#panic on funkotron

[jeffpennington]

“Jammin!”

Just a lil Toejam and Earl funk for funsies

[mula-amy]

JAMMIN ' !

Posting after almost a year, in this case a drawing of Toejam & Earl.

EARL MAY LOOK A LITTLE WEIRD-.. I genuinely drew him without looking

Panic on Funkotron is addictive

[miloscat]

[Review] Toejam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron (SMD)

A surreal genre-bender.

When my good friend Gibbon picked this for retro game club, I didn’t know what to expect. The first Toejam & Earl game is a take on the Nethack-like, whereas this sequel adopts the style of a sidescrolling platformer. It still retains exploration elements without the randomness, and has all the interaction of an adventure game or a more involved collectathon. Minigames add the genres of autorunning and freeform rhythm but in the same engine and context. It’s a strange mix but feels cohesive.

The actions you do could be seen as repetitive: shake trees and bushes, grab presents to keep your consumable stocks up, press buttons to make things appear, and throw jars to capture earthlings. But the level design helps keep things varied, and you’ll be bouncing, riding bubbles, and warping around while trying to understand the level layouts. There’s also NPC characters to have laid-back conversations with; they will lead you to secrets as well as maintaining the feel of a living world.

The planet of Funkotron is a bizarre place, letting the designers populate the game with out-there aesthetics. The alternate hyperfunk dimension and funk scan are particularly striking with their scribbly outlines and extreme 90s fills. The plot of the game involves earthlings hitching a ride back to Toejam & Earl’s home planet after their jaunt in the previous game: now the alien teens have to round up all the troublemakers to return their planet to its usual state of funkiness. However, in this game even the earthlings have zany designs, with big caricature heads and such enemy types as the ghost cow, invisible boogey man, and aviator duck. It’s pretty far out, man!

While the game is pretty chill a lot of the time, there are sections that are destined to frustrate, such as the underwater mazes or some particularly intimidating groupings of earthlings. Luckily it liberally throws funk at you which can help you prepare or escape, and there are hints and special items to get you out of jams if you’re paying attention. The huge sprites too give the world a lot of character but the corresponding screen size can hurt visibility. The game is densely packed with things to interact with and discover, as well as just random creatures wandering by... it’s quite a unique experience for a 1993 platformer. Oh, and it has a simultaneous co-op mode which would surely add another dimension to play; being solo, I chose Toejam. How many other games let you play as a triped?

[segacity]

Hyper Funk Zone, from ‘@ToeJamAndEarl: Panic On Funkotron’.

[runningwithhelicopters]

And then they cram humans into jam jars and call themselves heroes.

[vgprintads]

‘ToeJam & Earl 2′ [aka, ‘ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron’]

[MD] [SPAIN] [MAGAZINE] [1994]

Todo Sega, February 1994 (#11)

Scanned/Uploaded by Sketch the Cow, via The Internet Archive

[tagfer]

these are TJE2 locations but they make great reaction pics?

[jeffpennington]

BEHOLD! My first ever time using Clip Studio Paint!

I've got a good long ways to go before I can completely dump Adobe but damn it feels good to be taking those first REAL steps that aren't just buying other software and puttering around.