Rise from the underground to the top of the charts — one venue at a time.
In CYGNAL — Fight the Industry!, you begin as a struggling musician playing forgotten garage gigs in a world where music has been hijacked by a powerful corporate empire known simply as The Industry. Your mentor Sir Don, while consuming an unknown hallucinogenic substance, uncovered a mysterious force called Cygnal — a living energy woven into groove, soul, and authentic musical expression. Knowing that Cygnal could bring down its global empire, The Industry buried the truth, replacing authentic music with manufactured noise designed to control audiences and keep artists obedient.
As one of the few people capable of wielding the Cygnal force, you must fight your way through corrupted venues, converting enemies into fans with your musical energy. The only way to overthrow The Industry is to become influential enough to rise to the top of the music charts, restoring the power of real music to the world and returning the distribution of wealth and adoration to authentic musicians.
Instead of killing enemies, you convert them into fans, causing them to run off and join your following. You collect loot and materials, equipping the best gear possible to strengthen your abilities, and craft powerful items with legendary powers, stats, or sockets.
Built from scratch in C# with a custom raylib ECS engine, CYGNAL — Fight the Industry! combines roguelike dungeon crawling with a music-industry world unlike anything else in the genre.
Keyboard and controller input are supported. Controller bindings are context-sensitive across gameplay and menus, follow the active input device, and can be remapped through controller profiles and the Controls menu.
All actions are rebindable. The game supports mouse interaction for click-to-move, targeting, loot pickup, and UI controls.
Move: W / A / S / D
Melee Attack: F
Groove Slam: Space
Interact: E
Pick Up: G
Breakdown: B
Return to Studio: X
Follower Command: V
Skill Slots: 1-6
Inventory: Tab / I
Character Sheet: C
Skill Tree: T
Legacy Tree: L
Pause / Menu: Escape
Activate CD / Song: Left Control
Hold Position: Left Shift / Right Shift
Zoom: Q out / Z in
Planned (not yet playable): Bassist, Vocalist, Keyboardist
The Studio is your home base between shows: a garage hideout where Sir Don briefs you, your build comes together, followers are recruited, rewards are spent, and every route back into the campaign begins. Learn the room once and the whole game opens up around it.
Pinball: left side of the Studio. The cabinet opens the three-ball Pinball activity once it is unlocked.
Setlist Cards / Poker: right side of the Studio at the slot-machine-style cabinet. Buy chips, then play the card run for tickets and materials.The garage changes as the campaign advances. Clear the storyline acts in order: The Rusty Nail leads to Backyard Party; Backyard Party unlocks the Workbench and follower layer; City Streets opens the Studio side activities; Midnight Rave unlocks the Woodshed route.
Completing those milestones upgrades the hideout presentation and expands what the room can do. The upgraded Studio unlocks only after completing a Woodshed wave 20 or higher; it is progression-gated, not a separate purchase. Keep following Sir Don’s briefings and return to the Studio after each venue clear.
Buy Pinball Tokens at the machine, then start a three-ball run. Space handles start, plunger charge, launch, and table nudge. A/Left/Left Shift operate the left flipper; D/Right/Right Shift operate the right flipper. Chase banks, bumpers, ramps, jackpots, and stereo sweeps for score, tickets, shards, and Song Stones.
Buy one Poker Chip stack at the cashier, enter the card table, and build traditional poker hands from an eight-card hand. Each round gives you three plays and two discards by default. Choose perks, clear targets, and finish the run to cash out Stage Tickets and bonus materials. Standard and One Take runs use the same machine but have different payout multipliers and daily caps.
Forge: craft follower gear after the follower/workbench unlock. Empty follower slots can auto-equip a newly crafted item.
Acclivity Remix: select an eligible player item and spend an Acclivity Shard for a socket, modifier infusion, or dangerous reroll outcome.
Gear Raffle: spend Stage Tickets for Standard or Premium random class items with special affix opportunities.
Venue warp: enter the next unlocked campaign venue from the Studio pad; complete objectives and return through the venue’s exit route.
Woodshed door: choose Amp before the waves begin. The run is endless, and the exit portal records a Woodshed result when you leave alive.
Player portal: valid venue portal checkpoints let you retreat to Studio and resume the venue later without losing the intended checkpoint state.
Your first stage is a dive bar with a pay-to-play promoter, sticky floors, and nowhere left to hide. Push through the alley and front room, find the green room, and turn the house stage into the first crack in The Industry's wall.
The underground answers with a neighborhood show. What looks like a casual backyard gig becomes a route through the entry, a cramped kitchen, and side-yard pressure before the rival headliner gets the final word.
The show leaves the yard and spills across the blocks. Every cleared intersection opens the next stretch of the takeover: crowded streets, hard corners, and a city that has to decide whether it is listening.
Neon takes over after dark. The rave district is a connected run of guarded doors and pulsing rooms where the crowd, the lighting, and the enemy pressure all build toward the headliner waiting deeper inside.
The final proving ground is not a gig at all. It is an endless test of sustain, movement, and build discipline, where Amp level raises the stakes and every wave asks how long your sound can hold.
