My first playtest is going strong - over 3,000 people have played it so far, and more than 500 filled out the feedback form. Haven’t received this much criticism in a long time.
The experiment was a success - the result was negative 🙂
Average gameplay rating: 7.5/10.
For comparison, the art got 9.5/10.
Plenty to work on this summer (well, winter here in Argentina).

I put together a short intro that plays at the start of the game, before the main menu. Does it look interesting? Is it clear what’s going on? I feel like it still needs tweaking, but I’m not sure where exactly. Any suggestions are welcome.

Check out the game’s Steam page to add it to your wishlist and sign up for the second playtest. The first one went well - over 800 people filled out detailed feedback forms. There’s still a lot to improve, and I’ll try to build a new version with updated gameplay in the next month or two.

https://youtu.be/oYOu1D-XNPw?si=G-LQYH-sZN9xgNVm

Glyph Bomb - build it with symbols during combat. Match boss glyphs for a massive blast.

I’ve added a super weapon to the game. During battle, you can observe which symbols the current monsters are made of, open the bomb editor, enter it symbol by symbol - and boom. The more matches with boss symbols, the stronger the damage. You can use it once per location.

Added a color palette switch! You can change it from the options menu or just press G during gameplay. Several playtesters requested palette variations, so I added a few:
• Three monochrome modes
• A couple of 16-color styles
• A Game Boy palette
• A low-saturation mode

Also check out the final boss of the first zone near the end of the video!

After the first playtest, one of the main pieces of feedback was: "We need an interactive planet!" So here it is - a big ASCII sphere where you can fight, trade, get quests, heal up, and more. It unlocks gradually as you complete combat zones.

As always, everything is built from standard keyboard symbols. No scaling, no rotation - almost like a text mode. The image is drawn symbol by symbol - I literally write the character, color, and coordinates for every single one.

…And of course, I couldn’t resist adding lighting effects. There are two light sources and real-time shadows - no polygons here, just math and characters. Took some effort!

The map has come alive: quests right on the planet!

For the upcoming second playtest, I’ve added a system of mini-quests directly on the map (which, in my game, is a planet). You can trade something useless for something valuable with the girl who has green camera-eyes. You can upload grenade schematics from the Ghost IT Guy in the Data Center. You can play a mini-game to win a tactical cartridge. Or you can (classic style) visit the cyber-well to restore your health.

I hope this will be fun to play!

I made a new background for battle locations: dynamic water reflections built entirely from ASCII symbols. I'm planning to use this visual feature across several areas.

As always, nothing but text symbols (the ones on any keyboard) are used. No scaling, no rotation. Almost like pure text mode.

The wave algorithm is a simplified Gerstner approach with two trochoidal waves - optimized to run faster.

New wallpapers from in-game screenshots!
★ Full HD: https://retroandrei.com/wallpapers/EffulgenceRPG_Hero_vs_Garpy_1k.png
★ 2K: https://retroandrei.com/wallpapers/EffulgenceRPG_Hero_vs_Garpy_2k.png
★ 4K: https://retroandrei.com/wallpapers/EffulgenceRPG_Hero_vs_Garpy_4k.png

Grab yours, set the vibe, and hit that wishlist! Playtest starts next week: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3302080/Effulgence_RPG/

Big day for me: Effulgence RPG Playtest #2 has just started! It's live for one week. I'd love to see you there. This is a very important milestone:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3302080/Effulgence_RPG/

I'm excited to launch Effulgence RPG into Early Access on Steam today!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3302080/Effulgence_RPG/

My goal with EA is simple: ship a compact, focused slice of the game and grow it together with players. This build already includes the core combat, exploration, and key systems. From here I'll expand content and polish based on your feedback. Roadmap: available in-game (menu) and on the Steam page.

The EA version is compact - about 1 hour of play. For 1.0 I'm targeting roughly 5 hours of content. If you're comfortable starting now, awesome. If you prefer to wait, I'll be happy to see you at release.

During EA the price is lower than the final price. Everyone who buys now gets the bonus DLC and the OST as free DLC. If they become paid later, early owners keep them forever.

Steam has enabled trading cards for Effulgence RPG! For a small text-based game, this feels like a tiny but very joyful milestone.

I'm working on the first update for Effulgence RPG and I'd love your input on one potential feature: letting you swap heroes between positions on the battlefield. It could make controls a bit more complex, but also open up new tactical options.

Please share your opinion in the poll here (Steam Discussion): https://steamcommunity.com/app/3302080/discussions/0/690869396921435282/

Steam Trading Cards and Animated Profile Background are live! You can now collect Steam Trading Cards for Effulgence RPG and craft a badge with ASCII-themed profile rewards.

Playing the game will drop cards that you can turn into a badge, emoticons, and profile backgrounds. It's a small extra for everyone who decided to support the game in Early Access.

I've also added an animated profile background to the Steam Points Shop, built entirely from in-game ASCII scenes. If you enjoy customizing your profile, you can grab it with Steam Points here: https://store.steampowered.com/points/shop/app/3302080

I'm happy to share a small update for Effulgence RPG (301):

+ Hero position swapping in combat. You can now swap the active hero's position with another hero during battle. Swapping adds PING (delay until the next turn). The PING cost for swapping is one third of the PING cost for skipping a turn.

+ Lower PING for unique abilities and injectors. Unique skills and injectors now cost less PING. You'll much more often end up in situations where using a unique ability or an injector still leaves the turn with the same hero. You can always see whose turn comes next in the PING timeline at the bottom of the screen.

+ Holiday screensaver. A festive screensaver has been added, and you can launch it from the main menu.

+ A handful of small fixes and tweaks.

Thanks for playing and for all the feedback.

Hello everyone!
I've just pushed a small "systems" update focused on infrastructure features that will keep getting expanded on the road to 1.0. What's new:

⚙ Steam Cloud Save is now enabled.
This is the first release of it, so I'd really appreciate testing: if you play on multiple PCs or Steam Deck, please let me know whether your save synced correctly.

⚙ Steam User Stats are now tracked and stored.
You can already see your numbers, and I'll be adding a lot more as the game grows.

⚙ First Achievements are in.
You can view them on your Steam profile, and in-game they also have animated 3D-like presentation.

This is just the start: stats and achievements will expand significantly as Effulgence RPG gets closer to 1.0. Thank you for playing and for helping me validate these features.

My text-symbol games (and apparently me too) were unexpectedly written about… on the radio. By Austria's awesome Radio FM4.
Link: https://fm4.orf.at/stories/3051374

Fun Twitter trend - my game tweet almost hit 500K views. That's not a common day for me.

I've got one small but very dear bundle: Retro Signal Pack. It's on extra discount and includes Effulgence RPG (ASCII 3D), ASCIILL (text dungeon crawler) and Coin-Op Vice (monochrome pixel shooter). Link: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/63849/Retro_Signal_Pack/

I'm making sure each weapon in the game differs not only in stats, but also has its own unique twist. Coming in the next update. Designing it the old-school way - in my work notebook.

ASCII animated avatar frame is approved by Steam! There are animated background and the frame for the game now. Several other items underway.