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Yacht Club on finishing Shovel Knight's story and becoming indie publishers
Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight saga is finally coming to an end with the release of Shovel Knight: King of Cards. We sat down with the developers to talk about what's next.
When Yacht Club Games started on their adventure to create Shovel Knight they knew it'd be much more than just a game – it'd be a brand with many expansions and appearances in other media. Even with those high expectations, it's doubtful they imagined the incredible level of success and support the little blue knight has experienced.
"We always envisioned Shovel Knight being more than a single project when we started out. He would have his own game, but we always had a vision to do books and movies. He'd be more than a game. The sequels were a part of that," Yacht Club Games designer Nick Wozniak tells us. "This is a good breaking off point though, I'm looking forward to not working on Shovel Knight. It's our baby, but six years is a long time and I'm ready to move on to something different."
As their latest expansion, Shovel Knight: King of Cards approaches, Yacht Club Games is actively working on new projects and initiatives. Thinking about what the bustling indie studio will turn into once they can finally put their darling scoop warrior to bed.
"We're all really eager to tackle the fact that we're more than the Shovel Knight creators, it's going to take a lot to get out of that shadow. We want to make Yacht Club a brand that brings more than that to a game," Wozniak said. "We want to do 3D really bad, we want to be like Nintendo way back when. They made Mario and then moved onto Metroid, we want to explore a change like that."
Part of that change includes a new direction – Yacht Club Games is getting into the publishing game, starting with the Ninja Gaiden-like Cyber Shadow.
A treasure trove of publishing
Cyber Shadow, which debuted at PAX East earlier this month, is a classic 8-bit platformer from Finland-based, one-man design team Aarne Hunziker. It's been in development for years, but Yacht Club recently jumped onboard to help finish things up.
"It's not like other 8-bit platformers, that's why it's special. We came onboard to help create more things that make Cyber Shadow different," Wozniak said. "Shovel Knight was like a new Mega Man after a long Mega Man drought. Cyber Shadow is like Ninja Gaiden, but we're not focused on that. We're coming in to help make it special."
Creating a classic platformer is much harder than it used to be – since Shovel Knight came out more than five years ago the expectations that players have for these modern 8-bit adventures have risen. Yacht Club Games believes that Cyber Shadow has what it takes to stand out: a beautiful art style, tight and addictive gameplay, and a lot of passion behind the scenes.
Wozniak emphasised that Yacht Club Games’ publishing efforts would focus on the creative side of game development, as they want to work with designers as another co-developer for projects they love. "I do pixel animation so I was a fan of the art long before we started talking," he said. "I was in love with how it looked, its NES style. I knew it had so much potential."
While they are passionate about pixels, Yacht Clubs is open to publishing all kinds of games. They actually encourage that diversity as they don't want to get pinned down as the "retro studio". They want to prove they can do so much more.
"We are fielding all kinds of games. If you're making a game for Yacht Club it doesn't need pixels, it might actually get more scrutiny if it does," Wozniak laughed. " There won't be many restrictions with genres for us. We probably won't want to do stuff with a really mature setting or something scary. But we'd be interested in looking at any game that's fun and more gameplay focused."
King of Cards is the biggest adventure of all the Shovel Knight stories
© Yacht Club Games
A king's franchise-finishing conquest
Before they can move their full attention to new projects and publishing partnerships, the Shovel Knight creators have to finish what they started: Shovel Knight. The final (for now) expansion, King of Cards and their multiplayer add-on Shovel Knight Showdown were both supposed to come out on April 9 but had to delay after a few issues.
While still sparse on specifics, Wozniak did say the release date for both King of Cards and Showdown was very, very close. "The core content of the game is done," he said. "We just don't have all the definitive information from certification so we don't want to announce another date we may not be able to make."
This will be Shovel Knight's final story, although the famous indie could see more entries later on. King of Cards, which focuses on the King Knight playing through four new worlds, is the biggest addition the game has seen yet and it includes a lot of special touches that fans will appreciate.
"Pay attention to the background pieces throughout it, there's going to be a reason why things are set up in a specific way," Wozniak said. "The reason certain rooms are abandoned, a lot of details that speak to the adventures of Shovel and Plague Knight."
Those little nods and hidden secrets are part of a much richer package that should be a proper conclusion to Shovel Knight's long and arduous journey. "It's a really big finish, it's the biggest game out of the three by far, with a lot of new ideas and exploration," Wozniak said. "It's like going from Super Mario Bros 3 to Super Mario World, it's a huge expansion on the original."
