Community Newsletter December 5th, 2025

 
 
 

Progress

  • We’ve been making great progress on the Training Dummy bond activity! At the moment, the exercise for increasing a Kinfolk’s Speed stat is the most complete. While there are still plenty of details to perfect, we’re excited to have a more complete experience for the first of these Training Dummy mini-games.

  • We're enjoying how this mini-game works for the Speed stat so far, but we’re still in the earlier phases for some of the other stats. For example, we’re currently planning a mini-game where a Kinfolk needs to successfully dodge attacks to train Special Defense, and successfully shield from attacks to train Physical Defense. We’d love to hear your ideas for mini-games that would be fun and thematic for training Health!

  • We’re giving Prophect a bit more polish, and then we’ll be adding them to the Beta Combat Arena! Here are our main goals:

    • Smooth out the transitions between attack animations and non-attack animations. At the moment there’s a disconnect between the timing and motions for a few of Prophect’s attack animations.

    • Add a few more abilities to the move pool and improve VFX for a handful of existing abilities.

    • One of Prophect’s current attacks needs to be removed for now, because we’re saving it for a special moment in the story when a different character uses it. That being said, every ability in the Monster Taming Direct trailer will be a part of their move pool in the Beta Combat Arena!

    • We expect to be finished updating Prophect within the next few weeks and are so excited for players to have a new Kinfolk to play!

  • We’ve added a few more held items to the game! These include:

    • Insurance Policy: If the holder is hit by an attack that stuns them, the holder's Physical Attack and Special attack are raised by 2 stages. Only activates once per battle.

    • Crystal Ball: Perfectly dodging an attack significantly reduces the user's cooldowns.

    • Energizer Ring: The holder's Stamina regenerates 1.25x as quickly.

  • We’re excited to share that we recently welcomed a new software developer to the team! Initially most of their time will be spent coming up to speed on the project, but once they’re familiar with the ins and outs, we expect this will have a big impact on our current pace of development.

Community

In case you don't know, we post weekly on Bluesky! Here's what we've posted in the last month:

Tadalon’s Important Question: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m5i2x4cuis2l

Happy Thanksgiving: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m6lmzpxuts2k

Awburn Cold Weather: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m7536ijuok2l

LEXICON

The full lexicon can be found here.

  • VFX: Visual effects. Kinfolk attacks, dust clouds, water splashes are all examples of VFX.

 
 

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll see you in the new year and hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Community Newsletter November 7th, 2025

 
 
 

We’ve had some very exciting developments recently behind the scenes. While we're not allowed to share details publicly yet, what we can say is that our studio now has a much more stable and reliable foundation for the next couple of years.

This doesn’t mean we’re suddenly fully funded, or that we have a publishing partner, but it does mean we can breathe easier, plan further ahead, and keep pushing the game forward with renewed confidence. It’s a huge moment for us, and we couldn’t have reached it without your continued support for Kindred Fates and belief in what we’re building.

We can’t wait for the day when we can tell you more, but for now, know that the future looks brighter than ever.

Progress

  • We’re very excited to share that we’re currently implementing one of our bond mechanics: The Training Dummy!

    • Using this in camp will allow you to train your Kinfolk with different mini-games for each stat. The more you succeed at each mini-game, the more the associated stat increases.

    • Each time you train, your bond with the Kinfolk using the training dummy will increase regardless of how the training itself goes.

    • The core functionality is complete for interacting with the dummies in the mini-games, and we’re currently working on the UI for the mini-game scoring system as well as logic for starting and finishing the training. We also have some plans for how we’d like to update the appearance of the training dummy.

    • This video shows an early demo of the dummy interacting with attacks and spawning/despawning in different locations for the mini-games. We’d love to hear your feedback and ideas!



  • As mentioned last month, we’ve added more held items to the game! These include:

    • Echo Ring: The holder's Physical Attacks have 1.5x damage but they may only use the first attack they select.

    • Eerie Medallion: The user's attacks deal 1.3x damage but the user takes damage equal to 5% of their max health whenever they deal damage.

      • This item will be found in a unique area toward the end of the game’s story.

    • Evil Hourglass: Status Effects inflicted by the user last twice as long.

    • Lucky Clover: The holder has 1.25x as many I Frames while dodging.

      • An NPC will give this item as a gift after a major accomplishment.

    • Training Weights: While holding this item, the user's movement speed is significantly reduced. The longer this item is held in combat, the greater the user’s Physical Attack power will rise once it is removed.

Community

In case you don't know, we post weekly on Bluesky! Here's what we've posted in the last month:

Closeup On A Brihorn Animation: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m2q2uduimc2s

Have You Spotted This Rare Animation?: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m3c33rxz722a

Tadalon Drowning: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m3tiac7rdc2c

WIP Character Animation: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m4erzhx33c2d

Happy Halloween: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m4juveolqc27

Winter Weather GIF: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m4wra5oep22d


LEXICON

The full lexicon can be found here.

  • Logic: The programming side of any feature. For example, “cooking logic” would be the base level programming for the cooking mechanic.

  • UI: User Interface. The layout of information on the screen, including menus, health bars, etc.

 
 

Thanks for stopping by and for your patience as we took an extra day putting this newsletter together! We’ll see you for our next one on December 5th!

Community Newsletter October 3rd, 2025

 
 
 

This past month looked a little different for Skymill Studios. A big deadline at our second jobs meant less time than usual for Kindred Fates, but this isn’t what you should expect to see month to month and won’t be a frequent occurrence. Even so, we’re excited to share the progress we made on Kindred Fates and give it a closer look than we typically would!

Progress

  • Last month we consolidated the code for held items, consumables, cooking, and powerups in Ether Run. This makes it easier to mix and match effects and status conditions to make items in the editor. One of our first points of focus was migrating all of our old items and food to this new system.

  • As we reviewed these items, we noticed that their effects had become increasingly unique over time. Because of this, we made a new system for organizing these effects and made sure they all meshed seamlessly with the existing processes in other parts of the game that need to access held items and their effects.

  • We added some new items to the game that have been planned for a very long time but until this month only existed as concepts! These include:

    • Security Blanket: Raises the user’s Physical and Special Defense stats by 1.35x and makes them immune to Fear effects, as long as the Kinfolk holding it can still evolve.

      • This item doesn’t raise the holder’s stat by several stages; rather, it literally multiplies whatever their current defense stats are by 1.35. A player can hold this item and buff themself further with stage changes. We plan on having an NPC give this item as a gift at the end of a side mission.

    • Vampire Fang: The holder gains 1.3x health from any ability that transfers health from one character to another.

      • We plan on this being found as a pickup item somewhere in our Sanguine Forest environment.

    • Memento: The user retains their stat changes for 50% longer.

      • This item is something of a double-edged sword. While your buffs last longer, any debuffs that affect you will last longer as well. Memento will likely be found as a pickup item in the mountainous Omenoks region.

    • Steel Bracer: The user is immune to staggering and stunning effects.

      • This item’s effect is pretty straightforward. While any Kinfolk would certainly benefit from its effect, it can be especially useful in the hands of Kinfolk like Mechid who are already immune to having their stats changed by their opponents.

    • Spiked Collar: If the holder is hit by at least three melee attacks in quick succession, the attacker loses a significant fraction of their Maximum Health.

      • We’re still playing with the percentage on this one, but expect it to be a little larger than Poison or Burn damage, but still comparable.

  • We plan to continue adding new items like this for the next month, so we look forward to sharing more in our next newsletter. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your ideas for other items you think would be fun to have added to the game!

  • We’re starting to spin up art for some character models and animations. Most recently we made adjustments to Bright_Horn’s eyes to give them more depth when viewed from different angles. We’ve also mapped most of the expressions from their animation reference sheet onto the model so they can show different emotions, and started working on their idle and idle rare animations!

  • One last thing we’d like to share with you this month is a concept art piece for a Grand Chime. You may recognize it from the Grand Chime arena in the Combat Arena Beta. During your journey, you’ll find these massive structures dotting the horizon and towering over the landscape. As as summoner you can attune with these chimes to strengthen your abilities as a summoner, granting you boons and allowing you to bond with more powerful Kinfolk.

Community

In case you don't know, we post weekly on Bluesky! Here's what we've posted since our last newsletter:

Kainite Wallpaper: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3lz3jvz32722y

Nighttime Trio: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3lzofrc3adc2x

Spooky Screenshots: https://bsky.app/profile/skymillstudios.bsky.social/post/3m26h2y4d7s2b

LEXICON

The full lexicon can be found here.

  • Editor: (aka Unity Editor) The program developers use to make changes to the game. Developers can test their work here before their changes are added to a build.

  • Ether Run: The new wave survival mode included in the Combat Arena Beta.

  • NPC: A non-player character.

  • Overworld: The playable area in the open world exploration part of the game.

  • Summoner: The people in Hinterlock who can summon Kinfolk.

 
 

Thanks for stopping by! We’ll see you for our next newsletter on November 7th!