Starglow

Sparklepunk Glitchcore Action

Starglow Online is a tabletop roleplaying game about virtual reality magical girls. It is a game of sparklepunk, glitchcore action, using a variation of the Illuminated by LUMEN system by Gila RPGs. It's over a hundred pages!
Print On Demand copies are available through DrivethruRPG as well.

Virtual Reality Magical Girls

The setting of Starglow is the video game Starglow Online, a full-dive virtual reality game (meaning the players lose contact with the outside world and control their actions as if moving their own bodies, rather than by using a controller). Themed around the Magical Girl genre, this setting combines elements of touchstone media like Sword Art Online and .hack//SIGN with Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It most resembles those shows in aesthetic, rather than thematic content, though players are able to take things where they please. In particular, Starglow does not emulate the sort of lethal real-world danger that gives Sword Art Online its stakes, nor does it get as tragic as Madoka.

Sparklepunk

Sparklepunk, along with Glitchcore, is an aesthetic concept that drives how players should portray their characters and the world of Starglow. A Sparkle aesthetic features bright, happy, unblemished colors and images, pristine and perfect to a point that they nearly shine, seeming to glitter like stars. It is about unrelenting optimism, carefree action, and an overall approach that favors prioritizing the opportunity for success over the potential for consequences.
However, the Sparkle element of the aesthetic is tempered by the -punk suffix. When referring to an aesthetic, adding punk adds a subversive element, as if the aesthetic is aware of itself and can seek to be distinct from other adherents to that aesthetic. Sparklepunk takes the above sparkle aesthetic but embraces individuals making it their own, choosing for themselves which parts appeal to them and which can be changed. Basically, the visual effects of the sparkle aesthetic, played as straight or subverted as each player wishes, with little attention paid to the (often naive) attitudes associated with the sparkle aesthetic.

Glitchcore

The Glitchcore aesthetic is about embracing a pixel-y or digital aesthetic, perhaps with retro undertones or broken, tech-inspired inconsistencies of visuals. It adds a distinctly technological aspect to the aesthetic of the game, embracing being a video game, while using glitch effects to cover up the points where that seems hard to believe or visualize. The -core suffix, unlike -punk, is about playing the aesthetic straight and letting it seep into everything in the game. When in doubt visually, add glitch effects. These glitches might be purely visual, or could be a thing that needs to be reckoned with fictionally as well, and the game has some Glitch mechanics that will introduce glitch-y interactions.

Illuminated by LUMEN

LUMEN is a game engine created by Spencer Campbell of Gila RPGs for their games LIGHT and NOVA. Designed to be fast and simple to work with while giving players a power-fantasy experience, where success is easy and players are encouraged to narrate their actions as grandly as possible, LUMEN is also inherently video game-y, being inspired by looters like Destiny, Borderlands, and Diablo. These elements made LUMEN a natural fit for Starglow, and I’ve used the provided System Reference Document to build the underlying system of the game, though I’ve taken numerous liberties to advance and customize it for this game’s purposes.

~~~~~~~~

Cost: $7 (PDF), $20 (Softcover on DrivethruRPG)
Available on: The Store, DrivethruRPG, Itch.io

~~~~~~~~