World Theming

[Boshi]

[Taylor]

Ah, well yes, the theme and aesthetics are great and could easily make a great platforming level. A type of dream/heaven world; the closest Banjo equivalent would be Cloud Cuckooland, I'd guess. We'd need more pink clouds though... Pink clouds always look cool.

[Boshi]

I guess a better example would be Magicant from the Mother series. A world where the basic rules of reality are challenged, where stuff just doesn't make any sense, where we would have to take a differet approach to complete our objetives, where crazy things would happen. And of course a world with lots and lots of pink clouds!

[Coolboyman]

I really enjoyed the combo-themed levels in Banjo-Tooie. Witchyworld had those sections of the amusement park, JRL was a seaside village and the other part was underwater. Hailfire Peaks of course too.

[Punksthetic]

[Alucard]

[Punksthetic]

Well, regardless, I feel like I've seen the Voodoo/New Orleans theme too much in games in general. It just feels like that idea people pull out because they think it's unique, except now it's already been explored. That being said, I'm sure if Playtonic did a New Orleans theme, but mixed it up a bit, perhaps set it on a tropical island, or maybe deep within a forest, or a swamp, it would seem new again. Still, I don't think something that's inherently American will make it into the game... Just a feeling.

As for combining level themes, the Banjo games already have a history of doing that. That's how you create something new and interesting, because there really isn't anything new under the sun, you have to mash things up in order to create the illusion of something new. For instance, they took a fire level and combined it with some kind of Roman Colosseum style level in HailFire Peaks, and the icy side was sort of mixed with oil drilling themes, which was interesting. Jolly Roger Bay took your basic water level and made it nautical/pirate themed. Even in Kazooie, Clanker's Cavern was like a mix of factory and underwater themes.

And I realize there was a factory in Banjo-Tooie, but there was also Clanker's Cavern and Rusty Bucket Bay, which were sort of variations on the factory theme in that they were grungy, man-made, highly mechanized areas that you had to traverse. I would like to see a similar level in this game that took those themes and made something new with it.

[FungiGamer]

In another thread I suggested 10 worlds, 1 tutorial area, 1 hub and 1 finale area like Furnace of Fun

1. Jungle Falls, as shown in the pictures it will be jungle themed with weird islands and waterfalls. Expansions can lead to more watery parts or deep into jungle ruins.

2. Western level. I can't recall how many times Western levels were dropped in Rare games, particularly CBFD and Nuts N Bolts. Expansions could lead to buildings like saloons or deep into the desert to mesas or bandit campgrounds.

3. Someone suggested B-Movies and a Theater level instantly clicked. You can go to a concession stand to get food for characters, climb on top of the large signs outside of the building, and best of all go into the projector room and switch film reels to enter different genre mini-worlds: Horror/Scifi (a B-Movie alien flick), Romance/Drama (sepiatone Casablanca-esque runway), Action/Crime (some city with a lot of cars whizzing by and explosions), and Comedy/Musical (maybe taking place on a stage with various switching stage props and backgrounds like the Gloria level in Psychonauts and hop around on giant instruments above the stage like drums to bounce off of or piano slides, just other musical things that would be coll and fun to do) (Edit: saw someone actually said something like this on the second page, oops!)

4. Haunted Forest. Fills both the horror and forest world types that I feel are both needed in these types of games. This would expand into spooky trails that might lead to creepy abandoned tunnels, hidden forest graveyards in the middle of the woods, scary gnarled trees, creepy cabins, you name it. I'm mainly thinking of those creepy death forests and stuff in Japan you always here about and see in video games or videos with alleged ghosts in them.

5. Eastern Culture world. Playtonic and Rare never really went with this theme in any of their games and it's probably time they did. I chose Eastern Culture instead of specific places like China/Japan because a lot of worlds in games that do use this theme often just go for blends of ancient and modern eastern culture instead of strictly China or Japan. This could expand with pagoda buildings, lines with lanterns on them you can grind on, a Great Wall looking area, potential to jump into stuff like anime or Godzilla/giant monster references or areas, etc.

6. Steampunk/victorian world. A lot of pipes that can lead to secret areas, mech-like machinery to either fight against or jump into, victorian buildings to explore, etc.

7. People mentioned a snowglobe world and I feel that that might be the best way to bring back a snow level without treading already explored themes. This could expand to Rankin/Bass-esque areas to get pagies in like a toy factory with giant toys you can fight again, igloos, ice caverns with monsters in them, cold cabins that someone might be stuck in that you can dig out, etc.

8. Someone mentioned a carnival level, and that sounds good. It doesn't have to be haunted per se, so maybe instead a Disneyland style of overly trying to satisfy guests and brush away glaring problems? "Welcome to the knife throw! Carnival staff are not responsible for injuries due to the waiver you signed at the front of the park! ENJOY!". Also, not to mention attractions you can expand into like a tunnel of love, a fun house with mirrors, a freak show where you can help the people in there with stuff like pulling a sword out of a sword swallower or something, a dunk tank you have to throw something to activate, etc., and finally a big top with actual big top stuff this time, such as elephants and daredevils on bikes in round cages etc.

9. My other idea plays off the fantasy mountain someone mentioned before that you have to climb up and there's dungeons and caves and monsters you have to explore and fight through, maybe at some point coming across people that need saving. At the top of the mountain is a castle that belongs to an evil sorcerer or sorceress that you need to fight, who has other rooms in the castle like a library where you climb up bookcases or an evil thorny garden.

10. Forgot a water level.... How about an aquatic supervillain lair that's underwater? Like, it can take place on an island that has an aboveground villa and maybe a volcano on the side of it that you can enter, and when you go into the villa there's an elevator down to a secret underwater base with various traps and baddies to avoid? You can save secret agents in death traps, use lasers to open cages, and have to escape a tank full of sharks! Also, there's a large tanker above water filled with jewels that you can run around on, and maybe also a submarine docked to the aquatic base.

As for the final area, I'm kind of drawing a blank. It kind of depends on the villain, which we don't know of yet. However, for the tutorial area I really hope it's an inverse Spiral Mountain. Like, maybe instead of going UP a Spiral Mountain, one day our heroes are relaxing at home and a great spiraling tunnel gets drilled into the middle of the plains going downward, like a Spiral Chasm.

[Feber]

I always like the idea of trying to get away from the stereotypical platformer levels. I want to see some of these ideas combined together! Like a Water world that takes place in an Oasis, or a Creepy world completely in the clouds. Changing things up, but still keeping them a little the same! I also like the Idea of a western world, that's fun!

[Alucard]

[Shoegayzer]

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[Phineas Q. Phailboat]

I have always really liked industrial themed levels like Rusty Bucket Bay or Grunty Industries. Something about the glowing slime and the whirring machinary really did it for me. Volcano levels ice levels desert levels these are all of course important things as well and water levels.

[FungiGamer]

[Phineas Q. Phailboat]

The Gex games had great worlds. Levels based on a cartoon theme, or super heroes would be pretty great. An entire level with an espionage or spy theme would be a pretty great addition.

[BetterThanYou]

[LiverpoolFC]

I think what the original games did was make the worlds feel full. I actually don't think that the world themes are what made them so special. When you look at a game like GTA V the world is enormous, but so much of it is static. Large areas are impressive, but I'd much rather have small areas with more going on if you know what I mean. Each level of Banjo Kazooie had a theme obviously, but every corner of the level had something different going on. Bubblegloop Swamp was a swamp (duh) but one part of it was a maze, another a parkour section, another a giant turtle, etc. For me I don't care if the level themes are "generic" or "cliche" as long as they are filled with fun quests for pagies. Take Clanker's Caver; it's essentially a water level, but you spend most of your time inside Clanker. On the other hand you have Treasure Trove Cove, which is a beach/water level, but you don't really spend time swimming so much as running around on sand, flying, climbing, etc. I also love their unique twists on worlds as well, like Click Clock Wood. For instance I think a bean stalk world could be cool. Like at the start you do a quest to plant the bean and water it (similar to one of the Jiggy missions in CCW) and then it grows and then rest of the level becomes a vertical climb. You could even have different climates as you go upwards, etc. So to summarize, Unique twists on worlds and make them jam-packed full of fun quests.

[Waverunner]

I agree with the above, half of the charm of Banjo-Kazooie, at least for me, was the banter with the wacky and weird characters. Most of the actual worlds were standard game cliches that did nothing special, save Click Clock Woods, Rusty Bucket, and Clanker Cavern (and even those last two are similarly themed). It's important to keep in mind for world themes not just the aesthetics and features, but also the characters in them.

[bearbuddy22]

Some ideas that I have been thinking about
-a world on an alien planet , aliens that are cooky like in Banjo Tooie.
-a pilgrim town like the Salem witch trials. This could be a cameo for Gruntilda to be on trial in one of the buildings in town xD( won't happen but it would be funny)
-I would love to see an industrial world. Perhaps like grunty's industries...but instead its an oil rig. This map could use tons of height for additional jumping fun. (click clock wood jumping lol)

[LiverpoolFC]

I was thinking about the world themes again, and also how Project Ukulele will have expansive worlds and it got me thinking about another great 3D Platformer (actually not made by Rare surprisingly) Glover! If you have never played Glover it has realms with multiple levels within them. Each realm has 3 main levels, a boss level, and a bonus level, which is kinda similar for what Project Ukulele is going for. Also the world themes in Glover are some that people have been mentioning on the forums as well; Atlantis, Carnival, Pirates, Prehistoric, Fortress of Fear (spooky level), and Out of this World (space level). I think Glover had a lot of cool choices that would be nice to see in Project Ukulele, although I like Rare's levels being actual places better than levels that are sometimes floating platforms, etc.

[Alucard]