Yooka-Laylee is one of the best surprises we’ve gotten from Kickstarter in a while now, thanks to a handful of former Rare developers who have come together to re-create the buddy duo platforming adventure game made popular by Banjo-Kazooie. There’s a lot of talent working on the series that worked on both Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, so we’re pretty confident that the game is in good hands for those who are hoping this is the spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.
While Project Ukulele was teased several months in advance before the reveal of Yooka-Laylee, many people want to know why the team decided on the naming they did. According to Gregg Mayles, the name was the result of someone looking up the word Ukulele in a Hawaiian dictionary to discover that it’s actually a combination of Hawaiian words. ‘Uku’ means a small-brained person, while ‘lele’ literally means to fly or exit a vehicle. The words work really well with the character design, so it’s no surprise that the team decided to go with those names.
What do you think about the name Yooka-Laylee?
