How old is Sonic the Hedgehog?

 

Over the last decade, Yacht Club Games have solidified themselves as one of the premier indie game development studios in the industry. Starting in 2014 with the phenomenal Shovel Knight, which has since received loads of substantial DLC expansions and has an upcoming "deluxe" edition set to release next year, Yacht Club came out of the gate swinging. The character Shovel Knight has skyrocketed in fame, becoming something of a Mario-esque face of the indie game scene, which has led to the character being featured in several other indie games of myriad genres. The series has since received two spin-off titles in Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon and Shovel Knight Dig, and has future titles in the works. Perhaps most notably though, Yacht Club has unveiled their brand new franchise; something separate from their iconic blue shovel-wielding boy. The team pulled the curtain back on Mina the Hollower. Sandy Gordon of Yacht Club Games was extremely kind and gracious to allow me to interview him about Mina the Hollower.

 

The presentation of Mina the Hollower immediately drew comparisons from the media to beloved retro titles like Link’s Awakening and Castlevania, especially the former, with that Game Boy Color aesthetic. Was that intentional or just more of a surface level homage? If not those titles, what do you think serves as the largest influence on the game?

 Not only are those comparisons accurate, but they're ones we've made ourselves! Mina the Hollower's original prototype was a "what would happen if we took Castlevania's deliberate action combat and melded it with Link's Awakening's top down GBC adventuring, with an enhanced focus on top down platforming and a healthy pinch of Bloodborne for added spooky vibes."

I love a great macabre and spooky, gothic theme for a game, and Mina seems to have this in spades (an unintentional shovel pun.) What went into selecting the location, monster and NPC designs for the game? Did any specific worlds serve as a polestar of sorts for art direction?

Beyond the previously mentioned gaming influences, we talked a lot about iconic Gothic Horror themes that could be good inspiration for Mina's world. Alongside the industrial revolution and Victorian-era advances in science came moral and philosophical questions people hadn't really had to contend with, at least not so rapidly. A lot of authors of the time were inspired by themes of man vs nature - the notion that advances in science are double-edged. Novels like Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jeckly & Mr. Hyde, some poems by Edgar Allen Poe, these works were reactions to horrifying concepts brought about by new technology. So we aimed to infuse Mina's world with stories and characters reflective of those themes.

It might sound silly, but we're also big fans of Disneyland (many of Yacht Club's founding members are from southern california), so we had classic rides like The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean on our minds as well, looking for ways to pull the atmosphere of those experiences into Mina's world. Tenebrous Isle is crammed with biome diversity and colorful characters!

The gameplay looks diverse from the brief snippets we’ve seen. I saw Mina grinding on rails, a la Sonic or Ratchet, which was unexpected and quite cool. Mina also has her trademark burrowing ability, which entails rapidly diving under the earth and quickly traveling short distances. It looks like she has a veritable arsenal of various weapons and tools at her disposal as well; not to mention the trinket system, which seems to potentially alter Mina’s moveset in major ways. 

How did the team decide what all to include in her armory? Are these the typical tools of the trade for a Hollower? 

Also, aren’t whips just the coolest weapon ever? From the Belmonts to Indiana Jones, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing a whip as someone’s primary weapon. Nice choice.

Agreed, whips seem to be pretty versatile and any hero wielding one manages to make it look a lot cooler than it probably is.

As far as being a Hollower goes, there are no tools of the trade, per say. A Hollower's main objective is to study the Earth and its resources, as well as to move faster below ground than above it. With that, anyone can become a Hollower if they've achieved success in those areas, using any tools of choice.

Mina's definitely packing an extensive array of trinkets though! She'd already been a renowned Hollower for some time at the start of the game, so she's proficient in a variety of weapons and sidearms. As far as deciding what those would be, it just came down to what we all felt was coolest and provided the most distinct variety in playstyle. If we're going to give players options, we want to make sure the choice matters. The difference between tackling an enemy with quick-stabbing dual daggers should be stark in contrast to the timed heavy attacks of a blastrike hammer.

 

Your website describes the plot as “a bone-chilling, yet heartwarming tale inspired by Victorian Gothic Horror.” Were you reading my diary? How did you know exactly what I wanted in a game like this? Jokes aside, is there anything of the plot that you can detail further? What is a Hollower? Who is Mina? Is there juicy lore that you can divulge about this world or the island on which our story unfolds?

As for who Mina is, herself, she's a visionary inventor who was summoned to Tenebrous Isle by Baron Lionel, the overseer of the island. Mina was once commissioned to invent a technology used to build Spark Generators, which provide energy to Ossex, the island's central city. The power they provide ushered in new prosperity to Ossex and has allowed it to thrive as a bustling HUB of commerce and society. Lionel summons Mina to the island because the spark generators are being destroyed by a mysterious force and he needs her expertise to repair them, while contending with whatever threats she may encounter along the way. Mina's a mouse of high social upbringing and prefers to resolve conflicts civilly if she can, but she's no stranger to getting her hands dirty when needed.

Do you anticipate Mina the Hollower spanning beyond just this title? I read that it initially started as a side-project that wasn’t supposed to be commercially released - thank God you guys changed that decision, because this looks phenomenal. 

Yacht Club does such wonderful retro-inspired works that hearken back to these franchises with long-running series and legacies, and I almost just expect you guys to want to make a dozen different Shovel Knight and Mina the Hollower titles, like the franchises that inspired yours.

Thanks! It's hard to speak much to that before the first game has been released and we get a sense for what the reception is like. As much as we adore Shovel Knight and plan to continue his adventures in future games, we're very happy to be working on a new property. And we're equally excited about Mina, her world, and the adventures she has the potential to go on. I won't say we haven't already talked at length about what we could do with her down the road, but those'll have to be talking points for the future.

 

Have you guys ever considered expanding your franchises beyond the medium of video games? To me, both of your series feel like they could easily branch into comic books or cartoon series. Perhaps a smash-hit Broadway production of Shovel Knight that blows Hamilton out of the water?

 Shovel Knight's sure made a lot of cameos in his day; who's to say he won't one day grace the gilded stage! We've had talks with production companies about doing Shovel Knight appearances in everything under the sun, and as much as we'd love to see it all happen, sometimes it's out of our control. Big endeavors like comics and cartoons pass through a lot of hands before they come to fruition, so sometimes they slip away from us. Maybe one day!

 

What’s next for Shovel Knight? Are we finally going 16-bit? Or jumping straight to 64 bits? You’ve already got a cast big enough for a kart racer game. Let’s make that happen. Please. I need it.

Shovel Knight's been adventuring nonstop! He's been featured in both Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon and Shovel Knight Dig, both of which have received BIG FREE DLC updates on a regular basis. As for what's to come? It's hard to say just yet, but we have no plans to let him rest his shovel blade any time soon.

 

What is your history with the gaming industry and as a pixel artist? I see on your MobyGames page and Twitter that you’ve also worked on the acclaimed platform fighting game Rivals of Aether. You seem to be working exclusively on very cool, great games, which seems like a wise career choice.

Hah, I didn't even know I had a MobyGames page. I wonder how accurate it is!


I started doing pixel art around 2014, before that I worked in Graphic Design and released a few mobile games with small teams. Once I was bitten by the pixel bug though, I was hooked. Crazy to think it's been 10 years that I've been doing this. I feel very fortunate to have worked on so many cool games. I think I happened to start at a time when the indie game scene was going through a big revival and the space was booming across social media platforms. Indies sharing their small projects, gamedev communities forming and people reaching out to each other to do game jams or form teams. It was a great time to get into the space and I met a lot of amazingly talented and cool people who gave me opportunities to grow my skill set. I'm very lucky to have found a stable career doing this. It's not something I'd have ever predicted for myself before I was actively doing it.

 

Is there anything else that you wanted to share about upcoming projects? Does Mina the Hollower have a release date set? What platforms should we expect? An N-Gage release perhaps?

No release date just yet, but development has really ramped up over the past year and I can feel (and see!) how close we are to reaching the finish line now. I won't say anything definitive, but an end is in sight.

 

The last question I had, one that I ask with all of my interviews, where does the name Yacht Club Games originate?

Hah, that's actually a question we get asked a lot and the answer's pretty goofy! The name started as a joke. When the original Shovel Knight development crew started they had all just quit their full time jobs and were working on the game out of a tiny office space. When coming up with a name for their team they thought it'd be tongue-in-cheek amusing to name it something in stark contrast to what they were. So, what could be more antithetical to a rag-tag team of poor developers than...Yacht Club Games! The height of luxury! Who'd have ever thought Shovel Knight would become as successful as it did and allow them to pursue their dreams of indie game stardom? Certainly not them! But here we are.


Even more ironic, when I first started with the team in 2017 our offices were on the top floor of a building on a marina, right next to a real yacht club! We sometimes received mistaken phonecalls from people looking to rent a boat...

 

I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Sandy for taking time out of his busy schedule for this interview. I loved hearing all about the inspirations behind Mina the Hollower and I can't wait to get my hands on it. It looks to be shaping up into a beautiful game.