Shovel Knight Developer Yacht Club Announces Game Boy Inspired Adventure

Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games announced their anticipated next project: a Game Boy era action-adventure game called Mina the Hollower.

Already a successful Kickstarter campaign, Mina the Hollower promises to bring “bone-chilling action adventure featuring classic gameplay and an 8-bit aesthetic in the style of Game Boy Color, refined for the modern era.” Gameplay footage shows influences from The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Castlevania, and even Bloodborne.

The game promises to run at a silky smooth 60fps and will feature widescreen visuals, enhanced pixel art, and a new chiptune score by famed Shovel Knight composer Jake Kaufman. The Kickstarter itself has many details about the game’s story, enemies, and samples of Kaufman’s macabre (but still glorious) music.

Kickstarter itself has been in hot water lately with their doubling down on a switch to blockchain. One may also point out that Yacht Club Games themselves have multiple successful games under their belt, far removed from the underdogs who require crowdfunding. They do want to quell these concerns, stating: “Our main reason for launching a Kickstarter this time is to build a brand new universe in the same way we did with our first game, Shovel Knight-with our community involved in creating something special along with us!”

Yacht Club Games have already proved that they put their money where their mouth is. Upon its release in 2014, Shovel Knight broke new ground on both the quality and quantity of independent retro-styled videogames. The game became one of the first Kickstarter success stories, leading to four major expansions (the final campaign, King of Cards, launched in 2019) and two spin offs-the recently launched Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon and upcoming Shovel Knight Dig.