Yet another minor Happy Wheels update
By Jim on October 27, 2015
After reading a couple suggestions in the last news item, one of them was actually a new idea I hadn't thought of that would be very easy to implement. Another I thought was going to be simple, but instead was much more complicated... and now I am slightly mad at myself for spending as much time as I did on the old game. Here's the changes:
- you can now set triggers to be activated by mouse click by setting "triggered by" to 6.
- triggers can now trigger multiple actions per object for most objects.
- selected items that can be double clicked into are now surrounded by blue bounding boxes.
These are fairly straightforward, but I feel they're fairly helpful. Mouse clicking should add a lot of new funny possibilities.
Ok, I'm now going back to working on the sequel in severe, painful isolation... permanently if I can manage it.
As for mobile Happy Wheels, there are several new levels in production... we'd like to get them out for the next character as soon as possible.
**10/29/15 - fixed the inevitable new feature bugs for mouse activated triggers
**11/2/15 - fixed them again.
1050 commentsMinor Happy Wheels Update
By Jim on September 23, 2015
So for the sake of ourselves making some more interesting IOS levels, I made couple small changes in the flash level editor. They mostly all involve the harpoon gun:
- Harpoon guns can now be set to a fixed angle of your choosing. The turret will only aim in one direction, and will fire as soon as a human target crosses it's cleared path. There is no path prediction when firing at the target, so the harpoon has a lower chance of being fatal. This will make it easier to have characters jump over a bunch of harpoons without causing instant death.
- Harpoon guns can now be fired with triggers. It is also possible to set it so this is the only way the harpoon will fire.
- Triggers can also be used to activate and deactivate the harpoon gun.
- A little light now signals the state of the harpoon gun. Red is normal, blue is a fixed angle harpoon gun, green means it will be fired by triggers only, and black is deactivated.
- Boost panels now have a variable power setting. They were originally set to 20, and now go from 10 to 100.
Ok, that's it!
Happy Wheels iOS deep thoughts
By Jim on August 21, 2015
After only one day, Happy Wheels is ranked as the #1 free app in the iOS app store! Why? I don't know. I'm guessing a lot of you must have tried it out. It sure is exciting. Forget those apps that help you navigate home or communicate with your significant others. They have always been worthless. Repeated failure and human dismemberment are what's important in life. Thanks so very much to all the new and long term fans for putting the game where it currently is. I have no idea how long it will stay there.
I wanted to address a few things regarding the mobile game that some of you may be wondering about. As you may have noticed, there is no user level browser. There is also only one character available for the 15 levels we provided. The game was released this way because the most important thing was just to initially get Happy Wheels accepted into the Apple App Store. Segway guy is probably the most tame and easy to control of all the initial characters. Seeing irresponsible dad and his son explode as they are crushed under a van isn't the first thing I wanted the people responsible for judging the game to see. User levels introduce a huge risk where someone could release a level that violates some of Apple's guidelines and immediately get us taken down. This has never been a problem on the internet, where I can apparently put whatever the hell I want into the game.
Now that the game is in the store, and things like Mortal Kombat X exist, I think it's safe for us to slowly introduce the rest of the game. I know there are a lot of new casual players who have never seen the game before, and I'd like them all to know, preferably as soon as possible, that there is a lot more that they haven't seen. There will be a user level browser, and we will release "featured" levels for other characters as soon as we have some quality stuff.
As for the android version, we're very aware, especially after these last 24 hours, that there is a high demand. We're working on it. I can't even play the mobile game on my own phone until this happens, so I'm looking forward to it as well.
Happy Wheels iOS Now Available!
By Jason on August 19, 2015
You can now download Happy Wheels for iOS. The approval came sooner than we expected. If you search for "happy wheels", we're currently the 22nd result, so you'll have to do some scrolling. It's exhausting, but possibly worth it.
Happy Wheels iOS... so close
By Jason on August 17, 2015
I'll try and keep this short. Happy Wheels for iOS has been submitted to the App Store. The average wait time is 8 days. If it's approved, it should be available next week. Most of the info in this post is still accurate except for two big details. First, we're starting small and launching with just the first chapter featuring 15 levels for Segway Guy (known as "Business Guy" in iOS). We'll add more later. Second, the download will be free with ad support. For $1.99 you can remove ads (and this will also unlock future chapters as they become available). Here's the video I promised you about 100 years ago. Watch it at 720p for 60 frames per second.
Happy Wheels Cartoon
By Jim on May 05, 2015
If you hadn't guessed by the title of this post, there's going to be a Happy Wheels cartoon! I'm actually pretty excited about it now that it appears to be happening. Bunim-Murray, creators of the educational Kardashian series and the Real World, contacted me with interest in creating a digital series, and we eventually worked something out. The series will be part of Machinima's new programming slate.
Yesterday I attended Machinima's newfronts event where they announced Happy Wheels along with several other new series. There was free pizza. I met RoboCop, and I discovered we had a lot in common. As far as work is concerned, it's very rare for me to be involved in anything with other people, so it was a nice change to be networking with other living individuals in my field.
In case you were worried, the vast majority of my time will still be spent on video game development as that is still what I enjoy most. I will only be participating in this series in an advisory, creative role. However, based on early discussions, it seems like they are very much on board with creating something true to the game and have already shown me they are very capable. I've already had to come up with a lot of character information Happy Wheels history that I had never even thought of before. I'll keep everyone updated on how things progress.
** Update 5/7/15 **
I added in a collision value 7 for shapes, which will only collide with characters. I also fixed collision values 5 and 6 to work how they were originally intended. Old published levels will be unaffected, but may perform differently for you if loaded in the level editor.
fixes and stuff
By Jim on April 30, 2015
Oh god....just looked at my last news post date, and I can't believe I've been fixing my last broken update for multiple weeks now. It involved so much reworking of old code, and is all the more evidence that starting from scratch is a much more effective process. I think it's finally stable though, and I added in a few additional things...
- polygon shapes can now scale
- you can easily revert art and polygon shapes back to their original scale
- you can flip art and polygon shapes on their horizontal axis
- art and shape counts have been greatly increased. If it runs terribly, it's your fault, JERK!
Most likely I will be updating this post again after discovering my failings, or with a few new minor feature updates.
Besides that, it seems official that I'm going to be working with some people on some non-game related Happy Wheels stuff. I'll be less vague when stuff starts happening.
And with a random plug... a friend of mine recently released a music video and needs some views... please check it out here.
** OK... I just uploaded a video of me drawing something with the new stuff RIGHT HERE.
new art tool
By Jim on April 10, 2015
In an update that took a lot longer than expected, I've just now added in a new art tool which should be very helpful for drawing complicated shapes. Originally polygon shapes could be interactive or non-interactive. Instead, all polygons must now be interactive, and previous art polygons are now art shapes. Art shapes are superior as they will allow you to draw using bezier curves, and are completely scalable. Each vertex of each shape will have its own handles which control the curve of the line. When placing vertices and creating your shape, click, hold and drag your mouse to adjust the handles.
I've also put the whole drawing of shapes process into the undo chain, so you can undo and redo the drawing of your shape like everything else in the editor. Once created, you can now double click on polygon or art shapes (using the arrow tool) to manually edit their vertices. You can delete vertices with delete, and create new vertices by selecting a vertex and hitting enter. Double click on vertices in art shapes to show their bezier handles if they are hidden. Drag them back into the vertex to remove them and use straight lines.
Artshapes, unlike polygon shapes, are scaleable with a,s,d,w.
I think that's it. I originally put a version of this into a developmental version of the game to assist in building levels for the iphone game. It then seemed like a waste not to reuse the code in the full game, so here it is. I will now go back to my work on the sequel. uhhhh... SEEYA!
a couple more things
By Jim on January 19, 2015
So I've been making more small changes that are at least worth mentioning in a new post.
- A fullscreen option is now available in the options menu or level editor drop down menu. This will make the level editor easier to use. It may perform much worse if your computer is old. I would set blood setting to 2, as that is the only vector blood setting and will scale up nicely. Press escape at any time to exit fullscreen. Because I can't change the escape key functionality, it no longer brings up the in-game menu. You must now hit Tab, R to restart levels. IT FEELS TERRIBLE RIGHT NOW, but I am confident that everyone can adapt over time.
- Groups can now have their collision values changed with triggers. This will only affect regular shapes in the group, not special items.
- Trigger delay has been extended to 30 seconds
- fixed some more bugs maybe 5 people knew about
- I really really have to go eat some lunch right now.
*** added two more things
- groups can now be set to fixed angle, which will prevent them from rotating. This would be good for something like a ferris wheel, where the whole thing rotates, but the carts attached to it remain upright.
- a fullscreen button has been added to the mid-game popup menu. If you accidentally hit esc and lose fullscreen, you can now restore it without having to go all the way back to the options menu.
minor things
By Jim on December 17, 2014
Hello. Since the initial mobile game won't have a public level browser, sets of levels are being made. I'm temporarily stopping what I'm doing to help make some myself, so I've been forced to use my own level editor. Just now I've updated the game with some minor adjustments and fixes for stupid stuff that has bothered me during this process.
- Probably the most meaningful addition is that now you can change the collision values of regular shapes with triggers. If you wanted a shape that disappeared like a trap door, previously you'd have had to delete the shape. However, once you delete a shape it's gone. By just changing the collision value, you can cause the shape to not collide with the player or anything else. If you want to set it back to its original collision value you can do that as well. You could make a bridge of separate pieces, where each piece disappears and returns in a looping sequence. That wouldn't have been possible before.
- Groups can now be set to fixed initially. This was already possible, but only through triggers after gameplay started.
- Triggers can now start in a disabled state. It was possible to disable triggers before, but only through other triggers after gameplay started.
- Per request I lengthened the trigger repeat interval from 10 to 30 seconds.
- I fixed a bug where non-fixed shapes wouldn't appear behind fixed shapes even if they were set that way in the editor. That was dumb. I'm surprised nobody yelled at me for this before.
- Fixed another bug where triggers were moving slightly from where they were intended upon loading the level from xml. The fix will only alter levels created after this update to not mess with older levels that were already working despite this.
- Fixed some other minor stuff nobody cares about.
Yeah, so that's about it I think. Uhhh... happy holidays?
new joint
By Jim on November 21, 2014
In a minor, rare update, I have added sliding (prismatic) joints into the level editor. These let you constrain two bodies to each other on an single axis aligned with the screen. They're good for things like pistons or elevators. There are also new trigger actions for joints, which allow you to dynamically change and disable joint limits. So...now you know.
When you search for Happy Wheels on google, you have to steer clear of around 100 other fake Happy Wheels sites. Thankfully my real site is at the top due to actual use. I don't really mind when someone shares the demo version of the game, but when a site is created that claims ownership of the game for the sole purpose of attaining ad revenue by misleading others, I must contain my internet rage. With the current google search results you'll see a little info box to the right with a short writeup of the game. There's a photo there of some old man with missing teeth, which links to a fake Happy Wheels google+ page, that I'm not at all responsible for. Someone decided they would represent my game with this imagery, so now that's the first thing you see upon searching for Happy Wheels. Don't click on it, as you'll give the page more views. I've sent takedown requests on my own, but google doesn't seem to believe that I'm the owner of the game despite me having a registered trademark. I imagine this image autopopulates due to the popularity of the fake page, which is now increasing daily due to it's search ranking. I've since created my own google+ page here . If you don't mind, please follow the page just so I can try to outrank that fake one. You can also press the new google+ follow button under Happy Wheels itself. Finally, if you'd like to be very very helpful, you can search for Happy Wheels, find the info box to the right, and click on feedback. From there you can label mark the image as wrong. My attempts at doing so were ignored. THANK YOU LOYAL PALS.
Yes, I am still working on the new game and will continue to do so until it's ready. My life currently has no other purpose. I had prototyped everything in flash. The basics of the new physics engine are done, and I've been learning c++ and opengl inside and out so I don't make any grave mistakes when I rewrite it all. SO MUCH READING....arg.
That's it for now, enjoy turkey soon if applicable.
Happy Wheels iOS In Progress…
By Jason on September 30, 2014
Happy Wheels for iOS has been in development for quite some time now and the results are looking really good. On my iPhone 4S it's running fairly consistently at 60 FPS which results in buttery smooth physics and responsive gameplay. The onscreen controls feel pretty natural and are noninvasive. I personally think Happy Wheels has never looked better than on the iPad’s Retina display.
Here are some details, although they are subject to change.
Characters and levels
We’re going to launch with 6 characters: Wheelchair guy, Segway Guy, Irresponsible Dad, Effective Shopper, Moped Couple, and Pogostick Man. We’ll add more characters in time. Each character will have its own ‘chapter’ containing 10-15 levels made specifically for that character. And there will be an additional set of levels where you can choose any available character. This means that you will be able play Happy Wheels anywhere without a web connection.
Editor
There will be a simplified level editor where users can create their own levels. Initially it won’t be as robust as the online editor, but all of the current hazards, various items, and shapes (not polygons) can be added and modified. The levels can be saved locally on each device or shared between devices via email or Airdrop. Later we’ll add a public level browser similar to what is available in the browser version.
Controls
The onscreen controls are simplified as well. There are buttons for forward/reverse, lean left/right, special, and eject. We’re trying to keep the layout consistent between characters, but in some cases, the number of buttons or layout may vary.
Compatibility
Again, these are subject to change. Our build target is iOS 6 and up.
- iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6+. And although we advise against it, it should install on the iPhone 4, but there is a noticeable drop in framerate.
- iPod Touch 5th generation. Like the iPhone 4, it should install on an iPod Touch 4th gen, but it will probably run slowly so we advise against it.
- iPad 2, 3, 4, Air.
- iPad Mini 1, 2
Price
We thought about this a lot and considered several different revenue streams. In the end we decided that we would simply sell the game for $2.99. However, for the first couple days, the game will be on sale for $1.99. We realize paying for Happy Wheels is a touchy subject for some users, so share your comments below.
Release date
Unfortunately we can only say that we’re getting close. Each week we decide to add more to bring the experience closer to the browser version. We’re at the point where we need to develop levels and then do beta testing. There is a faint light at the end of the tunnel. We appreciate your patience. We may post a video soon.
Android
We tested an Android port and the results were pretty promising. We’ll make more progress on it after the iOS version is done. At this point, it’s too early to talking about an Android release date.
color glitch?
By Jim on June 25, 2014
I keep getting emails about a color glitch in the editor, but I've not changed anything related to the color selector in the last year. I imagine it may be an issue with a particular updated version of the flash player, but I'm not able to replicate the issue on my pc or mac. If you're having that problem, leave a comment below with very specific details, such as your operating system, browser, and flash version (right click on the game and the version number should be at the bottom).
If you've not yet noticed, there's a new bug reporting form for the site here. For future site and game issues please use that. There's also some new email addresses on the terrible about page.
...and we're back
By Jim on May 15, 2014
Uploading has been restored, and everything should be working alright. Sorry about that. The weekly levels won't return any results until people start uploading again.
I don't know if it's been mentioned anywhere, but the iOS version of the game includes slow motion. We're bug fixing, and I must continuously watch people die in slow motion. Somehow I still find this funny, and slow motion screams in general are hilarious. This wasn't really possible in the flash version. I'm very excited to put up a video of it, but that'll be closer to release time. For all of you people on android (myself included), we're crossing our fingers that porting to android may be very simple if we can get apportable to work. If so, the android version may be coming much sooner than anticipated. I don't have too much else to say, so here's a new picture of effective shopper for the new mobile menus.
site move
By Jim on May 07, 2014
Hey guys, this afternoon Alec will be taking the site down for about an hour or two while we prepare for a move to another host. When it returns, uploading of any sort will be disabled while we transfer the database to the new site. Unfortunately this may take a few days to a week. Sorry to do this again, but I don't foresee a site move anytime afterwards. There was a problem with our current host that kind of brought all the progress we've been making on the site to a halt. If this causes you a buildup of internal rage, please consider unleashing your emotions in some creative manner that is constructive to others.
In other news... I recently put analytics into the game, so I've been able to see the terms people actually search for in the level browser. Yesterday, 956 people searched for the incorrectly spelled "sword trow", which I found very impressive. Even more surprising, it turns out effective shopper is the least popular character in the game. For me, this was very saddening. I would have guessed she was in the top 5. Here's the current list of characters, ranked by the number of times they're chosen on the character select screen.
- Irresponsible dad
- Segway guy
- Helicopter man
- Pogostick man
- Wheelchair guy
- Lawnmower man
- Santa Claus
- Moped couple
- Explorer guy
- Irresponsible mom
- Effective shopper
I've been working on the iphone version of the game with Jason in preparation for the launch. I've made new character portrait art for the level selection menus. I think they look pretty ok. THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO SHARE AT THE MOMENT!
...some stuff
By Jim on March 20, 2014
Hey...please ignore the over dramatic message in the preloader from Mochi Media. Happy Wheels is NOT provided by Mochi Media, and is in no danger of shutting down. They are one of several ad networks the site uses. The message assumes the owner of the site is not the developer of the game, and is pasted into every game on the internet making use of Mochi ads. I will update my preloader to remove them before the 31st.
Besides that I just uploaded this new video to give you some ideas for new level possiblities with the new features...
If you're not aware of what was added, please look at the news post below. While making the video I came across some issues while trying to make examples. As of today I actually added in a couple things:
- Sounds activated by triggers can now play from the location of the trigger. If the trigger is nowhere near the player's current position, you won't hear the sound.
- I changed mostly all of my arrays to vectors. Vectors are more efficient Arrays in actionscript. I've wanted to do this for like 18 years. This should improve performance somewhat.
- Minor bug fixes that would be really boring to describe and hear.
NEW SITE, YAY
By Jim on March 13, 2014
...I don't want to jinx it, but it appears as though I have a reliable, fully functioning site (THIS SITE YOU ARE ON RIGHT NOW, YOU FOOLS!). We'll see how it goes during full traffic load today, but for me it has remained zippy no matter what I do. I'm just in disbelief that you can actually play Happy Wheels for more than 3 minutes without it hanging and requiring a refresh. All credit goes to Alec, who rebuilt the new java site and database from scratch. Very special thanks to Sean who managed to tape together the broken pile of sticks that was the original site (which was intended for magnitudes less than 500,000 users a day) for the past couple years. Right now we just wanted to match the intended functionality of the old site, but because the foundation has been completely redone, the site can be expanded with new features. Along with the update to the entire backend, I updated and added several things to the game. Here's a list:
- New, more efficient level and replay browsers
- Level and author search has been reactivated
- Favoriting levels actually works
- An arrow in the featured levels menu lets you see other levels by featured authors
- Publishing levels is now separate from saving
- Deleting levels can now be done in the editor load menu. This may be added back to user pages this week.
- There is a debug draw mode in the level editor. This will allow you to see all physics shapes and joints when testing a level. It must be checked on in the drop down editor menu.
- Triggers can now be triggered by other triggers. The line connecting the triggers will have arrows pointing in the direction of the receiving trigger. This will allow you do apply several trigger actions at once to several object without having all the triggers overlap.
- Triggers can be disabled and enabled through other triggers. This will prevent them from going off until required.
- Triggers now have a repeat setting. Previously triggers would activate once and delete themselves. Now you can, with various options, have a trigger action repeat itself continuously. This will allow you to do things that were previously very complicated or impossible. I can have an old man jumping and yelling about his leg until the end of time.
- Groups now have the same trigger actions as shapes. You can now set groups to fixed, non-fixed, delete group shapes, and delete the entire group with triggers.
- When copying and pasting triggers and shapes, trigger actions will now actually copy over. Previously copied actions would be set to their default values. It was annoying.
- Non-player characters can now be manually posed by double clicking on them and dragging their limbs. I've had to do inverse kinematics for the new game, so I plopped it in here. Dragging the stupid sliders to pose the characters before was such a pain in the ass. Sorry I didn't do this sooner.
- "Hold pose" for non-player characters now works more closely to how I originally intended. It will work how it used to for old levels.
- Various editor bugs have been fixed. There may be more I haven't been aware of. I will make a bugs email address so people can help me find any I've missed.
- *(forgot this one) Shapes now have 2 new collision settings.
I think that's it. There may be one or two things I've missed. I'll edit the post if I remember. I'm going to make a video for tomorrow showing some ideas for things you can make with the new features. I'm still mad nobody has made a good helicopter man level. Maybe it's because I didn't even mention him in a news post. Or maybe I just missed one. If you know of one, please let me know. I already have to go back and feature like 10 levels over the past few months.
Anyways, I'm very happy to have the site functioning as it is. Thank you for your patience in dealing with the migration. If you were not patient... well, sorry. Now that problems can actually be solved and new news posts don't require me to login to phpmyadmin, I'll be more communicative and less of a recluse. There are still some issues that we are aware of (some deleted levels have been restored, some level data must be retransferred, and some old replays have ratings of zero), but these will hopefully all be ironed out in the next week. After that I will be helping Jason finish up the iPhone version, and then I will finally return to the Happy Wheels sequel.
Comments are now listed most recent first. This was originally confusing me, but it's better.
For now, here's my goodbye in stunning comic sans!
hello
By Happy Wheels on October 25, 2013
I've started work on a new character for Happy Wheels. With my time spent on the sequel, it's now been over a year since my last update to the game. I'm feeling guilty so I figure I should really go back and add some things. I think the new character will add some fun, stupid gameplay types. The character art is already done. Hopefully it will be finished in a couple of weeks. Next week I'll be recording some vocals for the new character and future/older characters. Along with the character I might try to update a few other little things.
Once the new update is finished I will probably try to help Jason wrap up the iPhone version so we can finally have something ready to release. I'm looking to port it to Android as soon as we have something more complete, so if you are a talented Android programmer in the New York area, or know of one, do let us know.
My good friend Paul K has recently released a book. I missed his release party because I accidentally crushed and ate the veneer off my front tooth while eating pizza on the way over. To make up for it I'd like to link to it here. And Every Day Was Overcast is a photo essay and novel about growing up in the 90s amongst the creepshow of swamps and strip malls of south Florida. It's awesome and unique and makes my New Jersey high school upbringing seem even more forgettable than it was.
I'll make another post when the character is up.
I EXIST
By Happy Wheels on August 16, 2013
In case anyone was wondering, I still do. I guess I have a lot to review.
Back in March, we went to PAX East. It was overall pretty fun. We showed a version of the upcoming iPhone/iPad version of Happy Wheels, and I showed what I was working on with the graphics of what might be called Happy Wheels 2. If we do it again next year, we'll make sure to make things more self explanatory so we can actually leave our demos to run for themselves. It was tiring. We did meet a lot of people though. Most didn't realize I made the game and thought I was just some booth lackey guy. Some who did figure out it was me had me sign their minecraft swords. I guess it helps to have merchandise. We did make buttons, but not enough. I dressed as irresponsible dad one day, but unfortunately I couldn't find a son in time during my last minute costume preparation. I guess that is irresponsible.
I've been developing the physics engine of my next game. I've made some good progress, but it's unfortunately been very slow going. I've already got the ability to give characters sequenced animations that are completely physics based, but now I've got to replicate everything I was able to do with the old engine. I don't want to lose any features while gaining new ones. I feel that the graphics and other stuff will be less of a pain in the ass.
As for the current Happy Wheels, I do realize I've not updated it in favor of working on the sequel. I've been considering doing a new update though just to give me a break, so I'm thinking of adding a new character and a few new features. I don't know when this will be released, but I'd start soon.
Jason will make a post or edit this one later on Happy Wheels iPhone news. I think it looks quite splendid. 60 fps makes it look much better than the flash version, and true slow motion screaming is hilarious.
In a legal success, we have acquired happywheels.com. I won't make that stupid mistake again. If you visit it now, it just redirects here. However, with a site rebuild that's been ongoing, we'll make better use of it in the future.
blurb!
By Happy Wheels on December 09, 2012
Hey, so my bastard brother is attempting to do a video project with some funding and has a kickstarter here. If you are feeling at all generous, please check it out.
As for my previous post, I'd just like to clarify a few things. Happy Wheels in its current form will always be free and available as long as I can afford hosting. I'm always going to need a database no matter what I end up doing, so I don't see that changing. I will still update flash Happy Wheels on occasion. The reason I'm working on a game in c++ is because flash is very limiting. I'm not just converting what currently exists. I'm making a new game.
I plan on keeping things 2d, but I'll be using 3d modeling to create the graphics. I've started using sculptris and it is awesome. Textures will still be flat, but the depth of the models will allow me to use normal mapping, which means I can make use of dynamic lighting. I plan on using a similar look to the current art style, but objects will be lit differently as they rotate.
I'll ramble on some more as I progress?
oh haaay
By Happy Wheels on November 13, 2012
Hello friends,
Very sorry for the long absence. Rereading the last post, I was a bit shocked at how miserable that made my situation sound. I shouldn't have left that up there so long. I may have been quite frustrated that day, but I AM IN FACT DOING SPLENDIDLY. I'm currently in Los Angeles, California for two weeks. I've eaten nearly 800 tacos. Yesterday we shot guns. Before that I was in Portland for a week. I've never been to either, and decided to visit when Jason had some obligations over here.
As for the site... we are actually testing a new version Sean recently completed and will make the transfer once we're done. It looks the same, but the site will now be on a much stabler, more secure framework. Once that is done, it will be much easier to pinpoint inefficiencies in the database...which is the constant source of the site troubles.
I've been spending my own time creating a new version of Happy Wheels from scratch. At least, I assume it will be Happy Wheels. I'm learning c++ and opengl. It is fun to have something new and challenging, so I'm pumped to have something showable soon. I promise it will be awesome (if you liked Happy Wheels and my judgement hasn't expired). The plan is to sell a version of the game for $5-10. I think this will eliminate a lot of horrible levels from being created. I'd still like everyone to have access to the game though, so I will see about the possibility of releasing a free version eventually that doesn't include the level editor. Perhaps that could be in webgl. This is all very far off and just speculation.
Probably the most exciting part of this news post for myself is that I will have a booth at PAX East next March in Boston. I actually can't wait, but I suppose I am forced to. I missed my chance to do this several times before due to stupidity. It will be wonderful to leave my mother's locked basement and meet anyone who has played Happy Wheels (as this is actually very rare in real life). Just please, NO DIRECT SKIN CONTACT. Latex gloves will be available.
ARG
By Happy Wheels on August 08, 2012
I have been tremendously frustrated lately with the way things are going. Despite moving to a new hosting setup, the site is still struggling to deal with traffic. There were, and still may be, several new problems that popped up when we went from one database server to two. Data must be replicated from one to the next, and so some new functionality had to be created.
The large problem is that I'm not getting the help I desperately need. I have Sean (Adura) in Canada who has been acting as my systems admin, but it has not been enough. He has no experience with a multi-server setup and is learning as he goes. I was under the impression my new host would be able to put more time into helping with site optimizations, but that does not seem to be the case.
If I were very familiar with these things, I would do this on my own. Unfortunately, I am not a backend programmer/systems admin. I have a decent understanding of things. Several times I've known more about these things than the people I'm trying to hire, which is very disappointing. I do not want to spend the massive amount of time that would be necessary to learn these things when I could be spending that time creating things in the game. It is absurd to me that I can't just find someone willing to accept my money who is capable of fixing this crap.
I do not want to lose massive amounts of daily users just because the site will not function properly.
I'm writing this post just to let everyone know that I'm trying my best to fix these things, and it's seriously stressing me out. Every day I sign into facebook or gmail and see complaint after complaint. It sucks.
I would love more than anything to work on a new character, but I cannot do so while the game is broken. My time has been spent ineffectively reaching out to people for help. I guess I have to keep doing this until I find someone, or get to learning and fixing everything by myself.
PUUUUUKE!
sort of done
By Happy Wheels on July 06, 2012
Ok, the new update is up (but not entirely finished). With Thailand jail and the length of time this took, it's actually been a long while since my last update to the game. Sorry about that.
The update is a new tool that you can use to trigger events during gameplay. The player rides through a trigger area, and various things are activated. Right now you can either activate an object or play a sound.
In most cases, activating an object is waking it up if it's in a sleeping state. Certain special items have more useful activations. Mines will explode and boosts and fans will turn on. You currently cannot decide what the activation will be; you are given a default action. I will change that with a future update... I ran out of time and only thought of it halfway through developing. It'd be cool if rather than just waking up a shape, you could make it appear, disappear, set it to a fixed or non-fixed state, give it a certain velocity, fade in/out, blah blah blah.
If you choose to play a sound effect instead, you don't attach the trigger to any other objects. You just select the sound, and set the volume and panning. With proper use of delay, you can probably make some horrible songs from various screams. Now you can hear "oh my leg!" until it's unbearable (if it's not already).
I do plan on adding ambient sounds but ran out of time today. I will work on that first thing next week. Going through various sound libraries and setting up loops is longer and more tedious than expected.
almost done
By Happy Wheels on June 29, 2012
Hello pals. 2 weeks ago I said I'd have an update ready for last week on Facebook. I was incorrect. I am a bit famous for underestimating the amount of time something takes me.
This week, I am again incorrect in saying the update would be ready for this week. It's very very close, but there are little things I have to fix... and now it's already Friday. It will (definitely...ignore what I said above about underestimating) be ready early next week, and I think it will be very worth it.
I also know it will be hard to read this post because my stupid servers have been overwhelmed with new traffic. I really should have taken care of this sooner, as I'd really like you all to play the game when you'd like. Today though I sent out my ok to a new host, and the site will soon be moving (possibly this weekend) from 2 to 4 servers. This is the same host collegehumor uses, so they should be able to easily handle my site.
Last but not least please check out a video project my brother worked on HERE.
I'll make another post soon to explain the new tool.
We are alive
By Happy Wheels on May 21, 2012
Hello everyone (this is Jason). Here's that news post that everyone has been asking about.
First off, we've added Pogostick Man. All of you know this. As you might guess, he rides a pogo stick. Thanks to Nova for providing vocals. Now when he plays Happy Wheels, he can scream with himself. And the internet becomes a bit less lonely of a place. Some of you have asked about having other YouTube gamers record vocals. We're not really planning on doing that. A male voice was needed and Nova, who happens to have a fairly unique voice, mentioned interest. We'll most likely go and record a bunch of new voices soon. The next character vocals are most likely female.
Pressing up/down moves Pogostick Man forward/backward with small jumps. Holding space bar results in a big jump. Pressing shift makes him stand upright on the pogo stick and control makes him crouch. Some of his joints are stronger than other characters which allow him to land big jumps without breaking to pieces. Once ejected, his joints are normal strength.
The response to Pogostick Man has been pretty incredible, but this of course has resulted in a trend of unoriginal wall-jumping levels which has polluted the level browser. Please make original levels.
Second, we have exceeded ONE MILLION Facebook 'likes'. Hitting this mark was never expected. In fact, we originally were hoping for 5000 (Jim: "we did?"). And of course we talked about doing something for this event, but then planned poorly and missed it. So the surprise is that there was no surprise. We will eventually post some awesome pictures of the socks that Jim bought. Or we won't. We know you love the suspense. Thanks to everyone who clicked 'like'.
Third, the development of the forums is on hold. We estimated it would be done by now, but then something came up.
Forth, things are a bit slow right now because Jim is incarcerated in Thailand, but I assure you we're always working on something and there are a lot of things to come.
sup
By Happy Wheels on March 14, 2012
Hey there,
I've been a bit absent so I just wanted to tell youse all what's up.
For the past couple weeks I've been spending most of my time working on a better physics based animation system. In Happy Wheels, you'll notice characters can only hold certain poses. More complicated animations such as walking, or picking yourself up, or climbing would be extremely difficult to do with box2d (the physics engine used by Happy Wheels) alone. With this additional system, assuming I figure it all out, it would be possible to have complex character animations that still interact with the physics world. It's been a pain in the ass, but I've made a lot of good progress.
Most likely, I would not be adding this system into Happy Wheels. Too much would have to change with the way the current characters are built. It's possible that, when finished, I might make a mini game to illustrate what's possible (was thinking a horrifically violent version of kung-fu). Further down the line, I might want to convert everything currently in Happy Wheels to this new system and possible make it a sequel. It's all speculation right now. It all depends on how things turn out, and possibly new things I discover.
Something that would be possible with the new system would be user contributed animations. Similar to how people submit levels in Happy Wheels, an animation editor would allow people to contribute character animations that could be applied to any character.
I'm excited about figuring this out, as it would allow me to do make some really retarded stuff. I'll still be making Happy Wheels characters and random things, but currently I'd like to make some headway with this new stuff while I remain motivated.
I think that's it for now.
sup
By Happy Wheels on March 14, 2012
Hey there,
I've been a bit absent so I just wanted to tell youse all what's up.
For the past couple weeks I've been spending most of my time working on a better physics based animation system. In Happy Wheels, you'll notice characters can only hold certain poses. More complicated animations such as walking, or picking yourself up, or climbing would be extremely difficult to do with box2d (the physics engine used by Happy Wheels) alone. With this additional system, assuming I figure it all out, it would be possible to have complex character animations that still interact with the physics world. It's been a pain in the ass, but I've made a lot of good progress.
Most likely, I would not be adding this system into Happy Wheels. Too much would have to change with the way the current characters are built. It's possible that, when finished, I might make a mini game to illustrate what's possible (was thinking a horrifically violent version of kung-fu). Further down the line, I might want to convert everything currently in Happy Wheels to this new system and possible make it a sequel. It's all speculation right now. It all depends on how things turn out, and possibly new things I discover.
Something that would be possible with the new system would be user contributed animations. Similar to how people submit levels in Happy Wheels, an animation editor would allow people to contribute character animations that could be applied to any character.
I'm excited about figuring this out, as it would allow me to do make some really retarded stuff. I'll still be making Happy Wheels characters and random things, but currently I'd like to make some headway with this new stuff while I remain motivated.
I think that's it for now.
Oh boy
By Happy Wheels on March 02, 2012
Hello, Jason here. So we made a few updates to Happy Wheels. Let me tell you about them using words. Here I go!
We've added new vocals to the Moped Couple and Lawnmower Man. I did the voice of Moped Guy and friends of ours did the vocals for Moped Girl and Lawnmower Man. Screaming as if you're being torn in half is pretty cathartic. I recommend it.
You can now quickly load levels or replays from the main menu by pressing "Load level/replay" and entering a valid URL. To find a URL, browse to that level. In pink you'll see the URL. Copy it and share it with friends and loved ones. Now you won't have to refresh the entire page to view a level someone sends you.
In the editor, you can now adjust the "center cutout" of circles to create donut-like shapes. This is helpful for wheels with spokes. However, this is only a visual change. Cirlce shapes are still solid. That is a requirement of the physics engine.
The force character bug should now be fixed. We are aware of a couple other bugs that we're working on.
Also, you can now chat with other users by clicking here. If the applet is full, you can join the IRC channel #happywheels on irc.rizon.net. A free IRC client can be downloaded at http://code.google.com/p/xchat-wdk/.
extra squirts
By Happy Wheels on February 20, 2012
Ok, I just updated the blood again a couple hours ago.
It's more toned down, and I think it looks splendid. If you didn't like how it looked before, give it another shot. If you didn't like it before because your computer is old and it ran like shit, well it's still going to run like shit.
Once again:
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE NEW BLOOD, CHANGE IT BACK IN THE OPTIONS MENU.
If you don't like something, feel free to let me know in a less than shitty manner, and I will continue to update the game in a jovial mood.
Jason's more detailed update post is below.
squirts
By Happy Wheels on February 08, 2012
Hello, Jason Here. A few new things have been added to Happy Wheels version 1.60.
First off, new blood types have been added to the game. There are 3, each is increasingly harder on your computer's processor: particles drawn as lines, a liquid effect, and a liquid effect with a bevel and a blend mode applied. Before you go crying into your juicebox because it slows down your computer or you don't like it, you can go to options menu and set the "blood setting" to 1, the old blood type. Also, Jim is still working on how the new blood will look, so it's subject to change.
While you're in the settings, you might also notice we've added the ability to customize your controls. You have to map each key individually, but those changes will be saved (unless you switch to a different computer). If you screw up your keys, press the "restore defaults" button undo your awful mistakes.
In the editor, we've added the ability to change your level's background color. Go to the level options menu and you'll see a color selector. The color change will be seen only when you test or play your level.
When saving your level, you may notice a link to the "level rules" page. This explains the current set of rules you must follow if you do not want your level to be deleted. These rules have already been in place, but we're formally stating them. They exist simply to keep out bad or offensive levels. If you want to remind people at the finish of your level to "remember to rate," or ask them "please rate," that is alright.
And finally, a color selector bug was fixed and a trident was added to the blade weapons. You know, for fun.
polygons and vehicles and stuff
By Happy Wheels on January 30, 2012
Hello,
I should have written a few news posts since the last one, but I didn't. Since then a few things have been added to the game.
Polygon shapes have been available for a while now. There has been a lot of confusion with there usage so I will try to clarify things in a nice list:
- There is a big difference in functionality when changing the polygon tool from interactive and non-interactive. If you're telling me the polygon tool is broken, you probably didn't uncheck interactive when attempting to draw.
- Interactive polygons are limited in their shape. Shapes can only be convex polygons. This means no inner angle of any vertex can be over 180 degrees, and no edges can overlap each other. Shapes must also be drawn in a clockwise manner and have 10 vertices max. This is done in order to not break the physics of the game.
- Non-interactive shapes have nothing to do with physics, so they have no limitations other than the number of vertices (50). Click while holding shift to end the non-interactive shape early without filling it. You can use this to draw lines.
- Use ctrl+click to remove the last vertex you placed with the polygon tool.
- You cannot change the interactive value once a polygon shape is placed. This was an easier solution than checking if your random art piece obeyed the physics rules, which it probably did not. (also, slight laziness)
- Polygons can't be scaled. There were too many things to consider in order for me to allow it. However, there's no size restriction on them... they just have to fit on stage.
That's the end of the list.
There's now a much improved color selector in the editor. When you choose a certain color, a brightness and saturation spectrum is displayed. Left to right is saturation, and up and down determine brightness. The brightest, most saturated version of that hue will be always be at the top right. You can save and delete custom colors with the plus and minus buttons. Additionally, when dragging colors on the spectrum, you can drag off of the color selector and grab colors from anything in the background.
And finally, there is the new vehicle feature. When selecting a group containing that contains at least one interactive shape, you now have the option of converting that group into a controllable vehicle. Any character you eject can control this vehicle once they've grabbed onto it. I think I will start a new list:
- When first creating a vehicle, you'll notice all of the interactive shapes inside will glow blue. These shapes will act as the handles for the vehicle. If you'd only like for one particular shape (such as a steering wheel) to act as the handle, double click into the group and disable the handle property for the other shapes.
- Leaning is set to zero by default, so be sure to raise this if you'd like the user to be able to lean left and right on the vehicle.
- Pressing up and down while operating the vehicle will operate attached joints. So for example, a wheel is placed on stage (not inside the vehicle), and then attached to the vehicle with a joint. The wheel's top speed and direction are determined by the joint's properties, not the vehicle's.
- Joints attached to a vehicle can be set so they are not controlled by the vehicle.
- Jets and arrowguns that are jointed to the vehicle can be controlled. Set spacebar, shift, and ctrl abilities in the vehicle properties.
- If you'd like to limit the rotation of a jet attached to the vehicle, it's best to set the joint limits to 0 and 0. This will allow the jet to rotate, but it will stay in the correct angle relative to the vehicle.
- You can actually attach vehicles to each other with joints, and they will be controlled by each other. I haven't done anything too crazy with this, but I imagine you can do some very cool stuff. I might also make it so any joint connected to a vehicle indirectly (a joint connected to a shape that is joined to a vehicle elsewhere) could be controlled by the vehicle. With this you could make a whole chain of joints flex or retract upon keypresses. That would have to be cool... I think.
OK! I think that's the end of it. This may be my longest post. Vehicles have been cool, but I definitely think I have to add some better sounds in there. Perhaps adding a sound property to running joints, and possibly selectable impact sounds for shapes. In any case, I'm seeing a lot of very cool stuff being made with the new tools. On Saturday, the top 50 for the day were all pretty great. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Thanks so much to everyone participating. A higher quality community will definitely inspire others and lead to even better submissions.
I'll probably make another post soon with a bunch of other crap I forgot.
hi
By Happy Wheels on January 03, 2012
Today I set it so users can only submit one public level per 24 hours.
I was looking through top rated levels yesterday. I can't keep playing the one where you are lawnmower man and you drop through glass with the little child. I've seen it 800 times and it doesn't warrant its apparent popularity. I went to the author's page, and I noticed he had submitted 20 other levels that day and nothing else. All of them were copied. I checked another author and it was the same thing.
There's not reason for anyone to be submitting more than one level per day. Those who do are more often than not spamming unoriginal crap. If you happen to have actually made 2 quality levels in one sitting, then save that one for tomorrow.
People have also mentioned a problem with Santa. If you hold spacebar and up, you cannot press left and lean backwards. Unfortunately this problem has always existed because of stupid keyboards. The same thing happens with wheelchair guy. For some reason, spacebar, up, and right is completely fine.
The only solution would be to put in an option to change your key setup, so I'll do that soon.
Now lunch.
...oh yeah
By Happy Wheels on December 31, 2011
...also, I was supposed to mention a few other things. User Mystic is now a mod.
A lot of crap is clogging up the user levels, and I'd really like to change that.
Please, no more "signing" levels. This is basically reposting a level which is identical to someone else's original, but putting your name or some message into it. The level browser shouldn't be used as some retarded message board. It sucks to see 3 or more levels in the top rated which are nearly identical.
No more "rate 5 and restart" bullshit. Or "rate 5 and restart to see my shitty made up glitch". There will never be anything fancy occurring due to you voting a certain way. Don't vote this stuff up.
Signed levels, restart levels, and all other crap of that nature will now be deleted. Obvious clones will be deleted. I just had to state this here before doing so, so people know what's going on.
I think that's all, but I'm probably forgetting something again.
Happy New Year!
holiday news post about information for you
By Happy Wheels on December 29, 2011
Hey guys,
I've been meaning to make a post about the Santa update. WHAT YOU ARE READING RIGHT NOW WILL BE THAT POST.
If you didn't notice, Santa Claus is now the eighth playable character in Happy Wheels. He's the first character to consist of 3 people. He also has no wheels. That's ok, I made this game and I will do whatever the hell I want! Understand? The next couple characters will probably be a bit simpler.
At this pace, all 25 slots will be filled in only 4 years! I hope flash still exists by then. I will try to go faster I guess.
I am still up in the air about what the I'd like to keep doing. The month of December was absurdly amazing in terms of traffic. Thanks to some very popular youtube channels, traffic has tripled from the previous high. Also, thanks very much to Adura, we've made some great backend optimizations, and the site can actually handle the traffic. All of that seems to clearly be telling me to continue working on the flash version of the game. I'll most likely end up dividing my time between this and continuing to learn c++/opengl (I think I've rambled on about this before, but got sidelined by Santa). I've got so many stupid, smaller, simpler ideas for other games I'd like to make. In any case, thanks so much to everyone for playing Happy Wheels this past year and allowing me to continue doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing.
By the way, 1.52 was just a few Santa bug fixes as well as error handling stuff Jason did that should eliminate blue loading screens.
The next thing I do in the game might be a simple drawing tool, or zombies that attack your character. The next thing I will do in real life is plan my dinner.
Happy New year in a few days.
oh
By Happy Wheels on December 02, 2011
******** it seems the blue screen is currently occurring most in chrome. Things seem to be ok for me in Firefox. Chrome's built in flash plugin has also been the culprit in changing replay accuracy. Until we know exactly what's up, use Firefox **********
Hello friends,
It's Friday at 1:30 pm, possibly our busiest time, and the site seems to be working pretty well. That hasn't happened in a while. It is most likely due to Adura fixing some level caching bug that was broken at some point in time by someone (very possibly me). We HAVE noticed this blue screen bug occasionally when loading levels, so we are trying to fix that now.
Yesterday I gathered a group of friends and we did some voice recording. Mine came out terrible, but that's ok as I'm already wheelchair guy and irresponsible dad (so I still feel cool). We have several new sets of screams and grunts now, so reused character voices can be replaced. The new character will also have it's own set.
We are in a new office space, so I have to find all new lunch spots. I will make an attempt now.
Choppy
By Happy Wheels on November 22, 2011
Hi. Jason here. Version 1.50 is now up. We've added blade weapons. You can join them to NPCs or group them and make more complex hazards. They're similar to the spike panels in that they can stab the torso or head, the latter being fatal.
Thanks to those of you who reported bugs. Several of them have now been fixed. First, when editing a level, zooming out once again increases the movement of selected shapes when presssing the arrow keys. This feature was accidentally disabled with a previous update. Second, the trash can appearing above the cannon was fixed. Third, you can now filter levels with the explorer guy. And finally, when lawnmower man runs over rail objects, it no longer causes issues. We're still looking into a problem with the joints. Continue sending bugs to fancyforce[at]gmail[dot]com.
Oh hi there
By Happy Wheels on November 11, 2011
We haven't posted in a while, but we are in fact working on Happy Wheels (well, at the moment Jim is playing a way intense video game that was released today, so I'm not sure how much will get done at the moment).
The was a setback with the forums, so there is no ETA on when they'll be back. We know it's very important for everyone to have a place to troll, so we'll have them up eventually. If you have a bug to report, please email fancyforce[at]gmail[dot]com and put "bug" in the subject. Please explain your bug as best you can and include links to examples, if possible.
If you haven't noticed, update 1.49 added the cannon object as well as food items. A mute button was added to the gameplay menu. This also fixed the jet noise bug. Also, when testing a level, pressing the "f" key now adds a temporary red dot at your characters' location. This is helpful for cannon levels or any time your character is airborn and you want to know where it will land. This tutorial explains it pretty well: >http://goo.gl/G8CIT
We should have a small update by the end of next week. We're moving offices as well.
Jim is working on a new character and it should be ready by mid-December. Begin your wild speculation now.
possibly long rambling
By Happy Wheels on September 30, 2011
Hello,
I haven't made a news post in quite some time. Sorry about that. I'll ramble on about the update 2 weeks ago, as well as today's update, and about site plans.
The arrow gun and chains were added to the game 2 weeks ago. The arrow gun works like the harpoon, but is less deadly. Characters will only die if it shoots them in the center of the skull. Unlike the harpoon gun, the arrow gun doesn't have to be in a fixed position and can also be joined and grouped with other items. As an example, you could attach the arrow gun to some shitty looking, moving jeep full of fat women (I'm upset I haven't seen this or anything too complicated yet). The chain was meant to make it easier for people to make long rope like objects. They can break when over stressed. In case you've not seen it, here is a video illustrating some of this.
Today's update is not quite as exciting, but it should be very helpful in making complex levels. Groups can now be edited in place after they are created. You'll no longer have to break them apart and rebuild them. Double-click on them to enter an editing mode, and double-click again on the background to exit. You can also change the depth of items now with ctrl + up or ctrl + down. Previously you'd have to delete and re-paste items to get them into the correct depth order.
Jason also added in tokens (coins?), which will act as another method of completing levels other than the finish line. Place however many tokens you want, and when they are all collected, the level is won. This will be useful if you'd like the player to follow a specific path.
Over the next few weeks the site will be setup to use vbulletin, so that will mean a real forum and a non broken framework. All user accounts will be transferred over to that. The site should look mostly the same, but will run less like dogshit. Once that new system is set up, it will be a lot easier to add fun user related stuff to the backend of the site.
It was my birthday 3 days ago. So very old now. Thank you very much to the creepily knowledgeable few who wished me a Happy Birthday.
I'd really like to make some new games, so I'll be dividing my time up between that and Happy Wheels. Maybe I'll be making a character next.
I can't think of anything else, so that's it for now.
Germany land
By Happy Wheels on August 09, 2011
Hello guys,
We are in Berlin, and so far it's going splendidly. We are doing a fine job of drinking and eating. Doner kebab is tasty. I haven't eaten much actual German food, but every other nationality represented here has been delicious. You also don't tip anywhere, which still has me feeling guilty after most meals.
I am disappointed in that I have not discovered any poop shelf toilets, which I thought were still prevalent.
I speak no German. No, I do know the word "Hallo". That means hello. Jason knows 4 more words than I do, and can also count to ten. My method of communication is going up to people and asking "Hallo... do you speak English?". Thankfully, most younger people respond with "yes". I am also good with pointing and shrugging my shoulders.
You may have noticed the forums are down. After the server migration, the site was still performing poorly. It seems that the poorly optimized forum was greatly affecting site performance. Adura has currently taken them down, and is working to replace them with an actual real forum. That should fix several related, horrible site problems. In the meantime, that has also caused the site to run well.
We're going to try to get a bit of work done here on slow days. We really have to add in a remove favorites function. I'm happy to see lots of stupid jet levels. I have to find some levels to feature. If anyone still finds bugs with the new character, please comment here.
.................
By Happy Wheels on August 02, 2011
Well, I can't really express how angry I am in text. If only you could see my flailing arms. When the site went down Friday, I was under the assumption that it would be back up later that evening. It's now 1 am on Tuesday, and the site has just gone back up.
Anything that could have gone wrong with the new server installation did go wrong. What should have taken a few hours took 3 and a half days. The entirety of the blame goes to my hosting, who did the most spectacularly awful job possible. Even in the last 24 hours, there was not even the slightest hint of urgency in fixing my problems. I will be finding a new host as soon as I return from Berlin. I regret the timing of my trip as well as the fact that these are servers that I have purchased, as I will most likely have to sell them. I have lost a good deal of ad revenue as well as wasted money on hardware purchases. I am looking into how I will be compensated.
Adura, my server admin, has done an amazing job and is in no way to blame for the downtime. He's the reason the site is working at all now, and did a large portion of my host's work for them.
Unfortunately, there seem to be previous issues with my host's firewall popping up... most likely because we are now using a new set of IP addresses. This could mean some connectivity issues until they get their shit together.
I get into my office tomorrow morning, and I will update the game as soon as I have a chance. Hopefully the firewall issues won't be too bad. Sorry again and thanks for being patient (if you were).
...
By Happy Wheels on July 29, 2011
So I have a pretty good update ready, but I am waiting for my site to be upgraded before releasing it. It's a major bummer to release a preview video, only to have people arrive at to a broken site. I was hoping to have this done earlier in the week, but I've had several issues with my hosting. If I didn't own the servers I'm using, I would more willingly move to a new host. In any case, an additional server is finally ready to be used. We will soon shut down the site temporarily and transfer all our crap. Hopefully that will be in the next few hours.
Thanks to everyone for being patient in dealing with my shitty site problems and not entirely abandoning the game.
Here's a video of the upcoming item.
not mailman
By Happy Wheels on July 22, 2011
----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
By Happy Wheels on July 05, 2011
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
By Happy Wheels on May 31, 2011
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
By Happy Wheels on May 13, 2011
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
By Happy Wheels on May 09, 2011
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.
glass and like whatever
By Happy Wheels on April 08, 2011
So yeah, if you didn't already see, I added some breakable glass into the level editor last week. I updated it with some changes just now though. Flailing bodies were having trouble smashing through anything other than very thin glass, so you can now set the strength of the glass. If you want to avoid the player getting stabbed, you can shut that off. Smaller sized glass will now also break into interactive pieces. Shards will only kill you if they are over a certain mass.
That is all I have to say about glass.
I will most likely make a character now, but I'd really like to try implementing fire. I think it could look way fancy. That will probably come afterwards.
This week I've been preparing to move into my new office/studio space away from my goddamn bedroom. I get to move in tomorrow, and I'll be building some computers and setting up some desks. I am way happy about this. Working from home forces me to be in a non productive limbo, where I cannot differentiate between work and recreational time. This way I will have a place I go to specifically for work, on a real schedule... and I'm sure it will lead to me being more productive. Then I can go home and do pointless things without feeling guilty.
I'll also be hiring my friend Jason to help with the game. He's another flash programmer, who also happens to be pretty decent at replicating the Happy Wheels art style.
Once we're settled maybe I can even get an intern. Anyone in the NYC/Brooklyn area (older than 20 please) looking for an internship? Someone with an art or programming background would be great. I'd pay for lunch and travel. If you're in school you could possibly get credits. You would be cultivated into a true champion and could possibly learn something from two strange 30 year olds?
errrrrrg
By Happy Wheels on March 15, 2011
So I have to delay working on any new content for the game so I can deal with exciting security issues. Since adding in the import level xml functionality, people have developed methods to go about stealing levels. People had figured out how to do it before, but it seems to be common knowledge now. Tools have even been developed to assist in this sort of thing. Thanks a lot, shitheads (those of you in particular).
Is there a point to stealing other peoples' work? Is it somehow rewarding to have a decently rated level that you had no part in making yourself? It's not like you are earning money. All you are doing is harming the community you're trying to participate in, as well as preventing me (the only person working on the game) from adding new content. If you don't partake in this sort of thing (hopefully the majority of you), I love you.
On a happier note, traffic has gone up again to how it was in December due to performance fixes. I actually thought and expected the game to be in decline since then, but this past weekend the site had the most visitors ever. There is still a bit more to be done, as the site was occasionally struggling. This was great news for me though, and I am a bit more confident that Happy Wheels will stay popular for quite some time. Thanks so much to everyone for participating (even those of you ruining everything to some degree).
Additionally:
- Please stop making Justin Bieber levels. I understand that nobody likes him; please stop introducing him into my life.
- Was the movie Saw really that popular?
- I'm still waiting to hear back about T-shirts.
- I ate tortilla chips for lunch
yay
By Happy Wheels on March 04, 2011
After a week of hell, some good changes have been made to the backend of the site. The level browser should be much faster, and hopefully the site won't die during peak hours. We'll see today if it runs well (fridays are busiest). If so, I should be able to work on the game again and not the goddamn database. Still, there are more optimizations to be made. In any case, the site has been having problems for more than a month... so if it works out I will be quite happy.
Apparently the addition of npcs or the harpoon gun caused a replay glitch. So I have to fix that next... it might ruin some previous replays. Sorry about that.
After that... everyone seems to like driving through glass, so I will make a legitimate breakable glass shape. I should have more breakable items. That should be fast. I'd also like to eventually make a terrain tool, which would be really helpful. However, the outrage for new characters is reaching obnoxious levels, so I will work on those instead.
I made a shirt design for the game here. Colors had to be limited to 6. I already asked on the facebook page, but what shirt would you choose? The overwhelming favorite there was the first one. I personally like the 5th. I imagine some of you very macho men will not tolerate the use of pink on your clothing. If all works out well, a shirt will go on sale on Newgrounds soon.
tiny update
By Happy Wheels on February 23, 2011
Due to the site performing less than wonderfully, sometimes saving levels in the editor will fail. I added in an option to copy your current editor level data as text, which you can paste to a text file, or email, or whatever from the save menu. Be sure to do this before attempting to save a level, so your work isn't potentially lost. You can also import the level into the editor by pasting the data into the load menu.
In unrelated news... the facebook page that began in December now has nearly 100,000 likes. If likes are somehow a measurement of goodness, then I guess that is kind of cool. Much more importantly, Happy Wheels and the Happy Wheels Demo combined have been played more than 50,000,000 times. I had no idea until checking some stats yesterday. That is a retardedly large number. Why am I still working by myself out of my depressing bedroom?
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the larger update in the previous news post.
yup
By Happy Wheels on February 21, 2011
I am still aware of my site sucking. During peak hours of the day, it struggles. I know what the problems are and I've been trying to work with multiple database people to fix them for the past month. Some changes have been made, but apparently it's not been enough. If I had tons of experience with mysql, I'd attempt to fix things myself. However, I am currently just a flash guy (and also just one person). I'd like to get this fixed even sooner than those of you threatening my life, as my site's performance is directly tied to my ad revenue.
In any case, I have been working on the game. There was an update on Friday. I'd have mentioned it then... but Friday tends to be the busiest day, and I didn't want my site mushed. You can now add people into the level editor. They are more complicated than regular objects, so 20 people mashed in a pile will bog the game down. Try to use them kind of sparingly, maybe. I'm surprised nobody has made a roller coaster full of passengers yet.
This is a zip file containing a flash file for the non-player characters. There's a readme in there with some basic instructions for creating your own. It would be great if some of you could make some characters I could put in the game... but I'm not getting my hopes up after the results of me asking for voice sound effects. Prove me wrong and email me some good stuff (totaljerkface at gmail). I will most likely be adding myself as a destructible character soon, so if you're upset with site performance you'll be able to maul me in a creative method of your choosing.
I've also doubled the shape limit (300 to 600). It didn't screw things up as badly as I thought it would. You can now see how many shapes you have left as you're building a level.
ugh
By Happy Wheels on February 02, 2011
Hi guys, I am aware of the issues the site has been having the past couple of weeks. I'm in the process of hiring someone to help me out with the backend.
The next thing I've been working on is adding non-playable characters to the level editor. You'll be able to pose and joint various pre-made characters in your levels. I'll also release a fla for the character so I will be able to take user submissions (really good ones). They will all have the same behavior, so there's no need for me to do additional programming. With this you could make things like a bus full of destructable people, a bunch of trapeze artists, or a bridge made out of people.
Ok that's it. Be sure to like the facebook page for smaller, less interesting updates. I guess I should use my twitter, but I hate twitter (a bit more than facebook).
HI
By Happy Wheels on January 14, 2011
Uh, hey. In a less spectacular update, I have uploaded a few small changes. You can now add text in the editor. Currently the only fonts available are the ones that were already used in the game. Shapes now have a smaller minimum size, so things can be a tad more detailed. You can also change their level of transparency. Mixed with the "foreground" option you should be able to make some cool stuff. Don't overdo it too much... text and transparency both render slower than normal stuff.
I'm also happy to announce that Physx is the first official site moderator. There should be less spam, as I sure wasn't deleting it all myself. I chose him because he asked, and was never a dick in the forums, and is more than half of my age.
I also promised I'd link to this chatroom. Some friendly popular users show up there. I was there once. Nobody believed it was me until I showed them this old fighting game I was making. Fake me shows up there a lot.
The next thing I will do is design a goddamn T-shirt. Then I would like to add non-playable characters into the level editor. In my head, I think they would work out really well.
In other news, I saw this gif the other day and I was in tears for minutes on multiple occasions. I must have watched it 200 times by now. Why was this man so confident until impact? How did a man of this age survive this long with that particular mindset?
oh
By Happy Wheels on January 05, 2011
I updated with a harpoon gun last night. It took entirely too long to make, but I am happy with how it works. Don't go too nuts with it. I may add in an option that will make it a bit less accurate in predicting where to fire. I'd like to make a quick video of it, so if anyone happens to see a horribly gruesome or funny replay involving the harpoon gun, please link to it in the comments.
Besides that, I made it so the moped couple rotates slightly faster. It's not much, but just enough that it will be easier to flip yourself over again if you are upside down. I also added a "foreground" option to groups. This will allow you to make items that will appear over the player character. You can already see an example of it in Ironhead's level, Viking Revenge 3.
After a couple weeks, I gave up on trying to find decent moped sounds and attempting to make something appropriate sounding with what I had. In order to get something correct, I may have to have my friend Jason record them on his actual moped.
Most of my recent time was spent less on this update and more on fixing the broken backend of the site. During mid-December it was at it's worst, but it should be much better now. I wanted to have t-shirts up and Santa in the game by Christmas, but there was too much other bullshit to deal with. I was going to go with cafepress, but I've heard the cheaper shirts can be low quality... and I now may have a connection with someone who could help me out.
Just so all youse guys know, I read everything and am not abandoning anyone. I will be hiring a friend or two to help me deal with shit. HAPPY NEW YEARS, and I won't wait a month before news posts again.
beh
By Happy Wheels on November 29, 2010
So, last week with Thanksgiving and all I didn't get too much done. I'll be more effective this week.
I have to put in new sounds for the guy and girl moped characters. As far as voices go, I figure I could ask you guys for some help. Here's an example of a set of character voices that I currently use for the girl and the fat lady. If you realistically feel you can do decent voice acting (really just screams and groans), please send over your own version of those wavs in a zip to totaljerkface at gmail.com. This could be for future characters as well. I am aware that I will get a lot of terrible submissions, but I know some of you guys are capable.
It seems the majority of people don't want me to change irresponsible dad. I might make another version of him so there would be a choice. As for the moped character, I like how it is now (more skill oriented)... but I could see how it works if you can at least slowly lean while standing still.
We are getting used to the new server. Sean made a lot of adjustments and continues to do so. We no longer seem to have hosting problems though, so most likely any problems will end up being our fault. The way I have the mysql databases setup isn't the most efficient, so if anyone is a mysql nerd... I wouldn't mind going over some things.
Would anyone buy happy wheels t-shirts?
*if you are a dude... please do not send me sounds of you doing a female voice. also, compare with the quality of your own voice with the sounds i've provided, and if they are much much worse... do not send them to me.
WER IS CARECTOR?!
By Happy Wheels on November 19, 2010
Uhhh... here is character. I spent the last 2 days trying to put in appropriate engine sounds, and I was not happy with the results. So... I will try again next week. I figured it would anger less people to release the character without engine sounds than not at all. Also, I am currently using segway guy and fat lady voices.
So the moped couple is kind of like irresponsible dad, but there are some differences. You have limited boost with spacebar, and you brake with ctrl. You can eject the girl with shift and the guy with z. If you manage to just tap z, you'll eject the guy, but the girl will still hold onto him. Also, unlike dad, you can reattach the guy to the bike after ejecting.
I might change irresponsible dad so there is less cheating in levels made for him. I only made him rotate so quickly so you'd be able to ollie without a jump button. Now I might make him control more like the new character, and make spacebar a jump button.
I'll ramble on about some other stuff once the engine sounds are in. If you've been angry at me and expressing it on my site, I haven't seen it yet. I have a lot of emails and stuff to look at.
site problems?
By Happy Wheels on November 12, 2010
Yesterday and earlier this week, the traffic from my site was being partially blocked by my host's firewall. Supposedly it's been fixed, and my host believes there is not problem, but I myself cannot load parts of my own site. Earlier today, during peak traffic times the site wouldn't load for me at all.
A handful of friends I have asked can load the site just fine. If you are had troubles with the site not loading at all today, not just right now, please let me know here. I'd like to see how many other people are having problems. At the moment for me, the main page takes more than 5 seconds to load, and sometimes the portait doesn't show up at all.
arg
By Happy Wheels on November 10, 2010
Sorry for new site performance problems. We moved to a what was supposed to be a faster new server, but we seemed to be having worse performance. Hopefully hosting figures out what the problem is, as this really blows. If not, I have to spend more time dealing with a lot of crap I don't want to.
I need moderators, but still have to put some functions into the site. That will be done once the hosting gets sorted out.
Yes I am still doing the character, and it has been more than 2 weeks. Here's a picture. I'm now making the moped destructable and trying to get reattaching to work. It will be done when I finish it, which is some point in time after now.
wha
By Happy Wheels on October 29, 2010
The character is still being developed. I had to miss a few days working on it this week due to some business related responsibilities. Today I am assembling my Shredder costume from cardboard. Before sharing that you're going to kill my family because of how upset you are, please remember that I am the only one working directly on the game.
I'm in the process of finalizing my LLC, so I can look for interns at some NYC art schools such as Parsons. I can't pay much more than lunch, so this way I could at least give some school credit.
Happy Wheels was recently posted on kotaku.com, so this week the site had a good amount of new visitors. That led to me giving my first interview here. It was nice to not have to answer questions like "WARE IS MORE CHARICTOR??". Please check it out and leave some comments. If you must threaten my family, do it there I guess.
Also, if you are into friendship, romance, and possibly BETRAYAL... check out the promos for my friend's emotional charged series, Keith. I did, and now I will apply what I've learned to better my own life.
yeah
By Happy Wheels on October 21, 2010
If you're still struggling to figure out how to clear your cache, well that is very disappointing... but also, v1.11 should load automatically now without you doing anything. So now you can stop emailing me and posting about that.
I've begun drawing out a new character this week. It's going slowly. I still think I should be able to do a character in 2 weeks. New voices might require some more time, but I can always add those in later.
update
By Happy Wheels on October 15, 2010
Alright, that small update I mentioned before is now up. The game is now V1.11; so if you don't see that on the main menu, clear your cache and reload. With all characters, it is now much easier to grab onto things after ejecting. You no longer have to press spacebar at a precise moment. If you just hold it down, you will now grab whatever your hands first come in contact with. This will make stupid levels like Rope Swings more possible. However, everyone cheats on that level, so I must make a new one.
Besides that, segway guy and effective shopper can now reattach to their vehicles after ejecting. You must grab onto the handles of your vehicle with spacebar. If you're just laying on the ground next to it, it's going to be a pain in the ass to climb back on (easier with segway guy). Soooo... it's more of a novelty, but it's in there and possible. Fat lady also now boosts into the air a bit while ejecting. I've managed to do multiple flips and land back in my cart, ready to continue shopping.
Sean, backend guy, made some fixes also. If a level save fails, it's now possible to try saving again. Level browsing is cached so things go a lot faster. There is also a much lower risk of encountering meatspin.
Yes, the next update will be a character. After that though I have a lot of level items I'd like to add in.
uhhhh
By Happy Wheels on October 08, 2010
Hey guys. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It's not my birthday anymore. Tomorrow is my last day at work, so I'll be back on the game next week. The site has been getting crushed by rising traffic again. I'm going to stop being surprised by this. So if your game has been hanging this week, sorry about that. I will most likely be upgrading again this weekend. It just seems I keep having to pay a lot more for what seem like minimal upgrades that are adequate for all of a week.
Tomorrow night I'll be attending an exhibition in Manhattan that is featuring 6 games from some independent developers. One of the games is Canabalt, which was pretty cool. You can read about the event here. It's basically a showcase of video games as art.
I went to art school, and I'd like to consider what I do as my artwork. I don't like the idea that presenting what I'm doing as a game somehow cheapens it. It's very frustrating, as I'm busting my ass hundreds of times more than when I used to just draw some still pictures. Anyways, I guess I'd just like to be a part of these things... so I'll be over there schmoozing around. If anything, It would be nice to meet some other people in the field in person. I don't seem to meet them when I remain in my bedroom.
Also, a couple days ago I came across this video. The sheer, irrational determination of this man to reach his goal with complete disregard for his own well-being isn't something I thought I'd see in real life. Anyways, I'm surprised I haven't seen this sad event remade in Happy Wheels yet. I did see a few levels of the segway owner guy driving off a cliff.
Big Boy DAY
By Happy Wheels on September 27, 2010
It's my birthday today. I will be doing nothing to celebrate but packing. Shit sucks. I believe I have this new apartment for October, so I will not have to put all of my stuff in storage.
Besides that, all usernames with weird characters have been edited by Sean. Some of them were messing up user submissions and the Q and A. If your name was changed and you are displeased, I plan on having a time period soon where you'll be able to alter it to something of your liking.
No, I have not yet completed the update I mentioned earlier. Sorry. Work ends mid-October, and I'll return to the game full time then. As for the next character, right now I'm leaning towards making a couple on a moped like at the end of Amelie.
yes
By Happy Wheels on September 26, 2010
Ok, new server is up and it appears as though things are running ok again.
noooooooooo
By Happy Wheels on September 24, 2010
Time to upgrade my hosting again. I apologize for the frequent in game hanging of happy wheels. The server is very much overburdened. The problem is more and more of you people keep coming to my site. THE PROBLEM IS YOU!! No no, I'm just kidding. You would not do this on purpose. I trust you.
Ok, so I guess I'll get on that as soon as I can in the zero free time I have. It will hopefully happen this weekend. Along with me possibly signing a new apt lease on Sunday. Thank the lord for my new internet pal Sean, who is my new (and first) server admin.
Oh Hello
By Happy Wheels on September 18, 2010
Well, I finished eating, and I just thought I'd give you guys an update. As I mentioned before, I'm currently working full time until mid October. I also have to spend my free time trying to find a new place to live as I'm homeless at the end of the month. Because of this, I'll be slow updating happy wheels. I'm not ignoring your demands for "MORE HAPPY WHEELS". Soon enough I'll be back in my room, in a depressing hermit state, working on the game again.
The server move was successful. There are a few bugs that need to be taken care of with registration and other crap. Hopefully that will be done this weekend.
Thanks everyone for making the game popular. Sorry if I'm slow in getting back to you if you've contacted me, especially if you are offering help. I definitely need it.
Damnit
By Happy Wheels on September 15, 2010
Well... I have to change servers again. I signed up for a hosting plan on Friday, and since then you savages have used over 800 gigs of bandwidth. I have 1200 for the month.
So, I'll be moving over to a new plan tonight. That means the site will be down for a short while again sometime this evening. Hopefully only an hour or two.
SO THIS IS YOUR HEADS UP. Don't make anything retardedly complicated in the level editor. If you come to the site and it's down, do not panic. Hide under your desk for a few hours and remember that what we have here is eternal.
Now I must eat.
IT'S UP
By Happy Wheels on September 11, 2010
Finally. Sorry about that. Now on a better server and paying a whole lot more for hosting. Oh well. As long as traffic stays ok, that will be fine. If the site still goes down, I obviously have larger problems.
As for the game, I've been working on a small update. It should be up sometime next week. I've made it easier to grab onto objects after ejecting. You will grab onto things as long as you are holding spacebar... not just the moment you press it. The fat lady and segway guy will also be able to reattach to their vehicles after ejecting. That should lead to some funny replays I hope.... jumping through the air, or falling long distances back onto your vehicle should be funny. I mean... if that is your sense of humor. These things are amusing to me.
I'm also working freelance for a 6 week project, so updates will have to be tiny like this one above until I'm out again.
Also, if you think you can replicate my style pretty well, I wouldn't mind looking into some help with illustrating new characters. Things would go a lot faster that way.
OH GOOD
By Happy Wheels on September 01, 2010
Happy Wheels now has some sound. If you're not seeing the new version, clear your cache and refresh.
Thanks so much to my friend Jack Zankowski for the intro song, "SuperPretzel". He's been my most musically talented friend for quite some time (other musical friends ignore this comment). Go to his site, pekopeko.com, and tell him to make more songs for Happy Wheels.
Besides sound, other changes include (i'll be forgetting things here):
- Saving levels will work much better now. If you were logged in when you opened the game, and it remains open, it will always save unless your internet is retarded.
- Non-interactive shapes... in the editor, you can now make regular shapes that will just be treated as artwork. This way you can make signs or decorations or whatever in the background without running into them. They will also not take away from the number of physical shapes allowed (300 max). Instead you will be allowed 1000 art shapes total.
- You can now set groups to sleep. You can even group objects that don't have their own sleep property, like spikes, and set them to sleep.
- I fixed the featured levels list, so I can actually add levels in there that are made by people other than myself. I'll pick some today.
- When listing Levels and replays, only 50 load at a time. Previously I was loading upto 1000 at a time. This makes things a lot faster.
- When searching for levels by name or author, it automatically checks for all uploaded times rather than just the past week.
- When completing a level your time is displayed.
- spikes work better
I think that's about it.
I'm not entirely happy with the sound effects. For many past levels with few special objects, things sound very empty as there aren't sounds for groups and certain shapes. I'd also like to put in more character vocals for more events. It's good enough for now though, and any new changes will all have to wait as I hate working on sound.
I do have to put in a mute button... I forgot.
Some Things...
By Happy Wheels on August 06, 2010
Hello pals. Would any of you happen to know of a good hosting solution? A user wrote me and offered me hosting, but then I'd never heard from him again. Currently, it looks like I'll be going over my usage this month... already... and I'd really rather not shut down the site while I search for something else.
I'm still doing updates. Some real life speed bumps have slowed me down a bit, but currently the sound is in a good place. As usual, getting a bit too detail oriented. I've got a lot of sound libraries, but certain sounds have been hard to find. If anyone has any possible sounds for the following... please let me know :
- tire impacts and tires rolling for the both the segway and the fat lady
- jumping noises for the shocks of the segway and fat lady
- steady small jet engine noise for the wheelchair
Also, a good friend of mine recently released an iPhone game called Orbital Bombardment. You should most likely check it out here.
oops...
By Happy Wheels on July 19, 2010
Hey guys, I am aware of the problem with the game right now. Got home last night and levels won't load. I'll fix it today.
yay, help
By Happy Wheels on July 19, 2010
User maverfax, a young Mr. Robert Herman, has contacted me and has been working to fix the backend problems and sitewide php issues out of the kindness of his heart.
I am extremely grateful, so please send some appreciation his way. So far, he has given us the ability to makes posts on the forums, bbcode on all posts, and has very possibly fixed the site cookie issues. That would mean a lot less level/replay saving problems. I don't believe him just yet but we'll see.
a tip
By Happy Wheels on June 23, 2010
I've noticed many people having this problem. In case you are somehow logged out and your level won't save, open a new tab and log back in. That should restart your session and will hopefully allow you to save the level you spent a lot of time on.
update
By Happy Wheels on June 16, 2010
Hi... so some of you found the game.
I'm still putting in sound. Not surprisingly, this is more complicated than I expected, and will take a bit more than a week if I want it done well. However, with more than 1 person other than myself playing the game, a replay bug has presented itself.... that I must fix first.
My current method of detecting differences in pcs apparently isn't accurate enough. Sometimes you may see that someone completed a level (listed as accurate) in a certain time. When you watch that replay, they may never finish the level. This has happened only a couple times for me, but viewing the replay always gives the same result.
Sooooo, I'm not sure why this is happening, and I will be attempting to fix this. When it's done I will not delete the old replays, but with the new method in there, you will most likely see your old replays listed as inaccurate. That sucks, but it's better than deleting them i suppose.
Or maybe I should delete all of them while the game is still new so they're not cluttering shit up?
Happy Wheels
By Happy Wheels on June 04, 2010
soooooo... here's my new game, Happy Wheels. I've worked on it part-time since nearly 4 years ago (arrrrg). It's still not finished. It most likely never will be. That's ok... I still laugh when the fat woman explodes. Hopefully I'm not alone here.
This will be an anti-climactic silent launch. I won't be promoting at all until I add a few more things to it (like sound). Actually, there are a ton of things I want to add in there. Characters, levels, editor items, cinematics, more gore... but I couldn't push things back any further without making what I have public, now that the game is fully functional.
Since last summer, between free time and freelance work, I've only been able to work on the site itself and the game's menu interfaces. Now that that is finished, It will be nice to go back to the more fun stuff. I'll be putting in sound next week. Following that I will most likely add some better terrain options to the level editor... then go back to making stupid characters.
Anyways, I'm very happy to have it up. I'm entirely numb to the game and no longer have an opinion of my own towards it. Hoping everyone enjoys it (the 5 of you who still visit my site) and it eventually develops a bit of a community.
PLEASE REGISTER AND MAKE SOME LEVELS.
OH BOY
By Happy Wheels on May 12, 2010
Hello everyone. Well after 50 incorrect predictions, finally, here's my new site. Along with it will be my new game, but give me some time to try to get my ads running and a few other random things.
Thanks so much to Ben, one of the first reliable people I've worked with, for getting all the non-flash stuff built over the last disorganized half year. Check out his stuff here.
OK here comes another
By Happy Wheels on September 17, 2009
blah blah blah blah blah
2 Here's A Test News Item
By Happy Wheels on September 17, 2009
It's not very informative
here's a link to google
and here's a picture:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2572228&l=ffc755a66f&id=514888357
that may have been too large
Powered by
