After connecting with Yacht Club, the team behind Shovel Knight and its DLCs, at PAX West in September, With a Terrible Fate was thrilled to sit down with one of their original team members to discuss how Shovel Knight came to be.

Shovel Knight sprang to life through a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, and we wanted to know how the croudfounded nature of the game—for instance, its DLCs that were developed as stretch goals—influenced the way that Yacht Club thought about their storytelling.

In this interview, With a Terrible Fate’s Dan Hughes and Aaron Suduiko Skype with Nick Wozniak, the Pixel Artmancer at Yacht Club. We cover everything Shovel Kinght, including:

The crowdfunding landscape for game developers, both when Shovel Knight was being made and today

How the game’s DLCs came about, and why they diverged from the original in the ways that they did

Shovel Knight’s themes, why the team decided to change the game’s ending, and what it takes to get a player invested in a game’s story

How the Shovel Knight developers thought about their game’s story, and how they developed the personalities of its characters

…and more!

Check out the full recording of our interview with Nick here:

It was a pleasure to talk with Nick, and we’re excited to bring you more Shovel Knight content based on this exclusive interview in the weeks to come!