new jetpack joyride animated series now coming never
this is a shitpost but i also just wanna rant about this for a bit. listen, i get that making games and animations and managing all this Halfbrick+ stuff at the same time is going to take a while. i get it. everyone working at Halfbrick are humans, and you can't demand and expect perfection. but also, i can't help but be disappointed and concerned about the stuff from Halfbrick Beyond that i was looking forwards to either not arriving or not being very high quality. like,, only three out of the seven promised things we were going to get in 2023 came out that year (those being rereleases of Age of Zombies, Fish Out of Water and the release of Fruit Ninja VR 2), and the ones that did come out later this year, like season 3 of Dan the Man and Thrill of the Fight 2 didn't really live up to expectations. i'm gonna start this with a bit of a preamble ranting about DtM season 3 to kinda illustrate the problems i also have with the new Jetpack Joyride stuff because they actually share a pretty similar problem, and i was pretty disappointed with how DtM season 3 came along because i was looking forward to that.
when the Halfbrick Beyond thing first dropped and they showed the new animated DtM stuff, it was quite interesting! Dan and Josie had gone on all these wild adventures and survived all these fucked up things, so it's exciting to see new little nuggets of what they're going to do next. i wondered just what was in that chest and what Dan was going to discover, what new characters and plot points and themes would be explored in this new stuff. now of course, with most of the stuff Halfbrick promising being delayed, we would have to wait a while before anything surrounding the new series would come out, but earlier this year, we finally got a closer sneak peak at what the new season would actually be about. Dan getting cursed??? that's super interesting! i'm so excited to see what kind of challenges Dan will face, how this little curse reaper guy will affect him on his adventures, how he would deal with it and maybe even use it to his advantage, what kind of character arc he would go throug-
... it... it was golf. it was just golf. that's it? that's Dan the Man season 3?? that was just a bunch of GOLF!!!
like okay yeah the storyline was cute and all, but like... really? that's it? nothing about Marcus, no real continuation from the story that was explored in the first and second seasons, no real adventure or action, barely any focus on other characters, it was just a golf story with little to no development beyond the little curse reaper guy moving on from unfinished business, and it didn't even last that long. needless to say it was very disappointing.
and now that brings me back to the Jetpack Joyride animated stuff that was originally promised to come out in late 2023. god this still makes me so sad. i get that animation and storycrafting takes a LOT of time and effort, but the fact that it's been over a year and we still haven't seen anything new, let alone heard anything of this series, only for a new one to suddenly start being created is very worrying and disappointing. likei'm not even kidding, i would gladly wait another year for the series that was originally teased to be fully fleshed out and developed if it meant we would finally get to see something better than what was released this year. the original pieces of animation that were shown in the series' trailer as well as the little short Halfbrick uploaded looked fantastic. they were all in the original animated style, they looked considerably higher budget than the original shorts with better animation and new environments, they directly involved the Really Bad Corp crew, they seemed to follow a cohesive plot and teased an action-filled adventure story, it had everything going for it and i couldn't wait for it to release. it was SO excited dude, the idea of taking the original shorts and fleshing them out into a full-blown adventure with my two favourite little blorbos and adding more characterisation to the rest of the cast sounded incredible in my mind. but of course, things don't just come instantly, so i waited. and then i waited. and then i waited. and then waited more. and then more.
it's December 2024 now, and i don't think i need to say that those episodes didn't end up coming out in either 2023 or 2024, and instead, these weird little new shorts started slowly being released, and i am,,, pretty displeased and even confused with how Jetpack Joyride's story is going according to these shorts. they don't continue on from the jumping off point that was established in the Rainbow Barry episode, but instead are their own separate things that just kinda,,, tell this random story with no real build up. like it's so sudden and goes along so quickly that it feels incomplete. the episodes are so short and there are so many bits that just don't get explained that it feels kinda,, unfinished??? and the plot itself is just... there are elements that i really like, but the way it's strung together feels like a rough first draft, and i of course very much dislike the direction that was taken with Craig's character. Craig possibly being related to Barry in some way by being a Peter Simpkins clone just doesn't have the buildup, foreshadowing or anything else to really justify it suddenly happening in these shorts, and it feels like a cop out, as though a rug were suddenly being pulled out from under your legs and you're just confused about why that happened when you fall down. i feel really bad typing this out but like,, that's how i feel about it. i'm disappointed, honestly.
i've been kinda coping about it for a while, thinking "they just need more time" with every month that passed in 2023 until the next year. i've been picking everything i like from the new shorts and desperately trying to get any sort of enjoyment out of them. and yeah, maybe they do need more time! but that doesn't really explain wtf these newer shorts with newer assets are, and i can't say i really enjoy the new ones because they're just... i ultimately just don't think they're very good, especially compared to what Halfbrick made a few years back.
i don't expect Halfbrick to bend backwards for their fans and do everything we want them to. i do not want that. at the end of the day, it's their games and they can do whatever they want with them. but at the same time, when you set and expectation you don't meet, it shouldn't come as a surprise when people are disappointed and even angry about it. i often dunk on people who constantly beg for DtM2 on anything Halfbrick related, but honestly, i get it. i don't think anything has really been said much since that delay notice and the discord QnA and that silence can leave people who are expecting something out of it to feel impatient, worried and angry. it's kinda worse for those who were expecting the new Jetpack Joyride series to come out, as literally nothing has been said about it since that trailer and the short video became unlisted a while ago. it's just been silence ever since until these new random shorts started coming out. i can't help but feel a longing sadness every time i watch them or go back to watch the original trailer for the series Halfbrick originally intended to release. it's like looking into another reality of things that could have been and it makes me so sad. i don't know if they've cancelled it yet. not a word has been said about it and it wasn't really that well marketed to begin with. but with how things are going right now, i'm not so sure that Halfbrick's ever gonna release it, especially with this new storyline they're crafting. if there's one silver lining to this, it's the fact that i'll always have my own imagination and write something i would have loved to see.
now if you'll excuse me i'll be rewatching the trailer and the short over and over and rest my hand longingly on the screen as though it were a lost lover
