Record-Breaking Kickstarter Game ‘Yooka-Laylee’ Aims To Avoid Bloat With Smart Stretch Goals

Early this month, former members of esteemed game studio, Rare, launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the development of a spiritual successor to “Banjo-Kazooie” named “Yooka-Laylee.” Within an hour, the campaign had blown past its £175,000 goal, which ensured developer Playtonic would release the game simultaneously on PC, Mac and Linux. A set of stretch goals were also unveiled, revealing that Playtonic has learned from the mistakes of other Kickstarters, and is focusing on depth rather than breadth.

“We’ve attentively followed your feedback since the Kickstarter launched and we’re acutely aware of the concerns surrounding Kickstarter ‘bloat.’ Backers can be assured that the Playtonic team is comprised of vastly experienced game developers, and we’ve carefully planned our stretch feature pledges to ensure that they won’t negatively impact the creation of our game,” said the team in a Kickstarter update.

Announced stretch goals include additional boss-battles, local co-op, multiplayer functionality, language localisation, simultaneous release on console, a bonus rap video and a walkthrough and developer commentary. The approach taken by the team means that rather than adding expansive new areas and increasing the length of the game, “Yooka-Layle” will end up being a deeper, richer experience.

As noted by ArsTechnica, a number of games, most recently Double Fine’s "Broken Age," have fallen into the trap of increasing their scope via ambitious stretch goals once the core goal has been met. Having blown past the £1M mark, the next major stretch goal for the “Yooka-Laylee” team is the addition of an orchestral music score to the game. No stretch goals beyond the £1.5M mark have been disclosed, despite the fact that the campaign still has over 40 days left to run. Instead, the team notes that additional funds will simply allow them to polish the game even further before release.

Over the past decade, the once dominant 3D platformer genre has fallen by the wayside, and big-name releases are far and few in between, with only the likes of Sony’s “Ratchet & Clank” series meeting with much success. The wild and immediate success of the “Yooka-Layle” Kickstarter goes some way to proving that much like space sims, there’s a community of fans hungry for the genre to make a comeback. “Yooka-Laylee” will launch on PC, Linux, Mac, PS4, Xbox One and Wii U in October 2016.