Mina the Hollower is one of my most anticipated games, and it’s been that way for several years now. Ever since its successful Kickstarter campaign, I’ve been waiting, and I will continue to do so for as long as it takes. After all, Yacht Club Games has done Shovel Knight for over a decade now, so who doesn’t want to see how they can follow up on that franchise’s massive success?
Thankfully, Yacht Club Games gave us the opportunity to check out an in-development build of Mina the Hollower during PAX West 2024. I was able to play it several years ago, and seeing how it improved since then was an enlightening experience. Years of development were not wasted on Mina the Hollower.
And after our preview on this latest build, be sure to read below for an interview with Yacht Club Games’ Sean Velasco!
Mina the Hollower: Refined Look and Feel
If you haven’t heard of Mina the Hollower until now, let’s get you up to speed: It’s a 2D adventure title where players take the role of a mouse named Mina. This Gothic-inspired, pixel art adventure has an almost top-down feel to it, and players can dig into the growth, leap out, and attack enemies with various weapons and items.
The most immediate change from the original build is an improved art style. Yacht Club Games are masters of their craft, and that’s creating authentically retro games for the modern era. Mina the Hollower is just that, taking great inspiration from Game Boy Color titles.
Everything in Mina the Hollower is more detailed, creating a polished look. The palette still has its Gothic undertones, but looks a bit more colorful. I loved how Mina the Hollower looked back then, but I could see it was still a work in progress. Now, it definitely appears as though we’re approaching the final product.
Besides that, though, I was given the choice of three different weapons. The original demo used a whip a la Simon from Castlevania, but the other two inclusions proved to add some spice to the mix. One weapon, a hammer, is slower, but much more powerful. You can charge it up and, after several seconds, you start to flash. Unleash that attack and you’ll do tons of damage to enemies.
And enemies in Mina the Hollower are tough, with attack patterns meant to get the better of you. This hammer allows you to flip in various directions to avoid attacks, but you’re not as nimble when charging. It’s a playstyle that should cater to those who love power over all else.
But my preferred weapon, or rather weapons, were Whisper and Vesper. Dual-wielding these daggers was so much fun, especially because of how fast they are. Compared to the hammer, you can unleash attacks in a frenzy, and even toss a dagger. The dagger works as a projectile, of course, but once it’s thrown, you have to go back and grab it. It’s a neat way to balance things out.
Beyond the fresh new art style and weapons, the main dungeon from the original demo I played seems a bit more refined, but more or less has the same feel. I’m just very excited to see what else this game has to bring to the table — even more weapons, items, enemies, dungeons, and of course, its charming and quirky cast of characters.
Mina the Hollower: A Brief Chat with Yacht Club Games’ Sean Velasco
For years now, Shovel Knight‘s been Yacht Club’s thing — after all, it’s this armor-clad hero that propelled the studio into stardom. Still, it’s “a breath of fresh air” to work on something brand new, outside of Shovel Knight, said Yacht Club Games Founder Sean Velasco.
It’s still retro in feel, sure, but the intent was to make something different — a departure from the Shovel Knight norm. Still, Mina has a lot to live up to, right?
“And as far as big shoes to fill,” said Velasco, “sure, it’s like, scary if Mina — but you’re only as good as your last game, right? Like, if Mina doesn’t sell, then we’ll have to figure something else out. And we always have more ideas for more games and more genres, and we still love Shovel Knight and we will want to keep making Shovel Knight stuff forever.
“I guess a lot of times when I was working on this, I thought, man, that sure would be fun to make some side-scrolling platforming, you know? So it’s like, even when I’m doing this, I’m looking over at the other stuff. So, yeah, I guess I have a lot of feelings about it, but most of them are good.”
One thing that stood out to me — perhaps resembling that of Shovel Knight — were various quirky characters in Mina the Hollower. The different knights in Shovel Knight as well as notable NPCs all have a lot of life and character to them. It seems Mina the Hollower will follow this precedent in its characters, and somewhat so in its story, too.
“Yeah, I mean, Mina is a game that is a little bit more scary than Shovel Knight, and has some more horror, horror-y elements,” said Velasco, “And I think part of this, part of the development of this game, has been trying to not be goofy, like King Knight, and it’s like, no, hey, come on, this is like, kind of got to be a serious game, kind of — but we, I think we totally failed at that. It ended up being, it’s like a fun, family-friendly horror.”
More on the gameplay side of things, Mina the Hollower‘s scope has evolved to become a more ambitious, larger game. What had me intrigued was the mention of an interconnected world, sort of in the vein of Dark Souls. Looking at Mina the Hollower, one might not be able to see that element of gameplay right away, so I wanted to learn more.
Initially, this open world was conceived to be more like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Velasco described it as a world “linked together like a web” in a ring or donut shape.
“But as we developed the game and all the characters that I was talking about were getting more integrated,” said Velasco, “and all these, like missions and quests, and you’re having to crisscross back and forth across everything, it became evident that there was more, like there was, we needed more meat around in the middle to form it as you go between the areas.
“Yeah, we basically put the whole game together,” Velaco later adds, “and now we’re tweaking and polishing each bit of it to make it one cohesive package.”
The release date for Mina the Hollower is still up in the air, but Yacht Club Games is putting every ounce of creativity they have into this one. It’s hard to follow up to a massive success like Shovel Knight, but if anyone can one-up themselves, certainly Yacht Club can.
Mina the Hollower was previewed at an offsite event during PAX West 2024.
