Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove

Your Funky November Update
over 8 years ago – Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 11:42:30 PM

 Hi there cherished backers!!

It’s time for another funky update. Let’s jump right in… 

The Rewards: On Kick Starter we estimated that the physical goods would be received sometime this month, so it’s only natural that people are wondering what’s up. A few hundred of the smaller packages have been mailed out so far, but the bulk of the packages are still getting put together at our fulfillment center (Amplifier) in Texas. I am told that these should be going out to you over the next 2 weeks. As it turns out, it’s actually rather complicated to manage 5,000 orders when every order is different. It seems to be almost done though, and Backerkit has been a huge help. Backerkit will be sending you an automatic email once your order gets marked as “shipped” by Amplifier, and tracking info will also be provided to you. If you want to check your pledge status you can go to the link below, and enter your email to access your survey info and see the current status. https://toejam-and-earl-back-in-the-groove.backerkit.com 

We’re sorry for the wait. I know many of you have been anticipating this for a long time, or wanting these items for gifts etc. It shouldn’t be too much longer! 

The Game: Things are coming along well with the game. We have about a dozen Earthlings in the game so far, and maybe about 20 different presents. We’ve just implemented a dynamic camera that moves in and out based on what’s happening (for example when you use rocket skates the camera backs up, and when you talk to a friendly Earthling it zooms in). We’ve also just added in a new feature for multi-player games, where the ground sparkles to indicate the ‘area of effect’ for presents. This way all players can see if they will be affected by the present that gets opened. Icarus wings, rocket skates, spring shoes, tomatoes, doors, teleporting, and innertube are all working, and Earthling’s now have facings so you can sneak behind them when they are facing the other way. The Hula dancer makes you hula and it also makes Earthlings dance as well. (It’s fun to see the Boogieman get caught by the Hula dancer).  The new tattooed cupid is in and is making you fall in love with his arrows.

Currently we are working on multi-player rhythm matching, on buttons and coin meters (ala game 2), searching for hidden presents by shaking bushes, houses, and trees (also ala game 2), and amped and broken presents (a new feature). We’ll be putting in tiles to cover the terrain, upgrading our currently temporary (lame) maps, and we’re also experimenting with positioning the camera for an angled view of the terrain which we think we like better, than the straight-on view. So much to do!!! 

Other Platforms: We don’t have anything to announce here yet, but we’ve got some exciting things brewing. 

Music: We have more music in the works and John Baker will be adding his mojo to Cody’s funky bass sometime in Jan when Cody is coming back to Cali for another big music jam. A company in LA called IAM8BIT has expressed interest in collaborating with us on a record vinyl which is still not for sure, but we’re excited about that.

Release Date:  We are currently aiming to have the game done sometime around Sept or Oct of 2016.  We'll keep you posted as we know more.

Here is some artwork from the game in progress for your viewing pleasure.

We'd like to remind you to drop by the TJ&E forum anytime to check out the latest news and to read all of the wonderful posts and see the great artwork from so many TJ&E fans and backers.

http://www.hyperfunk.club/

And a special virtual hug of appreciation goes out to our hard working partners at BackerKit (no way we could have done this without you), and at  Amplifier (you guys have been wonderfully responsive), and at Shenzhen SRX (the company in China that made the awesome vinyl figures and bronze statues - I highly recommend them!)

And thanks to all of our fans on the forum, for all the great ideas and suggestions.  As many of you will notice, lots of the new presents and characters are from you! (You know who you are!)

We'll have more news for you soon!

Funk is Afoot!
over 8 years ago – Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 11:47:18 PM

Greetings Funkotronian friends!

It's been about 2 months since out last KickStarter update, so, sorry for that long stretch of nothing.  For those of you who are active on our Hyperfunkclub.com forum, you'll have seen more recent news, but even there our activity has slowed a bit, as we've been getting deeper into building this game.  Such is the way of things...  still, we thought we'd share some of what's going on in the land of our funky alien brothers and sisters.

Here is some of the stuff we've been making...  Hope ya like it!

Your Kick Starter rewards are all made and are getting packaged up and will be sent out within the next few weeks so keep an eye out for your goodies.  If you have any questions about that send an email to [email protected] (attn: Jenny)

Onwards! To Funkotron and Beyond!!

Yes, it's a Back in the Groove UPDATE!
over 8 years ago – Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 03:11:28 AM

Greetings fellow funky Funkotronians!

Sorry it's been so long since you've seen an update from us.  We've been posting on the various threads in the forum as we can but many of you don't have time to check the forum so perhaps an official update is in order...  Here's what's going on...

Progress:  We have moved beyond the Kick Starter fulfillment phase of the project and are in full swing of what is usually called pre-production in game development. We're building our infrastructure, and doing the necessary R&D for various things (like our animation system and online play and data streaming etc. Building a real ship-able game is very different than building a quick prototype.  We have 5 people on the team - two engineers, a concept artist, and animator and me, running the studio and doing design.  Two of the team members work remotely.

So what's done so far?  We have 6 of the 7 player characters walking around in the world and doing various animations like running, teetering, falling, diving into the water, etc...  We have our random terrain generator all parameterized (say  THAT 5 times fast) and generating levels of various types.  We have 3 or 4 Earthlings in, and chasing you around, and we have the Hyperfunk Zone well underway and semi-playable. We also have quite a bit of new funky music underway with help from bass player Cody, and our Master music-guy Burke, and it's in our build.  (We call versions of the game "builds").  We've also been combing the Hyperfunk Club forum and are still pulling all kinds of great ideas and suggestions from the fans and building them into the design plan.

We're still quite a ways from anything we feel we can show you though - so please be patient on that score.

Rewards:  The vinyl figures and key chains will be arriving at the fulfillment center in one more week and the other merchandise (T-shirts, Hoodies, Posters and Mugs) are going into production as you read this.  So it shouldn't be too much longer of a wait. If you haven't yet filled in your survey please go ahead and do it.  We need the final numbers.

Console Versions:  We're still talking to various partners and trying to figure out how we can get funded to build other versions of the game.  We can't say anything more until something is actually signed, but we'll let you know if and when that happens.

Final Date:  Er... yeah.  Still don't know.  Plan on anywhere from a year to 18 months before you see a finished game.  Basically, enjoy the update, but then forget about us again for awhile when you finish reading this.

Our Office:  We had thought we we were going to have to move offices as part of our cost cutting measures, but we came up with Plan B and we've rented out the front half of the studio to some other people so we get to stay here which is excellent.

The Forum:  Is a raging success.  If you haven't dropped by there, I encourage you to.  It's a total TJ & E nostalgia fest and the community that has grown up there has to be the most supportive, considerate bunch of people on the internet.  And creative and helpful too.  So many great threads and suggestions and fun posts.  It's turned into a SUPER valuable resource for us.   www.hyperfunkclub  

Going Forward:  From here we are just going to be heads down trying to make progress.  Sorry if if gets a bit quiet again for awhile.  Fear not, progress is being made.  If you have questions go to the forum and post in the questions section.  I try to answer all of those.  You can also still send emails to: [email protected] and I'll try to answer you but it might not be immediately.

Backer Kit Rocks:  These guys have been SO awesomely helpful.  I can't imagine doing a Kick Starter without them.  My best advice to anyone considering a Kick Starter is use Backer kit!  It is so totally worth it.

I think that's it for now.  Sorry no fun pictures or music in this post.  Busy Busy!  See you on the Forum!

--Greg

Free TJ&E Wall Paper and Other Fun Stuff
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 05:53:55 PM

GREETINGS BACKERS!

We have a few update-y news items for you.  I'll get right to it...

A) WALLPAPER:  We have some FREE Toejam and Earl - Hi-Res wall papers for you.  Here is a link.  There are 5 of these to choose from (notice where it says "First Image", "Second Image" up at the top of the page.)

http://imgur.com/Ew7AKlk,fZIPQ2G,YQzgQAy,74hWFx1,tIc8wX2#0

B) SMASH BROTHERS: Some fans have been getting excited about the idea of ToeJam and Big Earl as Smash Brothers characters.  It turns out Nintendo is soliciting suggestions for new video game characters to include.  What say we flood Nintendo with this suggestion, so they will come and ask us to include the characters!  Wouldn't that be awesome?  Here is a link where you can go to suggest a character.

https://cp.nintendo.co.jp/us/

C) SURVEYS: Lots of fans have been asking about when the surveys will arrive, or worried that they missed them.  Fear not.  They haven't been sent out yet.  This Friday marks 2 weeks, and we are unable to send the survey until all of the backer info and payments have been finalized. It looks like they will be going out sometime early next week.  Sorry this is taking so long.  If you have questions feel free to ask us.

D) CONSOLES: Lots of fans are asking about the console stretch goals.  We are still working on trying to come up with a funding plan for consoles.  We don't have any news we can share yet but we're busy trying to make things happen on that front.

E) SIGNING STUFF:  Some people have been asking about having signed copies of the boxed game, or of posters, or old game carts etc.  Our fulfillment centers are in NY (Boxed Game) and in Texas (Merchandise) and we're in California.  So...  if you want anything signed by me (Greg) just send it here to our office with a self addressed - postage paid return mailer.  I and our artist Nathan, will be more than happy to sign whatever and drop it back in the mail for you. Our engineer Jeff, and artist Maida don't live around here, and neither does my old TJ&E co-creator Mark Voorsanger so those signatures are not as easy to get.  Here is our mailing address:

HumaNature Studios      1600 Solano Ave       Albany, CA.     94707

F) MORE CONCEPT ART: Some fans were under the impression we were giving away more concept art, beyond our Twitch Stream give-away.  I apologize for saying things in a less-than-clear way in the last update.  My bad.  We don't have more to give away right now, but maybe someday we will do that again.

G) VINYL FIGURE PRODUCTION:  The figures are being manufactured at Shenzhen SRX in China, as you read this, so it won't be too long before they are shipped to the fulfillment center in Texas.  It takes about a month for them to get shipped by boat.  Here are a few photo's of the unpainted figures at the factory:

Here is some more fun fan art.  If you have fan art you'd like to share, send it to us at [email protected] and when we get a nice pile we'll post it in an update or on the FB page.

 When we first started this project we did some experimenting with looks for ToeJam and Earl.  Here are some very early sketches by Nathan.  We thought you might enjoy seeing these...  I really like the one where they look like kids...  maybe we'll find a way to use that in the game.

Getting Going...
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 05:53:41 PM

Hi Everybody!! 

First to our backers in Canada:  As an additional apology for our "shipping costs snaffoo", in addition to the key chain, we've decided to also throw in a complimentary digital copy of the game music to all backers from Canada.  Once again, sorry about saying you wouldn't get charged for shipping.  We hope this helps.

So - our update....   It's been a couple weeks since we completed our campaign.  These past few weeks have been filled with things like: getting the contest art signed by Steve Purcell, and Kirk Henderson and Mark Voorsanger, etc, and sent out, answering backer questions about lost surveys and shipping, etc.., getting our reward production in China going, talking to potential funding partners for consoles, getting the fulfillment house in Texas what they need, making sure our trademarks and other legal issues are all set, getting back to everyone who has been asking us about work, and then doing lots of logistical things like budget projections and planning, and looking for an engineer and an animator (which we're still doing). On the engineering front we've been learning more about Unity and doing some engineering groundwork and technical assessments.

We still have more planning, logistics and assessments ahead but we're finally able to switch gears and start getting into the game design.  That's the really fun part.  We thought we'd share a little bit of some of the new concept art Nathan has been doing.  We have yet to really settle on which Earthlings we'll have in the game - so these specific Earthlings may or may not appear.  Right now we're just shot-gunning ideas.  If these drawing spark any thoughts about what Earthlings you like or don't like from any of the 3 games, or what they should look like, don't hold back.  We want to hear all of your comments.

Also, just for fun, here is a link to SoundCloud with a re-instrumentation of a song you will probably recognize.  This was sent in by a TJ & E fan named "Krusher".  Thanks Krusher!

https://soundcloud.com/axelei/space-1991

See ya all on Funkotron!