Developer: Duncan Armstrong
At a glance
21 Steam reviews rate it “Positive” (95% positive). Released on April 2, 2026 by Duncan Armstrong. Current price: $3.00.
Description
DA_RL is a traditional turn-based roguelike dungeon crawler. You pick a class and descend into a procedurally generated dungeon, hunting the scattered shards of the Amulet of Ascension. Combine them and the dungeon turns on you. Now you have to climb and fight your way back up.
Your adventurer's name, their hometown, and the dungeon itself are all procedurally generated, so every run starts in a world you've never seen. Descend through the dungeon, recover the shards, and find out what's waiting in the depths below.
Restoring the Amulet doesn't end the run. The floors above repopulate, so the climb back can be deadlier than the way down. And when you finally reach the entrance with the full Amulet in hand, the dungeon's ancient guardian is waiting to stop you from leaving:
The Dungeon's End.
PICK A CLASS, PLAY DIFFERENTLY
Five classes, each with their own stats and a unique ability that changes how you approach every floor.
The Fighter starts tough and gets a free Second Wind each floor, a heavy heal for when things get desperate. The Mage is fragile but casts from the largest mana pool in the game at reduced cost. The Rogue lives and dies by crits and dodges, and hitting from invisibility doubles the damage. The Cleric mixes combat with Divine Healing on a cooldown. The Ranger gets extra range on every ranged weapon they pick up.
THE GODS ARE WATCHING
Five gods pay attention to how you play. You earn favor by killing the enemies they like, using their shrines, and playing the way they prefer. Build enough favor and they help you. Let it drop and they punish you.
Ferrus, god of war, likes it when you kill things. Arcanus, god of magic, favors spellcasters. Umbra, god of shadow, is fine with poison, darkness, and things most gods would find distasteful. Luminos, god of light, rewards healing and hates the undead. Sylvan, god of nature, likes it when you let the dungeon's own dangers do the work.
Each god also has a rival, and worshipping at a rival's shrine costs you favor. Pick one and commit, or worship no one and go it alone.
SPELLS, SCROLLS, WANDS, AND MORE
Most consumables start unidentified. A potion might heal you, poison you, turn you invisible, or make you hallucinate, and you won't know which until you try it. Scrolls can reveal the map, teleport you across the dungeon, summon an ally, or end your run if you read the wrong one. Wands give you limited-use versions of spells like Fireball or Drain Life.
Spellbooks are permanent. Read one and that spell is yours, from basics like Magic Missile and Frost Bolt to late-game magic like Meteor Swarm, Death Ray, and Void Sphere. Casting costs mana and many spells have cooldowns, so managing resources matters.
Weapons and armor can be enchanted or cursed. A sword of flaming adds fire damage, a ring of regeneration heals you passively. But a cursed item might glue itself to your hand, drain your stats, or keep you confused until you find a way to remove it. Status effects work on monsters as well as on you, so enemies can be frozen, burned, poisoned, confused, or charmed into fighting for you. Much of the game is learning how these systems interact.
A DUNGEON FULL OF THINGS THAT WANT YOU DEAD
The monster roster is large and every family runs deep. A regular Bat gives way to a Cave Bat, then a Shadow Bat, then a Vampire Bat, and eventually a Demon Bat, and that pattern repeats across goblins, undead, dragons, elementals, giants, demons, and more. The enemies you face on floor 5 are not the ones waiting on floor 25.
The dungeon is split across five regions that grow stranger and more dangerous as you descend, from stone halls near the surface to open caves deeper down. Some rooms are pitch black, dropping your vision to a few tiles while whatever's in there already knows where you are. Traps are hidden throughout, some you can dodge, some you can save against, and some just drop you to the next floor. Some walls are secret doors. On top of all of it, you have to manage hunger, or starvation starts doing the dungeon's work for it.
FEATURES
Five playable classes with unique stats and abilities
Five gods to worship with a full favor and boon system
Recover the Amulet of Ascension, survive the return journey, and defeat The Dungeon's End to escape
Turn-based, tile-based movement and combat with saving throws
Procedurally generated dungeon floors with scaling difficulty
Five dungeon regions with organic cave generation deeper down
Dark rooms, hidden traps, and secret doors
17+ potions, 19+ scrolls, wands, rings, and spellbooks
18+ learnable spells from Magic Missile to Void Sphere
30+ weapons and armor pieces, many with enchantments or curses
Multiple ranged weapon types (bows, crossbows, blowguns) with ammunition types
Dozens of enemy types across multiple monster families
Hunger system, status effects, field of view
Procedurally generated adventurer names and hometowns
Full controller support
Full save system with Steam Cloud support
Supported languages: english
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Description and screenshots are provided by the publisher via the Steam Store page.
System Requirements
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.2 capable (Intel HD 4000 or equivalent)
- Storage: 200 MB available space
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Any discrete GPU
- Storage: 200 MB available space
Mac
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04
- Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.2 capable (Intel HD 4000 or equivalent)
- Storage: 200 MB available space
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04
- Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Any discrete GPU
- Storage: 200 MB available space
User Reviews
Great ascii traditional roguelike with (gasp) controller support!
Lots of great UI/UX design here that i wish other keyboard-first tradRLs would take note of.
I like this. It makes me feel like I'm playing a deeper version of Rogue with some QoL improvements. I'm old, and Traditional RLs are one one of my top five genres of games. I happened across this doing one of my Steam search deep dives. I'm glad I did. I got it on the autumn sale for $1.80, but it's normally only $3, and honestly, in my opinion worth more than that. If you like old school ASCII roguelikes, I'd highly recommend this. I hope there are more updates or DLC.
My only complaints are that, I can't figure out where hunger is listed. There are other things listed: HP, MP, turns, etc., but I couldn't see or find a hunger meter. It just suddenly said "starving" on the info bar, but I wouldn't have even noticed it had I not gotten an achievement for starving. If I'm missing if there's a hunger meter or something that denotes it, please let me know.
Also, I wish there was a way (again, unless I'm missing it) that you could compare or see the difference in stats before you actually pick up a weapon or armor. Again, if there is and I'm missing it, let me know.
All in all, this is nostalgic but new, and absolutely worth playing. Would recommend.
DA_RL is a very good game.
I think.
There is something deeply satisfying about entering a dungeon and doing the things that one normally does in a dungeon. You move forward, you encounter things, you make decisions, and eventually you are somewhere else. This is a very strong foundation for a game, and DA_RL certainly has one.
The game understands the importance of choice. There are many choices. You make some of them, and then you make some more. Sometimes the choices are good, sometimes they are less good, but they are always choices, which is important.
I also appreciate the atmosphere. The atmosphere is very much there. It has the feeling of being in a dungeon, which is exactly what I was hoping for when I started playing a game about being in a dungeon.
There are enemies, items, abilities, danger, and other things that make the experience feel like a traditional roguelike experience. Everything comes together in a way that is difficult to describe, but I believe this is a positive thing.
The deeper I went, the more I understood that the game was asking me to think.
I did think.
Sometimes.
This is probably one of the game's greatest strengths. It creates situations where you have to consider what you are doing, why you are doing it, and whether you could perhaps be doing something else instead. These are important questions, even when the answer is not particularly interesting.
And then there is the dungeon itself.
It is certainly a dungeon.
I cannot emphasize this enough.
There are rooms. There are corridors. There are things inside the rooms and corridors. You can interact with some of these things, and sometimes the things interact with you in ways that encourage further interaction.
This is good dungeon design.
I also enjoyed the general sense of progression. You start somewhere, then you go somewhere else, and after enough time you are expected to be considerably more successful at being where you are. This creates a feeling of development that is difficult to achieve in games that do not have a beginning, middle, and some other part after that.
The game is also challenging.
Not necessarily in a way that made me want to keep playing forever, but certainly in a way that reminded me that I was playing a game.
Overall, DA_RL is a positive experience that I am happy to recommend to people who enjoy traditional roguelikes, dungeon games, or simply the concept of moving through a place and seeing what happens.
It is not necessary to understand everything.
In fact, I am not sure I did.
But perhaps that is part of the experience.
DA_RL is a game about entering a dungeon.
I entered the dungeon.
The dungeon was there.
There were things in it.
I experienced them.
And while I cannot say that every moment filled me with an overwhelming desire to continue experiencing additional moments, I can confidently say that DA_RL remains a game that exists, functions as intended, and provides a surprisingly authentic opportunity to spend some time in a dungeon.
Recommended.
Probably.
DA_RL is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It's a traditional roguelike with just the right amount of modern sensibility and quality of life. The exploration and combat are very satisfying and the systems are deep enough to provide you with options while remaining streamlined to keep everything feeling snappy and engaging. It's easy to start a run and get completely immersed in it. And while it's easy to save and pick back up later, if you're anything like me, you'll just want to keep going to see what the next floor is like and what new enemies you might find. I also love idea of the daily runs, as they give me a chance to experiment and try out classes that I've traditionally stayed away from in other games. It's also a great way to compare with your tactical thinking with that of your friends for daily bragging rights!
This roguelike is very well constructed, is still getting improvements all the time, and is, most importantly, a lot of fun! I definitely recommend giving this one a shot if you enjoy the genre at all!
Surprisingly fun game and 100% worth the asking price. Really scratches the Nethack itch. 10/10 Recommended for the price. Some of the smaller details i find really cool ... e.g. blood splatter starts to color the ascii text floor by changing the characters that represent the floor red. Screen shakes when you're fighting. Screen goes wavy when you eat something that makes you hallucinate. Love it. Very cute. Hope the developer keeps adding to it when they can. Would love some more QoL improvements and wouldn't mind paying $1 - 2 for a future DLC. Also, I'm pretty sure this game could run on a "Potato" PC.
Additional Information
| Developer | Duncan Armstrong |
| Platforms | Windows, Linux |
| Age rating | None |
| Release date | April 2, 2026 |
| User reviews | 95% positive (21) |