IGN: You recently worked on Doki-Doki Universe, and prior to that you worked on games like Spore, Star Control II, and Starflight – would you say you have a special place in your heart for aliens and outer space? Johnson: Funny you should ask me that, because I am definitely not an alien! I’m most certainly a typical human such as you.
Okay, I admit it: I love aliens. I actually got my college degree from UCSD – approximately an eon ago – in a self-designed major I dubbed ‘Biolinguistics’. My short-term goal was to be the first homo sapien to speak with dolphins and whales. My long-term goal was to be the one they called in when the aliens landed; to be the translator. Life has a way of taking you down unexpected paths; and rather than going into the field of communications research, I ended up building my own aliens to talk to.
IGN: How are you feeling at this stage of the Kickstarter? At the time of this interview, ToeJam & Earl fans have pledged over $240,000.
Johnson: Nervous. Excited. Nervous. I hope we make it over the bar. I really want to make this game. Of course, I hope we do even better than that – I want headroom to get in all the features I want, and playtest and iterate a lot. At this point getting funded at all is our target. Go! Go! Go! IGN: It feels strange to say this, but I think it's great that you and Mark [Voorsanger, programmer and co-creator of ToeJam & Earl] own your own intellectual property. How did you manage to wrangle that?
Johnson: Well, yeah, strange for today maybe, but don’t underestimate how old we are! Now where did I put those teeth?
Back in the dark ages of 1990, when we approached Sega of America... they were the little guy on the block looking for some way to gain visibility and market share from Nintendo.
Back in the dark ages of 1990, when we approached Sega of America with this concept, they were just getting started. They were the little guy on the block looking for some way to gain visibility and market share from Nintendo. They saw our property as something that might help them do it, and that gave us leverage. Also, Hugh Bowen – the fellow that made the deal from Sega’s side – was an unusually fair and ethical guy, who agreed that we should own the rights. I love that guy.“
IGN: You and Mark have followed different career paths post-ToeJam & Earl, but do you still hang out every now and then?
Johnson: You betcha! We take walks together and continue to be lifelong pals. Mark is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet; really good-hearted, and a solid friend. We always wish each other well. He has given me a lot of faith to take the property and run with it, since I’m the games guy. He’s doing life coaching; he coaches companies on how to collaborate effectively. Hi Mark!
IGN: My entire family – my parents included – played and adored ToeJam & Earl, and some 23 years later, my brother and sisters still come over to play it. How do you believe ToeJam & Earl became such a widely received, enduring game? Johnson: I’ve been hearing lots of ToeJam & Earl stories lately. Most of them filled with warm nostalgia; some of them very touching, and even sad – memories of people who passed away. I think the shared ToeJam & Earl experience is often so memorable because it was one of the only games of its kind. It was playful and bright, so it made people smile and feel good; it was easy to use so non-gamer family members like parents could play; it was slower-paced so people could relax and talk while playing together; and it was all cooperative so you felt a sense of bonding and teamwork. Maybe the fact it was kinda strange also made it memorable. That’s my best guess, anyway.
IGN: I've read that you conceived ToeJam & Earl on a beach in Hawaii – actually, it sounds kind of gross when I put it that way! But you also mentioned in an old TV interview that you scrawled a message from ToeJam in the middle of the night. The game is both laidback and surreal, so both stories fit – but how do these stories fit together?
Johnson: Ah, well, the conceived part was really the waking up and writing down their conversation, then doing a quick sketch of them the next morning. The Hawaii part came a bit later when I was relaxing and just letting my imagination flow. When you’re really relaxed, it’s easier to free associate. That may be why ToeJam & Earl is so oddly stream-of-consciousness. I may have been in a half-sleeping dream state as I was thinking about them. IGN: I notice you keep a notepad handy to write down game ideas. Can you explain your creative process to us? Is stream-of-consciousness writing still a part of that?
Johnson: You know, recently my wife bought me a waterproof notepad on a suction cup to put in the shower, because that’s where I do my best creative thinking. When I’m totally relaxed and just letting my mind wander, I have the best ideas.
Normally, when we think, we follow chains of causality. It’s like driving down the highway, looking for the next road sign that makes sense. As you follow this road to its logical conclusion, you pass a lot of alleys and side streets. These are the associative-thoughts linked to every concept. We get used to ignoring this ‘noise’. In fact, as we tune our logical minds for efficiency, we get better at focusing on our target and at not seeing these side street distractions at all. Creative thinking is a matter of un-learning this focused process. With creative thinking, you learn how to use your mind’s ‘peripheral vision’ to see all the side streets. You also develop an intuition for which alleyways to explore.
It doesn’t end there, though: once you’re in a thought-alley, other side streets extend from that as well. At some point you need to be able to put it all together into something new that makes sense. And this means keeping your bearings; being able to flow back to the main street and reconnect whenever you want. There is sort of a sweet-spot between being directed and wandering at random down streets you normally tune out. Is this metaphor making sense?
IGN: ToeJam & Earl is fluent in the language of cartoon slapstick, and reminds me a bit of Abbott & Costello. Did you draw much on your biolinguistic studies to develop the comedic elements of ToeJam & Earl?
Johnson: That was more a philosophical inquiry into the nature of language and its relationship to how we think. Another goal – or perhaps I should say dream of mine – has always been to model how we think, or put in today’s parlance, “personality simulations and emotionally driven AI.” That and the crazy slap-sticky humor are probably related at some level, but that’s kind of esoteric. I think I just like to laugh, and as I’m sitting at my computer, if something makes me laugh, I stick it in the game. I don’t think too hard about that. IGN: The fact that ToeJam and Earl are both aliens and rappers, and present an outsider's view of humanity – was that in any way a byproduct of your experience as a person of mixed race trying to fit into different cultures?
Johnson: Dang, you are asking some deep questions! Okay, yes, I suppose that must be the case, at least to some extent. After all, ToeJam & Earl isn’t the first game I’ve designed that features an African-American character. Actually, in the other case, Orly’s Draw-A-Story, Orly was Jamaican.
I grew up as a white kid, my mom being of Russian Jewish descent, and my dad not around. If you don’t mind me lying down here in this therapist’s couch for a second, I’ll continue. Yeah, my dad left while I was young, so I didn’t grow up with him or my two darker-skinned brothers, and perhaps that explains why I build that into some of my games… can you pass me the tissues?
IGN: I'm always telling people that ToeJam & Earl and Panic on Funkotron have the greatest videogame soundtracks of all time (props to John Baker!). Have you ever considered releasing an official soundtrack on digital platforms like Steam down the track? I think it would sell like gangbusters.
Johnson: Ah, well at one point, many years ago, Sega did release a ToeJam & Earl CD. Some of the original musicians like John Baker and Mark Miller, and others like Jamie Brewer, jammed out with live instruments. It was cool, but sometimes it got a bit too jazzy or rock and roll-y for my taste. I’m kind of a purist when it comes to funk. Anyway, Mark Voorsanger and I do own the intellectual rights to all of the music, but we don’t own the actual assets from the games so we can’t release a CD of the old songs lifted from the game. They would have to be remakes, which is what I plan on doing for this game. In fact, we’ll be releasing a digital download of the new music, with some remakes, as part of the Kickstarter rewards, so anyone who wants one had better act fast and become a backer before our campaign ends on March 25th!
The new theme song for ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove, performed by Tonez the Prince (ToeJam) and Greg Brown (Big Earl).
IGN: When I think of funky extraterrestrials, I am reminded of Parliament-Funkadelic and concept funk albums like Mothership Connection. If someone came up to you and said, "I really love the ToeJam & Earl soundtrack, where do I go from here?" What musical journey would you send them on?Johnson: Well, as you point out in your examples, it’s all old school funk, so their journey would have to take them back in time to more of those old time funk bands. Herbie Hancock, The Brothers Johnson, The Dazz Band, The Gap Band, Sister Sledge, Wild Cherry, The Commodores: anything that’s about sixty per cent bass, thirty per cent kick drums, and ten percent everything else.
IGN: This may or may not be the same question, but what music did you listen to leading up to and during ToeJam & Earl's development?
Johnson: Err… yeah, same question. Well, same answer, anyway! Though I can always add to the list: okay, let’s toss on Stevie Wonder, Young MC, Heavy D, Kriss Kross, TLC, En Vogue…
Geez, it’s actually a pretty long list. Maybe I’ll just stop there. IGN: I have this crackpot theory that ‘Jam Out’ and ‘Fixed World’ started out as development tools for sound and play testing. Was that the case, or am I way off?
Johnson: Those theories aren’t so crackpot. I hesitate to say this, as it sounds suspiciously self-serving, but I think ‘Jam Out’ may have been the first rhythm game… ever. It may have precursors, but I know I wasn’t aware of any at the time. I remember thinking, hey…why couldn’t you use the buttons on your controller to make music; the same way you tap on the edge of the table or the steering wheel of your car?I remember thinking how really awesomely cool it was going to be, and then once we built it I thought it was actually kind of hard to make music that sounded any good. It seemed kind of lame and boring... but we stuck it in anyway. That was in Game One. It started to get fun in Game Two.
As for ‘Fixed World’, I think that came more out of paranoia. I think Mark and I started to worry that in a random game people wouldn’t be able to enjoy talking about where things were. Even more importantly, with random levels you never know what you’re going to get and the levels don’t always turn out perfectly. If we picked out all the best levels, and put them in one game with fixed seeds, then we’d know that at least in the ‘Fixed’ version of the game, it would look and play really well. Problem solved!
IGN: I have a chicken-and-egg question for you: did you set out to put a twist on as many roguelike elements as you could, or did you try to adapt your existing ideas and characters to the roguelike design? For example, did you adapt the cupid from a confusion spell, or to a confusion spell?
Johnson: Did I come up with ideas first, and then fit them into Rogue-like configurations, or did I start with Rogue and figure out how to ToeJam-and-Earl-ify them? How honest do I need to be? Honest answer? I just totally ripped off Rogue. There, I said it! Basically, you can find almost every Rogue character in some form in ToeJam & Earl. The mole was the thief, and the hula dancer was… I forget, but something that made you freeze in Rogue. To my and Mark’s credit, we did come up with new character types as well; all the way up through Game Three. IGN: The earthlings in ToeJam & Earl are often caught up in their own little worlds, oblivious to the destruction they cause. Conversely, you strike me as an earthling who creates based on openness to other people and their ideas. Is that a conscious design philosophy? Is that the essence of funk?
Johnson: That is a leading question, your honor! Fortunately, it is leading in exactly the right direction, so I will allow it! Firstly, thanks for saying that. I think there was a compliment buried in that question.
The deeper meaning of funk... isn’t just music. It’s the joyful freedom and letting go that comes from grooving and shaking your booty, and getting down with your bad self.
And yes, the deeper meaning of funk – should you be inclined to look – is just as you surmise. It isn’t just music. It’s the joyful freedom and letting go that comes from grooving and shaking your booty, and getting down with your bad self. It is stepping away from self-righteous judgment of others, and from self-conscious inhibitions. Funky-joy is sort of the antithesis, and maybe even the antidote, to that self-absorbed, destructive, uncaring stress that permeates our modern society. In this case, as viewed from the outside by aliens, who are shocked by what they see.“
If all of that is too heavy, by the way, it’s fine to just ignore it and think of it as a bunch of crazy, funny enemies in a video game. That works too.
IGN: I really loved Panic on Funkotron as an original platformer, and I feel as though its detractors indulge in a fair bit of revisionism. Still, the idea that it could have been completely different intrigues me. What elements of the original ToeJam & Earl 2 design never made it into Panic on Funkotron, and are you considering incorporating any of them into Back in the Groove?
Johnson: Mark and I didn’t get terribly far with the sequel, at least as I can recall. We built some new terrain types, like snow and ice, and some walls that made mazes; and I think we were working on caves and interiors. Come to think of it, we did end up putting snow and ice into Panic on Funkotron. Mainly, what I remember is that we were excited about taking the same game concept further, and we felt bummed that we wouldn’t get a chance. Hopefully I’ll get to remedy that now. IGN: I think many TJ&E fans trust your instincts and want to see you make Back in the Groove as you see fit. How do you balance what you believe will make the game enjoyable and what your fans expect?
Johnson: This would be a major problem, if pleasing the fans meant compromising. Thankfully, the fans mainly want me to stay true to what was fun about the first game and not go off the rails too much. Done! That’s what I want too, so that’s easy. Furthermore, one of my main goals is to build something that the fans want. In other words making them happy is my goal. No conflict there. Besides, I only know how to build games that I love. I can’t do anything else. So… I’ll listen to what everyone else wants, then I’ll make something that I want to play.
IGN: Are there any new Back in the Groove developments you'd like to share with our readers?
Johnson: Yes! There are! I’m glad you asked. We decided to dump about a pound of sugar into this pie to sweeten it. Yo, check it: add-ons for all merchandise, so now you can buy individual vinyl figures and hoodies, a digital soundtrack for the game, extra copies of the game at different tiers, a no-DRM philosophy, different color T-Shirts and hoodies. Stretch goals that give you new player-characters, original Game One skins, the Hyperfunk Zone, and now… ta-da! Console stretch goals for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U. We’re putting the pedal all the way to the floor. Let’s see if ToeJam & Earl fans can resist!
IGN: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. We wish you all the best with your Kickstarter project.
Johnson: Thanks a million, Adam! It was fun. Stay funky with your bad self! Greg and his team at HumaNature Studios are asking for $400,000 to fund the development of ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove for PC, Mac, and Linux, with stretch goals for console versions. At the time of publishing, the game has raised more than $299,000 USD.
Pledges for the Kickstarter project close at 12 noon, PST, March 25.