A year ago this project was dead. It "all fell to bits, everyone’s got other jobs", according to composer Grant Kirkhope. But in the last few months the Twitter accounts of both Kirkhope and the project itself sprang to life with cryptic hints and tweets. Today, the account is now known as @PlaytonicGames, a new indie studio composed of former Rare devs and the core team of Banjo-Kazooie and other platformer collect-a-thons of the day (the GoldenEye and Perfect Dark team has since moved on to form Free Radical Design and more recently Crytek. Another bunch of former Rare devs, led by the Stamper bros., have since formed FortuneFish - a mobile games developer) In two days, their first game is set to be revealed in Edge magazine. All we know is that it is a platformer, a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie/Donkey Kong 64/Banjo-Tooie, presumably Kirkhope is doing the music due to his constant hinting, and that the game has funding but they are looking for a publisher - ideally Nintendo. Their mission statement is to create "the video game stars of the future that are inspired by [their] past." We'll know more in a few days, but right now I am excited. This has been a done genre, and now we're getting both A Hat in Time and this mystery game!? Is the 3D adventure platformer collect-a-thon due for a rebirth? Or are these just a couple short nods to the past? I have long hoped that since Microsoft's Rare is an empty shell, that Nintendo could scoop up the haphazardly scattered core developers of yesterday year and form a Western-centric team, and buy back the Banjo license lol Well, we're part of the way there now.
1.) I'm very excited. 2.) I don't understand why the 3D collect-a-thon genre disappeared. It's one of my favourite genres and, in recent years, in order for me to play games of this genre I had to resort to playing my N64. They just don't make these games anymore. But for me, there's no better genre that capitalizes on the sense of exploration.
We now know the composers for the game. Three former Rare composers! Grant Kirkhope: GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie series, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Viva Piñata series David Wise: Rare's NES output, Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country series, Star Fox Adventures, Tengami Steve Burke: Kameo: Elements of Power; also contributed to Kirkhope and Wise on Viva Piñata and Star Fox Adventures Best video game sound track ever confirmed? Also, Chris Sutherland will be doing "voice" work (aka, mumbly gibberish) like he did on Banjo-Kazooie
Is this game only being made by 7-8 people? Even though they're all fantastic, that's a little alarming. All of the games you listed above are amazing but they had a staff of dozens of people. If 7-8 people are making this game, I have a feeling it'll be very short.
The true title for Ukulele has been revealed!! Aaaand... it's called... That Lithograph font and double hyphens yessss right in the Banjo-Kazooie nostalgia bone. I'm taking off points though because they didn't use the Comicrazy font for the in-game text. Music sounds good. Looks good too, although a little bit too stylized like Nuts & Bolts. The Kickstarter only launched today but they already hit their goal. Once they meet the Wii U Day One stretch goal, I think I'll contribute I really like what I've seen so far. And super pleased with the stretch goals that have been met so far - like a quiz game showdown and mine cart levels. I'm am so looking forward to this
It looks sooooooo good, but...isn't this like, borderline litigious/copyright infringement? I mean, it's more than just a homage to Banjo-Kazooie, it's basically is Banjo-Kazooie, right down to the logo font/design. I know it's by the people that actually created Banjo, but they don't own that game anymore - Rare, and by extension, Microsoft, own it, so I'm just wondering how they're getting away with such blatant copying.
It's not exactly like MS has been doing anything with that look/feel in the last decade. I don't think this is enough to legally be copyright infringement. Just blocky 3D font, two animal partners, and a dead genre? Wouldn't be worth going after imo. Any complaints like that could be easily fixed by... I guess just tightening up the designs a bit more and setting their game apart, which I'm sure will probably happen anyway over the course of their £1M development lol. (Although yeah, that logo is very much "they didn't even try to pretend this wasn't reskinned BK" lol.) Anyway I have zero interest in this game because this is probably my worst genre ability-wise but it's exciting seeing the rest of the internet so hyped up about it! That said, I'm kind of getting a Broken Age feel from this. I think they're gonna end up with so much money that they're gonna overshoot a little and either not actually have enough for their new goals or the wait will be a lot longer than promised... if not both. But we'll see!
I know it has a bit of a bad rap lately, but I think it's appropriate to source the Mighty No. 9 situation where Inafune said the following: "If you really do look at something that a lot of people really don't realize, that character – Beck – may look similar to Mega-Man at a precursory glance, but it's because I created it. Artists have their own style and they get comfortable in that style, so the things they make look very similar. Picasso paintings look like Picasso paintings, so that's my style – I can't help it, that can't be changed, it is what it is." I suppose that's true here because it looks so much like Nuts & Bolts and not the official art from the N64 era (unfortunately). I guess that's just where his personal art style is at right now. The art style is perhaps excusable, but it is Microsoft so I would not be surprised if they challenged them. Kirkhope sounds like Kirkhope, so what'cha going to do? Rare certainly doesn't own the 3D platformer genre. I think they may have a problem with 1) The blatant knock-off of a logo, and 2) the dual-character mechanics. That's clearly Banjo. I really thought they were going to go with more of a DK64 multiple distinct characters set-up. We'll see what happens. Some of my favourite tweets so far on all this: @PlaytonicGames: Seriously guys, we're running out of stretch goals... @Emi1yRogers: "I thought we moved on from 3D collectathons" Yes your industry made progress over the last 5 years: 8-bit indie platformers, more shooters @grantkirkhope: All those years telling people that this kind of game was wanted and being told that I was wrong ...... fuck'em all!
With this scheduled for a release later this year, is everyone still looking forward to Yooka-Laylee? Or has your hype died down a bit?
My hype has not died down at all. I'm still very much looking forward to it. They showed off more art, assets, and screenshots lately. It just looks like they're doing everything right. The artwork scenes even echo the old N64 artwork lol
