Shovel Knight

Levels exactly one screen tall keep the camera from moving vertically. Because Shovel Knight's levels are exactly one screen tall, "the camera only needs to track left and right, but never needs to move up and down," so it stays still during jumps.

Flipping pay-to-save into pay-to-break fixed a rule that punished novices. Pay-to-save checkpoints were complicated, visually unclear and hurt novices, who had the least money. Yacht Club reversed it: checkpoints are automatic and free, and you earn gems by destroying one, at the risk of a longer trek back if you die.

This removed the complexity and the novice penalty while keeping a risk and reward choice for confident players, and replaces the role lives used to play. "What if you get paid if you don't save?"

A context-sensitive dash with a landing preview made big reach feel controllable. The dash slash moves Specter as far as Plague Knight's burst and removes control for about as long, yet it feels controllable because it only works near slashable enemies and objects and a line shows its direction and roughly where he will land. Yacht Club called adding that reticule the most important change for making the move understandable.

Early on, a pose change alone did not show when or where the slash would happen. Previews like this let players "act with confidence, instead of blind faith."

Flipping pay-to-save into pay-to-break fixed a rule that punished novices. Pay-to-save checkpoints were complicated, visually unclear and hurt novices, who had the least money. Yacht Club reversed it: checkpoints are automatic and free, and you earn gems by destroying one, at the risk of a longer trek back if you die.

This removed the complexity and the novice penalty while keeping a risk and reward choice for confident players, and replaces the role lives used to play. "What if you get paid if you don't save?"

One signature move handles both combat and traversal. Shovel Knight's shovel drop crushes enemies and bounces him upward, so a single action covers both halves of the game. The bounce height changes with what he hits, which makes it a traversal tool as much as an attack.

Yacht Club treats a signature move as the one action that defines a hero and drives much of the play, like Mario's hat throw in Odyssey or Madeline's dash in Celeste. Each of its four heroes got one.

Yacht Club borrowed Zelda 2's under-used downward thrust and made it easier. The drop comes from Zelda 2's downward thrust, one of Sean Velasco's favourite NES moves, which Zelda 2 barely used. Yacht Club removed the need to hold down, freeing the thumb to steer in mid-air, and made the shovel's collision wide to forgive near misses.

Other inspirations were the DuckTales pogo-jump and Mario's ground-pound. The bounce is also much higher than Zelda 2's.

Much of the campaign is built to be bounced on. Magic books, floating bushes, sea snakes, giant gears, jellyfish, massive cannonballs, an angler fish and bouncy beetles are all designed around the drop, so the move always has a purpose.

The bounce turns Zelda 2's high and low combat into side-on and top-down combat. Gold Armor blocks at the front and blocks above when you come from higher up; Velasco: "whichever way you attack, he's blocking you in some way," so you have to be quick.

Reused levels pushed the fun into mastering Plague Knight's mobility. Plague Knight plays on nearly identical stages to Shovel Knight, with a few extra routes and challenge coins, so his bomb burst had to supply the novelty. Velasco: "The complexity of the character is where the fun comes from as opposed to the complexity of the environment, which was already a known quantity."

The characters were first planned as same-level variants, like Mega Man: Powered Up's robot masters. A skilled player clears stages in half the time of Shovel Knight.

Fixed, predictable rules make a hard move masterable. You hold attack to charge and release to launch halfway across the screen, with much higher knock-back than Shovel Knight's. Yacht Club made it learnable: the trajectory is identical every time, control returns near the end, a neutral jump cancels it, and throwing bombs slows the fall and adds slight lift.

The burst grew out of Plague Knight's boss fight, with light inspiration from 'Splosion Man and Samus's screw attack. A second burst can save you, but the charge takes almost a second, and charging while jumping takes two-button thumb work.

Specter Knight was designed as the opposite of Plague Knight. Players found Plague Knight uncontrollable, so the team set out to make Specter Knight easy to feel cool. David D'Angelo: "We want to make it really easy to be cool as opposed to really hard to be cool as Plague Knight."

"Every game is an answer to the previous one."

A context-sensitive dash with a landing preview made big reach feel controllable. The dash slash moves Specter as far as Plague Knight's burst and removes control for about as long, yet it feels controllable because it only works near slashable enemies and objects and a line shows its direction and roughly where he will land. Yacht Club called adding that reticule the most important change for making the move understandable.

Early on, a pose change alone did not show when or where the slash would happen. Previews like this let players "act with confidence, instead of blind faith."

Forgiving movement around a committed move lets players line it up and recover. Specter has a long jump hang time and falls slowly after dashing, so he can steer to a landing, while Plague Knight plummets after his burst. His wall run is automatic, gains height since he jumps lower than Shovel Knight, and can rescue a missed landing.

New levels laid out in a readable cadence guide the move. Specter's stages place enemies in sequences, such as three in a row, so players see what to do and just execute. On Plague Knight's reused levels players met gaps with no clear answer; Velasco: "When you put a platform somewhere people go to stand on it."

Many platforms Shovel Knight must land on are skippable for Plague Knight, who can fly three quarters of the screen. Yacht Club justified building new layouts by planning to reuse them for King Knight.

Chaining the bash into a spin alternates horizontal and vertical movement. King Knight's shoulder bash, from Wario, hits enemies or walls and launches him into a spin from Super Mario World; landing on something mid-spin restores the bash, creating "a constant shift between the two axis of movement."

The kit grew from a plan to recycle Specter Knight's levels, which never happened; King got all-new stages with shorter courses and secret exits borrowed from Mario. The bash is high commitment because a miss can be disastrous.

Mario-style momentum was cut because the bash already sends him far. The team planned momentum, a world map and short courses to match Mario, but momentum on top of the bash made him too scary to control. D'Angelo: "You're already sending yourself a million miles and it's scary and to put bad momentum on top of that it's just like 'Whoa! Calm down!'"

King Knight's spin looks the same with or without the bash available. Players cannot tell from the animation whether they can bash again, which makes him harder to learn. After "a million discussions" about an indicator, Yacht Club chose to let players feel the state, comparing it to Mega Man X where you can't see your dash count.

To compensate, the rules lean in the player's favour: getting hit gives a free bash.

Taking control away from the player steepens the learning curve. Plague Knight's burst and King Knight's bash lock players into committed animations, so they must plan ahead. Shovel Knight keeps full control during the drop, falls at the same speed as when jumping, and can cancel with an attack.

Complexity sits either in the moveset or in the level layout. In a blank room Shovel Knight can barely do anything, while Plague Knight reaches almost every corner but is tricky to manoeuvre. Specter and King rely on layouts for fluid movement, which flows well but can feel prefabricated and puzzle-like.

Richer move-sets may suit speedrunning and mastery better.

Recovery tools decide how punishing a mistake is. Shovel Knight over a bottomless pit is mostly doomed, while Plague Knight bursts or bombs out of danger, Specter runs up walls and King bashes to save himself.

Celeste and Downwell show ability availability on the character. Celeste changes Madeline's hair colour when her dash is available, and Downwell flashes the character when guns reload, the kind of cue King Knight's spin lacks.