Yesterday, Yacht Club Games, creators of Shovel Knight, released a preview of their newest game, Mina the Hollower. They showed their preview on G4 alongside Jirard the Completionist. Mina is a mouse-type character who delves into dungeons with a variety of equipment and move sets. She can burrow underground or jump above enemies, all in a top-down view reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda games. When asked about the motivation of why they created it the way they did, the response was that it was inspired by the graphics and the feel of Gameboy color games.
They showed a compartment at the beginning of the dungeons that let you swap out equipment and bones. Bones can be used as currency or as upgrade points for Mina. The equipment you bring with you helps diversify your playstyle, whether it is to bring a web to quickly close gaps and distances, or an axe to chuck far distances at enemies. Even watching them play the game, I was getting hyped to try out the game myself because of how smooth it ran. When it was brought up about how smooth it ran and which game engine they were using to make it run so well, the response was that it was a custom-built engine specifically for Mina the Hollower they designed.
They publicly announced that they had a Kickstarter running for the game. The game as of right now is currently 100% funded, but they are offering stretch goals for any future donations to the project. You can also currently wishlist it on Steam.
Alongside the announcement, Yacht Club Games also showed off an early build of the game and let G4TV have a go at it. You can see the game in action at the 1:04:42 mark in the video below.
Mina The Hollower has a release date sometime in 2023. Given that the game is still in development and Yacht Club Games are still brainstorming, I wouldn’t expect a concrete release date anytime soon.
