Playtonic Games has revealed not one new character, but a handful of new characters for Yooka-Laylee (their spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie)! They are known as the ghost writers, and are the scribes who created the mysterious book worlds. Unfortunately for the Ghost Writers, their demise under suspicious circumstances left them trapped within the worlds they created. Unable to rest in peace, their souls are cursed to wander the book worlds endlessly in search of salvation. It will be up to the player to locate and free each one for a “special reward”.
The Creative Lead for Yooka-Laylee, Gavin Price, explained the mechanic: “The Ghost Writers haunting the book worlds will add a fun twist to collecting. There are a variety of different types hidden in every world, each with their own unique requirement for being caught.”
“Mix that with the different areas in which you’ll find them, and hopefully they’ll result in a fresh challenge with every encounter. They’re like a living (un-living?) collectible.”
The design process for creating the Ghost Writers was described by Character Artist Steve Mayles. “As these characters aren’t based on any particular creature, it was good fun to go a bit crazy with them. And we are crazy guys at Playtonic Towers… never a dull moment, etc.”
“The ghost was originally going to be one character, but I sketched so many thumbnails (50+) it sparked the idea of having 5 separate ghosts with different abilities.”
Yooka-Laylee‘s Kickstarter campaign started on May 1st, and is still going strong. The game reached its $270,000 USD funding goal in less than 40 minutes. It went on to become the fastest game ever to reach $1 million USD on Kickstarter. If you haven’t backed the project yet, you still have 17 days left before Yooka-Laylee‘s Kickstarter campaign comes to an end. At the time of this writing, the game’s Kickstarter campaign has raised nearly $2.7 million USD. Yooka-Laylee is expected to release by October of next year for PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4.
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