ToeJam & Earl

n/a

ToeJam & Earl
System(s): Sega Mega Drive, Virtual Console, PlayStation 3, Steam
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Johnson Voorsanger Productions M2
Sound driver: GEMS
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1992-03-13 ¥6,8006,800 G-4066 US 1991-10 $59.9559.95 1020 EU 1991-11 1020 UK 1991-11 £34.9934.99 1020 SE (Rental) 199x AU 199x CA 199x 1020 BR 199x KR 199x GM8027JG JP ▼ 2006-12-02 600pts600 US ▼ 2006-12-25 800pts800 EU ▼ 2006-12-22 800pts800 DE ▼ 2006-12-22 800pts800 AU ▼ 2006-12 800pts800 US ▼ 2011-01-26 $4.994.99 71166 EU ▼ 2011-01-26 €4.494.49 71166 UK ▼ 2011-01-26 £3.993.99 71166 AU ▼ 2011-01-26 $6.996.99 71166 US ▼ 2019-02-01 $0.990.99 71166 EU ▼ 2019-02-01 €0.990.99 71166 UK ▼ 2019-02-01 £0.790.79 71166 AU ▼ 2019-02-01 $1.351.35 71166 US ▼ 2019-02-01 $0.990.99 71166 EU ▼ 2019-02-01 €0.990.99 71166 UK ▼ 2019-02-01 £0.790.79 71166 AU ▼ 2019-02-01 $1.351.35 71166 US ▼ 2012-11-06 $4.994.99 NPUB-30796 EU ▼ 2012-11-07 €4.494.49 NPEB-01001 DE ▼ 2012-11-07 €4.494.49 NPEB-01001 UK ▼ 2012-11-07 £3.593.59 NPEB-01001 AU ▼ 2012-11-06 $6.256.25 NPEB-01001 KR ▼ 2012-11-07 ₩6,2006,200 NPHB-00500 TW ▼ 2012-11-07 NT$156156 NPHB-00500

ToeJam & Earl (トージャム＆アール) is an action game developed by Johnson Voorsanger Productions, and published by Sega for the Sega Mega Drive. It stars two extraterrestrial rappers who, by way of pilot error, end up crash-landing on Earth. While there, they must search for the missing pieces of their spacecraft in hopes of reassembling it. The game frequently parodies and satirizes 1990s urban culture, and includes common 90s slang and a funk soundtrack. Much of this charm is what drew people toward the game. The game was followed by ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron.

Gameplay

The game takes place in a surreal isometric world representing Earth, where land is in the form of a stack of randomly-generated floating islands. In each of the game's 25 island, the player must find the elevator that will bring them to the next level. Occasionally, a rocketship piece will be hidden somewhere on an island, although the player is not required to collect it right away before moving onto the next island. Every island besides the first is surrounded by a void, falling in at any time will cause the player to fall to the previous level.

Presents are scattered around the island that can be collected and used at any time. The effects of each present box are randomized each time the game is played. Some presents have helpful effects, such as restoring health, temporarily bestowing special abilities, or revealing hidden sections of the map. Others, however, can do more harm, and can do things such as summon enemies, cause the character to fall asleep and leave them open to attack, or randomize the effects of all the presents.

While most inhabitants of Earth will attack or otherwise hinder Toejam & Earl when they spot them, some will help them in exchange for money. The man in the carrot suit will identify presents, and the wizard will fully restore a character's health. On occasion, Santa Claus can be found, if the player is successful in sneaking up to him without alerting him, he will drop a few random presents.

The player has a rank shown on the bottom of the screen with their health and number of extra lives, and begins the game at the rank of 'Weiner'. As the player scores points by uncovering squares of the map and opening presents, their rank will increase at certain point values. When the player increases in rank, their maximum health increases, and for every second increase in rank, the player receives an extra life. The player is able to increase in rank eight times.

The game can either be played with one or two players. In two-player mode, if Toejam & Earl wander too far apart, the game will go into a horizontal split-screen so both players can keep track of their characters, with the screen returning to normal once the characters reunite. If Toejam & Earl walk into each other, they will high-five, causing the player with the most health to give a little to the player with less health. If one player loses all of their lives, they can also take a life from the other player to come back into the game.

The game ends when the player finds all 10 pieces of the spacecraft.

sneaks and causes a character to use a present's special ability, when applicable. pulls up an item screen. switches to a map of the current island.

Achievements

Main article: ToeJam & Earl/Achievements.

Development

One of Greg Johnson's main influences for the design of ToeJam & Earl, was the video game Rogue, a dungeon crawling video game, developed around 1980 for Unix-based mainframe systems and released as public domain software, a game that Greg Johnson first played while studiyng bio-linguistics at the University of California in San Diego, staying up to early hours of the morning playing it.

Production credits

• Game Design: Greg Johnson
• Game Program: Mark Voorsanger
• Additional Programming: Robert Leyland
• Music Direction: Mark Miller
• Music Composition: John Baker
• Artwork: Greg Johnson, Avril Harrison
• Sound Fx: Robert Leyland, Mark Miller
• Invaluable Aid: Paul Reiche, Fred Ford
• Producer: Scott Berfield
• Awesome Support: Hugh Bowen

Source:

in-game credits

Digital manuals

• 

  Steam manual

• TJE MD US digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini US manual

• TJE MD EU digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini EU manual

Magazine articles

Main article: ToeJam & Earl/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Main article: ToeJam & Earl/Promotional material.

Artwork

• 

  Concept artwork of the characters ToeJam & Earl.

• 

  Artwork of the character ToeJam.

• 

  Artwork of the character Earl.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 70 ACE (UK) 0 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 73 Computer Game Review (US) NTSC-U 79 Console XS (UK) PAL 93 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 70 Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1 (RU) 70 Mean Machines: The Essential Sega Guide (UK) 80 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 68 Game Power (IT) 72 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 84 Gamers (DE) 73 GamesMaster (UK) 70 Games-X (UK) 90 Game Informer (US) 90 Game Zone (UK) PAL 89 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 80 Hobby Consolas (ES) 87 Joypad (FR) PAL 94 Joystick (FR) PAL 88 Sega Mega Drive Advanced Gaming (UK) PAL 72 Mega Drive Fan (JP) NTSC-J 71 Mega (UK) PAL 91 Mega Force (FR) PAL 85 MegaTech (UK) 87 Mean Machines (UK) PAL 87 Mean Machines Sega (UK) 87 Player One (FR) 75 Play Time (DE) 95 Sega Power (UK) PAL 91 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 93 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 88 Sega Force (UK) PAL 94 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 73 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 77 Video Games (DE) 62

	79
Based on 36 reviews

ToeJam & Earl

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart Manual Poster PCB

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart PCB

Mega Drive, SE (Rental)

Mega Drive, AU
Cover

Mega Drive, AU (alt)
Cover

Mega Drive, BR
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, KR
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, CA
Cover

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 d1b36786 MD5 0a6af20d9c5b3ec4e23c683f083b92cd SHA-1 7f82d8b57fff88bdca5d8aff85b01e231dc1239a	1MB	1991-07	Cartridge	REV00
✔	CRC32 7a588f4b MD5 72dc91fd2c5528b384f082a38db9ddda SHA-1 85e8d0a4fac591b25b77c35680ac4175976f251b	1MB	1991-10	Cartridge	REV02

External links

• Sega of Japan Virtual Console pages: Mega Drive
• Nintendo catalogue pages: US, UK, AU
• ToeJam & Earl on Steam
• ToeJam & Earl on PlayStation.com: US, KR
• ToeJam & Earl on PlayStation Store: US, UK, AU, KR, TW
• ToeJam & Earl tribute page by Chris Sykes at skutter.net

References

Games in the ToeJam & Earl Series
	ToeJam & Earl (1991) | ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron (1993)
	ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth (2002)
	Sega Vintage Collection: ToeJam & Earl (2012)
	Sega Vintage Collection: ToeJam & Earl (2013)
ToeJam & Earl related media
	ToeJam and Earl Rap (1991) | Sega Tunes: ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron (1996)