Shovel Knight

In 2014, Yacht Club Games released its very first game, Shovel Knight, a joyful 2D platformer that wears its NES influences on its sleeve. This unlikely pastiche of 8-bit inspirations manages to emulate the look, feel, and even the technical limitations of nostalgic titles like Mega Man, Zelda II, and Castlevania III-imbued with a contemporary sense of humor and self-awareness. But how is a fundamentally retro game created in the modern era? And what do the games of the past have to teach today's game designers? Based on extensive original interviews with the entire Yacht Club Games team, writer David L. Craddock unearths the story of five game developers who worked so well together while at WayForward Games that they decided to start their own studio. From the high highs of Shovel Knight's groundbreaking Kickstarter to the low lows of its unexpectedly lengthy development, Boss Fight presents a new master class in how a great game gets made. Get ready to steel your shovel and dig into this fascinating oral history. For Shovelry!

Dig deep into the world of Shovel Knight! Shovel Knight is a classic action-adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 8-bit retro aesthetic. This extensive guidebook provides eager gamers with detailed information about gameplay, including tips on completing each level, strategies for defeating villains from the Order of No Quarter, and where Shovel Knight can collect necessary relics and music sheets.

Exceed Fighting System digs up four brand new fighters from the popular video game Shovel Knight. Bring the fast-paced action of head-to-head arcade fighting games to your tabletop. Choose your fighter from an ever-growing roster of diverse characters, each with their own deck of special moves and supers. Play your cards to unleash fireballs, dragon punches, and deadly combos on opponents! This box contains 4 fighters and everything you need to play: Shovel Knight & Shield Knight - It's dangerous to go alone! Shield Knight joins Shovel Knight to fight together as a team once again. Work together with your partner to double-team foes! Propeller Knight - Swoop and dance through the arena, striking with grace and precision as you dismantle your foes! If things prove too tough, send in your artillery crew to blow away the competition! Mole Knight - Undermine your opponents by tunneling across the arena, attacking from every angle and giving no quarter! When the going gets tough, turn up the heat with even more burrowing power! Tinker Knight - It's time to put your master plan into play! Though you begin each duel frail, use this time to build up your mech, then unleash havoc in the second phase of the battle! With the Exceed Fighting System, any fighter can battle against any other, regardless of their origin! Made in China.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.” — Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear Throne Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous. Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

Forty original contributions on games and gaming culture What does Pokémon Go tell us about globalization? What does Tetris teach us about rules? Is feminism boosted or bashed by Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? How does BioShock Infinite help us navigate world-building? From arcades to Atari, and phone apps to virtual reality headsets, video games have been at the epicenter of our ever-evolving technological reality. Unlike other media technologies, video games demand engagement like no other, which begs the question—what is the role that video games play in our lives, from our homes, to our phones, and on global culture writ large? How to Play Video Games brings together forty original essays from today’s leading scholars on video game culture, writing about the games they know best and what they mean in broader social and cultural contexts. Read about avatars in Grand Theft Auto V, or music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how Age of Empires taught a generation about postcolonialism, and how Borderlands exposes the seedy underbelly of capitalism. These essays suggest that understanding video games in a critical context provides a new way to engage in contemporary culture. They are a must read for fans and students of the medium.

Exploring how music is used to portray the past in a variety of media, this book probes the relationship between history and fantasy in the imagination of the musical past. The volume brings together essays from multidisciplinary perspectives, addressing the use of music to convey a sense of the past in a wide range of multimedia contexts, including television, documentaries, opera, musical theatre, contemporary and historical film, videogames, and virtual reality. With a focus on early music and medievalism, the contributors theorise the role of music and sound in constructing ideas of the past. In three interrelated sections, the chapters problematise notions of historical authenticity on the stage and screen; theorise the future of musical histories in immersive and virtual media; and explore sound’s role in more fantastical appropriations of history in television and videogames. Together, they pose provocative questions regarding our perceptions of ‘early’ music and the sensory experience of distant history. Offering new ways to understand the past at the crossroads of musical and visual culture, this collection is relevant to researchers across music, media, and historical and cultural studies.

A must-play checklist and guidebook for the top 101 video games every kid should experience, including trivia and tips, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and ratings. Full color. 5 15/16 x 8 5/16.

Learn the codes of shovelry while gaining fun gameplay knowledge in this helpful handbook! This colorful handbook introduces readers to Shovel Knight, a classic action-adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 8-bit retro aesthetic. Learn more about Shovel Knight, Shield Knight, the Enchantress, and the Order of No Quarter, as well as tips for enhanced gameplay.