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Why Toejam & Earl Are Bringing Back the Funk

Imagine if a game was designed based purely on your desires. It's a fantastical exercise, yes, but play along for just one second. Is your imagination tickled as you envision the digital wonders that would surely unfold? In a sense, that's the direction Greg Johnson is taking with the newly announced Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove. Even though the franchise has been dormant for more than a decade, Johnson isn't trying to tempt people who have never heard of the funky duo, nor appeal to those who thought their comedic escapades forgettable. No, he only cares what the most people devoted want. “This is a game for the Toejam & Earl fans,” Johnson said. “If I can make something that hits the mark for them, then it's 100% a success for me.”

It's much easier to say you're building for the fans than actually achieving that goal, especially in the case of Toejam & Earl. There are three games in the franchise (four if you count the light-gun spinoff), and there are only the most tangential similarities linking them. Funk is omnipresent, as is some element of randomness, but the core action has veered wildly. From the original's slow-paced walking tour to the exegetic Panic on Funkotron's platforming before settling on the kitchen-sink cacophony that was Mission to Earth, it's hard to know what each new outing will bring. Johnson acknowledges this dilemma. “I want to please everyone, but I can't, and so I'm paying a price because those first three games had so many different features.” Which is why he's used the seminal first entry as the foundation for Back in the Groove.

The perspective, for example, returns to an isometric vantage, and that shift causes a ripple effect that changes other design elements. Precise jumping is out of the question when you view characters from a tilted angle, which means much of Planet on Funkotron's dexterity demands will be shelved as well. In its stead rises a new place to harness the second entry's boisterous energy. “You can do things to change the terrain dynamically,” Johnson explained. “If you make a hill and you have rocket skates, you can use that to go sailing over some space to get somewhere else.” So there's a convergence of ideas on display. Exact features aren't being borrowed so much as the emotions that each game engendered.

Back in the Groove isn't going to be a Frankenstein's monster of competing ideas, though. “I don't want to over-complicate the game; that's one of the things I think the third game suffered from.” And so he's walking the tightrope of balance that could ultimately be the more important factor determining the game's success. “There's a real strong urge to add stuff I want to,” Johnson point out. “But the thing I'm most worried about is finding that balance between simplicity and including all the features I want.” So we have to hope that he hits that fabled sweet spot between tediously simple and achingly complex. “It's a matter of moving all of the pieces around constantly, trying them out,” Johnson said.

One place Back in the Groove won't skimp on new ideas is in its emphasis on teamwork. There have been tastes of co-op powers in the past--Toejam could high five Earl in the original to regain health--but those instances will be more common, and more imaginative, the fourth time around. “I want you to be able to jump on your partners' shoulders so you can shoot the tomato gun while they walk around,” Johnson said. Or maybe you would be able to help a less-skilled teammate. “I want you to be able to distract the earthlings so they'll come after you, so you can get them away from your partner.”

That last idea ties into to what Johnson envisions of Back in the Groove. The franchise started as an accessible adventure that was so slow, and demanded so little in the way of fast reflexes or quick planning, that just about anyone was able to enjoy it. That family-friendly approach diminished as the series grew, and eventually things became so complex in Mission to Earth that only a select few could coral the duo. Johnson believes that wide-spread appeal is part of the reason why the original was so beloved. “It was a bright, cheerful, multiplayer experience, and it was accessible to a lot of people who weren't hardcore gamers, so it brought people in, and let you play with family members,” Johnson said.

It may be easier to achieve his goals without a publisher breathing down his neck. “If I was working with a publisher, they'd want me to get that new market, but my goal isn't to maximize sales,” Johnson pointed out. His independence is why he could design with his fans in mind. Both Panic on Funkotron and Mission to Earth suffered from people outside of the development team steering things in a certain direction. With the shackles now off, Johnson doesn't have to worry about the powers that be dictating his every move, but there's one other hurdle he has to overcome: funding.

“When you're working with a publisher, they hand you a pile of money and you bury yourself, and they are who you're trying to please all the time,” Johnson explained. But his current situation is very different. “One of things I didn't realize about being an indie developer is the need to connect with fans more, because you need their support,” Johnson said. When word spread on Toejam & Earl's Facebook page that he was working on a new game, he was inundated with suggestions. And he's been reading them thoroughly, which makes sense given that Back in the Groove is supposed to appeal to those same people. As an indie developer, “you get a much stronger, direct connection” Johnson said, and he's relishing that input.

Trying to separate myself from Back in the Groove is impossible. Toejam & Earl is still one of my favorite games, and a piece I wrote last year demanding a new entry helped convince Johnson to get cracking. “Believe it or not, that article tipped the scales and got me going down the path to making a new TJ&E game,” Johnson said. But I'm still nervous. As fun as the second and third games were, they couldn't reach the heights of the original, and it's been 23 years since that magic was unveiled. But I'm still optimistic, in part because Johnson has such a strong idea of how to bring back those warm feelings. “I want to spread the love,” Johnson said. “Make people happy, smile, and say 'Finally, I got what I wanted.'”

The Crockpot #3 -- I Have a Video Game Dream

How does Martin Luther King Jr. relate to video games? Not at all! But Brendan and I still used his holiday as a jumping off point for the dreams we want to be realized in video games. Just like the good doctor must have envisioned.

Brendan wants nothing more than for the artistic side of the industry to become more prominent compared to the dominant consumer product side, which is a worthy enough dream. I, on the other hand, want equality! And, no, I'm not pandering; this is for purely selfish reasons.

Download the podcast here.

Or subscribe via our RSS feed.

Oh, and you can email us at [email protected]

I'm still working on getting The Crockpot on iTunes, but when Apple approves, you'll be the first to know.

The Tom & Caro Show episode 2

There are few things in entertainment that cause more hand wringing than review scores. Just hear that a prominent critic banished your favorite video game or movie to the realm where one star failures go to die and you can feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. How dare that monster be so callous, so blind! Under the Skin is a masterpiece!

Sorry, I'm getting off track here. Caro and I spent almost an hour (much longer than we planned) talking about this very topic. We figure about the good aspects of review scores, because we're so fair and balanced, but delve into the bad side of assigning art a numeric value as well.

And if you want a solution to this whole situation? Well, if you listen to the end, you may be disappointed, because we don't know. But the journey is more important the destination anyway. Who wants to go to Disneyland when you can just drive on the beautiful 101?

Episode 2

The Crockpot episode 2

How many hours did you spend watching the Awesome Games Done Quick livestream? If you're like me, it was more hours than an unemployed (though aspiring writer) should have spent watching others play video games. If you're like Brendan, you were puzzled by the basic appeal of the thing.

Well, now you can hear our thoughts about the whole shebang. Don't worry, we aren't going to rehash the Animal Crossing speedrun (as much as I'd want to). Instead, we're going to talk about the elements that make AGDQ possible. For instance, why are we so quick to condemn glitches in current releases but are awed by them in classics? And do modern games work as well when speed is your main goal?

Then we move on to hype. Namely, why does hype seem to dictate Game of the Year and Most Anticipated Games lists? Shouldn't we be able to see past marketing forces to reward the games that are really worth knowing about?

All that and more (though in much less time than last week's episode) in the latest The Crockpot.

Enjoy the show.

Oh, one more note: I've submitted a request to Soundcloud for an RSS feed. Soon! And then I'll put this baby on iTunes.

The Tom and Caro Show!

Guess what? I'm doing another podcast! This one is completely different from The Crockpot even though half the cast is the same. In this show that still needs a real name, Carolyn Petit and I take one aspect of entertainment and dissect it as much as we can. Sound intrigued? I sure hope you are.

In our debut episode, we talk about spoilers for more than a half hour. Crazy! People are downright obsessed with spoilers. That may seem like a gross generalization, but think about your own reaction when a key plot detail of something you adore is revealed. Did your chest tighten? I know it did?

Caro and I want to figure out why we have such strong reactions. Do spoilers matter? And what's made this stuff so darn important anyway?

Thank you to my friend Andy Sommerville for creating the opening and closing theme.

The Tom and Caro Show episode 1: Spoilers

The Crockpot episode 1

For the past six months or so, I had been thinking about how to start a podcast. Not the logistics (though I am still a little lost in that regard), but rather a show that I would not only enjoy recording, but listening to as well. My podcast rotation is dominated by so many NPR and NPR-like shows that I had it ingrained in my head that I needed a storytelling/investigative slant, or else my words would be lost in the morass of internet chatter.

I was stuck searching for perfection while doing nothing, which is a theme of my life. So I scrapped my high ambitions for something a little more attainable. Brendan Sinclair and I decided to start up another podcast where two people spout their opinions. It's called The Crockpot because we're self-deprecating, and it's not that different from The Hotspot we used to record.

Is it any good? Well, I sure think so, but you should probably judge for yourself. I do apologize for the audio quality. That should improve as we record more podcasts. Oh, and thank you to Brendan's brother's band, the Eskimos, for providing the soundtrack.

The Crockpot episode 1 -- 2014 wrap-up

Roundabout and the Art of the Silent Protagonist

The expression “actions speak louder than words” seems less and less relevant as our society hurls itself toward a purgatory of Sisyphean debates. Words have become everything. There has been no point in human history in which we've so easily shared our must mundane thoughts, and this has created a tide pool of endless bickering where there are so many words being spouted that none of them matter. Is that a sad portrait of modern life? Well, one could certainly feel overwhelmed by the deluge of inane chatter, but instead of being mired by that toneless echo, we should instead embrace the antithesis of this ideal. Namely, the silent protagonist.

For years I've viewed a mute hero as one who was a poor cypher for the player's own inner monologue. Link is no more than a shell of an idea. We say that he is brave, courageous, and oh so smart at block-pushing puzzles because that's how we view ourselves while standing in his elfin shoes. The weight of his narrative growth was placed firmly on our shoulders. Link is our digital doppelganger, and so we imbued him with our fantastic vision of our hidden selves.

The same could be said of Gordon Freeman, Crono, and countless other silent protagonists. And though there is worth in letting us create our own stories without the encumbrance of a talkative fool as our avatar, the tools in which we can communicate as these characters are so stunted as to make it impossible to create a distinct and memorable existence. Gordon can do nothing more than fire a gun, swing a crowbar, and make a ruckus in the laboratory when Eli Vance is talking. Non-playable characters so rarely react to your actions that it's as if you're nothing more than a ghost passing through the mortal realm.

What we end up with are not characters at all. The aforementioned franchises are among my favorites, but I cannot remember ever pushing toward fighting Lavos because I wanted to learn more about Cronos. That's not why these games exist. Silent protagonists are placeholders for great ideas, and though the games they exist in can be extraordinarily well-crafted, there is that pointless cardboard cutout standing dumbly by where a proper, personality-rich hero should rightly be.

Which brings me to a game that has had less impact than a butterfly flapping its wings in Tanzania. Roundabout is one of those indie games that appears on Steam with a quiet whimper, gathers a little attention from those who inhale every new release, and then slinks into the ether when something more enticing catches our eye. There are just seven professional reviews of Roundabout, and even though it's been warmly received, well, seven is just not that many. No one cares. And that bums me out because it handled the silent protagonist as well as I've ever seen.

Here's a quick rundown for those who are scratching their heads. Roundabout is a top-down action game in which you drive passengers in the back of your limousine wherever they want to go. The twist (literally!) is that your limo continually spins in a circle, making it challenging to navigate even the widest of roads. It's a ridiculous concept that works because the action fits warmly in the heart of anyone who craves arcade hijinks. Roundabout is fun, but I wouldn't be writing about it if it weren't for its exceptional storytelling.

First, it should be noted that the story is all live action. So even though the writing is (deliberately?) clumsy, the actors are so hilarious and sincere that it doesn't matter.

The story is Georgio Manos' quest to find herself as both a chauffeur and a person. People climb into the back of her limo, chatter on about whatever it is people chatter about, and you drive them off to some far-flung locale. The beauty is in how these dialogue sequences are delivered. Georgio does no more than glance backward to communicate her thoughts. Although she is silent, she has a lot to say, and it's amazing to see such complexity in a character who never utters a word.

We see the first hint of this when Beth--one of your many repeat passengers--needs to be hurried off to a nearby wedding. Beth is an open book filled with excitement and anticipation. And maybe it's just the aroma of love that's in the air, but she takes an immediate interest in Georgio. These two characters meet throughout the story, and we see Georgio's fondness for Beth, her sadness when they're separated, and happiness when they once more come together, and she communicates everything with the look in her eyes when she turns backward in her seat.

It's a brilliant way to craft a character. We don't need to hear her inner monologue to know who she is, we just need to see the hint of a smile on her lips or the doubt that wrinkles her forehead. It's a beautifully concise way to document a character's growth, and when the story finally wrapped up, I found that I knew her better than many other protagonists who prattled on endlessly and forgettably. It's as if most heroes are made for the connected world we live, in which every pointless thought is thrust onto the public, while Georgio says so much more without ever opening her mouth.

"Journalism"

The sarcasm bleeds through the screen. Someone out there doesn't think a particular writer is worthy of being called a journalist, and so they clamp quotation marks around the title so as to dismiss everything that critic worked so hard to achieve. “Journalist.” It rolls off the tongue with raw contempt. As someone who studied journalism in college, who takes pride in the role the forth estate plays in a functioning society, waving away my efforts so cavalierly would hurt. There's no comeback to those dreaded quotation marks other than “Uh uh!” and it would derail my thoughts ever so briefly before I shrugged it off. “What do they know?” I would mumble to myself. “I'm a good journalist.”

My dream job has always been to write about video games, and when, as a boy, I imagined what it would be like to earn a living by doing what I'm most passionate about, I pictured long days in front of a television with a controller in my hand. It was the fun that took center stage in my mind, the joy of venturing forth in the Mushroom Kingdom or Hyrule, embodying Samus Aran or Simon Belmont. The reality of the job contains much of my simple ideas, but being a video game journalist goes far beyond saying whether the latest game is good or not. That part is easy. It's those other topics, the darker topics, that are hard, but they're what makes this job important.

When I was at GameSpot, I wrote editorials that I knew would be hated by much of my audience. How did I know? Because many of my colleagues would hiss at my latest work. I received internal backlash when I argued that excessive violence is damaging, and if we want outsiders to respect games, developer and players alike have to turn their backs on unnecessary bloodshed. It would have caused me much less stress to make a video celebrating Kratos' most gruesome executions, but it's not the job of a journalist to feed into the marketing hype of our corporate overlords. A journalist has to write about what they believe in their hearts, examine the events that affect our lives, and ask the tough questions.

It seemed as though every couple weeks I would find myself in hot water. I traded verbal blows with Electronic Arts' Greg Goodrich, questioning the authenticity of his war game that glamorized combat, making war look like a fun pastime. I examined the place of video games in a culture that trivializes the humanity of women, forcing them to be little more than prizes that can be won. Such stories led to sleepless nights and anxious days, but I knew that it was necessary to talk about these issues. Whether you agreed with me or not didn't matter; I wanted people to think about games in ways that are uncomfortable, instead of just swallowing whatever publishers are feeding us. That's what a journalist is supposed to do.

And now we have GamerGate. A movement has formed that has a stated goal that I can stand strongly behind. People want ethical practices in gaming journalism. Who wouldn't want this? I firmly believe in complete transparency. If you're hiding something--anything!--from your audience, you need to reconsider what you're doing. A journalist's work should be an open book. Anything they do while at the job should be above board, and if they cross into shady territory, the public has a right to know that. So, yes, that part of GamerGate, the part that deals with ethics, is a good thing. It's something I continually talked about behind the scenes, so I have no problems with the audience demanding it as well.

Unfortunately, demanding ethical standards is just the shield that GamerGate hides behind. The movement's true goal is to shut up anyone who dares to speak against the games that the members hold so dear. People who dare to argue for equality are shunned, harassed, and tormented. The status quo must be upheld, no matter the cost, so anyone who falls outside of the popular discourse must be targeted. It's a disgusting situation. Women have been victimized in ways that should not be legal. Three women have already been forced from their homes after vicious verbal attacks, and the movement seems to be gaining steam as more and more lives are wrecked. It's the awful stereotype of gamers brought to reality: Misogynistic loners who care more about their precious games than people's lives.

And standing idly by while all of this is happening are video game “journalists.” I never thought that I too would have to use those dreaded quotation marks, but times have changed. Too many sites have ignored this issue entirely. There are cowards running the show, people too terrified to speak out against the harassment mob for fear that it would negatively affect their hits. People making decisions to ignore GamerGate are not journalists. It's an honor to practice journalism, to speak the hard truths no matter how much it hurts you to do so. How can you possibly expect the audience to respect you when you don't even respect yourselves? It's a sickening display of gutlessness. The silence of the major sites is a tacit agreement with all of the horrible practices of GamerGate.

You can't be neutral on a moving train. If you're journalist, prove it by covering this situation. Any site who doesn't proves that they're just corporate puppets.

[Editor's Note: I don't want people to think that everyone was against me at GameSpot. Far from it. Without the support of many on the team, I wouldn't have had the guts to write controversial pieces in the first place.]

Destiny's Lackluster Story Isn't the Problem

The Fallen. The Darkness. The City. The naming conventions in Destiny are so laughably generic, so unrepentantly mundane, that they serve as the representation for all of the ills of the barely existent story. We've scoffed at the rudimentary motivation pushing us forward, gathered evidence to explain the absence of a proper narrative, and ridiculed Bungie for doing such a disservice to its space-opera heritage. Who could even explain what events transpired in Destiny? And who would care? But none of that matters. There is no doubt that Destiny's story falls far below the standards we hold for retail games, but it adds up to a mild disappointment amid the far greater sins that Destiny commits.

Destiny has an unwavering focus in what it purports to be. This is a game built upon a foundation of loot gathering and skill progression, one in which cooperative conquests set across disparate locales serve to draw you ever deeper into your intergalactic escapades. A traditional story--one with cutscenes and lore, rampant dialogue and diverse characters--would only distract from the main appeal. Those rare moments when control would be taken away from me, when I would be forced to sit idly by while a cinematic played out, were the dullest of my many hours spent with the game.

My restlessness surfaced in part because the writing was so dry that I couldn't muster the energy to care. But that was just a small aspect of why such diversions were unnecessary. The most important story in an open-ended, experience-gathering game such as Destiny is the one that I tell with my friends. It's our chatter during combat as we fight a mighty boss, or our strategic planning as we hold back another wave of fierce combatants. When we cursed our luck at being ambushed, or celebrated our impressive marksmanship, those are the stories that stayed with me.

Don't mistake my explanation as a forgiveness for what amounts to a hopelessly inept story. There is no defending the writing in Destiny, and I'm not trying to brush aside the many complaints lobbed at it. Rather, the story is so obviously poor that it's become little more than a scapegoat. It's easy to poke fun at this narrative mishmash. We laugh and point as a community, and no one gets angry when another person delivers a mean-spirited potshot. It's rare that a big-budget game is so lacking in such a key area, and we've taken this gift of sloppy craftsmanship as an invitation to let out all of our aggression at this one aspect.

Piling on can be loads of fun, but in the case of Destiny's story, it's nothing more than screaming into a thunderstorm. Imagine if we had gotten our demands for a fleshed-out tale. Lengthy cutscenes would have introduced every mission, with another non-interactive resolution when our duties were finished. Such a break would have derailed Destiny's smooth pacing, albeit one rife with overlong load time. Maybe we would have seen the Grimoire entries in-game. But would we really have preferred stopping mid-raid to find out more information about The Traveler? There's a chance Ghost would have been given a heavier load. Do you think giving him more dialogue would have furthered your interest? More exposition would have meant less chance to speak to friends, which would have soured the space-faring fun.

By and large, stories in games serve as motivation for you actions along with scene setting so you understand what kind of universe you find yourself in. It's rare that we find one with deeper meaning--especially in the big-budget space--and we usually accept stories that stay dutifully in the background. But Destiny doesn't need a story to provide those key elements. Your motivation doesn't stem from your hero's altruistic goals, but rather your own materialistic desire to earn more gear. It doesn't matter whose threatening the livelihood of others, not when there's another gun to unlock. And the diverse and detailed visual design paint the scene better than verbose conversations could. We're giving a virtual playground to explore and conquer, overt storytelling would have been a barrier to putting ourselves in this world.

It's rare that an action-heavy game offers a noteworthy story that's celebrated rather than derided. Think about the conversation centered around BioShock Infinite's troubling false-equivalency between the violence exerted by the oppressed and the oppressors. Or Watch Dog's inability to say something meaningful about this fully connected, invasive world. It's those discussions that surface when we take the time to think about a game's story. Normally, we mention narratives in passing. Diablo--with a similar appeal to Destiny--says its piece, and was quickly forgotten. Is that what we wanted from Destiny? A story that we skipped on repeat playthroughs, and maybe even zoned out the first time through?

We believe that story is a box that must be checked for a game to be complete, and so Destiny's failure to do so undermines the experience. But that's not the case here. The game would not have been better if it contained another generic, tired story being conveyed not because the writer had something to say, but because such background noise is expected. We're attacking Destiny's story because it's easy, not because it actually matters.

You know what does matter? Destiny is a game whose appeal stems largely from player progression, and yet your many rewards are tired at best. I've used my share of sniper rifles and shotguns through the years, so seeing those familiars tools surface in this far-out adventure was deflating. How impactful would a pistol be on the moon anyway? I craved weapons that would cause my imagination to stir, something that would ignite a flame of excitement in my belly. But I was left with traditional weapons that wouldn't be out of place in a military simulation. And the progression from one gun to the next is so dull as to be almost pointless. The many guns within each class feel so similar, that even though one may be slightly more powerful than another, there's no marked difference in how combat plays out.

And the objectives are so rudimentary in their design that I felt no thrill at embarking on my next mission. No matter what MacGuffin the game presented, I was still just gunning down bullet-sponge enemies with the IQ of a dishwasher. Yes, these endless encounters could have been made more appealing if the story performed its duties adequately. But considering how you must repeatedly grind each activity to earn the proper gear, I cannot imagine being entertained by repeated lines of dialogue or another viewing of the same cutscene.

It's the missions and weapons that are the biggest detriment to my long-term enjoyment of Destiny. There is no excuse for Destiny's forgettable plot, and critics and players alike are right to lampoon Bungie for such a poor showing. But we're making a mountain out of a speck of dust. This kind of game design--one the encourages innumerable playthroughs of the same areas--does not work with a wordy story. We're not talking about Borderlands here, which presents an open world with more side quests and characters than you could ever need. Instead, we have a series of glorified horde-mode fights with lackluster rewards doled out for our hard work.

Destiny has the foundation of something special. The gunplay is so engaging that we're willing to overlook the myriad problems elsewhere. And why wouldn't we? It's fun to fire at the unrelenting enemies, and even more so when you have friends in tow. But if Bungie is going to make the inevitable sequel worthwhile, they have to do much more than slap on a lengthy science-fiction narrative. That's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's the rewards in Destiny that are underwhelming, the missions that are so repetitive as to be suffocating. Bungie has to rethink everything beyond the core action; no amount of witty dialogue can patch its many wounds.

Freedom! Horrible, Horrible Freedom!

Two months have passed since I wrote last my last piece for GameSpot. On the day that I was let go, I consoled myself and others by saying that my departure was for the best, that my plunge into my next endeavor would be better in the long term for my career success and happiness. Two months have passed, with days spent willing human resource departments to be struck by my resume, with endless hours of walking my dog and watching television series, without anything solid for me to latch on to, to say, “This is why I was so positive two months earlier.”

Was my optimism unfounded? No, not even close. The problem lies in my own reluctance to move forward. My plan was to sustain myself with steady freelance work until I landed something more concrete. And though I have had intermittent success in that area--getting pieces on US Gamer and IGN--I have no confidence in turning that into a worthwhile financial stopgap. Freelance work is not how I'm conditioned. The stories I've published thus far have been interviews, of which I love writing, but are but one small part of what I am comfortable and excited to talk about in gaming coverage.

This blog is a way to appease the part of my mind that I've been ignoring since I was laid off. When I worked at GameSpot, I would show up without any clue of what I was going to work on, and then conjure an idea from scratch once I walked in the door. That was thrilling and empowering, and so I want to continue to do that kind of writing, even if I have no idea how to market such pieces to websites. And when I do have ideas that are easier to pitch--such as in-depth interviews--I'll poke the established websites, to see if I can land a bigger audience and some spare cash.

In a way, this blog is me admitting that my dreams are not as easily realized as I once thought. But that's alright. I still do have big plans, and now I have a sounding board for when inspiration hits and I don't want to deal with the song and dance of pitches.

Welcome to my horse window.

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