In Ecosphere, a forthcoming visual novel with a projected release of early 2027, the player takes the role of Arane Kross, a girl born into a society where people have an affinity with one of nature’s four basic elements, blessing them with an ability related to their gifted element.  Arane, however, was born without any such affinity, marking her out as somewhat inferior.

To even out this misfortune, she has followed in her late father’s footsteps and developed a talent for  engineering, showing a proficiency for creating machines which can mimic or replicate abilities enjoyed naturally by those with an affinity.

We join this demo – which is available for free download on Steam now – with Arane crashing her newest, and as yet imperfect invention, a flying machine, in her home village, on her twentieth birthday:  the day she is expected to inherit the Ecosphere, a small orb which can bestow the ability to control nature itself.

Upon reaching this milestone birthday, Arane will be expected to do her civic duty by joining the Green League, an organisation responsible for protecting the balance of nature.. something she does not want to do, her invention of a flying machine demonstrating her desire to be able to get away from her village and escape the confines of a life planned for her, serving those with an affinity.

However, her position as the daughter of the master engineer, and rightful heir to his greatest creation, the Ecosphere, single out Arane as a person of great interest to more than just the “nature police” – those with nefarious intentions covet the power of this item and will not be easily denied the chance to kidnap Arane and use her as a means to access the hidden laboratory housing the Ecosphere for themselves!

Visually, Ecosphere is very attractive, boasting predominantly soft focus backdrops with sharp and detailed sprites drawn in a unique cartoon style, bringing them into the foreground so that they stand out.

The graphics were the first thing to catch my eye when I came across the game’s Steam store page, and even in this demo there is enough variety to raise expectations of a feast to come.  Not every backdrop is without finer detail, as is clearly demonstrated by this seaborne shot:

Whilst the game is a visual novel, it does have some additional gameplay features, including “quick time events” where you must react quickly to an event  – when these occur, options will be on screen inside translucent boxes placed somewhere on screen – by finding them with your (attractively redesigned) cursor and clicking the best one before the time runs out, you can aid Arane’s efforts to deal with the challenge – else lead her into a less desirable outcome.

In addition to the above, there is also a point & click element currently present, whereby the player clicks on a clearly signed item on screen and slides it over to a place in the background in order to use it.  At time of writing, this element is completely guided, there is no hopeful clicking or searching around to find where to apply the item clicked.  It remains to be seen if this aspect of gameplay will be expanded upon to add some challenge.

There are some choices within the demo, at this stage they appear to be only for narrative colour, although it follows that they will be much more impactful come the final game.  For those looking for romance within the story, we meet a couple of characters – one male, one female – who both appear to be likely prospects in future; and it’s worth noting that Steam’s store page quotes four potential love interests being available in the full game, and that taking one of them up is not essential to progress, and will have repercussions if you decide not to play it straight romantically!

There is some expressive voicing present, such as laughing and anger, but no words.  Sound effects are good and the supporting music is vibrant, and volume controls are one of all of the usual options that you would expect to find in any good visual novel.  That said, I did find that – although marked as present – the rollback/forward and skip controls were not functional when I played through.  I tried this on both my laptop trackpad and with a mouse plugged in.  The history log, however, is in place, appears instantly, and is good.

Overall, I had about 90 minutes game time on a single run through this demo, taking my time.  You can reasonably expect a full hour if you race through it quickly.  I found Arane to be an easily supportable MC with a clearly defined personality of her own and enjoyed my first visit to this fantasy realm.  Textwise, I did find the very occasional light dip in English fluency, though nothing to be concerned about.

I had spotted and followed progress of this game long before a demo became available, and having now played through, I am happy to report that it has reinforced my original decision to keep tabs on progress.  The demo offers a promising early taste, and I look forward to seeing the full game when it is ready.  For the attractive price of FREE, you are not going to do yourself a disservice checking Ecosphere out.

If you are reading this review before “Fri, June 20 2025 7:30 PM EDT” then the developers are currently running a Kickstarter to fund their game! If you are interested in supporting them and bringing the game to life, you can go and check out the Kickstarter page.

Disclaimer: Be aware of the risks that can come with backing a Kickstarter! Crowdfunding can be an amazing way to support creators and bring their projects to life. And while most do, just know that on occasion things do go wrong. So if you know the risks, please do support the developers of indie games!