By Gap Knight stands as one of the most cherished games from the 2010s until the present day, but once upon a time, it was merely envisioned as a hopeful Metroidvania amid a multitude of others. Developer Team Cherry aimed to create a game significantly smaller than what Gap Knight eventually became, prompting the team to even consider adjusting their Kickstarter goal just days before the campaign’s launch.
This information arises from a Straight from the Source interview with Team Cherry co-directors Ari Gibson and William Pellen, which was conducted all the way back in 2018 and recently published.
The two explained that the Kickstarter funding goal of AU$35,000 was set to reflect “the scale of the game that we planned to develop at that time.” Pellen mentioned that the team “were contemplating” cutting the amount by $5,000 just “a few days before it went live” to align with how small the game could realistically be.
“That figure was aimed at creating a Metroidvania that was quite compact. It was really intended to be a small endeavor,” Gibson noted, adding that Pellen remarked the game would have been “around two hours or something.”
Nevertheless, Gap Knight ultimately raised approximately $58,000, enabling the team to “expand it significantly,” as per Gibson. “And then, thanks to the funding we received solely from that campaign, we could work for an extended period of two years, which allowed the game to grow even larger.” The team’s varied financial circumstances and some additional funding from the Indie Fund also contributed to their progress.
Developing a game multiple times larger than initially envisioned now seems to have become a hallmark of Team Cherry. Marketing representative Matthew Griffin shared, around 2023, that the sequel Gap Knight Silksong had been postponed from the first half of the year due to its becoming “quite extensive.” We have barely received a glimpse.