Illuminascii

Illuminascii
N/A
Metacritic
53
Steam
33
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.74
Release date
11 August 2015
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
53 (41 votes)

Illuminascii - a first person shooter with an ascii text based visual style, featuring randomly generated content and roguelike / rpg elements. Monsters, weapons, armor, levels and cutscenes are all created with random characteristics.

Show detailed description

Illuminascii system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7 or better
  • Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 or equivalent
  • DirectX: Version 9.0
  • Storage: 200 MB available space
  • Sound Card: Onboard
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
376130
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Linux
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⛓𓊈 FetishFatalist 𓊉⛓
⛓𓊈 FetishFatalist 𓊉⛓

Step the sidewalk, a New World Order!
Systematic, aristocratic.
Don't defame yourself, get out of the way!
We command and you obey.
Beautiful to be the joker.
Cursed by an all too human future!
Things you cannot defeat you start to believe in.
New generations. Synthetic nations!

I am your loving hate - this is the new world.

https://youtu.be/GjorQzWrqlE

chicken paste
chicken paste

All I can say is I'm disappointed. Which is sad because I was really looking forward to this game.

INCREDIBLY boring level design, I know it's procedurally generated but come on.
Can't look down fully.
House level is fustrating.
Items you need to pick up instead of just walking over them.
Can't rebind.
The name system is pretty cool but the names themselves are incredibly limited.
There's like, no fucking music. Even when you enable it.
THE REVOLVER USES A MAGAZINE.

If some of this gets patched I guess I can change the review but for now it's just not worth it in my opinion.

MilkShots
MilkShots

So after playing a bit of this game I can see it being a tad interesting. I have yet to inspect the full elements of the game but so far have the basics pretty down. The point of the game so far as I can tell is to gather intelligence through formats of info such as pamphlets, discs, etc. You may also be given the objective to kill a specific man in the world. You are fighting back to learn more information of the truth and you do so by rampaging throughout your world killing all you see. Everything represented by letters and/or symbols of the text appearance and plenty of objects being made out of them.

Pros:
-The game's controls are tight and responsive.
-You can immerse yourself into the game as you progress.
-Different variables to the game to assist you and thus adding more possibilities such as money.
-The style of it is very easy on the eyes and something I have yet seen be done.
-Such as any Rogue like game you have the need to explore every nook and cranny to advance and gain better equipment.
-Potential of endless hours of enjoyment.

Cons:
-Level Design is limited and possibly seems repetetive.
-The AI is a tad forgetful once they see you as soon as you hide behind a wall they forget all about you and just stay.
-The AI gets tuck a lot on just simple corners.
-I see a lack of much variety in equipment so far only have gotten a hat and not very specific kind either, it's a hat.
-The aiming is a tad awkward as it seems your aiming for an enemy but in reality your shooting the corner of a building, so the gun shots themselves are more to the right than they are centered.
-Keys for doors seem pointless as you can just kick them down.
-Depending on the color of the enemy you may or may not see them as they just flat out blend in with the enviroment.
-Immersion can be broken easily when you have to reach for 'I' to open the inventory.
-Yet to have customizable controls.
-Have yet to see any story or plot whatsoever as you continue on.
-When you spawn you best be ready because more than likely you'll be surrounded already.

If you have the money to spend buy this game if you're looking for a decent time waster. If not then wait for a bit if you're not that super excited over it. The game could have potential but it is VERY limited. Not one of the best Rogue Like games, but it's decent enough for it to not be terrible.

Redead-ITA
Redead-ITA

I begin my run
Died because i use it to much the washingmachine
and exploded

TyreForHyre
TyreForHyre

Found a rifle that fired so fast I could blow through trash in a single clip, then I got introduced to an enemy that flamethrowers letters at you.
11/5 Chemtrials Faked, would become a martyr for the truth again.

Young Mayo
Young Mayo

So far. I have done one play through of this game and i got to say. Kicking enemys and watching them expode into little pixels is pretty satisfying. This game has a basic combat systerm but it makes up for that in its comedic and funny texts. I would recomend this game to anyone who is interested in buying a game they can play when bored or during loading screens.

CountZio
CountZio

Kicked in a bunch of doors, shot some letters and at the end, I was told I was kawaii.

Game of the year 2015.

Toystack
Toystack

This game is a spiritual journey through your inner self. You will dwelve into the life you know you have. The quality of this game makes me forget what time it is. I can feel temptation as I hear the drumming of the sound, the sound of our future. ASCII numbers and letters will forever and always haunt my life. This game brings realization, with top notch sound/music effects. The world is like my mind, deep with uncertainty, a void that is filled with logical nonsense. This game is like a drug, some of you will see it as not your thing, but some of you, will see this as an awakening.. a spiritual path through our life, I will cherish this game for as long as I can. I truly believe this is a beautiful masterpiece that will stay hidden and only a few of us will be able to carve into its inner beauty. Give it a shot, you might like it, you might not, but don't say I never warned you to stay away or to cave in. Numbers and letters have always been the answer to everything, what we made. We are the beginning and the end, but this game, this product of perfection, has no end. Even if it did you can't reach it. This game test all who is willing to enter what has been unknown to us since the beginning of mankind.

This game is a gift from the Gods. Buy this game, have a smoke, and enjoy the inside of your mind.

kalonZombie
kalonZombie

I was a schoolboy goldfish and I was murdered by a lonely puppy. 10/10 would reccomend again.

repdetect0
repdetect0

A strange cyber-delic rpg shooter that has tons of references and a very unique stye. Randomized items and layouts are equal only to the great RNG text in the game. Very unique and ambitious by the devs, it also shows a lot of retro-love.

AtypicalChuck
AtypicalChuck

Illuminascii is a very simple and barebones game with not a ton of variety but the humor and interesting visual look of it more than made up for that. It was fun!

Semper Fil
Semper Fil

You'd think a game about the Illuminati would have some substance.

You wander around procedurally generated (read: shit) environments, trying to find 5 Quest Items so you can go to the next level and do the same thing. Some enemies roam the place, but after you kill them the level becomes a barren ghost town.
Everything is as basic as can be, with absolutely no depth: stats, weapons, leveling up.

Ah, but these days a game is not proper unless it has a Hunger mechanic. It's there for no other reason than frustration.

The very definition of run-of-the-mill. Avoid this game.

Tekker
Tekker

And intensely shitty game comprised of 3 endlessly looping levels where you fight shitty unity enemies with even less effort put into their AI and design than usual. Expect to be shot through any wall you try and hide behind and don't expect the levels to even be completable, as whatever small, terrible ammount of random level gen there is can easily keep you from ever completing the same shitty easter egg hunt objective that is every map.

It is staggering how little effort was put into this game as a whole. This game boasts RPG elements, which means you level up but the stats don't do anything and leveling doesn't do anything. It says you have random characteristics on all monsters and armor, but all the monsters are the same in each level but with a different look, and there IS NO ARMOR.

This game is a cheap money grab and nobody should ever touch the pice of shit.

Delegator Supreme
Delegator Supreme

An interesting attempt to blend genres, simply put - it's a rouge-like with bastårdized fps elements.

The game is overall pretty sparce, you run about completeing three different types of missions on procedurally generated levels, whilst levelling up your similarly randomly generated character. The $10 price range might be a bit steep, however if you're willing to spend the dough, it's a decent enough time-killer.

2018ChevyColorado
2018ChevyColorado

I like encountering new stuff the more I play. New quotes, new secrets. I'd just like to know that I'll never run out of new secrets to find.

Aloye
Aloye

This game is very unpolished and very, boring and not very rouge-like. I've bought the game today and have played for two hours trying to have fun with it. The game's atmosphere is fantastic, I love the way it looks and the way it feels, but the guns are all the same (handguns, sub machines, rifles, and shotguns all have the same basic straight line shot with stats that don't make sense. 2 bullet submachine guns? Plz.) and the enemies have this follow and shoot pattern that has no smart AI.There's more to it then that, with only an office and city area (that I've seen), Items will dissappear from your inventory screen, enemies sometimes shoot through walls, sometimes you can't shoot enemies, sometimes the doors that hold key items to progress will be unavaible because another building blocks the door, the lack of differen't missions (there is find 5 clues, kill a target, and 1 bomb piece mission), just overall should not be sold as a finishing project. If the developer update's the game, I will reconsider, because this game has lots of potential as a good sci-fi rouge-like. Until then, spend your 10 dollars somewhere else.

GiboGoblin
GiboGoblin

I thouht there would be more to it.
I was very wrong.

Wendigo
Wendigo

I am just wondering how it took 7 days for the developer make a very interesting game from the ground up (On the annual 7 Day FPS Contest), but a year and half later the paid version is, overall, barely superior both in content and quality. I swear that it is like someone hacked the developer's computer, stole the (unfinished) game and launched it on Steam.

If you saw the trailers, what you see is what you get, but to be honest, as much as I like certain aspects of this game, it just feels lazy and ends up being broken. There is absolutely no reason to buy this as there is barely a difference from the free 7DFPS version from where this game came from plus the fact that it featured randomly generated cutscenes that are missing in this version.

What do I mean by broken and lazy:

-The clue finding levels involve you searching containers around the level area for an X number of clues and leave the area when you have them. You interact with the container and there is a (fair) chance that it drops a clue for you to pick up. The problem is that as long as you haven't picked up the clues, you still have the chance to have the containers drop more of them. And NO there is not the excuse of "it is not broken because that X is the minimum your character needs" because the clues stop dropping once you get all you need.

-Some doors are locked and need a key, but you can kick down all doors. Noticed the problem there?

-On the title screen it says: "Press f6 to clear data". What data? There are no savegames and there is not any kind of leaderboard.

-The UI is a mess and don't get me started on the you-can-only-navigate-down-the-item-column inventory.

-Though there are plenty of lovely ASCII based weapon sprites, the reload animation is the same for ALL of the weapon tipes and they end up only being different in the stats.

-The gameplay ends up being boring. As you beat the levels, the enemies get more HP and deal more damage. You find better weapons to deal more damage and level up you character.

-The outdoor levels are shamelessly defined by a black wall of nothing.

-No key rebinding.

-It is badly optimized.

-Strangely enough, what is shown in ASCII is actually neatly detailed: interact with lamps and they turn on/off, interact with shower heads and sinks and they drop ASCII water. touch fireplaces and you get burn damage, etc.

Akselmo
Akselmo

When I first saw some pictures of this game somewhere, I instantly wanted to play it. I love the ASCII theme, just like in some oldschool roguelike such as Nethack!

The gameplay itself is a mix of some roguelike, RPG elements (random levels and names, hunger etc. + experience points and statpoints) and FPS. It works well enough together, but the game lacks some polishing. For example, sensitivity settings only affect vertical mouse sensitivity.

Otherwise the game is just fine and entertains me well enough to keep me playing, but I dislike two things:

1. The music is kinda.. Blergh. It feels really glitchy and weird. I feel like that was the devs intention, but it.. Could be better. I usually disable the music and just set Hotline Miami soundtrack on the background. Maybe someone else will like the music though!

2. Enemies are.. Boring looking. They're just letters of the alphabet. Now, I know they're an obvious reference to old roguelikes with ASCII graphics, since in those games enemies were just letters with some name. I still would've liked it more if atleast some of the enemies would have had somekind of animated sprite made with ASCII graphics. Atleast the names of the enemies are entertaining: Nothing like getting attacked by a Horny Politician. (The names are randomized.)

Overall Illuminascii can be an entertaining and fun game but only if you get most of the jokes, and like the oldschool ASCII style. The jokes are usually references on things people who have played older roguelikes can get. I recommend this game to anyone who liked older roguelikes, maybe not for the gameplay, but for the neat visuals and references.

Pangolin Legends: Arceus
Pangolin Legen…

I like the style of the game but it's a bit dark and hard to see and the gameplay is a bit... cheap or flimsy. What I mean is that sometimes you go to pick up an object and miss; also shooting mobs feels very "beta" and unsatisfying. Menus are annoying and use too many key presses too.

Put it like this, I only played once and I kept hoping I would die soon so I could stop playing because I was getting bored of going round opening drawers and breaking stuff.

[They/Them] Chesse20
[They/Them] Chesse20

the ai is an epic fail and can attack you through walls, levels can be generated that are impossible to beat, and your going to be seeing a lot of the same levels over and over

humidifier full of piss
humidifier ful…

Roguelike in 3D. Somewhat stale Illuminati joke. Game itself gets stale once in a while, enjoyable.

76561198027781948
76561198027781948

0/10 Unity

Controls can't be changed, physics are horrific, AI clips through walls, lame.

BinarySplit
BinarySplit

Cool setting, cool concept, reasonably good level design. Unfortunately the gameplay is quite poor, making it difficult to enjoy the good bits.

Enemies have no pathfinding, guns don't seem to have much variety, the gunplay is slow-paced and doesn't feel like it involves any skill, I couldn't even tell what increasing my stats was doing. Most of this game is just walking around cautiously, hoping that if an enemy sees you it gets stuck on a corner and can't shoot you.

It's worth a few dollars to try it out and soak in the novelty of the well-crafted ascii world, but I can't recommend it at its non-sale price.

Turd Ferguson
Turd Ferguson

The heavy-handed "Wake up, The Man is always watching" theme drips of fedora cliche, which would be fine if the gameplay were smoother.

Visuals are an odd combination of ascii symbols and simple 3D models, the latter of which reminds me of that old 3D Windows maze screensaver. I found myself wishing this game stuck with a single one of these art styles, or at least fully committed to using ascii only for important objects. This seems to have been done to some extent, but only enough to cause confusion when you can't intaract with something that looks like you should be able to.

That said, I must award points for including a toilet that I can both flush and kick into pieces.

Menu navigation is clunky: To use an item, press I to open inventory, Enter to use it, X to continue after having used it (why?), then I again to close inventory. This doesn't sound awful, but X is only ever used to dismiss these messages, and Esc doesn't close the inventory or stat menus, which means you have to move your hands out of the standard WASD + Mouse location to do anything in the inventory. This may be picky, but it's just more unnecessary button presses for simple interactions.

Enemies all have perfect accuracy, which means that you've probably already taken damage from anything nearby if it sees you first. This can be especially frustrating when you're up against a wall and find that they can see and often hit you through solid objects.

Randomized wall/structure locations sometimes put doors right up against other buildings, which makes navigating those spaces confusing and awkward. In a few cases, I think the only entrance to a building was blocked by another building, so I wasn't able to get into it and find what I presume was the location of the last clue I needed to beat the level.

There are some interesting ideas here, but Illuminascii lacks a certain polish that keeps me from recommending it.

dogsonofawolf
dogsonofawolf

Really bad and forgettable. Just... not fun.

🚴💨
🚴💨

Well, it's kind of a crude attempt to put a roguelike/ASCII styling on a rudimentary FPS game. You run around in extremely repetitive and hard-to-read levels, you can shoot randomly named letters and collect arbitrary clues that further your believe in some kind of truther thing. I guess it's supposed to be some kind of big joke or meme, but it does a pretty bad job of conveying it. It's probably ok if you're just looking for something weird to play, but other than that you're better off spending that of money of yours on something more substantial (like a burger).

theYeti
theYeti

I'm emphatically not any good at Illuminascii but it's still a fun game to sit down and play in short bursts and satisfying even if--like me--you're not great at permadeath games

Cryptofunk
Cryptofunk

As much as I love roguelikes (regardless of others' criticism), this one is just borderline unplayable. I haven't put a lot of time into it yet but I've already run into game-breaking bugs. For two playthroughs, I've had enemies AND objectives spawn behind walls that are inaccessible. The worst part is that enemies can still shoot you from behind walls, so good luck dealing with those when they're behind walls with no entrances or windows.

GERSillySausage
GERSillySausage

Seen one level, seen them all: Small, claustrophobic and extremely monotonous. The objective is always the same: Find five "clues" - CDs, Tapes, Cassettes, Diaries... that don't contain any lore whatsoever.

Oh, and I got attacked by "An Empty Videogame". How quaint.

0x4d616e75
0x4d616e75

I love that game... but you can't save your progress, this is really bad

Valenthrium
Valenthrium

I love the game it is fun and interesting and I have never seen that kind of style in now of days modern shooters very creative but lacks in creativity at the same time because the levels you find five clues and thats it on to the next level other than that it is really fun I recconmend it a 8/10

chmilk
chmilk

Granted it gets repetive, but it is still fun for its worth

Br0or
Br0or

It get's repetetive very quickly, but if somebody would put more work to it it could be a good. Even with extraodrinary design choices.

Lazar The Fifth
Lazar The Fifth

-decent gameplay
-good music
-love the visuals :))
-funny little tid bits
-one of the better dddwares games

wait for a sale though 10 bucks is def overpriced!

Nostalginaut
Nostalginaut

Illuminascii is aesthetically cool with a neat intro, but with clunky controls and the game ultimately has no good content.