The Nintendo 3DS version is probably my version of choice, although it’s so difficult to choose. I really, really love how the 3D looks on this game. It’s sort of like the 3D Classics a little bit, but we have many layers of parallax. There are eight layers, and it’s all just scrolling as it goes, and all of our programmers did such an amazing job of making each enemy and each character and each thing you dig up go into the screen or go back in the screen. The implementation of it is just really, really good, and so I just want to say, I’m personally really proud of the 3D in the Nintendo 3DS version. So please give the 3D a shot when the game comes out!

NoE: What can you tell us about Digger’s Diary, the Wii U-exclusive Miiverse mode?

SV: Okay, so the Digger’s Diary is all about using Miiverse. You’ll be playing the game on the TV, and then on the Wii U GamePad there’s a tab called ‘Diary’. You tap it and then Miiverse messages from other players appear on the GamePad screen. But the cool part is, all the messages pertain to the room in which you are currently residing. So you might be in a single-screen room and there are some gems hidden up in the corner, but you don’t know how to get them – maybe somebody wrote a Miiverse post that says, “Hey, hit this rock to get the gems!”

NoE: Or they might commiserate with your exact situation!

SV: We’ve seen it where the whole screen might be scribbled over because they’re so frustrated! And we’ve seen people talking as the characters, because that’s another thing with the Diary – you can choose an avatar from the game, so you can choose Shovel Knight, or you can choose King Knight, or any of the other knights or The Enchantress, or anybody, and you can stick them up there. So what we’re seeing is people sticking the character there and then talking as if they’re the character. It all adds a little bit more fun to the game; we’ve been saying it’s a bit like the schoolyard, with tips and hints you might talk about with your friends.

NoE: Rumours passed around…

SV: Exactly.

NoE: It’s nice to bring people together, as with the StreetPass Arena. There are no simultaneous multiplayer aspects to the game, but you’re still bringing people together through Shovel Knight!

SV: (laughs) That’s beautiful!

NoE: It’s the idea that there is this connectivity between players. There’s a kind of a community. It’s something that you would have had in the 8-bit days; your friends would have played a game and you would have talked about it, but you wouldn’t necessarily go to each other’s house to play it. And there’s no expensive tips helpline – you can just go to Miiverse for that hint instead!

SV: I mean, I remember the first time I got to World 8 in Super Mario Bros. 3, and I saw the enormous cannon. I wrote a letter – a handwritten letter – to my friend and ran down the street and put it in his mail box because he wasn’t there at the time. This is when I was seven or eight years old. I was so excited, “oh man I can’t believe it!” It’s a little bit of the equivalent. And we’ve also seen in the Miiverse community, not even on the Digger’s Diary, the amount of art and the effusive praise that we’ve got and everything… It’s been really, really incredible.

NoE: Can you tell us anything about Shovel Knight’s story? Who is he, and why does he have a shovel?!