In development · v0.5 playtest
The Depths
An old-school, grid-based dungeon RPG. Delve one square at a time, fight where you stand, and when you die, send someone down to fetch the body.
The game
A dungeon that doesn’t care about you
The Depths is a 2D top-down dungeon crawler built in Godot, inspired first and foremost by Mordor 2, with a good deal of Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol and Demise: Rise of Ku’Tan mixed in. It keeps what made those games stick: a single, persistent dungeon that goes deeper than is good for you, characters shaped by what they do rather than a class picked on day one, and loot you have to carry home before it counts.
You build adventurers in town, take one down the stairs, and push as far as you dare. Each floor is darker and stranger than the last, from goblin warrens to a temple of the dead, spinning floors that steal your bearings, and the lair of a champion who never came back up.
Key concepts
How it plays
- 01
One square at a time
The whole dungeon is a grid, walked one step at a time. Corridors, rooms, doors, levers, secret passages, traps, spinners and teleport pads all live on the same squares, and the dungeon remembers what you did to it.
- 02
The fight happens where you stand
Monsters live in rooms, not on a separate battle screen. Walk into their room and the encounter starts around you. You can keep moving, open a chest mid-fight, run for the door or flee the room entirely while they keep swinging.
- 03
No classes, only guilds
You never pick a class. An adventurer is a race, an attribute spread and a background, then whatever guild they join: Adventurers, Warriors, Rogues or Mages. Each guild keeps its own levels, and you can switch whenever you meet the requirements.
- 04
Death is costly, not final
When an adventurer falls, their body stays where it dropped, with every item and coin they carried. Send another adventurer down to carry it home, or pay the Morgue to try. The Temple raises the dead, at a price.
- 05
You don’t know what you’re holding
Loot comes up unidentified: just a “Sword” or a “Potion”. Identify it at the shop, through your guild or with a scroll. Some finds are cursed and won’t come off; some rare potions change an attribute for good, for better or worse.
- 06
The town between trips
Every delve starts and ends in town. Sell and buy at the General Shop and Blacksmith, take a task from the guild board, train your levels, bank your gold, and see who made the Hall of Records.
What we’re after
The feeling of being too deep
The aim is to capture what those 90s dungeon RPGs did best: the slow, earned progress, and the knot in your stomach when you are three floors down with a full pack and nearly no health. The core loop we’re building towards:
Create → Town → Dungeon → Fight or flee → Loot →Return → Grow stronger → Risk death → Recover → Continue
- Dangerous but fair
- Every death should feel like your own decision catching up with you: one room too many, one potion too few.
- The long way home
- The best moments are the walk back up with full packs and low health, every unexplored door a gamble.
- A roster, not a hero
- Death hurts enough that you keep several adventurers. They rescue each other, and each one becomes a story.
- Depth over spectacle
- Systems that interlock — guilds, races, identification, curses, corpses — matter more than effects on screen.
Playtest builds
Download the latest version
The Depths is in closed playtesting. Downloads are open to approved playtesters only, so the links will ask you to sign in. If you’d like to play, ask Kalle for access.
Unzip and run. The version, commit and build date are shown on the start screen; mention them when you report a bug.
Pixel art on this page is from 0x72’s 16x16 DungeonTileset II (CC0), which the game uses for its heroes and monsters.