Hello Games says its office flooding won't delay No Man's Sky
"We're back, full speed!"
Over the holiday Joe Danger developer Hello Game's Guilford office was flooded with the insurance refusing to cover the natural disaster. This left many concerned that the four-person studio's highly anticipated first-person sci-fi epic No Man's Sky would get delayed. Hello Games has updated its blog to let us know that won't be the case and everything's going to be okay.
But first Hello Games' managing editor Sean Murray detailed the scope of the disaster. "We lost all our PCs, laptops, equipment, furniture, dev-kits, work in the blink of an eye, and our insurer (and those of those around us) seem like we won't be covered, or at least responsibility is unclear," he stated. "I don't want to say out loud the value of what we lost, it's horrible. It would probably fund a small game." Yikes!
Thankfully, the community has been very supportive of the indie powerhouse and the company is rebuilding its offices from the ashes (or mildew, as the case may be). "The good news is that people have been so so so nice. So genuinely overwhelmingly supportive that actually I don't know what to say," Murray gushed. "Some of us are working from home. We've filled a couple of dumpsters with our old stuff, and built ourselves a make-shift post-apocalyptic set of workstations - but we're back, full speed!"
"Will this delay No Man's Sky?" Murray posed. "We won't let that happen!"
"At times recently I've wanted to be depressed, to wallow, but it's impossible surrounded by this team. They are literally unstoppable. If we've lost some work, we'll make up the time. We'll steal dev-kits. We'll work on a boat. Whatever it takes (not actual stealing... maybe)."
Given the team's recent misfortune, many have suggested a Kickstarter for No Man's Sky, but Hello Games doesn't want to jump the gun and commit to a crowdfunding campaign just yet. "I like Kickstarter, and I love what it stands for," Murray said, noting that all his Christmas presents were Kickstarter pledges. "I just don't think it's the right thing for No Man's Sky right now though, and we'd probably rather not eat than do the wrong thing for this game." That's dedication!
Murray said that if people really want to lend their support to the struggling studio they should buy the Joe Danger games, though he noted "We'd rather you buy Joe Danger because you want to play them though."
On that note, Joe Danger Infinity just launched on iOS last week - which we quite liked - while Joe Danger 2: The Movie is part of the current Humble Bundle alongside such titles as Papo & Yo, Runner 2, To the Moon, Reus and Surgeon Simulator 2013.
"These last few weeks have been adventurous," Murray exclaimed. "Maybe Christmas was a bad time for this to happen, but New Year's couldn't be better for a fresh start. I couldn't be more excited for 2014."