Cyber Shadow, a recently published title from Yacht Club Games, is a 2D hack and slash platformer that draws inspiration from sidescrolling classics likeNinja GaidenandMega Man. Unlike Yacht Club Games' other titles,such asShovel Knight,Cyber Shadowwas mostly programmed by one single person. Aarne Hunziker, the sole developer at Mechanical Head Studios, worked onCyber Shadowfor about five years and collaborated with Yacht Club to bring it to digital storefronts.
Developing a game is already difficult enough for ateam of hundreds of developers, but imagine how much of a challenge it is for a person to create a game likeCyber Shadowwithout a team by their side. Game Rant conducted an interview with the creator ofCyber Shadowand some details were brought up that go into the game’s solo development and the pros and cons of that situation.
RELATED:10 Games To Play If You Loved Cyber Shadow
Game Rant asked Hunziker how thedevelopment process forCyber Shadowwas like with just one developer handling mostly everything and also the positives and negatives of not having a larger team of developers working on the project. He mentions that the process can be “daunting” and that one of the upsides is that he is “in control of every aspect” ofCyber Shadow:
“I need to jump between a lot of different seats which was daunting at first but became enjoyable later on. Can’t get bored of drawing pixel art when you need to do SFX, level design, and coding too. This leads to a downside, which is the velocity of progress is quite slow. Just handing over a sprite to a coder to do their magic would feel pretty liberating. The upside is that you are in control of every aspect and can make sure everything works as intended.”
Of course, working on a project by one’s self is sure to be a challenge, but the fact that every aspect of the video game is under the control of the creator is something that’s unique in the gaming space. There are other exceptional titles out there that werecreated by one person likeUndertaleandThomas Was Alone, andCyber Shadowis sure to be added to the list of the best games made by a sole developer.
In the interview, Hunziker also discussed what it was like to work alongside apublisher such as Yacht Club Games. Fortunately, the collaboration between the two studios seems to have gone fairly well, with Hunziker mentioning that it felt like “working with friends.”
“Felt more like working with friends than what I imagined a publisher/developer cooperation to be like. On top of handling the heavy lifting required to get the game translated and on every platform they also offered a ton of feedback.”
This is one of the first times that Yacht Club Games has ever published a title that wasn’t the studio’s own, after publishingAzure Striker Gunvolt: Striker Packback in 2016. It’s nice to see that Mechanical Head and Yacht Club have a great relationship with one another. And considering thatCyber Shadowreceived mostly favorable reviews from critics, there’s a chance that a sequel or a similar title could be in the works,especially since there’s plenty of lore for Hunzikerto use to flesh out the plot and characters.
Cyber Shadowis currently available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox One.
