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* Seer's voice *

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William Pellen and Ari Gibson.

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If you are regular to my channel

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the names probably sound familiar.

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These are the two man responsible for the creation of Hollow Knight.

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But how well do you really know the members of Team Cherry?

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What skeletons take up residence in their closets?

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It's time we stop pretending that Team Cherry is harmless.

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As the Knight of Great Renown once said,

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"Nothing...is harmless." - Zote

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There are many places we could start with the story of Team Cherry.

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Like four hundred and twelve million years ago

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when bugs first walked the Earth.

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Or even 1901, when Australia gained independence from Great Britain.

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Or maybe 1945, when Great Britain gained independence from Austrail...

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Or maybe 1945, when Great Britain gained independence from Australian exports.

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Instead we're going to start here.

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This is Return to Booty Grotto.

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It was posted to Newgrounds on October 12th, 2012

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by a man named William Pellen,

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making this his first game ever published on the Internet.

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Return to Booty Grotto revolves around Finn the Fish

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a goldfish with a bowler hat

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who is given a treasure map by his grandpa.

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The game itself isn't terrible. You basically navigate through Booty Grotto

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collecting fish and avoiding enemies and traps.

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Unfortunately, Finn is the most pathetic protagonist ever to be featured in a game

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on account of the fact that bumping into walls kills him, instantly.

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The lore explanation for this is that Finn JUST ATE.

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Seems legit.

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Now you might be wondering if this game has any similarities to Hollow Knight.

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Well yes, actually.

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First off the game has a bestiary,

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filled with deep and rich lore, about each of the characters.

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On top of that the game also features jellyfish, as well as,

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bees?

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And then there's, oh god.

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* Sound of Silence plays *

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* Finn dies *

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Return to Booty Grotto has multiple endings

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much like Hollow Knight.

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In one ending, Finn rescues a random fish named Gilly

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that was locked up inside a treasure chest by a giant angler fish.

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In another ending, he becomes a king because he found some random orbs in a temple.

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And in the last ending he goes to outer space,

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reaches the end of the universe,

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experiences a cosmic event

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reawakens in the ocean, opens an ancient chest

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finds a piece of bubblegum

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blows a bubble big enough to encase his entire body and then flies off into space, never to be seen again.

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I'm pretty sure this is the canonical ending

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Anyway, Return to Booty Grotto was actually a sequel to Booty Grotto,

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a game made by another one of William's friends:

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some guy named Brad.

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At the time, William was making video games as a hobby, while working as a web designer.

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William had been in love with video games ever since

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his dad showed him how to find the boots in Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link.

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Because despite popular belief, Zelda 2 isn't actually terrible.

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On May 12th, 2013

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William posted a demo for his new game, Lulanda

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on stencil.com.

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Stencil is a program that allows users to develop small flash and mobile games

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without having to have an insane knowledge of code.

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Lulanda is a 2D platformer that takes inspiration from Super Mario World,

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Alex Kidd, and Zelda 2.

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The game revolves around a little deer, girl thing

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trying to collect some, other, things for some reason.

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The first level takes place in Onion Valley

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where everyone is made of onions.

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And of course, there are buzzsaws.

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I'm starting to think that William has an unhealthy obsession with these things.

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There's also a shop in the game that features a plush toy of Finn,

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along with some other random characters.

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Are these from other games that William had ideas for?

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I for one would love to play as a floppy ear dog or an angry... booger.

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William put a lot of time into Lulanda

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posting another demo to Newgrounds in October.

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At this point, William was experiencing issues with Stencil being unable to handle the size of his game.

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Lulanda would need to be developed in a different engine

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if William wanted to keep working on it.

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Buuut that's enough about William Pellen. We all know why we're here.

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You wanna hear about Ari Gibson, and his beautiful sweater.

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Before Hollow Knight, Ari was working in animation

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While both William and Ari had experienced animation

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Ari had worked on several animation projects by this point.

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Ari worked for The People's Republic of Animation

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working on animation for a wide variety of mediums,

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from TV specials and short films, to commercials and even video games.

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Remember that breathtaking ending cutscene in the 2008 Nintendo Wii game De Blob?

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Well, that animation was produced by The People's Republic of Animation

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and directed by Ari Gibson himself.

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Ari also worked on such amazing titles as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

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and Megamind: Mega Team Unite.

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In 2012, Ari founded Mechanical Apple with Jason Pamment.

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Together, the two worked on a number of animation projects

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including music video for The Audreys and

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Go yeet? Go - Tie? Agh, Jesus...

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* mossbag typing *

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Go-Tea-Ah

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There's a playlist in the description below

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of all the animation Ari's worked on that I can find

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so go check that out.

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Ari's love for video games began with Faxanadu

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which plays very similarly with Zelda 2

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but it isn't a Zelda game so no one has heard of it.

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William and Ari eventually started talking about the idea of working on games together.

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The two had met through friends, several years ago

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but it wasn't till mid-way through 2013 that they began making games together.

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William sent Ari a copy of Lulanda

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and the two decided to start participating in game jams.

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Rohan Fraser, a friend that Ari had met through work,

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also joined in on the fun.

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These were the three original members of Team Cherry

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and in August, they entered their very first game jam:

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Ludum Dare 27.

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Ludum Dare is a game jam event that occurs multiple times a year.

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In a game jam, participants are given a short amount of time to put together a game from scratch.

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It's basically a way for developers to flex their creativity,

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and practice working together under stress.

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Ludum Dare 27 began on August 23rd, 2013,

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and gave teams 72 hours to make a game based on the theme of "10 seconds".

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Over the course of three days

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William, Ari and Rohan, created a game called Hungry Knight.

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In Hungry Knight the player plays as this... thing,

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and is tasked with killing 3 masked...

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and is tasked with killing 3 masked... bears?

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in order to revive the player character's friend.

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However, if the Knight doesn't eat a cherry every 10 seconds, they die,

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also their friend is revived as a skeleton?

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T-that doesn't make sense.

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Hungry Knight was the inception for a lot of what Team Cherry has become.

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The name Team Cherry actually comes from the cherries found in this game

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and obviously, they reused the design of the Hungry Knight in this game

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for Dung Defender in Hollow Knight

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Hollow Knight also borrow the idea of killing 3 masked beings from Hungry Knight as well.

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So it-it's basically the same game, guys.

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Less than a month after creating Hungry Knight,

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Team Cherry participated in another game jam:

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Indie Speedrun 2013.

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While they missed the deadline for the game jam,

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Team Cherry still put together a game: Tomb Cat.

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Tomb Cat is about a mother of three kittens

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that makes money by grave robbing Egyptian temples.

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There are three different temples with a varying number of rooms.

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The goal is to collect as much money as you can

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without running out of time in any room or dying.

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This would be Team Cherry's last game before development on Hollow Knight finally began.

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During this time, Ari continued to work on animation for Mechanical Apple.

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In March of 2014, Mechanical Apple released Motorbike

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a short film about a kid who's trying to make it to a date on time.

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What's interesting about this film is that the music was done by none other

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than Christopher Larkin.

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Chris and Ari had worked on a few projects together,

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but Chris would later go on to produce the beautiful score found in Hollow Knight.

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Another cool thing about this film is that it was actually selected as a Disney favorite,

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and was featured on Disney's Youtube channel.

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So there's a nice bit of riveting Hollow Knight trivia for you to share on your next social gathering.

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Ari also continue to hold a fascination towards the character from Hungry Knight.

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Ari even drew concept art featuring the "Hungry bug" as it was called at this point.

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Ari named the 1985 OVA "Angel's Egg" as one of his main inspiration of the art in Hollow Knight,

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and you can definitely see the connection:

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the dark colors, the faded cities, shells in the walls.

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This also means that Ari is canonically a weeb.

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Hollow Knight finally began to take shape in April, 2014.

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It was Ludum Dare 29

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and the theme was "Beneath the Surface".

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Team Cherry came up with the idea of a ruined bug kingdom

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where players would start in town, and then head down a well into the darkness below.

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This is the first piece of art ever made for Hollow Knight.

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Using bugs for characters made it easier to draw and animate them quickly.

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Dark colors also help to obscure rushed artwork.

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In other words, many of the inspirations of Hollow Knight were born out of convenience.

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Team Cherry didn't submit anything for Ludum Dare 29,

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but they held on to this game, deciding it was time to take the next step.

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Team Cherry ripped the Knight's sprites from Hungry Knight,

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and gutted the code from Lulanda to begin development on Hungry Knight 2.

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Of course, this name didn't stick around for long.

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Team Cherry decided to change it after realizing that the Knight doesn't really eat anything anymore.

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They decided on Hollow Knight, because

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well, the Knight looked hollow,

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I guess.

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During the original game jam, Team Cherry came up with the idea that some of the rooms would shift positions

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sort of like a roguelike.

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This would change the order in which players would collect upgrades and items.

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Team Cherry gave it up because it was confusing,

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and really screwed up any kind of narrative they tried to make

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and trust me, the narrative is already confusing enough

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without the world changing shape every playthrough.

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For about 5 or 6 months before the Kickstarter in November, 2014,

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William and Ari worked on their new game

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At some point during all of this, Rohan Fraser made his exit from Team Cherry.

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From what I can tell, Ari and William had both quit their jobs

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and dedicated most of their time to working on Hollow Knight.

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Rohan might not have been willing to take that plunge,

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and who could blame him.

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I assume living in Australia is scary enough without being unemployed too.

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Like I said earlier, Rohan worked with Ari in animation

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and he has been working on his own comic book series called Blokkan.

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November 18, 2014 was the day Hollow Knight finally landed on Kickstarter.

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What's interesting is that Team Cherry never consciously labelled their game as a metroidvania.

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Regardless, Hollow Knight does draw a lot of inspiration from the genre.

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Team Cherry openly admits that Metroid and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrows inspired them when creating Hollow Knight.

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But they also list other games as well, such as Zelda 2

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and Faxanadu.

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They also cite Megaman X as an inspiration for the movement and controls.

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The charm system was based on the badge system from Paper Mario.

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They also cite Pikmin at some point,

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but I don't really know how? or um...

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Why?

0:11:11.620,0:11:14.840
And yes, there is a bit of Dark Souls in there as well.

0:11:15.100,0:11:20.020
They have implied that the corpse run mechanic is at least somewhat inspired by Dark Souls

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While Dark Souls isn't the first game to do this,

0:11:22.680,0:11:25.120
they definitely brought the mechanic into the mainsteam.

0:11:25.585,0:11:28.655
In terms of story and lore, Team Cherry has never said

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anything about being inspired by Dark Souls,

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which is suspicious.

0:11:33.360,0:11:38.840
I mean, the White Lady is basically one giant pair of tits away from basically being Gwynevere, but whatever.

0:11:38.840,0:11:44.280
Team Cherry also said that the soul mechanic in Hollow Knight took inspiration form the rally mechanic in Bloodborne.

0:11:44.520,0:11:46.215
After taking hit in Bloodborne,

0:11:46.215,0:11:49.175
the player has the opportunity to regain their lost health

0:11:49.175,0:11:51.745
by dealing damage to an enemy.

0:11:51.745,0:11:54.955
But after a short period of time, this opportunity vanishes.

0:11:55.540,0:11:58.380
So yeah, when it comes to inspiration for Hollow Knight,

0:11:58.480,0:11:59.760
I think William said it best:

0:11:59.760,0:12:01.760
William: "We've stolen a lot of ideas"

0:12:02.060,0:12:03.460
Dude: "Hey, well that's the way to do it"

0:12:03.800,0:12:08.220
The Kickstarter goal for Hollow Knight was $35,000 Australian.

0:12:08.255,0:12:11.205
Pledge rewards included stuff like signed artwork,

0:12:11.205,0:12:14.255
dream characters, dream warriors

0:12:14.255,0:12:16.905
NPCs, bosses, dungeons

0:12:16.905,0:12:19.525
and there was even a slot for a backer village.

0:12:19.525,0:12:23.480
Some of this content is still waiting to be added in the Hornet DLC.

0:12:24.000,0:12:27.460
Hollow Knight didn't get officially funded until December 15,

0:12:27.740,0:12:29.680
just three days before the Kickstarter ended.

0:12:29.820,0:12:32.860
There was a huge ramp up right at the end, closing out the

0:12:32.860,0:12:36.200
final funding figure at over 57,000 dollarydoos.

0:12:36.505,0:12:37.645
After the dust settled,

0:12:38.040,0:12:39.800
and late Paypal payments were added up,

0:12:40.420,0:12:43.335
five Kickstarter stretch goals had been reached,

0:12:43.340,0:12:44.340
including a Wii U port

0:12:44.460,0:12:46.500
and an additional playable character.

0:12:46.520,0:12:51.660
With their new piles of cash, Team Cherry got themselves a nice little office in downtown Adelaide.

0:12:51.660,0:12:55.700
It was time to get serious about developing Hollow Knight into a fully fledged game.

0:12:56.240,0:12:58.140
That meant ditching Stencil once and for all.

0:12:58.800,0:13:01.620
If Hollow Knight is going to be ported to the Wii U,

0:13:01.620,0:13:04.460
the game was going to need to be built in a new engine.

0:13:04.460,0:13:05.940
Team Cherry decided on Unity,

0:13:06.280,0:13:08.520
bringing in Dave Kozi to help them out.

0:13:08.920,0:13:12.340
Dave was an experienced programmer and knew his way around Unity,

0:13:12.460,0:13:14.940
and when comparing the game in both engines

0:13:14.940,0:13:17.560
it's pretty obvious that they made the right choice.

0:13:17.760,0:13:23.120
Around March, 2015, Team Cherry commissioned Christopher Larkin to compose the soundtrack for Hollow Knight.

0:13:23.560,0:13:27.140
Everything was coming together, but there was a lot of work left to do.

0:13:27.660,0:13:31.500
The original plan was to release Hollow Knight in June, 2015.

0:13:31.880,0:13:35.420
The game was originally intended to only be two or three hours long.

0:13:35.520,0:13:39.160
Needless to say, the game ended up being a TAD bigger than that.

0:13:39.160,0:13:41.840
It wasn't that Team Cherry had to redo the whole game

0:13:41.840,0:13:44.340
or scrap a whole bunch of stuff or anything like that.

0:13:44.560,0:13:48.560
The base idea was that there would be three guardians that the player would have to defeat

0:13:48.560,0:13:50.625
in order to fight the final boss.

0:13:50.625,0:13:53.300
And we can see this design in the final game

0:13:53.300,0:13:55.920
but Team Cherry just kept adding more and more.

0:13:55.920,0:14:00.920
There were originally going to be only three areas that branched out of the Forgotten Crossroads:

0:14:00.920,0:14:02.360
the Fungal Wastes

0:14:02.360,0:14:03.440
the Ruined City

0:14:03.520,0:14:04.560
and the Bone Forest

0:14:05.240,0:14:08.020
They wanted to add another section to the Forgotten Crossroads,

0:14:08.040,0:14:09.520
so we got the Crystal Peaks.

0:14:09.760,0:14:11.960
The Fungal Wastes was broken into several different areas,

0:14:11.965,0:14:14.845
such as Greenpath, the Fog Canyon.

0:14:14.845,0:14:16.540
and the Queen's Gardens

0:14:16.540,0:14:19.240
The Bone Forest was moved down to the bottom of the map,

0:14:19.320,0:14:22.855
so Team Cherry created Deepnest to connect it better to the world.

0:14:22.860,0:14:25.300
Unfortunately, the Forest of Bones was cut,

0:14:25.340,0:14:27.340
but was replaced with the Ancient Basin.

0:14:27.620,0:14:31.920
The Blue Lake was added at some point so that the rain in the City of Tears actually made sense,

0:14:31.920,0:14:36.480
and Kingdom's Edge was added to contain the Hive and other loose ends that were left over.

0:14:36.480,0:14:37.565
By the end,

0:14:37.565,0:14:41.760
The map was HUGE, with a huge variety of locations and enemies.

0:14:41.760,0:14:45.480
The entire map of Hollow Knight is comprised of black squares

0:14:45.660,0:14:48.260
that are dressed up with 2D hand-drawn artwork.

0:14:48.260,0:14:51.800
The art and animation was done almost exclusively in Photoshop.

0:14:51.800,0:14:55.360
Ideas for enemies usually began on a whiteboard, or on paper,

0:14:55.365,0:14:58.015
and it didn't take long to bring those drawings to life.

0:14:58.020,0:15:00.640
A boss could be conceived and animated in about a week,

0:15:00.960,0:15:04.100
and a regular enemy could be animated in as fast as 40 minutes,

0:15:04.435,0:15:06.625
and programmed in another 40 minutes.

0:15:07.040,0:15:11.400
Unity allowed Team Cherry to layer artwork to make it look more dynamic as well.

0:15:11.400,0:15:15.380
William used Playmaker as a way to program the AI for enemies in the game.

0:15:15.900,0:15:17.920
Apparently this came with some headaches

0:15:17.920,0:15:20.180
as variables would randomly switch on enemies.

0:15:20.600,0:15:23.840
According to Ari, this happened constantly throughout the game's development.

0:15:24.500,0:15:27.240
This image shows the programming for the Hollow Knight boss battle,

0:15:27.240,0:15:29.880
showing how complicated these things can get.

0:15:30.400,0:15:35.280
I think most everyone can agree that the music in Hollow Knight is absolutely amazing,

0:15:35.540,0:15:39.320
but it took a lot of work from Chris Larkin and Team Cherry to make this happen.

0:15:39.380,0:15:43.080
The majority of the music was based around a viola and a piano,

0:15:43.500,0:15:46.260
and Larkin implemented leitmotifs into the game

0:15:46.265,0:15:49.235
by using certain melodies in multiple parts of the game,

0:15:49.240,0:15:51.540
to strengthen narrative connections.

0:15:51.540,0:15:55.320
The soundtrack was refined over the course of Hollow Knight's two year development,

0:15:55.320,0:15:57.820
giving Team Cherry plenty of time to work with Larkin,

0:15:57.820,0:16:01.520
to make sure that each area of the game had the perfect music to match.

0:16:01.520,0:16:06.260
Most of the voices were done by William, Ari and Makoto Koji.

0:16:06.480,0:16:08.820
Makoto Koji shares an office with Team Cherry

0:16:09.160,0:16:12.740
where she runs her own art and animation studio, Paper Rabbits

0:16:12.740,0:16:15.720
and her animation is really good, guys.

0:16:15.720,0:16:18.940
It may not be as good as my brief foray animation,

0:16:18.940,0:16:21.400
but you have to start somewhere, I guess.

0:16:21.720,0:16:26.420
Makoto did about 90% of the female voices in Hollow Knight, including Hornet,

0:16:26.860,0:16:28.920
the Mantis Lords, Seer,

0:16:28.960,0:16:31.240
and uh, Flukemarm.

0:16:31.905,0:16:34.875
Many other voices were provided by friends and family.

0:16:35.120,0:16:39.860
I've included a list in the description of all the known voices that Team Cherry has confirmed.

0:16:40.460,0:16:43.960
The lore for Hollow Knight was something that developed organically.

0:16:43.960,0:16:47.055
Team Cherry always knew the basic structure of the plot,

0:16:47.060,0:16:50.800
but they left a lot open so that the lore didn't dictate the contents of the game.

0:16:51.040,0:16:54.320
The script is written in a google spreadsheet by both William and Ari,

0:16:54.320,0:16:55.760
towards the end of development.

0:16:55.960,0:16:59.900
With all the extra work Team Cherry put into expanding the world of Hallownest,

0:16:59.900,0:17:04.340
the game didn't actually come out until February 24, 2017.

0:17:04.660,0:17:10.280
This was two years after the Kickstarter, and overshot Team Cherry's planned release date by over 18 months.

0:17:10.720,0:17:14.220
They ended up having to take a loan to help cover the cost of making the game.

0:17:14.345,0:17:17.145
After all was set and done, the game took about ninety

0:17:17.145,0:17:19.400
to a hundred thousand dollars to produce,

0:17:19.400,0:17:22.000
which is an insanely small amount of money to make a game on.

0:17:22.335,0:17:25.635
I mean, I don't even get out of bed for a hundred thousand dollars.

0:17:25.740,0:17:27.820
As Hollow Knight's launch crept closer,

0:17:27.980,0:17:30.820
Team Cherry hired Matthew Griffin, or Leth,

0:17:31.000,0:17:33.100
to handle PR and Marketing.

0:17:33.100,0:17:36.440
Leth's primary method of marketing Hollow Knight was to send it to streamers,

0:17:36.440,0:17:39.140
allowing the game to spread through word of mouth.

0:17:39.140,0:17:42.400
He also worked with Fan Gamer to release Hollow Knight merch,

0:17:42.400,0:17:44.820
and scheduled interviews with news outlets.

0:17:44.945,0:17:46.275
So if you're watching this Leth,

0:17:46.600,0:17:48.100
please get in touch with me,

0:17:48.100,0:17:51.160
because I have a few questions for Team Cherry that I would like to ask.

0:17:51.160,0:17:53.160
Hollow Knight was a sleeping success.

0:17:53.420,0:17:58.900
Unfortunately, the game released right before Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild,

0:17:58.900,0:18:01.140
the two biggest games of the year,

0:18:01.340,0:18:04.020
so it got a little lost in the shuffle.

0:18:04.020,0:18:06.660
I didn't even know about Hollow Knight until I saw it in a video by

0:18:06.660,0:18:10.640
some obscure Youtuber going by the name "videogamedunkey".

0:18:10.660,0:18:15.680
But as time has gone on, more and more people have realized how amazing this game is.

0:18:15.700,0:18:19.080
The Hollow Knight subreddit now has almost 40,000 members.

0:18:19.080,0:18:21.240
When the game released on Switch,

0:18:21.240,0:18:24.180
it sold a quarter of a million copies in two weeks.

0:18:24.360,0:18:28.400
The game also passed a million sales on steam back in July, 2018.

0:18:28.400,0:18:31.540
And it's really popular in Utah, I guess.

0:18:31.540,0:18:33.360
That's when you know you've made it.

0:18:33.360,0:18:36.420
And before long, Hollow Knight will be taught in schools,

0:18:36.500,0:18:39.020
alongside other great classics such as the Odyssey,

0:18:39.020,0:18:41.320
and Superman 4 The Quest for Peace.

0:18:41.320,0:18:43.060
Since the release of Hollow Knight

0:18:43.060,0:18:45.900
Team Cherry has seen a few small changes.

0:18:45.900,0:18:48.740
Dave Kazi left to work at some big company,

0:18:48.740,0:18:51.940
and Team Cherry picked up Jack Vine to fill his role.

0:18:51.940,0:18:56.340
There are no actual photos of Jack, and he's not even in Team Cherry's "About" page.

0:18:56.980,0:18:59.800
I have a theory that he doesn't actually exist,

0:18:59.800,0:19:02.440
and that Team Cherry made him up for tax purposes.

0:19:02.440,0:19:05.400
Work on Hollow Knight has continued since its initial release.

0:19:06.000,0:19:09.375
Team Cherry worked with Jump Shark studios to rework the game's code

0:19:09.380,0:19:12.080
so that it could run on the Nintendo Switch.

0:19:12.080,0:19:15.200
The game was also released on Switch at E3 2018,

0:19:15.205,0:19:18.185
and on PS4 and Xbox One, later that September.

0:19:18.385,0:19:21.185
Team Cherry has also released three content packs,

0:19:21.185,0:19:24.165
or four if you count Lifeblood as a content pack,

0:19:24.480,0:19:26.280
which Team Cherry does,

0:19:26.280,0:19:30.340
but they still haven't updated it in the game, so I have to say 'three'.

0:19:30.340,0:19:32.800
Team Cherry is currently working on the Hornet DLC,

0:19:32.880,0:19:36.160
and then after that, Hollow Knight will finally be complete,

0:19:36.160,0:19:39.200
and this channel will pivot to the next logical step:

0:19:39.200,0:19:40.420
Teletubbies lore.

0:19:40.420,0:19:42.420
And that's the story of Team Cherry.

0:19:42.440,0:19:45.020
I hope this video was enlightening for you,

0:19:45.020,0:19:47.000
or maybe even a little inspiring.

0:19:47.480,0:19:51.280
To think that such an amazing game was put together by just three people.

0:19:51.280,0:19:54.920
It really is amazing how much indie developers can do nowadays.

0:19:54.920,0:19:57.000
All that matters is that you have talent,

0:19:57.000,0:19:59.940
willpower and maybe a little luck.

0:20:00.655,0:20:03.655
And I'm so glad Team Cherry met those requirements.

0:20:03.655,0:20:06.585
Thank you Team Cherry, Thank you

0:20:07.675,0:20:10.335
Now hurry up and release the Hornet DLC you lazy firemen