Video Gamers Podcast - Building Worlds, One Pixel At A Time — Yacht Club Games Speaks Out [REMASTERED] – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace sit down with Celia Schilling of Yacht Club Games—the powerhouse studio behind Shovel Knight and the highly anticipated Mina the Hollower! In this special interview, the crew dives deep into how Yacht Club has kept its retro-inspired magic alive while continuing to innovate in the ever-evolving world of gaming. From the origins of Shovel Knight to the creative process behind Mina the Hollower, Celia shares inside stories on development, community, and what drives their passion for gaming excellence. Whether you’re a fan of indie craftsmanship or big-picture discussions about the state of video games, this one’s packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Get ready for a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most beloved studios in video games—only on The Video Gamers Podcast, where gaming passion runs deep! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and Night Wizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that, that's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new Nespresso. One touch, endless possibilities. Iced, flavored, long, short. Because some days call for that espresso kick.

And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew and explore. Nespresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. We're stoked because today we've got a very special guest with us from Yacht Club Games,

the studio behind one of the most iconic characters in gaming, Shovel Night. Ace may not be able to contain himself on this one, but it's sure to be an awesome time. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh. And always, I'm joined by Ace and Ryan, but enough about those two. Let's get to the real star of this episode. Today, we're joined by the marketing and licensing director of Yacht Club Games. She loves video games, anime, and being outdoors.

So she's basically our new favorite person. It's Celia Shilling. Hi, guys. Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to chatting with you. Oh, that's an absolute pleasure. Yeah, thank you for coming on the show, Celia. We were joking before we started recording.

It's always a little weird hopping on with a bunch of strangers to talk about things you don't know. So, you know, we get it. But thank you for being willing to do this. We've actually been trying to set this up for a while now. Yeah, it's been a little bit. I felt like every time you like emailed me, I was like, yes, just not yet. And I'm so sorry. So that's why I was like, I've been looking forward to this.

I wasn't ditching you. had to be the right time. Well, you've proven it because you're here now. And we have actually talked to a lot of developers and we get it. You know, sometimes you're just in that really busy go mode and you're trying to get things done. And then other times it's like, hey, I've got a little bit of free time. And it'd be fun to talk to people and stuff too.

So, Celia, so our listeners can get to know you just a little bit. We did chat a little bit before recording. And you are the marketing and licensing director for Yonk. club games. So what exactly does that mean? Ah man. Okay. So under the umbrella of my official title, you know, I handle marketing, community, PR, biz dev, third party relations, influencer relations, conventions, copywriting, website management. We wear a lot of hats, licensing cameos. So whenever you see shovel night in something, that's me. Whenever you see shovel night as merchandise, that's also me. We do a lot of.

of stuff. But in addition to all those fun things, Yacht Club has a pretty horizontal structure. So besides all the marketing and merch and biz dev stuff, like when I have time, I'll be like, you know, in level design pitches and MPC and character discussions. And I just finished playtesting Mina and writing up notes. So I've been very busy. It's been a great time, though. That's awesome. As you can see behind Ace up there over, well, I guess on his left shoulder there, you can see some shovel night merch. So Ace, there you go. Celia is literally responsible for your plushies

and the other characters you've got there. So for what I'm seeing from here, yeah, I'm behind most of those things. So that's a U-2s figure, if I can tell. That's all the amoeboes, the propeller night plush with symbiote studio. Same with the Specter Knight. Yeah, I've done all of that.

That's incredible. Thank you. I love the propeller rat. He's my favorite. No, I know. It was the fun. thing. Oh my gosh. King Knight's on the way, by the way. Oh, I'm so

excited. I've been waiting for the email. We can have them together. Yeah, I'm going to do a bunch a little funny. Yeah, I got the, I got the amoe in front of him right now of King Knight since I didn't have King Knights. So I was like, you know what? Propelor at works. Hell yeah. Ace has a thing for rats, by the way. It's a long-running joke that

if there's a rat in a video game, he's very excited for me to the hollower, by the way. Because when he found out, it's a rat in a video game. It's instantaneous. Just, you know, it's his new favorite thing there. Ace, we did it for you. You're welcome. Oh, thank you so much.

I want to say I'm actually impressed on how well Ace is containing himself right now. I'm being very calm. You're doing really good, dude. He's like, I'm a professional. I can keep it together. So I love hearing this kind of horizontal structure thing because we've talked to a lot of devs and we've talked to some AAA studios as well, you know, and one of the things that we are huge proponents of are indie studios and indie developers.

We actually do an indie-focused episode each and every week because, you know, we love the passion that they bring. We love just the, you know, the kind of vibe that they have when it comes to creating video games and things like that. And to kind of hear that you guys are a small team and that, you know, everybody kind of does a little bit of everything, you know, we love that. You know, I work for a small company that's one of the top podcasts in the world, not this podcast. but we're a really small team too and so like I get what it's like to have to do a lot with a small team of people

and you know I feed on that because I like being busy and I like not doing the same thing over and over again too so how many people if you had to I don't know if you have an exact count but how many people are actually at Yacht Club? We do 16

16? Oh wow. That's amazing people? That is insane. That is awesome. I love that. So one of the other questions, and again, we always like our listeners to kind of get to know people a little bit is one question that we love asking people is like, you know, do you play video games? And if so, what are some of your favorite games that you're playing right now? And I got to say, your list is awesome. So for those listeners out there, like, I'm going to let you just run with this because we asked you, what are some of your favorite games or current games that you're playing? playing. And so what are those? Okay. So my favorite game of all time is Banjo Kizui. It's the game that made me love gaming. You know what I mean? Like when you play it and you finish that game, you're like, huh, I think video games are my thing and it's going to be, you know, a core fundamental of my life. So yeah, that's what Banjo Kizui is. Currently, I'm playing a few games right now. I'm playing Dragon Quest Monsters, the Dark Prince. I'm a huge Dragon Warrior Monsters fan for the Game Boy

Color, the original and Taras Quest. There also was a remake of that game for the 3DS that we didn't get into the States, but that's a different story for different things. So anyways, I'm playing that. I'm also going, like, doing a play-through right now of PS3 games because that's the generation that I missed. So right now I'm playing L.A. Noir right now, but I have a fat stack of games. I love playing on original hardware, so I acquired a PS3 and I've been playing through that.

So that's been really fun. And I'm also playing Yucco Replay Lee. So speaking of cameos, I signed off. I'm actually in the credits for Yucca Replaylie, for approving the shovel night cameo in that. So I was like, I 100%ed the original ukulele game. So I was like, well, I got a, I got 100% replayly. It's, you know, it's required by law, according to me. Yeah.

So I'm doing that right now as well. Oh, that's awesome. I love it. That's, I tell you what, Banja Kuzzi was one. That's always, all of the audio in that game is always just, cemented in my head. Like the of the jump and as you're running along

and yeah, all of that stuff that's a really solid list. But that one that one's a good one. That's a banger for sure. Oh, do the banjo dance when you win. I do that. It's part of my personality. By law as well. That one's by law as well. Yeah, it's important. We recently did an

episode on like some of the most iconic like game levels that stand out to you and like the TikTok clock in Banjo Cazooie was one. the woods level was another one. My wife and I, she's not much of a gamer, but she does enjoy video games. And playing through Banjo Kizui together is actually like one of our favorite game moments ever

because she was so invested. And it's so funny that you're playing Yuka replay right now because she is currently playing ukulele in the impossible layer. She picked it up last week and she has been completely enamored with this game, which is hard to do. She's kind of picky with the types of games. that she likes. And so she is all about ukulele right now, too, which is great. Those games are so good. They are. The humor, it's so cheeky. I really enjoy it. We, it's funny because we talk about,

like, 3D platformers were such a thing for a while. And then they kind of just fell off. You know, I mean, you know, nowadays we've got, you know, the only like current 3D platformers that most gamers would know about are the ones on the Nintendo Switch. You know, like your Mario games. Like, you know, if we think about like Mario Odyssey or Mario Galaxy or something like that, but like apart from those, it almost feels like it's like a dying genre. And I don't know why because those games were so good like back in the day. I think it's because they're hard to make, especially in the modern scaling of things.

But, you know, obviously, you know, who knows what the future holds. I love 3D platformers. I enjoy 2D platformers as well, obviously. But 3D platformers are where my heart is. I know, I agree with you. Like, they kind of disappeared. And like when we got Astrobot for an example, everyone's like, wow, they're like rediscovering like the best genre of games in my opinion.

And they're like, why don't we have more of these? And I'm like, yeah, why don't we have more of these? I love this. It made me fall in love with games. So yeah, I would love to see more, hopefully, with, you know, the success of Astrood and Donkey Kong Bonanza, which is a really fun game as well. And like Odyssey and all that, we'll see more in the near future. But unfortunately, with the game development cycle, it takes years. So maybe eventually we'll get them.

And you touched on something that I don't think a lot of gamers understand is they're hard to develop. We talked to Devonsanti, who is making a game called Mr. Sleepy Man, which is an incredible looking game. It's awesome looking. Really cool guy. He's a solo developer on this. But one of the things he talked about was like, I don't think people have any clue how hard it is to do like just the controls in a 3D platformer.

Just the control scheme is crazy, difficult to do. And then to make it to where people want to play it as well is not something that is easy. So I love it. There's another indie game called Tito. We love the devs for that game. upcoming 3D platformer that looks really, really good. But I mean, you know, we've been gaming our whole lives. And I would love nothing more than to see the kind of reemergence of the,

the 3D platformer genre come to light, too. So, hey, I'd hack off my arm for a 3D platformer by Yacht Club games. All right. Oh, my God. Please don't do that. How are you going to play it? She needs you to buy all of these things. I need you to have both hands.

You know, that's a fair point. hands. That's a fair point. Maybe like a leg. Do a foot. Yeah. Do a leg. You know, I could lose a leg.

We could sell that. Yeah. Do the kidney. Yeah. Hey, then you'd be a real pirate like your one piece. Oh, just like all my one piece stuff.

Yeah. Oh. Oh. Okay. Are we getting into the anime? Because we had, okay, Seeley,

we had a big old argument this morning over anime. So this is actually perfect timing too. You said you're a fan of anime. What are some of your top animas that you are a fan of? Okay. So I'm a long term. Weeb. So my favorite anime of all time is Ramah one half.

It's a classic 80s anime. I own all the manga. I have season one. I have the OVA, which I found out was rare. I have a giant P-chan, like a little neon light thing. I love that series. Oh, cool. So love Ramah one-half. You know, like there's like,

that's my top. I also like Dragon Ball Z. I'm trying to think how deep cut can I go. How casual are you guys? I'm just wondering. I'm semi-casual. I was a really big fan of Dragon Ball Z when I was in high school. And then I kind of got out of anime for a little bit. My youngest daughter, who was 15, became a huge fan of anime, and then got me back into it.

So like, and I was like, all right, kid, let's do this. So she introduced me to like Bungo Stray dogs, Demon Slayer, obviously, Promise Neverland. We've done some of the more common Jiu-Jitsu Kaizen, but she's not really a big fan of that one. And so we've tried to like branch out a little bit. and then Ryan and Ace Ace is probably our biggest anime fan he probably

I'll be honest I've never heard of the one that you said was your favorite but I think Charlotte Charlotte is my favorite anime Charlotte okay yeah I haven't heard of that one either but have you seen Demon Slayer Celia have you yeah everyone's seen Demon Slayer read the manga too okay right okay not us

no this is this was the argument this was the argument I don't know okay so I'm just like at my manga shelf, like I have all my ramma one half, I have dot hack, I have Nogima over here, Kadacha, Mars, Marmalade Boy. Like, I have a lot of like... Those are some deep cuts. A mix of things. Yeah. It's really good, too. Erased. Have you seen Arrace. Oh, Erased is great. Erased.

Error is great. Yes. Orange is also a good one if you enjoyed erased. But anyways, interesting. No, it's okay. Like, there's a million billion different anime you can watch, like, out there. It's really cool how we... We have so much accessibility was watching whatever we you want to. Like, I remember back in the day, like, I would have, like, fan-dubbed, taped over VHS tapes that my friends and I would pass around. And that's what we just had. Okay.

That's how the ring started, by the way. I have bootleg Reroni-Ken box sets where, like, the translations are real bad. So you just kind of have to, like, make do as you're watching it. And, like, so I've watched a lot of things that I'm not sure are the correct translations of any of it. But anyways, that's besides the point. Yeah, Demon Slayer is really fun. I prefer reading the manga. The animation is beautiful, by the way.

But I enjoyed the manga better, just for the fact, it moves quicker. Yeah. This all started because we got to talking about Infinity Castle and some of their making, they're doing these like major movie releases now. And my daughter and I went to go see Infinity Castle, which is what started this whole kind of discussion slash argument. And I was like, it's some of the best animation I think I've ever seen. I get that the story and the characters aren't very deep and all that.

But like, oh, my good. It's like watching fireworks. It's like you can't peel your eyes away. It is gorgeous. Okay. Like, UFO tables the production company, right? Yes. Anything they make is gorgeous.

You just look for the logo and you're like, okay, I guess I'm going to have a great time. But also, like, you know, with shown anime in general, like, it's, you don't need to be the deepest of stories to have a fun way. That's so valid. Well, and that's like Bungo's straight dog. which is one that a lot of people hadn't heard of that my daughter introduced me to. And I'll be honest, the animation is not great, but the characters in the story in Bunga Stray Dogs

is actually one of my favorites that I've come across so far. And so it's like, you know, that one, I'm like, it's neat to see the difference where it's like, okay, if I want to watch fireworks, I watch Demon Slayer. If I want like a really good character, story-driven, you know, anime, then Bungo Stray Dogs

is really good for that one as well. So if you want both watch one piece. We've got to take... Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm not. See, I can't get into a thousand episodes. Oh, come on. Dude, okay, Ace, I remember in 2000, and I was like five, I was like in school, okay, and we had a substitute teacher.

This is relevant to the story, I promise. And he, like, turned on the TV or whatever and was, like, playing DVDs or whatever to, because it was like, I think a rainy day or something. I was, like, playing for TV or whatever. Anyways, he put on one piece, okay? Really? And we're looking at that in 2005 and being like, there's way too many episodes. I can't commit to that. And that was 20 years ago, okay?

So, like, it's just one of those things where it's, you know, over a thousand chapters. I stopped at, like, the White Beard Saga, and I was like, okay. I know, I heard very good arc at the end. It's so good. I know. We cry, we laugh, we feel. I agree. It starts getting good.

Oh, yeah, that's like, you know, the midway point 10 years later, right? Anyways, I don't know. It's one of those things that, like, I acknowledge I've missed that train. and I think I missed it 20 years ago too. But the live action was fun and also the four kids adaption was creative. Creative is the right word. That is the absolute right word. That's a polite way of saying something.

No, no, dude. Like I don't think they realize that that was written for adults. And then like trying to localize and censor something that is, though, you know, cartoony is very violent graphic and deep on so many different levels as, definitely a challenge I wouldn't personally want to do. So good on them. It's creative. That's taking on a tough task there.

All right, well, listen, we've got to take a really quick break. And then we're going to come back. We're going to talk some shovel night and some mean of the hollow are here. So we'll be right back. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at trophy.aI. Y'all know I love me some Rocket League. I have over 1900 hours in the game. And part of the fun is always trying to get better.

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And this is what's incredible, because we have actually talked about this before. But shovel night might just be one of the most crossovered characters in video gaming. And finding out that you are the person that, yeah, that you are the person that is responsible for that is incredible to me. Ace is, like I said, he's our resident expert. So Ace was like, do you guys even remember all the games that like, the, that he's been in. So can you, can you actually, what I'd like to do is like,

give us a few off the top of your head that you remember. And then is there a favorite that you have? Okay. So quick correction. I'd like to joke that I joined Yacht Club games in season two. Because I joined, okay, so the company's been in existence for about 10 years,

a little over. I started halfway. Okay. So acknowledge it. Anyways, but for the second half. We're still going to give you credit. Oh, thank.

So kind. Oh, yeah. I have to acknowledge. the history before me. So for cameos, so for the, I think it was like, yeah, the nine-year anniversary, I made a megalist of all of the cameos that we did. And at that time, we were over 50. I've said yes to a ton more since then.

So there's a lot that I need to add to that list. Sorry for tracing. And so I guess for a few, you know, obviously Super Smash Brothers Ultimate as an assist trophy. That's always a fun one. We're in For Honor. That's a spicy one. Really? Yeah. We're in Four Honor. That was really funny. The whole trailer's ridiculous. I was like, I use the propeller rat that they put. There's a propeller rat in it. You should check that out. It's all realistic and like demonic and stuff. So besides that, Fall Guys, working with the Fall Guys team was really, really fun. We did a really cool

reveal where like it was like a POV of the bean guys like grabbing a shovel it was a good time uh so i really liked that one um mighty quest was really fun that's a mobile game uh we did arvies um which was a kid's meal uh toy tired that was all for north america including canada uh i did that that was fun uh how do you want to keep on going i have a lot keep going keep going that's awesome okay um darn i hate when i say that and i say all the ones that are on top of my head is there a favorite that you have. Arby's. Arby's was my favorite. So the reason behind that, we found it funny. And we were like,

okay, if we're going to do this toy tie in, we have to like really chill it, like not even lampshade it, be like if Yacht Club Games is selling out, we're real selling out. So we're like, what can we do to make it as goofy as possible? And in the deal, besides just doing,

you know, like the little launcher toys and the cute little Arby's bag, we decided to make little like cheat codes that are still like, applicable in, you can use them in Treasure Trove right now. And it was like turning King Knight's crown into the Arby's hat, shovel night. You know, when he goes to the iconic catch her scene to like grab, you know, shield night in the dream sequence. It's an Arby's roast beef sandwich. Like the propeller rats are like milkshakes. Like we just were like just chill Arby's wherever we can

because it's funny. And we made a commercial for it where it's like shoveling. Night Rock runs out and then we have a record scratch and it's like Arby's yeah you know I had we had so much fun doing that because it was so ridiculous because a cool thing about the team is you know obviously we're 16 people there's not a lot of red tape it's us and 99% of the time we're like oh is it funny yeah let's do it why not and so a lot of like creativity went into that and it was really funny because we're like okay like how much work are we going to put into this and we're like okay let's give it a weekend whatever we can do in one weekend is what's going into this and and that's what we made oh that is i'm looking right now and there's like a pixelated rby sandwich

like yeah gosh we had to edit it a couple times because it looked too much like a bagel um according to rby's legal bagel the thing that nobody thinks about right yeah how do we make this look like a beef and cheddar and not like a bagel flying through the air or something like that Right. Okay. So yeah, that was some little fun inside. Do you have legal handle with unlicensed product like Ace's shovel night? Jacklinner in the back. Oh, time to sue you. Yeah. C-Sysms is coming quick.

No, okay. We are very, very supportive of, you know, fan creations. So, you know, you're doing that. Awesome. You start selling it, you know. Yeah. It's mine. Just swear. I've had it for like. four years. Ace bought that from some random guy on the corner. What are you talking about? Don't take his house, your house too. You know, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So when you, so this is interesting to me because like for for such a successful like character and franchise and all this stuff like, do people reach out to you? Is that like the majority? Are you reaching out to people and saying,

hey, you know, we want to get shovel night into like your Arby's kids meal? Like like, what does that look like, I guess. I guess I don't understand, like, is it, is it you doing a lot of outreach and then kind of getting those people that say, like, yeah, this sounds totally fun? Or is it people going like, man, we love shovel night. Like, we really want to get shovel night into this game. Like, how do we do that? It's kind of a two-way street, to be honest. Like, we get tons of pitches all the time. Like, I go through the email and, like, look at things and see if something aligns. Because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we only have a certain amount of bandwidth to support certain things for. And obviously we'd love to do all the little fun things, but I am one person and I am very tired.

So it's kind of like seeing what I can handle. And like for certain like cameos, you know, they'll reach out to us and do a pitch and we'll review it, discuss it quickly as a team and be like this is something we have time for. Would this be fun for us? Sometimes, you know, it's more of like a mutual discussion like for an unannounced cameo that I can't tell you who or what. I went to go demo their game and I was just being a mega fan because I'm like, are you guys the devs? And they're like, yeah.

And I'm like, oh my God. And they're trying to pitch the game to me because I'm playing it. And I was like, no, I already love you guys. And so when, and I told them who I was and they were like, oh, oh my God. And basically what happened was that they said a joke of like, oh, we should, you know, have Shubel and I

gave them my card. I'm like, let's make this happen. I love this game. So, you know, it just kind of depends on what the situation is. There's been a few cases where I've reached out being like, hey, like, this sounds really fine. We'd love to work with you at some time. Like, you know, if something makes sense, let's do it. That's awesome. Do you ask for like, you know,

a year's supply of curly fries from Arby's or anything like that? Like as part of these kind of collabs or anything like that? Um, so yeah, it's kind of like, you know, a pile of dirt actually. We're big fans of dirt piles at our studio. You know, I feel like in this economy, we can't ask for yachts so you know dirt is fine um but obviously you know with the legal process every case is different you know we do all the legal gerbil jarble we high five and then a cool collaboration happens so that's awesome that is awesome well i will say i mean you know you and your predecessor you know have done an amazing job because like i said i don't know that there is another character in gaming uh you know that has had so many just fun cross-examined

crossovers and appearances and things like that. And I think it's a testament to not only yourself, but everybody at Yacht Club games, to have such a good sense of humor and to have fun with something like this. Because like one of the things that we always tout to people is video games should be fun. You know, people are always warring over console wars and game opinions. And if you don't think the way I think you're stupid and, you know, they get toxic towards each other and all this stuff. And it's like, we have always said that gaming is a way for people to have a good time. And if you can't have a good time playing video games, like, you're doing something wrong. You know, and we see so many studios that take themselves way too seriously, you know, they don't

understand that this is something that people do for entertainment and fun and to relax and things like that. So anytime we meet a studio or developers that are like, dude, we just want to to have fun. There's a reason we're in this industry and we're doing what we're doing. And so we're just, we're huge fans of that. And that's one reason we're such huge fans of you guys is because it comes through in not only the games, but like again, all these collaborations and everything as well. So, all right, we got to talk about Mina the Hollower a little bit. This is a new IP for you guys. You know, we have actually talked about Meena the Holler a little bit. I am going to be completely brutally honest enough for it with you because this is something that is a little bit of a joke.

I am a graphics stop. I'm, you know, I'm an older man. I have seen technology come a long way since my early days with Nintendo. I'm sorry, Atari way back in the day. And, you know, like, I always joke. I like pixel graphics. I think that there's some beautiful pixel graphics out there. But like, you know, I have joked a little bit about like eight-bit graphics and things like that.

But again, admittedly, I'm a graphic snobacco. I just rewatched the trailer for Mina the Hollower right before this. And I got to be honest, I was completely wrong about you guys. I'm watching the, I'm watching like the little gameplay elements. And like, there is so much that goes into this game. I am, I am honestly taken aback. And this is a testament to you guys as well,

because when I get past my graphics snobbiness, there is an incredible, incredible looking video game here. And I just want to know more about it at this point. So it's like, where did you guys come up with this idea for Mina, first of all? Like, you know, what can you tell us about it, I guess, as a whole? Yeah, sure. Interesting introduction there, Josh. The reason I say that is because I have taken flack from our community where they're like,

Josh, you're such an idiot. Like, you're such a graphics snob. And like, this game looks great. And I'm like, you're right. It does look great. So that was my like roundabout way of saying like, hey, I think I was wrong about the graphics on this game because it just rewatched. And they're actually pretty incredible too at the same time.

Duly noted. Wait, so where do they bully you again? Just wondering. Yeah, I know. And I just, listen, I deserve it. There are many things that we say, hey, you know, we're a bunch of doofuses. And, you know, like, I am definitely not right on everything by any means. But I'm also willing to say like, okay, I was wrong on this one.

And with Mina the Hollower, like I said, I just rewatched these trailers. And my goodness, if I didn't see so many neat things in this game that I didn't notice at first. And so I'm very excited like to hear a little bit more about this as well. Yeah. Okay. So now that we have that out of the order. Okay. So basically.

I feel so much better now. I was like the air is. Confession is over, Josh. Confession is over. You're free. And then I. never talk to you again. I know.

I'm going to go. You're still going to hell, but, you know. So, Mina the Hollower. So the idea for Mina actually, like, was cooked up towards the end of development on Shevall Night Treasure Trove. Like, it was 2019. And we're looking at, like, you know, we've been working on this game for years. And what are the next step?

Like, what is our studio going to look like? And at the time, that's when we were cooking up, you know, Shevel Night Pocket Dungeons. with Vine. We're also working on shovel night dig with Nitrome. So we have two spin-off games. We were publishing Cyber Shadow with Mechanical Head Studios. So we had those, you know, the external and like partially internal projects already, you know, set in motion, but we're like, what are we going to develop internally? And it basically, you know, everyone was kind of pitching their ideas of like what they envisioned. And one of my colleagues, Alec, was working on a secret project for a top-down

Castlevania game starring a mouse with a very large red nose. Some things have changed since then. But one of my other colleagues, he was like pitching like a Dragon Quest style Game Boy color-esque like RPG kind of game. And I think we all just had Game Boy on the brain. So it was almost serendipitous. You know, ultimately, you know, we went with Alex's idea and like we took some ideas from Sandy as well into that. And we started developing into what Mina the hollower looks like today. And it's kind of funny

because like, you know, Shovel Night was very you know, NES coded of like what we envisioned a NES style game would look like in 2014. Oh my God, so long ago. 2014, which was modern at the time, okay? I know. Oh my God, I look back.

And every time someone tells me, shovel night was their favorite childhood game. I tried to dust. I know I'm like, ah, what do you mean, child? Okay, anyways, I was young once. Anyway, so it's kind of those things where I guess now we're kind of moving forward and it's like what a Game Boy Color game would look like

if Nintendo didn't ditch that technology back in, you know, the late 90s. Like, what would Game Boy Color look in 2025? You know, would there be parallax screens? Of course, we love Parallax screens. We like put that in there. And it just under the hood, besides you know what having the pixel art 8 by 8 faithful title aesthetic of the Game Boy Color

it's under a hood it's closer to Bloodbourne so there's a lot of modern mechanics in there Mina the Hallware is you know though visually obviously there's inspirations to a lot of games in there it's a very modern game there's it's sometimes akin to a souls like there's kind of like I would say kind of like

there's a RPG elements to it so kind of like a skill tree. You're leveling up your attack, defense, your magic, or you're hoarding it for later, everything. There's so much more to the game than just meets the eye. There's trinkets. There's upgrades. There's hidden bosses. It's a very

large and long game, and I'm very excited for people to play it. Progression, Josh. Progression. Yeah, you said skill tree and progression, which are like my two, like, oh, I 'm instantly in love, right? Oh, no, it's so fine. Like, I did my playthrough of Mina and, because you know, we're writing notes, because right now we're doing some extra polish

for the game. Oh, it's so good. But yeah, I understand why we're doing this. And I made Mina a glass cannon. So she's super duper strong, but don't hit me. Oh my God, please don't hit me. And it's so, it's so fun. And like, the team was watching me play and they're like, wait, you just killed that boss in two hits. And I was like, you know, I have that all powerful mouse god. It was a great time. That's amazing. See, I was the only one of us who played the demo for Mina when it was up. So I kind of had an idea what I was getting into. and I enjoyed every second of it. The burring mechanic was just so cool.

The way you could just dodge enemy attacks just by burring under them. Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah, hollowing is a complete joy. Then you compared it to Bloodborn. I'm even more sold. Like, I love Bloodborn. The world, once you finish the demo and the reason that we stopped it there is that the whole world opens up after that. Oh, all right.

So you can go to any level, any time. I thought it would be really fun to like, from the first level, go to the last level. or second to last level and like just brute force it. And you can do that. You'll have a really bad time, but you know, you can do it. You can do whatever you want. It's a fun little adventure. I love that.

That's what gamers love to do. Just be miserable. Oh yeah, no, it's so fun. Everyone's like, you can go back. I'm like, nah. No, no, I've committed. That's one thing that I noticed too with it like you described there is that the mechanics in this game.

Like it is, you know, a unique style and it is that 8 bit. but you can tell the work that's been put in, and the way those mechanics work is they are advanced. They are kind of new age. There's a little bit of a platforming element. So it is highly unique. And I absolutely love the look of what I've seen so far too. And, you know, Ace is a champion of this game.

And you guys have as developers. So yeah, it's looking really, really good. So we're excited too. Music's bumping too. Oh, yeah. The music in it is incredible. right as the trailer starting, you get that music kicks in, and I'm just like, okay. This is what I was literally about to say is, you know, we're all, you know, middle-aged, we'll call it.

And it's like there is this incredible, like, nostalgia hit from the music and the graphics. But you guys have done a masterful job of blending that with modern gameplay, which I imagine has to be very difficult, number one. But number two, to be able to cater to that like, hey, you guys remember these games you used to play and that nostalgia, but then to make them modern is something that a lot of people are not doing. And if they're trying, a lot of people don't do it successfully either. And so that is something that is honestly like kudos to all of you at Yacht Club games because we saw this with Hollow Night. you know, and I like the fact that you guys aren't afraid to let gamers make mistakes in games. Like you said, like going to the to this, you know, next to the last level in the game and just getting your butt kicked. I love that feeling.

Like, honestly, and we have a funny story with. I should be there. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. When A's played made us play Shovel Night, famously Paul, our good buddy Paul, didn't understand that you're not supposed to break all of the checkpoints in the game. game. And when we found this out live on the show, we were like, you broke them all? And he was like, yeah, you can break them. Are you not supposed to? That's what we were like, oh, that explains why I thought this game was really hard. He just thought they were hidden. I love that. I love that like there

is almost a little bit too much coddling of people sometimes in like more modern games. And I get that sometimes you're having to, you know, cater to such a broad audience, but a less allowing people to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and push the boundaries is an incredible thing. So thank you to all of you at Yacht Club games for just keeping that going, you know, at the same time. It is awesome. Now, I don't know if this is true, so I want to confirm. Originally, it was set for October 31st, but it is, that got pushed back a little bit for some final polishing. Is that correct?

Correct. So, yeah, we had to make the difficult decision of delaying the game. And I know it's disappointing. We were disappointed, too, but it was a unanimous decision from the studio. Like, we all agreed that Mina, you know, there's high expectations with Mina. And we have very, very high standards ourselves. And the cool thing about being an indie studio is we're able to say, hey, time out. I know that we had promised this date and is disappointing, but we're promising you like a superb, like a superb product.

And we're going to deliver that to you. So we're working on the final polish. for playtesting the game, like I said, writing notes, making it as seamless and smooth as possible. So it's well worth the wait. And it's not a major delay either. Just the one thing is that we're not announcing a new release date until the game is submitted and everything has like all the checks are there.

And we can just say, this is the day we're like for real zies this time. Cian launch. So just be a little bit more patient with us and we're going to give an incredible adventure. And we totally respect that. One thing we love is we are okay with delays when it comes out and it's fine and polished and it works well. There's nothing more frustrating than on launch day. You get on a game and it doesn't work. So you know what?

Take all the time you need. Give us a great product and we'll be happy and people will gobble it up. So yeah, we love that. If it's like five or six delays, I personally have a stickler for that. But you know what? Take the delays and make the game what it deserves to be. And so that's exciting to hear that you guys are. really dedicated to that.

It was such relief. No, and thank you for your words. It was such a relief from like the reaction from the community that was also supportive of it. Yeah. And I think that like some people were like, oh, thank God. Like I have so many games to play. So like it'll give me time to really enjoy Mina.

Oh, I feel that. And I'm like, wow, what a great problem to have. Backlogs struggles. Like, legitimately in Slack, I posted. Okay, guys, I'm posting the announcement in five minutes. last chance to change your mind like about delay. And I got a bunch of like King Knight crying

like reactions and I'm like okay I guess I'm doing it for realties. So yeah, no, it's it's, we're glad everyone's understanding. And you know, Mina is a love letter to gaming and the Game Boy Color. And you know, it's it's the next game from our studio.

So it's going to be fantastic. So I appreciate the kind of place. I think we've seen a switch. You know, everybody is like this for sure. Gamers can be very loud and with their opinions and stuff. But I think we are seeing a change in the mentality of like delays with games because we have seen so many games that released when they shouldn't have released.

And then the fallout from that is very, very difficult to overcome. And so I think we're seeing this kind of change in mindset where if a studio says, hey, we're going to have to delay this to give you the best game we can, I know for us at least, you know, we go, that's totally, I would rather wait and get a better game than to, you know, to release a game that now has a bunch of issues because you only get one chance to make that in first impression. And especially with a new IP, you know, it's, it's just like you really, it's, I think it's a wise choice to do that. And again, it just, you know, it shows that you guys care about the game and the people that are going to play the game as well. And I, that should garner respect from gamers at, the same time. So all right. We are out of time. Celia, thank you so much. We kept you way longer than we said we were going to. So, you know, thank you for hanging out with us and letting us, you know, just, you know, find out more about you, more about Yacht Club games, more about Shovel Night and Mina the Hollower. This has been an absolute blast for us. So thank you so much

for coming on the show. I know our listeners are going to love this as well. Uh, They love just getting insight into indie devs and studios and the kind of behind the scene stuff and all that as well. So we really do appreciate it. I think that's going to do it. Ace, I know, did I want to make sure you got a chance to. I have one thing I want to know. Can you tell me anything about shovel of hope DX? Okay.

So that's one of the next games in our studio. We like to, we put coming soon, TM, coming soon, whatever that might be. Who knows? It's one of those things of that it is still on the roster of games we're planning on working on. But all focus went from other internal projects to Mina to make sure that it's as wonderful as possible. Like I mentioned earlier, we are 16 people. Oh, you know, totally fair. Very tired people.

And so eventually, yes. And we have a lot of really cool plans for that game. We announced to tease it so we have, you know, more things to talk about once we're done with Mina. So stay tuned for more announcements. But until then, we're a full steerhead for Mina. Awesome. She's good. She's good, man.

I'll tell you what. Man, it's like it's my job or something. I know, right? Yeah, I know, right? It's almost like you've been doing this for a while, too. Oh, and real quick, wish lists. Yeah. Wishlist.

Everybody. Everybody. Yes, this is absolutely. We know how important this is. Yeah, wish listing in general for indie games in particular is very, very helpful. even if you don't plan buying day one, even if you plan buying day three, you know, it's down the line. It's, it's really helpful to A, give us data. B, if, like, a studio is not completely independent and they're looking for a publisher, if they're looking for physical opportunities and other things. Wishlisting is definitely a metric that a lot of people depend on. So, in addition to us, please, wishlist, you know, the hollower.

It's available for Wishlist on, like, every platform. When it does come out, it will be available on Switch 2 and 1, Xbox. series X and S, PlayStation 5 and Steam. Nice. Love it. Awesome. Heck yeah. I love it.

All right. Listen, we're going to let you get out of here. Celia, thank you so much. For all our listeners, thank you for joining us. Remember to wish list, Mina the hollower.

That's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Peace out.