Tarantula Dungeon

What is Tarantula Dungeon?

Tarantula Dungeon hands the player the role usually reserved for the last room: the boss. The queen of a forest nest faces Sir Aldric, a knight carrying a Guild order that declares the woods under heroic management, and the game treats his defeat as the beginning rather than the end.

It is a top-down action roguelite with survivor-like waves and no fixed final round, made in Godot Engine by Randomite Studios. The project started as the studio's entry for MigJam #44, a jam built around a spider theme, and it follows the studio's earlier game Isle Claim. Everything runs in a browser with keyboard and mouse.

The build is labelled in development and carries a publication date of 27 October 2026. That is worth knowing before clicking Play: this is a free, live browser game rather than a finished retail release, and the four screenshots show what day-one play looks like.

How to play

Every round is a defence of the nest. The queen bites, pounces and throws webs to break up the approaching party, and she lays eggs that hatch into a brood which fights without further input. Left alone, that brood is the difference between facing one hero and facing a crowd.

Between rounds the next clutch is designed. Sticky silk, trip lines, venom and bigger fangs are the sorts of upgrades on offer, and new spider species arrive with their own moves. Molting is the queen's own progression: she grows, and the player chooses which improvements she keeps for good rather than for a single wave.

Fallen heroes are not wasted. Once a whole party is down, the queen cocoons Sir Aldric and hangs him in the nest; those cocoons last the entire run and can be eaten to restore health. Retaliation is built in, though. Aldric re-equips against whatever killed him previously, fire for webs and armour for fangs, and every third round adds another named hero to his side. The run ends when the nest finally breaks.

Controls

The queen moves with WASD and aims with the mouse. The left button bites, Space pounces and the right button throws webs, so the three attacks sit under separate fingers. E lays an egg and F eats a stored cocoon to heal.

P pauses and M mutes. Before any of that works, the game needs one click inside the frame so the browser hands over keyboard input; without that click, movement and hotkeys go nowhere. In fullscreen, Esc drops back out of fullscreen rather than pausing, so P is the key to reach for when stepping away mid-round.

Tips for your first run

Start on Hatchling. That difficulty is pitched at players new to spiders, giving more time and softer hits, and it lets the brood mechanic be learned before the punishment arrives. Weaver is the intended baseline, and Widow stays locked until round 12 is cleared.

Treat cocoons as a health bank. They persist across the whole run, so eating one with F is a timing decision rather than a free top-up, and spending one early can leave a later round short.

Watch what did the killing, because Aldric will counter it. If webs carried the round, expect fire next time; if fangs did the work, expect armour. Molt picks are permanent, so choose the upgrade that answers the coming counter rather than the one that repeats the last win.

• Click the game frame once before touching WASD, or the keys will not register.
• Lay eggs between pushes; a brood that hatches mid-fight is worth more than an empty nest.
• Learn the pause key early, since Esc only leaves fullscreen.
• Keep cocoons in reserve for the rounds right after a new hero joins the party.
• Use Hatchling to test molt choices before committing to them on Weaver.

Content and replayability

The structure is endless rounds rather than a campaign, so length is whatever the nest survives. Each cycle adds pressure: the party grows, heroes return better equipped, and elite heroes turn up alongside the named companions Lyra the archer, Brother Bram the healer, Ysolde the mage and Nim the rogue.

Replay value comes from the clutch and molt systems. Upgrades are drafted between rounds, brood traits stack into different nest builds, and new spider species change what the queen can do, so two runs do not have to defend the same way. Three difficulties — Hatchling, Weaver and the unlockable Widow — add a second and third ladder once the first is understood.

Tone is part of the draw. The heroes shout manga-style battle cries and hold far too many opinions, which keeps a defence loop about a spider and her children from turning grim. Comedy sits next to the dark fantasy and Halloween tagging rather than replacing it.

Presentation and performance

Visually the game is top-down and set in a forest, with the nest as the anchor point and waves arriving into it. The forest art comes from RedCraft, a nature top-down asset by NickDzen is used with the author's permission, and the icons are recoloured from game-icons.net sets by Delapouite, Skoll, Carl Olsen and DarkZaitzev.

Type is set in Lilita One and Barlow Condensed. Audio is credited in detail: punches, hits, swords and squish effects mixed from Philippe Groarke's Socapex packs, plus creature and general effects from rubberduck, sword sounds from StarNinjas, and impact and RPG audio from Kenney.

Delivery is an HTML5 build running in the browser on Godot Engine, reached through the playable frame on the page. The in-game credits carry a full licence list and a longer audio breakdown for anyone who wants to trace a specific sound or icon set.

Who should play it

Anyone who has played a survivor-like and wondered what the monsters were doing will find the pitch immediate: the queen is the player, the knight is the obstacle, and the brood does the swarming. Fans of roguelite drafting get between-round upgrades plus permanent molt picks, so decisions carry past the wave that prompted them.

It also suits players who want a browser game with nothing to pay and a session that can end whenever the nest falls, and who like comedy folded into dark fantasy — heroes with opinions, battle cries and an endless grudge match against a spider.

Players who need touch controls or a finished, content-complete release should look elsewhere. This is a keyboard-and-mouse browser build still marked in development, and Hatchling exists precisely because the spider side of the fight takes a round or two to learn.