1. Merchant of the Skies
  2. News

Merchant of the Skies News

Merchant of the Skies is out!

Hello Merchants!

The day we've been waiting for has finally come! Today we are fully releasing Merchant of the Skies! We haven't published any game updates for the game for quite some time. This is because we were working on a Campaign mode, which contains all previous objectives together with a new ultimate goal. We wanted to deliver the Campaign mode without separating it into pieces, so that our players can have a full experience of the game, as we wanted it to be.



In final version of Merchant of the Skies, you will be able to find out a more about Fieri and its inhabitants. You will come across new islands, events, and creatures as well. During the campaign mode, you will be meeting different characters and helping them out. We have updated some resources and added the new ones. There are also numerous QoL fixes. Overall we have polished the game further and made some balance changes in the gameplay.

Here's the full changelog:

[h2]New Features[/h2]
  • Campaign mode overhaul. Campaign mode now inclues >15 new missions and new characters. The overall length to complete the campaign should now be 6-8 hours.
  • New mechanic: water.
    • Lakes are generated on the map. You can store water on ships (based on your storage size).
    • New building: water tower. Build it on plant-based islands (apples, wheat, spices, tea). You need to bring water to it, with your own ship or with the help of caravans. The water is taken daily. While water tower is there, the island output is increased by 50%
    • (tower level)
  • Improved save backup system creates up to four save file copies (every 15 minutes); should make save file recovery easier if things actually crash
  • Added special object and letter pages to the quest book, mostly used in campaigns
  • Added resource index in the quest book, should help out with figuring out the resource icons
  • Added ambient sounds on some of the islands




[h2]Adjustments:[/h2]
  • Have to actually give water to the Giant Fish now [PLEASE START THE FISH GOD PLAYTHROUGHS ANEW if you were playing this mode, I'm sorry]
  • Can now donate goods at a trade guild (an alternative to requested feature to jettison items from your cargo)
  • Autocharger module now also reduces fuel price by 25%
  • Post office will always give letter delivery tasks (unless you always have one) - should help you out at the early game
  • The central district guilds won't be giving you the quests targeting other districts while you have a small ship
  • Max simultaneous quest amount upped to 4 (from 3)
  • Improved ship purchase window
  • Renamed spices into rainbow flowers
  • Crew / Ship Storage will now reopen automatically if you had them active while you closed the bottom info menu and then reopened it again
  • Slightly altered the trade guild / bazaar sprites
  • Game mode adjustments:
    • campaign mode fully reworked and is based on the plot now
    • lighthouse restoration won't have access to caravans (until lighthouse is actually restored)
    • all other modes get access to caravans right from the start, as it used to be
  • Mansion Builder: changed camera movement a bit (both with gamepad and mouse)
  • Changed storage container tooltip positioning (should not hover outside the screen now)
  • Swapped ship 5 and ship 8 sprites




[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
  • Various translation adjustments / improvements (keep reporting them, thank you!)
  • "Not Visited Yet" panel in island info at map view won't be covered by pending quests anymore
  • Fixed game mode description not fitting in properly in some cases
  • Fixed captain's hat sprite order position
  • Fixed captain's walking coordinates on some island
  • Fixed oven bread production description
  • Taxation display during trading is no longer faded out
  • Fix the bug when produced items did not seem to stack occasionally (on player-owned islands); autosorting goods every day now
  • Fix the bug when lightning catcher / crane would gather _all_ resource points at the map at the same time
  • Fixed flipped brick and gem images


[h2]What's next?[/h2]
We've been testing the game for the last two weeks so there should not be any major bugs, but if something comes up - we are monitoring things live over this weekend and will try to answer all the questions while we are awake. :)

After 8 months of constant updates, the game is finally ready! It has all the content and features that we imagined when we started making it. Thanks to your suggestions we were able to make it even more fun to play. We don't plan any major updates soon. The development has been really intense so we wanted to take some time off the gamedev after the release is done, but we agreed between ourselves that we'll make a bonus "thank you" content update if we hit 25k sales. You can help us reach this goal by spreading the word wherever you can. 😎



A special thank you goes out to our community translators. Without your help we'd never be able to make the game available in multiple languages. To our Early Access adapters: thanks for your support over the course of development, the game is significantly better because of you.

Regardless if you got the game just now or 8 months ago - thanks for playing it. This is what drives us forward.
Best,
Vladimir & Helen

New Gameplay Trailer, one day before the release!

Hey Merchants!

One day is left until Merchant of the Skies is released. To celebrate this, we have published the new Gameplay Trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Expect an extended plot and a vastly improved campaign mode! You are going to encounter new missions and meet some cool new characters. All of this with the ultimate goal to complete one final objective!

The game is going live tomorrow, on April 17, 16:00 GMT. We’ll see you there!

Launch Date Announcement Trailer!

Hey Merchants!

As April draws near, it is time to announce our full release date. Check our the trailer below:

https://youtu.be/g0Nv3UrrLXg

In short, here’s what you can expect on full release:
  • Reworked campaign mode which adds one ultimate objective
  • Apart from the global objectives, you are going to meet new characters with their own tasks for you. Completing them will net handsome rewards and get you closer towards that one final goal
  • A new building that you can build on some of your isles
  • Rebalancing / Bugfixes / UX and Quality of life adjustments


So that’s it. Cat is out of the bag. We are going to launch on April 17th. At that date, we are planning to go all-out. If you want to help with our launch, there are multiple ways you can do it:

  1. Tell your friends about it
  2. Retweet our tweets
  3. Post on reddit (or any social network you like)
  4. and of course, play the game at launch :)


Join our discord https://discordapp.com/invite/013oJVAEt1l3JM1wC to take a closer of the game development and engage with other friendly merchants!

We'll see you in April!

Planned Release Dev Diary #4 & Notice about saves

Hello Merchants! It's time for a new dev diary post!

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind 🎵 there is not enough gigantic creatures in the archipelago? Addressing this serious problem, we've decided to bring one more creature. This time, you will even be able to see it in it’s “small baby” form (it’s a chicken, lol). We are sure that you are going to like the eggs which she will lay!



History and plot keep developing, we have added some interesting information about Griette, and how is she related to Fieri, and you will also be able to find more about Sam. Who is Sam, you might ask. Well you will eventually find that out ;D

[h2]Important notice about saves:[/h2]

We've come to the decision to wipe the campaign saves on release (mid april, not going to happen right away). The finished campaign saves and sandbox saves won't be touched. This is happening because campaign is going to see MAJOR adjustments and additions, so we don't want you to miss them half-way. If you have any concerns or questions regarding this - please drop us an email at contact[at]coldwild[dot]com.

Cheers,
Helen

Planned Release Dev Diary #3

Hello Merchants!
Today I will give you a few glimpses of new stuff we were working on last week.

Throughout early access time, we have received a lot of positive feedback about Majestic Carrot. Because a lot of of you enjoyed its musical minigame, we are going to add some new events where you will be able to use your Duduk once again! (But, please, don't forget about Carrot, it gets really sad if you don’t come to sing together!)



Many of you have already met Griette, in a statue form. We hope you really got her personality. She is going to be one of the key personalities in Fiery history. Expect to See more of Griette in full release!



We are getting a lot of new stuff, you can easily get confused with that. If you will feel it is happening to you, try to reach Wisemen, those pals know a lot of things!

Expect the final release in the mid/late April and stay tuned for new development progress info!
Cheers,
Helen