How to play
SPELLDELVE is a 3D dungeon crawler where you play a wizard heading down through nine floors of dungeon to the throne room at the bottom. Move with W A S D and aim with the mouse. Left click casts your primary spell, which is free. Your other spells sit on right click, Q, E and R, and each one costs mana and has its own cooldown. Your mana starts at 100 and refills on its own.
Space or Shift is a dodge: a quick dash with a moment of invulnerability, ready again a little over a second later. Tab or G opens the grimoire, where you choose which spells go on which buttons. Esc or P pauses and M mutes.
When you walk into a room with monsters in it, the doors slam shut until every monster is dead. Most attacks show first as a red shape on the floor: a circle, a line or an arc. Step out of it before it lands. Ghost orbs and spider webs are the exception: they fly straight at you with no floor marking, so keep moving. Find the stairs on each floor to go down, and between floors a travelling merchant opens a shop.
Tips and strategy
- Watch the floor, not the monster. Charges, leaps, arrows, slams and boss attacks are drawn on the ground first, and the edge of the red shape turns pale gold just before it lands. That is your cue to dodge.
- Dodge through, not away. The dodge makes you briefly untouchable, so you can dash straight through a charging goblin or a boss's sweep.
- Get round the knights. A Grave Knight facing you takes under a third of the damage. Hit him from the side or behind, while he swings, or blow him up: Fireball and Meteor explosions ignore the shield.
- Let goblins hit the wall. A Goblin Charger that runs into a wall stuns itself. Dodge sideways and punish it.
- Freeze, then lance. Ice Lance does double damage to slowed or frozen monsters, so it pairs well with Frost Shard or Frost Nova.
- Be careful with treasure. From floor 2, the chest in a treasure room is sometimes a Mimic. It is tough, but it always drops a spellbook or a tome.
- Gold is never wasted. Whatever gold you are carrying when the run ends is banked, so spend it in the shop when it helps you survive and keep the rest.
What's in it
Fifteen spells. Three primaries (Arcane Bolt, Spark Scatter and Frost Shard) and twelve others: Fireball, Frost Nova, Chain Lightning, Arcane Missiles, Meteor, Poison Cloud, Ice Lance, Blink, Summon Familiar, Arcane Shield, Gravity Well and Blade Orbit. You learn new ones from spellbooks, found in chests, dropped by elites, Mimics and bosses, or bought in the shop. Tomes upgrade a spell you know: more damage, shorter cooldowns, extra projectiles, bigger areas, bounces or piercing.
Levelling up gives you a choice of three: a spell upgrade, a new spell, or a stat such as more health, more mana, faster mana, more speed, more damage or shorter cooldowns. There are also thirteen relics to find, such as the Vampire Fang, which heals you on every kill, and the Phoenix Feather, which brings you back once at half health.
Nine kinds of monster: slimes that split into smaller slimes, skeleton archers, bats, goblin chargers, ghosts that teleport and fire homing orbs, shielded knights, leaping spiders that spit webs, Mimics and gold-glowing elites. Four bosses wait on floors 3, 6 and 9 and in the throne room: King Gloop, the Iron Warden, the Bone Matriarch and the Hollow Crown. Below half health each one gets angry and attacks faster.
Every floor is generated fresh, with spike traps and treasure rooms, so no two runs are the same.
Questions
What happens when I die?
The run ends and the gold you were carrying goes to the Sanctum. A win adds a 300 gold bonus.
What is the Sanctum?
The upgrade room on the title screen. Spend banked gold on more health, more mana, faster mana, starting gold, more experience and level-up rerolls, or unlock a different starting spell instead of Fireball.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Put your thumb anywhere on the left half of the screen to move, and use the buttons on the right to cast and dodge. Spells aim themselves on a touch screen.
Does it save?
Yes, in your own browser: your banked gold, Sanctum upgrades, unlocked spells, best floor, wins and sound setting. A run in progress is not saved, and clearing your browser's site data clears everything.