I wonder what makes people do things like this one. To have a potentially great game and just stop working on it. I have read the official statement, but everybody knows that official statements are always a bunch of lies. I'd like to read the guy's mind.
That sounds like a great setting for a roguelike. There was a great roguelike project called Incursion. Very promising. It had a potential for greatness. And it was abandoned. Why? You swear to discover the secret and resurrect it, no matter the means!
Skills:
Programming: Generally useful skill.
Business: Lots of cash might allow you to persuade the dev to continue working, or to release the source.
Mind Control: Understand the reasons for abandoning the work, or force the dev to continue working.
Cracking: An outlawed method of gaining information. At high levels you could even steal the source code.
Combat: Also a generally useful skill.