Playtonic Games, the studio behind Kickstarter’s success, Yooka-Laylee, has announced a new publishing label. It’s called Playtonic Friends, and three studios have already signed up for their next projects.
At the same time, and after a peaceful year of 2020, Playtonic is reassuring fans that it remains committed to developing its own game. Playtonic now has “multiple” games with Yooka-Laylee characters in development and is preparing to expand its production capabilities.
We spoke with Playtonic chief Gavin Price about these new ads and their upcoming games – you can read all of them below. Before that, here’s a video with Price, songwriter Grant Kirkhope and character art director Steve Mayles having fun with today’s headlines:
The first three developers who signed up for the Playtonic Friends label include Awe Interactive, creator of roguelike BPM: Bullets Per Minute, Slime-san studio Fabraz and OK Golf maker okidokico. The details of his upcoming projects are being kept confidential.
Likewise, the details of the upcoming Yooka-Laylee character games are also being kept secret – although Playtonic is confident they will please, and hopefully surprise, studio fans.
“About a year ago, at the back of the Impossible Lair launch, there was an opportunity to reflect and say ‘Hey, how are our games, how are our processes, what do we want to do with our own IP? ‘But also as a business, what else can we do? “Price told me via video call this week.
“We like to see great games coming up and achieving success. We don’t like to see great games coming out without getting the attention, love or commercial success they deserve. Unfortunately, this is a very common story in the industry.
“We thought, well, if we can help big games to come out and get attention and have this better chance, having given developers this long-term sustainability, everyone wins … We always had people asking us for advice, but one of the advantages of being old is to have all that experience. We already had the experience of being the first party, being independent, doing crowdfunding. We have a lot to share ”.
The pitch for Playtonic Friends is simple – you’ll get publishing advice and know-how from a team that is still a developer at heart, rather than another company that may exist only as a publisher. And – going back to Playtonic’s own games – studios that work with Playtonic under their Friends label can help create new Yooka-Laylee games in the future.
“There is no barrier to the types of games and people we are looking to help,” says Price. “It would be arbitrary to say ‘we can’t help you because your game doesn’t have a million different collectibles’. There are companies that we will be working with and games that we will be announcing that will make people think’ wow, how do we go from a chameleon and a bat for that here? ‘
“But as we are going to work with great partners through the Playtonic Friends label, we can find some great people who can help us with content in the Yooka-Laylee universe as well.”
While Price is helping to advertise Playtonic Friends, the studio is keen to make it clear that the venture will be run by a different group of employees – and that it is now also looking to hire even more people for its primary development focus. In the meantime, Playtonic Friends will be cared for by longtime Playtonic executive producer Andy Wilson – whom Gavin calls “Mr Spreadsheet” – and new head of business development Steph Darrah.
“In fact, we are going to increase our development size, purely focused on reaching new games in the Yooka-Laylee universe,” reassures Price, saying that Playtonic’s focus remains game development. “For the first time in history, there are several things in motion.”
What things, I ask? Fans were naturally intrigued by the studio’s sixth birthday tease earlier this week, with Yooka and Laylee still in the front and center. And then there’s that joking nod about a Capital Bee game in the video above …
“There are always some things that I would say the audience naturally pleases our fans, but it would also be great to start surprising them with something unexpected too,” said Price.
“A game we are thinking of making is like, wow, it would be great to have announced that game two years before launch and within those two years there is really room to keep making lots and lots of cool surprises in those two years. The fact that it can be known for a while may be right.
“And then there is another game that is like ‘wow, it would be great if we could just say nothing and one day press the launch button … tada!’ The shot can backfire quite spectacularly, you never know.