Here's something a little out of the ordinary. There's a new R-Type & Gradius-inspired shoot 'em up currently in development, which takes the unusual approach of swapping out traditional 2D sprites and textures for graphics composed entirely of ASCII characters.
Battle for Asciion shot across our radar thanks to the Japanese website 4Gamer earlier today, and is the latest game from Relevo, the developer of the upcoming Bullfighter NEON, and the Terrifier-themed beat'em up, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game.
It is scheduled to release on February 5th, 2026, and is described as featuring "no sprites, no textures, no PNGs hidden behind the scenes", just "literal [ASCII] text" to make up all the player ship, enemies, and obstacles.
It is said to feature "tight, old-school arcade gameplay focused on precision, memorization, and pure skill", five "long, challenging stages" with "giant end-of-level bosses," and various upgrades to level up your ship. And that isn't all, either, with the game also apparently boasting an online leaderboard, a selection of display options (including CRT scanlines and green, amber, and white monochrome phosphor colors), and a "textshot" ability, which will let you capture a screenshot of your gameplay as a text document.
You can wishlist the game here, ahead of its release.