This transcription was completed on July 6, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model.
My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy.
Max Roberts 00:00 Hello everybody and welcome to the Max Frequency Podcast.
Max Roberts 00:03 I am your host, Max Roberts, and I have the honor and privilege of being joined once again.
Max Roberts 00:08 for the first time in a very long time, uh, by none other than the Pixel Art Mancer at Yacht Club Games, Nick Wozniak.
Max Roberts 00:16 How are you today, sir?
Nick Wozniak 00:18 I am doing very good.
Nick Wozniak 00:20 Um, how's it going?
Max Roberts 00:22 It's going all right.
Max Roberts 00:23 I uh I told you before the show we did an episode with Ian Flood nine years ago.
Max Roberts 00:28 So that was
Max Roberts 00:30 Yacht Club had r has since released five games before Mina the Hollower.
Max Roberts 00:36 Basically the entire Switch 1 lifecycle is how long it's been.
Nick Wozniak 00:36 Yeah.
Max Roberts 00:40 So
Nick Wozniak 00:41 Yeah, it's been a while.
Nick Wozniak 00:42 I I wonder what where we were.
Nick Wozniak 00:44 I think we may have been at the original
Nick Wozniak 00:47 in in the original office, but twenty seventeen?
Max Roberts 00:48 In April of twenty seventeen
Nick Wozniak 00:53 No, we were in we were in
Nick Wozniak 00:55 The marina office.
Nick Wozniak 00:57 That was a that was a nicer office.
Nick Wozniak 00:58 The original office uh is a very small um like
Nick Wozniak 01:04 uh you know office building filled with uh smaller offices and they sectioned out you know 500 500 square foot for us so uh we were packed in
Max Roberts 01:07 Oh, yeah, yeah.
Nick Wozniak 01:14 But the the marina was nicer.
Nick Wozniak 01:16 That was actually like near the water.
Nick Wozniak 01:18 We found some really crazy deal.
Nick Wozniak 01:19 That's good.
Max Roberts 01:20 It was a good time.
Max Roberts 01:21 You guys are are you fully remote now?
Nick Wozniak 01:22 Yeah.
Max Roberts 01:23 Is that a change you guys have made during Mina or you're switching to it?
Nick Wozniak 01:28 Yeah, so since since COVID, we kind of like went fully remote.
Nick Wozniak 01:34 Um, you know, actually
Nick Wozniak 01:37 earlier it was actually mostly earlier this year and we we kind of we have an office that's like kind of small and and we used it for the
Nick Wozniak 01:45 24-hour stream before the Amina launch, and we use it for small get-togethers, but it's much smaller than a normal office.
Nick Wozniak 01:53 It has like four desks and um very effectively remote.
Nick Wozniak 01:57 Yeah.
Max Roberts 01:58 Yeah, that's an interesting change over the course of the whole
Max Roberts 02:02 Whole studio's life from all the all the different phases.
Max Roberts 02:07 But I wanted to start out with a congratulations, very much in order.
Max Roberts 02:11 Uh Mina has so in a week
Max Roberts 02:13 I don't know.
Nick Wozniak 02:17 Yeah.
Max Roberts 02:19 Uh and according to Sean Velasco, that means you guys are golden.
Nick Wozniak 02:20 Yeah
Max Roberts 02:22 So congrats on being golden.
Nick Wozniak 02:25 Yeah, no, I'm I'm very thankful.
Nick Wozniak 02:28 And thank you for the congrats.
Nick Wozniak 02:29 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 02:30 Um they've been it's the sales but sales been really good.
Nick Wozniak 02:32 I've been really happy with that.
Nick Wozniak 02:34 And um
Nick Wozniak 02:35 you know, especially just in light of uh how like how much Shovel Knight originally sold, it was uh you know, we out we outpaced that in a day, basically.
Nick Wozniak 02:45 So um, you know, sorry, in in the first month
Nick Wozniak 02:49 Shovel Knight hit uh I think 180 and then we we we passed that in the first day.
Nick Wozniak 02:55 So very thankful and very excited and and uh
Nick Wozniak 02:58 Um yeah, glad that it's that's out there.
Nick Wozniak 03:01 People are liking it.
Max Roberts 03:02 Yeah, it is uh that was what the Wikipedia told me was 180,000 in a month.
Nick Wozniak 03:06 Okay.
Max Roberts 03:07 And that was only on Steam Wii U and 3DS, um, remarkably.
Nick Wozniak 03:08 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 03:11 Right, yeah, we hadn't we hadn't released on PlayStation or Xbox yet.
Max Roberts 03:15 Yeah.
Max Roberts 03:15 And then it took a year to get around 700,000.
Max Roberts 03:18 So I suspect Mina is a lot closer to that 700,000.
Max Roberts 03:23 Um just didn't yeah, I don't
Nick Wozniak 03:24 I actually don't know.
Nick Wozniak 03:25 I haven't looked at the numbers and since we put them out.
Max Roberts 03:27 Well, five hundred's closer than a hundred and eighty, so you guys are definitely knocking out of the park.
Nick Wozniak 03:28 I hope so.
Nick Wozniak 03:30 Yeah, definitely.
Nick Wozniak 03:31 No, I mean Yeah.
Max Roberts 03:32 Um, and I suspect it will keep on rolling throughout the year and
Max Roberts 03:36 I would personally suspect to see uh Yacht Club at the game awards with Jeff Keeley and all that stuff later this year as well.
Nick Wozniak 03:41 Oh, yeah, I hope so.
Max Roberts 03:42 So it seems like a uh a very good year for the team, well deserved over uh
Max Roberts 03:49 six or seven years for the development, right?
Nick Wozniak 03:52 Yeah.
Max Roberts 03:53 Something around there?
Nick Wozniak 03:54 Yeah, six basically six.
Nick Wozniak 03:57 Uh twenty nineteen and December was when we released
Nick Wozniak 04:01 uh King of Cards.
Nick Wozniak 04:03 And so a few months later we started working on Mina.
Max Roberts 04:07 Yeah, I think that's a good one.
Nick Wozniak 04:08 And ideas had already been going on for a while.
Max Roberts 04:12 Well, that's actually a really good segue into like my first question, which is I've I played Shovel Knight day one on the three DS, you know, so I was I was following along.
Max Roberts 04:22 all of Yacht Club's games in development and Shovel Knight because of the uh infamous feels too strong of a word, but the notorious, maybe that's a better word.
Max Roberts 04:32 Kickstarter promises for expansions kept Shovel Knight going.
Max Roberts 04:37 for so long and you guys went above and beyond what I think anyone expected with full blown expansions.
Max Roberts 04:42 And you kinda I wrote it down as like you guys were building Shovel Knight in public or or like you were you could develop and respond over time with each expansion.
Max Roberts 04:51 And explore new ideas.
Max Roberts 04:52 And Mina, you've built the whole game with no no promised DLC or anything like that.
Max Roberts 04:59 Uh, I think that lesson was learned.
Nick Wozniak 05:00 Right.
Max Roberts 05:01 So you you built the whole game in one go, kind of
Max Roberts 05:04 not in secret, it's Kickstarter, Kickstarter updates, things like that, but very much very different from Shovel Knight.
Max Roberts 05:11 How how was that process for you going from the more public and iterative releases of Shovel Knight to a
Max Roberts 05:19 all in one for a lack of a better term for Mina.
Nick Wozniak 05:23 Yeah, I think it was it was it was different for other reasons.
Nick Wozniak 05:27 And I think like um, you know, the when the public is watching it from the outside you're seeing
Nick Wozniak 05:32 one thing, but from the inside it feels a little bit different.
Nick Wozniak 05:34 So Shovel Knight felt just like working on, you know, the next game.
Nick Wozniak 05:38 It was like we're doing this.
Nick Wozniak 05:40 It's uh
Nick Wozniak 05:42 You know, we did Shovel Knight, now we're going to think about doing what whatever Plague Knight is.
Nick Wozniak 05:46 And so we had these ideas of what it could be and then kind of executed on what we thought we wanted it to be.
Nick Wozniak 05:51 And then there was a bit of like, you know, the game's out.
Nick Wozniak 05:55 Now let's do the next one and figure out what uh, you know, Spectrum Knight is going to be influenced by
Nick Wozniak 06:01 what Playtonite was.
Nick Wozniak 06:02 Maybe like we we don't want to have a game that's all about holding down a button.
Nick Wozniak 06:06 We can make it more uh quick easy access fun.
Nick Wozniak 06:09 Um and then King Knight became like this, you know, this giant thing.
Nick Wozniak 06:13 And so like we were reacting as we were building, but it felt really much just like sequels.
Nick Wozniak 06:18 Um
Nick Wozniak 06:19 Whereas with Mina, um, I wasn't thinking about all that because like it was of just a very different setup of what the studio was, you know, after
Nick Wozniak 06:28 Speaking of cards, we thought we could do two games at once.
Nick Wozniak 06:32 So we split the team up and we had a 3D game going and a 2D game going at the same time.
Nick Wozniak 06:39 The 2D game of course is Mina.
Nick Wozniak 06:41 The 3D one is not announced.
Nick Wozniak 06:42 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 06:43 And I was actually working on a 3D game.
Nick Wozniak 06:45 And at the same time, Mina's happening and like slowly growing and sort of like this pre-production for a long time.
Nick Wozniak 06:54 And then we kind of realized that like, you know, we weren't really able to do two games at once, was just kind of focus on one.
Nick Wozniak 07:02 And so we collapsed back down into
Nick Wozniak 07:05 um one team doing Nina back in 2024.
Nick Wozniak 07:10 So it it wasn't as much like
Nick Wozniak 07:13 Like I might most of what was on my mind wasn't how people were seeing it or how like it was uh progressing in terms of like how you know reaction was happening.
Nick Wozniak 07:23 It really was all about like
Nick Wozniak 07:26 the team setup and the structure and stuff.
Nick Wozniak 07:29 And so um once we were able to actually like really focus on it, it felt much more cohesive and
Nick Wozniak 07:35 And we're able to like kind of, you know, get our heads around what our goals were.
Nick Wozniak 07:39 Um and uh yeah, since then it was it was like really cooking.
Nick Wozniak 07:43 I would say the last two years especially have been really
Nick Wozniak 07:47 uh have felt much better in terms of our ability to to produce something.
Max Roberts 07:52 So when I hear of teams splitting internally to like work on two things, my brain always goes to Naughty Dog, how they infamously in the PS3 era went split Uncharted 3 in The Last of Us and tried to keep that going and then have um
Max Roberts 08:06 not really been able to do that going forward to different degrees.
Max Roberts 08:10 They have their own much larger scale than Yacht Club just from a headcount perspective alone.
Nick Wozniak 08:12 Yeah.
Max Roberts 08:18 Was the was the idea to split just like we can do two things at once and like get games out faster?
Max Roberts 08:24 Was that the original, I guess, impetus for it?
Nick Wozniak 08:28 Yeah, part of it.
Nick Wozniak 08:29 Yeah, is it's not it's not just getting it out faster.
Nick Wozniak 08:32 It was like we wanted to do two different things and we had um different specialties, right?
Nick Wozniak 08:38 Um and I think like
Nick Wozniak 08:41 We want to do different stuff, like we want to express ourselves differently.
Nick Wozniak 08:44 Like, you know, at the same time we were publishing Dig and Cyber Shadow.
Nick Wozniak 08:49 um and uh eventually pocket dungeon.
Nick Wozniak 08:52 So like those were also efforts.
Nick Wozniak 08:55 We like had a lot of ideas and we had a lot of things and we couldn't, you know, express them uh
Nick Wozniak 09:03 like sequentially like you know shovel knight being this over-dominating thing where we are like promising ourselves to do these individual games
Max Roberts 09:05 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 09:11 um meant that we were just like looking at NES graphics every day.
Nick Wozniak 09:15 You know, and I think there's part of it, uh, you know, and not just the graphics, like the genre.
Nick Wozniak 09:19 I think part of it was like wanting to expand and do more things.
Nick Wozniak 09:22 and try out lots of different ideas.
Nick Wozniak 09:25 And so yeah, we saw ourselves kind of growing and try to become more of a like a broader company.
Nick Wozniak 09:33 But I think like that just like spread us out way too thin.
Max Roberts 09:36 My brain goes, I remember this story.
Max Roberts 09:38 I don't remember what it's I it's probably been told in multiple interviews.
Max Roberts 09:43 Um
Max Roberts 09:44 But I think because you all were at Way Forward, the like the original founding yacht club.
Max Roberts 09:49 And part of the reason that you left, if I'm remember you correct me if I'm wrong, was that Way Forward would move people between teams.
Max Roberts 09:55 They would be like, you know, okay, now you're going to work on this and this and this
Max Roberts 09:58 Uh it's kind of to me it sounds interesting that eventually Yacht Club would then, in a way, do the same thing that led to Yacht Club being formed.
Nick Wozniak 10:08 Yeah.
Max Roberts 10:08 It's it um it's so
Nick Wozniak 10:09 I don't I don't know if I've ever saw it that way.
Nick Wozniak 10:11 That's interesting.
Nick Wozniak 10:12 Um because like we weren't you know Way Forward had like you know six games going or whatever at the same time
Max Roberts 10:17 Oh, sure.
Nick Wozniak 10:18 we we saw it more as like we have uh very different like desires but like all of us were involved like
Nick Wozniak 10:28 Um, and maybe that's why it was like not super great, is that everybody had like uh buy-in on everything.
Nick Wozniak 10:34 And so um, like Sean was was directing the 3D game, but also had a lot to say for
Nick Wozniak 10:40 Mina and you know anytime you're splitting someone's attention, you're splitting their ability to like really focus.
Nick Wozniak 10:48 So um
Nick Wozniak 10:50 Yeah, it's that is that is interesting that we kind of went back to our roots and realized how that that wasn't a good idea again.
Max Roberts 10:56 It'll lay.
Max Roberts 10:59 Sometimes we have to relearn a lesson.
Max Roberts 11:02 Um and thankfully, like it obviously has worked out for the studio and I think maybe
Nick Wozniak 11:02 Yes.
Max Roberts 11:07 kind of reinforce the idea that you're better together all on one project kind of going forward.
Max Roberts 11:12 So I'm I'm excited to see how that evolves, you know, as you guys go on to make whatever is next.
Nick Wozniak 11:13 Definitely
Nick Wozniak 11:17 Yeah, me too.
Nick Wozniak 11:19 We'll see
Max Roberts 11:21 I want uh I I imagine you've been asked this a lot.
Max Roberts 11:24 Um I want to specifically ask what
Max Roberts 11:28 What's the difference between the Mina that would have come out on Halloween, which, I mean, from a PR perspective probably was like the true like
Max Roberts 11:36 the dream release date, Halloween for Mina, and then an indefinite delay until May.
Nick Wozniak 11:38 Yeah,
Max Roberts 11:42 Um you in you in an interview talked about how you guys basically
Max Roberts 11:47 went back and looked at the game as a whole to make sure that you could follow through on the promise of creating a game you could play through in any direction while also ensuring that there were no weird difficulty spikes.
Max Roberts 11:59 Is like that the core of it or was there
Max Roberts 12:02 More time.
Nick Wozniak 12:04 No, it's it's that's definitely the core of it.
Nick Wozniak 12:06 I think what what it is is just balance.
Nick Wozniak 12:08 It's just the
Nick Wozniak 12:10 Like we have um we have levels done, but like not all of them were really great.
Nick Wozniak 12:17 You know, there's like polish.
Nick Wozniak 12:19 Um and
Nick Wozniak 12:21 Part of that just comes from the like the systemic nature of the game.
Nick Wozniak 12:28 You are you're you're you're exploring everything all at once.
Nick Wozniak 12:32 You can go anywhere, and so you can't just like
Nick Wozniak 12:35 finish level one and then move on to level two and then move on to level three like you would with uh you know Shovel Knight or a traditional game like that
Nick Wozniak 12:43 Everything is so interconnected.
Nick Wozniak 12:45 And so having the ability for the player to route through the world in different ways is really important.
Nick Wozniak 12:53 So a lot of those shortcuts were added.
Nick Wozniak 12:56 You know, there's also the like the trinkets were um definitely needing some work.
Nick Wozniak 13:04 Yeah, some were really great and kind of didn't change, but others were like really just like why would you ever use this?
Nick Wozniak 13:12 And our goal was to make it so that every trinket felt like you were, it was giving you a substantial upgrade, like everything was up overpowered.
Nick Wozniak 13:20 Um, so that you the majority of the decision making you're making is is not like, is this better than the other one?
Nick Wozniak 13:26 It's more like, what's the opportunity cost for going all in on bones kind of thing?
Nick Wozniak 13:31 Um, you know, so the
Nick Wozniak 13:34 There was lots of balance, lots of tuning, lots of like playthroughs, lots of testing.
Nick Wozniak 13:39 Um and ultimately it's just that that last 10% polish that takes, you know, 30% of the time.
Nick Wozniak 13:47 Um
Nick Wozniak 13:48 The yeah, that just like it was the the bringing it to like it's it's a full game.
Nick Wozniak 13:54 Like I don't it was not a good game in in October.
Nick Wozniak 13:56 Uh it's like a pretty
Nick Wozniak 13:58 easy thing for anybody to say.
Nick Wozniak 14:00 Um it's like it's it wasn't it was okay.
Nick Wozniak 14:03 But like, you know, spending the extra time to actually polish it and make it cohesive and
Nick Wozniak 14:09 More than anything, like it wasn't successful at trying to do the things we were setting out to do.
Nick Wozniak 14:14 And so bringing it that back into into our measure of success was was what the last six months sort of was.
Max Roberts 14:21 There's this quote from, I think it's Sean, it was in a Bloomberg article talking about
Max Roberts 14:26 uh how the game apparently had kind of coalesced to a point where you, the developers, could play it from start to finish and basically find all these different things that you want to prove.
Max Roberts 14:36 I think the things that you're talking about there.
Max Roberts 14:38 Routing, trinkets.
Max Roberts 14:40 Other things.
Max Roberts 14:42 And Sean said that the delay was a good one.
Max Roberts 14:45 And you basically had a giant checklist of things and the polish.
Max Roberts 14:49 And so I mean that
Max Roberts 14:53 This delay and that polish, that's the difference between highest-rated game of the year so far and what you you know, you're saying it's an okay game.
Max Roberts 15:02 Is that what it is?
Max Roberts 15:03 Is it really the final push there?
Nick Wozniak 15:05 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 15:06 I definitely think so.
Nick Wozniak 15:07 I think like anytime that you're making a game, what happens is you get so focused on the uh the specifics of each task and uh every
Nick Wozniak 15:18 Building block has its own level of like scrutiny and focus that has to be required.
Nick Wozniak 15:23 And you can only really be focused on that.
Nick Wozniak 15:26 for you know the the time it takes to make it and then once all those pieces are there you can kind of take a step back and and evaluate how they fit together
Nick Wozniak 15:36 You know, it can take a couple weeks just to get a boss battle working.
Nick Wozniak 15:40 But if that boss battle is uh not fun because we didn't set up enough
Nick Wozniak 15:45 of its mechanics in the rest of the level or um you know we didn't establish a meaningful way for you to like have gotten
Nick Wozniak 15:55 enough progress that your stats are good for this area or whatever it is, uh, you know, then it's just gonna fall flat.
Nick Wozniak 16:01 There's more to difficulty than just
Nick Wozniak 16:04 the the numbers lining up.
Nick Wozniak 16:05 It's it's about like how you present um the game to the player and if we haven't done a good job in explaining mechanics through dialogue or events in the level design or
Nick Wozniak 16:18 um, you know, we haven't uh been clear with the intention with certain items or something like that, then you're gonna run into
Nick Wozniak 16:26 the just general feeling like, oh, this is bad, but I don't exactly know why.
Nick Wozniak 16:31 Um and so a lot of like what that last polish does is kind of like remove
Nick Wozniak 16:37 those rough edges um to make way for you know our what we were hoping the game kind of feels and plays like
Max Roberts 16:46 So speaking of uh showing and teaching the player something, I think one
Max Roberts 16:53 particular problem that I definitely had with the game and I've seen other people is the mirrors and figuring out the secret of the mirror.
Nick Wozniak 17:00 Yeah.
Max Roberts 17:02 How how do you how did you get to the where you were with the game?
Max Roberts 17:07 Like at launch, like the state it's and I don't know if it'll change at all.
Max Roberts 17:10 I don't know if it'll be
Max Roberts 17:11 patched or altered in any way, and I'm not even suggesting that.
Max Roberts 17:14 But like that seemed to be a if a friend didn't send me a picture of a Super Mario 64 painting as like the hint
Max Roberts 17:22 And if I didn't if I didn't find a lady walk into a mirror in the frozen mountain area, if I didn't see that, I don't think I would have figured it out.
Nick Wozniak 17:29 Mm-hmm.
Max Roberts 17:31 Um
Max Roberts 17:32 And that's obviously a vital part of progression in the game.
Max Roberts 17:36 So how how did you guys get where you landed on the mirrors?
Max Roberts 17:40 I'm I'm very curious about this.
Nick Wozniak 17:43 The mirrors are are interesting because they were something like we were never intending that to be the sole um fast travel system.
Nick Wozniak 17:52 The idea that it does connect to sort of a bonus that you get later.
Nick Wozniak 17:56 It's sort of supposed to be a thing that you develop a curiosity for throughout the whole game.
Nick Wozniak 18:05 And since it's tied to basically the last area, um that or train yard is kind of like the last tier of area
Nick Wozniak 18:13 Um we felt like you're kind of getting this the enough hints to get there.
Nick Wozniak 18:19 Um there's a couple NPCs that talk about it.
Nick Wozniak 18:21 The newspaper mentions it, the
Nick Wozniak 18:23 There's an NPC that just like full on goes in there and shows you how to do it.
Nick Wozniak 18:28 You know, if you go on screen, this the scholar guy will like show up and go through it.
Nick Wozniak 18:34 There's another NPC that kind of hints towards it.
Nick Wozniak 18:37 So it's like we wanted it to feel definitely like a mystery you're solving and like, oh, this is like really weird.
Nick Wozniak 18:44 But also like we're aware that that
Nick Wozniak 18:48 part of the fun of these kinds of games is the discussion that happens around them.
Nick Wozniak 18:52 And so if if you're having that discussion with your friend who like figured it out, then that's great.
Nick Wozniak 18:59 Yeah, one of the things we did was um we
Nick Wozniak 19:02 We set up a Discord for any of the early uh playtesters, uh, including the media, because we wanted that feeling of like communication to live and and and kind of
Nick Wozniak 19:16 Get behind the game and it we we never want to make a game where you have to like consult a wiki, but I feel like there's just there's enough there that you kind of like want to ask questions and you have
Nick Wozniak 19:27 You like you kind of get that something is happening with the mirrors and you're totally not not totally sure why.
Nick Wozniak 19:32 And so it exists as a mystery in the back of your mind.
Nick Wozniak 19:35 Um and uh yeah, so like
Nick Wozniak 19:39 I think it is it's definitely vague on purpose.
Nick Wozniak 19:41 It's not supp it's definitely not supposed to be like this really obvious thing, but um hopefully it feels like a mystery you solve and and it adds to the mystique and magic of the of the world and not a well not to go to
Nick Wozniak 19:53 you know, Mina.
Nick Wozniak 19:55 wiki.
Nick Wozniak 19:56 com or whatever and find out my answer.
Max Roberts 19:58 Yeah, that that is if he didn't send me that picture, um, I don't think I would have I was like, where are paintings
Max Roberts 20:05 He even said he's like, you've probably passed one already, obviously referring to, uh, because you you walk by mirrors kind of all the time
Max Roberts 20:13 I I was kind of reminded of the Triforce quest in Wind Waker.
Max Roberts 20:18 At the end of the game, you have to you get a map, you gotta go talk to a bunch of fish, and then you gotta go find all the pieces.
Nick Wozniak 20:19 Okay.
Max Roberts 20:26 Um
Max Roberts 20:28 Because the mirrors gate the switches that then open the final level.
Max Roberts 20:32 So you kind of go on this this world tour.
Max Roberts 20:36 And for me, that was a big struggle because it's like, oh, now I have to like navigate back to I could have been doing this along the way.
Max Roberts 20:46 And I'm what I'm one opinion.
Nick Wozniak 20:46 Yeah.
Max Roberts 20:48 And how you guys obviously played the game way longer and designed it and I'm I'm and had play testers and all these things.
Max Roberts 20:56 I'm sure you've heard this feedback.
Nick Wozniak 20:56 Yeah.
Max Roberts 20:58 Where where do you decide to stick with your guns on something?
Nick Wozniak 20:58 Yeah.
Max Roberts 21:02 Like this is this is worth the the friction that s X amount of people will have?
Max Roberts 21:09 And where is it like maybe we made it too hard or something?
Max Roberts 21:15 And that could be anything in the game, not just the mirrors, but like where do you know where to stick with your guns and where to like uh maybe we shouldn't have done that?
Nick Wozniak 21:22 I think um well one of the things it it does is encourages you to replay the content at a higher level because you are at any point you were just more advanced than where you were at before.
Nick Wozniak 21:34 And so you can see things that you may have missed.
Nick Wozniak 21:37 Part of the game is also like going back and and finding anything that you did miss.
Nick Wozniak 21:40 Finding anything
Nick Wozniak 21:41 uh gemstones or or trinkets or whatever.
Nick Wozniak 21:44 There's a lot in the levels, and so kind of taking a second pass and seeing the secret paths you missed or appreciating a shortcut that was
Nick Wozniak 21:53 maybe not obvious at the first time.
Nick Wozniak 21:55 Um you know, having that run back really makes it so that you'd you'd do that again.
Nick Wozniak 22:00 Um and I think like part of that is that we wanted the players to feel like the world
Nick Wozniak 22:05 wasn't just a series of levels.
Nick Wozniak 22:07 It is a thing that you can continue to explore and continue to like find new things into um as if you investigate them into them.
Nick Wozniak 22:14 um and so yeah going back and like you know oh yeah where was a member where was that that mirror i have to think about you know what was the tile set i was looking at when i saw that
Nick Wozniak 22:25 the mirror or what was the the gameplay.
Nick Wozniak 22:28 I I feel like you know once you get into the mirror world you can kind of get a hint as to where each one is located.
Nick Wozniak 22:35 There's a signpost saying this one's in Queensbury Crypt and this one's in September
Nick Wozniak 22:38 or whatever.
Nick Wozniak 22:40 You know, so it's like there's there's probably there's definitely a screen or two that you definitely didn't see the first time through.
Nick Wozniak 22:49 And so that kind of encourages you to go back and like.
Nick Wozniak 22:51 try to find all the secrets.
Nick Wozniak 22:53 Um and then, you know, sticking to our guns, it's it's something that we
Nick Wozniak 23:00 we've definitely considered of like how to make it more hinted at.
Nick Wozniak 23:05 Um it because we wanted it to feel secret.
Nick Wozniak 23:09 Like, you know, the the guy who
Nick Wozniak 23:12 There's a one of the scholars is when you walk in, will it just appear there and then walk through the mirror?
Nick Wozniak 23:18 And that happens until you actually do it the first time.
Nick Wozniak 23:21 Um, he'll occasionally do that and after a certain point.
Nick Wozniak 23:25 That was added pretty late because that was sort of like, you know, that's a definitely a hint that's not too on the nose.
Nick Wozniak 23:31 Um
Nick Wozniak 23:33 And we wanted the players to feel like that was still a sense of discovery.
Nick Wozniak 23:36 We wanted this to feel like a um this is like a remarkable thing that I had no idea existed.
Nick Wozniak 23:43 You know, this is like
Nick Wozniak 23:45 uh there's there's more to the game than i than i initially thought um you know and we had we had uh at one point i think we had a uh we call them little like
Nick Wozniak 23:55 What do we call them?
Nick Wozniak 23:56 They're like little sneak peaks into the zone where you like you're in uh colturing peaks and then you go into a side room and you can kind of see into the other world.
Nick Wozniak 24:07 uh into into Astral Aurea.
Nick Wozniak 24:09 I think we at one point had a little sneak peek into uh the mirror area, but it it just felt like that was the solution and so it's gonna be too confusing.
Nick Wozniak 24:18 Um and so we worked like, you know, we worked hard to try to make sure that wasn't overly confusing while it's still being a a mystery to solve.
Nick Wozniak 24:26 Um but uh yeah, I think that like finding the thing that makes us all
Nick Wozniak 24:34 that engages us all on the same level as as where we feel like we can stick to our guns or not
Max Roberts 24:41 In a similar vein
Max Roberts 24:43 The game is chock full of secrets and this idea of surprise and delight that I think a lot of classic games had back in the day and and some modern games, a lot of modern games, not just some.
Max Roberts 24:56 There's a surprise and delight to Mina in finding things in the world.
Max Roberts 25:00 But there's there's a lot of them.
Max Roberts 25:02 I remember seeing some some posts online about like
Max Roberts 25:06 Well, if you stand still in the dark too long, you know, X will happen.
Max Roberts 25:09 Or uh I found I don't remember the creature's name, but I got like dragged underground and did like a puppet dance.
Max Roberts 25:17 It was
Nick Wozniak 25:17 Yeah
Max Roberts 25:17 Very strange, very weird, odd.
Max Roberts 25:19 Um, all sorts of things.
Max Roberts 25:21 I never figured out actually how to get into the music bar.
Max Roberts 25:26 Um, because I was like, well, when is this lion guy gonna walk by instead of
Max Roberts 25:29 uh later when I read you just go under anyone walking by.
Max Roberts 25:32 I was like, oh duh.
Max Roberts 25:34 So there was a lot of things of like secrets, right?
Max Roberts 25:38 Just things but
Nick Wozniak 25:39 Yeah.
Max Roberts 25:40 There's a concession with that also that people are going to miss things and potentially a lot of things.
Max Roberts 25:47 How does that feel as a developer?
Max Roberts 25:48 Like you're you're crafting this
Max Roberts 25:51 This thing, the secret, this area, what have you?
Max Roberts 25:54 Um it could range I guess from a boss fight all the way down to just a little Easter egg
Max Roberts 25:58 And you have to be okay with people not necessarily finding it.
Max Roberts 26:03 I know today you put up a blog post for this ultra super secret hard ending, right?
Nick Wozniak 26:08 Yeah.
Max Roberts 26:08 That people figured out.
Max Roberts 26:10 You know, so something and I read through that and was like, oh my gosh, how would anyone, you know, whoever figured it out, props to them.
Nick Wozniak 26:11 Yeah.
Max Roberts 26:18 Um
Max Roberts 26:19 How do you deal with that just as the developer and the creator behind these things, you know, with the team and everything?
Max Roberts 26:25 How do you how does that feel?
Nick Wozniak 26:27 It's definitely a balance of like not wanting to put a bunch of effort into something that nobody's going to see and or you know appreciate or whatever.
Nick Wozniak 26:35 But at the same time, things that are rarer rarer, you know, not off as often seen, have more um
Nick Wozniak 26:45 value to them.
Nick Wozniak 26:46 You know, it's it's more interesting when something is somewhat of a secret.
Nick Wozniak 26:50 And so the the levels are
Nick Wozniak 26:53 pretty broad.
Nick Wozniak 26:54 We try to make sure that like when you find something that's interesting and cool, you can talk about it in the same way with excitement and and love for it as opposed to being frustrated by something.
Nick Wozniak 27:06 um and to that end we made it so that nothing is is truly misable um you can go back and and kind of get everything you're not ever locked out of getting the trinket
Nick Wozniak 27:18 or an upgrade or whatever.
Nick Wozniak 27:22 The only thing you might miss is like some dialogue.
Nick Wozniak 27:25 If
Nick Wozniak 27:26 you know, there's a character, there's there's certain scenes where Lionel will show up if you're in the right spot.
Nick Wozniak 27:32 Um or uh
Nick Wozniak 27:35 involving the the kids in September and stuff.
Nick Wozniak 27:37 So there's there's but they're not like critical or really that meaningful.
Nick Wozniak 27:43 Um I think that having
Nick Wozniak 27:47 variability makes the world feel real and more like interactive and like you are rewarded for trying things and exploring.
Nick Wozniak 27:55 And so it's good to have those kinds of things.
Nick Wozniak 27:58 If everything was just a list of things presented to you, then it would just be like uh, I don't know, reading a book or watching a movie.
Nick Wozniak 28:06 Um, and I think like having games be something that you have your own personal story attached to is like really important.
Nick Wozniak 28:12 Uh, you know, and that to that end, that was like one of the goals with Mina to begin with, is like you can play each level.
Nick Wozniak 28:19 however order you want.
Nick Wozniak 28:20 There's no key items besides the train ticket.
Nick Wozniak 28:23 Um and you know it's it's it's not even like tied to the character.
Nick Wozniak 28:29 It's just like a thing that
Nick Wozniak 28:30 that you you'd get enough money for.
Nick Wozniak 28:33 Um so yeah, I think like all that to say is like um we
Nick Wozniak 28:39 We want for the exploration to have value to it and anything that's missable shouldn't be really frustrating because you can just go, you know, go back and get it.
Max Roberts 28:49 Yeah, there's nothing nothing more painful than like a missable trophy in a game or something like that.
Nick Wozniak 28:54 Oh yeah.
Max Roberts 28:54 And it's like, oh gosh, I know I have to do it again.
Max Roberts 28:56 Again.
Max Roberts 28:57 Um too many too many RPGs have bitten me like that before.
Max Roberts 29:01 Uh if you're not prepared for it.
Nick Wozniak 29:04 Yes.
Max Roberts 29:05 It's a it's it reminds me a lot of like playground talk.
Max Roberts 29:10 Like you'd play a game and you'd go to school and then you talk out of the playground and be like
Max Roberts 29:14 Oh I did this or this or this and it's like did you find you know this behind the the the cave behind the waterfall type of thing?
Max Roberts 29:21 Um
Nick Wozniak 29:21 Yeah
Max Roberts 29:21 Which is always a charming aspect of a game.
Max Roberts 29:24 I remember in that Discord that you mentioned about like having press and playtesters and things in there, I think one someone in the press
Max Roberts 29:33 did Astral as their second level, which to me is like Huh?
Nick Wozniak 29:37 Yeah.
Max Roberts 29:40 First of all, A, how'd you do it?
Nick Wozniak 29:40 How, yeah.
Max Roberts 29:42 Like you would have had to go everywhere.
Nick Wozniak 29:43 Yeah
Max Roberts 29:44 I don't know.
Max Roberts 29:45 Is
Max Roberts 29:46 wild.
Max Roberts 29:46 Um and maybe that I don't know if that's true or not.
Nick Wozniak 29:49 There's there no there is a bug.
Max Roberts 29:49 I I I g I guess
Nick Wozniak 29:50 There's you can if you use uh one of the trinkets allows you to bounce out of the the pit saver trinket allows you to to bounce out of the hole.
Nick Wozniak 29:58 And so if you just do one of those
Nick Wozniak 30:01 If you do the right one, you can you technically can do astral as your second level.
Nick Wozniak 30:07 It's very hard and you kind of have to know what you're doing.
Nick Wozniak 30:10 We didn't expect players to find that on accident.
Max Roberts 30:14 So is that something that you would then want to patch out, or do you keep that in for like the speedrunning community or something?
Nick Wozniak 30:18 Yeah.
Max Roberts 30:20 Like how do you balance that?
Nick Wozniak 30:21 Well it yeah, you go back and forth.
Nick Wozniak 30:24 Um we we have patched that out so that I
Nick Wozniak 30:28 We may not have, but uh the goal is that you you complete three of the mirrors, not all of them.
Nick Wozniak 30:36 Um so that was like the intention there.
Nick Wozniak 30:40 And there are skips that we have kind of patched out, some of them more ugly than others.
Nick Wozniak 30:45 Some of them were like really, really broken.
Nick Wozniak 30:49 You know, there was a outskirts, southern outskirts one where if you just like transitioned north while transitioning west in a certain area, you could go behind the collision and then just like walk into the final boss's room.
Nick Wozniak 31:02 Um
Nick Wozniak 31:03 And that is just like that's bad for lots of reasons.
Nick Wozniak 31:06 Let's just pull that out, you know.
Max Roberts 31:09 Sure.
Nick Wozniak 31:09 But um there's other ones like the the the fishing rod provides a lot of skips that we've had to like
Nick Wozniak 31:15 decide whether to keep or not.
Nick Wozniak 31:17 And uh there's definitely been a like push to make things
Nick Wozniak 31:23 A little more buttoned up, much to the chagrin of some of the speedrun airs.
Max Roberts 31:27 Yeah.
Max Roberts 31:28 It's it's a I sure I'm sure that's a hard thing to balance too, but I I mean you want to serve the wider Alliance speedrunners are just a slice.
Nick Wozniak 31:29 But yeah.
Nick Wozniak 31:34 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 31:35 Well you don't want to like Right, but you and you don't want to have someone accidentally discover something that like really is too confusing.
Nick Wozniak 31:43 Right.
Nick Wozniak 31:44 Like if you if you think that the solution is this weird fishing rod interaction, then you've missed the main path and are therefore like
Nick Wozniak 31:54 in a really weird spot.
Nick Wozniak 31:55 Like if you can skip into the um you know in the mirror hub, right?
Nick Wozniak 32:02 You can skip into the moon
Nick Wozniak 32:05 uh exit, then you're entering that boss in the back and then you like don't really understand where what's happening and then you're like lost and it's just like that's not a good experience.
Nick Wozniak 32:13 And if you can accidentally run into that as a player
Nick Wozniak 32:16 than we like we failed you as a player, right?
Nick Wozniak 32:18 Um at the same time, like we want to make sure players like who are doing weird things for the purpose of speed running get s some satisfaction.
Nick Wozniak 32:26 So yeah, yeah, like you said, it's it's a it's a big balance.
Max Roberts 32:30 Yeah, I can I can only imagine.
Max Roberts 32:32 'Cause the way speedrunners break games is is both cool and
Max Roberts 32:38 Probably as a developer, like, oh my gosh, how did this happen?
Nick Wozniak 32:41 That's terrifying, yeah.
Max Roberts 32:42 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 32:42 Yeah, no, definitely.
Max Roberts 32:46 And then and then you might be thinking, oh gosh, I worked on that.
Max Roberts 32:49 Oh no.
Nick Wozniak 32:50 Yeah, right.
Max Roberts 32:51 That's my thing.
Max Roberts 32:53 So you specifically, uh, Was, you do art.
Max Roberts 32:58 You're the art guy.
Max Roberts 32:59 You're one of the art guys.
Max Roberts 33:01 Um
Max Roberts 33:01 And Yacht Club is very devoted to accurate color palettes and adhering to the limitations of the hardware that they're
Max Roberts 33:12 you're designing towards, whether that's the NES or now the Game Boy Color.
Max Roberts 33:17 And there was
Max Roberts 33:20 A blog post that you guys did.
Max Roberts 33:22 I guess it was actually a Kickstarter post, and then eventually you turn it into a blog post about basically you talking about choosing a palette because NES to Game Boy Color is a very big jump in the range.
Max Roberts 33:33 of colors that you can use.
Max Roberts 33:35 And you found that designing a palette was um made things easier for you.
Max Roberts 33:41 You actually today in an AMA we're talking about how um
Max Roberts 33:47 The Game Boy color was like more ambiguous is what you said and simplistic and you you had to fight against your instincts as an artist and then you guys designed this palette.
Nick Wozniak 33:50 Yeah, I think it's a good thing.
Nick Wozniak 33:54 Yeah.
Max Roberts 33:56 People were even asking you about making a 16-bit game, but then it's like
Max Roberts 34:01 Well, what does that open up and you're designed?
Nick Wozniak 34:02 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 34:03 Yeah.
Max Roberts 34:03 So I'm very curious about the palette process and decision making for for you guys, you know, as the lead artist on kind of the team, I believe.
Max Roberts 34:14 Um
Max Roberts 34:15 What was uh you how do you you sit down and you're embracing limitation.
Max Roberts 34:21 Like what why?
Max Roberts 34:23 What's the strength there for you guys?
Nick Wozniak 34:25 I think it it helps to anchor at everything.
Nick Wozniak 34:28 If everything is is sort of just like, you know, when we we stick to a a a
Nick Wozniak 34:36 hardware limitation like that.
Nick Wozniak 34:38 What we're doing is saying this is like this is a target, this is a you know our art direction, so to speak.
Nick Wozniak 34:46 Um so that we can capture like what that feel is and
Nick Wozniak 34:49 and that setting that goal early and sticking to it is sort of like one of the things we like to do in not just art and in gameplay design as well.
Nick Wozniak 34:59 um and for the art specifically this you're kind of alluding to it it's it's a the Game Boy color didn't have a pre-programmed
Nick Wozniak 35:10 uh set of colors called a palette that the NES did.
Nick Wozniak 35:14 The NES had, you know, fifty-five colors that it like said, those these are the colors you absolutely have to use.
Nick Wozniak 35:19 You're not coloring with color, you're coloring with like paint by numbers, you know.
Nick Wozniak 35:22 So like when you're when you're coloring the red outfit for Mario, you're like using color number 12.
Nick Wozniak 35:29 You're not using
Nick Wozniak 35:30 you know, the hex hex value.
Nick Wozniak 35:32 And as a result, it it can compress and be very small.
Nick Wozniak 35:36 Um Game Boy Color's approach is different.
Nick Wozniak 35:39 You're
Nick Wozniak 35:39 preloading a bunch of palettes and then just choosing which one the sprite is using.
Nick Wozniak 35:44 So it is a very like high level of compression, but it doesn't have the same feel because
Nick Wozniak 35:49 Any but you could change what those palettes were.
Nick Wozniak 35:51 And so lots of different games just had different looks to them.
Nick Wozniak 35:55 Um as a result, what we did and and what Sandy did was kind of gather um
Nick Wozniak 36:02 screenshots from from prominent games that are what you think of when you think of the Game Boy Color and use that as a guideline.
Nick Wozniak 36:12 The problem is though is that some Game Boy Color games are just like
Nick Wozniak 36:15 up-resed versions of Game Boy games.
Nick Wozniak 36:17 And so like in your mental space, when you think of a Game Boy Color game, it could be
Nick Wozniak 36:24 you know, Link's Awakening DX, um where it, you know, Lynx Awakening was a Game Boy game and they just kind of like uprezzed it and and
Nick Wozniak 36:33 added colors to it.
Nick Wozniak 36:34 Or maybe it's it's a super Game Boy um conversion of Game Boy games where they just like applied a palette.
Nick Wozniak 36:41 Um, or maybe like it's just like so you're it's so broad, or maybe it's a game that was like made specifically for the Game Boy Color and so it has much a richer palette.
Nick Wozniak 36:49 Um
Nick Wozniak 36:50 You know, like a um like a uh uh the Capcom Zelda games.
Nick Wozniak 36:57 Like
Nick Wozniak 36:58 you your your understanding of what that is is is not as solid as the NES was.
Nick Wozniak 37:03 And so um it's more it's more vibesy and like harder to nail down.
Nick Wozniak 37:07 And and so as a result.
Nick Wozniak 37:09 We made an initial palette.
Nick Wozniak 37:11 Um well Sandy Sandy was the the palettes were made by Sandy.
Nick Wozniak 37:15 Um but he he made an initial palette and then
Nick Wozniak 37:18 It was like very restrictive.
Nick Wozniak 37:21 And so we like expanded it a few years in.
Nick Wozniak 37:25 And then from there, we were just like, let's just stick with it.
Nick Wozniak 37:28 Let's not
Nick Wozniak 37:29 mess with it too much, stick with it, see what we can do.
Nick Wozniak 37:33 You know, it worked with the NES, like why not now?
Nick Wozniak 37:37 As a result, there are some errors I would like I feel like I would want to fix in the palette.
Nick Wozniak 37:42 Notably, there's no good grays or desaturated reds.
Nick Wozniak 37:48 And or rather we we have
Nick Wozniak 37:51 Lots of grays, but they're all cool, and there's like a big step from the darkest gray to like the actual true gray.
Nick Wozniak 37:56 Anyway, there's like lots of small things that I would want to change.
Nick Wozniak 37:59 Um But you know, like making
Nick Wozniak 38:03 Once we had that really established, it helps to like that sticking to it helps to define the style.
Nick Wozniak 38:10 The other thing was that like
Nick Wozniak 38:12 You know, the restrictions of the Game Boy color were so based on the sprite.
Nick Wozniak 38:18 Every every 8x8.
Nick Wozniak 38:21 was like its own little thing.
Nick Wozniak 38:23 And so we tried to hint at that in the art and that was really hard for that was like the big thing that was hard for me to get around was like
Nick Wozniak 38:29 It really is based on the grid and it is really like tightly controlled.
Nick Wozniak 38:36 One of the early examples was um
Nick Wozniak 38:39 When I jumped on in 2024, one of my first things I did was the uh the opening boss, then the netherkraken.
Nick Wozniak 38:46 And he has these tentacles that are
Nick Wozniak 38:48 Like in the water.
Nick Wozniak 38:49 They're coming out of the water.
Nick Wozniak 38:50 And so there's this effect down here where uh the tentacle meets the water.
Nick Wozniak 38:54 And I have this like four-frame bubbling animation, like you do with with I would have done on the NES.
Nick Wozniak 39:01 But
Nick Wozniak 39:02 Sandy was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Nick Wozniak 39:03 And like he like he he like gave me a gave me a tip and it was just like do a single ring and it has two frames.
Nick Wozniak 39:10 One's bigger, one's smaller.
Nick Wozniak 39:11 uh single pixel line.
Nick Wozniak 39:13 And it was like, oh, this is like very, very, very weird.
Nick Wozniak 39:17 You know?
Nick Wozniak 39:17 And the result is like it looks good, but it's like I was I struggle with that that like
Nick Wozniak 39:24 you know, trying to make things simple uh and good the whole rest of the project
Max Roberts 39:30 It's int I d thinking of going NES to Game Boy Color, I wouldn't I guess it is like a whole new world possibility, even though you wouldn't think that like the smaller thing would be
Max Roberts 39:40 m that much more capable or visually capable than the uh the T V version, but totally makes sense.
Max Roberts 39:47 And then you've th like you said s yeah.
Nick Wozniak 39:48 Well, is that also like what we chose to stick to?
Nick Wozniak 39:51 Like it wasn't just like it was it was like we established that that was the a key thing for the Game Boy Color.
Nick Wozniak 39:57 And so we stuck to it.
Nick Wozniak 39:58 But it wasn't like like with the NES we could have also been very restrictive, but there's just like, you know, there's so much there's so many broad examples in both systems that it's hard to like really find the true, you know.
Nick Wozniak 40:11 uh paradigm of what that system represents.
Max Roberts 40:15 Yeah, that's that's a very valid point.
Max Roberts 40:17 And and then I th have you seen a lot of the Genesis homebrew stuff?
Max Roberts 40:22 going on these days and even former Genesis devs are coming back and making new games for it that go that run on real hardware but are far more impressive than they were.
Max Roberts 40:33 you know, twenty, thirty years ago it's so they're n
Nick Wozniak 40:36 I I haven't, but yeah, it's it's it's crazy.
Nick Wozniak 40:39 The demo scenes for those consoles are always huge.
Max Roberts 40:42 It's I have to it's some shooter game that just came back.
Max Roberts 40:45 Um I'll have to find it for the show notes or something and maybe I'll send it to you if I remember it.
Max Roberts 40:49 I know
Max Roberts 40:50 Uh the guys over at My Life in Gaming and Digital Foundry were just talking about it.
Max Roberts 40:54 So I'll have to find that.
Max Roberts 40:55 Um it was a very cool looking game.
Max Roberts 40:58 But
Max Roberts 41:00 The other angle I kind of want to talk about, literally an angle, is after
Max Roberts 41:08 six, seven, eight, then I guess however many years at Way Forward as well, um, a lot of 2D games from the side scrolling perspective.
Max Roberts 41:17 to now we're going top down 2D perspective.
Max Roberts 41:21 How how is that for you specifically and making that kind of switch?
Nick Wozniak 41:24 Yeah
Max Roberts 41:25 How did you adapt to it?
Nick Wozniak 41:27 I think that was it was difficult.
Nick Wozniak 41:29 I think it's it's more it's more than just um
Nick Wozniak 41:34 Like there's there's more things going on.
Nick Wozniak 41:36 So in the 2D game in Side Scroller, you really have a lot of you're thinking about the collision box that the character is so that they can make, you know
Nick Wozniak 41:45 pixel perfect jumps.
Nick Wozniak 41:46 You're you're making sure that they're not feeling like they're gonna fall in a pit when they get too close because of you know the unreadability of the actions.
Nick Wozniak 41:54 You make sure that like the attacks or whatever are fitting into a nice collision box.
Nick Wozniak 42:00 Um and Mina has all those things too.
Nick Wozniak 42:03 But also, there's like so many more rules with the the ground that you're walking on.
Nick Wozniak 42:09 So we have pits and we have um the ground, right?
Nick Wozniak 42:13 But there's also like second levels and bridges that go across those.
Nick Wozniak 42:17 And where we put shadows and uh those drop-down tiles that have little like bit there you always want to have clear area in front of the drop-down tiles.
Nick Wozniak 42:26 how we render the walls uh on the first level versus the second level.
Nick Wozniak 42:30 And it's like everything has these like a level a huge level uh layer of
Nick Wozniak 42:37 um complication that makes it difficult to really get uh to to to do as much I feel like I think with 2D with with the 2D side scrollers I could just like
Nick Wozniak 42:48 make sure that the the play field, the part that you're walking on, was clear and then the background could be whatever.
Nick Wozniak 42:54 Pretty much.
Nick Wozniak 42:55 You know, ca it was like just a big painting, um, with moving layers and uh but for Mina it was like very, very complicated.
Nick Wozniak 43:03 And um that was definitely one of the bigger circles.
Nick Wozniak 43:07 And that's that's on top of, you know, all the sprites.
Nick Wozniak 43:10 Uh well, a lot of sprites have to move in four directions.
Nick Wozniak 43:13 Um and
Nick Wozniak 43:16 you know, that just like multiplies all of Nina's animations by by three because we just flip for the left and right.
Nick Wozniak 43:23 Um
Nick Wozniak 43:24 And so like, you know, finding out which bosses you don't have to do that for.
Nick Wozniak 43:28 You know, one of the bigger bosses in the mirror area, um, he doesn't have up and down frames, and you don't really miss it.
Nick Wozniak 43:36 But at the same time, like
Nick Wozniak 43:37 That was a weird decision to make.
Nick Wozniak 43:39 You know, like should we have he's he's only moving down three-quarter view.
Nick Wozniak 43:43 Should he have like an up three-quarter view?
Nick Wozniak 43:45 Like, should we ever see his butt when he's moving up that way?
Nick Wozniak 43:48 Um and
Nick Wozniak 43:50 It's like it's hard it's hard to know.
Nick Wozniak 43:52 It's hard to say like it this'll this'll make the gameplay clearer or better if we do have a different sprite
Nick Wozniak 43:58 Because sometimes it doesn't.
Nick Wozniak 43:59 Sometimes it's better just to have the solid, like you you know what those the collision boxes are on that art, and then when you change it, it's like a whole new thing to learn.
Nick Wozniak 44:06 So maybe it's simpler and better for the player if he doesn't have a set of new set of animations.
Nick Wozniak 44:11 So uh there's just a lot of like new questions to ask with a top-down game.
Nick Wozniak 44:16 And I feel like all of those are not
Nick Wozniak 44:20 Uh once you have the answers, then you get then you have to implement the complication.
Nick Wozniak 44:24 And so if we do a SQL, we will have the exact same level of complications.
Nick Wozniak 44:29 You know, we're gonna have to have all those rules uh exist and and work.
Nick Wozniak 44:32 So um
Nick Wozniak 44:34 Yeah, it's a it's it's a different beast to tackle for sure.
Max Roberts 44:38 How do you I guess, for lack of a better term, study for it?
Max Roberts 44:44 Like you have to uh figure out a new way to do art and design
Max Roberts 44:50 Even though it's all technically 2D, like are you are you busting out the Game Boy Color?
Max Roberts 44:55 Are you going to read old like Dev and Like how do you study and up your craft to then make the game you guys want to make?
Nick Wozniak 45:03 I think it's all it's all that.
Nick Wozniak 45:05 I think a lot a lot of for me personally was just playing.
Nick Wozniak 45:08 you know, older games and having having those under my belt.
Nick Wozniak 45:11 Um but like we as a team we would sit down and and play weird games and see how well they
Nick Wozniak 45:19 They did what we were trying to do.
Nick Wozniak 45:21 There's not a lot of games that were as combat focused.
Nick Wozniak 45:24 Like Ozelda is he's got a sword.
Nick Wozniak 45:28 Um
Nick Wozniak 45:29 And some some sidearms.
Nick Wozniak 45:30 Like that's it's very simple, right?
Nick Wozniak 45:32 It's just like it's a single swipe.
Nick Wozniak 45:33 And it's n it's more about very f puzzle focused uh gameplay as opposed to, you know, other games like um
Nick Wozniak 45:43 I always get the name wrong.
Nick Wozniak 45:44 Is it Dark Arms Beastbuster?
Nick Wozniak 45:46 It's like this kind of uh top-down like uh
Nick Wozniak 45:51 like spooky, like very similar tones.
Nick Wozniak 45:53 You have got different guns and you're shooting zombies and stuff.
Nick Wozniak 45:57 Um that's but that's very like projectile heavy.
Max Roberts 45:58 You got the name right.
Nick Wozniak 46:00 I did.
Nick Wozniak 46:01 Great.
Nick Wozniak 46:01 Um, and then there's uh other random top-down games that just like have lots of platforming and stuff, and I feel like I'm always discovering new ones.
Nick Wozniak 46:10 There was one I recently
Nick Wozniak 46:12 was talking about that the word the name of it just escapes me but um the platforming was just wild and here let me see if I can
Nick Wozniak 46:22 Find it.
Nick Wozniak 46:23 Oh, I don't know how to say this.
Nick Wozniak 46:25 Neikier.
Nick Wozniak 46:28 Here, I'll just uh I'll send it to you in the message.
Max Roberts 46:28 Yes, send send it to me.
Nick Wozniak 46:31 You know, it has like top-down platform where you're jumping from layer to layer.
Nick Wozniak 46:36 Um, and it's it's a SNES game, but like
Nick Wozniak 46:40 Just finding reference for games like this was difficult.
Nick Wozniak 46:43 Um and so because like it had similar goals that we had.
Nick Wozniak 46:48 So uh yeah, just like watching or playing these games is always really, really helpful.
Nick Wozniak 46:54 Um and broadening your horizons a little bit, seeing how different games solved these problems.
Nick Wozniak 47:01 uh and what was okay and what players that have this experience expect and like what is fun and what doesn't work.
Nick Wozniak 47:10 You know, we learned that clarity was really, really super important, way more than it looking nice necessarily, like in that game that I just posted to you.
Nick Wozniak 47:20 There's a scene where he's like jumping from wood planks to wood planks, but you're really not sure where the actual collision is.
Nick Wozniak 47:26 You're not sure where the player is gonna actually stop.
Nick Wozniak 47:29 and fall through or not because all the edges are rounded to look like nice broken planks.
Nick Wozniak 47:36 But um
Nick Wozniak 47:37 You know, that's not that's not fun.
Nick Wozniak 47:40 So yeah, it's just like l learning lessons like that is like super uh super helpful over here, even just watching old games, but playing them especially.
Max Roberts 47:41 Yeah.
Max Roberts 47:48 I like the footage you sent me as like a windowed retro arch emuls so funny.
Nick Wozniak 47:54 Yeah, it's a really weird game.
Nick Wozniak 47:56 Not many people love it, apparently.
Max Roberts 48:02 I remember you know using um ZNES on my computer or uh I forget the GPA one, I have a video of it somewhere, but you know, just using
Max Roberts 48:10 these funky old emul emulators to play weird and obscure games.
Max Roberts 48:15 Did you have did you come out of this process with like a new favorite retro game that you hadn't done before but you you learned a lot or you like appreciate?
Nick Wozniak 48:24 Uh Dark Arms Beast Buster is up there.
Nick Wozniak 48:27 It's just so weird and uh like fun and silly.
Nick Wozniak 48:32 I haven't played through all of it, but like what I did play is like it's it's definitely stuck in my mind.
Nick Wozniak 48:37 Um it's also like a very fun title to say if you remember it.
Nick Wozniak 48:41 Um
Nick Wozniak 48:43 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 48:44 Yeah, so it's just yeah, like the the genre itself is like pretty broad, but like not very well represented.
Nick Wozniak 48:52 So anytime you find a game like that, it's like, oh, it's like a little gem.
Max Roberts 48:55 Mm-hmm.
Max Roberts 48:56 I know there's oh, I forget the name of the company that does the publishing.
Max Roberts 49:00 There are these books, these art books of just Pixlart from
Max Roberts 49:04 the game, like oh they'll do like the whole GBA or the whole Game Boy line or something.
Max Roberts 49:09 I forget.
Max Roberts 49:10 Gosh darn it.
Max Roberts 49:11 Uh I'll have to find it.
Max Roberts 49:12 These big beautiful pixel art books with just huge blown-up screenshots.
Max Roberts 49:15 I'm
Max Roberts 49:15 I mentioned that would be quite helpful in this process.
Nick Wozniak 49:19 I have I have lots of art books.
Max Roberts 49:19 Now I have to go find that too.
Nick Wozniak 49:21 I wonder if I have one that you're talking about.
Max Roberts 49:22 You you might, you might.
Max Roberts 49:24 I ugh
Max Roberts 49:25 I'm gonna I'll I will find it for the show notes.
Max Roberts 49:28 I'll send it to you as well.
Max Roberts 49:29 Um so I want to take this kind of train of thought of learning to shift perspectives, new palettes, and things like that.
Max Roberts 49:37 And
Max Roberts 49:38 I'm not I'm not looking for the scoop here, more just like lessons and what you and the team might carry forward.
Max Roberts 49:44 Uh it's no secret that Yacht Club was working on a 3D game.
Max Roberts 49:48 is Will, whatever that may be.
Max Roberts 49:50 Um, and then pivoted back to Mina with everyone on deck.
Max Roberts 49:54 And obviously the shift from 2D to 3D
Max Roberts 49:57 is a whole new world that the game industry had to figure out on its own with stuff like Tomb Raider and Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, all these different solutions to figure out 3D.
Max Roberts 50:08 Um and you guys have been cemented in 2D, both the NES and the Game Boy Color, which are very, very um early popular examples of platforms.
Max Roberts 50:17 It's not like you were doing the Atari 2600 or anything.
Max Roberts 50:20 You you
Max Roberts 50:22 A robust system uh to say the least for both of them.
Nick Wozniak 50:24 Yeah
Max Roberts 50:26 I'm curious more what lessons from 2D that you would take into a 3D development.
Max Roberts 50:32 And what are you excited to figure out?
Max Roberts 50:34 Like what challenge going forward are you excited to like figure out in that yacht club way?
Nick Wozniak 50:43 Um I think the the lessons that are universal are uh
Nick Wozniak 50:51 um sort of like how what we emphasize and what we prioritize.
Nick Wozniak 50:56 And what I mean by that is is we like how um
Nick Wozniak 51:05 the player controls and we think that that's extremely important.
Nick Wozniak 51:09 That was one of the things that we set out to with Minos to make sure that like
Nick Wozniak 51:15 And and Zelda, you are very much just like a cursor moving around a screen.
Nick Wozniak 51:20 There's very little complexity to the movement.
Nick Wozniak 51:24 But with Mina, we wanted it to be like you're you're engaging with every tile and you are moving around and thinking about spacing.
Nick Wozniak 51:30 And it's more
Nick Wozniak 51:32 like the the complexity of the borough comes from its timing and its restrictions, right?
Nick Wozniak 51:37 And so we wanted that to feel fun and unique.
Nick Wozniak 51:41 And I think like going into the 3D game
Nick Wozniak 51:44 We want the the control of the player to feel unique and exciting and fun, uh, and that to
Nick Wozniak 51:53 work uh across lots of different zones.
Nick Wozniak 51:57 Um and have it work with like interesting gameplay objects.
Nick Wozniak 52:01 Uh you know, Mina's.
Nick Wozniak 52:03 Sh she has a lot of things that are not necessarily just like enemies to kill, damage sponges.
Nick Wozniak 52:08 There's also like lots of weird like things to bounce on or go under or jump around.
Nick Wozniak 52:13 And that's the kind of thing that makes games
Nick Wozniak 52:16 interesting more than just uh you know evil evil things to hit on the screen.
Nick Wozniak 52:22 And that's the kind of thing that I think like
Nick Wozniak 52:25 We've been learning all the way back with Shovel Knight and through Mina um that what we'll take into the 3D game is that like uh the player control is the heart of the game and the
Nick Wozniak 52:37 the gameplay objects, the obstacles that you face are the things that are making it fun.
Nick Wozniak 52:44 Um yeah, and not and not just to to fall in typical tropes of just like putting more enemies or
Nick Wozniak 52:50 making weird collision patterns or whatever.
Max Roberts 52:52 What about like the art?
Max Roberts 52:55 And again, I'm not trying to like here's, you know, what it's all gonna look like, but I'm d going because you have the restricted palette and pixel density and like Mina has like a
Max Roberts 53:08 Um it was like two fifty-six by one uh the the resolution's very small, uh smaller than the NES and then it it's blown up.
Max Roberts 53:15 But three D you're
Max Roberts 53:17 the the the art potential, as a I guess th as a way to phrase it, like goes way up.
Max Roberts 53:24 You're dealing with
Max Roberts 53:27 Uh polygons theoretically infinite color unless you're for an example's sake like stuck to a PlayStation palette or something.
Nick Wozniak 53:32 Yeah,
Max Roberts 53:35 How how as an artist do you is it more limitation?
Max Roberts 53:39 Is it like, all right, we need guardrails essentially to keep us in check?
Max Roberts 53:43 Or is it uh we're making the
Max Roberts 53:47 pffff the bloodborne shovel knight cart racer you've all wanted, you know, is it you know, how do you keep yourself in check there?
Nick Wozniak 53:52 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 53:54 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 53:55 I think it's hard because like you like you said and what you're kind of alluding to is that like
Nick Wozniak 53:59 There is no cap in 3D.
Nick Wozniak 54:02 There is no like endpoint that is what a 3D game is.
Nick Wozniak 54:06 It can be infinitely complex, you know.
Nick Wozniak 54:09 Um
Nick Wozniak 54:10 This is the triple A space and and so uh you could make a game and have um you know PBR rendering and uh normal maps on everything and have complexity in
Nick Wozniak 54:24 uh how you're doing uh like ray tracing nonsense.
Max Roberts 54:28 Sure.
Nick Wozniak 54:29 It's just like so many things um that and so many technologies that are being developed for the cutting edge.
Nick Wozniak 54:38 that one require a huge team uh because everything is so specialized.
Nick Wozniak 54:43 Uh and and two require like a level of like experience in that field that we
Nick Wozniak 54:48 don't have.
Nick Wozniak 54:50 We're not going to be a giant company.
Nick Wozniak 54:52 I don't think we're planning on, you know, expanding much more.
Nick Wozniak 54:57 We're also not trying to
Nick Wozniak 55:00 develop the cutting edge thing in Unreal Six or whatever.
Nick Wozniak 55:04 Um, you know, we have we have our own engine and we have our own goals.
Nick Wozniak 55:09 Uh it's it is a 3D engine.
Nick Wozniak 55:11 It's the same engine that's running Mina as the engine we're building the 3D game in.
Nick Wozniak 55:15 Um and we are um
Max Roberts 55:15 Interesting.
Nick Wozniak 55:19 We are embracing restrictions, I will say, and and trying in the same way that we've always done to
Nick Wozniak 55:28 Bring um you know the things that we value, the things that we played into the modern age, uh, and showing that they have they still have lasting timeless value.
Nick Wozniak 55:38 Uh I won't get much too much more into it because it's definitely like uh you know it's on the horizon.
Nick Wozniak 55:45 But it's we had been working on it for four years, and so the pre-production is is
Nick Wozniak 55:50 uh well underway.
Nick Wozniak 55:51 Um so it's yeah I I'm looking forward to people seeing it for the first time
Max Roberts 55:57 I am too.
Max Roberts 55:58 I am uh very excited for whatever it is, whether it's shovel night or something entirely new.
Max Roberts 56:04 Um
Max Roberts 56:05 very eager to see what you guys do in a 3D space going forward and it uh it definitely sounds like it'll be
Max Roberts 56:13 something exciting.
Max Roberts 56:14 I I I know everyone online seems to think it's like Shovel Knight 64.
Max Roberts 56:19 And so it's interesting to think that like, oh well it will look like Banjo Kazooie or Super Mario.
Nick Wozniak 56:19 Yeah
Max Roberts 56:25 But it
Max Roberts 56:26 I'm excited to see whatever it is and trying to be open to that instead of like putting my own mental bucket and like, well, they're gonna make me a collectathon.
Max Roberts 56:34 Um
Max Roberts 56:35 You know, I thovel Knight, Shovel Knight already is in a collectathon in 3D.
Max Roberts 56:39 He's in ukulele, so uh that already exists.
Nick Wozniak 56:41 Uh huh, you're right.
Max Roberts 56:43 So
Max Roberts 56:44 We don't need to go there much f much further into that.
Max Roberts 56:47 Thank you very much.
Max Roberts 56:47 I I did want to ask I I know you guys are obviously still working.
Max Roberts 56:51 It's not like you guys
Max Roberts 56:52 took a a vacation.
Max Roberts 56:53 Like Mina's out, we're done.
Max Roberts 56:55 Yay.
Max Roberts 56:55 Um I mean maybe some of you did, I don't know.
Nick Wozniak 56:55 Yeah.
Max Roberts 56:57 But I'm curious what you've maybe been playing that's not Mina over and over and developing it.
Max Roberts 57:04 Um like what have you been
Max Roberts 57:06 playing, you know, recently that you um you've been enjoying.
Nick Wozniak 57:11 Um during the last bit of development, I I briefly played um the
Nick Wozniak 57:17 MetroVania, it's not even like a MetroVania, it's called Ooh.
Nick Wozniak 57:22 It's O.
Nick Wozniak 57:25 But the first O has an oom lot.
Max Roberts 57:27 Okay.
Nick Wozniak 57:29 If you just search here, I have it open.
Nick Wozniak 57:31 I was talking to somebody else about this earlier.
Max Roberts 57:33 I see it.
Nick Wozniak 57:33 Um this game is amazing.
Max Roberts 57:37 Okay.
Nick Wozniak 57:38 And because it's not a
Nick Wozniak 57:43 It's not a typical Metroidvania where you're unlocking abilities and keys and f and pressing switches.
Nick Wozniak 57:50 You are
Nick Wozniak 57:52 unlocking your brain the whole time.
Max Roberts 57:54 Okay.
Nick Wozniak 57:54 Every time it's like what what'll happen is you go through an area, you figure out how to get to it, and then you hit a dead end.
Nick Wozniak 58:01 And it's just a teleport back to where it started.
Nick Wozniak 58:04 And it's like it's punctuating that you learned what you need to progress.
Nick Wozniak 58:09 Go use it elsewhere.
Nick Wozniak 58:10 And it keeps doing this over and over again.
Nick Wozniak 58:13 You do unlock uh one more, like you you start off as just the the O, and then you get a little bomb.
Nick Wozniak 58:20 And then later you get a second bomb, but that's it.
Nick Wozniak 58:23 Um, and that's pretty fairly early on.
Nick Wozniak 58:25 And every level, everything single time you like get through an area.
Nick Wozniak 58:30 It's like, oh, I learned a new technique.
Nick Wozniak 58:33 My my brain has gotten bigger.
Nick Wozniak 58:35 Um, and it's it's awesome.
Nick Wozniak 58:37 You get a really cool like experience of like
Nick Wozniak 58:40 of reward of of of exploration.
Nick Wozniak 58:44 Um and there's like these super ultra mega secrets in there too that are hard to get to that are like that they just are you thinking harder.
Nick Wozniak 58:54 Anyway.
Nick Wozniak 58:55 That game is rad, everybody should play Ooh.
Nick Wozniak 58:59 But lately I haven't been playing as much games as I've been uh
Nick Wozniak 59:02 I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons with my family.
Nick Wozniak 59:05 Um, we've been doing that for a couple years, and I am the DM, and so I've been like
Nick Wozniak 59:13 designing things and we're starting a new campaign on Friday with uh a friend of the kids.
Nick Wozniak 59:18 Uh and it's gonna start off as a one-shot and we'll see how that goes.
Nick Wozniak 59:23 Maybe it'll become a second campaign.
Nick Wozniak 59:24 that we run.
Nick Wozniak 59:25 But um yeah, it's been like my my free time has been when I'm not looking at uh documents to help support media inquiries and answering interviews.
Nick Wozniak 59:36 I've been looking at documents
Nick Wozniak 59:37 to uh help support DD campaigns and and develop monsters and stuff.
Max Roberts 59:43 That's awesome.
Max Roberts 59:44 I love it.
Max Roberts 59:45 I are how old are your kids, roughly?
Nick Wozniak 59:48 Uh my my kid my daughter is twelve, and then I have twin boys that are 10.
Max Roberts 59:53 Okay.
Nick Wozniak 59:53 Um
Max Roberts 59:53 So do you ever do they ever you end a game and they go to bed and like Dad
Nick Wozniak 59:59 Yes, there has been uh emotional regulation issues where we have ended nights where there's crying and gnashing of teeth.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:08 And I can't believe you're doing this.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:09 I might as well just be dead.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:10 They're talking about their character, of course.
Max Roberts 01:00:12 Yes, yes, yes.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:12 Um and and I'm like, guys, like just it'll be fun.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:17 You know, there's they're still growing into it, I think, but uh they're
Max Roberts 01:00:20 Sure.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:22 They have a good time, usually.
Max Roberts 01:00:24 That's awesome.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:25 Yeah.
Max Roberts 01:00:26 I love it.
Max Roberts 01:00:26 I love to hear it.
Max Roberts 01:00:27 That's great.
Max Roberts 01:00:28 Uh I will now look at who it sounds to me more like a
Max Roberts 01:00:32 Metroid brainia and like outer wilds in a way.
Max Roberts 01:00:34 It was like, oh, if I just think about this hard enough, I'll finally figure it out.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:37 Yes.
Max Roberts 01:00:38 Um, okay.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:38 It's exact it's a that's a really good analogy actually because yeah, there was no like in outer wilds there's no like get the yellow key.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:45 It was just like
Nick Wozniak 01:00:46 Your your brain has the yellow key now.
Max Roberts 01:00:49 Yeah, you are the yellow key.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:51 Yeah, you are the yellow key the whole time.
Max Roberts 01:00:51 I was the yellow key all along.
Nick Wozniak 01:00:54 Yeah.
Max Roberts 01:00:55 Oh, what a good game.
Max Roberts 01:00:57 What a great game.
Max Roberts 01:00:58 Uh, so I will definitely I'm I'm gonna add this to the uh the old wish list.
Max Roberts 01:01:01 It's actually on sale on Switch right now, so
Nick Wozniak 01:01:04 Hey, nice
Max Roberts 01:01:04 um as of recording.
Max Roberts 01:01:06 So that goes until July second.
Max Roberts 01:01:08 So if this if you're listening to this after July second, I mean still go check it out.
Max Roberts 01:01:13 It's just not on sale for 15% off.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:14 Yeah.
Max Roberts 01:01:15 So there you go.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:16 It's ten bucks.
Max Roberts 01:01:16 Well th
Nick Wozniak 01:01:17 You got you got ten bucks.
Max Roberts 01:01:17 Yeah, 10 bucks is not bad at all.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:18 That's like a cheeseburger.
Max Roberts 01:01:19 And Mina is $20.
Max Roberts 01:01:21 So if anything that we talked about sounded super interesting to you, please go check it out.
Max Roberts 01:01:27 It is available.
Max Roberts 01:01:28 on the switches, the PlayStations, the Xboxes, the PCs.
Max Roberts 01:01:33 Um so yeah, you can play it anywhere you get games.
Max Roberts 01:01:37 Waz, thank you so much for joining me, spending some time.
Max Roberts 01:01:40 Hopefully it's not another nine years until we talk again.
Max Roberts 01:01:44 Um
Nick Wozniak 01:01:45 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:46 Hopefully it's not another nine years till we release another game.
Max Roberts 01:01:48 Well well you did release other games uh during in the between time, so to be fair, uh you weren't alone.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:52 Yeah.
Nick Wozniak 01:01:53 Yeah, kinda yeah.
Max Roberts 01:01:55 Um
Max Roberts 01:01:56 We you know you publish more games.
Max Roberts 01:01:58 Cyber Shadow is another great one.
Max Roberts 01:02:00 Just gonna throw that out there.
Max Roberts 01:02:00 I feel like Cyber Shadow gets forgotten a lot.
Max Roberts 01:02:03 I don't know.
Nick Wozniak 01:02:03 Definitely.
Max Roberts 01:02:03 People should play Cyber Shadow.
Max Roberts 01:02:05 It's awesome.
Nick Wozniak 01:02:06 I agree.
Max Roberts 01:02:06 I loved it
Nick Wozniak 01:02:06 I a hundred percent agree.
Max Roberts 01:02:08 Um so thank you so much.
Max Roberts 01:02:09 If you want to see Waz's stuff, uh he's on he's at Yacht Club Games.
Max Roberts 01:02:14 Go check out Mina Halloween, go play Shovel Knight.
Max Roberts 01:02:17 Uh I found out today Shovel Knight.
Max Roberts 01:02:19 DX isn't I thought it was out.
Max Roberts 01:02:20 Uh I guess it's not, not to maybe bring up a sore subject.
Max Roberts 01:02:24 I don't know.
Max Roberts 01:02:24 But anyway, there's more sh there's so much shovel night.
Max Roberts 01:02:27 It's so good.
Max Roberts 01:02:27 Go play it, all of it, and uh keep your eyes peeled for whatever they're working on next one day.
Max Roberts 01:02:33 Eventually.
Max Roberts 01:02:34 We'll find out.
Max Roberts 01:02:35 Um, if you would like to see anything that we spoke about, uh, you can check your show notes out and the podcast player choice or go to maxfrequency.
Nick Wozniak 01:02:36 Yep.
Max Roberts 01:02:44 net forward slash mfp slash fifty-four
Max Roberts 01:02:46 Links to all the things will be there.
Max Roberts 01:02:48 Check it out.
Max Roberts 01:02:49 Um you could listen to my other podcast, Chapter Select, where we explore a series and bounce back and forth between its entries, exploring their evolution, design, and legacy.
Max Roberts 01:02:58 I promise more episodes are coming.
Max Roberts 01:03:00 Castlevania is difficult to play a lot of those.
Max Roberts 01:03:03 But anyway, that is coming one day, I promise.
Max Roberts 01:03:05 I swear.
Max Roberts 01:03:07 Thank you all so much for listening.
Max Roberts 01:03:08 And until next time, adios.