Early Access Note: Effulgence RPG is a sci-fi party RPG in a unique ASCII 3D style. This first Early Access build is a short, polished slice of the full game – roughly 1–1.5 hours for a first run, depending on how much you explore. You'll see the full visual identity, the ASCII globe, party combat and the core "break enemies into particles and print gear" loop in action, but with a limited set of locations and enemy types. Over Early Access I'll expand it toward a 3–5 hour campaign with more locations, encounters and tactical options. If you prefer a fully finished 1.0 experience, please add the game to your wishlist and check back at full release. If you'd like to play a compact, weird ASCII RPG already and help shape it, jump in now – your feedback will directly help shape the game. Early Access bonus: everyone who picks up Effulgence RPG during Early Access gets the original soundtrack by Sergey Eybog as a free DLC. If the OST becomes paid later, early owners keep it forever. What the gaming press says about Effulgence RPG PC Gamer: "Sure, the ASCII art is cool, but I'm pretty into what the game seems to be doing with its RPG mechanics, too." The Escapist: "Effulgence RPG is an ASCII-based party RPG that has visuals that remind me of both Dwarf Fortress and Geometry Wars at the same time, except it's an RPG." Alpha Beta Gamer: "Effulgence is an incredibly cool looking ASCII-styled 2D RPG adventure where players explore a mysterious alien world rendered entirely through text symbols." GamingOnLinux: "It looks like nothing else I've seen before, it really is quite impressively made." Game overview Effulgence RPG is a party-based, turn-based RPG where enemies are more than obstacles - they're raw material. Defeat creatures to break them into particles, then feed those particles into a matter printer to create weapons, gadgets and mechanisms. All of this plays out in a world built from shimmering text symbols arranged in 3D space. Explore a stylized ASCII 3D globe of locations. Fight as a small squad in turn-based, party-focused combat. Break enemies into particles and print gear mid-run. Watch the world shift as text symbols reconfigure into new shapes and animations. Content scope At Early Access launch: A compact, replayable slice showing the full gameplay loop. Roughly 1–1.5 hours for a first complete run. A focused set of combat locations and exploration spots. Core systems implemented: party combat, particle crafting, matter printer, saves, basic settings and controller support. Toward 1.0: More locations and mini-quests on the ASCII globe. Additional enemy types and "mechanisms" (special encounters and bosses). New tactical cartridges and more ways to build your party. Expanded narrative interludes and quality-of-life improvements. Overall target: a 3–5 hour campaign with room for experimentation and replay. What Effulgence RPG is (and isn't) Effulgence RPG is: A short, visually intense party RPG built entirely from text symbols. Focused on ASCII 3D visuals, atmosphere, and darkly comic dialogues. Turn-based combat that is readable and punchy, not a hardcore 100-hour min-max grinder. An art project about light and symbols as much as a game. Effulgence RPG isn't: A huge open world or endless roguelite with hundreds of hours of content. A hyper-complex tactical simulator with dozens of overlapping systems. Completely content-complete at launch - this Early Access build is a vertical slice that will grow over time. Game features: The only way to gather crafting resources is by defeating creatures and breaking them down into individual particles. Using these particles, you can print weapons, gear, and mechanisms on a special matter printer – even in the middle of combat. A stylized ASCII 3D globe of locations to travel between: combat zones, events, upgrade spots and shops. "Tactical cartridges" that twist fights in your favor: area bursts, shields, special effects and more. Designed to be short, focused and replayable - experiment with different party builds and printed gear. Runs great with a controller and has been tested on Steam Deck via Proton, with ASCII readability tuned for a handheld screen. Plot It's easy to transmit a video signal when you're just the distance of a satellite away. Go beyond the solar system and it may take hours to send a regular image to Earth. But when the signal comes from a galaxy a million light-years away, only fragmented symbols make it to us. Sometimes, they can be decoded and assembled into an animation made from text characters. Effulgence RPG imagines what happens when that signal is interactive - when you can walk inside the shimmering sea of symbols, and the creatures made of text don't intend to stay static. Inspiration Characters that can be typed on a keyboard are a powerful means of expression. ASCII art uses characters as strokes, crafted like those of an artist's pen. Each stroke carries both form and meaning: a letter, a number, a symbol. The quality of modern printing, monitors, and phone screens is astonishing. Does ASCII art have a place in the era of True Color and ultra-high pixel densities? Absolutely. Charcoal has been used since cave paintings, yet charcoal drawing remains relevant to this day. Paintings with rich palettes haven't replaced black-and-white graphics. When an artist picks up a pencil, it becomes a tool for creation. When an ASCII artist pulls a keyboard closer, ASCII art is born. But what if we add a third dimension to these characters? And do so without breaking the feel of the text mode. Effulgence RPG is more than just a game - it's an artistic exploration of light and symbols in motion.