They say that you should never judge a book by its cover, and that’s certainly the case for Skillwood, a free new game.
This “relaxing woodcutter simulator” recently landed on PC storefront Steam and looks exceptionally simple.
That’s because it is. There isn’t a whole lot to what Skillwood has to offer and yet, it’s garnered a 100% rating from players for its unexpectedly relaxing gameplay loop.
Developed by sshulin, Skillwood is “inspired by survival simulators and incremental games”.
You simply cycle through the actions of chopping wood, mining stone, and trading with NPCs. The better off you are, the more you can upgrade your forest and tools.
The only challenging element of the game, if you can even call it that, is maintaining enough stamina to get the job done.
By all accounts, you can upgrade your fireplace to increase the playable character’s maximum stamina plus there are berries dotted around Skillwood’s world for a quick boost.
There’s some light exploration involved, with players needing to build bridges and ladders to access new areas.
Unearthing new areas will broaden the types of trees and rocks you can chop and mine.
Quite a number of highly-rated free experiences have recently landed on Steam:
- Steam Beloved 92% Rated RPG Releases Free Sample Of Huge New DLC
- Hogwarts Legacy And Pokémon Collide In Cosy 8/10 New Open-World Game
That’s essentially all there is to the very simple Skillwood but it has really resonated quite strongly with players.
“An Entertaining Way To Zone Out And Relax”
Correct at the time of writing, Skillwood boasts a perfect score of 100%, although it’s usually only a matter of time before someone disrupts a score like that.
“Why would I spend 60-plus hours in this game? Because, sometimes simple monotonous actions are an entertaining way to zone out and relax,” wrote one player.
“This is a mind-numbing grind simulator that a zombie could play. It’s awesome,” another user began. “You chop and mine resources so that you can upgrade your campfire to get more stamina to chop and mine more so you can unlock more areas with more resources to chop and mine, you unlock traders to convert lower-tier to higher-tier resources, and you also level up your chopping and mining skills so you can … chop and mine more.”
They continued, “After some time you get to unlock permanent upgrades for new playthroughs with more efficient chopping and mining. Keeps you busy without demanding anything. Chop chop chop.”
Another stated, “A fun way to spend a couple of hours. Chop, chop, smash, smash, upgrade, upgrade. Rinse and repeat. The game has the potential to suck you in for many hours, depending on how hardcore you are.”
Certainly, this type of gameplay loop won’t appeal to everyone but if you are looking for a quick way to relax and unwind, it sounds as if Skillwood could be for you.
It should be easy to pick up and, best of all, the game is completely free-to-play at this stage.
“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 monetisation,” explained the developer on Steam.
“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.”
While Skillwood is an open-ended game, you can secure all of the title’s achievements within around 40 minutes of playing if you are an avid achievement hunter.
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