Celebrating Shantae’s 20th anniversary with her creator Wayforward

blog.playstation.com:

Hi, I’m Matt Bozon, creative director at WayForward and the director of the Shantae video game series. It’s been 20 years since the release of the very first Shantae game! Can you believe it?! For longtime Shantae fans, today will be a brisk walk down memory lane. If you’re new to the series, allow me to catch you up on what you’ve missed! In short: a lot of genies, pirates, monsters, and hair.  

Shantae, the original indie darling!

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)! Shantae was created by Erin Bozon in 1994 during a time when it was rare to see a lead female video game character — and when they did exist, it was often as an optional secondary character or a masked heroine. Erin began concepting a new game starring a prominent female lead, in hopes of inspiring more girl gamers, and at the same time, create an action/fantasy game that everyone would enjoy. The result was Shantae, a Half-Genie with a hair-whipping ponytail and the ability to belly dance to transform into a monkey, elephant, and other creatures. Together we formed a husband-and-wife creative team, laying the series groundwork for several years. 

The first game, simply titled “Shantae,” established a lot of the series’ core gameplay and introduced players to the world of Sequin Land, as well as characters like Shantae, her adopted uncle Mimic, best friends Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops, and arch-nemesis Risky Boots! The world was vast and filled with whimsical townsfolk and monsters. The character animation was fluid, and backgrounds were lush and vibrant, with lots of parallaxing effects, day and night cycles, a massive track list of catchy tunes, and a new gameplay gimmick lurking around every corner. 

The game was so large, in