List 'o Ideas

[Yavga]

How about a Temporary Registration stop? Trolls will definitely attempt to spoil us.

[Xellos]

[Rueckkoppler]

[Xellos]

^ This guy gets it.

[Taylor]

[Rueckkoppler]

[Taylor]

[EekumBokum202]

When it comes to DLC ideas, do we also post stuff here as well?

[Taylor]

[EekumBokum202]

[Mew Mew Psychic]

Do the devs still check this topic? Or topics on this forum in general?

I have no idea if Playtonic will read this message and given they already helped me with my problems due to BackerKit allowing me to play the game despite the freaky difficulties I ran into, I wouldn't be upset if they never did notice this message.

Still...

Some of these are variations on already discussed ones. Others are new ones. I'll class them by how difficult I believe they would be to implement.

Points about late game elements will be in spoiler tags, out of respect to fellow fans who did not beat the game yet.

[NITPICKS]
-Idle animations. While those we got were nice and the Emotes is an absolutely fantastic idea, the game lack a low HP idle animation (which can affect gameplay negatively) and doesn't have enough idle animations in particular. Given they help give life to the characters and in the case of the low HP animation, has gameplay uses, I think it might be worthwhile to think about more of them.



-Exploit fixes. There's many obstacles that can be cheesed in ways that I bet weren't intended, such as the railings in Shipwreck Creek's slope not being slippery like the slope itself, allowing players to skip a small part of the stage. This is a minor point but such exploits are plentiful and end up making a lot of the game's obstacles cheeseable in ways that are kind of jarring.

-New Game + and/or selecting a Tonic at game start. Given Tonics are unlocked universally among all files, I think it would be nice if you weren't forced to wait until the middle of World 1 to use those that you have already unlocked.

-Make combo attacks actually do more damage or ignore invincibility frames on most foes. Combo attacks are difficult to execute but flashy, with a longer range. That is good. Except they don't deal more damage. Given the timing is quite tricky, this give little incentive to use them.



-Skip dialogue function. Note that I'm apparently in the minority who enjoyed the game's story despite its shortcomings... but even taking this into account, having to mash A to get through long conversations I already saw isn't much fun. So I think that if this isn't your first time viewing a cutscene or boss intro, that you should be able to skip it. Hopefully, the game is designed in a way that adding such a function wouldn't add crashes.

-When viewing totals in the pause screen, have it default to the totals of whatever world you are currently in instead of the game's totals. I feel it would save time when exploring worlds and making sure you have everything.

-Have a manual saving option. Seriously, I know it sounds like a nitpick but I like being able to save whenever I want instead of relying on the auto-save exclusively.



[BIGGER SUGGESTIONS]
-A Game Over animation when quitting the game. Seriously, the elaborate game over animation of the games that inspired Yooka-Laylee was one of their most memorable aspects. If lives are implemented as an option in some manner, have variations based on the method by which the player lose would be a very nice touch (and add an incentive to experiment ; many players will experiment with failure to see how many game over sequences there are, especially if they're humorous and/or very elaborate).

-I'd like to see more dialogue. Not more jokes but rather, dialogue. Yooka and Laylee do have some neat differences compared to their inspiration source but those differences do not show enough because almost all of the dialogue is jokes and jokes that don't allow them to shine at that.

[MAJOR SUGGESTIONS]
-I actually like the Yooka-Laylee setting and the idea of basing it off books, rewriting, and general genre crossing is incredibly fascinating. It's also not used well enough by far. While a complete rewrite is not a realistic idea, I do think that getting more cutscenes to flesh out the conflict and characters would be good. In particular, I'd like to see Capital B's reactions when you unlock each World for the first time or having Yooka and Laylee commenting on the events when you enter new sections of the Hivory Towers for the first time.

-A proper Hard Mode. The Butterthree tonic is a start but reducing player HP alone is lame, ultimately. It's better than nothing but I think that having more (and faster) enemies and bosses, having increased fall damage (no longer capped to 3), having butterflies no longer spawn when beating enemies (and potentially not respawn unless you leave a World altogether or die), and other such changes would go a long way.

-A lives system. Don't start booing yet! Notably, make it optional. Have the option to use extra lives or not so that players who want an old-school challenge can use it while those who think that they're "relics from arcade days" can do without.

-General improvements to enemies. In particular, I think that Corplets could become more aggressive as the game progress and/or occasionaly get projectile attacks. Corplet Punishers, in particular, need more than just one attack. Having enemies change more than just visually between worlds would help a lot in preventing the enemy line-up from growing stale.

-Buffed World 2 boss. Why do he have only one attack? He could use some variation in his pattern, other than just in his movement. This is a shame given how fantastic the level he is in, as a whole.

[SILLY IDEAS]
-On the lives system... one of my ideas was for a hybrid system. Namely, when you first hit zero, you get a game over... but you can choose to ignore it and keep playing with your lives going into the negative. From this point on, so long as your lives are in the negative, Yooka and Laylee will be "in debt", causing a grim reaper-like character to spawn at respawn points, complaining about his job and voicing his dislike of the duo.

At any point, the player may choose to actually have a game over, which will wipe the debt. So what's the effect of the debt? Well... if you clear the game while in debt, it will add an extra scene during the ending with the grim reaper still hounding the duo and trying them to repay their debt, preventing them from enjoying their vacation.

Basically, the point is that it play on the "optional" point from my simpler suggestion, give a chance for game over animations to be in, and has an effect (namely, on the ending) without actually forcing backtracking/gameplay repetition in the game proper. It also add an extra NPC who could be a source of humor, being an opportunity to mock the concept of death in video games or how modern players are so allergic to failure in gaming nowadays.

-It is really silly that Laylee's echolocation can't be used to find one's way in the dark given this is the big feature of bats' echolocation in real life (and as a whole in fiction too). So I think it would be nice if either the sonar could be used to do just that, instead of having to rely on Yooka glowing... or if the game included dialogue mocking the fact that Laylee, despite being a bat, can't find her way through dark areas using echolocation (may be followed by Laylee countering Yooka's comments on her echolocation by mocking him for being unable to swap colors without being told to despite this being the chameleon's species big famous ability).

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Overall, I am unsure if this will be read or if any of my ideas sound good (given they were not repeated a thousand times) but well, I decided I might as well share them.

[Gogovsky]

Manual save option, just to satisfy the brain. The "any unsaved progress will be lost" message really boggles my mind. Also, allow us to start where we left off. That would be cool. The fast travel option back to the tower is more than enough to justify starting where you exited the game.

[EekumBokum202]

On the one hand, I'm glad there isn't a Game Over animation, because I hated that every time I quit Banjo-Kazooie, even when I absolutely had to, it made me feel bad because I "lost" for not completing the game in one go. On the other hand, since you have unlimited lives, I wouldn't get a Game Over under normal circumstances anyway, so I WOULD like to see what would happen if Capital B won... Kind of.

What I DO miss, though, is an intro animation like Banjo-Kazooie! Though I guess the Rap is supposed to be that, isn't it? Ah well.

[gekkokid]

Hello!

I would like to start this topic by saying I love this game Yooka laylee have brought back the joy of collecting game generation and so I would like to offer a HUGE THANK YOU to Playtonic for creating this game, seriously I am enjoying it a lot, all the nostalgia this game brings makes me smile from ear to ear and I can't thank you guys at playtonic enough for this feeling.

however so far right now I have manage to reach world 4 and I can't help but notice a pattern in each world that is bugging me sense I started playing this game and that is the lack of uniqueness in each world.

first of I am going to start with the most obvious:

the enemies, I have notice in each world it is always the same monsters but just dress differently to blend in with the world, if this game is going to be a successor to Banjo Kazooie then each worlds should have a few unique monster that don't just blend in with the world they are part of the world.

example: you could put alligators on world 3 sense it's a swamp and in order to beat the alligator you would have to jump and slam them to the muddy floor to knock them out of their senses and then when they are dizzy you can finish them with a tail swing.

see what I mean?

in Banjo Kazooie in each world monster where unique to the world they wouldn't just blend in with the world they would be a part of it and Yooka Laylee is lacking on this a lot.

now lets talk about the NPC the characters that the lizard and the bat likes to "help" for the pagies.

I have seen often the same characters in each world if we are going to see them at least change their cloth to fit in with the world and why are they so still like waiting for you to show up just so they can give you the mission?

in Banjo Kazooie each characters would blend in with the world like their minding their own business and like they are part of that world until they meet with the MC (the bear and the bird) if you by chance encounter the same character in another world they wouldn't be in every world but they would still be minding their own business in that new world but still look like they came from the other world and some character wouldn't even show up in the next world until you help them in the first world I remember that i saw that a lot in Banjo Tooie.

if in the new world they manage to see the MC they would recognise them even if one of the MC(mostly the bird in the case of BK) wouldn't recognise that character (I remember in Banjo Tooie they had this joke in some of the characters about the lack of memories of helping them before, this does happen in yookalaylee but I have only seen it happen only with rextro because of how over outdated of a character he is)

my point is this, each character looks like they're just waiting there for you to show up even the bad guys look like they knew you where coming, it's like this game is full of bad 4th wall breaking jokes constantly.

in banjo kazooie they would break the 4th wall but most of the time they would keep on going with their roll of the storyline and right now this is missing in Yooka Laylee.

I am pretty sure this is the reason so many player are saying the game feel dead inside.

and now for last let's talk about exploration:

some of the missions are repetitive what I mean is that by the time you go to the 3rd world to explore you already know you got to find Rextro to beat his game 2 times to get his 2 pagies, you already know you got to find the skeleton explore girl to help her solve a small puzzle, you know you got to find the ghost and ect.

my point is there is to many repetitive mission and not much unique missions in the game sure rextro game are not always the same and the skeleton girl puzzle are not always the same either but you already know you got to find them to get the pagies when you explore each world it feels like there isn't much of the puzzle solving in the world in order to unlock new areas to explore.

let me explain my self better on this in the first world you make a huge change in it when you help Nimbo make rain in the mountain creating a river the causes the player to have a new way to explore the world (the world completely change)now the player gets a new way to explore the world and then you can even freeze the water in order to be have a 2nd race with the other cloud charcter.

you don't get much often this world changing event puzzles that helps you unlock new path to be able to grab the pagies in other worlds.

this system helps make exploring the world much more fun and I remember that Banjo Kazooie had this in abundance in almost every world and I love that in Banjo Kazooie because solving the world exploring puzzle to get a new a puzzle piece felt more rewarding.

I hope we get a Update or a DLC soon that can fix this, it would be cool to expand each 5 world one more time in order to explore more and have more fun collecting more pagies, as for the quills I think it would be cool if by the end of the game in the DLC you could unlock the new expansion worlds not just with the pagies but with the remaining quills this would give people another reason to collect the quills besides doing it in order to get a new pagie.

[wacky ducky]

Some kind of collectathon/metroidvania hybrid where you unlock new areas by doing quests and unlocking new moves. Kinda like banjo tooie but expanding on the interconnectivity. Could either be Twooka Laylee or a new franchise. Aside from powerups there could also be events that alter the world to unlock new areas.

[the8thark]

For your next game you really need to integrate all of the collectables into future games.

A good example is the ghost writers and the quills in Yooka Laylee.

Lets talk about the Ghost Writers first.
Why are we collecting them? No real reason.
What do we get when we collect them? Just a Pagie
Is there a special fanfare when all 5 in a world are collected? No. You just get a pagie.

My solution would have been to have a random pagie in a cagie in each of the 5 stages thsat was very scared of the ghosts or wanted the ghosts or whatever. Some form of the pagie wanting all 5 ghosts collected. When done you talk to the pagie and then the cagie opens up and you collect it.
This way the ghost collecting is integrated into the game and the pagies from colelcting them actually make sense.

Next lets talk about quills.
When you get all the quills in the level, what happens? You just get a pagie. That pagie is not really integrated into the game. How does collecting every quill translate into a pagie? it doesn't currently in the game

My solution?
To involve Trowzer. Trowser wants quills already for the moves. So all the developers had to do was add in one more item for sale from Trowzer. That being a pagie. The pagie can be bought after all the moves in that world are bought first. The cost is every remaining quill in the level. So you can do this 5x, once for each level.

Trowzer: "I found this and can be yoursssss for a few of your quillsssss"
Laylee: "That many? Is this a sale or extortion?
Trowzer: "It's salessssmanship"
Yooka: "Ok ok we'll find the quills you want to buy the pagie from you"

I'm sure you could think of a better conversation but you get my point. A way to integrate the collecting of every quill in each level into the level instead of just magically getting a pagie from nowhere after collecting every quill in a level.

FOr your next project I would consider issues like this. Little things to make sure every single collectable is fully integrated into the game.