It’s pretty hard to believe that it’s been more than 4 years since developer Touch Foo released their Metroidvania-style action platformer Swordigo (Free) to the App Store, but in the crazy world of mobile gaming time flies right before your eyes. While Swordigo has lived a long and happy life as a paid game and seen several freebie sales during that time, its latest update marks a permanent change and strategy for this plucky little platformer. It’s now permanently free to play and supported with ads as well as a couple of new in-app purchase items.

To avid mobile gamers, this all sounds very scary as I think we’ve all experienced a favorite paid game being ruined by going free to play. However, that’s not the case with Swordigo. Anyone who has owned the game previously will automatically own the new coin doubler and ad disabling IAP upon updating. Also, at least one person in our forums has confirmed that this should work even if you don’t already have the game currently installed on your device.

So, our beloved Swordigo should remain mostly the same for us existing owners, save for the new coin doubling feature which is actually a nice bonus. If this whole going permanently free business will get more people to experience the awesome Swordigo, then I’m all for it. We loved it in our review from way back in 2012, and although it’s a bit rough around the edges its actually a wonderfully designed and enjoyable platformer that is full of heart and charm. If you’ve never tried it out there’s really no reason not to check out the new free version of Swordigo right away.