Former Rare Developers' Playtonic Games Show More Of Project Ukelele

Playtonic Games, a recently formed team of former Rare developers, is still being vague about its Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor, but there are new images, and a Kickstarter is planned.

As part of its presentation at EGX Rezzed, Playtonic showcased its design philosophy for what the still codenamed Project Ukelele will be, and shared a few images of the game, which you can see above and below. Playtonic also announced the game will be supported with a Kickstarter, which launches in May.

And the big news: our ambitions for Project Ukulele are bigger than ever, and to make them come true we're launching a Kickstarter in May!

— Playtonic Games (@PlaytonicGames) March 14, 2015

Some other confirmed details about the game include that it will be a 3D platformer and it will appeal to fans of Banjo-Kazooie in terms of humor and target audience – don't expect mature content like that of Conker's Bad Fur Day. The game is being built with Unity and during a Q&A session, Playtonic said it considers Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie to be proof of protoypes for its new game. The studio says it is building the game for PC, but would love to bring it to whatever platforms the fans want, but that will be dictated by the Kickstarter.

They purposefully did not show off the protagonist characters (you can see their eyeballs here) because showing them would reveal gameplay mechanics, which they are not ready to share yet. Apparently the characters may have been hidden somewhere in the presentation, however, because this tweet does offer an ambiguous hint.

And for everyone asking why we didn't introduce our new heroes today - we did. Didn't you see them?

— Playtonic Games (@PlaytonicGames) March 14, 2015

The team expressed interest in Skylanders and Amiibo-like toy compatibility, but it was far from an announcement or a hint – just an appreciation for the figures and their gameplay implications. Finally, Playtonic confirmed that Grant Kirkhope, composer on both Banjoe-Kazooie games, is involved with Project Ukelele, something Kirkhope reconfirmed with a tweet himself.

People keep asking, I am definitely doing the music for @PlaytonicGames be already hit a tune half written and yes it has marimba in it!!!

— Grant Kirkhope (@grantkirkhope) March 14, 2015

Finally, it didn't have anything to do with Project Ukelele, but the team discussed the importance of collectibles and commiserated about the the over-abundance of them in Donkey Kong 64 – a game many of the team members worked on and shared how difficult it was to test. They finished out their presentation saying that collectibles need to mean something.

You told us you want stunning worlds, quirky characters and to be able to play on your favourite platform. Together we can make that happen!

— Playtonic Games (@PlaytonicGames) March 14, 2015

The presentation was live streamed through Twitch and you can find an archive of it here. For more on Playtonic, head here and here.

[Source: @PlaytonicGames]

Our Take
3D, collectible-driven platformers are few and far between. Can't wait to learn more about the game in May.