If Yacht Club Games’s Kickstarter page for their upcoming action-adventure title Mina the Hollower is any indicator, the studio has proven its mettle as an indie developer to fans. The crowdfunding effort, aimed at rounding up just over $300 thousand to develop Yacht Club’s new game, was fully funded just hours after it went live February 2. By the time the Kickstarter campaign ended in early March, the studio had nearly tripled its funding goal.
This isn’t Yacht Club’s first success. Mina, which follows a mouse protagonist through a Gothic-themed adventure inspired by classic Game Boy titles, follows the studio’s first major game, 2014’s Shovel Knight. The award-winning platformer sold millions of copies and branched out into three additional campaigns. Game ZXC spoke with Yacht Club marketing head Celia Schilling about how Shovel Knight’s success contributed to Mina’s development, and where the developers see its new title headed next.
Mina the Hollower’s Kickstarter was a Resounding Success
When the doors shut on Mina’s Kickstarter campaign on March 3, total contributions from the project’s around 21 thousand backers came in at over $1.2 million — roughly 297% higher than Yacht Club had initially requested. The studio’s crowdfunding success was “phenomenal,” Schilling said.
“We're beyond thankful for the community and their support, and we look forward to sharing the development process as we move forward,” Schilling said. The extra funding helped Yacht Club break through several stretch goals; extra projects the studio had planned for overflow cash. Among those additions: new weapons for the protagonist, new enemy types, and minigames. The studio said in a Kickstarter update that the extra funds motivated the team to make the game “as robust and replayable as possible.”
Beyond the Kickstarter’s stretch goals, the devs plan to use the newfound overhead to keep building out Mina’s Gothic game world. The studio plans to focus more on “aspects of the game that we normally wouldn't have spent as much development time on,” Schilling said.
“When people hear ‘development time,’ they don't realize that every day of extended development is another dollar sign.”
With that extra cash, Yacht Club can take a month or two more than originally planned to refine the game and add new features. That’s good for the devs, Schilling said, because they “have a hard time putting down the creative pen.”
“We’re asking, what other cool things can we do with this? For us, it’s really to expand, build the world,” she said. Although most of the extra Kickstarter funds should go directly into development, Yacht Club plans to dedicate funding towards build the “community,” which means promoting Mina through merch and other marketing strategies.
Shovel Knight was also born from a Kickstarter campaign, Schilling said, and so it made sense for Yacht Club to crowdfund its next project in the same way. Much like Shovel Knight, the team anticipates Mina will be well-received by gamers. “From what we've seen already, and how obsessed we are with Mina in general, we would assume that people are really going to like it,” Schilling said.
Next Steps in Mina the Hollower’s Development
Although Yacht Club has expanded its aperture for what it can accomplish while putting together Mina, they’re remaining relatively quiet about when interested gamers should expect a release. The studio likely won’t say anything about when the game will hit shelves until it's “way closer” in development, Schilling said.
A big reason for that silence is that the devs want to be confident in their work, and to avoid production delays. Despite that, Yacht Club is “a very transparent company,” Schilling said. “We're always sharing where we are during our development process, so we’ll be there every step of the way.”
Once Mina’sdevelopment is on solid ground, the studio will drop some hints about a potential release. Yacht Club is passionate and dedicated to finishing the game, but given everything happening in the world at the moment, the studio is “a people-first company, and we're very transparent about that,” Schilling said.
“If the world's ending, we'll develop the game from, I don’t know, under the sea. We'll figure it out. But we’ll keep everyone in the process every step of the way.”
As for future content, in the style of Shovel Knight’s additional campaigns, things are equally under wraps. That information isn’t yet “solidified in the pipeline,” Schilling said. Interested players can follow along on Yacht Club’s social media for more updates as Mina’s development continues, she said.
Mina the Hollower is coming soon for PC.