Extended Practice Hub World Research: Banjo-Kazooie Games

The game series that I wanted to look at was Banjo Kazooie as it has some brilliant hub world designs that do very much remind me of the Super Mario 64 game, but it's no surprise, both being made by Nintendo and for N64, why mess with something that worked first time? 

Banjo Kazooie
The original Banjo Kazooie for me was very similar to the layout of Super Mario 64 in the way that it will have a home world, in this case Gruntilda's Lair and the other levels will be accessed by going through paintings on the wall once all of the jigsaw pieces have been found to unlock it. The overall design of the hub world is interesting and is very reminiscent of Peaches Castle in the way that there are different levels of height to explore and the world is actually fairly large with secrets to be found. 

 The overall design and theme that they have chosen is a very murky appear, a big contrast to the bright and colourful world of Mario. The designs used are very castle based and dungeon like as they have chosen a brown and green colour scheme throughout. The design works well though considering that it is meant to be a witches lair and it does give off a very creepy vibe that does make you feel weary when exploring.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts 
The second game didn't really offer a hub world, so I decided to look at the slightly newer Banjo Kazooie game, with Nuts and Bolts. This was brought out some years after the second game was release and is very different but still uses the same characters. But the hub world is very big and beautiful offering a lot to explore and find in this huge location. Again it is used to link up the different levels, but the overall town is probably bigger than all of the levels anyway with so much to do.

 Showdown Town, as it is called, has a very interesting and unique design to it as well, much like most of the game does as a lot of it designed with metal in mind, but set in this tudor looking down which creates a striking contrast to some of the levels that connect to it. As the mechanics of the game include driving around the town as well as walking the size of it works well as you can traverse around it easily with a car, but this does appear to be too big for our own game as we will only be walking/running around on foot.