It all started as a joke.
Nick Wozniak and Sean Velasco were sitting at their lunchtable at work, discussing old
games.
They were musing over The Legend of Zelda 2, and the game’s unique control scheme
that doesn’t match up with anything else in the series.
In this game, Link can jump, and then thrust his sword downwards to fight enemies.
The pair joked about the idea of making their own retro-style platformer that used a similar
mechanic.
Something in which the player could bop enemies from above, and maybe even dig for treasure
using the same weapon.
And perhaps, flip things over.
The weapon could be a shovel.
The character could be some kind of shovel knight!
And suddenly, Nick and Sean realized that they weren’t joking around anymore.
They genuinely wanted to make this game, and what’s more, they wanted to do so as an
independent studio.
This would mean risking everything.
Quitting their comfortable jobs at an established company, working for years with little to
no pay, and uprooting their entire lives in the process.
They just had to hope that their new Shovel Knight character was worth the effort.
Sean Velasco and Nick Wozniak were already veterans of the gaming industry when they
first started work on their optimistic kickstarter project.
The pair worked for Wayforward Games, making pixelly, retro-style games that were primarily
based on licensed titles or existing franchises.
They’d helped with a remake of A Boy and His Blob, Double Dragon: Neon, and Contra
4.
It was while discussing an upcoming licensed game that the pair first started dreaming
up Shovel Knight, as they tried to find a new mechanic to include in this game.
Pretty soon, it became apparent that their idea deserved a lot more room to breathe,
and they began toying with the idea of creating their own, separate title, that was unconnected
with any of their full time professional work with Wayforward.
Sean and Nick began sharing their ideas with a few of their fellow colleagues, and eventually,
three other Wayforward employees joined the fledgling team.
David D’Angelo and Ian Flood became the programming duo for the project, while Erin
Pellon joined Nick in creating the artwork for the game.
There was just one problem: if the group were really going to start building their very
own independent game, they were going to need a lot of funding.
And so, they turned to Kickstarter.
The team put together a basic pitch for their game, referencing a lot of classic 8-bit titles
from which Shovel Knight would draw inspiration.
They hoped that the world would care, in spite of the fact that none of them were particularly
active on social media, and didn’t really have a big online following.
To their surprise, support flooded in.
It seemed that Shovel Knight met a particular unspoken need within many nostalgic gamers.
In the excitement of a very successful kickstarter, the team started throwing up ambitious stretch
goals.
If people would donate just a little more money, they would add another new mode to
the game.
And another.
When all was said and done, Shovel Knight raised over $300,000 from its initial Kickstarter,
which seemed like more than enough to get the game made.
At least, at first.
Then the team sat down and did some maths, and realized their big mistake.
$300,000 sounded like a lot of money, but Sean estimated that this project would take
around two years to complete.
Their team was small, but they had a lot of needs – they were going to need equipment,
office space, legal assistance, tax funds, health insurance, and, crucially, they needed
to all get paid.
Sean knew from experience that the average cost of a developer for a single month’s
work was around $10,000.
For a team of five people, working for two years, the project would cost $1.2 million
in total.
And this wasn’t even factoring in music, as the game’s composer had graciously agreed
to work for deferred payment!
So what could they do?
The team knew that they had something special on their hands, they just needed to get the
game done.
So, they decided to put all stretch goal content on hold.
They hadn’t specified a timeframe for these extra modes, so they figured they could release
them post-launch, funding them with sales from the vanilla version of Shovel Knight.
This meant that if the team worked hard and fast enough, they could potentially get the
game finished in a year.
But even so, this would be a barebones experience.
There was no money for luxuries, and each team member would be earning just $30,000
a year, far less than they’d be getting at Wayforward.
But, everyone was passionate about the project.
They believed they could make something special.
So, their frugal budget approved, they began work.
The team wanted to make something that was more heartfelt than the majority of classic
platformers.
Rather than simply being a fun, wacky jaunt with limited story, they wanted to build a
bittersweet narrative that ran through the center of the game, with engaging characters
and interesting plot twists.
This wasn’t to say that the game wouldn’t also be tongue-in-cheek.
In classic platformer fashion, the initial version of the game involved Shovel Knight
seeking out the kidnapped Princess Maguffin, providing a barebones excuse for the whole
endeavor.
This version of the story would have a sad ending, with the princess dying, and Shovel
Knight using his trademark weapon to bury her at the completion of the game.
For a while, the team pushed forward with this idea, before thankfully deciding that
it wasn’t working.
Instead, they decided to give Shovel Knight’s love interest a far more pro-active role in
the story.
Mid-way through development, Princess Maguffin was axed, instead replaced with Shield Knight,
who would periodically fight alongside Shovel Knight, and who would be shown as a capable,
autonomous character in her own right.
Meanwhile, on the art side of things, Nick and Erin were trying to figure out how authentic
the game should look.
Shovel Knight was to draw inspiration from classic games, but should they constrain themselves
with the limitations that were present in authentic 8-bit games?
They decided to take a hybrid approach, sticking to a limited colour palette, but allowing
the game some more modern touches, such as parallax scrolling.
The goal here wasn’t to create something that was technically identical to authentic
retro games, but rather, the build a game that emulated how it felt to play these titles,
unweathered by the passage of time.
It soon became clear that the team’s initial time schedule was very ambitious.
As they approached an important appearance at gaming expo PAX East, they still didn’t
have a playable demo to show off.
The team joked that if the demo wasn’t ready in time, they’d simply sit at their booth
playing Mario Kart, with a sign up saying “Shovel Knight: Coming Soon”.
Thankfully, the demo was completed in time, but only barely.
As the game progressed, the team felt excited about what they were building.
They just knew that this would be a successful game upon release.
If 15,000 backers had supported them on Kickstarter, then they could assume that thirty to sixty
thousand people would probably buy Shovel Knight in its first week.
The problem was getting there.
Unfortunately, despite their most thrifty efforts to keep costs down, the Kickstarter
money was running out.
What’s more, the game was very clearly not going to reach its release date.
The project needed more time, but there was no more money available to fund anything.
Just one month before the scheduled release date, the well ran dry.
All the money had been used up, and there was no more.
There was still a lot more to do before the project could be completed.
Together, the team decided that they were going to keep moving forward regardless.
All non-essential spending was cancelled.
The electricity needed to stay on, and the rent needed to be paid, but anything that
could be considered frivolous was put on hold.
That included everybody’s salaries.
All team members now needed to get by without pay for the duration of the project.
This meant relying on credit cards.
It meant borrowing from family and friends.
It meant awkward moments at the checkout in shops when cards were declined and basic food
purchases were rejected.
And this wasn’t just for one month.
As the project dragged on, the end slowly drew into sight, but the team ultimately found
themselves bereft of pay for a full five months.
Then, finally, Shovel Knight was finished.
Everyone was pleased with the game.
It had taken a lot of work, but it was done.
Now nothing remained but to see what people thought of it.
It turned out that everyone’s predictions had been correct.
Shovel Knight took off, earning critical praise and bringing in enough money to pay the team
back for all their sacrifices.
But with the conclusion of the project came a new set of challenges.
There was no time to rest – the team had a lot of stretch goals to fulfill, and expansions
and additional features to implement.
They still had a long road ahead of them!
The moral of the story is that if something is really important to you, it’s worth pursuing.
If you have a goal, or a dream, and you want to see it become a reality, sometimes you
have to push through hard times.
Sometimes you need to give up other things, and sacrifice stability and comfort in favour
of branching out, spreading your wings, and trying something new.
Don’t get discouraged when things go poorly, or if you don’t immediately see the success
you’re hoping for.
Remember that the developers of Shovel Knight passed through difficult trials as well, on
the road to victory.
Keep your goal in mind, push forward, and eventually, you’ll get where you want to
be.