Looking Back…
A year ago today, we saw the beginning of our community! In lieu of our typical newsletter, we wanted to take this time to look back on the beginning of Kindred Fates and the wonderful community that has grown from it. Along the way, we’ve shared some incredible moments and milestones that make us immensely proud of what this community has become.
November 16, 2018
Alex created the very first images of monsters that would eventually make it into Kindred Fates! Fun fact: these creatures were originally created for a home brew tabletop game that Rob wanted to create based on Pokemon. At the time, it was only intended to be shared among a group of FIVE people!
Early March, 2019
Rob and Andrew began the programming exercise that turned into Kindred Fates. The original goal was to teach Andrew enough programming that he could start a job. As they planned it out, they realized what they had: something the monster-battling community has wanted for years.
April 4, 2019
Skymill Studios was officially founded!
April 9, 2019
50 Shades of Heliolisk finished the first official concept art of Awburn! We were so excited about this first monster design, and felt that we were definitely starting on the right foot.
July 3, 2019
The big day!! We showed our first trailer and opened up our community on Discord, Twitter, and Reddit! Why did we do it when we did? Quoth the Rob:
Originally we had planned on waiting to reveal the game until we had enough ready for a gameplay trailer, but as the outrage surrounding Sword and Shield started to pick up, we saw more than ever that people wanted a true open world monster battling RPG. We wanted to let you guys know we were hearing you, and that we were building it. We put everything we had been developing at the time on hold, and focused on building what we needed for a short teaser. Now monster battling fans have something to look forward to, you guys can tell us what you want to see, and we can go back to developing what everyone cares about most. The monsters, the combat, and the world.
September 9, 2019
The first ARG! We had so much fun watching everybody hard at work to figure out all of the challenges. After 3 days of impressive teamwork, the final prize was the community’s first look at Kainite.
September 25, 2019
We announced the beginning of our first art challenge: Draw Awburn In Your Style! We received 8 adorable entries and decided that they were all our favorite!
October 31, 2019
We had our second ARG, this time solved in just a day! The final prize was a sneak peek at Mechid!
November 17, 2019
We released our environment trailer announcing that our Kickstarter would be in January 2020. It felt amazing to finally be able to show you all the new things we’d been hard at work on.
December 21, 2019
RuffledRowlit posted his first video about Kindred Fates! This was the first time a well-known member of the monster-battling community spread the word about Kindred Fates, and it had a huge impact on our community. We welcomed many new members after this video was posted.
December 22, 2019
The Discord server reached 800 members! All were given the role of founder.
December 28, 2019
Kingsizehomer made his first video covering Kindred Fates. The Skymill team has always been a fan of these news recap videos.
December 31, 2019
To celebrate hitting 1,000 members in our Discord, I’m excited to finally share with you one of the most anticipated features of our game! Here’s a taste of combat in Kindred Fates. There’s a lot more where this came from…
January 1, 2020
We began our second art challenge: Complete the Light Stag’s evolution tree! We were genuinely impressed by the creativity we saw. You can view our favorites on Instagram!
January 21, 2020
We had our 3rd ARG, which was completed in just one day! With the discord’s new numbers, it was easy for everybody to divide and conquer. The final prize this time was a first look at the capture mechanic!
January 26, 2020
The Kindred Fates Wiki page went live! We’ve loved working with the wiki team
January 28, 2020
Another big day! This was the beginning of our Kickstarter! We kicked it off with a special twitch stream that featured the first Final Hope Message video, followed by the official Kickstarter trailer. The excitement in our community this day was like nothing we’d seen before (at that point, anyway!). Today was also the day that Gym Leader Ed posted his first video about Kindred Fates!
February 2, 2020
We reached our starting Kickstarter Goal! The discord was full of celebration with the Skymill team. As you’ve probably heard from us a million times by now, we were genuinely blown away by all of your support. There were a lot of times in this timeline when we went “wow, this is real now,” but this was probably the moment that inspired that sensation the most profoundly. At this point, we knew with certainty that we were going to make this game a reality. We couldn’t have done that without you, and you will always have our gratitude.
February 7, 2020
More big names in the monster-battling community began spreading the word today! aDrive and Verlisify both posted their first videos about Kindred Fates.
February 11, 2020
The first kinfolk made by a community member is announced for the game: Charlieon and Bienie’s Deer Dog! This design really captured our team’s imagination, and we think it’ll be a fantastic fit in the Kindred Fates roster.
February 27, 2020
The Kickstarter ended with over 11,000 backers! Our team was overwhelmed to see our community grow so much in such a short time. To celebrate, we released the second part of the Final Hope Message!
March 14, 2020
We had our first Kindred Talks, where the community got to hear the devs talk about the game for the first time. We were very anxious and excited to get to connect with our community in a new way, and had a fantastic time talking to Charlieon and Crank for the first time!
March 20, 2020
We announced the winner of the cat kinfolk contest! The community’s response to the contest was overwhelming- With over 300 entries, it was an incredibly difficult decision and we spent weeks agonizing over it. In the end, we welcomed Meyuu’s Nyazen to our roster!
March 28, 2020
In the face of all the difficulties (and free time) the world was facing, we decided we wanted to give our community a fun, casual stream to help unwind. Thus, Chill With The Devs was born! Rob, Andrew, Tori, and Evan played a variety of Jackbox games and had a great time hanging out with you guys. (Unfortunately, the video recording of this event has been lost. Sorry about that!)
April 1, 2020
We had a bit of fun “releasing” our “new game,” Krindid Faytz, as a small April Fool’s goof (no hard feelings, right?). At the community’s urging, Andrew also hosted a stream of himself reading the Pied Piper.
April 11, 2020
We invited Meyuu and Kayla, our 3D set piece modeler, to discuss their involvement in Kindred Fates for our second round of Kindred Talks! During this talk, Meyuu revealed some new art of Nyazen, including their Phantom form.
April 17, 2020
Crank hosted the first of many streams on The Faters Twitch Channel. It has been a treat for us to see the community grow in this way!
May 10, 2020
We announced the winner of the music contest! Once again, you guys impressed us immensely with your creativity and passion. To this day, members of the team include some of these songs in their work playlists.
May 15, 2020
We had our second Chill With The Devs stream, where Alex joined the original four! Once again, we had a lot of fun playing Jackbox games for the community’s entertainment.
May 27, 2020
Gym Leader Ed posted the Extended Kickstarter Trailer! This was posted as a special tribute to the Kindred Fates community.
May 29, 2020
Gym Leader Ed joined us for Kindred Talks 3! We had a great time discussing his videos and experiences in the monster-battling community!
June 13, 2020
Chill with the Devs 3 took a different approach than the previous two- the Skymill devs had a battle against the Discord mods while playing ARK!
June 26, 2020
We brought John and Sheila out of their development dungeon to talk about the coding of Kindred Fates for Kindred Talks 4!
Future…
We still have a long road ahead of us, and we’re excited to see what it brings! There’s so much we’re looking forward to sharing with you all, so stay tuned for more.
Beyond all of this, we’ve seen your amazing fan art, your kind words, and shared countless funny moments together. We wouldn’t be where we are today without your support. Thank you all so much for being here for this. We can’t wait to play Kindred Fates with you all later this year.
Love,
The Skymill Studios Team
