I said "Up to a year" in early access text. It ended up being 2 years and exactly 1 day. The whole thing worth separate Expectations VS Reality post with the whole Early access disclaimer that I wrote back in early 2024, but now, let's just celebrate the full release.
The game can be completed now
Even tho all achievements are still achievable during first 40-ish minutes of the game, there is a way to reach the full completion for the most devoted players and I know there were a lot already. You, guys, zone out on the game pretty heavily so I decided that you deserve the true completion just like the game. It's not like "reach bazilion of souls and get good job sign", game is reworked heavily on prestige side and almost all new systems are entwined into the ending, more in changelog
Boris
That was the most asked feature by everyone and it was gap I know I had long ago. We had woodcutting companion but didn't have the mining one. Now we finally have it. His name is Boris. He's a ram (a desert bighorn to be precisely) that lives in the sandstone desert, follows you across the stone areas, jumps around instead of flying when see obstacles, breaks rocks with his head and loves salt. Hope you'll get along
What's new in 1.0
Boris - obviously. The mining companion. Mechanically it's the same as woodpecker, has it's own home, levels up with damage scaling
Starting areas levels - now in prestige world we have blue variants of the usual world with the whole rocks and trees. You can level up starting levels and unlock permanently bridges and ladders for future runs
Starting levels of upgrades - familiar dens, skill workbencehs, fireplace itself. All these things now have upgradable starting levels. You can start each run with a pickaxe and axe and strong stamina at the end which will make things much easier.
Crit skill - I heard that a lot of people didn't even see the aoe skill because it requires too long combo. Now we have another skill that requires much lower combo count and just gives you stronger hit occasionally. All of it's attributes are upgradable with souls just like aoe blast skill. And yes, you can trigger them both simultaneously if the numbers match
Running and walking speed - that was the long planned feature, now you can upgrade both walking and running speed. And the only stamina upgrade that can be bought with souls - running stamina discount. Up to free run at the max level
Completion - I won't spoil it for you. Nothing big, but I have a little present for you at the end
It's free, and it's staying free
I started to do Skillwood as another hobby project game, and to be honest I considered to do it either pay to play or pay-for-cosmetic-dlc kind of monetization. But plans often age badly. So I decided let it be just our free place to return to occasionally with the only person who ever paid for it is me paying for $100 slot. I might do pay to play games later, but I decided to stick to the free on Skillwood. Enjoy, guys
Thank you
To tentacledm, deyyann, and Dekster - thank you for trying the release candidate and helping me get it right before launch. You caught a nasty bug before it could reach anyone, and the release is cleaner for it And to everyone who left a review, reported a bug, suggested a feature, or just kept asking if the game was still alive over these two years: you're the reason it got finished. Some of you are named in the credits. All of you mattered.
What's next
To be honest the reason why the game is completed is not because I returned to it. It's because I've started another one AND I decided to finish the unfinished one. So, my next game is Soulstack. It's different from Skillwood both genre and visual. Yet it shared the same incremental-ish DNA I keep putting in my every game whenever it's reasonable or not.
I might tell a bit more later. As for today - let's celebrate the deserved finish of the Skillwood in it's full release. Thank you for being with me. Let's call this one done.