Yoku's Island Express

In Yoku's Island Express, players control Yoku, a dung beetle, who becomes a postmaster as he arrives at a fictional island of Mokumana. The player is tasked with saving the island from a looming calamity, as the island's deity figure is attacked.

• Title — Yoku's Island Express • State — expanded • Developer — Villa Gorilla • Publisher — Team17 • Platforms — * Windows • Nintendo Switch • PlayStation 4 • Xbox One • Amazon Luna • Released — Windows, Switch, PS4, Xbox One 29 May 2018 Amazon Luna 20 October 2020 • Genre — pinball, Metroidvania • Modes — Single-player • Programmer — Jens Andersson • Artist — Mattias Snygg • Designer — Linus Larsson • Composer — Jesse Harlin

• Illustration — Gameplay screenshot The gameplay of Yoku's Island Express consists mainly of side-scrolling platforming. The player can move Yoku left and right, but unlike most platform games, they can't jump. Instead, the player uses pinball paddles (flippers) placed throughout the map to launch a ball attached to Yoku into the air, pulling Yoku with it. Yoku's Island Express takes place on a Metroidvania-style open-world island with many bumpers, tracks and ramps to utilise the pinball mechanics. A large part of the story is told through the art and environment.

Villa Gorilla was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 2013 by Jens Andersson and Mattias Snygg. They wanted to make a game in one year, choosing to "make a game about a ball" as they did not have an animator. Eventually, they started calling their project an "open-world pinball game". The developers created a proprietary game engine suited for the needs of their project. After play testing an earlier version of the game, at the time called Pinball Stories, the developers realized they had focused too much on the pinball aspect. They subsequently decided it should be an "adventure game with pinball mechanics, rather than a pinball game with adventure elements". During this change, a planned release for iOS was dropped. Yoku's Island Express was announced on 20 February 2017. On 16 May 2017, it was announced that Team17 would be the game's publisher. Yoku's Island Express was released worldwide on 29 May 2018. The game was released for Amazon Luna on 20 October 2020. In 2021, a randomize mode was added which shuffled items in the game.