Shovel Knight Dig’s more
rounded sprites and richer
colour palette give it a subtly
different feel compared to its
NES-inspired predecessor.
Y
ou’d be forgiven for thinking
that Yacht Club Games might
have grown a bit weary
of Shovel Knight by now.
The studio has, after all,
diligently supported its 2D platformer for
the best part of six years, beginning with
the original game – Shovel Knight: Shovel of
Hope – in 2014, and complemented by a
series of free expansion packs released
in the years since. But while designer
Alec Faulkner said in 2019 – jokingly,
no doubt – that his studio’s “sick of
making Shovel Knight games,” Yacht
Club’s dealings with its armoured,
spade-wielding hero are
far from over. Not only
does the studio have a
full sequel planned, but
it’s also teamed up with
British developer Nitrome
to make a spin-off –
Shovel Knight Dig.
Recalling such vertically oriented titles
as Downwell and Wireframe favourite Mr.
Driller, Dig is a frenetically paced rogue-
lite that sees the titular Knight descend a
series of procedurally generated mines.
Its snappily paced levels are strewn
with hazards and treasure, and
while the hero’s bouncing
attacks are straight out
of the original game, Dig
places greater emphasis
on speedy completion
times and the obsessive
collection of loot. Rotating death
machines constantly encourage
your rapid descent, while the devious
placement of the finest gems in the most
trap-filled places means you’ll constantly
be balancing your survival with the
need to collect treasure to spend on
vital upgrades.
Establishing itself as a reliable purveyor
of mobile games in 2004, Nitrome leaptto wider attention with its multi-platform
puzzle-platformer, Bomb Chicken, released
in 2018. Certainly, Bomb Chicken served
as a valuable showcase for Nitrome’s
long-standing ability to make accessible 2D
games with chunky, likeable pixel graphics- something that Yacht Club saw as a
natural fit for Shovel Knight.
“We’d been fans of Nitrome for a long
time,” says Yacht Club developer David
D’Angelo when we asked him about
the studio’s decision to collaborate
on a Shovel Knight spin-off. “We were
interested in creating a more bite-
sized experience version of Shovel
Knight that you could play
in small sessions, and
they’re kings of mastering
that kind of feel, so we
reached out to them.”
Shovel Knight Dig’s
mechanics and visuals,
meanwhile, are very much Nitrome’s
creation. “Typically, Nitrome is steering the
development, and Yacht Club is riffing off
what they’ve built,” D’Angelo tells us. “Ideas
frequently come from us, but they’re
usually there to complement what Nitrome
has already been building.”
To find out more about Shovel Knight
Dig’s development, then, we had a brief
chat with Nitrome boss Jonathan Annal.
Here’s what he has to say about Dig’s
new shovel mechanics, subtly revised
visuals, and an underground food vendor
named Gastronomole...
You’ve had a long history of making
games already at Nitrome, so what was
your reaction when Yacht Club contacted
you about making Shovel Knight Dig?
In a nutshell, excited! Several of us
were already fans of the Shovel Knight
series, so we knew straight away that
it was something we had to try and
make happen.“We were interested
in creating a
more bite-sized
experience”InterviewAttract Mode
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