Longtime Rare developer officially joins Playtonic
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 7 Comments
Kevin Bayliss was at Rare for over 20 years. Now he’s with Playtonic, the developer behind Yooka-Laylee. It actually sounds like he’s been assisting the team for some time, but he’s joining them in an official capacity.
Bayliss was one of Rare’s first employees. As graphics director, he helped come up with characters for well-known titles such as Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Diddy Kong Racing, and Star Fox Adventures. Bayliss also worked with Shigeru Miyamoto to create the modern Donkey Kong and sidekick Diddy for Diddy Kong Country.
More: Kevin Bayliss, Playtonic
Yooka-Laylee to include off-TV play
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Genei Ibun Roku #FE is one game we just spoke about not having off-TV play. On the other side of the spectrum, however, Yooka-Laylee should support the feature.
Playtonic told one fan on Twitter last week:
@skatcat743 Yes, that's the plan!
— Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) December 3, 2015
Off-TV play is one of the Wii U’s better features, so it’s always nice when it can be included!
More: Playtonic, Team17, Yooka-Laylee
Video: “How Yooka-Laylee’s Team Do the Voice of a Bat”
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
IGN is continuing its coverage of Yooka-Laylee. In the latest video, Playtonic’s Gav Murphy talks voice acting. Check it out below.
More: Playtonic, Team17, Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee soundtrack sneak peek – World 1
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Videos, Wii U eShop | 5 Comments
IGN has posted a soundtrack sample from Yooka-Laylee, which you can listen to below. The music is from World 1.
Grant Kirkhope, the composer of Yooka-Laylee, also shared the following words:
“Erm…it’s only the first bit that sounds that way maybe, the rest of the music is skewed towards each area that it fades to like in the original Banjo-Kazooie, and I think that Caribbean feel that you’re hearing might be because I’m using the marimba for the main melody at the start. I used the marimba because it features so heavily in both the BK games.”
“Honestly I don’t mind what people hear when they listen as long as they like it! I think once people know what the different variations of the music were written for it’ll all fall into place (at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!).”
“I asked Gavin (Price) for a brief description of the different areas that I needed to write the variations for, but that was about it. Obviously Steve Mayles complains most of the time when it comes to the music – some things never change even after 17 years, I’m used to it by now.”
“I think any composer worth their salt can get a pretty good idea in their head before they even start writing music when they get a description of the thing they’re writing for. For example if someone says it’s a frozen ice mountain I’d be thinking about pizzicato strings, celeste and glockenspiel before I’d even written a note. Or if it was a lush green forest I’d be thinking about using nice warm winds like bassoons and clarinets. Writing music is all about using your imagination, the images tell the story but it’s the music that lets you know how to feel.”
More: Playtonic, Team17, Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee introduces new character Rextro Sixtyfourus
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 10 Comments
Playtonic has revealed a brand new character for Yooka-Laylee as part of a feature on IGN. Above is a look at Rextro Sixtyfourus, an old-school dinosaur character who acts as guardian of the arcade machines hidden on each level. Players will find at least one secret arcade game in each world, which provides a Pagie when completed.
Mark Stevenson, who previously worked on the Donkey Kong Country series, Donkey Kong 64, and Kameo, designed Rextro Sixtyfourus. Here’s what he had to say about the character:
“We decided on using a dinosaur pretty early on as this is a creature that naturally associates with a past era. Then I think mostly my inspiration came from work I’d done previously on characters for the Donkey Kong 64 game. From this work I knew the kind of forms we had to create due to low polygon counts, so this inspired the shapes used to create Rextro’s blocky feet and hands that are virtually cubes. All the polygons in Rexto have hard edges as well: this affects how the light shines on him meaning you can basically see all the polygon faces as individual facets.
“I wanted Rex to to feel like he captured the era of games from my early career which also included work on the Donkey Kong games on the Super Nintendo. Finally just to reinforce the retro aspect some more, I created a custom shader that creates a scanline effect on Rextro to make him look like he’s being viewed on an old school CRT TV.”
“He evolved quite naturally really, the only part of him that we really took some time to settle on was his accessory around his neck which started out as a red tie very much like Donkey Kong before we settled on a medallion made from one of the game’s Play Tokens to reference his crucially important task.”
Check out the video below for a look at Rextro Sixtyfourus.
More: Playtonic, top, Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee – new NPC revealed, new art
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Images, Wii U | 24 Comments
Playtonic posted a new Yooka-Laylee update on its website today. You can find it in its entirety here.
One of the notable excerpts from the update is a look at a new NPC, pictured above. Playtonic describes here as follows:
“One new character you may have spied in a recent issue of Edge is the slender lass below. Crayoned by our own Kev Bayliss, this yet-to-be-named NPC will require Yooka and Laylee’s assistance on the very first world of the game. Obviously she’s forgot to turn the iron off or something and they’ll need to go and get the spare keys off her landlord.”
Playtonic also unveiled a new piece of art at EGX last week, which was made by Dean Wilson. We’ve attached it below.
More: Playtonic, Yooka-Laylee
Super Mario Maker: Nintendo UK and Playtonic Games live stream recording
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 4 Comments
Nintendo UK and Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic Games just wrapped up a stream for Super Mario Maker. The full recording can be found below.
More: Playtonic, Super Mario Maker
Playtonic showing off their own Super Mario Maker courses on a live stream tomorrow
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 5 Comments
Tomorrow, Playtonic Games will be appearing on a live stream to show off some levels they’ve created for Super Mario Maker. Nintendo UK shared the news on its Twitter and Instagram accounts earlier today.
At 5pm on Thursday the 3rd of September, playtonicgames will join us to show off some courses they’ve… https://t.co/6YKcPSzlSC
— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) September 2, 2015
You can watch the live broadcast at the following times on the Nintendo UK Twitch page:
– 9 AM PT
– 12 PM ET
– 5 PM in the UK
– 6 PM in Europe
More: Playtonic, Super Mario Maker
Nintendo’s Moffitt on embracing indies, says “never say never” to working with Playtonic
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Speaking with Examiner, executive VP of sales at Nintendo of America Scott Moffitt spoke about the company’s commitment to indie titles and developers.
Moffitt told the site:
“We’ve really been embracing the independent development community and there is a lot of really great indie content coming to our platform, more so than [before] on Wii or predecessor systems. Our eShop is stocked with great indie games, so we try to rotate them through and promote them from time to time with developer support.”
Examiner also asked Moffitt if Nintendo will work with Playtonic when it comes time to promote Yooka-Laylee. Regarding this, he said:
“We’ve show a much more open stance to indie developers, so never say never.
More: indie, interview, Playtonic, Scott Moffitt, Yooka-Laylee
Update: Physical release merely “being considered”, not final yet – Yooka-Laylee is getting a physical release; being published by Team17
Posted on 8 years ago by Matt(@OnePunchMaz) in News, Wii U | 13 Comments
Update: Even though the MCV article heavily implies it, Playtonic have just released a statement on their website that there are currently no plans for a physical release. According to statements in the MCV article, it is however “being considered”. Sorry about the confusion! We will keep you updated.
Talking to MCV, Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic revealed that Team17 will be working closely with them and will assist them in getting the game released on both digital and physical storefronts. Team17 is perhaps best known for creating the Worms series. Currently, Playtonic is targeting an October 2016 release date.
Talking about the partnership, Playtonic studio boss Gavin Price said the following:
“Team17 has significant experience in making the most of releasing a game.”
“Personally I feel it would be a great shame if after our great Kickstarter success, we delivered on our promise of a great game and then it underperformed sales-wise because we didn’t have the knowledge, or made a mistake in the way we released or marketed the game.
“Thanks to our Kickstarter backers, we’re on a really positive trajectory and Team17 is acting like a booster for us on top of that by handling non-game dev tasks.”
Talking about releasing the game on Nintendo platforms specifically, Price reassured the team’s commitment to a Wii U release, despite rumours that Nintendo’s next system might be fairly close to release.
“Nintendo is not saying that much, it’s all still very secretive – I wish I knew more. But there’s nothing said that impacts any of our current plans. There’s still plenty to look forward to with the Wii U, right now I don’t foresee anything impacting us delivering that version.”
