A Hat in Time – a 3D collect-a-thon platformer in the spirit of N64 classics like Banjo-Kazooie

I don’t know about you, but I love Banjo-Kazooie.

Rare’s classic platformer Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64 is one of the first games I can remember playing. It might be the first game I ever played on my own, and I can still remember how excited I was the first time I got out the cartridge for its first sequel, Banjo-Tooie, and started it up. I loved everything about them–their stories, collecting musical notes and jiggies, exploring the levels, the crazy characters, the music…really, everything. As impossible as I find it to choose a single favorite video game, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie would definitely be likely candidates for the spot.

So when I heard about a Kickstarter project for a game that claimed to be in the spirit of Banjo-Kazooie, you can bet I raced to see what it was like.

A Hat in Time is a 3D “collect-a-thon” platformer that cites Banjo-Kazooie, The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario 64 among its inspirations. It is split into segments, or chapters, each of which has multiple acts. This is compared to choosing different stars in a level in Super Mario 64. Watching the gameplay videos they’ve released gave me an amazingly Banjo-Kazooie vibe (and strangely enough, a Professor Layton vibe, although maybe that’s because of the hat), and I knew this was something I had to support.

The game is going to be released for PC and Mac, and they have hopes of being able to see a Wii U release as well, although there are no concrete details about that yet. If you can’t or don’t want to support it on Kickstarter, it’s also on Steam Greenlight.

After crushing its funding goal, A Hat in Time has already met several of its stretch goals as well:
-Developer commentary
-Co-op mode
-6th bonus chapter
-Full voice acting
-7th bonus chapter
-A tune composed by Grant Kirkhope (who composed the music for Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie, among other games)

Their remaining stretch goals are to have a New Game +, to implement a voice mumble option (like in Banjo-Kazooie), and to create a spaceship hub area. I love hub worlds, so personally I’m hoping that they make it all the way to their final goal! At the time that I’m writing this, there are 6 days left in the campaign, and a little under $40k to go to get a spaceship hub. Make it happen! 😀

Note: one confusing thing you should be aware of–when the reward tiers say “physical copy of the game,” they don’t actually mean a physical disk, just that you get the cute N64-style box with your stuff and digital copies. They can’t change the reward tiers to clarify this, so even though it’s mentioned in the FAQ, I thought I would mention it here as well.

Well, I hope I’ve convinced you to check out A Hat in Time! For those of you who are still uncertain, let me close with a few images.