Playtonic Games, the developers of Yooka-Laylee have delved into plans for what they have planned for the upcoming game and it seems they intend to take gamers on a sweet ride through memory lane.
Yooka-Laylee is an action-adventure platforming title that will be released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux,PlayStation 4, Wii U and Xbox One with an expected release window of early 2017.
“We want to capture the good things about collect-athons from the past and avoid the tedium. Every collectible has meaningful impact on gameplay. For example, quills can be used to pay for special moves, butterflies refill the health and power meters, and Pagies unlock new areas and environments, which in turn open up fresh challenges and secrets,” writer Andy Robinson explained.
Furthermore, the crew at Playtonic Games had interesting things to say when it came to the members of the eclectic cast of characters.
“We wanted the characters to live on beyond just this game so that we can build our own universe,” Andy Robinson stated. “So when we designed them, we thought about whether they could be in a different genre, or star in their own game.”
“Big baddie Capital B was fun to write — we gave him a lot of business-style taunts, like ‘Just you wait until Q4 of the game! Did you know world-on-world, you’re down on your forecasts?’ My background is in the media, so I’ve spent so much time sat in conference calls, listening to all of this stuff!”
“Gavin [Price, Creative Lead] suggested a snake in shorts, and I thought that sounded ridiculous. But after going away to think about it and coming up with a concept, it worked really well,” Steve explained with a smile.
“We thought that the humor behind Trowzer was really subtle…” said Andy.
“I thought it was terrible!” said Steve with a chuckle.
“I think Steve was one of the guys who didn’t get the joke the first time around, half the team didn’t until afterwards!” Andy mocked.
“We want to create a family game for everyone, but get in fun jokes for an older audience — like in The Simpsons or Pixar films.”
“It would be easy for us to just go into autopilot when making the game, so we’re very conscious about that,” said Grant. “That said, there’s not much out there that looks like Yooka-Laylee right now, which is weird because back in the ’90s there were tons of 3D platformers.”
“And anyone can do nice graphics these days because the technology is there,” Steve said.
“You really need something to stand out,” Steve added. “We’ve played many games recently where you feel exhausted when you finished them because it wasn’t as enjoyable an experience as you wanted. But every time you pick up the controller for Yooka Laylee we just want you to have a good time.”
“It’s been amazing to have the support of Sony and be on magazine covers… the whole process has been pretty wild, especially for such a small team,” said Andy.
“And we’ll never forget the backers who essentially started Playtonic off,” said Steve. “We’ll be forever grateful to those people. It’s been wonderful.”
If that long narrative doesn’t make you look forward to the game, then maybe this demo will…
