Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition is a next-gen update to Typhoon Studios' hilarious pulp sci-fi adventure. Now headed up by Racoon Logic, Journey to the Savage Planet has arrived on next-gen consoles with silky smooth 60 FPS framerates, while high-end console users can bump the graphics up to 4K to see the game's stunningly vibrant world in its best light.
Game ZXC spoke with Alex Hutchinson, creative director of Journey to the Savage Planet who has returned under Raccoon Logic to make this upgrade possible. Hutchinson reflected on the studio's troubles with Google Stadia, his creative influences, the game's social commentary, and how the game achieved its eye-catching aesthetic. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Please briefly introduce yourselves and share a story from the development of Journey to the Savage Planet.
Hutchinson: Hi! My name is Alex Hutchinson, and I was the Creative Director of Journey to the Savage Planet, plus I was one of the founding owners of both Typhoon Studios and now Raccoon Logic, which has formed from the ashes of Typhoon after we were bought by Google to work on Stadia, then regurgitated when they found game development too difficult and subjective and closed Stadia down.
I think the funniest thing about the first project was that we were acquired by Google, then the pandemic started, so we switched to working from home, then just as the pandemic ended they shuttered Stadia, and we were all made redundant without ever having set foot inside a Google office. Also, we were the first, last, and only game internally published by Google, and they made us redundant on the day we shipped.
Q: For those unaware, what are the most exciting additions to the Employee of the Month Edition?
Hutchinson: The increase in power for the new consoles and the fact that we weren't going to make massive changes meant it was pretty smooth. We are running at both a higher resolution and a higher frame rate for both consoles, so it should be the silkiest, smoothest, best-looking version of the game! Plus we added some more story support for later in the game and some more fictional ads to deepen our lore.
Q: For those curious, does Employee of the Month add any new content to Journey to the Savage Planet?
Hutchinson: It’s the same game just polished and cleaned up, so no new playtime or areas unless you didn’t buy the DLC which is included in this version. If you never played the Hot Garbage expansion, then you will have a couple of hours of new fun ahead of you!
Q: Humor in games can easily become repetitive or grating. How did you go about balancing comedy and gags with gameplay and general narrative pacing?
Hutchinson: The core pillar of the game is comedy which we think is really under-represented as a genre in games, especially the kind of comedy that is unique to games. We wanted to replace the moments in games that scare you with moments that make you laugh: systemic outcomes that don’t punish and kill you but instead surprise and delight you. Writing a joke is funny once, but letting you slap your co-op partner to their death off a cliff is funny forever.
The other key is to make sure the player is driving the action as much as possible, so most of the jokes are supporting player actions like scanning or entering a new area or dying, meaning the pacing is in their hands. If you are doing a lot of weird stuff, you’ll get a lot of weird jokes.
Q: There's been a recent trend of space games serving as critiques of fictional corporations, with titles like Deep Rock Galactic, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and Viscera Clean Up Detail. Do you think this is a reflection of the game industry, societal commentary, or something else entirely?
Hutchinson: I think science fiction lends itself to cultural commentary as you can take the issues of the day and magnify or reposition them to make your point, so it's not surprising and games give you the perfect opportunity to make the player an active participant in it as well. Hopefully, we’ll see more of it.
Q: From its title to its vibrant color palate and retro-futuristic look, Journey to the Savage Planet feels like classic pulp sci-fi. How did you go about achieving that aesthetic?
Hutchinson: The art team works hard! More seriously, we grab a lot of references from classic movies and old sci-fi book covers, then we create big mood boards for each area to get a sense of how it will feel, and then we just iterate constantly. The studio vision is to get to position Alpha mid-way through our overall development time, which then lets us polish, polish, polish.
Q: What other games, movies, and other media served as the biggest influences on the development of Savage Planet?
Hutchinson: So many! I am a huge Philip K. Dick fan, so one secret bit of info is Kindred Aerospace is named after him, as Kindred was his middle name. I also love the social satire of movies like Starship Troopers or Robocop. But a lot of sci-fi is really just about the present day taken into the future, so I was inspired by the general corporate greed and the idiocy of many of the mega companies, especially in tech, which we are surrounded by today.
Q: Tell us about Typhoon's team. How many members do you have, and how experienced is everyone?
Hutchinson: Typhoon made the first game, and Raccoon Logic which formed from the ashes of that team is shipping this new version. There are just under 30 of us now, and we have about 75% of that original team on board and 25% new blood that brings some great new perspectives. Most of us have been doing this for a long time.
I think the average number of years in the industry is about 15 across the whole team. We have held director roles on everything from Assassin’s Creed to Far Cry to Watch Dogs to Battlefield to Splinter Cell to Army of Two to Spore and more.
Q: What was it like working with 505 Games as a publisher?
Hutchinson: 505 Games was a great and supportive partner. They really gave us the space to make the game we had in our heads without the usual massive interference you get from some publishers!
Q: What's next for Raccoon Logic?
Hutchinson: We have been working on Game 2 for a couple of years now, so we are gearing up for a big announcement! Probably won’t be till the very end of the year, but we are looking forward to announcing it.
Q: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know?
Hutchinson: If you’re looking for something fresh, forgiving, and fun then you could do a lot worse than grabbing a couple of copies of Savage Planet and then calling up your best friend to explore an alien planet for a few hours!
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Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month is available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
