Yooka-Laylee: Spiritual successor of Banjo-Kazooie finally on the way!

[Rueckkoppler]

Hey guys!

I guess a lot of you played good old Rareware classics like Banjo Kazooie or Conkers Bad Fur Day. And I guess some of you are missing these kind of games for a long time, especially since Microsoft turned Rare to Kinect-only-studio. In 2012, a team of former Rare employees announced a new project on Twitter called "MingyJongo", which should've led to a spiritual successor of Banjo-Tooie. But that didn't work out... while in the meantime, independent projects like A Hat in Time and Lobodestroyo started out on Kickstarter with the goal to recapture the magic of Rareware... which gets me already excited.

But a few weeks ago, MingyJongo got "reactivated" and turned into Playtonic Games! This is not only a name, but a newly-funded company, which consist of six former Rare-employees (and tries to gain even more of them). This time, they'll do the spiritual "Banjo-Threeie" for sure! On the homepage, you can already see a little teaser of this upcoming "Project Ukulele":

As you can see, we'll get introduced to a new duo in this game, since the IP's still at Rare (and will probably rot there for some more years to come). But more important is the fact that this game gets developed by all the talents that made the great classics, like composer Grant Kirkhope, who made the soundtrack to Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie & DK64! This game will be released on Steam Early Access first, and then on other platforms... probably also the Wii U. That means: Rare is kinda coming back to Nintendo! Additionally, they said in the Edge Magazine, that they're trying to pursue with other genres once they finish this project. All they need at this stage is more support & probably buzz to make this thing big! So you'd better be following them on Facebook or Twitter!

Are you excited?

---

News-roundup:

14th of March 2015: Kickstarter campaign in May, 2 new screenshots & further details
16th of February 2015: Grant Kirkhope, David Wise and Steve Burke confirmed as composers
9th of February 2015: Playtonic Games & Project Ukulele revealed, homepage launched

 

[gmBottles]

Grant Kirkhope will be on it? Well, I'm already excited to hear the music. But this sounds super hype, I'll definitely be getting it!

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Yep, but he's kind of like a freelancer (since he moved to the US some time ago & Playtonic seems to be based in the UK). They even funded the project already, so that they'd only need a publisher if they aim for retail releases (or professional marketing). I have a really good feeling about this!

 

[ShinyRegice]

Never played Banjo-Kazooie or Banjo-Tooie (which is ironic considering I grew up with the Nintendo 64), but I love 3D platformers and Rare's Donkey Kong games are among the most important games of my childhood, so I'm definitely hyped!

I really, really hope it's going to be released on the Wii U!

Project Ukulele protagonists for Smash 4 DLC pls

 

[Heroine of Winds]

Ever since I've heard of this news, I got super hyped for it. You don't know how much I wanted this to happen. Banjo Kazooie was one of many IP's I've missed after that godawful game Nuts 'n Bolts, so seeing a spiritual successor to this is definitely something I'm looking forward to.

 

[BKTang']

It would be so awesome to see a Banjo Kazooie successor!
Banjo Kazooie is easily one of my favorite games, unfortunately I don't own Banjo Tooie but I've played it and it's even better!! I'm hyped, and if it's released on WiiU I'm more hyped

 

[Modular Zeal]

YES!!! I was waiting for someone to make a thread for this for me to follow. I think I speak for every Banjo/Conker fan, LETS GET HYPED!!
But yea something was wondering if they said they may want to make it a Wii U only game do you think it might be presented at this years E3?

 

[Rueckkoppler]

It would be so awesome to see a Banjo Kazooie successor!
Banjo Kazooie is easily one of my favorite games, unfortunately I don't own Banjo Tooie but I've played it and it's even better!! I'm hyped, and if it's released on WiiU I'm more hyped

Don't forget, you won't see any characters from the BK game, since Microsoft owns the rights to the franchise... But it will be a true successor in terms of gameplay and the overall style. Even better, they said in the EDGE magazine they they'll incorporate a lot of ideas that they had since Banjo-Tooie came out - ideas that were originally ment for Banjo-Threeie!

 

[Krackshot Kroc]

Probably the best gaming news I've heard in years, Banjo-Tooie is still my favorite 3-D platformer

 

[Rueckkoppler]

YES!!! I was waiting for someone to make a thread for this for me to follow. I think I speak for every Banjo/Conker fan, LETS GET HYPED!!
But yea something was wondering if they said they may want to make it a Wii U only game do you think it might be presented at this years E3?

I don't think they'll have anything they could showcase there this year. Besides, it's kind of an indie game with a small team - in opposite to those big AAA titles that get developed by several hundred people. So we can only hope to see it there. I guess it won't be a Wii U exclusive either, since they announced to release it on several platforms and Steam Early Access. It would fit though, but I find it reasonable to include the biggest audience possible to check out whether such a game works nowadays at all. After all, this isn't the 90s (sadly)...

 

[Ura]

Was this game cancelled? I think I saw it somewhere that it did but I could be wrong.

 

[wingedarcher7]

Looks like we got our first dose of concept art for this game:

Not too sure how I feel about how those characters look, to be totally honest. They look like something out of Skylanders to me.

 

[gmBottles]

Looks like we got our first dose of concept art for this game:

Not too sure how I feel about how those characters look, to be totally honest. They look like something out of Skylanders to me.

I think its pretty badass. Definitely excited now.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

Looks like we got our first dose of concept art for this game:

Not too sure how I feel about how those characters look, to be totally honest. They look like something out of Skylanders to me.

They do look like something straight from Skylanders, but they honestly don't look all that bad to me.

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Yep, I like the setting! Reminds me of Ray... let's forget that name for now The revealed creatures look fine, but I hope they'll be going for more "googly-eyed", anthropomorphic animal-like characters, like in B-K, B-T or CBFD...

At least they're honoring the googly eyes on Twitter, ha!

We have a winner for our 1000th signup, preparing Chewits… You can signup here http://t.co/9G9qgoKZxs pic.twitter.com/niU7UjB7C1

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 13, 2015

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By the way, they had several "auditions" for possible composers last week:

David Wise (Donkey Kong Country 1 - 3 & Tropical Freeze):

Composer interview day.Candidate 1 (in black, can anyone remember his name?) was so excited he DEMANDED a team pic pic.twitter.com/zNOV4OEn4p

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 13, 2015

Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie Franchise, Golden Eye, DK64):

Second composer candidate. Didn’t turn up. Instead blared music down the phone until we begged him to stop. Grant Kirkinghope, or something?

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 13, 2015

and Steve Burke (Kameo, Viva Pinata, B-K: Nuts & Bolts):

Third candidate. Brought biscuits and let us eat them off of his AIAS nomination. @SteveBurkeMusic, you're signed!

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 13, 2015

This week, we should get the results. And I bet it's all three of them - with Kirkhope "hopefully" on the top of priorities

 

[Heroine of Winds]

They better bring Grant Kirkhope back. I always loved his music. Same goes for David Wise.

 

[dezeray112]

Well, this will be very interesting. I hope this new team can recapture the essence of the old Rare from the good old days.

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Okay, now they introduced Playtonic’s Omnipotent Options Processor:

and inserted all three composer names, "POOPing the question":

What's next? Maybe it's really just one of the three?

 

[Grass]

I just saw David Wise and now I am super hyped. That man is a composition genius.

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Well, call yourself happy!

It's all three! That means: The epicness of David Wise, the magical and quirky tunes of Grant Kirkhope and... well, Steve Burke!

Since Playtonic’s official “coming out” last week , there’s been a brass band-load of speculation around who will weave musical fabric for our debut game – and pretty much all of it was accurate.

To be fair, that’s mostly thanks to our own relentless teasing on social media (oh, we do love a tease), which in particular caused the messiah-like Twitter status of a certain former-Rare composer to come crashing down on our doors, like a violent mob demanding steel drum melodies and catchy A cappella tunes.

But you can put down your shovels now, because today we can officially confirm that one Grant Kirkhope, legendary composer of Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Piñata and more, has agreed to make music for our first game. And what’s more, he’s agreed to do it for a regular wage of Yorkshire Teabags, which we’ll ship directly to his bleak, Tetley-free sound suite in rainy California (we may have hidden this detail in the small print).

But wait, there’s more! As charitable types, we don’t like to see any of our former noise makers go without work, and so we’ve managed to convince David Wise, equally legendary composer of 20-years-worth of Rare games including the Donkey Kong Country series, to contribute tunage to our first game. And all for a bumper box of Werther’s Originals.

Pulling it all together is the esteemed sound man Steve Burke, best known for his magical score for Kameo: Elements of Power and all manner of sound effects , voices and fart noises for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts ‘n Bolts. Sadly, Steve insists on being paid in real currency.

Phew. How’s that for an announcement? For all you Tweeters, you can follow Playtonic’s music men at @grantkirkhope, @ David_Wise and @SteveBurkeMusic. Tell ‘em we sent you, but don’t mention the minimum wage.

http://news.playtonicgames.com/they-are-the-music-men/

I'm truly getting more and more excited. As Jon Tron would've said: The Beatles of video games got finally reunited!

 

[wingedarcher7]

Ooh, the music definitely sounds like it could turn out to be great, then! They look like they're having a lot of fun announcing this game, so I'm excited to see what they're working on that they're so passionate about.

 

[TimeSmash]

If you're not excited for this game, go back and be born in the 90's. If you were born in the 90's check yourself

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Hah, funny thing: After my last post, in which I quoted JonTron, I poked him on Twitter about Project Ukulele. For the ones who don't know him: Check out the linked video on my previous post. He's like one of the biggest B-K fans, worked at Game Grumps & had Grant Kirkhope as a special guest. His most popular video must be his rost of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (that's the linked video). So I was curious about his reaction and what happened afterwards was this:

@JonTronShow @grantkirkhope thanks for the call out! You should voice a character for us!

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 16, 2015

(Jon Tron will be already voicing a character in A Hat in Time, FYI)

@JonTronShow @grantkirkhope get practising your gobbledygook BK style! A microphone with googly eyes on will be coming your way!

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 16, 2015

After the disaster the Microsoft years brought us, this sounds truly like a happy end for both the fanbase and the creators!

 

[Drakester234]

David Wise + Grant Kirkhope = Sex

 

[ZeroToDeath]

Huh, Jontron is getting in on this? Not surprising, but, wow. What an age we live in.

 

[gmBottles]

JonTron is in it. Hype just keeps building up, I can't handle it.

 

[ansossy]

Holy **** I am damn well excited having played the 2 original games and the usually forgotten Banjo Kazooie Grunty's Revenge I cannot wait to see where this will go. I heard it about it the hour it was announced and so far it does look interesting. Although I'm not going to lie I enjoyed Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts very much as it did have innovation and creativity involved in it and I made really awesome replicas of Stealth Jets in Nuts & Bolts.

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Today, Twitter followers were appealed for sending in their own questions for POOP to answer:

It's time… to POOP the question! Any burning questions (on any topic) you want answered? Tweet them with #ASKPOOP... pic.twitter.com/28V35pUhsf

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 19, 2015

There's been some quite amusing & interesting questions so far:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

There was a problem fetching the tweet

@PlaytonicGames #ASKPOOP Will Project Ukelele be a realistic FPS game? How do you expect it to sell with fun characters and imagination?!

— The Flying Dustman (@AmazingDJDustin) February 19, 2015

On a scale from 1 to Grant Kirkhope, how awesome will Project Ukulele be? #ASKPOOP

— Mia Serena (@GBASPGamer) February 19, 2015

Will we see a evil robot shaman in this game as a nod to the original twitter account? Will he be named jingy mongo? #askpoop

— pedro gonzalez (@pgcrooner) February 19, 2015

@PlaytonicGames Will the game release in retail form and on Wii U? Yes or yes? #ASKPOOP

— Juan M. Perona (@JM_Perona) February 19, 2015

And me as well :

@PlaytonicGames Is voice mumbling returning in Project Ukulele? If yes: Will you assure that it sounds very silly again? #ASKPOOP

— Rueckkoppler (@Rueckkoppler) February 19, 2015

Anyhow, they seem to be quite content with these questions and will answer three of them tomorrow:

What a wonderful selection of questions! Our perspicacious panel of POOP pickers will choose the top three queries to be submitted tomorrow!

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 19, 2015

Update: Okay, all answers were basically jokes. No real news at this point!

Update #2: On March 14th, Playtonic is going to hold a 30 minute developer session at the EGX event in London. They will showcase their vision for Project: Ukulele, "discuss the creation of the studio" and "even drop a few cheeky details on [their] first game". So more hot news in a little more than two weeks!

In small news: They received the first demo / track by Grant Kirkhope!

What a start to the day! Woke up to find a .mp3 from @grantkirkhope in our inbox!!!! Tune Get!!!!

— Playtonic - Wishlist ELSIE! (@PlaytonicGames) February 26, 2015

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Hot news from EGX, where the current core members of Playtonic Games held a roundtable. First of all: They showed two new artworks of the game. The first one should be a certain level:

... and the second one is a part of the overworld - which should feel like an own game already, due to its size:

They didn't reveal the main characters, but explained a lot of details about the game as a whole. They will involve a huge amount of fan feedback in their development and include many elements that were present in Banjo-Kazooie & -Tooie: Like many (but not too many, like in DK64) collectables with a definite purpose, a huge amount of learnable special moves, voice mumbling, googly eyes & of course the typical humor of these games - which will include some hidden, towards adults targeted jokes (but won't be as explicit as CBFD).

Also, they explained how they wanted to expand the scope of the game even further - which will happen through the help of a Kickstarter campaign, which will launch in May. Concerning the fan feedback, they opened an own forum, where they want to collect fan ideas for the game itself and, for example, the rewards for the Kickstarter campaign. And what they mentioned when they wanted to deliver some examples were... AMIIBOS!

Yes, they really want to bring it to the Wii U as well. Not even that: The team would try to realize a multiplatform-day-1-release, if demanded!

Here's another beautiful quote from the Q&A, which concluded the developers roundtable:

And out of about 500 emails we receive every week, probably about 499 of them are shouting Wii U! Wii U! As a games fan, I’ve been a Nintendo fanboy since the NES days. Most of are fans are Nintendo fans as well. So while we can’t confirm what platforms we will be on – some of that is beyond our control – but we are developing on Unity and we don’t want to leave anyone out. And we’d try to ship simultaneously to make the biggest splash possible when the game comes out.

Watch the full presentation here.

 

[ShinyRegice]

Yes, they really want to bring it to the Wii U as well. Not even that: The team would try to realize a multiplatform-day-1-release, if demanded!

YES! YES! I'm so hyped to learn this! The two artworks look very cool with a cartoony but well detailed art style. Hopefully the final game will look as good as this... one minor complain is the rock texture on floating islands that could have been better, but that's not a big deal.

I'm also really curious to see how amiibo interaction could work in this game if they want to use the feature. While this game will probably be multiplat, amiibos could be a cool way to reward those who purchase the game on Wii U over another platform. Though I'd like for amiibos to not have much impact on the gameplay, but rather have an easter egg value before anything else. For example, suppose you tap the Diddy Kong amiibo (a Rare-created character, btw); if you're in the level he's supposed to be hidden in, then you will get a message that a guest appeared somewhere, and if you seek, you will eventually find Diddy Kong and have a special conversation with him. And maybe he could give you some bonus collectible as well, but nothing necessary to beat the game. This would be a good way to use amiibos, it would add value to the game's core gameplay and would make sense as amiibo-locked (contrary to something with apparently no justification to be amiibo-locked like, say, Spinner in Hyrule Warriors -_-) The only problem I see is licensing issues, as they'll need to get the rights to use Nintendo characters as special guests, but I guess those rights will be easier to get if they have to be unlocked through amiibos.

Oh, and btw, I found on Playtonic's forum a pic showing hidden characters:

I can see an eye in the red circle, but not much else. And under it, I can see a green face with a big eye and smile. Don't try to find them in the post above, it has the same pic but without those hidden characters.

 

[ShinyRegice]

@PedroDarkinson I think it would be cool if Banjo was in the next SSB DLC. We've worked with Nintendo on Rare IP before, no issues.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) April 3, 2015

> Phil Spencer wants BK in Smash 4 as DLC
> SSB4 DLC characters are going to get their amiibo if Mewtwo and Lucas are any indication
> Project Ukulele developers are interested in amiibo use
> Project Ukulele developers are previous Rare employees when the company worked for Nintendo

Ahah, can't wait to see how the Banjo & Kazooie amiibo will be used in Project Ukulele! It could be awesome for example if tapping it on the Gamepad unlocked a special cameo.

Well, if it happens, of course. There are going to be some licensing issues between Nintendo and Microsoft anyway.

Edit: sorry for double post, but I think it was worth the bump.

 

[Rueckkoppler]

There's one little problem: There won't be any Banjo-Kazooie stuff in Project:Ukulele, since they don't own the rights. But one of devs said that they're open to include a cameo for a possible XBOX One version - so that the new heroes meet B-K & have to get a jiggy for them, in order to get a pagie (new main collectable). Banjo-Kazooie amiibo will be of course possible once they get in Smash!

But overall, I guess we could say that this is an amazing year so far for Banjo-Kazooie fans!

edit: Oh, didn't see your first post. Yes, I think it's going to be Lizard-like. We only have a couple of weeks left till we know: The Kickstarter is right around the corner!

 

[ShinyRegice]

There's one little problem: There won't be any Banjo-Kazooie stuff in Project:Ukulele, since they don't own the rights. But one of devs said that they're open to include a cameo for a possible XBOX One version - so that the new heroes meet B-K & have to get a jiggy for them, in order to get a pagie (new main collectable). Banjo-Kazooie amiibo will be of course possible once they get in Smash!

But overall, I guess we could say that this is an amazing year so far for Banjo-Kazooie fans!

edit: Oh, didn't see your first post. Yes, I think it's going to be Lizard-like. We only have a couple of weeks left till we know: The Kickstarter is right around the corner!

Yes you're right, the Banjo-Kazooie cameo using a Banjo-Kazooie amiibo was mostly wishful thinking, but I think if the Wii U version of PU has amiibo support and a BK amiibo actually releases then it really should have a use in this game. Maybe a BK costume for the protagonists? I guess there may still be licensing issues, but a mere costume would probably cost much less royalties than a fully-fledged cameo. And if they can't even get that, then the amiibo could instead be used to unlock something completely unrelated to them instead. I'm generally against amiibo-locked content that feels like it should have been available for everyone in the first place (like, as mentioned in one of my previous posts, Hyrule Warrior's Spinner), but releasing a BK amiibo not usable with an amiibo-supporting game made by former Rare employees would be beyond stupid imo.

Spoiler

Well, unless maybe if they have to pay insane royalties to Microsoft to be compatible with the BK amiibo no matter what it unlocks haha.

 

[TimeSmash]

Yes you're right, the Banjo-Kazooie cameo using a Banjo-Kazooie amiibo was mostly wishful thinking, but I think if the Wii U version of PU has amiibo support and a BK amiibo actually releases then it really should have a use in this game. Maybe a BK costume for the protagonists? I guess there may still be licensing issues, but a mere costume would probably cost much less royalties than a fully-fledged cameo. And if they can't even get that, then the amiibo could instead be used to unlock something completely unrelated to them instead. I'm generally against amiibo-locked content that feels like it should have been available for everyone in the first place (like, as mentioned in one of my previous posts, Hyrule Warrior's Spinner), but releasing a BK amiibo not usable with an amiibo-supporting game made by former Rare employees would be beyond stupid imo.

Spoiler

Well, unless maybe if they have to pay insane royalties to Microsoft to be compatible with the BK amiibo no matter what it unlocks haha.

This hat that you unlocked costs 500 dollars in royalties for every game copy. Please understand

 

[Rueckkoppler]

Kickstarter campaign & bigger reveals on May 1st!

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