Trivia / Shovel Knight

• Colbert Bump: During the last few days of the Kickstarter campaign, a prerelease build of the game was sent to several prominent YouTubers, including Two Best Friends Play and Game Grumps, for greater public exposure. The Game Grumps' video on the game in particular was noted as being incredibly helpful.
• Content Leak: A quickly deleted Twitter video that showed off a new game mode for Shovel Knight Showdown had accidentally featured the full roster, which confirmed that Dark Reize and the Liquid Samurai were going to become playable characters after the two were teased prior.
• Crowdfunder Cameo:
  • The Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows campaigns feature an optional level called the Hall of Champions, appearing as an art gallery filled with portraits of "those who founded this great land" (i.e. the game's Kickstarter contributors). Plague of Shadows even has a minigame where you must blast every portrait in the building within a certain time limit.
  • The Wandering Travelers are all original characters created by high-level backers who were added into the game as a reward.
• Development Gag:
  • Specter of Torment implies, and King of Cards confirms, that King Knight was the very first Knight of the Order of No Quarter. He was the very first Knight revealed in the Kickstarter phase of the game.
  • Blue Liquid Samurai were supposed in the Tower of Fate, but the developers scrapped them due to taking too much damage (which was almost as much as a Goldarmor), which killed the pacing of the level. Blue variations, however, do show up in cutscenes, as NPCs in Specter of Torment, and as an alternate color in Showdown. Blue ones would be integrated in King of Cards, but with claws as a weapon.
• Distanced from Current Events: Promotional material for Arby's Shovel Knight toys refers to Plague Knight as "Doctor Knight" (including the quotation marks), likely to avoid the word "Plague" drawing comparisons to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• He Also Did: Manami Matsumae of Mega Man fame composed the music for the Explodatorium and the Iron Whale.
• Kids' Meal Toy: In 2021, it got Arby's toys. It got launcher tokens with a surprise game code, compatible with Steam and Nintendo Switch.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • Specter Knight's character trailer for Showdown released on October 31, a.k.a. Halloween, fitting his spooky aesthetic.
  • King Knight's character trailer for Showdown released on November 6, 2019, the same day that Terry Bogard was added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's roster. The description of said trailer alludes to this, as it claims that the real "King of Fighters" would be joining the fight.
• No Export for You:
  • American-to-Japanese example: This game, due to being published by Nintendo in Japan, is only available to purchase for 3DS, Wii U, and Switch over there. However, this is downplayed since the other platforms are more or less region free, allowing Japanese users to import it. Eventually subverted when the game was announced to have an official Japanese release on PS4 and Vita.
  • The PC retail version of Shovel Knight is only available in Europe.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • Those who paid for it through the game's crowd-funding campaign were put into the game in sprite form. A small few people also paid for the opportunity to become director of the studio for one day. Winners of the fan art contest that created original material have it featured in the game in some fashion.
  • The Baz appears as a secret boss, as do Reize Seatlan, Phantom Striker, and Mr. Hat. The fifth director for a day designed the Liquid Samurai, a standard enemy that appears late in the game.
  • Although not from any one source, multiple game mechanics were either suggested or altered due to fan input through the design hang-outs, which were exclusive to anyone who donated $75 or above.
• Permanent Placeholder: A few descriptions and dialogues were put in in early phases as a placeholder, but stuck if they got a good reaction. The Cold Shoulder's description is specifically cited as sticking around because it got a lot of laughs when other devs saw it.
• Post-Release Retitle: The entire game was eventually retitled Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, with the original campaign specifically being given the subtitle, Shovel of Hope.
• Referenced by...: In Tales of Alethrion, Shovel Knight makes a cameo for a few seconds in "The First Hero," where he appears to be telling tales of his grand adventures to other heroes before apparently being killed.
• Refitted for Sequel: Certain elements that weren't able to be implemented into what was later called Shovel of Hope were reintegrated in later expansions for the game:
  • Shovel Knight was going to have a turtle steed, but this was removed later on. Specter of Torment reintegrated him, but named "Terrorpin", and being Black Knight's steed instead.
  • Shield Knight was considered as a potential co-op character, but as the game was halfway through development, it was scrapped. She would finally become a playable character in Showdown.
  • The Order Members who didn't get their own campaign all had hypothetical playstyles, most of which would never had seen the light of day. Showdown implements those characters and their playstyles, but more in the capacity of fighting game mechanics instead.
  • There was an upgrade system planned, but Shovel Knight's Relics didn't lend themselves well to the idea. Specter of Torment would use this concept instead.
• Regional Bonus: When bringing the game over to Japan, they did what they called a 'reverse-localization', in which they made changes as if it had already launched on the Famicom, while keeping most-everything from the original. The one big omission was the lack of the Plague of Shadows campaign, which is only because it hadn't been translated at the time (rectified as of the September 2nd patch).
• Schedule Slip:
  • Word of God is that they were hoping to finish the game by the end of 2016, but plans changed as Specter Knight's update, Specter of Torment, became a tentative "Spring 2017", with the final release date being March 3rd, to coincide with the Nintendo Switch, with the DLC coming to other platforms later on April 15th, minus the 3DS version still being worked on. A lot of it probably has to do with them going "overboard" with the content, and the amount of iterating the updates go through. As a consequence, this means that 2016 went without any major updates aside from bug fixes and the Japanese release of the game.
  • King of Cards also has gone through this, going through over two tentative release dates before being confirmed to be April 17, 2019, before being later delayed to December 2019, because Yacht Club wanted to get all of the content released at once.
  • The amiibo three-pack of Plague Knight, Specter Knight, and King Knight was originally given a tentative release date of late 2018, then May 2019. It eventually released alongside King of Cards on December 10th, 2019.
• Trolling Creator: Fans across the world were constantly asking for Shovel Knight to be made in the Nintendo 64-style 3D format. So Yacht Club games happily obliged by creating... a Commodore 64-style Shovel Knight for April 2018.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original idea for the checkpoints would be to have them only work if the player had a certain amount of gold on them when they first touched them. It was canned because the developers decided that it would punish less skilled players unfairly. The final game instead makes it possible to break checkpoints for extra money, which similarly rewards skilled players without feeling like a punishment.
  • Plague Knight's campaign was to have a crafting system through which most if not all items and upgrades would have been obtained. This was ditched in favor of the simpler cipher coin and relic trading systems due to the crafting system slowing down players.
  • Any of the Order of No Quarter Knights could have had their own campaign and individual game mechanics, but the fan votes decided on three: Plague Knight, King Knight, and Specter Knight. The developers teased that Propeller Knight, had he won a spot, would have probably been a Glass Cannon with short-range flight. The Dig The Vote page gives some more details regarding them, such as Treasure Knight calling it quits if he runs out of treasure, Polar Knight needing your stay cool and Black Knight having a "deep but tough experience".
  • The Japanese release originally replaced the gold treasure (worth 20G) with a koban-style Japanese coin (i.e. the kind seen on Meowth), but this was rectified prior to launch. They do, however, show up in the Japanese equivalent of Butt Mode.
  • Shield Knight was originally supposed to be a princess, as part of the throwback to old NES games (and was called "Beloved" in the concept stage), but was turned into a knight so that the player could feel a stronger connection with her. Additionally, in the endgame, her Heroic Sacrifice was supposed to be legitimate, and Shovel Knight would have buried her. It was changed since they didn't feel the characters were developed enough yet, "cheating" the players, and coming off the heels of a generally funny and lighthearted ending. The devs also considered making her a playable character in a possible co-op mode, but she wasn't reworked into her current form until halfway through development.
    • The original "Beloved" concept had Shovel Knight kill the Enchantress, not knowing she was Beloved until it was too late, making it even more of a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
  • Shovel Knight was considered to have some sort of turtle steed in an early planning phase for the game, but this was scrapped. The turtle steed, now dubbed "Terrorpin", was refitted as Black Knight's for Specter of Torment.
  • The upgrade system for Specter of Torment was considered as far back as Shovel of Hope, but was cut because a lot of the Relics didn't lend themselves well to upgrades. Even the upgrade system that was eventually utilized was altered; you could upgrade your weapons twice, but it was dialed down to one upgrade because two upgrades made the effects of the Curios too confusing. They also considered making it so that the Curios were more similar to the sub-weapons from Castlevania, complete with losing them upon dying, but that it "didn't feel right" to do that, since they'd wanted to implement an upgrade system.
  • A GIF on Twitter showing off King Knight's gameplay during the prototype phase of King of Cards showed that King Knight could strike enemies with his scepter, with charging his attack resulting in a shoulder bash. The campaign proper changes his primary means of attack to only the shoulder bash, with the charge aspect removed.
  • Propeller Knight was originally going to be one of the first bosses, with Specter Knight being saved for the last half of the map, but their levels were switched around, likely because of the Flying Machine being too difficult at such an early point, and Specter Knight's popularity.
  • Treasure Knight was supposed to explode into a pile of coins with his helmet falling off upon being defeated. This was scrapped when Yacht Club thought it was easy to interpret as him being decapitated.
  • The Troupple Acolyte, Percy, and King Pridemoor were all considered as playable characters for Showdown, but didn't make the cut.
• Word of God: Yacht Club Games has a Twitter account, where they'll often answer questions related to the game. They also held a Reddit AMA in December 2019.
  • Plague of Shadows is presented from Plague Knight's perspective, with all the inconsistencies you'd think would apply.
  • Gall is male.
  • Cory Barlog, the director of God of War (PS4), states that he considers the fight against Kratos to be canon. Yacht Club themselves also stated the fight was canon, as well as the Battletoads fight. Both also stated that the location was a hint to where Kratos would end up next.
  • The horse in Shovel of Hope in Armor Outpost is confirmed to be Percy, who they hadn't named until Plague of Shadows.

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