Silkeste

Celeste's Madeline takes Hornet's place in Hollow Knight: Silksong. She has her real sprites, animations, hair and sounds, and she moves exactly like she does in Celeste. All of it is read from your own copy of Celeste while you play, and nothing from Celeste is included in the download, so you need Celeste installed.

How she plays

• Your attack is your dash. It goes in 8 directions and replaces the needle. Each dash hits an enemy once for a needle hit (one and a half against bosses), with no knockback.
• You can't get hit while dashing. You pass straight through enemies.
• Celeste tech works: supers, hypers, wavedashes, ultras and wall bounces. Jumping out of a dash keeps hitting enemies until you land, so try mixing them.
• Don't spam dash on enemies! Hitting an enemy locks your dash for 0.4 seconds, and her hair turns blue until it's back.
• Dash down onto spikes to bounce off them, and through balloons and bounce flowers to get your dash back.
• Hold down while falling to fast-fall.

Progression

• Cling Grip unlocks grabbing, climbing (with Celeste's stamina) and wall jumps. Before that she still gets a little boost up onto ledges.
• Faydown Cloak unlocks a second dash, and her hair turns pink while she has it.
• Drifter's Cloak lets her glide with Celeste's jellyfish: hold Jump while falling, and ride updrafts up.
• Swift Step makes her dash stronger: dashes go 25% further and the lock after hitting an enemy is 25% shorter.
• Healing (binding), tools, Clawline, Silk Soar and the map all work as usual, so the whole game stays beatable.

Boss cards and golden berries

When a boss falls, Celeste's chapter card slides in with the fight's deaths, time, dashes, hits and heals. Beat a boss on your first try, or later without healing, to earn its golden berry, and the card turns gold. After a death, only a healless win counts. Assist Mode means no berry, and each boss gives one berry across all your saves. While it's still possible, the golden berry sits in the corner of the screen.

Settings (F1)

Press F1 (or hold Taunt on a controller) for Settings, split into four tabs you switch with L1/R1 (or Q/E): Assist (Celeste's Assist Mode: game speed, infinite stamina, extra air dashes, dash assist, invincibility), Appearance, Speedrun and Controls. With a controller, the hints show PlayStation buttons. Settings and Records work with the mouse too.

On Appearance you build your look with a live preview: a skin (Madeline, Badeline, the Knight or Pink Cat), outfit colours, cat ears, the backpack, and her hair: 29 colours per dash, length (Short to Very Long), volume (Thin to Fluffy) and an effect (Rainbow, Light Tips, Dark Tips). Four looks are saved and F2 switches between them.

Records (F5)

Press F5 (or Share / Create on a PlayStation controller): every boss you've beaten with its best run and Hunter's Journal picture, every area's deaths and time, and which golden berries you still need, for this save or all saves. Boss cards count their numbers up and hand out First Try, No Hit and No Heals badges. Entering an area shows Celeste's chapter card.

Achievements

22 achievements in four tiers (Easy, Medium, Hard and Farewell) and five categories, shown as glowing squares in Records. Hover over one or move to it to see how to get it and how far along you are, sort them by difficulty or category, and reset one or all of them if you want to go again. Each unlock gets an animated banner with Celeste's sounds, and getting every other one unlocks The Summit. Achievements count across all your saves; Moss Grotto and Moss Mother don't count for the combat and golden berry ones.

Celeste menus and text boxes

Every menu looks like Celeste's: SILKESTE on the title over a painted Celeste mountain, Options and all its pages, keys shown as Celeste's white pills, the pause menu and the prompts, with Celeste's sounds and smooth transitions. The save files are Celeste's file cards (portrait, area, golden berries, and a ticket with deaths and time) with a Begin menu. Conversations use Celeste's text box: letters hop in, names, important places and rosaries in their own colours, the speaker's name on a tab. Shops and other yes/no questions use a Celeste box too. On the title, Achievements opens your achievements and Extra Settings opens Silkeste's settings.

Tools

Longclaw stretches the dash, Pin Badge and Flea Brew shorten the lock after a hit, Flea Brew and Silkspeed Anklets make her run faster, Sawtooth Circlet makes the jellyfish glide hurt, and Memory Crystal leaves a crystal Madeline behind.

Silk skills and Theo's camera

Silk skills get a Celeste move on top: Thread Storm gives every dash back, Sharpdart is a long piercing dash, and Rune Rage launches her like Celeste's red booster. F6 (or L3) takes a HUD-free photo into Pictures/Silkeste, and every boss you beat gets its own photo with the boss card.

Celeste touches

• The dash freezes the game for a split second, with Celeste's screen shake and slash.
• Footsteps and wall sounds change with the ground, and dust kicks up as you move.
• When you die you get Celeste's death burst and screen wipe, and she respawns the Celeste way.
• Benches work like campfires: she dozes off, then wakes up and stands when you leave.
• Healing turns her into Celeste's glowing gold feather star.
• Stand still and she does Celeste's idle animations; she sits down to play the Needolin.
• In cutscenes she acts out Hornet's moments with Celeste animations.
• When Hornet speaks in conversations, you hear Madeline's Celeste voice, and Hornet's hurt cries are gone.
• Celeste's skull death counter is kept for each save file, and F3 shows Celeste's speedrun timer.

Controls

A controller is recommended. The first time you play, Silkeste sets these controls once; rebind them afterwards as you like.

• Controller: R1 dash, R2 grab and climb, Cross jump, Square tools, Circle heal, Triangle Needolin, L2 Clawline.
• Keyboard: left mouse dash, Shift grab and climb, Space jump, WASD move, right mouse tools, E heal, F Needolin, Q Clawline.
• F1 Settings, F2 next look, F3 speedrun timer, F4 Tutorial, F5 Records (or Share / Create), F6 camera. All can be changed under Controls in Settings.

A Tutorial postcard shows once per save, and another postcard explains each unlock when you get it.

Solo only. Have fun!

Celeste, Madeline and Badeline belong to Maddy Makes Games (Extremely OK Games). Hollow Knight: Silksong and the Knight belong to Team Cherry. Made by Twifty, MIT license, remixes welcome.