Well, it's official—in under one month, Silksanity will be over, with Silksong releasing September 4. It's been one hell of a ride, marked with long periods of silence from Team Cherry. And when the studio did speak up, it was often like, via a Discord message or something.
Showcase after showcase rolled by without so much as a squeak. And now that the news is out, why'd it take so dang long? In a new tell-all with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, studio co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen reveal the shocking truth. Are you ready?
They, uh, just kinda got distracted making new bugs and decided not to bother anybody. They were having a bit too much fun with it. They did a little oopsie and got a smidge hyperfocused. That's all.
Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but that really is the long and short of it. "We've been having fun," says Gibson. "This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyway. It's nice to make fun things … It was never stuck or anything. It was always progressing. It's just the case that we're a small team, and games take a lot of time. There wasn't any big controversial moment behind it."
Aw, man—no blood? No tears? Maybe a little sweat, but the answer really is that they just kinda got in the thick of it making more. Gibson continues: "Because of how we work, obviously the world ended up being just as big or bigger. And the quest system existed. And the multiple towns existed. Suddenly you end up six, seven years later."
But don't worry guys, they had tons of fun. "We're very fortunate that we have a development method that is so enjoyable," says Gibson. "Not exactly sure how we stumbled into that. Everything comes together quickly. You can see results fast."
Now I'm sure any skongers among you probably just heard the glass-crack of your psyche fracturing at the word 'fast', but the way Gibson puts it, they were just very excited about the whole process.
"Ideas turn into something that exists in the game almost immediately before your eyes, and that's very satisfying," he explains, with Pellen adding: "You're always working on a new idea, new item, new area, new boss. That stuff's so nice. It's for the sake of just completing the game that we're stopping. We could have kept going."
As a matter of fact, Gibson hit a breaking point where—as my fellow PCG writer Lincoln Carpenter said in our Slack—he was spending the better part of a decade drunk on the bacchanalian delight of drawing cool bugs. I could not think of a better way to phrase that so I am just stealing it entirely, sorry Lincoln.
"I remember at some point I just had to stop sketching," Gibson says. "I went, 'Everything I'm drawing here has to end up in the game. That's a cool idea, that's in. That's a cool idea, that's in.' You realize, 'If I don't stop drawing, this is going to take 15 years to finish.'"
As to why they decided to zip it for countless eons (okay, like, just a few years—but it's felt longer), it turns out they started to worry they might be bugging people. "We felt like continued updates were just going to sour people on the whole thing. Because all we could really say is, 'We're still working on it'," says Gibson.
Considering the ritual sacrifices I've been privy to—no, really, they ritually banned people from the subreddit to try and summon the game, more than once—I'd argue that not saying anything absolutely bugged people more than popping back up to give status updates—on the other hand, the sheer size of the community that's cropped up around the game has been better advertising than any other alternative. So who knows.
"Instead of popping up and bugging people for the sake of it, it felt like our actual responsibility was just to work on the game," says Pellen, before adding the absolutely hilarious anecdote: "Probably at the time we thought we'd go quiet for a year or two, then the game would come out." Us too, buddy!
Really, though, both Team Cherry co-founders sincerely seem like they were just really deep in the paint. Which probably bodes well for the game itself—games built on a genuine enthusiasm and enduring love for the process tend to be, well, good.
"I think we're always underestimating the amount of time and effort it'll take us to achieve things," Gibson says. And, with all the respect and excitement for your game in the world: Buddy, you think?
Anyway. "It's also that problem where, because we're having fun doing it, it's not like, 'It's taking longer, this is awful, we really need to get past this phase.' It's, 'This is a very enjoyable space to be in. Let's perpetuate this with some new ideas.'"
As a matter of fact, both Gibson and Pellen make an effort not to engage with the social media cycle, which, uh… is probably for the best, considering. "It's nice that people are passionate about the game," Gibson says, "And that they've obviously formed their own strange or very exciting communities around it."
Pellen adds: "Feels like we're going to ruin their fun by releasing the game", and honestly, that much is true. It does feel like the end of an era in a lot of ways. As for what's next, Gibson tells Schreier: "We got a plan. Admittedly, some of the plans for that stuff are kind of ambitious as well, but hopefully we can achieve some of it." Hoo boy. We might not be devoid of Silksanity for long. Here's to seven more years.
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