ToeJam & Earl GENESIS

ToeJam & Earl is Johnson Voorsanger Productions’ 1991 game, developed by a two-person team and published by Sega. Two funk-loving aliens crash-land on Earth and have to piece their ship back together by exploring randomly generated, procedurally shuffled levels, gathering scattered ship parts while avoiding a cast of oddball human hazards.

Its overhead exploration, item-identification mechanics, and roguelike-style randomized level layouts were unusual for a console game in 1991, closer in spirit to PC roguelikes of the era than to anything else on the Genesis. Full two-player split-screen co-op throughout the entire campaign was also uncommon for the format, and it’s remembered as one of the system’s most distinctive original titles.