In this context a dungeon crawler is a grid based RPG viewed in first person and with 90 degree turning. Examples of classic dungeon crawlers are Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore and Bard’s Tale etc.

For more examples check out the submissions in last year’s jam.

Game specific rules:

The game must have first-person exploration at all times. (See the above GIF). Exceptions are point to point overworld map movement (fast travel), combat screens, cut scenes, town screen, inventory screen other relevant screens. The game must have explorable locations. It doesn’t have to be a dungeon in the traditional sense. It can be urban environments, outdoors, spaceship interiors, planetary surfaces etc. Whichever environment the game has it must be viewed and explored in first-person. The game must have step movement on a grid. Smooth transition between grid squares is allowed. Half-steps or dividing the square into smaller squares is not accepted. The game must have 90 degree turns in the cardinal directions, North, East, South, West. Smooth transition between 90 degree angles is allowed. Mouse-look is also allowed. Games which let you turn 90 degrees up and down are also allowed. The game must have a player controlled character (or party of characters), or the abstraction of a character or persona. The game must at the very least have some basic stats. (Minimum a single health/power bar) The game must have a death/perish/fail condition, or some other end-of-game mechanic. The game must have at least one way to affect character stat(s). Examples are resting, potions, items with bonuses, food, water, powerups etc. The game must have combat or a similar mechanic for determining outcome of certain situations, enemy encounters and events. Any theme is allowed, but keep it decent and safe for work! Other rules:

You can use any game engines, libraries, pre-existing code/algorithms, pre-existing art, etc. The game must be a new game project started and finished within the 7 day time frame, not just another week of work on an existing one. The goal is a finished and reasonably polished dungeon crawler; not a prototype, proof of concept or tech demo. The game must be free to download and play to the end. A commercial version of the game may of course be released after the jam ends, perhaps with added content and features. It is recommended to be prepared and have a rough design idea of your project before starting. It’s a daunting task to make a game in just a week so plan well and keep scope narrow. It’s infinitely better to submit a visually simple but feature complete game which you can play from start to end than a single level “demo” with eyecandy graphics and many absent or unfinished gameplay mechanics.

If you want to team up with someone let it be known in the discussion board. There might already be someone there to team up with.

Join the dungeoncrawlers.org Discord for live discussion, brainstorming and recommendations for engines, tools, assets etc. to use when developing a dungeon crawler.

Use #dcjam2022 to share progress or tweet about your game :)