Solo developer SmallIndieDev has opened the Steam page for Palimpsest: Where Magic Remembers, a third-person action-adventure where spells are learned by reliving the past. It is in pre-alpha, with release planned for Q1 2027 and no price yet.
Palimpsest has no experience points. That is the central claim of a Steam page that has just gone public, and it is the reason to pay attention to a game still at pre-alpha and being built by one person in Godot Engine.
Instead of levelling up, the player learns from places. The game calls them Imprints, described on the store page as “the fingerprint great magic leaves behind”. Touch one and, according to the developer, the world washes into ink and paper while an old event replays around you. When the memory ends, the spell is yours. A palimpsest is a manuscript scraped and written over with the older text still showing through, so the title is doing real work.
A Sky-World Called Ysmere
The setting is Ysmere, a scatter of islands above an endless sea of cloud, lit by a ringed planet that hangs at eternal dusk. Children are taught to bow to it. Above them sit the Gilded Seven, seven kings said to have ruled for nine hundred years.
You play Aren, who wakes among flowers on a forgotten island with no memory and an ability nobody else has. Aren can feel the magic left in old places and step inside it. Aren’s missing memory ties neatly into the mechanic, since a character with no past of their own learns through other people’s.
The developer describes the look as hand-painted and painterly, and the teaser excerpt of floating islands and ruins bears that out.
Hollows, Then Kin
The developer’s pitch email talks about befriending strange beasts. The store page is more pointed. Masked creatures called Hollows roam the wild, towns keep lamps burning against them, and they lunge at anyone whose hands glow with magic. The tagline promises you will “befriend the fantastic beasts you are forced to fight”, which suggests the fight comes first and the friendship after. Some of the creatures you face may turn out to be more than enemies, and the world holds far more of them than the Kin you can bring along.
Twelve companions, called Kin, can be found. Three are described. The Lanternhart is ridden at a gallop, the Helixhorn walks up walls, and another lets you swim up waterfalls into a sea that hangs over a place called Tidemere. That explains the upward waterfalls in the pitch. Some Kin fly, which the page presents as turning the sky into another road.
The cloud sea gets a short section of its own under the line “The clouds are open”, with fights against “drained skyrays” between islands, leaps from one great beast to another, and duels where the cloud sea falls away.
What Is Still Open
Only a few details, which is normal at this stage. The Steam page gives a planned release of Q1 2027, which is a target rather than a date, and there is no price yet. It is coming to Steam on Windows, Mac and Linux. Console versions may follow in the future, but there is no information on them yet. The copy promises “a deep story” and a choice about “the future of magic”, and the developer confirms several endings and alternate scenes, though not how the choices lead to them.
SmallIndieDev has kept the scope deliberately focused. According to the developer, everything shown on the Steam page is already at least half built. The main story runs 4 to 6 hours for players who rush, and around 10 to 15 for most once exploration, optional content and time spent petting companions are counted. For a solo project that is a well-judged size, and it leaves room for the ideas above to get the attention they deserve.
Why It Is Worth Watching
Plenty of games let you ride monsters. Fewer try to make the way you gain power say something about the world. Tying every spell to a specific place and a specific memory gives exploration a purpose beyond collectibles, and the ink-and-paper replay is a strong visual idea. The pre-alpha teaser already shows off the floating islands and ruins, and we look forward to seeing more. A wishlist costs nothing and is the simplest way to hear whether that Q1 2027 target holds.
The Facts
| Field | Detail |
| Developer | SmallIndieDev (solo developer) |
| Genre | Single-player, third-person action-adventure, made in Godot Engine |
| Status | Pre-alpha, Steam page public |
| Released | Planned for Q1 2027 (Steam page) |
| Price | Not announced |
| Platforms | Windows, Mac, Linux (Steam); consoles possibly in future, no details yet |
| Length | Main story 4 to 6 hours rushed, 10 to 15 typical (developer’s estimate); multiple endings |
| Steam app ID | 5388280 |
