A few months back, I posted an article about upcoming platformer Ayo the Clown, attempting to determine if the game is super cute or secretly terrifying. I think that the developers are actually going for a sweet, wholesome vibe for Ayo's game, with visuals that resemble a first-party Nintendo side-scroller. But there is still some small part of me that wonders if we are instead going to be treated to a Doki Doki situation, where Ayo starts as one thing but pivots into something far more soul-rending.
This new video about "The World of Ayo" doesn't do much to alleviate my jittery nerves:
Ayo the Clown looks super adorable, right? But isn't that the tone you would try to strike right before your game pivoted and Ayo started biting the heads off of chickens?
“Ayo won’t stop at anything in order to rescue his beloved pooch and as a result is a very well traveled clown. The World of Ayo is a weird but wonderful place filled with more things to see and do than you can shake a balloon stick at!,” said Xiu Liang, Cloud M1 Game Director. “Ayo the Clown is finally arriving on July 28th and we can’t wait for players to join the fun.”
Maybe my fear of Ayo says more about me than it does about the folks making this game. I'm fairly certain that they are just trying to make a nice, kid-friendly platformer, and its my own neuroses that turn it into something dark. We'll see on July 28 when Ayo arrives on Nintendo Switch.
