T
oejam & Earl are two jammin’
alien rappers who have had
the misfortune of crash-
landing their spaceship on the
weirdest, most far-out planet in the
entire Universe – Planet Earth!
What follows is an adventure unlike
any other, as our funky heroes gingerly
climb their way up 25 levels of the
Earth’s surface, seeking out pieces of
their ruined ship as they go. Alas, our
heroes’ quest is complicated by the
planet’s bizarre and deadly inhabitants- encountering everything from giant
hamsters in wheels, to deranged
dentists, to phantom ice cream trucks(!).
Toejam & Earl is an off-kilter take on a
formula invented by the 1980 dungeon-
crawler, Rogue. Like that title, Toejam &
Earl’s levels are randomly-generated
from game to game (although there
was also a pre-set option), meaning
you never knew what lurked around the
next corner. Coupled with the fact that
the level map only revealed itself as
you explored it, this gave the adventure
a tremendous sense of mystery, and
infinite layouts mean almost infinite
replayability value.
03
The first level is surrounded not by void but by water,
so it’s impossible to fall any lower. Or so you’d think.
If you had the Icarus Wings, or the more-trouble-
than-they’re-worth Rocket Boots, you could zip to
the bottom left hand of the map, where a doughnut-
shaped island gave you access to the mysterious, yet
curiously relaxing, level zero.
CLASSIC MOMENT
Toejam’s Rogue-like mystique extended to the
power-ups, which were wrapped as presents. The
only way to know what was inside each pattern was
to blindly open it (or, preferably, pay the Carrot Man
to tell you). Presents could be bad as well as good -
the worst being the Randomiser, which undid all
your good investigative work.CLASSIC WEAPON