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It’s Child’s Play
Hothead is an enthusiastic supporter of Child’s Play, the gamer’s charity started by Penny Arcade that benefits sick kids who have to spend time in hospital. The charity is associated with children’s hospitals all over the world, including BC Children’s Hospital which is just down the road from our offices. Child’s Play helps make a stay in the hospital more tolerable for kids, and shows that gamers care about making a difference. The annual campaign typically raises over one million dollars!
It’s a really worthy cause, so surf on over there and make a donation.
From everyone here at Hothead, we wish you a happy holiday and all the best in 2009!
Episode Two Launches on PSN Today
As promised, we’re getting the PS3 version of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode Two out much quicker this time around. It launches on the PlayStation Network today, so be sure to check it out! All your favorite PSN features like Trophies are supported.
After you’ve tried it out, let us know what you think.
The Spreading Nitrogen Cloud
We’re pretty excited about the features that Nitrogen is going to enable. We first incorporated it into Episode Two so that the game could support triumphs and standings on Greenhouse. We didn’t want fans of Episode One to be left behind though, so we incorporated triumphs and standings into the first episode in addition to adding Episode Two’s new features like difficulty settings, insane mode and gameplay statistics. Episode One is now re-released with all this new stuff. If you have already purchased the game, you can simply download the new build by visiting the game page at Greenhouse and clicking the demo link for your platform. Those of you who haven’t yet tried the game, download the demo and give it a whirl for free.
Look for more Nitrogen-enabled games from Greenhouse over the coming months!
Episode Two on Steam
Many of you have expressed interest in playing Penny Arcade Adventures on Steam. Well, we’re happy to report it is now available! It features the same spider whooping action as the day one release, as well as your favorite Steam-powered features like achievements. We were able to get Episode Two released so fast on Steam due to the quick efforts of the team here at Hothead. A big thanks to the good folks at Valve who were really helpful with this release. Download it here.
Episode Two Now Live!
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode Two is now launched. You can play the game worldwide on Xbox LIVE Arcade, or download it for Windows, Mac or Linux from playgreenhouse.com. A quick summary:
- It’s more ridiculous, more hilarious and more epic than Episode One
- It has Triumphs and Standings, new Greenhouse features made possible because of the Nitrogen SDK
- It’s available for the new low price of $14.95
So go get it! 
Games Going Gangbusters on Greenhouse
With all the talk about Hothead’s games on this space, I thought it would be good to remind everyone about Greenhouse. Greenhouse is the site we started in partnership with Penny Arcade to showcase indie games. We launched it with Episode One of the Penny Arcade game, but we have been releasing new games on there pretty steadily since then. More games are in the works and will be on there soon, so be sure to visit often.
In addition to On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness episodes, you can also play:
Strange Attractors 2: This game was featured in the recent PAX10, and is a really cool top-down game with a truly unique gravity / anti-gravity mechanic. (The price on this game just dropped to $9.95, so it’s a great time to try it out).
Eschalon: A classic RPG with massive environments, sprawling dungeons and a mysterious story.
Spectromancer: An epic card-based strategy game co-designed by Alexey Stankevich and Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering. Features online multiplayer modes.
World of Goo: The critically acclaimed indie game from 2D Boy, with a unique gameplay mechanic, stunning music and a beautiful, unique art style.
All the games on Greenhouse have demos so you can give them a spin before buying the full game.
We also just announced the Nitrogen SDK, a tool for indie developers that integrates their games with Greenhouse’s platform and community features. Nitrogen is making its debut in On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode Two, which has Triumphs and Standings, but many many more features are planned for the coming months. Stay tuned.
