Yacht Club Games is working on a new project which, for the first time in the indie studio’s history, has nothing to do with Shovel Knight. It’s called Mina the Hollower, it’s a retro-homage to Game Boy classics like Link’s Awakening, and in a weird twist, Yacht Club is going back to Kickstarter to help fund development.
Mina the Hollower was revealed as part of the Yacht Club Games Presents event on G4 today, which showed the 8-bit inspired top-down adventure game in action. You play as a mouse navigating dungeons and taking down enemies with a whip. There are traps, hidden secrets, and the ability to burrow underground to evade attacks and side-step obstacles. Basically, it’s the proven Yacht Club formula applied to a new genre.
“Though we’re financing a majority of this project ourselves, we hope we can create a more expansive game this way,” designer Alec Faulkner said in a press release. “More importantly, we want to build a community around Kickstarter, much like we did with Shovel Knight.”
Yacht Club asked backers for $75,000 for Shovel Knight back in 2013, but ended up raising over $300,000. Shovel Knight came out a year later, was very good, and went on to spawn four expansions and two spin-offs. The studio also shared updates on two of those games during its G4 presentation.
December’s excellent connect-three puzzle game Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon will get a slew of new updates in the future. The first is a free one that will add a new playable character called Random Knight, bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and more accessibility options. Three DLC packs will follow that will expand the game further with new power-ups and unlockables, as well as adding official mod support and an online versus mode.
Yacht Club also showed off a new level from its upcoming Shovel Knight game, Shovel Knight Dig. A collaboration with fellow indie studio Nitrome, the side-scrolling roguelite had to be delayed but is apparently “in the final stages of development and nearing completion.” Mina the Hollower, meanwhile, is still “in the thick of development,” and still a ways out from release.