By Andrew Dodson on May 1, 2015 at 6:14pm
The Kickstarter for "Yooka-Laylee" launched today, a game that is being heralded as the spiritual successor to the Nintendo 64 classic "Banjo-Kazooie." The developer, Playtonic Games, is filled with a lot of creative talent that worked on "Banjo-Kazooie" as well some "Donkey Kong" titles. The Kickstarter for this new title is asking $270,041 to actually make the game.
It reached that goal in less than an hour. As of the writing of this article, it has received $1,099,673 in support from backers.
So, needless to say, people are excited.
The game seems to be following the same winning formula as "Banjo-Kazooie." There are two different animals, Yooka (the lizard) and Laylee (the bat), and they rely on one another's abilities to defeat enemies, collect collectibles and get through colorful levels. Here is some gameplay footage:
Like in Banjo-Kazooie, you can see the duo use their own abilities to assist the other, or they use their abilities as a pair for a more specific effect. New to "Yooka-Laylee" will be "Play Tonics," which are described as in-game modifiers that the player can discover that will give the character little boosts, such as increased speed or more powerful attacks.
What really triggered my nostalgia while watching that gameplay was the music. Playtonic Games has assembled a fantastic group of composers to this project, including Grant Kirkhope (Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie), David Wise (Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong Racing) and sound effects guru Steve Burke (Banjo-Kazooie, Kameo: Elements of Power). It's a good team that is going to breathe a lot of musical life into the game.
The Kickstarter for "Yooka-Laylee" will end on June 16th of this year. A £10 contribution gets you a Steam copy of the game and a £15 contribution gets you a digital copy that you can download to the console of your choice. The game is due for release in October of 2016.
Kickstarter
