"It's a case of when, not if", David Perry, founder of Earthworm Jim creator Shiny Entertainment, told Eurogamer last week at the develop conference in Brighton, Great Britain last week.
"Our problem is that the team is all doing well in whatever they're doing right now," Perry, boss of new Sony subsidiary Gaikai, said.
"It's just a bunch of guys who all have their own thing. Everyone has their own company. So, to get them to stop what they're doing and work on a game is very difficult, but it's something they all want to do.
"We have our own little discussion group on Facebook. We've been having this discussion: when will this happen? When could we do it? What would make sense?
"We feel the Kickstarter thing would have been fun just to see how much money could be raised out of a Kickstarter, because we would have put a lot of effort into the video, for example.
"It's one of those things that, no one's got the time right now. I'm sure it's going to happen, I just can't tell you exactly when."
Earthworm Jim is a run and gun platformer that first released on the Sega Megadrive in 1994. Later is was ported to basically every console, and in 2010 saw an HD remake for playstation network and xbox LIVE arcade.
The game was a major success for its fluid animation and hand-drawn style which was unusual for a 16-bit game. Gameblock stated: "Back when platformers were the king of genres, Earthworm Jim made its presence known as the 'cool kid on the block' by appealing to many demographics." When Earthworm Jim 2 released, the game equally got a good reception, if not better than the first one.
But after this game, things gradually spiralled out of hand. Earthworm Jim's transition to 3D was without success and after its last appearance on the gameboy and gameboy colour, the muscled worm finally dug itself a hole and was seen no more.
So what are Perry's plans for a possible future release? Creator for earthworm jim Doug TenNaple had created new sketches for the game, showing a somewhat "wimpier" Jim. Perry was not amused.
"There's an interesting tension between Doug and myself. When he started to draw the new Earthworm Jim, if I showed you the sketches of what he wanted the next Earthworm Jim to look like, I can guarantee you'd go, no! Don't go that way! Because he's going wimpy. My job I to fight him on that. No, don't go wimpy. We don't want wimpy."
What Perry definitely does not want is to make the same mistake VIS entertainment made with Earthworm Jim 3D.
"2D by definition is just a camera moving with you. The answer is, I would do 2D, but if you wanted you could play with the camera a little. But I don't like it when you're doing very 3D, because then your jumps become very hard to predict and then your controller starts breaking. It wouldn't be fun."
