had a little look at our download numbers and discovered that we’re creeping up on a rather major milestone - 1 million Laughing Jackal games downloaded on PSN! While we’re probably a few weeks away from that at the moment it’s still quite exciting for us and certainly something worthy of a bit of celebration when it does happen. :)
That’s all for today, but we’ve got more to say about the iPhone version of Hungry Giraffe soon, so come back next week for some more exciting updates from Laughing Jackal.
Until then, why not on join us on our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ pages?
Posted by Ross
Thu, 17th May 2012
Hi again everyone. Last week we announced that our 100K unit-selling PSN Mini Hungry Giraffe was going to be coming to iPhone and - as promised - we’ve got a whole raft of new features and improvements to make Hungry Giraffe on iPhone even better. Not only are we taking advantage of some of the great features of the iPhone, but we’ve got some more clever little twists to the concept which we’re sure all you Hungry Giraffe fans will love.
New Features:
Hungry Giraffe is now Free-to-play: Treat your favourite giraffe to an all-you-can-eat buffet, for no money down!
Online leaderboards: All New Openfeint score boards let you test your skills against other Hungry Giraffe players worldwide.
Achievements: Now you can track your achievements online via Openfeint.
Worldwide Calorie Counter: Hungry Giraffe now keeps track of all the calories eaten by every single player. After launch we’ll be setting milestones for players to speed up game updates, so get eating! ^_^
All-new Store menu: Eat calories in-game then spend them on upgrades and powerups in the Store.
Brand new Angel Feather powerup!: Each download of Hungry Giraffe comes with 5 free Angel Feathers, saving you from certain death. Once you’re out you can buy more feathers in the Store.
Amazing upgrades: Use your calories in-Store to unlock later Stages, nerf the effects of poison, pills and weights, get more boost from low-calorie foods, store more Hard Hats, give Chillis more kick and more!
Earn calories for FREE!: Be nice to us by following us on social networks and earn FREE calories to give your giraffe a head start in his new life on iPhone.
In-App Purchases: Getting stuck? Why not give your giraffe a boost by purchasing one of our mega-value calorie packs?
Help menu: Accessible everywhere in the game, you can see our gameplay tips and learn about the content of the game here.
More updates planned: We’ve got even more Store upgrades, skins and other fun stuff planned for future updates. Keep playing Hungry Giraffe after launch to get your updates for free!
Sounds awesome doesn’t it? And while I may be a bit biased :) I think it plays awesomely as well.
Before I go I’d like to give a big thank you to our group of external testers who’ve been helping us ensure that the game works perfectly on all the iPhone and iPad models.
That’s all for today but we’ve got more to say about the iPhone version of Hungry Giraffe so come back next week for some more exciting updates from Laughing Jackal.
Until then, why not on join us on our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ pages?
Posted by Ross
Thu, 10th May 2012
Hi everyone. I’m delighted to be able to (finally!) reveal that our first ever iPhone game will be an adaptation of Hungry Giraffe, which will be released as a free-to-play game featuring in app purchases and several exciting new features. While there is no release date yet, we’re hoping to reveal one in the next few weeks.
Hungry Giraffe was a big success both critically and commercially as a PSN Mini. Not only has it been downloaded over 100,000 times worldwide but it became the first ever Mini to be given 10/10 by Official PlayStation Magazine UK as they called it: “…as cute as a puppy with an inside-out ear and so addictive that it’s likely to make you miss your stop on the bus and not really care.”
PSPMinis.com felt the same and gave Hungry Giraffe a 9.5/10 at review, commenting that: “... never in my gaming life have I seen a game elevate a genre like how Hungry Giraffe has done.”
Pocketgamer.co.uk were also in on the praise, awarded HG 8/10 and saying: “Simple, short, but immediately engaging, Hungry Giraffe is a game that will devour your time as readily as its protagonist devours tacos.”
For those of you who haven’t experienced the joys of Hungry Giraffe yet, here’s a quick look at the PSP version.
Why Hungry Giraffe?
There are lots of reasons we decided to start our iOS journey off with Hungry Giraffe. The game itself was designed from the ground up with the intention that it would come to iPhone eventually, which means that the basic gameplay is just as good on iPhone as it was on PSP Minis – in fact many people here feel the tilting controls actually make the game better.
This consideration towards porting also meant HG was an easier conversion from a technical standpoint as well. Some of you may remember us talking about how Hungry Giraffe was the only PlayStation Mini which is hi-res on the PS3... well not only did that mean that Hungry Giraffe is one of the best looking Minis when played on PS3 but it also meant all the art was in place when the time came to take it to the iPhone.
Of course, we didn’t just port Hungry Giraffe because it was the easiest game to move to iOS. We feel that Hungry Giraffe is a great fit for the iPhone, both in terms of gameplay and tone and that we’ve managed to capture something that will appeal to fans of the Minis version and iPhone gamers who are new to the game.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back next week with some details of what new features you can expect to see in the iPhone version of Hungry Giraffe.
Until then, why not on join us on our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ pages?
