Creator Launches ToeJam & Earl Sequel Kickstarter

SEGA Mega Drive (or Genesis, for our American readers) classic ToeJam & Earl is returning, thanks to a Kickstarter from creator Greg Johnson. Having already raised a quarter of its $400,000 goal in a matter of hours, the game looks odd-on to surpass its target by 27th March.

Johnson is taking the game franchise back to its roots: ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove is an overhead isometric view dungeon crawler, following the titular characters as they explore a stylised, multi-tiered version of Earth to find the pieces of their crashed spacecraft.

“I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time,” Johnson said. “I have tried pitching ToeJam & Earl to publishers periodically over the years, but I’ve been doing different projects. Once I’m buried in a game, I’m out of commission for a year-and-a-half or two years. And then I have this window of opportunity between products where I can raise my head up and take another shot at it. Now, because of crowd-sourced funding, it felt like a really good opportunity.”

Though more similar in style to the first game than its variable sequels, Johnson insists that this is not a remake or reboot. “We’re kind of splitting the difference in a way,” he said. “We’re going to make it feel very much reminiscent of the first game, much more so than ToeJam & Earl 3 was, and it’s going to look more like that. But it’s also not just a straight-up remake. There’s going to be a bunch of fun new things. There’s a long list of things I want to get in. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll have the resources and the time to do it.”

The game will be released on PC in November, but Johnson eventually intends to bring it to every platform, including handheld.

Source: Polygon