DungeonGame

What is DungeonGame?

DungeonGame is a turn-based roguelike that runs in a browser, made by elgabo.lora in a dark, mature fantasy register. A low-resolution pixel world is drawn over an isometric 3D space, so light and shadow behave like real light rather than painted tiles.

The structure is two worlds stacked on each other. Below ground is a procedural dungeon of 20 levels; above it is Mugswallow, a town with day and night routines, shops that open and close, reputation, procedural quests and trades. The main quest is a descent: bring the Heart of the Spring back from the very bottom of the dungeon.

What makes the game distinctive is that the dungeon does not wait for you. Creatures hunt each other as readily as they hunt you, ground you have already explored fades into a cold memory once the torch burns low, and blood and noise carry. Death is permanent, and only one relic survives it, passed to your descendant already identified.

How to play

Your character's body is tracked in pieces: a head, a torso, two arms and two legs, each with 100 health. The head and torso are the fatal ones. An arm that takes too much damage drops whatever it is holding, a broken leg makes movement slower, and a limb that has been disabled must be splinted before it will heal.

Attacks resolve on a single exploding d100, compared against the target's dodge, its shield, and the armor sitting on the part you struck. Where you stand matters: there are eight directions of facing, and flanking, backstabs and aimed strikes all change the odds. Weapons are not interchangeable — daggers, maces, spears that reach two tiles and greatswords each behave differently.

Bleeding is a real cause of death, and the noise and blood you leave behind are followed. Bandages and splints are the countermeasures.

There are no experience points and no levels. Skills improve through use, with each improvement arriving more slowly than the last, so a character's strengths are shaped by what you actually do with them.

Controls

Desktop play uses a keyboard and mouse combination. Phones and tablets use touch controls, and that layout is built for landscape orientation, so it expects a wide screen rather than a tall one. The same build serves both.

Language can be changed at any time: F3 switches it, and the Options menu offers the same choice. On first load the game adopts the browser's own language, with English and Spanish as the available pair.

Because combat is turn-based, positioning and aiming are settled before anything resolves — eight directions of facing, aimed strikes at particular body parts and the two-tile reach of a spear all read as deliberate choices rather than reflex tests.

Tips for your first run

The first hour is mostly about not dying to something small. Keep a bandage on hand before you need one, and treat a disabled limb as an emergency to be splinted rather than a stat to wait out. Light is another resource: the torch burns down and the map behind you turns into memory, so decide early whether to push deeper or turn back, and remember that noise and spilled blood both travel.

• Aim before you swing. Facing, flanking and backstabs change the roll, and a two-tile spear keeps you out of retaliation range.
• Guard the head and torso first; a damaged arm or leg is a setback rather than an ending.
• Carry splints as well as bandages, because a disabled limb will not heal until it has been splinted.
• Try talking first. Some creatures will parley, some will give up, and some can be bought off.
• Use the notebook when identifying: sipping, smelling, dipping, engraving or skimming an unknown item is a guess with risk attached, and scrolls are deciphered sheet by sheet.
• Choose the heirloom your next character will inherit, since the relic arrives identified rather than unknown.

Content and replayability

Content is built around the 20-level dungeon and its six biomes, running from damp caves and abandoned mines through a fungal forest to crypts, ruins, and a lava abyss at the bottom. Levels hold secret doors, traps, chests, fountains and braziers, and they persist while your character lives; the creatures inside keep living their lives while you are gone.

The bestiary has 29 original species: 22 common creatures, a boss for each biome and a final boss on top. They are defined by diet and behavior — packs, predators, scavengers, ambushers and thieves — and some will talk, some will surrender, some will accept payment.

Items run to roughly 200. Identification is a game of its own: you can sip, smell, dip, engrave or skim something unknown and record your guess in a notebook, decipher scrolls sheet by sheet at some risk, and combine things — a potion with a weapon, a scroll with a gem, or two potions together.

Mugswallow, the surface town, keeps day and night routines, opens and closes its shops, tracks reputation, hands out procedural quests and supports trades such as skinning, fishing, alchemy and smithing. Its main quest sends you to the bottom of the dungeon for the Heart of the Spring. Permadeath then hands one chosen relic to your descendant, identified.

Presentation and performance

Visually the game is deliberately low-resolution: chunky pixel sprites placed in an isometric 3D space where light and shadow are simulated rather than painted on, so a brazier or a torch actually changes what you can see. The tone is dark and mature. Sound is procedural chiptune music plus positional effects that tell you where something is happening relative to your character.

All art, writing, music and code are original to the project, with sprites, icons and music produced by code rather than drawn or recorded by hand. The typefaces are Jacquard 12, Silkscreen and VT323. It runs as an HTML5 browser game, installs as an app, and works offline once installed.

Who should play it

It suits players who like turn-based roguelikes with real stakes: permanent death, no experience treadmill, and a dungeon that is indifferent to them. The body-part health system and the single exploding d100 make every fight a calculation about risk rather than a damage race, and the ecology of predators, scavengers and thieves makes the dungeon feel populated rather than staged.

The identification minigame and the living town will appeal to anyone who enjoys puzzles and simulation between fights — the notebook, the sheet-by-sheet scroll deciphering and the shop schedules are as much a part of the game as combat.

It is a natural fit for bilingual players, since English and Spanish are both supported and switching takes one key, and for people who play in short browser sessions on a phone or tablet in landscape as well as at a desktop keyboard.

DungeonGame is still in development, so the build available now is a work in progress rather than a finished release.