It was way back in August of 2013 when we first posted about Happymagenta’s “Project Joan“, a tentatively titled auto-run-and-gun platformer with killer pixel art and super interesting weapons. For several months afterwards, progress updates were frequent, but eventually the scope of Project Joan got a little out of hand and Happymagenta began focusing on smaller games with shorter dev cycles, and before you knew it it seemed like Joan might never come along. The devs would pop up every now and then to say that the project wasn’t dead, but it also wasn’t close, so lots of people gave up on waiting for Project Joan. Well, much to everyones surprise this past Friday Happymagenta announced that Project Joan, officially titled Joan Mad Run, was finished and already submitted to Apple for approval. Just a few short days later and today they’ve announced that the game is already approved and they’ve set the release for May 3rd. Happymagenta also released this brand new trailer showing off this finished version of Joan Mad Run in action.
As Happymagenta points out in one of their forum posts, this forthcoming version of Joan Mad Run isn’t the fully-realized vision they originally had for the game. It’s missing certain features like “cross-platform multi-player, pets and character customization, controllers and video streaming support" according to the dev. However, it was necessary to remove those things in order to finally get Joan Mad Run finished and out the door. Personally, I’m kind of glad it’ll be a more focused experience, as that seems like it’ll suit this style of game well. Plus, Happymagenta promises “the game should feel a very rewarding experience – there is Joan, there are lots of insane guns, gore, pixels, kills, and death effects." Sounds good! I can’t believe this moment is actually arriving, but Joan Mad Run will finally, truly be released in just over a week on May 3rd.
