Hell Of An Office News

[h3]PAX East 2024 recap [/h3]

PAX East 2024 was the first physical event we attended this year, and it was on fire: we revealed a glimpse of the never-before-seen history behind the most devilish office "HellO Corporation", and hosted a speedrun challenge based on beating the first 10 levels in 5 minutes.



The result: we hired 8 employees who beat the record between 3 and 4 minutes.

As part of the onboarding at HellO Corporation, Mr. Stapley, the CEO, and the burnt... we mean, happy employees 👔, suggested we give them a hot and corporate welcome with a "Welcome Kit".



Additionally, we gave away exclusive merchandise as a thank you for visiting our booth. We are very grateful for the love and support from new players, from those who came back and spent the 4 days of PAX East playing again and again, and those who had met us at past events that returned to play Hell of an Office and have become part of our community. Thank you so much!



[h3]Latest news from Hell of an Office[/h3]

We are glad to announce that Hell of an Office is currently in the final phase of production, and is getting ready for a full release in Q4 of this year! 🔥

Hell of an Office was launched in Early Access in March 2023, featuring 40 levels divided into four chapters. Since then, it has received significant content updates, resulting in 70 levels spread across seven different types of Hell, each with unique movement mechanics, unlockable elements for the stapler, and online leaderboards for international competition, allowing players to compete both with friends and against the top 10 players.



Welcome to your new workplace

With the full version of the game, you will experience the history of this infernal office with all its characters, staplers, and quirks across the 100 levels, spread out in 10 different circles of Hell. You'll need to advance through the various narrative chapters of the game's main campaign.

More levels, more gameplay mechanics and more unlockable skins will come with the full release! 💥



Some office floors have been remodeled….

Who is the CEO of HellO? 😈
How did you end up working in hell? 🔥
What do they serve at the cafeteria? ☕️
Who is in charge of Human Resources? 📦

All these doubts and more secrets will be resolved through the chapters of the new Hell of an Office story and its challenging new levels. We hope that you enjoy it as much as we did developing this entire game.



Ready to meet your new colleagues?

Your feedback has been essential to us, so thank you very much to those who have reached out to us.

If you haven't tried Hell of an Office yet, you can buy it right now and join our Discord server to share your feedback with us.

Hey fellow gamers, this is Albert, your go-to level designer in the Hell of an Office crew, and I'm about to spill the beans on how we cook up the perfect level for our 3D first-person platformer.

Grab your rocket jump boots 🤠 and dash along as I take you through the behind-the-scenes journey of level creation!



[h3]Seeking Wisdom in Other Realms[/h3]

Every great level starts with a dash of inspiration. We delve into the gaming cosmos, scavenging for ideas in other titles that can spark our creative flames. It's like raiding the treasure chests of game design, looking for solutions to problems or snagging cool concepts to brew into something entirely new.



[h3]Sketching the Masterplan[/h3]

Armed with inspiration, it's time to get our hands dirty, albeit virtually. We kick off with a rough sketch, either on paper or in the digital realm, playing with layouts until we strike gold. It's a dance of iteration, making sure our design aligns seamlessly with the game's rhythm and escalating difficulty.



[h3]From Blueprint to Blockbuster[/h3]

Once we settle on a layout, we jump into Unreal Engine to create a preliminary blocking. This isn't just about aesthetics; it's a meticulous dance of jumps, dashes, timings, and difficulty progression. Picture it like a carefully choreographed routine. We want players to feel the adrenaline rush, understand the objectives, and get hooked on the challenge as the difficulty escalates seamlessly, guiding them from the basics to the heart-pounding crescendo of our devilish level design.



[h3]Playtesting: The Crucible of Perfection[/h3]

Here comes the real test. We throw our brave playtesters into the fiery pits of our level and listen to their battle cries. Their feedback becomes our roadmap for iteration. We tweak and refine the blocking until every jump is pixel-perfect, every dash is exhilarating, and the difficulty curve is devilishly satisfying 😈.



[h3]The Lava's Deadly Waltz[/h3]

In Hell of an Office, pressure is a lava tide rising with every step. We manually adjust its speed to sync with the level's design. It's a delicate dance: too slow, it loses its edge; too fast, and the level becomes a fiery nightmare. This meticulous calibration ensures the perfect blend of challenge and playability.



[h3]Artistic Garnish and the Final Stretch[/h3]

With the gameplay nailed down, we pass the baton to our art wizards. They sprinkle the level with decorations, and come back to us for review, as sometimes, the artistic elements play tricks, and we must fine-tune until every corner aligns with our devilish vision. Here we show you the before and after of a section of a level:



[h3]Seal of Approval and Rankings[/h3]

Once the level passes all trials, we give it the final nod. But wait, there's more! The designer dons the Speedrunner's hat, setting the S-rank time and subsequent goals for players to strive for. It's the ultimate challenge—a devilish dance against the clock.

And here's the kicker: the S-rank and subsequent objectives aren't just there for show. They're the coveted medals you earn based on how swiftly you conquer the level. The faster, the better—the ultimate test of skill and precision in our devilishly dynamic world.

Another devilishly dynamic adventure awaits in Hell of an Office 🔥
Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes peeks into our infernal creation.

Albert, Level Designer Extraordinaire ✍🏼

Hey demons and office workers alike! This is Santi, your devilish 3D artist and technical conjurer, responsible for weaving chaos into the design here at Hell of an Office. Grab your coffee (or lava, whichever fuels you best) and gather 'round as we delve into the infernal construction secrets behind our tormented buildings. The importance of these buildings lies not only in their aesthetic appeal but also in their role in shaping the overall environment and setting the stage for the players. They serve as the visual cornerstone, immersing players into the surreal realm of offices submerged in lava.

BLAM! Welcome to the Infernal construction site! 🔥




Visual Trickery and Devilish Details

Ever peered through those lava-submerged buildings and spied on the infernal offices inside? Well, they're not quite what they seem:



These buildings are cleverly disguised as two-dimensional planes. We actually use devilishly clever cubemaps to create an illusion of depth in these seemingly 3D spaces.


Modular Mayhem

In "Hell of an Office," we cooked up a neat trick to build our infernal structures; it's all about flexibility and efficiency.

Picture this: we've a cool system that lets us piece together our demonic buildings like Lego sets, swapping pieces at our whim. This means we're not limited to a single design but have the freedom to mix things up to match the vibe we're aiming for in a particular level. And guess what? It’s like magic! This system definitely makes our lives easier and makes our game more versatile; it allows us to play around with various looks and setups for our buildings, making each level feel like a fresh and devilishly dynamic adventure.



This system serves as the pivotal cornerstone, transforming our design approach from the micro-level (building structures) to the macro level (enhancing the entire game design). It streamlines our entire development process, increases the efficiency of our level design and thereby, enhances the gameplay experience.

The small-scale impact of this system echoes grandly, allowing us to scale our creativity, turning each level into a dynamic and devilishly dynamic adventure. It's the game design equivalent of starting with bricks and ending up with an intricate, awe-inspiring castle—a process that not only facilitates our building tasks but extends throughout the entire design, setting the stage for a more immersive and engaging game.

Blueprint Alchemy

In our fiery realm of creation, we've unlocked a game-changing secret: Unreal blueprints.

These magical tools work like instant skyscraper spellbooks. With a flick and a click, we summon buildings of different heights faster than you can imagine. These blueprints let us stack and shuffle our infernal structures effortlessly, unleashing a world of dynamic and ever-changing office landscapes, keeping the gameplay endlessly fresh and filled with surprises.



Alright, folks!
We are very excited about everything we've been working on to achieve epic results in this world of Hell of an Office that subverts office norms in the most creative and devilish way possible.

Stay tuned as we continue to share behind-the-scenes details while we keep cooking up incredible things.

Summoning creativity from the depths of the inferno,
Santi 😈

HellO valued employees!

It is the season to be spooky 😈 and we wanted to commemorate the occasion with a (OBLIGATORY READING MATERIAL) featuring a brief recap of the most-scary-spooky moments during phase 01 of Hell of an Office’s development.

Throughout the development of the first stage of Early Access, many frightening incidents occurred. To clarify once again, this is our first game ever and there are only six of us, so we often need to improvise a lot. Without any more excuses, here are our top 10 most scary moments from Hell of an Office:

Removing the Jump ButtonYes! Hell of an Office used to have a dedicated button exclusively for jumping on platforms. However, early players were getting confused about when to jump or dash, and after weeks of discussions, we decided to remove it from the game. That's why now you only do rocket jumps and dashes.

Remember... gotta be faster than the devil if you want to escape hell! 🏃‍♂️💨



43 Studios didn't existWe signed a publishing deal even before 43 Studios was founded. Yeah, we didn't even have a company when we were negotiating with the publishers…. 📝🤝

Forbidden Stapley Image 🚭 This mischievous smoking Stapley render, this cosmic horror of an image, would have increased our game’s PEGI rating to the +18 category :



Phone lost = Project locked Our project repository got locked because our administrator needed to verify the enter code with his phone, but he lost it😱

pd: No need to worry, he's successfully recovered his phone! 😅

Running out of Hell (of an office beanies) This year, we went to Pax East and, in addition to showcasing our game, we brought exclusive merch: black candles, sacrifice coloring books, HellO mugs, and the crown jewel: Hell of an Office Beanies.🤠 We brought over 300 units, and we ran out of stock by the second day of Pax East 2023.

Tiktok 3D Community BacklashDuring our first marketing campaign, we posted a series of videos on TikTok explaining how some parts of the game were made. One of these Tiktoks was the creation of our sushi stapler. Here, we explained the steps to create a skin for the game, from concept, 3d modeling, texturing, to implementation in the game. We decided to skip some of the more boring aspects…
The feedback we received?: “43 Studios doesn’t know how to do ‘retopo’ (the process of creating a lower poly version of an asset).” 😤 📱

We received many comments wondering why we didn't optimize our game. Our favorite one was: “This would blow up someone’s laptop.”



The Haunting Dance of Animated Arms Ever had that spine-chilling moment in our game where things got a little... eerie? Check out this spine-tingling bug where one of our characters decided to break free from the ordinary and twist reality! Witness a bone-chilling glitch where arms take on a life of their own in a bone-afide terrifying yet hilarious twist! 💀🦴



Office Employee Dialogue System 🗣️ Ok, we’re cheating with this one because it’s something we recently worked on; however, it’s still scary. Nowadays that we are focusing a lot on the narrative aspects of the game, we need characters to tell the story.


The Burned Office Workers have always been in the shadows as side characters. They portray all the employees who came before you and got trapped inside HellO, eventually transforming into these things. Usually, you could spot them in the distance, serving as decoration in our hellish arenas, but now you will be able to meet them, talk to them, and interact. This will allow you to discover lore, quests and more details about HellO.

Additionally, we’re developing an interactive animation and dialogue system to make this fantasy come alive:



Thanks for paying attention! If you liked our blog, let us know; if not, tell us too.
See you in our next blog and have fun this Halloween season! 👻

Dear beloved employees,

We have successfully localized Hell of an Office for China!

Hoping to provide a more comfortable working environment for our employees... Like I said... HellO has always highly valued the experiences of our staff!🔥

See you in the game!