During my 30-minute demo for Raccoon Logic’s Revenge Of The Savage Planet, I watched a lanky and spry astronaut make their way across a brightly colored alien landscape full of fauna and wildlife. Using a bunch of strange sci-fi devices ripped straight from the armory of Duck Dodgers, they tame the landscape with an upbeat stride and unbridled positivity. At one point, they strike down an enemy who gave them no other option. The enemy lets out flatulence as it perishes.
“We still tell a lot of fart jokes,” developer Alex Hutchinson said matter-of-factly.
A lot has changed for the folks behind the Montreal-based game studio since it last released a game. For one, the identity of the studio itself. When it released 2020’s Journey To The Savage Planet, a humor-filled first-person shooter and planet exploration game, it was known as Typhoon Studios. The company was also under the corporate ownership of Google at the height of its Stadia push. Over four years later, those same developers are striking out on their own, free of corporate mandates and expectations. There are benefits and growing pains of being independent. But some things never change. Raccoon Logic still tells a lot of fart jokes.
Revenge Of The Savage Planet is a third-person action game where players explore planets alone or with a co-op partner. They explore in search of resources and ways to upgrade their home base and arsenal, letting them access new parts of the planet. Whereas Journey had just one planet to explore, Revenge has four, each with its own adventures, aesthetic, upgrades, level design, and of course, punchlines.
With more sights to see, developers also wanted to give players more of an exploratory feel. While the game won’t force players into searching every nook and cranny to keep its story moving forward, those who love finding secrets will have a lot to do. Scanning animals and plants, solving puzzles, hunting down unique life, and going off the beaten path grants players rewards for their exploits, as well as unique jokes that respond to specific player actions.
“I think we were a little too linear on the first one, so Revenge is a bit wider. There's a lot more distractions and a lot more things to find,” Hutchinson said. “Tools are a bit broader this time. The bounce pad from the first game, for example, is now analog. The more you bounce on it, the higher you'll go.”
These are welcome changes to the more static progression of the first game. But the most immediately noticeable change between the two games is the shift from first-person to third.
“There's only so much, as our animation director Mike says, you can do with hands,” Hutchinson said. “Plus, people wanted to see their feet for platforming more.”
The perspective shift pays off beyond function. The player character is expressive in so many ways. From their walking and jump animation, to how players can customize outfits, even their voices feel like a living cartoon. The third-person view allows the striking look of this science-fiction would shine in ways the first one couldn’t. Completing quests like collecting a particular species of adorable animals using a portal or spraying aggressive fauna with a watergun now comes with the added delight of watching the action play out for yourself.
In many ways, Revenge Of The Savage Planet feels like a make-good on all of the ideas the first game introduced. Journey was received relatively well for what it was — a short and sweet satire-filled adventure across an alien landscape. It balanced the skewering of corporate culture and capitalism with family-friendly slapstick. It wisely launched on Xbox Game Pass and retailed for just $30, making this simplistic Metroidvania a worthy weekend play for those looking for a few chuckles. (Hutchison says they’re still in negotiations over the sequel launching on Game Pass.)
Unfortunately for Raccoon Logic, the trajectory of the first game and the studio didn’t go as well as it could. Typhoon was one of the first studios to fall victim to the expeditious failure of Google’s gaming initiative, Stadia. Just over a year after it acquired Typhoon, Google shuttered its internal development division. It nearly left the definitive edition of Journey to languish without bug fixes (Google thankfully rectified the issue). With a second lease on life, thanks to some funding from Tencent, Raccoon Logic is ready to make the Savage Planet all theirs.
“After the difficulty of getting extracted from Stadia and [publisher] 505 Games, we own the IP ourselves and we are self-publishing this game,” Hutchinson said. “It’s been far easier, apart from the usual issues of trying to make something that's funny and high-quality.”
“Many of us here have worked at giant studios before with 1000-plus person teams,” design director Steven Masters said. “I'm just super excited to be back in an environment where there's like 30 of us and we're all doing stuff directly contributing to the success of the game. It's a much more intimate and fun environment to be in. And I hope that that shows in the sort of level of charm that we can bring to the execution.”
One of the ways the game builds out its charming world is through live-action ads for in-universe products and corporations. While these were a staple of the first game’s humor, Revenge features even more of them. Without corporate overlords of their own, Raccoon Logic says that they have more freedom to lean on their own instincts.
“We only have to make 30 people think it’s funny, not 800,” Hutchison said.
The want to make each other laugh was a driving force for Raccoon Logic not only on its return to the Savage Planet as a concept but for the studio as a whole moving forward. From its live-action humorous interstitials to its madcap collection of tools, weapons, and exaggerated wildlife, Revenge of the Savage Planet is Raccoon Logic with the corporate cuffs taken off.
“Our goal is to keep telling funny stories that celebrate the player experience and have weird and wacky tools that you can experiment with,” Hutchinson said.
