14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Greg Johnson, best known for the Toejam and Earl video game of the early ‘90s, is apparently working with Sony on a new video game that is described as charming, quirky and emotional.
A job posting for the position of lead designer at HumanNature, Johnston’s company, says that the development studio is working with a big Japanese publisher on major project and a post from Johnson himself states that the company he is working for is Sony.
The game is described as follows: “The game is sweet and charming and very quirky. It targets a cross-gender audience and a broad age-range in the US, Japan, Korea, and Europe. It also happens to push the boundaries of interactive emotional A.I. and visual story-telling.”
The lead designer job requires someone who has imagination and loves innovation and who can work on such varied aspects as User Interface, open-ended game structure, goal-oriented quests, state-based Artificial Intelligence and reward systems.
It also requires those who apply to actually care about making the world a better place and mentions video games like Animal Crossing, Scriblenauts, Little Big Planet, Beyond Good and Evil and Ico.
Johnson added to the description of the game by saying, “It’s also super innovative in the area of emotional AI and personality simulation. It designed for both male and female players, and will be marketed in the U.S. and in Japan.”
Sony might be already looking for developers to create video games for the home console that it will probably officially announce before the end of the year, but the new Greg Johnson project might also be linked to the underperforming PlayStation Vita.
The mention of Little Big Planet in relation to the new project might also mean that it will bear the Play. Create. Share label that Sony has been recently pushing for its more social gaming experiences.