{"id":103404,"date":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/11\/feature_ed_bryan_the_man_behind_mumbo_jumbo_and_many_more_on_returning_to_the_games_industry_with_playtonic"},"modified":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:00","slug":"feature-ed-bryan-the-man-behind-mumbo-jumbo-and-many-more-on-returning-to-the-games-industry-with-playtonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/11\/09\/feature-ed-bryan-the-man-behind-mumbo-jumbo-and-many-more-on-returning-to-the-games-industry-with-playtonic\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Ed Bryan, The Man Behind Mumbo Jumbo And Many More, On Returning To The Games Industry With Playtonic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Earlier this week, Playtonic Games announced<\/a> that veteran character artist Ed Bryan was joining the team behind Yooka-Laylee<\/a><\/strong> on a full-time basis. The ex-Rare man has been away from the games industry since leaving Rare eight years ago, but now reenters the fray as Playtonic enjoys the success of its recently released sequel, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since returning, Ed has already made a big splash at the company after his innocent use of a Microsoft-branded bag caused the internet to jump to all sort of conclusions that led to Playtonic issuing a statement<\/a> to clarify that, no, the developer has not been enlisted to make Banjo-Threeie or in the midst of an acquisition from Microsoft.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Ed to find out what he’s been up to, what it’s like to be back with the old team and exactly what a talented character artist gets up to when they’re not sketching and doodling.<\/p>\n

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Nintendo Life: This is your return to the games industry, but you\u2019ve been keeping yourself busy since leaving Rare in 2011. For those who haven\u2019t been following your exploits on Twitter and elsewhere, what have you been up to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ed Bryan:<\/em> You make it sound a far more exciting event than I think it is! Anyway, I left Rare at the beginning of 2011 to join a very small, new, children\u2019s publishing house called Nosy Crow<\/a>. Me and Will (my brother, programmer at Rare) formed what was their App development team. Later Andrew James (who\u2019d had worked with us at Rare too) would join us.<\/p>\n

We made a lot of apps based around stories and reading for children to enjoy. Things like Snow White, Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, that sort of thing. They were super projects to work on; small and focused and full of all the kind of work and problem solving I enjoy doing. Somedays you\u2019d be designing things, the next day drawing, then animation and making sound effects. It was like the whole process of game\/product development, but on a super small scale. Over 7 years we made and shipped 22 projects. Great fun!<\/p>\n

We also spun out 4 of the stories that I\u2019d illustrated for the apps as full blown picture books, which for me was something I\u2019d wanted to do for ages and it\u2019s lovely to see you work in book shops and in children\u2019s hands. Over the last year or so I\u2019ve been back to that and done the art for two more.<\/p>\n