# Equilibrium Friends & Family Playtest Preview

TL;DR

Equilibrium is extremely early, but already playable. This is a friends and family preview of an indie action RPG / roguelike being built systems-first. Expect placeholder art, visual bugs, unfinished animations, rough UI, temporary names, and distribution warnings while the foundation is tested across real devices.

The goal of this phase is simple: prove that movement, combat, dialogue, quests, saving, cloud saves, cross-platform builds, controller support, touch controls, and future content tools are working before the final polish pass begins. 💖

Development Philosophy

Systems First • Content Second • Polish Last

Every placeholder, temporary asset, unfinished visual, and rough edge exists to validate a reusable, high-performance foundation that can support years of future content. The current presentation is intentionally disposable; the underlying technology is not.

## Table of Contents

⚠️ Before You Play 🖥️ Current Platform Support 💾 Current System Requirements 📦 Distribution Notes 🎮 What Is Equilibrium? ✅ What Already Works 💬 Dialogue, Quests, and NPCs ☁️ Cloud Saves ⚡ Performance 🛠️ Known Issues 💙 Why This Project Exists ❤️ Thank You

# Before You Play This build is **not representative of the final game**. Almost every style, feature, decision, and piece of content visible in this phase should be treated as temporary. That includes UI, VFX, SFX, music, animation, lighting, particle effects, attacks, enemies, menus, names, currencies, dialogue, balance, equipment, and progression.

⚠️ This is a systems test, not a polish demo.

The game is being built this way so the underlying systems can be tested, optimized, replaced, expanded, and shipped across platforms before final content production begins.

Nothing shown here should be considered final or fully representative of the polished product I intend to release. If something looks strange, unfinished, inconsistent, or clearly placeholder, there is a very good chance that is intentional for now. # Current Platform Support These are the current supported or tested platforms to the best of my knowledge.

🪟 Windows x64

Supported. Current builds may show an unknown publisher warning.

🍎 macOS ARM64

Supported on Apple Silicon Macs.

🐧 Linux x64

Supported and tested.

🎮 Steam Deck

Tested and working well using the Linux build. It is not immediately available through the Steam store, so installation currently requires Desktop Mode.

📱 iOS 26+

Supported through current Apple mobile builds.

📺 Apple TV

Planned. This should be one of the lowest-barrier future platforms because of the current Apple ecosystem work.

🥽 Vision Pro

Planned after Apple TV support.

🤖 Android

Not currently planned. I do not have interest in Android development at this time.

# Current System Requirements Because the game is changing quickly, these requirements are intentionally conservative.

💾 Storage

The unpacked build is currently around 2 GB.

I recommend at least 10 GB of free space for now because feature development and content creation may cause build sizes to fluctuate quickly.

🎮 Input

Current input support includes controller, keyboard and mouse, and touch controls depending on platform.

🧪 Stability

This is an early test build. Bugs, visual issues, and platform-specific quirks should be expected.

🚧 Requirements May Change

Minimum requirements will be refined as the game is optimized and distribution channels are finalized.

# Distribution Notes Current distribution channels are not final, and some platform builds may be unlicensed, unsigned, or not yet connected to their eventual storefront experience. You may see warnings such as: - Windows unknown publisher warnings - Missing certificate or publisher prompts - Extra install steps on Linux or Steam Deck - Manual installation requirements before official storefront release

📦 These are early test builds.

The current goal is getting working builds into trusted hands, not finalizing commercial distribution. Official store releases, certificates, and platform-specific polish will come later.

# What Is Equilibrium? Equilibrium is an action RPG with roguelike and roguelite inspiration. The short version: you start with basic skills, fight through dangerous encounters, earn rewards, unlock upgrades, and become stronger over time so you can progress further through the story. Some upgrades will be temporary during a run. Others will become permanent progression that helps future runs.

⚔️ Fight. Fail. Upgrade. Return stronger.

# What Already Works This is still early, but a surprising amount of the foundation is already in place.

🎮

Controls

Controller, keyboard, mouse, and touch controls are all being tested.

💬

Dialogue

NPC conversations, portraits, animated text, and story states are working.

📜

Quests

NPCs can remember quest progress and unlock new dialogue when conditions are met.

☁️

Cloud Saves

Saves can move between supported platforms using secure sign-in.

🛒

Shops

Basic shop systems are in place for future items, rewards, and progression.

🧰

Authoring Tools

Custom editor tools are being built so new content can be created quickly later.

# Dialogue, Quests, and NPCs NPCs can already talk to the player in a cinematic dialogue mode with portraits, portrait animations, shader effects, animated rich text, and custom icons. Examples of the kind of text the system supports:

💖 HP +10

Help, Adam! You must retrieve the 🔑 Dungeon Key!

NPCs can remember: - Previous conversations - Quest progress - Story progression - Save file unlock conditions - Whether the player has already seen certain dialogue That means individual NPC stories can progress naturally as the game grows. # Cloud Saves The save system is one of the biggest pieces already working. You can put down a save on iOS, iPadOS, or Mac and use Game Center to track progress through the cloud save system. You can also use Sign in with Apple through secure platform authentication, including Touch ID and Face ID where supported, to continue on Windows.

☁️ Cross-platform saves are already being tested.

The long-term goal is a save system that lets you pick up right where you left off across supported devices.

Planned support includes: - Automatic Steam login for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Steam Deck - Apple TV support - Vision Pro support - Native platform services if console support becomes realistic Autosave is coming soon and should include a toggle, backup option, and manual save export. Save files are stored in a readable JSON-style format using a `.sav` file. # Performance Performance is already strong on the hardware tested so far.

🖥️ Windows Laptop

RTX 4070 laptop: roughly 300 FPS in current test builds.

🍎 Mac

Apple Silicon Mac: around 90 FPS while also running development tools.

📱 iPhone

Currently appears comfortably above 60 FPS.

📲 iPad

M4 iPad Pro is currently locked at 120 FPS.

These numbers will change as more content, effects, enemies, environments, and optimization work are added. # Known Issues This is a very early build. Bugs are expected. Known issues right now: - The weapon does not always bind correctly to the character's hand. - Some animations may look awkward or unfinished. - Some UI elements are temporary. - Touch controls may appear on desktop when they should not. - Touch controls will be hidden by default on desktop in a future build. - Touch controls should be toggleable in Settings. - Some visual effects are temporary. - Some art is intentionally placeholder. - Some objects may look strange because they were swapped in only to test whether the system works. - Some builds may require manual installation steps. - Windows may show an unknown publisher warning because the app is not code signed yet. # Temporary Art and Placeholder Content A lot of the current art is rough on purpose. The goal right now is not to make everything beautiful. The goal is to prove that systems can be replaced, upgraded, expanded, optimized, and reused.

🎨 Translation: yes, I know some of the art is bad right now.

The pretty pass comes later.

If something looks odd, it may have been replaced only to prove that I could replace it and still keep the system working. # Build Size The full development project is currently much larger than the player build because it contains tools, unused assets, experiments, and development-only files. The current unpacked build is around 2 GB. I recommend keeping at least 10 GB free while testing because builds may change quickly during active development. The first TestFlight-style demo should become smaller as unused assets are stripped and the build pipeline is cleaned up. # Controls Current and planned input support includes: - 🎮 Controller - ⌨️ Keyboard - 🖱️ Mouse - 📱 Touch controls Touch controls are still being worked on. They should eventually disappear automatically when a controller is connected, and desktop builds should have them off by default. # Why This Project Exists Video games helped shape my entire generation. They brought me closer to my family, friends, and partner. They created shared memories, late nights, inside jokes, and entire worlds that felt bigger than the screens they lived on. I developed my first game when I was around twelve years old, reskinning a Galaga-style clone after my parents gave me an incredible gift: the book Game Programming for Teens. Before I learned algebra, I was already learning variables, loops, collision, input, and the strange magic of making something interactive. That early curiosity never really left. I dabbled in digital and traditional art. That grew into graphic design. Graphic design grew into web design. Web design grew into native app development. Eventually, all of those paths led back to the dream that started when I was young: making games.

💙

The Goal

My goal is to ship an incredibly polished, optimized, cross-platform experience that you can pick up on just about any device, including the one in your pocket, and immediately feel at home with your favorite characters.

The current investment is not just hardware, software, courses, Unity assets, AI development assistance, or developer accounts. It is years of learning, testing, iterating, making art, building websites, launching apps, breaking things, fixing things, and slowly collecting the skills needed to finally take a serious swing at this. Equilibrium is the result of that entire path coming together. # Feedback Please send feedback even if it seems small. Useful feedback includes: - “This felt good.” - “This felt bad.” - “I got confused here.” - “This looked broken.” - “This ran poorly.” - “This made no sense.” - “This was fun.” - “I have no idea what happened.” # Thank You

💖 ⚔️ ☁️ 🎮

Thank You for Playing

If you are reading this, testing a build, sending feedback, reporting bugs, encouraging the project, or just watching it come together, thank you.

Every bug report, reaction, idea, complaint, and encouraging message helps move Equilibrium one step closer to becoming the game I have dreamed about building for most of my life.

Thank you for being here this early.

— Travis “Brohvis” Swavely

Founder, CRTV LLC

If you are interested in helping test, provide feedback, or just want to follow along with development, please consider subscribing to my newsletter for development updates and early access to future playtests and beta access.

#development

Equilibrium Playtest Preview