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Delve
A browser roguelike. Permadeath. Procedural dungeons.
The world remembers who passed through.
From the Chronicle of the Keepers
Fragment I — The First Seal
I am Aldric, last Keeper of the Deep vault.
Three hundred years ago, our order built this place as a seal. Below the seventh level, we found something — ancient, patient, and very large. We called it the Dungeon Heart because we lacked a better word. We placed the Sunstone above it. The light was the lock.
If you are reading this, the outer seal has failed. I am sorry. We thought it would hold longer.
If you have come for treasure, there is none. If you have come for the Sunstone, read what follows.
— Aldric, formerly a surveyor
Design
Simple first
Every system must earn its place. A tight, well-tuned small game beats a sprawling, half-finished one.
Permadeath with memory
Death is permanent, but it leaves a mark. Gravestones from previous runs appear in new dungeons. The world remembers.
Classic feel, web delivery
ASCII rendering via rot.js, keyboard-driven, turn-based. No click-to-move, no auto-attack. Play it like it's 1980 but in a browser tab.
Fair RNG
Random generation can't create unwinnable situations. Deaths should feel deserved — even when you blame the game.
Classes
Warrior
Steel in hand, iron in the gut. The dungeon respects weight — so do you.
HP 26
ATK 5
DEF 3
Cleave — Strike all adjacent enemies at once.
Rogue
Better to avoid a fight than win one. Locks, lies, and luck — in that order.
HP 20
ATK 8
DEF 1
Smoke Bomb — All enemies lose track of you.
Mage
The arcane burns bright — and brief. Better to be brilliant than safe.
HP 18
ATK 12
DEF 0
Arcane Bolt — Magic missile. Ignores armor.
Ranger
One arrow, one kill. If the dark has a heartbeat, you can hear it.
HP 22
ATK 6
DEF 2
Volley — Fire at up to 3 visible enemies.
Necromancer
Life is just potential energy. You learned to spend it.
HP 19
ATK 7
DEF 1
Animate Dead — Raise a nearby corpse as a temporary minion.
Paladin
Faith is armor. The dungeon does not care — but you do.
HP 24
ATK 5
DEF 3
Holy Light — Restore 10 HP and cure your worst status effect.
Bard
Every dungeon has a song. You just change the tempo.
HP 20
ATK 6
DEF 1
Discordant Song — Confuse all aware enemies within radius 6 for 5 turns.
Run modifiers
Each run is assigned a random modifier — a rule change that warps the dungeon in interesting (and often lethal) ways. Curses make things harder. Blessings help. Mixed do both.
Forsaken curse
The merchant turns away.
No shop between floors.
Glass Cannon mixed
Fragile but lethal.
Max HP halved. Base ATK +4.
Bloodthirst mixed
Steel is your medicine.
Kills restore 3 HP. Healing potions have no effect.
Haunted curse
Something follows you down.
+3 enemies spawn per floor.
Blessed blessing
Fortune smiles upon you.
Start with 75 gold and 2 extra healing potions.
Swiftness blessing
You move like smoke.
Ability cooldown is halved.
Cursed Blade curse
The weapon cuts both ways.
Your attacks deal +3 damage, but you take 1 damage with every hit you land.
Pacifist curse
Every kill weighs heavy.
Earn no XP from combat. XP only from shrines, libraries, and potions of experience.
Nemesis curse
Something down here holds a grudge.
One enemy type is death-marked: +40% HP and +2 ATK.
Fading Memory curse
The dungeon forgets you. So do you.
Explored tiles you have not seen in 60 turns fade back into darkness.
Cartographer blessing
The map writes itself.
Every floor begins fully explored. Enemies remain hidden until spotted.
Bloodprice curse
The merchant demands a different coin.
The shop accepts only HP, not gold. Every purchase costs life.
Found in the dungeon
Descent
"To whoever reads this: the gold is not worth it. Nothing down here is worth it. I am writing this anyway because I cannot stop descending."
A Warning, Revised
"TURN BACK" is written once. "GO DEEPER" is written below it in different handwriting.
Last Entry
"Last entry. Found the source of the cold draft. I wish I had not."
Field Note
"If a room looks too neat, assume it's been recently used. If it looks too messy, assume it's hungry."
Theorem
"Theorem: the dungeon is not a place. It is an accumulation. Every adventurer who died here added something to it."
Mira Voss
"My name is Mira Voss. I reached level eight. If you find this, it means I did not come back. The wraiths cannot be killed, only avoided."
Ashes of the Pale Flame
A Slay-the-Spire-style deckbuilder set in this world — same lore, same monsters, different combat. Build a deck, descend three acts, fight the Pale King.
7 classes
Each class has a starter deck reflecting their roguelike role. Warrior builds block, Mage spikes damage, Necromancer poisons and outlasts.
3 acts
Branching node map — Combat, Elite, Event, Rest, Shop, Boss. The Warren → The Ruins → The Crypt. Each act boss carries your deck forward.
No backend
Run state lives in
localStorage, signed with a SHA-256 hash on every write. Hand-edited saves are rejected, not silently applied.Shared world
Same palette, same lore fragments, same bestiary. Aldric's chronicle opens the game. The dungeon heart it describes is still down there.
Between Descents
A town management sim set above the Warren. You never go down. You run the town that outfits the people who do — recruit delvers, equip them from four shops, choose a depth, send them in, and see what comes back.
Town loop
Recruit from 7 classes. Equip from four shops. Loot lands in a shared Stash — equip it on anyone or sell it back. Invest in shops to unlock deeper stock.
Checkpoints
Deeper expeditions pause mid-delve. Your delver returns with their log and gold so far — press on for more, or bank it and come home. Death ends immediately.
Hall of Winners
Every fallen or retired delver is recorded across runs — name, class, deepest depth, fate. A burial ceremony gives them a procedural epitaph. The Hall survives a reset.
Shared world
Same lore voice, same faction beats, same class roster and portraits as the roguelike and deckbuilder. Same
localStorage SHA-256 save signing scheme too.