Recently, the popular YouTube channel Boundary Break worked closely with developer Yacht Club Games to do a special episode taking a look at the developer’s beloved Shovel Knight series. What the YouTuber found is that the Shovel Knight games are actually 2D games built in a 3D engine.
This is the most interesting and visually impressive discovery in the video. Seeing a game that looks so retro and very 2D get spun around in 3D is trippy. Yacht Club Games developer David D’Angelo explained that this was because the engine was built before the studio knew exactly what they were going to make. While they wanted to make a 2D game, by making the engine 3D it gave them more options and made it easier to debug the game and bring it to multiple platforms.
While the 3D revelation is the maybe the most exciting part of this recent video, the episode also contains some other interesting tidbits.
For example, Shovel Knight features some leftover assets and artwork that the developer even admits shouldn’t be there. D’Angelo mentions that future versions of the game might remove these leftovers, like some strange tiles floating behind a background. These tiles, with TB marked on them, are transparent and are tied into the system that allows players to break blocks in certain areas. It was left in the game by mistake.
The full episode is worth watching if you are a huge Shovel Knight fan or just want to see how much work went into making these games.
Comments
6 responses to “YouTuber Shows That Shovel Knight Is Actually 3D”
Aren’t most 2D games made in 3D engines these days? I don’t really find this a surprising revelation.
Not necessarily. All the GameMaker Studio games use their 2D engine. Seems like more work to make a 2D pixel art game in a 3D engine.
Not 3D-related, but I remember being impressed the first time I saw parallax scrolling on a Sega Master System.
Good times…
Yeah that was cool. My mind being blown away as a kid.
Wow. That looks great. It kind of reminds me of the 3dnes emulation. Games being made like this I think will have further application replaying them in Vr for a different effect later on. Like looking down or into the action from a different perspective.
Similar to when I found out Dead Cells was made in 3d first as well.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/313026/Art_Design_Deep_Dive_Using_a_3D_pipeline_for_2D_animation_in_Dead_Cells.php
Highly recommend you all subscribe to this dudes channel. He has a fantastic backlog of videos well worth watching.