Hello everyone! I’m back with another update for Shadows of Thornkeep!

Version 0.7 is now live, and I have to say development of this one was pretty wild. Priorities shifted middevelopment while I was playtesting the new Highlands biome. I hope you will be as excited about this unexpected addition as I am.

The biggest addition in this update is the introduction of an open world.

While playtesting with a fresh party and running through the beginner tutorial, I kept thinking:
“Why can’t I just walk out of the camp and explore the world on my own?”
Randomized expeditions are cool — but what if the island itself could be explored freely, uncovering its mysteries step by step?

That’s how it started. The idea grew to the point where I had to abandon most of the originally planned 0.7 features and focus entirely on building this system instead.

My focus had been on developing endgame content. However, Steam statistics show that only a fraction of players reach that stage. The game clearly needed something stronger for the early experience - something that captures attention and teaches the basics naturally.

The open world begins almost like an extended tutorial and should be easy to get into. After the first real boss fight, difficulty ramps up, and players will still need to run expeditions to gear up and progress further.

Is it possible to progress without expeditions? Yes it is, but it would require unnecessary grind. The expedition system still plays an important role in progression and there is no reason to avoid it completely, even you can if you really want to.

• The central teleporter pad now serves as a waypoint map for the open world.
  When approached, the world map opens and allows you to select discovered waypoints. Waypoints work both ways — you can teleport back to camp from the world as well.

• Expeditions have been moved to the Stagecoach NPC.
  Just a few tiles west of the teleporter stands an old, spooky stagecoach that allows you to embark on expeditions (randomized dungeons with set material rewards). Expeditions remain the primary source of materials for camp upgrades.

Yes — you wanted it, I resisted, but it’s finally here:

• Skip Turn button (no hotkey yet, coming next update).

• The Flee/Exit Expedition button has been duplicated, resized and moved to a more visible position.

• The Tutorial Book remains functional as before (detecting common issues and suggesting solutions), but it will eventually be replaced with a proper ingame manual/encyclopedia.

• Heroes in direct contact with enemies now display an animated crossed swords icon above their portraits.

I spent nearly two weeks working on the monster sprites for the Highlands biome, and I believe it represents a significant step up in visual quality.

Going forward, older monster sprites will gradually be retouched to match this new standard. I’ve already begun updating base Thicket enemies like the Gardener Demon and Skeleton Bandit you should notice improved animation and consistency.

Rather than reworking everything at once, expect sprite improvements to roll out gradually with future updates.

Part of the improvement comes from my own growth as a pixel artist. When I started Thornkeep, most of my experience was with 32x32 sprites (as seen in Dreadborne Drifters and Blasted Road Terror). Moving to 128x128 sprites was a major step up, and the progression is visible in-game.

Over time, I refined my workflow(for example base for Squidman was me posing in front of camera wearing poncho and welding glasses) and began experimenting with tools that allow 2D sprites to be rigged similarly to 3D models. While these tools are far from perfect (and arent really designed for pixel art), they provide a useful base outline that i can work with. I still manually refine every frame, but this process saves time and helps maintain consistency.

Update 0.7.5 will focus on consolidating features originally planned for 0.7 that were postponed due to the open world addition.

I expect to catch up on those within 2–3 weeks. After that, development will move toward version 0.8.

Thank you for taking the time to read this rather long update. I hope you enjoy the new content!

With regards,
Tryzna