Cyber Shadow: An Interview with Yacht Club Games

Recently, I've had the pleasure of speaking with Sandy Gordon of Yacht Club games about their next to-be-published game: “Cyber Shadow” which is being developed by Aarne Hunziker. We also discuss Shovel Knight a bit and the details behind retro modern game design.

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How long have you personally been with Yacht Club Games?

Sandy: I've been at Yacht Club for two years now. So I was hired for production on the King Knight campaign and Shovel Knight Showdown.

Yeah I've seen game play of those and I'm looking forward to playing them, I've played Shovel Knight as well as the Specter expansion. Great fun.

Sandy: Yeah, we had them at Pax West & East for about a year and a half now. The reception has been good so far, they've changed a lot since the first time we showed them. The King Knight expansion is our biggest expansion yet, there's lots of cool stuff we've added since we first showed it. Shovel Knight Showdown is a new game all it's own.

That's really cool! Congrats.

Sandy: Thanks man, hope you get to play it.

Yacht Club games has a new title on the horizon by the name of Cyber Shadow. How would you describe Cyber Shadow?

Sandy: Well, from a plot perspective you play as a cyborg ninja, as the name implies, and you're thrust into a post-apocalyptic wasteland that's overrun by synthetic robots. You're a ninja who was killed and then resurrected as a cyborg and you're trying to traverse this world and rescue the other members of your ninja clan. As you do each of them bequeath their ninja powers to you.

That sounds.. really cool, haha.

Sandy: Yeah, we've got 16 different bosses, 9 chapters with two stages in each, so it's a pretty hefty game.

Who would you say this title for, like in terms of fan bases?

Sandy: So it's an action platformer and there's been a lot of talk of, yah know- Is it a Metroidvania? Is it like The Messenger? and I would say that if someone played The Messenger and enjoyed it just because they're a fan of ninja games or Ninja Gaiden inspired games then maybe Cyber Shadow is for you. But it's not a Metroidvania, it's a fairly linear action platformer with a bunch of cool upgrades so I would say anyone whose in for a fun, cool action slasher adventure should pick it up! Honestly, I would say fans of Shovel Knight should pick it up, there's definitely some similarities between the games.

Yeah, I noticed that when watching the trailer. There were so many things that went hand in hand. That's really cool.

What would you say your favorite part of the game is and why?

Sandy: Oh man, uh, well it's a lot of fun to play. I've played the demo we brought to Pax like countless times before we we're on the show floor and I just found myself wanting to pick up the controller and run through the demo again and again just because I would find myself trying to beat my fastest time. It's one of those games where once you feel really comfortable with the mechanics and the more upgrades you get the faster you can burst through the levels so I was definitely trying to… GET GOOD, so to speak.

Haha.

Sandy: I'm also a big fan of bosses in games and there's a lot of cool bosses in this game just like there are in Shovel Knight. So those are definitely things I would say I like and that people can look forward to.

Combat looks fun and fluid, is that one of the aspects that was priority during development?

Sandy: So Yacht Club is actually just publishing the game. Cyber Shadow is actually being developed by a sole developer, Aarne Hunziker is his name and he's from Finland and so he was with us at Pax and I know that he definitely spent a lot of time honing in the combat and the mobility of the character. That's extremely important to him- the fluidity and finesse of playing through the levels. I would say that's important to us too, because as people who care a lot about the design of our games and how it feels to play we've definitely tried to help him polish that up and make sure that it's up to our standards so to speak.

Gotcha, that sounds really promising!

Do you feel like a Cyber Ninja?

Sandy: All the time.

Haha.

Sandy: Nah, haha, at first it's a hard game. So when I first started I was like “Ah man, I don't know if I can live up to the name- this ninja title,” but yeah the more you play the better you get.

I absolutely love the 80’s future style and neon flavor of Cyber Shadow's aesthetic, where did this idea came about? Is that something Aarne is very into?

Sandy: Yeah definitely, I know he talked a lot about his 80’s influences. He draws from things like movies to manga and comic books he's really into. He's a big fan of Ninja Turtles so there's little nods to that in Cyber Shadow. Transformers, Battle Angel: Alita, a lot of like 80’s Cyberpunk, but also throwbacks to RoboCop,Terminator, Akira and all that cool post-apocalyptic stuff.

Wow, yeah, that's awesome! Super retro.

Does the Cyber Ninja have a name?

Sandy: His name is Shadow.

What type of abilities can the player utilize?

Sandy: There are a bunch of different upgrades that you'll get. I don't wanna say too much just yet, because some may change and others haven't been revealed but… at Pax we were showing shurikens which is a thrown weapon and an ability called rising fire which is an upward slash attack that also shoots fireballs. So you have what's called spirit points and those points allow you to use these upgrade skills. So if you run out of spirit points you can't use these skills, but there are some skills like the rising fire where even if you have 0 spirit points you can still do an upwards slash, but the fireballs won't come out.

Oooooo, sounds fantastic.

Sandy: Yeah, there's a lot of variability in the way you can use the upgrades.

How difficult would you say Cyber Shadow is? How difficult is it compared to Shovel Knight?

Sandy: Our goal is not to leave anyone out. It's not going to be easy, but it'll be accessible. That's our hope. I would say Shovel Knight falls into that category too, where a lot of people might find it hard while some people might find it just right, and some people will find it really easy. It really depends on your skill level, but our goal is to make it as accessible as we can.

Are there multiple difficulties or one?

Sandy: Right now there's a set difficulty.

While I was watching the Cyber Shadow trailer I was getting major Mega Man X vibes, one of my most beloved games of all time, was that title an inspiration for Cyber Shadow?

Sandy: Yeah, I think so. I know he's a fan of Mega Man X and Mega Man games in general. So for sure and like I was saying, it's not a Metroidvania, but you may have seen there's a level map. So even after you complete a level you can go back to that same level to get an upgrade you may have missed similar to Mega Man X.

Oh, okay- awesome!

Speaking of inspirations, and I know we talked about some of what Aarne is a fan of, what were some more game inspirations for Cyber Shadow?

Sandy: Well some of the enemies are Contra inspired, a lot of the art is inspired by Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES.

That's rad.

It's obvious in both the Cyber Shadow trailer and the description of the game on Yacht Club's website that Cyber Shadow is a call back to the 8-bit genre of games. Is this theme something everyone at Yacht Club is passionate about? Would you call this new-age retro style the studio's running theme?

Sandy: Hmmm, I wouldn't say it's- I mean all of us our fans of retro games or what you would call now retro games just because we grew up with them, right? So all the Mega Mans and Marios and the early Zelda games- we were playing those as kids and so we're obviously going to have fond memories of them and look to those for reference trying to kind of re-create that sense of adventure and enjoyment we had playing those games. It's a tricky thing because we're not trying to recreate old games. We're adding modern sensibilities and design mechanics and even breaking a lot of the limitations that say.. a game like Shovel Knight which looks like the NES wouldn't actually run on a NES. It's kind of a mix. We love those old games, but we also play a lot of new games like everyone in the office has play Seikro (Shadow's Die Twice). All those types of games are great and we're all fans of them so definitely all kinds of contemporary games inspire the games we make as well. I would say the same goes for Cyber Shadow. Aarne is inspired by plenty of modern games too.

Of course, I didn't want to cut you off, but yeah in the same vain, Yacht Club Games is taking a certain genre and bringing it into the modern age with more content, quality of life changes, and gameplay additions. I absolutely love this concept.

Speaking of that, what are some additions to the genre in Cyber Shadow? And why were they added?

Sandy: A lot of the same reasons we added them to Shovel Knight. As a way of improving upon what was done in the past for hardware limitation reasons or just the fact that game design has evolved since those games were made. I guess you could say we can also learn from the mistakes from the past and build on that. It's really just to make the games more fun and more accessible.

Okay, nice!

There's some amazing chiptunes in the trailer alone, who composed it?

Sandy: So all the music in Cyber Shadow was composed by a guy named Enrique Martin. He's a composer from Spain and he's been working with Aarne on the game for sometime, possibly since the beginning of the game's development. Now, the music in the trailer was remastered by Jake Kaufman who did the Shovel Knight soundtrack. So Jake is taking on the role of producer and not the main composer this time around.

Cool, cool and not to count it out, the pixel art looks jaw droppingly gorgeous as well.

Sandy: Yeah, Aarne has done amazing work! Haha, that was definitely like the first thing that drew us to the game. We we're all just huge fans of what he's been posting- animated gifs and footage of his development process throughout the past 2-3 years online and so we've all been watching it very closely and either just hoping it would come out soon so we could play it or what ended up actually happening which was us reaching out to him and eventually him saying he'd love to work with us- us being fortunate enough for all this to happen.

Yeah, the dream came true, haha.

This titles comes off the back of your hit indie title Shovel Knight, a fantastic game no doubt, along with all the extra content that was added afterwards and still is being added (such as Shovel Knight Showdown). Do you think it will be as successful as your previous title (Shovel Knight)?

Sandy: Ya know, it's hard to say. I would certainly hope so! That's definitely what were aiming for. It's a hard thing- a new IP (a new game title) is always a mystery. It can go either way. All I can say is we're doing our best to bring it to the same level as Shovel Knight. It's not a lesser game by any means.

Of course, theres no doubt it looks amazing. I hope it's a success as well! It definitely has the chops to be.

Sandy: Yeah, thanks man, appreciate it.

What platforms will Cyber Shadow release on?

Sandy: It will be releasing on Switch, PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

Will you have an exclusivity deal with the Epic games store?

Sandy: Uh.. I have no information about that right now. Hahaha.

Hahaha.

When is Cyber Shadow releasing?

Sandy: Hopefully end of the year, but there's no release date yet.

Lastly, will the cyber ninja from Cyber Shadow make an appearance in Shovel Knight Showdown?

Sandy: Ahhh, that'd be so cool!

Haha, that's what I was thinking.

Sandy: Ah man, uhh, I cannot confirm or deny whether that will actually happen, but I can say I think that would be very cool and it's a good idea.

Yes, if that wasn't already thought of please steal it, haha, that's fine with me.

Sandy: Haha, cool thanks.

Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today Sandy!

Sandy: Sure thing Wesley, thanks for all your great questions!

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You can find Sandy, Aarne, Enrique, or Jake on Twitter!

Sandy @BandyGrass

Aarne @MekaSkull

Enrique @pentadrangle

Jake @virtjk

You can find OrangeDrop on Twitter or Instagram @orangedropblog

Will you be picking up Cyber Shadow, Shovel Knight Showdown, or Shovel Knight: King of Cards? I know I will! Will you start a petition to get Shadow in Shovel Knight Showdown? Please do. Until next time!