Game manual: everything worth knowing before you go down into the dungeon.
Dungeon Hack is a classic-style roguelike: the world is drawn with characters and you are the @. Your task is to descend as deep into the dungeon as you can and survive. The game is turn-based: nothing happens until you move, so you always have time to think.
Death is permanent. You die when a monster takes your last hit point or when you starve. Then you start a new expedition from scratch, in a new dungeon.
When you launch the game you see the start screen. From there you can continue your current expedition, start a new one – by tapping a difficulty card – or browse your achievements and the short help. A new expedition replaces the current one, so the game asks first.
You start in town (level 0) with 20 hit points, 40 gold, four food rations and a dagger in your backpack.
The town is safe and fully lit. It has three shops, marked with the digits 1 2 3, and stairs leading down >. In town you get hungry half as fast as in the dungeon.
Each dungeon level is created the first time you go down and never changes after that: slain monsters don't come back, and dropped items wait where you left them. The stairs up < always lead to the stairs you came down, so you can go back to town to shop.
Open a closed door + by walking into it; opening takes a turn, and an open door ' stays open.
Works with a keyboard connected to your phone or in an emulator.
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Move | ← ↑ → ↓, numeric keypad 1–9, or h j k l y u b n (as in classic roguelikes) |
| Wait / cancel aiming | 5 on the numeric keypad or . |
| Attack / shoot | A |
| Stairs | D |
In the dungeon you see 6 squares, as long as nothing blocks the view. Walls, rock, closed doors and trees block it. Big monsters and bosses can be spotted from 8 squares away.
Pick items up by walking over them. Your backpack holds 25 items, including the ones you wear; when it is full, items stay on the ground and you can't buy anything in shops. Gold takes no space and goes straight into your purse. Letters are monsters – the full list is in Monsters.
A melee attack is a roll to hit, followed by a roll for damage.
Starving and poison weaken you: they multiply your damage, defense and accuracy (see Hunger and Poison).
The bow and the wand of magic missile fire in a straight line in one of eight directions, up to 5 squares. The shot hits the first monster in its path; walls and closed doors stop it.
If you hear heavy, thudding footsteps on arrival, there is a big monster on the level. A terrifying roar means a boss – the Troll King, who guards the stairs down on every third level (3, 6, 9…). You only hear these sounds while such a monster is still alive.
You have 20 hit points. Every 8 turns you regain one point (every 3 turns with a ring of regeneration), but not while starving. Potions heal you faster: healing (+8 HP) and full healing (back to full).
Every turn uses up one unit of food. A full stomach lasts 120, 65 or 40 turns, depending on the difficulty level. In town, and while wearing a ring of sustenance, your stomach only works every other turn.
Every dungeon level has at least one piece of food lying around. Animals often leave meat behind, and the alchemist always has rations for sale.
Spiders s and snakes S are venomous: each of their hits has a 2% chance to poison you.
You can wear one weapon, one suit of armor, a shield and a ring at the same time. Equipping something in an occupied slot takes off the previous item. The bow is two-handed: equipping a bow removes your shield, and equipping a shield removes your bow.
| Weapon | Damage | Notes | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ) | dagger | 2–4 | 20 | |
| ) | sword | 3–5 | 40 | |
| ) | mace | 2–6 | uneven blows | 35 |
| ) | bow | 2–5 | shoots 5 squares; two-handed; punches in melee | 45 |
| Armor | Defense | Notes | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [ | leather armor | 2 | 50 | |
| [ | chain mail | 4 | accuracy −5; in the dungeon from level 2 | 100 |
| [ | plate armor | 6 | accuracy −10; in the dungeon from level 4 | 180 |
| [ | shield | 1 | not together with a bow | 30 |
Weapons and armor found in the dungeon may have a bonus: +1 or +2 (to both ends of the damage range, or to defense). Each bonus point raises the price by 15 gold. Cursed items have a negative bonus – see Curses.
Potions are in your Backpack; scrolls, rings and wands are in the Magic menu. A potion you drink and a scroll you read are gone. Unidentified items work too – you just don't know in advance what they will do.
| Potion | Effect | Price |
|---|---|---|
| healing | +8 hit points | 15 |
| full healing | heals you completely | 40 |
| antidote | cures poison | 20 |
| satiety | a full stomach, as if after a feast | 15 |
| Scroll | Effect | Price |
|---|---|---|
| teleportation | moves you to a random free spot on the level | 25 |
| identify | identifies everything in your backpack, curses included | 30 |
| purification | cures poison | 20 |
| magic mapping | reveals the layout of the whole level | 35 |
| remove curse | lifts the curses from everything in your backpack | 40 |
An antidote or a scroll of purification used when you are not poisoned is wasted.
A ring works while you wear it. A cursed ring doesn't work and takes away defense points on top of that.
| Ring | Effect | Price |
|---|---|---|
| protection | +1 defense | 90 |
| antidote | cures poison at once and protects you from new poison | 80 |
| regeneration | a hit point every 3 turns instead of every 8 | 120 |
| sustenance | you get hungry half as fast | 100 |
The wand of magic missile fires a magic missile up to 5 squares (4–8 damage, always hits the first monster in line). Choose Fire in the Magic menu, then a direction on the d-pad. A wand has a limited number of charges; in the shop it costs 30 gold plus 20 gold per charge.
Items found in the dungeon are unidentified: you only see "magic sword" or "magic potion", without the bonus or effect. You can identify them:
Goods bought in a shop are always identified and never cursed. Gold and food are always what they seem.
About one in three wearable items you find – a weapon, armor, a shield or a ring – is cursed. A cursed item has a negative bonus (weapons and armor −1 to −3, rings −1 or −2). You can't tell until you put it on or identify it.
When you put on a cursed item, a chill runs through you – the curse is revealed. From then on you cannot take it off, swap it for something else, drop it or sell it. Only a scroll of remove curse frees you; it lifts the curses from everything in your backpack.
Uncursed weapons and armor from the dungeon have a bonus of 0 (half the time), +1 (about 1/3) or +2 (the rest).
Step onto a shop's digit to open its window; the Shop button opens it again. Trading does not use a turn.
| Shop | Sells and buys | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Armorer | weapons, armor and shields |
| 2 | Alchemist | potions, scrolls and food rations; also buys meat (2 gold each) |
| 3 | Magic shop | rings and wands |
Monsters stay put until they notice you. Each one sees a certain distance, and only where nothing blocks the view. Once it spots you, it comes at you; if you disappear from sight, it goes to where it last saw you and gives up there. The hound is a tracker: it follows your scent even when it can't see you, but loses a step every third turn.
A level has 4 + its level number monsters (at most 12), including at most one big one. The room you arrive in has no monsters – you get a moment to look around.
| Monster | HP | Damage | From lvl | Sight | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r | rat | 4 | 1–2 | 1 | 2 | animal |
| b | bat | 3 | 1–2 | 1 | 3 | animal |
| s | spider | 6 | 1–3 | 1 | 2 | animal, venomous |
| g | goblin | 5 | 1–3 | 1 | 3 | humanoid |
| k | kobold | 7 | 1–4 | 1 | 3 | humanoid |
| S | snake | 8 | 2–4 | 2 | 2 | animal, venomous |
| d | hound | 9 | 2–4 | 2 | 3 | animal, tracks by scent |
| O | ogre | 22 | 3–8 | 2 | 3 | humanoid, big |
| q | bear | 18 | 3–6 | 3 | 3 | animal |
| o | orc | 11 | 2–5 | 3 | 5 | humanoid |
| p | bandit | 12 | 2–5 | 3 | 5 | humanoid |
| T | Troll King | 40 | 4–10 | 3 | 5 | boss: guards the stairs down on every third level |
Hit points and damage are given for Normal difficulty; the difficulty level scales them (see Difficulty).
Loot is unidentified, like everything else you find in the dungeon.
| Level | A full stomach lasts | Monster health and damage |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 120 turns | ×0.5 |
| Normal | 65 turns | ×1 |
| Hard | 40 turns | ×1.3 |
Choose the difficulty on the start screen by tapping one of the three cards for a new expedition. The game remembers your last choice; the current expedition keeps its own difficulty to the end.
There are 50 achievements in six groups: descent, combat, survival, items and magic, trade, and expeditions. Some come right away (first blood, first purchase), some take many expeditions (500 monsters slain), and a few need an unusual playstyle (reaching level 3 without killing anyone). A banner appears at the top of the screen when you unlock one.
Progress counts across all your expeditions and is kept when you die. The full list, with counters ("37/50"), is on the start screen under Achievements.