The Dungeon Beneath the Ancient Gate

Will you find the way through the dark and deadly rooms to open the ancient gate?

How to play
This is a turn based game and that the dungeon is randomized each time you play the game. It is not an action game, trying to fight your way past monsters will not get you far. Instead, try reading the descriptions of the creatures you encounter. There should be a way to outsmart them.

Your goal is to get to level five of the dungeon and open the gate.

Controls

Use the arrow, numpad, wasd or hjkl keys to move. There is no diagonal movement, you can only move in four directions.

Press i to open your inventory.

Press x to enter examine mode

Press enter to get a list of actions you can perform on objects nearby.

Unfortunately, escape exits the fullscreen mode in most browsers and there is no way around this. So if you want to play the game in fullscreen please use backspace to exit from menus.

Tags

This game does not have ”stat” like some other games , the rules are instead based on <tags>. You can see the tags on yourself and the items and creatures you encounter. Hovering over a tag will show you a description of what it does.

Vision

How far you can see depends on if a tile is illuminated or not. You can see a lit tile at a distance of 15 tiles, but a dark tile can only be seen from 3 tiles away. The same is true for other creatures. This means that carrying a light source helps you see farther, but it also makes it easier for monsters to spot you.

Sounds

Most actions in the game will cause sounds. The sounds you heard last turn is shown on your character sheet to the right. Monsters will use sound to detect you so even if you remain hidden from sight, they might be aware of you because of the sound of your footsteps or the crackling of your torch.

A loud enough sound will deafen nearby creatures, making them unable to detect other sounds for a few turns.

Combat

Each creature (such as yourself) has 3 attack points and 1 defense point, which can be modified by <tags> on the creature or its equipment.

The chance to damage an opponent in combat is atk/(def + atk), where atk is

the attack points of the attacker and def is defense points of the defender. This gives a base chance of 3/4 (75%) to damage a creature when attacking.

Examining a creature will show you its defense points, as well as your percentage chance of damaging it if attacking, its attack points and its chance to damage you.

If a creature takes damage, it gains the <wounded> tag (and its tile is displayed in red). If it takes damage while wounded, it becomes <dead>.

Made for the 7 day roguelike challenge 2025. This game used the code from my entry last year, "Past Shadows" as a base. All gameplay code, graphics and sound and other content were made 7 days.