Toejam & Earl co-creator turns to Kickstarter to bring series back

On Wednesday, the co-creator of '90s gaming series Toejam & Earl announced that the cartoony, hip-hop-obsessed roguelike may soon return—so long as it can rack up at least $400,000 in pledges on Kickstarter. The announcement came weeks after game maker Greg Johnson posted teaser sketches of the funky alien duo with a promise of "some announcements" about the series' return.

The Kickstarter site includes a prototype video that features the same isometric camera and randomly generated worlds as the series' first entry on the Sega Genesis in 1991, only now updated with fully 3D environs and higher-res, hand-drawn characters. Johnson promised a game that will feel as "roguelike" as the original, then reminded viewers that prior sequels were changed at the last minute due to publisher demands in ways that "confused" and "disappointed" fans. "Now it's time to finally make that true sequel, the one we wanted to make back then," Johnson said (in a fake Irish accent, no less). "This time, no publisher!"

Johnson also spoke at length to Polygon about the project, assuring leery Kickstarter users that the initial ask of $400,000 will be more than sufficient to fund the game as it's been pitched—and he'd like "to take two years" to make it. He also insisted that his 32 years of game-making experience includes enough perspective to see a game through from pitch to completion, and he answered a question about Peter Molyneux-related promises in diplomatic fashion: "[Molyneux's] desire to do really new stuff speaks to me at a personal level." Johnson's last game, the oddball Doki Doki Universe, came out on PlayStation Vita last year.

The project includes nothing in the way of stretch goals and only a promise of a version for Windows, Mac, and Linux; other platforms will depend on "funding and arrangements with platform vendors." In the meantime, TJ&E fans can delight in a decent-sounding new recording of the game's theme song, buried at the bottom of the Kickstarter page, by a hip-hop duo named Tonez the Prince and Greg Brown.