Hands-On With ‘Mina The Hollower' and Developer Interview

It’s been over a decade since the initial launch of 2014’s “Shovel Knight,” and now developer Yacht Club Games is back with “Mina the Hollower,” a brand new IP that hearkens back to the glory days of the Game Boy Color, but with a modern twist. I had the pleasure of going hands-on with the game while speaking to studio founder and Game Director Sean Valesco and Marketing Manager Celia Shilling of Yacht Club Games.

For those not hip to the scene, “Shovel Knight” took the world by storm when it launched back in 2014. The 8-bit-inspired title had numerous DLC expansions, the last of which released in 2019. Hopes are high that “Mina the Hollower” can similarly ignite the imaginations of players around the world with its retro “Game Boy Chic” visuals and deceptively deep gameplay.

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The question is, just how deep is it? I learned the answer firsthand as I was playing. Or, perhaps I should say, as soon as I stopped. While I was hands-on, in a hotel suite at the Omni Boston Hotel being used to host the interviews, I had some fun, but it was also my first time with the game, so I definitely bristled against “Mina the Hollower’s” learning curve. I was immediately charmed by the visual style, as well as Mina’s main special move, the ability to burrow underground for a couple of seconds. If you time your jump with her emergence from the ground, you get an extra-long leap that can be used to access new areas. It’s the kind of move that seems like it will be difficult for a player to use but quickly becomes second nature. But that’s not how I learned the depth of “Mina the Hollower.”

You see, playing a video game and conducting an interview at the same time is actually pretty tough. After a few deaths, I passed the controller to Valesco. He’s the boss of Yacht Club Games, so I thought, he can probably show me how the game is supposed to be played. Indeed, he immediately showed me why games are art. While I struggled to take down enemies using the basic whip, Valesco was like a wizard, zipping in and out of enemy range, using Mina’s digging (or “Hollowing,” I suppose!) ability to evade, dodge and use Mina’s various abilities to both navigate the environment and attack enemies.

Needless to say, the skill gap between myself and Valesco was palpable, but he says that’s all part of the fun: “Once you get the hang of it, it’s quite doable,” he assured me. I asked about the game design, of nudging players towards the multiple uses of every tool and the sheer breadth of abilities at players’ fingertips, and how the game teaches users about their power. He responded, “We do have moments where, say, if people just aren’t getting it… We have a moment where you can pick up a rock, and you have to pick up that rock in order to progress. We made it so that if you go back to the previous screen, a character is there who says, “Hey, aren’t you going to show me the cool trick where you pick up the rock?” Or something like that. But that’s a last resort. We really want to teach through doing.”

That phrase, “teaching through doing,” is really the magic of game design. It’s the video game version of “show, don’t tell” for films. Sure, you can have a sign that tells the player to push a button to perform an action, but when it comes to applying that action in a living, breathing world, the game needs to articulate to the player that there are possibilities beyond the obvious, and that’s where “Mina the Hollower” shines. While its Game Boy-inspired world might look simple with its 2D graphics and limited color palette, it’s just as immersive and reactive, if not more so, than anything you might see in today’s biggest 3D open worlds.

It’s important to keep in mind that, while it might look like a GBC game, “Mina the Hollower” makes use of the power of today’s consoles to have one foot firmly rooted in the present. Valesco explains: “There is plenty with “Mina” that is modern and new, in addition to the old, under the hood. The game saves on every new screen you go to, and it’s in widescreen. This game has the same vertical resolution as the Game Boy Color, but extended to be wider.” There’s also additions like parallax scrolling and some other visuals that would probably cause a regular Game Boy Color to explode into flames, but the team is also embracing the limitations of its target aesthetic in ways beyond what they accomplished on their previous game, “Shovel Knight.”

“In terms of resolution, “Shovel Knight” had a lot more available than this. As the games went, with Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment, King of Cards, those games got more and more grand in terms of their design.” says Valesco. “(With “Mina,”), we want to be more like Game Boy. We can’t show as much resolution. And that goes to things like text, as well. You’re only allowed those three lines, and it’s very, very short.” In theory, this should facilitate efficient, visual storytelling a la “Bloodborne” or something like that, but we’ll have to wait and see just how that corner of the game shakes out.

It’s been a long road for “Mina the Hollower.” The game’s Kickstarter was first announced back in 2022, which was a little bit controversial after the massive success of “Shovel Knight,” but also because the long wait since then, even if, or perhaps because, Yacht Club Games used the crowdfunding platform to build a dedicated, but hungry, community of players. Celia Shilling explained: “The question everyone has is, ‘If “Shovel Knight” was a success, then why do you need to do one again?’ And we factored that in, the public perception. Do people want a Kickstarter? What would make sense for that? And a lot of the focus was to build a community just like how we did for “Shovel Knight.”” True to its intent, the Kickstarter for “Mina the Hollower” was more than just a fancy early pre-order, but a gateway to the entire ecosystem of game development. It was the closest a fan could have to a direct line with Yacht Club Games. “We did private developer streams where we had live meetings with backers, and they got to see exactly what it’s like to make a game,” Celia continued. “We’d have art streams and music streams, and they got more of an inside look at our thought process and development. I have a few developer friends who supported the Kickstarter, not just so they could say, ‘We support you!’ but to learn for their own development projects.”

“Mina the Hollower” is scheduled to release sometime this spring, though a precise release date hasn’t been announced yet. As for how Yacht Club Games wants players to feel when they play it, Sean Velasco sees it as something that triggers a sense of throw-back nostalgia that goes beyond what was capable on an old Game Boy Color, but directly stimulates the imagination spurred by classic games like “Link’s Awakening” or “Final Fantasy Adventure.” “We want it to be the kind of game that you feel like you loved playing when you were a kid. When you’re looking through your rose-tinted glasses of all the best experiences you had playing Game Boy Color Zelda when you were 10 years old. That’s the feeling that we want to recreate.”

“Mina the Hollower” will release for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC.

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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 8:36 PM.