Mina the Hollower Interview: Discussing the delay, length, AI, inspirations, and secrets with Yacht Club

In just a couple of weeks, the makers of Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games, will be making a return when they look to debut their next highly anticipated action-platformer known as Mina the Hollower. Coming to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, the debut is planned for May 29, and with the launch edging ever closer and less than two weeks away, we've had the luxury of speaking with the developer to learn a little more about the project.

In the full interview that you can see below, we posed a slate of questions to Yacht Club's programmer David D'Angelo, where we talked about the delay pushing the game out of 2025, the inspiration behind the various levels, the expected length of the game, the studio's stance on artificial intelligence, and more.

Gamereactor: Mina the Hollower was originally expected to launch in October. How has the extra development time allowed you to improve the game?

D'Angelo: "We've added crazy amounts of polish! Mina is our biggest game yet with billions of combinations for what the player can equip or how they can route through the game. We really needed that extra time to make sure that no matter what path you take, you'll have a great experience!"

Gamereactor: Why did you decide to choose a mouse as the protagonist and what made you want to build the game around a cast of animal characters?

D'Angelo: "The key action in the game, burrowing, led us down the path to creating a mouse character. From there, we created a cast of all kinds of animals, creatures, and even sometimes humans!"

Gamereactor: Mina wields lots of different weapons, how will this play into the combat in the game?

D'Angelo: "Each of the 5 weapons give a unique playstyle, some are slow but have long reach, some are fast but make you fight in close quarters. We wanted to not only create a combat experience that matched your personal playstyle, but might encourage you to swap weapons around based on the challenge in front of you. 14 Sidearms, or secondary weapons, are also within Mina's reach - the way these complement the 5 core weapons provides an additional layer of strategy!"

Gamereactor: What can players expect from their adventure into the Tenebrous Isles? Is there real-world inspiration behind the choices of environment?

D'Angelo: "Players can expect a true adventure!! Secrets and mysteries abound - there's something to discover at every turn!

"The world and many of the environments were inspired by real world locations and events. Often we might start with a creepy play like a Louisiana waterway for Nox's Bayou, or an anxiety-rich time like the California Gold Rush for Bone Beach. The way the main city, Ossex, relates to everything is borne out of our studies of the Victorian Era; many things about that time still ring true today!"

Gamereactor: How long is Mina the Hollower? How does it stack up to Shovel Knight?

D'Angelo: "For first time players, it'll run about 20 to 30 hours. Imagine it like all the Shovel Knight campaigns in one! It's quite the adventure... but we crammed the same density of fun you'd find in any Shovel Knight game!"

Gamereactor: We're expecting plenty of secrets to uncover. How much exploration off the beaten path is required to see everything that Mina the Hollower has in store?

D'Angelo: "Quite a bit! There are large optional areas, more than a dozen optional bosses, tons of upgrades, story bits, and more that you might never see! That said... nothing is a waste of time: every optional pursuit we built to feel like it's the one and only path!"

Gamereactor: Mina the Hollower has a distinct 8-bit visual style similar to what we've come to expect from Yacht Club. What do you think makes this art direction continue to stand out in the modern day and is it challenging to make such an art style feel modern?

D'Angelo: "We continue to hear over and over, "Your hardest challenge will be getting people to buy a pixel game." We think any art style will stand out as long as it's top of the line! We work tirelessly to make sure every pixel is perfect, every character and monster design is interesting and unique... It's a big challenge, but we love the aesthetic, and we think everyone else will too!"

Gamereactor: What is Yacht Club's stance on AI and has AI been used in the production of Mina the Hollower at all?

D'Angelo: "We all got caught up in AI fever like the rest of the world, but we didn't find it was very effective for what we're doing. Maybe our work just isn't that generic! We've found some ways it can help... like Google or a thesaurus, but it hasn't affected what's in our game."

Gamereactor: What's one part of Mina the Hollower you feel people aren't talking enough about?

D'Angelo: "It's an econovania! From the story to gameplay, currency plays a major part of how the game unfolds... we hope people are excited to think about how to spend every bone!"

Thanks again to D'Angelo and Yacht Club for answering our questions. Stay tuned for more from the game as we edge ever closer to the launch date on May 29 on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.