In recent years, stories of independent game developers—both domestic and international—have often been passed down by word of mouth within the industry. These tales are typically written with sales figures as ink and ideals as the pen; between the lines, they recount how creative aspirations have successfully broken through the constraints of reality, brimming with a harmonious reconciliation between personal values and market demands—a narrative that captivates the imagination.
The appeal of indie game success lies in the fact that, in an industry dominated by failure and disappointment, it represents one of the few triumphs of idealism. Even for bystanders, witnessing the ascent to the summit—achieved through vastly different paths yet leading to the same destination—can inspire countless anonymous solo travelers.
From a business perspective, indie games are among the few game genres capable of generating exceptional profits with limited investment—and casual games are even more so. Consequently, many publishers and venture capital firms are equally drawn to business models that deliver maximum returns with minimal investment.
The story of Team Cherry—the development team behind the *Hollow Knight* series—is a perfect example of both of these aspects.
In terms of team size, they’ve always operated as a trio. Their debut title, *Hollow Knight*, began as a crowdfunding project but went on to sell over 15 million copies, creating a indie gaming legend and becoming one of the best-selling Metroidvania games of all time.
Source: Bloomberg
Although *Hollow Knight: Song of Yarn* (hereinafter referred to as *Song of Yarn*), the sequel to *Hollow Knight*, sparked some controversy among players following its release, numerous data tracking websites—including VGI and Alinea Analytics—have reported that this title, Team Cherry’s first release in six years, has sold at least 5 million copies in less than a month.
Source: Video Game Insights, data as of September 19, 2025
It’s fair to say that *Song of Silk* followed in the footsteps of *Hollow Knight*, bringing further success to this “three-person team.”
Why has Team Cherry’s journey as an indie developer been so impressive? What lies behind it all—a triumph of creativity? A stroke of luck? Or perhaps, unseen by the world, have they somehow earned the favor of the Pale Mother?
It all began with a Game Jam in 2013.
01
Game Jam: The First Step to Success
When it comes to Game Jams, those in the game development industry are likely familiar with the concept. It’s essentially a gathering of developers where participants are tasked with creating a game with clear core mechanics within a limited timeframe, based on a specific theme. Typically, this timeframe ranges from a few hours to several days (usually 48 hours). The more polished and innovative the game, the more likely it is to stand out. Essentially, it can be viewed as a timed game development competition.
The Game Jam culture has been around for over 20 years. Combining challenge with fun while also serving as a platform for developers to connect and collaborate, it has been widely popular since its inception and enjoys a strong following overseas. Many major overseas companies provide financial support for Game Jams, using them to identify promising projects for investment or to recruit talent.
In recent years, many independent developers in China have spontaneously organized Game Jams, while official Game Jams have also been held by organizations such as the China Independent Game Alliance (CiGA). These events have similarly given rise to many outstanding creative works, such as *Butter Cat*.
The predecessor to *Hollow Knight* was born at Ludum Dare, the birthplace of game jams.
Founded in 2002, Ludum Dare is the world’s longest-running and most widely participated-in game jam, and it is still active today.
One of the distinctive features of Ludum Dare is that nearly all entries are submitted as web-based versions for players to enjoy. If you visit the Newgrounds page containing the archive of all Ludum Dare 27 entries—that is, the games from 2013—you’ll notice a little white figure that looks almost exactly like the protagonist from *Hollow Knight*.
This Flash game, titled *Hungry Knight*, was Team Cherry’s very first official release.
It's still playable; you'll need the Flash plugin. Here's the link:
The art style of *Hungry Knight* strongly echoes that of *Hollow Knight*, as created by Ari Gibson and William Pellen. From the little knight himself to the various bosses and insect-themed enemies, as well as the crumbling ruins and the sense of history weathered by time, the influence of *Hollow Knight* is clearly evident.
The game features a top-down perspective with action-adventure elements. The gameplay follows the theme of Ludum Dare 27, "10 Seconds": the little knight’s 10-point HP bar decreases by one point every second and is depleted within 10 seconds. Players must continuously defeat enemies and eat the fruit they drop to restore HP.
The game features a rich, lush environment, with both player characters and enemies moving with fluid animations. It includes all the expected elements—cutscenes and multiple endings—as well as a variety of enemies and a full three bosses. Even as a Flash game, it’s a well-rounded package.
It’s worth noting that *Hungry Knight* was developed by Team Cherry during a Game Jam. Not only is the game structurally sound and easy to play, but it also perfectly captures the “10 seconds” theme set for Ludum Dare 27. At the same time, *Hungry Knight* laid the visual groundwork for *Hollow Knight*.
Following *Hungry Knight*,
Ari Gibson created a series of drawings titled "Hungry Bugs."
Looking at these visual concepts, you might think that after *Hungry Knight*, *Hollow Knight* is next.
It's not that simple.
One question is: How exactly did *Hollow Knight* transition from the top-down perspective of *Hungry Knight* to a side-scrolling *Metroidvania*-style game?
And this is inextricably linked to Team Cherry’s second title.
Following their success at Ludum Dare 27, Team Cherry once again participated in a game jam organized by Indie Speed Run (ISR). For this game jam, Team Cherry conceived a story centered on Egyptian culture, telling the tale of a cat’s adventure as it enters the pharaoh’s tomb within a pyramid. The game is titled *Tomb Cat*.
The game builds on the gameplay of *Lulanda*, a prototype by co-founder William Pellen, shifting to a platformer format; however, it is still a far cry from a Metroidvania-style game, resembling *Super Mario* and *Alex the Kid* more closely.Nevertheless, the map design—divided into interconnected rooms—along with the spiked floors and traps within the rooms, faintly hints at the future shape of *Hollow Knight*.
The scope of *Grave Cat* is quite extensive, featuring a total of three maps with 85 distinct rooms—each with unique layouts and enemies—for players to explore.
If *Hungry Knight* established the artistic style of *Hollow Knight*, then *Grave Cat* refined its gameplay and solidified its core concepts.
The two entries, *Hungry Knight* and *Grave Cat*, ultimately became the body and soul of *Hollow Knight*. Together, they trace Team Cherry’s clear evolutionary path; after playing them, you can sense their faint echoes in *Hollow Knight* and *Song of Silk*.
Then, in 2014, Team Cherry once again participated in Ludum Dare 29, whose theme was “Beneath the Surface.” And it was this event that served as the key catalyst for bringing *Hollow Knight* to life.
In numerous interviews, Ari Gibson and others have mentioned that this year’s Ludum Dare theme made a strong impression on the team right from the start: “We found the theme incredibly interesting, and immediately envisioned a lone explorer venturing deeper and deeper into a strange world deep underground.”
The Holy Nest is the "Lenovo" of the underworld
Initially, Team Cherry’s plan was to use their existing assets to create a platformer-style sequel to *Hungry Knight*. However, they soon realized that a game jam alone was no longer enough to satisfy their boundless creativity.
Team Cherry aims to create a larger-scale game where players can explore a forgotten underground kingdom teeming with fossils, mysteries, and bizarre insects. In terms of gameplay, the team hopes to create a platformer that incorporates action-adventure elements from *Hungry Knight* while staying within the technical capabilities they’ve developed through *Grave Cat* and *Lulanda*.
We jumped right in, but as new ideas kept pouring in, the project—which had originally been designed for a Game Jam—kept expanding, and the development timeline kept getting pushed back. In the end, Team Cherry completely missed the deadline, and Ludum Dare 29 ended in failure.
However, the team did their best to finish it. In reality, though, the scope of this project was no longer that of a typical Game Jam entry, but rather the prototype for an entirely new product—namely, the prototype for *Hollow Knight*.
This haphazard approach may have already laid the groundwork for *The Song of Silk* to become *The Dove of Silk* more than a decade later.
In short, after participating in a Game Jam and unexpectedly crafting the prototype for *Hollow Knight*, Team Cherry realized they could release it as a professional product. So, in late 2014, a crowdfunding campaign that would change the course of history launched on Kickstarter.
I like to refer to the brief period of game jams in 2014, before the *Hollow Knight* crowdfunding campaign launched, as Team Cherry’s pioneering days.
During this period, the Game Jam culture that took the world by storm around the 2010s provided a platform for Team Cherry, a group of non-professionals. Whether it was Ari Gibson, William Pellen, or Rohan Fraser—who later left the team to pursue his dream of becoming an illustrator—each member poured their heart and soul into the project, driven by a passion for games. The supportive environment nurtured their hard work, brought attention to the team, and planted the seeds of hope.
Ari Gibson, William Pellen, and Rohan Fraser at work
This formative period also gave Team Cherry a sense of what indie developers might only come to realize—or acquire—after stumbling a few times: the ability to fill the "gaps" in reality with creativity and make the game feel "complete."
*Hollow Knight* was born out of this very ability.
02
The Birth of the Little Knight
In late 2014, the crowdfunding campaign for *Hollow Knight* successfully concluded with nearly $58,000, far exceeding the team’s initial goal of $35,000.
Their ability to quickly garner external support stems not only from the reputation Team Cherry has built at various game jams, but also from the visual art hand-drawn by Ari Gibson.
One of the key reasons is Team Cherry’s impressive array of crowdfunding rewards. On Kickstarter, it’s still clear to see that, in addition to offering physical merchandise, Team Cherry has made the following commitments: expanded game content as funding increases, and versions of the game spanning Windows, Mac, Linux, and Wii U, among others.
So, essentially, Bumblebee from *Song of Silk* was also a crowdfunding reward for the second playable character that Team Cherry had originally intended to include in the first *Hollow Knight*. Similarly, the creation and release of the subsequent *Fool’s Arena* update and numerous free DLC expansions were all part of their original goals when they launched the campaign in 2014.
Crowdfunding is essentially a way to pre-order the future; back then, the relationship between the project creator and the backers was relatively straightforward, without all the complications, which is why Team Cherry’s crowdfunding campaign went quite smoothly.
According to William Pellen’s original plan, the $35,000 goal was sufficient to support the team in developing a Metroidvania-style game with a playtime of around two hours; however, once they raised more than that amount through crowdfunding, the team’s plans shifted somewhat.
They wanted richer game content—just as the crowdfunding slogan promised—to build an ancient, vast insect kingdom hidden deep underground. Players will bravely venture down dark paths, exploring caves and towers in search of riches and wonders. As a result, the release of *Hollow Knight*, originally scheduled for 2015, was delayed.
What few people realize is that, in fact, Team Cherry was short on funds during this period. As William Pellen noted, even after raising over 50,000 Australian dollars through crowdfunding, the team was still struggling to bring their vision for *Hollow Knight* to life.
Ari Gibson recalls that after switching to full-time game development, the crowdfunding funds barely covered the project’s initial costs, and for a long time afterward, they had to live off their savings.
Ari said, “Thankfully, we don’t have children to support. I’d previously worked on an animated film (*Mechanical Apple*), which was quite successful, so we’re barely scraping by on that money. William, on the other hand, relies entirely on his wife, who works full-time. The same goes for David Kazi, the third member to join the team after Rohan Fraser left—he handles the infrastructure coding—whose partner is a full-time architect.”
In an interview with Bloomberg prior to the release of *The Song of Silk*, William Pellen joked that they often had to survive on the leftover sandwiches from meetings in the office next door.
Ari Gibson also pointed out that another key factor behind the creation of *Hollow Knight* was the team’s location in Adelaide, Australia. As the capital of South Australia, the city offers sufficient scale and infrastructure, combined with relatively low living costs, which provided Team Cherry with a conducive environment for creative work.
You could simply think of Adelaide as the "Chengdu of Australia," and that might explain why Team Cherry chose to develop *Hollow Knight* there.
According to past reports, the final development budget for *Hollow Knight* was $100,000. Based on today’s exchange rate, Team Cherry is still facing a shortfall of nearly $100,000 AUD. When the game launched in 2017, the exchange rate was 1:1.31, which amounts to roughly the same figure.
Source: Games Learning Society
To bridge the funding gap, Team Cherry accepted financial assistance from the Indie Fund in 2017, during the final sprint leading up to the game’s release. Some reports also mention that Team Cherry applied for a bank loan to get through the final hurdles.
Source: Wikipedia entry for "Indie Fund Aid Catalog"
The funding shortage for *Hollow Knight* was further underscored by a lack of manpower. While it now seems even more legendary that such a tiny team created the immensely successful *Hollow Knight*, at the time, staffing issues forced Team Cherry to make compromises regarding the game’s content.
For example, most of the male characters in *Hollow Knight* were voiced by Team Cherry members such as Ari Gibson, while the female characters were almost exclusively voiced by a woman who shared an office with Team Cherry.
List of Voice Actors for *Hollow Knight*: Many of the cast members' family and friends also contributed their voices
Furthermore, in order to meet the release deadline, Team Cherry had to cut a significant amount of content—including maps—from the final version to shorten the development timeline.
However, it must be said that the people involved in the *Hollow Knight* project are truly masters in their respective fields. Ari Gibson created most of the game’s visual assets in Photoshop, including character animations; Christopher Larkin, who handled the sound design, brought a somber, atmospheric tone to *Hollow Knight*, along with rousing boss battle music and the sound of rain in the City of Tears;David Kazi, working alongside William Pellen, migrated the game engine from Stencyl to Unity to facilitate the implementation of additional features and platform porting in the future.
David Kazi, Ari Gibson, William Pellen, and Chris Larkin
When *Hollow Knight* first launched, its sales figures weren’t particularly impressive; by 2019, it had sold just over 2.8 million copies. However, over the following six years, the game went on to sell nearly 12 million copies.
This kind of delayed sales effect is rare in the industry, and since the DLCs for *Hollow Knight* were mostly released by 2019, it’s hard to attribute this sales curve to ongoing updates.
Pricing may be one of the reasons. *Hollow Knight* has four DLCs; including the base game, and given its Metroidvania-style gameplay, playing through the entire game takes over several dozen hours. With such a wealth of content, the price is remarkably low—less than 58 yuan in the Chinese region, and even with the original soundtrack included, it’s still under 100 yuan.
Given the scale of the game, Team Cherry could easily have set a higher price point. However, it may be precisely this low-price strategy that has attracted a broader player base to *Hollow Knight*. Of course, the decision to offer free DLC is tied to the promises made during the crowdfunding campaign, while the low price is inextricably linked to the low production costs made possible by Team Cherry’s small team. The sales trajectory of *Hollow Knight* may well be a unique case in the industry, resulting from a combination of these factors.
In addition, in several interviews, Team Cherry has mentioned that many players compare it to *Dark Souls*. They acknowledge the connection to the *Souls* series, which has indeed attracted a large number of new players.
However, William Pellen also noted, “When we were making *Hollow Knight*, we hadn’t actually played *Dark Souls* much. It wasn’t until people started saying that *Hollow Knight* was very similar to *Dark Souls* that we looked into *Dark Souls* and learned a few things from it.”
Ari Gibson mentioned that while they did draw inspiration from the unique, "gloomy and oppressive" atmosphere of *Dark Souls*, the creative inspiration for *Hollow Knight* came from elsewhere.
“We played a few games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, such as *The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link* and *Fasana*,” said William Pellen. “To me, those games packed in as many unexpected elements as possible. And those elements are what make them truly fun.”
William Pellen went on to add, “All of these games give you the sense that anything could be lurking behind a crumbling wall or around a corner—you can’t see what lies ahead. I think *Dark Souls* perhaps conveys the very feeling we wanted to create: a game where players face a world where they have absolutely no idea what’s coming next.”
Ari Gibson explained, “Early games always had a sense of the unknown—or at least gave players a sense of exploration. While playing, players often didn’t know just how vast the game actually was. This was perhaps because the internet wasn’t as developed back then, and there weren’t as many walkthroughs, so players had to explore on their own. But when we were making *Hollow Knight*, we definitely tried to capture that feeling; we wanted players to have an experience that exceeded their initial expectations.”
“People feel that their journey is their own, with its own unique shape, and that is precisely one of the things we consciously set out to convey to them. So I’m glad we were able to achieve that.”
Perhaps this dedication to the game itself ultimately contributed to the success of *Hollow Knight*.
As for the discussion about the game's genre, Team Cherry stated that they weren't actually aiming for a Metroidvania-style game, even though both Pellen and Gibson mentioned that this genre was a key source of inspiration for *Hollow Knight*.
“We didn’t even care that much about the game genre or anything like that,” said Ari Gibson. “We just wanted to create an adventure and a world. Some elements come from *Metroid*, but others definitely come from the *Mega Man* or *Mario* series, and the talisman system clearly comes from games like *Paper Mario*.”
Team Cherry believes: “Genre is a useful tool for categorizing games when they’re on store shelves, but we don’t want to be constrained by the expectations associated with a particular genre. We simply put them together in a way we find interesting, so players can discover something new.”
Avoiding labeling is also a goal of the team.
"Perhaps you shouldn't worry too much about whether it's a Metroidvania," Ari Gibson said during the interview, and William Pellen added, "Just create something you really want to explore. Don't get too caught up in genres, categories, or mechanics. What matters is creating a truly engaging world, delving deep into it, and making sure everything connects and feels open within it."
*Song of Silk* is, to a large extent, the culmination of Team Cherry’s philosophy. Regardless of the controversy surrounding it, as a title that evolved from a DLC into a full-fledged game, its price tag of over 70 yuan—combined with its scale and refined core gameplay—has proven what it means to “stay true to one’s original aspirations.”
Conclusion
So you see, even though it seems like Team Cherry went from *Hungry Knight* to *Grave Cat* to *Hollow Knight* in less than five years, they actually faced quite a few challenges and problems along the way. They aren’t a team of natural-born geniuses; in fact, most of them didn’t even have formal training in the field.
Even so, with six parts effort and a little bit of luck, you can still produce a product that’s eighty to ninety percent complete.
If I had to sum it up, the success of *Hollow Knight* could perhaps be attributed to staying true to the original creative vision, a deep understanding of the essence of gaming, and maximizing the potential of every team member within a small team.
Team Cherry embodies a secret that’s no secret in the gaming industry: what truly moves people is sincere creativity, a cohesive visual language, and a gameplay experience that fosters a sense of exploration. In other words, the core competitive advantage of indie games has always been “people.”
References:
kickstarter.com projects：11662585《Hollow Knight》
teamcherry.com
nintendo.com：The Metamorphosis of Hollow Knight, with Team Cherry, Aussie Developer Interview 20 July 2021
hollowknight.fandom.com
bloomberg.com：Why ‘Silksong’ Took Seven Years to Make By Jason Schreier
August 21, 2025
mcvuk.com：When We Made… Hollow Knight By Marie Dealessandri 31 July 2018
原创文章，作者：游茶妹儿，禁止转载：https://youxichaguan.com/en/archives/194569
