Yooka-Laylee caused a big stir when it was crowdfunded through Kickstarter, with developer Playtonic Games being formed by a group of experienced former Rare employees. When we went hands on and visited the studio we couldn't help but be excited about its potential.

Playtonic Games has been relatively quiet in the past year, however, being clear that its focus has now been on the nitty gritty of making the game; having now made a lot of progress it's come out with a major blog post to showcase just how far it's come.

Yooka_Glacier.jpg

The image above gives a flavour of how the game's looking, and the studio has revealed a little around the story and its plans to build the franchise through its storytelling.

Yooka and Laylee's adventure will take them deep inside the work halls of a baneful business, as the buddy-duo seek out the magical Pagies required to explore the mysterious Grand Tomes. The dexterous pair will seek to unlock the ancient secrets of these bewitching books, as they battle to thwart corporate creep Capital B and his devious scheme to absorb all of the world's literature… and convert them into pure profit.

Our ambition with Yooka-Laylee is to create a story and cast of characters that will live on as part of future Playtonic Games, so you can be sure there will be plenty of secrets, back stories and punch lines to discover when you join the Lizard and Bat on their epic adventure.

Yooka_Swim.jpg

Collectibles will naturally be a big part of the game and have various uses - Pagies will unlock 'Grand Tomes', while Quills can be used to buy new moves from "serpent salesman Trowzer".

Another key component will be a colourful cast, with the developer talking about two new characters so far:

The latter is a ruthless, exosuit-wearing fowl, who's making the best of a bad situation under the corporate rule of Capital B. The good doctor wasn't always this unpleasant, but the ruthless takeover of his Quack Corp organisation has persuaded Quack to concoct all manner of crude inventions to satisfy the demands of his new boss – and the shareholders, of course.

Quack's sweet, naeve prodigy, Dr. Puzz proved far more morally rigid than her former colleague, breaking ties with Quack Corp as soon as the exosuits started stirring – and taking her own inventions with her. The tentacled technician – designed by Ed 'Mumbo Jumbo' Bryan – is the gateway to all of Yooka-Laylee's wild and wonderful transformations, which we'll be revealing in the near future.

Yooka_Toybox_01.jpg

Finally, backers of the Kickstarter campaign will get access to a 'Toybox' area in July, which is a self-contained space designed for showing off the mechanics and allowing players to experiment. Playtonic isn't quite ready to talk release details for the full game, though.

So there you have it, lots of lovely details on Yooka-Laylee. Let us know what you think in the comments, while the full blog post is linked below.

[source playtonicgames.com]