If Rare won’t make a new 3D platformer, the folks at Playtonic Games are happy to. Players seem eager to help out, as Yooka-Laylee has already blown past its original goal of $US270,000.
Right now, Yooka-Laylee’s sitting at $US354,000, but it’s likely to be past that when you read this.
Up, up, up… clearly, Yooka-Laylee is going to blow well past its desired number. It won’t be a surprise to see this one settle for one or two million dollars, when it’s all said and done.
Here’s the pitch from some of the former Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country creatives:
In case you don’t have time to watch the video itself:
Yooka-Laylee is an all-new 3D platformer from the creative talent behind the Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country games. We’ve come together to form Playtonic Games and create a spiritual successor to our most cherished work from the past!
Our new heroes, Yooka (the green bloke with no pants) and Laylee (the wisecracking lady-bat with the big nose) were conceptualised from the ground up for stellar platforming gameplay, created by the same character artist behind the rebooted Donkey Kong family and legendary N64 heroes Banjo and Kazooie.
Using an arsenal of special moves like Yooka’s tongue grapple and Laylee’s tactical sonar blast, players will explore — and expand — gorgeous 3D worlds drawn up by esteemed environment artist Steven Hurst (Banjo-Kazooie series, Viva Pinata) and through skill discover the plethora of delicious collectibles hidden within.
The characters look a little boring, but maybe they will grow on me. I spent way too many hours with the Banjo-Kazooie games as a kid, and I’d certainly invite a chance to revisit that magic.
Comments
18 responses to “Banjo Kazooie Spiritual Successor Hits Kickstarter, Immediately Funded”
They’ve very nearly gotten over a MILLION more dollars than they asked for. In fact, by the time you read this, it will probably by beyond even that.
I’ve pledged £10 for the Steam copy. I’ve avoided backing Kickstarters and the like in the past since they always seem to go wrong in some fashion, but these guys deserve the benefit of the doubt in my opinion. And since it seems obvious at this point that a real, proper B-K sequel will never get made (not with Microsoft calling the shots), this is about as close as we’ll ever get to Banjo-Threeie.
If I’ve learnt one thing in my life, it is don’t back video games on kickstarter.
It IS risky, sure, but it’s not all bad. You get your Code Heroes and your Haunts: The Manse Macabres, you get your Planetary Annihilation and your Mighty No. 9s, but you also get your Pillars of Eternities and your Shadowrun Returns.
Think of it like a form of gambling! 😀
Anyway, despite that, I think I will put some eggs in this basket. I don’t particularly like the designs, but I have no doubt the game itself will be fun. BK and DK64 were great!
What went wrong with planetary annihilation?
(for the record, CH cut the money and ran, Haunts got the money but couldn’t make the game, PA and M#9 were the mixed successes and the latter two were the outstanding successes)
Planetary Annihilation was pretty good from what I’ve played, but it never really got right to where I (and presumably a lot of people) were hoping, which was another SupCom.
I don’t think they ever implemented a second race or a campaign, but then I don’t remember if they ever offered that in the Kickstarter.
Whatever the case I think the end product shook the faith in the developers for a lot of people, as their next kickstarter failed. Kind of a shame, since the concept was very interesting, but at that point it didn’t feel like PA was finished yet.
I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to it (despite backing it), but why is M#9 counted only as a mixed success?
Well I’ve personally seen a lot of discontent about the final product when compared to Megaman, the whole community manager thing didn’t help (though really, that’s mostly unrelated to the final product). The game not being tight or fast enough, I dunno. The one video I’ve seen didn’t seem too Megamany. I’ve seen quiet a few posts about “having doubts” or even regretting backing, even while I research my comments in this reply.
Admittedly, I hang around a lot of places that prefer to discuss negatives over positives, and the “reviews” in the comments of Kotaku articles are pretty positive (I find we’re actually a pretty positive place, most of the time). So I dunno, mixed.
At the very least, the game actually got made, and the beta is pretty playable. They DID end up doing a second fundraising thing, which isn’t a great thing for a (especially successful) kickstarter to do but oh well.
The release date isn’t til September, so maybe saying it was mixed was jumping the gun a bit. Who knows how it’ll be on release?
Personally I loved Planetary Annihilation, feel that Uber delivered on everything that was promised in the Kickstarter and think people have been whiny little sh*ts because the game that they WANTED wasn’t the game that was OFFERED.
Just my 2c
Yeah, for a lot of people it could easily have been a case of not reading what they were getting and expecting something else entirely.
Maybe you were just backing the wrong games, all the ones I have backed have been released.
seconded – I’ve backed rather a lot of Kickstarters and I think only something like 1 in 10 of them has really collapsed (mostly due to the odd fraud or personal crisis that forced KS to change its accountability clauses since then – there have been cases of theft of funds with a couple, but even then the devs mostly try to get a couple of side projects going so they can keep working toward their original proposal, albeit with a bit of a delay they usually try to let their backers know about, and throwing them in as free bonuses for the higher pledgers)
Now this is the type of indie game I wanna see.
I mean, Jesus, it’s like they’re taunting Microsoft. “Buy Rare and then make us do Kinect games for the rest of our lives? THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE MISSING”
edit: those cheeky buggers: upon closer inspection, Yooka Laylee uses OH MY GOD I JUST GOT THE JOKE the same font as Banjo Kazooie – Lithograph. Very sneaky!
Yeah, I was confused about why it was Project Ukelele until I saw the actual reveal – they’re keeping the same font and musical instrument names just to mess with Micro$oft.
Aww the characters look adorable.
The first game ever that I will be backing. Pumped as, bru!
Hopefully this is developed faster than A hat in Time is. This has intrigued me!
I hope they’ve factored the stretch goals into their time estimate, October next year seems to be a little optimistic for something that’s only had a few months of preliminary work on it and wants to include a whole bunch of multiplayer stuff. Hopefully it works out though, I miss the days of B&K, Sly, Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank.