After generating a moderate amount of hype on the internet with the reveal that former Rare developers have come together to create a new project, the team at Playtonic Games finally revealed some early assets from their Project Ukelele yesterday. The images so far are little more than concept art, but the style is very remniscent of the Banjo-Kazooie games. In the above screen capture, the game’s two protagonists are supposedly hidden in the brush. If you look closely, there appears to be a chameleon like character in the bushes on the left hand side.
Either way, the biggest question about this reveal is whether or not the team will be bringing the game to Wii U. In a recent interview with Eurogamer about the project, Gavin Price stated that the team is using Unity to develop the game, since they don’t want to leave any platforms out. He also mentions the enthusiasm of Nintendo fans and while there’s no official confirmation that the game will make it to Wii U, the fans have been keeping that issue on their minds since their initial announcement.
And out of about 500 emails we receive every week, probably about 499 of them are shouting Wii U! Wii U! As a games fan, I’ve been a Nintendo fanboy since the NES days. Most of are fans are Nintendo fans as well. So while we can’t confirm what platforms we will be on – some of that is beyond our control – but we are developing on Unity and we don’t want to leave anyone out. And we’d try to ship simultaneously to make the biggest splash possible when the game comes out.
As for the Kickstarter campaign, the team hasn’t launched it yet, but the amount of press for the game shortly after their announcement has convinced the team that Kickstarter funding could be the best way to get the game made, as the fledgling studio is operating on bare bones funds at the moment.
Up until a few weeks ago [Kickstarter] wasn’t really on our radar, but since we’ve had such a massive response from people – we’re thinking that the game has to become a lot bigger, a lot broader, we want to do a lot more with it now to make people happy.
What do you think of the assets released so far? Are you excited about the return of Rare-style platformers? Let us know in the comments!
