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Free-to-play on Steam: New action-adventure game with metroidvania elements tops Steam charts after release

Kaelaverse: Permascape is getting a lot of praise, particularly because of its metroidvania elements. Pictured - the Steam logo overlaid on an ingame screenshot. (Image source: Steam - Edited)
Kaelaverse: Permascape is getting a lot of praise, particularly because of its metroidvania elements. Pictured - the Steam logo overlaid on an ingame screenshot. (Image source: Steam - Edited)
Kaelaverse: Pemascape is a new free 2D action‑adventure on Steam where a Pemaloe searches puzzling dungeons for the missing Kaela. The game features tight platforming and metroidvania elements, with full controller support and early positive player feedback.

Kaelaverse: Pemascape is out now on Steam as a free 2D action‑adventure, and it arrives as a surprise birthday drop produced by Hololive Indonesia’s Kaela Kovalskia and developed by KayAnimate under the holo Indie label. Early response is strikingly positive, with player sentiment reflecting a polished, puzzle‑forward platformer that overdelivers for a no‑cost release.

Launched on August 30, 2025, Pemascape casts players as a Pemaloe - Kaela’s helper mascot - tasked with navigating caves, dungeons, and maze‑like chambers to find the missing blacksmith‑idol. The setup is simple and quite readable: explore rooms, trigger environmental switches, fight possessed enemies, and piece together why Kaela vanished. It’s a side‑scroller that flexes puzzle design more than anything else, alongside some metroidvania-style elements.

Steam’s metadata confirms the game is free‑to‑play and single‑player, with English, Japanese, and Indonesian language support. That accessibility helps explain the fast traction the game has gained: third‑party trackers show a "Very Positive" review aggregate and a perfect early Player Score snapshot, plus a first‑weekend concurrency spike before settling, which is actually quite typical for a community‑fueled launch. 

(Image source: Steam)
(Image source: Steam)
(Image source: Steam)
(Image source: Steam)

Crucially, player comments aren’t just goodwill from fans. Looking at Steam reviews for the game makes it apparent that even newcomers with "zero clue who Kaela is" found a "fun puzzle platformer with some metroidvania" flavor, and this is a great endorsement for the game. The first‑look gameplay captures show a clean tutorial ramp, readable room puzzles, and light combat that doesn’t bottleneck progress. The overall pacing looks like it's meant to welcome casuals while giving puzzle enjoyers enough texture per room.

If you're interested, you can check out the Steam store page for Kaelaverse: Pemascape here

Buy the 8BitDo Ultimate 2C wireless controller on Amazon.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2025 08 > Free-to-play on Steam: New action-adventure game with metroidvania elements tops Steam charts after release
Anubhav Sharma, 2025-09- 1 (Update: 2025-09- 1)