Aurvane is a hand-painted exploration adventure about a lantern-bearer crossing a sky of broken, drifting islands. The sun has sunk beneath the clouds, and the last light fits in one lantern. Read the wind, climb ruined towers and decide where to spend it. Coming to PC and Mac in 2027.

Aurvane is a hand-painted exploration adventure from Kilnwhistle, a five-person studio in Porto. The sun has sunk beneath the clouds, and the last light in the world fits in a single lantern. Players carry it across an archipelago of floating islands that drift with the wind.

There is no combat and no map that stays true for long. Islands that drift apart in the morning may meet again by night, so the same place can be reached a dozen different ways. Every crossing is a route to read and a risk to take: light opens paths and wakes old machines, but every use of it brings the dark a little closer. The story is told without words, through ruins, music and the few strangers who still live on the islands.

Aurvane comes to Windows, macOS and Steam Deck in 2027, with a free demo of the whole first chapter planned for spring 2027.

Aurvane is a hand-painted exploration adventure about a lantern-bearer crossing a sky of broken, drifting islands. It is the first game by Kilnwhistle, an independent studio of five people working from a shared attic in Porto, Portugal. It comes to Windows, macOS and Steam Deck in 2027.

The world of Aurvane has lost its sun. It sank beneath the clouds long ago, and what light is left fits in a single lantern. Wren, a courier from the lowest island, is sent up with it because nobody else would go. Above the cloud line lies an archipelago of hundreds of islands that drift, collide and drift apart again. The sky over them is cracked like glass, and pieces of it fall.

The core of the game is the crossing. Islands move with the wind, so a route that worked an hour ago may not exist now. Players read the currents, wait for the right gust, throw a rope, climb a ruined tower for a better view and decide when to jump. There is no combat. The danger is the fall, the dark and the Hollow Tide: a creature of water and glass that follows any open flame.

The lantern is both the tool and the clock. Its light opens sealed doors, wakes the machines the old island folk left behind and keeps the dark at a distance. Spending it is always a choice. The radius of light shrinks as the lantern fades, colour drains from the edges of the screen and distant sounds go quiet first, so players feel the light running low before any number could tell them.

Wren does not travel completely alone. Bram Orle, an old cartographer who has mapped the archipelago for forty years and trusts none of the maps, sends his clockwork bird Pip ahead to find the wind. The few people still living on the islands do not speak much, and the game does not either. There are no cutscenes and no walls of text. The history of the islands is told through ruins, objects, music and what the strangers choose to show.

Every island is painted by hand in a few flat values, and all of the mood comes from the sky. The light is computed in real time from the time of day and the weather, so the same island at dawn, at dusk and in a storm feels like a different place. The score, written by Jun Aramaki, is built from the same three bell motifs that players hear across the archipelago.

Aurvane takes around twelve hours to finish, closer to twenty for players who want to find every lost bell. An assist mode lets anyone tune the challenge, from slower islands to a lantern that never runs out. The game will be available in English, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Simplified Chinese.

Kilnwhistle announced Aurvane in autumn 2026. A closed playtest with two hundred players from the community runs this winter, and a free demo with the whole first chapter is planned for the spring festival season. Wishlists on Steam help the studio more than anything else.