Hope For Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 3 Briefly Ignited, Quickly Snuffed Out

Are you a fan of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness? Are you still holding out hope that developer Hothead Games might pursue a third episode of the downloadable RPG despite abandoning plans for it last year? If so, you might have a heart attack from the cruel reversal of fortune that happened regarding news of a potential third episode earlier today.

Over on the Hothead Games Twitter account, the developer was celebrating the early success of the new release of the first two Penny Arcade Adventures episodes on the Mac App Store when they let out this surprising post:

"For those of you that want PA Episode 3, all you need to do is get 100,000 of your friends to buy 1&2. Seriously. Do that and we'll make it."

Penny Arcade artist Mike Krahulik quickly responded to the tweet in question, noting that it's "actually not true," after which the offending Hothead tweet was deleted. Hothead staffer Vince Ceraldi followed up with Joystiq to provide further explanation:

"That was a very enthusiastic, excited but misplaced tweet regarding Ep. 3. This is probably the result of the entire company being so thrilled on how well received the games have been on the Mac App Store.... As for the PA games, I can honestly say we don't know what the future holds.... [the] obvious fan enthusiasm is extremely encouraging and rewarding, but there is no 'number' that is going to trigger any next steps."

Joystiq also notes that both Krahulik and Penny Arcade writer Jerry Holkins have made comments hinting at possible bad blood between them and Hothead, which may be why even 100,000 sales won't be enough to guarantee a third episode.