» Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:55 am Thought I'd share something interesting that's come about in gaming news.
http://playtonicgames.com is a new Indie studio composed of former Rare Ltd. employees1 who headed and developed such video game hits as Banjo & Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Donkey Kong Country formed this year. Some of the members of Playtonic were recently cut from Rare's latest http://gamerant.com/rare-layoff-kinect-sports-rivals/ which occurred last year, including Chris Sutherland and Gavin Price who are now members of Playtonic's currently 7-member staff and growing.
Rare's Official Statement Concerning Layoff:
As part of Rare’s commitment to this goal, we have made a decision to change our development process and methodology at Rare to best support our future projects, this has led to us reviewing the skills and the makeup of our development teams in our business. Rare continues to invest in our people and future projects.
In related news, Rare Ltd. is set to develop a new "Triple A" game that will be unrelated to Kinect Sports.
Playtonic's new game is temporarily labeled "Project Ukulele" and will be a 3D Action Platformer, presumably in the style of Banjo & Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, summarized in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulJeGQ0Krk.
Preliminary screenshots of Project Ukulele have been released:
- http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Project-Ukulele-SS_03-14-15_001.jpg - Jungle Level
- http://news.playtonicgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Project-Ukulele-Dev-screen2.jpg - Hub World (or so I've gathered)
A single http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles/1/7/4/2/7/5/3/banjo-kazooie-spiritual-successor-heads-to-kickstarter-14263531329.png/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/80/format/jpg was revealed in a modified screenshot of the Jungle Level. The unrevealed main characters can be seen hidden in http://www.playtonicgames.com/images/game_teaser_image1.jpg on Playtonic's web page.
What are your thoughts on all of this?
1 An exception: one of Playtonic's members, newly hired writer and web editor Andy Robinson, has never worked at Rare.
