Yacht Club Says Wario Inspired Shovel Knight: King Of Cards’ Gameplay

In just a few days time, Shovel Knight‘s final major DLC King Of Cards will finally be released to the world.

From the many gameplay previews and trailers we have seen so far, we can see that King Of Cards’ gameplay bears a striking resemblance to that of Nintendo’s classic Wario games.

In an interview with Gamesbeat, Yacht Club’s Sean Velasco confirmed that this is not a coincidence, as Wario served as a big inspiration for King of Cards, mostly due to the many traits he and King Knight have in common:

There’s obvious similarities to Wario, with the shoulder tackle. King Knight has a shoulder bash that’s a similar move. We thought about how Wario is a big guy that throws his weight around. We wanted King Knight to feel like a big guy who throws his weight around. He loves treasure, he’s kind of greedy. He’s sort of Wario-ish. At least that part, we were a bit initially inspired by Wario.

But after that we just started iterating on the mobility of the King Knight. The mobility went through so many changes for us to get it right. As a result, I think it feels really unique. You can have more grace in this mobility even than you can with Specter Knight. It’s a bit more free-form, like Plague Knight’s gameplay. You can bash and spin around do a lot of acrobatic-looking moves. It’s really cool.

Aside from this, Velasco also shared a bit more about what Yacht Club is planning for their next project, although nothing is set in stone.

We’ve talked a lot about wanting to make a 3D game. It’s a logical step for us, right? We’ve experimented a lot and done a lot with 2D stuff. We love games like Mario 64. We love 3D action games. We want to make a big 3D game at some point. But in order to make a big 3D game, I think first you have to make a small 3D game. Or just something that’s smaller, some kind of in-between.

We want to expand and do some different tech. Who knows if we’ll actually put anything out in 3D, or maybe it’ll be a hybrid or something, but there’s no project set in stone at all. We’re going to have meetings about that tomorrow. We’re just finishing up everything with Treasure Trove. It comes out next week? December 10. Seven frickin’ days from now. That’s crazy. We’re just getting everything done, and then we’ll think about the next game. Well, we’re already thinking about it, obviously, but nothing is set in stone. It’s set in butter.

Shovel Knight: King Of Cards launches on December 10th for Nintendo Switch.

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