Yacht Club Games has detailed the intricate and audacious development process behind its upcoming title, Mina the Hollower, revealing that the team aimed for a complexity often associated with AAA productions, despite its retro aesthetic. The studio discussed the game's mechanics, world design, and the sheer effort involved in creating a title that pushed their own boundaries.
Core Mechanics and Design Philosophy
The development of Mina the Hollower began with a desire to create a top-down game with Castlevania-style gameplay, a novel approach for the genre. A key mechanic, burrowing, was conceived to address limitations in top-down combat, particularly the risk of players becoming cornered. Designer Alec Faulkner explained that instead of a traditional jump, burrowing underground allows the player character, Mina, to reposition safely, represented by a visible shadow or mound. This mechanic integrates seamlessly into combat, exploration, and platforming, demonstrating Yacht Club's philosophy of developing simple, intuitive mechanics with significant depth.
Programmer David D'Angelo highlighted the deliberate choice to implement delayed invulnerability during the burrowing action, a stark contrast to the immediate dodge mechanics common in modern games. This design choice, along with restricted whip directions, forces players to be more deliberate and strategic. Sean Velasco, director of Mina the Hollower, noted that enemies were designed to not be easily stun-locked, ensuring combat remains challenging and engaging, drawing parallels to the thoughtful enemy design found in titles like Castlevania.
Ambitious World and Enemy Design
The team also discussed the creation of the Astral Orrery, a level born from a Kickstarter stretch goal that was eventually incorporated into the game. Faulkner described it as a "variety show" of ideas, representing a significant creative and technical undertaking. The Carving Man, a stalker enemy inspired by Resident Evil's Nemesis, was designed to relentlessly pursue the player through the September region, reinforcing the game's themes and adding a layer of tension.
This enemy's design also showcases Yacht Club's approach to iterating on existing concepts, pushing them into new contexts. The Carving Man's ability to throw Mina across screen transitions and interact with the environment allows for emergent gameplay moments and player-driven solutions, such as luring him into environmental hazards.
Bespoke Engine and Balancing Challenges
Yacht Club Games developed a new engine for Mina the Hollower, departing from their previous work on Shovel Knight. D'Angelo explained that this custom engine was necessary to achieve specific retro palette-swapping and cycling effects, as well as to minimize input latency critical for a pixel-precise 2D game. The team emphasized that while external engines like Unity or Unreal might suffice for other genres, their low-latency requirement for Mina demanded a bespoke solution.
The sheer volume of player customization options, including 60 non-exclusive trinkets that can be equipped in sets of six, presented a significant balancing challenge. Faulkner and Velasco acknowledged the extensive spreadsheet work required to ensure that the game remains enjoyable regardless of player build or chosen area order. The goal was to meticulously guide players into a positive experience, offering moments of feeling overpowered alongside challenging encounters.
World Interconnectivity and Financial Risk
Surprisingly, much of Mina the Hollower's interconnected world was not fully implemented until late in development. Faulkner stated that the team trusted their planning and design to ensure the world would function cohesively when finally assembled. This approach, while risky, ultimately paid off, avoiding the need for extensive recalibrations. The developers also revealed the significant financial risk involved, with the game being funded entirely by the studio's own money and revenues from Shovel Knight, meaning a lack of commercial success could jeopardize the company's future. This independence, however, allowed for complete creative control.
The development also strained the team's resources, particularly as they worked on multiple projects simultaneously before refocusing on Mina the Hollower to ensure its completion. Velasco described Mina the Hollower as a "maximalist" game, a characteristic inherited from previous titles where the team felt compelled to include all ideas. This led to a situation where cutting content was often more time-consuming than completing it, as many elements were interdependent. The experience was described as brutal, with morale dipping toward the end of development due to financial pressures, a lesson the studio has learned multiple times.