They’re not real human beings, but they are our new heroes. Meet Yooka and Laylee, the buddy duo set to adventure in our aptly named debut project Yooka-Laylee, coming to Kickstarter this Friday!

Dreamed up by character artist Steve ‘don’t call me Steven’ Mayles – the man behind Banjo, Kazooie and the rebooted Donkey Kong family – we think the bat ‘n chameleon (we’ll let you guess their sexes) are our most inventive protagonists yet, and we’ll tell you just why we’ve deemed that over the next 24 hours.

Starting right now IGN has the ‘scoop’ (we’re assured that term is still used) on the first ever Yooka-Laylee gameplay footage and feature details. Head over there for ‘the skinny’ and when you’re done visit our brand new game page to see some beautiful artwork.

Tomorrow we’ll publish loads more Yooka-Laylee media (will there be David Wise and Grant Kirkhope tunes? You bet your pedigree gerbil there will be) alongside an interview with their father, Mr. Steven… sorry, Steve Mayles himself.

And then at 5pm BST on Friday it’s the big one, the launch of our Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter campaign. When we first discussed this project the reaction was immense. You flocked to our shop doors like eager amiibo scalpers, and your mouths were full of requests.

You told us you wanted Yooka-Laylee (or whatever it was called back then) to be the best game it could possibly be. You said you wanted sprawling, gorgeous worlds to explore, tons of smartarse characters to meet and inventive moves to learn… and you wanted to do it all on your gaming platform of choice.

When we launch our Kickstarter in less than 24 hours, you can help us tick all of those boxes and more. Together you can help our team create the game they’ve dreamed of making – and you might pick yourself up some cool swag in the process.