Yooka-Laylee: 6 Big Reasons To Be Very Excited
It's been far, FAR too long since the last great 3D platformer.
There has never been a more tantalising pledge for your cash than a nostalgia-fuelled Kickstarter video game; all a developer needs to do is drop word another instalment of a beloved franchise is on the cards, and the Scrooge McDuck-style money piles will fill within minutes, stretch-goals and all.
Double Fine did it with Broken Age, Humanature Studios with ToeJam and Earl, and now the former Rareware peeps have taken to Kickstarter for their new highly anticipated project. The newest game to rake in over a million before it’s even been made is Playtonic Games’ Yooka-Laylee; the spiritual successor to the classic collect-a-thon Banjo-Kazooie.
Playtonic Games almost instantly met their initial goal of £175,000 and continue to receive overwhelming support from the thousands of backers who no doubt have been anticipating a return to form from the bear and bird for years now. Banjo the bear is now Yooka the chameleon, and Kazooie the bird is now Laylee the Bat; picking up random objects, taking names and spreading more charm than a Pixar marathon.
All that is known thus far about the project is what has been displayed on the KickStarter page, and with only three months of development taking place thus far, the project is in early days. However, the mere existence of this game is enough to get people utterly pumped.
6. The Original Banjo-Kazooie Alumni Are Making It
Playtonic is a new game developer, completely separate of Rare, founded by the industry veterans that worked for Rareware on Donkey Kong Country and the original Banjo Kazooie games.
It’s a small team of seven, but remains a labour of love - and as Ubisoft regularly prove, too many cooks can spoil the game-broth. The chameleon (Yooka) and the bat (Laylee) were both designed and animated by Steve Mayles, the man who designed both Banjo and Kazooie, as well as the modern-day Donkey Kong that we all know and love. The original world designer from Banjo-Kazooie Steven Hurst is on board too.
Even the voices of both characters, Chris Sutherland, is in on the project (contributing to programming in the process) and fan-favourite composer Grant Kirkhope - who you can thank for all the music in Banjos Kazooie and Tooie - is providing the score alongside David Wise.
Of course this wouldn't be a true spiritual successor if it wasn’t being fronted by the original creators, and although this is a completely new game in appearance and name, they’ve stated that they want to emulate the feel of the original N64 games as much as possible; going back to what made the original franchise so much fun.