Factsheet
| Developer | Midnight Gremlins |
|---|---|
| Game | Branching Skies |
| Tagline | Stories that remember you. |
| Genre | AI RPG with memory-first architecture |
| First world | Syrinway (low-fantasy realm) |
| Platforms | iOS at launch; Android pre-registration open on Google Play |
| Release window | 2026 |
| Closed beta | Invites going out in coming weeks |
| Pricing model | Free with paid tiers; pricing announced at launch |
| Content rating | PG-13 equivalent |
| Play mode | Solo only at launch |
| Founded | 2026 |
| Website | https://branchingskies.com |
| Press contact | press@mail.branchingskies.com |
| Social media | None |
About the studio
Midnight Gremlins is an indie studio building a memory-first AI Game Master experience for mobile. Our first title, Branching Skies, ships on iOS and Android in 2026. The AI narrates from a world-state database, not from short-term memory. Player choices persist across the entire campaign.
Midnight Gremlins is an indie studio building AI RPGs that remember what mattered. We launched in 2026 with one belief: the AI in interactive fiction shouldn't forget your story between sessions. Most current AI RPG apps lose continuity in the same session. We built the architecture to fix that.
Our approach separates AI narration from world state. Player choices, NPC relationships, and world events live in a database. The AI narrates from the database, not from short-term memory. The result: continuity holds across sessions and months of play. NPCs remember promises. Towns remember actions.
Our debut title, Branching Skies, ships on iOS first with Android pre-registration open. The first world inside it is Syrinway, a hand-built fantasy realm with named places, real NPCs, and history that started before the player arrived. Beta access opens in the weeks ahead.
Midnight Gremlins is an indie studio founded in 2026 to solve a specific problem: AI RPGs forget your story. Sometimes within a single session. Always between sessions. Players who get attached to characters, settings, and plotlines watch them dissolve into incoherent retconning the moment the conversation drifts too far. We built Branching Skies to end that pattern.
Our approach separates what the AI generates from what the world remembers. Player choices, NPC relationships, world events, and earned reputations live in a database. The AI narrates from that database rather than from short-term memory. The result: a story that holds together over weeks, months, and seasons of play. NPCs remember promises. Towns remember actions. The world responds to who the player chose to be.
Branching Skies launches on iOS first, with Android pre-registration open. The first world inside it is Syrinway, a hand-built fantasy realm. Future worlds expand the platform to other genres on a cadence we'll announce closer to launch.
Branching Skies' primary audience is lapsed TTRPG players who want the campaign feeling without coordinating a tabletop group, refugees from AI roleplay products that lose their story mid-session, and anyone who wants a curated world they can return to over weeks and months without watching the canon dissolve.
For press inquiries, write to press@mail.branchingskies.com.
About Branching Skies
Branching Skies is an AI RPG where the world remembers what mattered. We craft hand-built worlds with named places, inhabited by NPCs living their own lives. Player choices shape the world through their entire campaign.
Branching Skies is interactive fiction in hand-built worlds, narrated by AI that remembers what mattered. Drop into a world that remembers you. Make choices that matter. Tell a story only you could tell. Burn down the tavern, and it's a ruin a week later. Spare the bandit, and they owe you a favor when you cross paths again.
The system runs on six stats and a single twenty-sided die. Four outcome tiers, from disaster to triumph. Ten character levels. Nothing to memorize before play.
Launching iOS first in 2026, with Android pre-registration open. Beta access opens in the weeks ahead.
Branching Skies is an AI RPG that solves the memory problem in interactive fiction. Players create a character, step into a hand-built fantasy world, and shape a story that holds together across weeks and months of play.
The first world, Syrinway, is curated rather than generated. Named places. Real NPCs with histories that started before the player arrived. Geographic regions with their own politics. Travel for a season, return to a town shaped by both player choices and the events that happened during their absence.
The architecture separates AI narration from world state. Player actions, NPC relationships, item ownership, and reputation live in a database. The AI narrates from that database. The smith still remembers the player's debt three weeks later. The bandit they spared still owes them a favor.
The system is original and TTRPG-rooted. Six core stats, one twenty-sided die, four outcome tiers from disaster to triumph, ten character levels. No rulebooks, no setup. The action never pauses for mechanics explanations.
Branching Skies is solo-play, mobile-first, and PG-13 equivalent. Free to start with optional paid tiers that unlock richer writing and remove ads. Privacy is the default: no human reads the player's stories, no AI training on player content, no data sales ever.
Launching on iOS in 2026 with Android pre-registration open. Beta invites going out in the weeks ahead.
About Syrinway
Syrinway is the first world inside Branching Skies. It's a low-fantasy realm built around a single thesis: the world holds memory the same way the player holds memory.
Players begin in Darendil, a starting town on the edge of the plains. Anelise waits at the Lucky Rabbit's Foot Tavern with a folded letter held to her chest and a silver pendant in her hand. The lamplighter Yarlos walks his evening route past her window. The cathedral on the hill remembers what the city has forgotten. NPCs have names, lives, and relationships that pre-date the player's arrival. The world is shaped by centuries of history that started before the player walked into it.
The world's structure rewards both short play sessions (five minutes on a break) and extended ones (an evening campaign). Travel between regions takes in-game time during active play, and canon events fire on scheduled in-game dates whether or not the player is present when they happen. The story keeps moving when the player isn't looking.
Combat exists, romance exists, treasure exists, all in a PG-13 equivalent register. Romance can happen but stays implied. Violence lands at fantasy-adventure levels. The system filters explicit content out by default.
Future worlds in Branching Skies will expand the platform to other genres. We'll announce the cadence closer to launch.
Key features
The world remembers
Every choice persists. Every promise sticks. NPCs remember who the player helped and who they crossed. Travel for a season, return to a town shaped by player actions and the events that came after. The memory architecture is database-backed. Continuity holds across an entire campaign.
Hand-built, not generated
Named places. Real NPCs with histories that pre-date the player's arrival. Geographic regions with their own politics. The studio builds the world. The AI narrators bring it to life. Players don't watch the world get invented as they step into it. It was already there.
Choices that ripple
Save the kingdom or watch it fall. Help the merchant or rob him blind. Spare the bandit, and they remember it forever. Every choice ripples outward. The world responds to who the player chose to be, and the response holds across the whole campaign.
Seven worlds, one Cathedral, named narrators
Syrinway is the first of seven worlds Branching Skies will ship. Each world is hand-built. Each world has its own named narrator with a distinct voice and pacing. Algus narrates Syrinway. Six more narrators wait behind the Cathedral's gothic arches as their worlds open. The studio is building a multi-narrator platform, not a single game with a roadmap.
The only AI Game Master you can correct in real time
When Algus narrates something that contradicts the world canon, the player can correct him on the spot. Algus accepts the correction, regenerates the response, and the world canon updates. This is structurally impossible for AI roleplay products that ask the LLM to be the world. We separated the two layers, which means the player can hold the AI accountable to the canon without breaking the story.
Quotes
AI RPG apps forget your story. Sometimes within a single session. Always between sessions. We built Branching Skies to end that pattern.
Your world remembers what mattered. Not infinite memory. Faithful memory.
Branching Skies is the only AI Game Master you can correct in real time. When the narrator drifts off the canon, you can put him back on the rails without breaking the story.
You wanted an AI campaign that remembered your story. So did we. So we built one.
We don't hide the game behind a paywall. The free tier is the full game with ads. The paid tiers unlock richer writing and drop the ads. That's it.
Privacy isn't a feature. It's the default. No human reads player stories. No AI training on player content. No data sales. Not now, not later, not ever.
Availability and launch timeline
| Surface | Status |
|---|---|
| iOS | Coming soon. Beta invites going out in the weeks ahead. |
| Android | Pre-registration open on Google Play. |
| Web | Landing page live at branchingskies.com. Email capture open for beta access. |
| Closed beta | Invites going out in coming weeks to email list signups. |
| Public launch | 2026. Exact date announced closer to ship. |
| Additional worlds | Six more worlds in the pipeline. Cadence announced closer to launch. |
| Multiplayer | Not at launch. On the long-term roadmap. No announced date. |
Pricing model
Branching Skies launches with a tiered model designed to keep the full game accessible.
| Tier | What’s included |
|---|---|
| Free | Unlimited play. Full game. Ad-supported. |
| Paid tiers | Richer AI writing. Ads removed. Free trial included. Cancel anytime. |
Pricing announced at launch. The free tier is the full game; paid tiers unlock writing quality improvements and remove ads. No paywall hiding gameplay.
Privacy and data position
The studio's privacy commitments are positioned as architectural moat rather than feature additions. The following commitments are permanent.
- Player stories are encrypted at rest.
- No human reads player stories. Abuse detection is automated.
- We don't train AI on player content.
- We don't sell player data. Not now. Not later. Not ever.
- We don't share player data with third parties beyond what's required to run the app (payment processors, analytics, crash reporting).
The studio has publicly committed that future revenue diversification (sponsored content, indie-dev consulting, opt-in research) will never include personal-data sale.
Brand assets
| Asset | Format | Notes | Download link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midnight Gremlins studio logo | PNG | Primary mark. Use on light or dark backgrounds. | Download |
| Branching Skies wordmark | PNG | Cream to gold gradient on transparent canvas. Additional variants (solid cream, solid ink-deep, mono) at /press-assets/wordmark/. | Download |
| Cathedral exterior key art | WebP | Landing page hero image. Painterly Ghibli aesthetic. | Download |
| Cathedral interior key art | WebP | Secondary key art. Used in landing page world reveal section. | Download |
| Anelise character art | WebP | Featured NPC. Used in landing page emotional anchor section. | Download |
| Mockup screenshots (6 frames) | PNG | Memory + character drawer + quests + narrator mode + HALT card + event popup. Primary download links to the memory frame; full set at /press-assets/mockup-screenshots/. | Download |
| Landscape press composites (4 frames) | PNG, 1920×1080 | Designed for YouTube creator thumbnail use. Wordmark + tagline + gameplay still + negative space for creator text overlay. Primary download links to the memory composite; full set at /press-assets/landscape/. | Download |
| Color palette | Markdown | Hex codes and usage notes for the brand color system. | Download |
| Typography | Markdown | Font choices and pairing guidance. | Download |
| Usage rules | Markdown | Permission and restriction list for editorial press coverage. | Download |
Usage rules
- The Midnight Gremlins logo and Branching Skies wordmark may be used in editorial press coverage and reviews without prior approval.
- Do not modify the logos, wordmarks, or key art. Use the assets as provided.
- Don't use any of these assets to imply endorsement of a third-party product, service, or platform.
- Don't combine our marks with other studio marks in a way that implies partnership.
Press FAQ
- Q1. How is this different from AI Dungeon, Replika, Voyage, or other AI RPG apps?
The memory architecture and the curation discipline. Most AI RPG products ask the LLM to be the world, which means the world is contingent on the AI’s working memory and drifts as the conversation gets longer. We separate the two layers. Player choices, NPC relationships, and world events live in a database. The AI narrates from the database.
Five concrete differentiators frame the positioning:
- Curated, not created.Players don’t build a world from prompts. They step into Syrinway, a fantasy realm a small studio designed over years of tabletop work.
- Mobile native, not desktop creator tool. Branching Skies is designed for phones. Short play sessions on a break. Long ones on a quiet evening. Not a desktop prompt-engineering surface.
- Free to play, no paywall. The free tier is the full game. Paid tiers improve writing quality and remove ads.
- One coherent world, hundreds of stories. Players generate distinct narratives inside a single curated world, not infinite worlds with generic stories.
- The AI is the storyteller. The world is ours. The studio built the world. The AI narrates inside it. The player decides what happens. Three layers, not one.
- Q2. What AI models power the narration?
We use a mix of frontier LLMs for narration with a structured tool-call layer that mediates between the LLM and the world-state database. We don’t disclose the specific routing logic or the provider mix. That’s the moat.
- Q3. Are you raising money? Hiring?
Not at this time. We’re a self-funded studio. We’ll announce any future changes through this press kit and on the landing page.
- Q4. Can press get hands-on or embargoed access?
Yes. Press contacts requesting deeper architecture review or embargoed beta access can write to press@mail.branchingskies.com. We’ll arrange a longer-form technical conversation under embargo and prioritize beta seats for scheduled coverage.
Press contact
For all press inquiries:
We respond within 3 business days. For time-sensitive review embargos or scheduled coverage, include "TIME-SENSITIVE" in the subject line and we'll prioritize.
Small indie studio. Please be patient with response times.
Last verified
May 18, 2026