ISMENE on course for 2027 release on Windows, Mac and Linux

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Sci-fi hand-drawn journey of self-discovery unveiled by the creator of Dagdrøm

What would you do if you were drifting endlessly in a spacecraft, alone with your thoughts, with no real direction or memory of what you've left behind. It's a pretty metaphysical question, but we'll get to find out what one young woman does on such a journey of self-discovery in ISMENE, the upcoming game from solo Norwegian developer Eight Bit Skyline, creator of Dagdrøm.

The game is named after its protagonist, who is "floating through space in BE39, a pineapple yellow explorer class vessel running low on power," her only companion a little round droid that moves like a spinning top. For as long as she can remember she's been alone in space, that "infinite nothing or everything, depending on how you look at it." Her only other memory is of "a sunlit sea, a thunderous boom... a face without features." With no destination and all the time in the world to get there, Ismene spends most of her days "just resting, watching stars and the occasional asteroid floating past her bedroom window" as she ponders "where she is going, and where she came from." Filling the time and finding some meaning to her existence this way "won't be easy. It never is."

Far from the desert world of the developer's previous game, ISMENE takes place entirely on the protagonist's vessel, sending players on a "journey through lost memories and found landscapes." The backgrounds are all hand-drawn and animated in a simple but pleasant art style, and while the protagonist's face appears in close-up portraits, it's completely blank in-game, as befits someone with no real sense of identity. Accompanied by an "expansive ambient soundtrack," the game uses a "modern point-and-click interface" to interact with the environment and engage in dialogue with Ismene's robot friend. There will be some "mildly challenging" puzzles to solve as well, though the focus here is less on inventory collection than on organic logic puzzles that suit the circumstances, such as finding and deciphering secret codes. As players progress, Ismene will find herself increasingly needing to "confront her past" in a sci-fi story promising "some emotional twists and turns" along the way. 

There is no target release date for ISMENE just yet, but a demo is expected to precede the full game's launch on Steam and itch.io sometime in 2027 for Windows, Mac and Linux. In the meantime, you can check out Dagdrøm while you wait, along with the developer's extensive catalogue of freeware games.