Hey, kids, remember Yooka-Laylee? I can ask that in earnest because Playtonic Games' 3D collect 'em up platformer is seven years old now, practically a dinosaur in Internet Years. This particular reptile is coming back, bat in tow, with a remastered and enhanced version called Yooka-Replaylee. 

The updated version of Yooka-Laylee was revealed during the Guerilla Collective showcase along with a bunch of indie announcements and trailers. The Yooka-Replaylee footage shows some side-by-side looks at the new visual flourishes, which appear to?? be pretty substantial. 

Beyond the new look, the team improved some of the games challenges while adding new ones for players to discover. There's also a new collectible currency thanks to Capital B's minions dropping their coins all over the place. You can spend this hard-found loot at the sentient vending machine known as Vendi, who hooks Yo??oka and Laylee up w?ith Tonics in exchange for completing objectives. Other enhancements include a new world map, which helps you track challenges and plan your next moves, and some new tonic flavors for further playstyle customization. 

Finally, Yooka-Replaylee sports updates to the controls and camera �making it easier to both position the camera and pull off move combos �as well as a new orchestral arrangement of Grant Kirkhope and David Wise's original soundtrack. Right now it's just listed for consoles and PC with no release date in place, but the Steam page is live with more screens, info, and? a bri?ef FAQ. 

The post Yooka-Laylee returns with upda?ted visuals and more a?s Yooka-Replaylee appeared first on Destructoid.

Minority stake to fund studio plans to 'level up'

Playtonic Games, developer of cutesy old-school adventure Yooka-Laylee, are the latest developer to sell a minority stake to Chinese company Tencent. The purchase sees Playtonic joi?n an ever-growing list of developers and publishers that are offering up investment to the multi-billion dollar global holding company.

"Six years ago we built a cool, exciting rocket ship, set a course we think is right and exciting. We are thrilled that Tencent agrees with that course and has provided some rocket fuel to further the reach of our mission!" said Playtonic founder Gavin Pri?ce on?? the studio's official website. "With more people and improved ?processes in place the teams will be well placed to forge deeper l?inks with their network of “friends�studios and ultimately look to develop and release new, exciting and playful IPs."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=R57JwzXartU

Playtonic is quick to note that it will retain full control over the use of its IPs, and plans to use the money invested by Tencent to expand the studio, with an eye to doubling its workforce and creating three specific development teams, which can then be utilized to create several titles simultaneously. Playtonic also hopes to improve the quality and resources of its headquarters, and will also be looking? to expand into new locations outside o?f its home base, located in Derby, UK.

"With Tencent having a stake in quite a lot of companies, there are lots of opportunities to be meeting and finding out more about each other. There's a huge level of support there," sai??d Gavin in a lengthy interview with Gamesindust?ry.biz. "But ultimately, this is about more games ??from us. We want to do more games more ofte?n [...] The crux of it is scaling up our game development teams. Getting more hires, and being able to operate multiple teams concurrently. We are looking to build a workforce that is a lot more shareable across projects."

This minority stake purchase adds Playtonic to Tencent Inc.'s mammoth portfolio of studios that are either owned by, or have accepted investment with, the holding company. Other developers/publishers on the books (in some form or fashion) include *deep breath* Activision, Ubisoft, Supercell, Epic Games, Riot Games, Remedy Entertainment, PlatinumGames, Bohemia Interactive, Dontnod Entertainment, Klei Entertainment, and Funcom.

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AstroTurf

I think I fell into the ‘tude trap again.  I see a platforming game with an interesting art style and a spunky red-headed demon, and I’m smitten. Demon Turf ticks off a lot of my ??boxes, at least in concept. Unfortun??ately, concept only takes you so far.

Demon Turf (Switch, PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S)
Developer: Fabraz
Publisher: Playtonic Friends
Released: November 4th, 2021
MSRP: $24.99

Demon Turf is about a young (by demon standards) girl who one day gets fed up with the Demon King showing up in her dreams and decides to go dethrone him. It’s a pretty light plot, but I can’t remember the last platforme?r that gripped me with its narrative.

Of course, you need MacGuffins to unlock the bad dude’s front door, and in this case, it’s 50 batteries. To get the batteries, Beebz needs to dethrone the four local gangs. You probably know the dance steps if you’ve ever played a platformer. You go from level to level plundering them of their collectibles. Each hub wor??ld is then capped off with a boss battle.

What sets Demon Turf apart from your usual platformer is nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. The art style is pretty striking. It combines 2D characters with 3D levels, not unlike the recently released Here Comes Niko. The 2D characters can be a hit and miss. A lot of the random NPCs that dot the levels are rather generic, but some of the enemies are enjoya??ble and c?ute. It’s really the combination of the two styles that give it a unique look.

Aside from that, nothing about Demon Turf surprised me. Each world gives you a new power provided just before the boss battle. This includes a grappling hook, the ability to turn into a wheel, one that lets you glide, and the last slows time in a particular bubble. The goal of a level is to grab the battery at the end, but you can also grab cakes to spend on m??ods for your abilities.

Once you defeat a??n area’s boss, the levels change to a different, more challenging configuration. This provides you the opportunity to grab another battery and sweets that buy cosmetic changes. Don’t think this is optional, however â€?you’re going to need the lion’s share of ??the batteries to unlock the final boss.

Hold on, I remember one thing that Demon Turf does that I haven’t seen in a platformer before: you set your own checkpoints. A lot of the levels are extremely vertical, and dying or falling to the bottom can be extremely vexing. Rather ?than just intersperse respawn points, you set your own. You might see this as an appreciated feature, or it might just annoy you. Like when you start a new level and temporarily forget about the feature until you screw up for the first time, forcing you to repeat that whole section again. You’re also given three flags to plant (you can buy a fourth), which means you have to predict how long the level is and where it’s best to put the checkpoints.

So, on one hand, you can place a flag before a dangerous-looking section. ??On the other hand, if you use up all your flags too early, then it’s T.S. for you. I personally only had a couple of occasions where this happened. More often, I was prone to just forget it existed until I found myse??lf repeating the same section over again.

No platform character is complet??e without a stockpile of different jumps. That’s fine; one for each type of weather. However, the way they work together can be a bit of a puzzle. For example, you can jump, double-jump, and glide. Or you can jump, glide, and long jump. Completely different distances depending on what order you perform them in. You also can’t wall-jump if you double jump or glide first which was a bee in my bonnet through the entire runtime.

What really chokes me up, however, is how unreliable Demon Turf is with its difficulty curve and readability, which sometimes go hand-in-hand. Take the second boss for example. I dropped a half-hour on the jerk because I couldn’t understand what the game wanted from me. Stun him, touch his butt, knock him off the side of the arena. Except most of the time, he’d just start flying back to the center of the arena. Other times, he’d drop like h??e’s supposed to, and I never figured out what I was doing differently.

It’s pervasive throughout the game. There are levels that are more open, inviting you to complete challenges to unlock doors. However, sometimes when you complete a challenge, it will show you a door opening, but give you n?o guidance on where that door actually is. It can lead to a lot of walking around, trying to find what you triggered, and while this isn’t a complete showstopper, it’s an unnecessary annoyance.

Likewise, Demon Turf is sometimes really picky about how you complete certain areas. The difference in your jumps ma??y seem minute, but sometimes the game really wants you to jump, glide, jump, and won’t accept a jump, double-jump-glide in its place. Other times, it really looks like a double-jump can get you onto a ledge, but nope, it wants you to jump, wall-jump, double-jump, glide. Just don’t do that out of order or you won’t make it.

I hope you remembered to put down a checkpoint.

Demon Turf has the double-whammy of not being that unique nor well-executed. It might get a pass if it was either one of those, but every time I thought I was starting to get into its flow, something?? would pop up to frustrate me. It made it a difficult game to actually get through. There was nothing that grabbed me. The characters, the? gameplay, the music; it’s all just so underwhelming.

What made this more annoying is its love of ancillary collectibles. Do you want to take all the pictures, collect all the cartridges, get all the candy and the cakes? How about spending time in the arena or the soccer mini-game? You’re not rewarded very well for completing these, so they’re almost there for their own sake. Extra fluff. And that’s fine, I just don’t come close enough to liking Demon Turf to bother.

It’s not a soulless game or one without a spark �there’s definitely a lot of love in the final product. It just seriously needed a few more sets of eyes on it to draw out its flaws. A lot of the things that vexed me most severely could be fixed with a few more passes of the floor buffer. Yet here we are, and Demon Turf doesn’t strike me as territory worth conquering.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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It's also worth trying the demo if you missed it

One of the many intriguing 3D platformers coming out of the indie scene is Demon Turf, an underworld romp with a novel art style, and it's coming home soon. Developer Fabraz, who you might remember from Slime-San, has partnered with Playtonic Friends for a Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S release on November 4.

Apart from Steam, it'll be on GOG and the Epic Games Store �it's ?$24.99.

//youtu.be/YNecpV_5lus

The release-date trailer for Demon Turf has a rap, and I'll admit it: I chuckled.

Playing as Beebz, a "young" thousand-year-old demon who's represented in-game as a 2D character in a 3D space, you'll take out much-bigger and more intimidating turf leaders. But before you can reach them, you'll have to explore the world and be??st some tricky platforming challenges. For platformer nuts like me, I'd sum up the vibe as comfy.

I'm? most interested in the character transformations (Beebz' bat form is adorable), the moody-looking world (which has a good amount of variety even just in the screenshots), and the checkpoint system (that lets you put down a flag when and where you need it). In an extra-useful touch, instead of just being generally convenient checkpoints with some player fre?edom, the flags can be used for fast-travel; Beebz can teleport between them.

I hadn't taken the time to play it before today, but it's worth noting that there's a demo for Demon Turf on Steam under a separate store listing called Demon Turf: Trials.

It's worth getting this demo if you're curious about the game �it's got a smooth tutorial to teach you the basics of jumping, spinning, flipping, and projectile punching, then you can train more in a playground environment, explore the (limited-for-the-demo) hub, and participate in a leaderboard-based trial. It's a robust demo, and a good showing for Demon Turf's tone and controls. I was already feeling good? about the game; this cemented it.

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A cute 3D platformer from MegaWobble and Playtonic Friends coming in 2022

It took twenty whole seconds for me to be sold on Lil Gator Game, an upcoming adventure platformer for Nintendo Switch and PC. What an adorable vibe. And as prevalent as gliding has become in the genre, I don't mind �??I still actively want to do drift in the wind.

//youtu.be/diMQ6HNaV8U

I'm going to go ahead and do the thing that's admittedly heavy-handed but quickly gets the point across: Lil Gator Game seems like a fusion of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and A Short Hike, which, in my world anyway, seems ideal. These are fantastic games in their own right, and combining them int??o something familiar but new-ish could work wonders.

Aside from all of the jumping, gliding, and sliding around a mountain community, there's stuff to snatch u??p, too. "Collect arts and craft supplies to create all sor??ts of goodies and see the park flourish," notes the game summary. "You'll be sure to make plenty of friends along the way whilst helping the islanders complete their quests."

Lil Gator Game is a team-up between developer MegaWobble and publisher Playtonic Friends, who has a pretty good thing going between this game, another interesting 3D platformer called Demon Turf, and a soothing, stylish golf game named A Little Golf Journey. If that name sounds weirdly familiar (it's still pretty new!), here's the reason: Playtonic Friends is the indie publishing arm of Yooka-Laylee creator Playtonic Games.

"We've talked a lot this year about what attracts us to new project??s and it really boils down to one thing �finding games WE want to play and in a lot of cases wish we'd come up with," Playtonic Friends CEO Gavin Price said in a press release.

I appreciate that Lil Gator Game is 1) getting a PC demo �check back on October 1 for the latest Steam Next Fest demo deluge �and 2)? tha?t it's already confirmed for Nintendo Switch, where it undeniably belongs. I'm wishlisting this in my heart.

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Two games today, and Automachef next week

I like helping you all get as many free games as I can, and so here we are again, back for another Epic Games Store nudge. Yooka-Laylee and Void Bastards are up for grabs until August 26, at which point the next free title in the rotation, Automachef, will tag in.

Look at that! I got you in and out in the? first paragraph??. But I can't stop there.

We surely all know about Yooka-Laylee by now, right? And if not, the screenshots are a sufficient vibe check. If you're cool with an attempt to recapture some of Rare's N64 platformer magic in a modern-day Kickstarted context, and your expectations are adjusted to fit that reality, you can have a good time with this game. If you were never really that into Banjo-Kazooie (an all-time great!), you'd probab??ly best sit this one out.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlzb3daWb7M

Void Bastards is the stand-out selection this week, in part because far fewer of us have played it, and it's arguably underrated. At least, I don't see it come up that often.

This is a roguelike FPS with development ties to System Shock 2 and a very cool, easy-to-read gr??aphic-novel aesthetic. You play as prisoner?s (...in space!) who are jumping from one ship to the next, each with their own potential traits and quirks. It's worth a real look.

As for next week's freebie Automachef, I'm sure I'll be back with more to say in the next PSA article, but I reviewed it here and?? I liked it, just not enough to become head-over-heels obsessed with achieving the "perfect" assembly lines. The food theme is novel enough that it's worth dabbling in, for sure. If your brain is wired for automation, it's fun.

The post You can nab Yooka-Laylee and Void Bastards for free from the Epic Games Store if you need ’em appeared first on Destructoid.

Awe Interactive, Fabraz, and okidokico are up first

That "something" new teaser from Playtonic Games wasn't for a Yooka-Laylee sequel –?? at least not yet. Today's announcement is a new publishing label, Playtonic Friends, meant to bolster hidden gems.

To start off with, Playtonic Friends has signed three developers: Awe Interactive (BPM: Bullets Per Minute), Fabraz (Slime-san), and okidokico (OK Golf). That's what the creators ar?e known for currently, and the?? publisher "will soon be able to reveal the first games coming from these partners."

"While everyone at Playtonic has dreams of recreating Scrooge McDuck splashing around in his pool of cold, hard cash, in reality our motivation for setting up Playtonic Friends was to take what we've learned about producing and releasing video games and use it to aid developers of a like mind looking for a fruitful route to ma?rket," according to business development manager Steph Darrah.

To be clear, Playtonic is also still doing its own thing, creation-wise. The? games must flow.

"There are many more adventures on the way for Yooka-Laylee and friends," the studio said in an FAQ. "We've also heard the cries from our community about doubling down on ??Vendi... we know you love her really! We've got nowt to reveal just yet, though we can say there are multiple things in the works..."

Indies publishing indies. I love to see it.

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'We know you're all wondering what we have cooking'

Playtonic Games has tried to capture the essence of some of our favorite 3D and 2.5D platformers with its own twist, and I can't wait to see what's next after 2017's Yooka-Laylee and 2019's Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. This morning on Twitter, the studio teased the imminent revea?l of "something" ne??w.

We'd like to give our community, our friends, a giant hug 💚💜

We know you're all wondering what we?? have cooking, and although we can't sa?y just yet, something will be revealed SOON.

Thank you for being patient with us 🙂

— Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) February 8, 2021

That's it – that's the post! – but I'm so curious to see which direction this team is taking. For what it's worth, a recent note to Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter backers referenced a secret "rebrand" at Playtonic.

I feel like the future could easily hold a different genre set in the wider Yooka-Laylee universe (it's fun to picture th??ese characters in other Playtonic takes on Rare classics), or yeah, a more straightforward sequel could work. Just as well, it could be all-new. Nothing says it has to involve the dynamic duo.

What are you hoping to see? As popular as this series is, many of us seem to latch onto something slightly different and don't have the same priorities. I'm pretty adamant that Impossible Lair is much better-designed, but... I still want another Banjo-Kazooie-like 3D romp from this team. I'm easy like that.

At any rate, it feels like? Playtonic is built to last. T?here's so much potential.

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