Yooka-Laylee, previously known as Project Ukulele, has just seen it’s Kickstarter kick off. The creative talent behind Banjo-Kazooie’s new project is already a huge success!
Yooka-Laylee is a the spiritual successor to games like Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. When Microsoft bought Rare in 2002, something weird happened and the Rare that we knew from Nintendo-consoles (the earlier named Banjo-series and the Donkey Kong-series) was no more. They tried a bit more with releasing Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts (which shouldn’t be as bad as the internet makes us believe!) but eventually ended up churning out Kinect Sports and Kinect Sports 2. In my eyes, they were not even the name worthy.
A few guys from the original Rare-team broke from Rare and started their own company named Playtonic Games. And they are here with their very first project, which, at the time of writing, got uploaded on Kickstarter 12 minutes ago. The crazy thing? I’ve been looking at the counter and in 4 minutes, the amount of money pledged has risen with at least £30,000!
It looks like, sounds like and seems to play like a reboot of the Banjo-Kazooie-series, just with a new skin. Is this a good thing? It’ll show in the eventually. For now, I’m a bit sceptic as they seem to aim too much on the group that has played Banjo-Kazooie before (it really looks like a reskin, the characters even have the same abilities) and not too much on the “let’s revolutionise the platform genre”.
If you want to back, you have the following options:
£5 or more: A special thanks in the credits
£10 or more: Steam digital edition
£15 or more: Console digital edition
£20 or more: Steam or console digital edition + PC Toybox (pre-release Toybox PC Demo)
£30 or more: Digital Deluxe Edition (digital game, soundtrack, retro manual + art book)
£35 or more: Digital Deluxe + Enhanced PC Toybox+
£55 or more: Exclusive insert coin T-shirt + digital deluxe edition + Enhanced Toybox+
£70 or more: PC Boxed Deluxe Edition (see £30-tier)
£90 or more: Exclusive Insert Coin T-shirt + PC Boxed Deluxe Edition
£170 or more: Signed Playtonic Team PC Boxed Deluxe Edition
£340 or more: Signed Exclusive Character parade poster + PC Boxed Deluxe Edition
£340 or more: Retro Box, N64 Cart Drive, Signed Manual
£675 or more: Help shape the game
£3,376 or more: Be in the game
£5,000 or more: VIP Guest attendance at a live orchestra concert in Germany
Here’s the Kickstarter, go pledge!
Some screenshots, artwork and music
Jungle World
Jungle Challenge