Work continues unperturbed in the energy factory that is the Playtonic Games office. Now occupied by some 14 chairs (and another one that I may have managed to snap in half with my arse), it certainly feels like there’s more going on here than in our previous corridor-come-workspace, where only the occasional sound of Steve Mayles shuffling his FHM collection pierced the eternal, cold silence.

It’s been almost three months since the door slammed shut on our stellar crowdfunding effort for Yooka-Laylee, and you can see that time represented in pretty polygon things animating on our array of monitors.

After just a few months the game’s various environments are taking shape and the very first world is fleshed out and running. This is one of the most challenging constructions of the project, since as well as the environment and challenges, we’ve also had to magic up the moves, animations and basic game mechanics required to make it all work.

But if you could glimpse our screens today (you can’t – we’ve blacked the windows) you’d witness our green and purple protagonists running, swimming and soaring their way through a beautiful platforming playground. We’ve also transferred a handful of characters from paper to polygon, including Mark Stevenson’s Ghost Writer you can see – as a special treat – animated on this very page.

One new character you may have spied in a recent issue of Edge is the slender lass below. Crayoned by our own Kev Bayliss, this yet-to-be-named NPC will require Yooka and Laylee’s assistance on the very first world of the game. Obviously she’s forgot to turn the iron off or something and they’ll need to go and get the spare keys off her landlord.

Top off our current dev progress with a roster of new tunes from Grant and Dave, and the embers of what will eventually become the final game are certainly dancing in the midnight air. We’ve got a long way to go before those youthful sparks become mighty flames worthy of your consumption (use gloves), but rest assured we’ll keep you regularly updated with new artwork and in-game glimpses until they are.

EGX-Rated talk

Last week the team attended the glamorous EGX game expo in Birmingham to have a little talk about some of the old games they used to make. David Wise, demonstrating exactly the sort of behaviour that earned him his ASBO in the first place, made us all drink beer earlier in the morning, so we apologise if our speech sounded more slurred that useful.

It’s also a bit noisy in the NEC, but hopefully you can make out some of the team’s anecdotes in the fan-captured video below. If not, we’re told the busy bees on the Playtonic Forums have part-constructed a transcript.

EGX was also the platform for us to unveil some brand new Yooka-Laylee concept art, scribbled together by our own Dean Wilson. You can now view the hi-res version of that over on the Yooka-Laylee game page – it’s a real looker.