How to play
What GigaDungeon is, every feature as it stands, the keys, and the things that take more than one step — digging, building, crafting, casting, riding, rivers, trading, companies, the gate.
The short version
GigaDungeon is a turn-based dungeon crawl played in the browser, on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. A world is a grid of 256 × 256 squares, and every square is a whole dungeon level of 128 × 128 tiles with doors in its four walls leading to the neighbours. You start near the middle. The Core Gate sits in the centre square and opens only to the four keys held by the four Wardens at the far edges of the map — so the way out leads outward, through rings of harder and harder squares, and back. Nothing moves until you do: every step, swing and spell is a turn, and the log tells you every roll.
You can play alone, with a squad in the same square, in a public world with everyone, or in a private world you dig for friends. Dying is not the end (except in ironman worlds): your body is dragged back to the last door you came in by, lighter by some gold.
Features, as the game stands
The world. 65,536 squares, each generated from the world's seed — halls of rooms, cave systems, catacombs and drowned cisterns. Ten rivers wind across every world (swim them, bridge them, or build a boat). Squares get harder the further out you go; every ring from a certain distance has a named boss and its vault. Sanctuaries are shrines where nothing hunts you. Lairs grow if left alone. Worlds have seasons (Frontier), factions that war with each other, world events, a weekly hunt, bounties, and sieges in PvP Frontier worlds. Lightless worlds need a torch. Seeds are numbers: share one and anyone can dig the same dungeon.
Worlds. The public GigaDungeon; private worlds (Hero) in PvE, PvP or PvPvE, at a chosen difficulty, invited by link; ironman worlds, where death is final and a seasonal ladder ranks the deepest; the Daily Dungeon, one seed for everyone, closed at midnight with a title for the day's best; deeper dungeons (+1, +2, …) beneath any world, reached through the Core Gate or by rebirth.
Characters. Eleven classes to start — fighter, rogue, cleric, barbarian, paladin, ranger, monk, wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard — and three prestige paths (arcane archer, assassin, dragon disciple) taken when their prerequisites are met. Multiclassing at each level-up. Levels to 20 and epic levels past it, with epic feats. Forty-plus feats, every SRD skill that makes sense in a dungeon, spells of levels 1–9, metamagic, preparation for wizards and clerics, spontaneous casting for sorcerers and bards, turning, rage, smite, lay on hands, wild shape, inspire courage, favoured enemies, tracking, summoning, raise dead. A legend grows across all your characters: renown buys perks that shape the next one.
Monsters. Two hundred of them, CR 1 to 20 and past, in families: undead, dragons, giants, outsiders, oozes, swarms, aquatic things in the rivers, and nine named bosses. Conditions (poison, disease, paralysis, fear, negative levels, spell resistance) that work like the book says. Traps — and traps you set yourself.
Gear and loot. Weapons, armor and shields with special abilities; potions, scrolls, wands, staves, rods; cursed items and remove curse; special ammunition; magic recipes. Chests, locked and trapped; vaults behind bosses; the Vault of the Nine, opened by riddles; the Drowned Reliquary under the rim, where the rivers leave the world.
Surviving. Hunger and thirst (rations and the waterskin), light (torches, lanterns, sunrods, sconces), foul water and fever, rest that heals, safe rooms with merchants and hermits, camps, hirelings and a retinue, escort jobs, mounts (riding dog, horses, dire wolf), boats.
Frontier worlds. Dig through walls with a pick; build walls, doors, bridges, boats, a hearth that claims a room, beds, sconces, wells, chests (private or shared), workbenches, forges, alchemy tables, farm plots. Gather stone, timber, ore, hide, moss and glowcap from nodes and from monsters. Ninety-three crafting recipes: steel, repair kits, potions, salves, enchanted gear. Tools wear and are mended. Seasons change what grows.
Together. Squads (the party in your square, with a shared map, chat and follow-the-leader through doors); companies that last across worlds, with a tag, a channel, shared holdings, a hall in a sanctuary, and company quests; mail between players, with gold and items in escrow; a market board in every world and a cross-world trading post (Hero); leaderboards and titles; spectating any character from their chronicle; a public chronicle page per character you choose to share.
Your account. Achievements (122), titles, a profile page, renown and legend perks, push and email digests, save files for your characters, French and Spanish, a high-contrast palette and reduced motion, a screen-reader description of every square. The Hero plan ($3 a month) adds private worlds, PvP, travel between worlds, more characters, the trading post and every legend perk.
The keys
Everything on the toolbar has a key. Hover a button for its tip. Press Esc to cancel anything half-done.
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Arrows or W A S D | Walk one tile. Q E Z C walk diagonally. Walk into a monster to attack it, into a chest to open it, into a door to go through it. Tap a tile beside you to step there; tap a tile further off and you walk there along floor you have seen — the path is drawn on the map and the walk stops by itself when something that has noticed you is near, when you cross into another square, or when you press anything; tap a foe in range of your bow to shoot it. |
| Space or . | Wait a turn (monsters still move). |
| P | Drink a potion of cure light wounds. |
| R | Rest: eight hours, hit points and spells back. Safe in a merchant's or hermit's room, beside your own hearth or bed, or in a sanctuary; anywhere else something may find you. |
| F | Search the room for traps, secret doors and hidden things. |
| L | Look around: what is in the square and where. |
| T | Shoot your ranged weapon (see Stacked actions). |
| G | Talk to the person in the room — Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive. |
| J | Take the job they offer. |
| Y | Hire the sword for hire beside you. |
| K / V | Eat a day's rations / drink from the waterskin or the pool beside you. |
| O | Light a torch, lantern or sunrod; press again to douse it and keep what is left. |
| H | Gather again from the node under your feet. |
| I / N / U | Intimidate an adjacent foe / feint it out of its guard / escape paralysis. |
| X | Whirlwind Attack: one swing at every adjacent foe (with the feat). |
| 1 / 2 | Frontier worlds: dig / build — then a direction. |
| B | The spellbook (and the target list for anything that needs a target). |
| M | The maps: this square, and the whole world. |
| Tab or @ | The character sheet: worn and carried gear, skills, feats, crafting, materials, standing. |
| Esc | Cancel a dig, a build, a target pick, or close the drawer. |
Class powers (rage, smite, lay on hands, turn undead, track, wild shape, inspire courage, breathe fire, arcane arrows, mount, charge) appear as buttons on the toolbar when your character has them.
On a phone the direction pad in the corner walks you (hold to keep walking); the toolbar and panels are the same; swipe the drawer closed.
A controller
Pair a Bluetooth pad (Xbox, PlayStation, MFi or any standard-layout pad) with your iPad, phone or computer and press any button on it: the game switches to it at once, and back to touch or keys when it goes away. There is nothing to set up.
| Control | Does |
|---|---|
| D-pad / left stick | Walk, eight directions; hold to keep walking. A dig or build takes the direction too. With a target list open, moves the highlight; in a drawer or menu, moves the cursor. |
| A | Act on the tile you last faced: attack, open, talk, cross, or step. With a target waiting: fire at the highlighted foe. In a dialog: OK / Next. |
| B | Cancel: a pending shot, a dig or build, the drawer, the menu, a dialog. (Nintendo-style pads: swap A and B from the menu's "Controller" line.) |
| X | Shoot. With several foes in range, X again cycles the highlight; A fires. |
| Y | Drink a potion. |
| Hold RB + A / X / Y | Eat / drink / light (or douse). |
| LB / RB (tapped) | Open the drawers in turn — sheet, spellbook, squad, shop, maps, and the rest as they appear — and past the end, back to the map. |
| LT / RT | Rest / search the room. |
| Back (View, Share) | Look around. |
| Start (Menu, Options) | The menu under your name. |
Inside a drawer, the menu, a dialog, or any screen that is not the map, the D-pad moves a gold cursor between the controls (nearest in the pressed direction; up and down wrap), <b>A</b> presses the one under it — buy, equip, cast, take — and <b>B</b> backs out. LB and RB land the cursor on the first control of each drawer they open. A text field takes the focus with A; a drop-down steps to its next choice.
Stacked actions
Some things take two or three steps. Here is each one, start to finish.
| To… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Dig through a wall | Carry a pick (Frontier worlds start you with a stone pick, or buy or craft one). Press 1 (or the pick button), then a direction key or pad arrow toward the wall. Each press is one hit; caves fall in one, halls in two, catacombs and cisterns in three, and harder stone wants a better pick. The rubble can be cleared for a little stone. Esc cancels. |
| Build something | Carry a hammer and the materials (see the list below). Press 2 (or the build button): the Build panel opens with every thing you can make and what each costs — grey ones say what is missing. Click one, then press a direction toward the floor tile to build on. Doors and bridges go on floor, pits or water; furniture on floor. In Private Resources worlds what you build is yours alone; in Shared Resources anyone may use it; company-mates may always use yours. |
| Claim a room | Build a hearth (4 stone, 2 timber) in it. Monsters never return to a claimed room, resting there is a camp, and a farm plot in it grows a ration every rest. |
| Gather materials | Walk onto a node (a vein, a stand of timber, a patch of moss) — you gather on arrival; H tries again. Monsters leave parts: hide, bone, scales. Stone comes from digging and clearing rubble. Materials are weightless but sit on the sheet; set them down or stash them in a chest. |
| Craft | Stand beside a merchant's bench, a workbench you built, a forge (metalwork) or an alchemy table (brewing). Open the sheet (Tab) → Crafting: recipes you can make are listed with the skill check and the materials; click one. Failure costs some of the materials. Magic recipes need the spell known and a caster level. |
| Mend a tool | Tools wear with use. A repair kit (crafted) mends one; or craft a new one at a forge. |
| Set a trap | With a trap kit in the pack, open the sheet (Tab), press Set beside the kit, then press a direction toward the tile. It fires on the first monster (or, in PvP, player) to step on it. |
| Cast a spell | B opens the spellbook. Click a spell. A spell with a target lists what is in range — click the foe there or tap it on the map. Wizards and clerics prepare after a rest: Prepare in the spellbook chooses tomorrow's slots; sorcerers and bards cast from what they know. Metamagic rods and feats add a toggle above the list. |
| Shoot | Hold a bow, crossbow or sling. Tap the foe on the map, or press T (or the shoot button): one foe in range fires at once; several open a list — tap one there or on the map. Arcane archers pick an arrow kind (seeker, phase, hail, death) from the toolbar first. |
| Charge | On a mount, with a foe two to four tiles away down a straight, clear line: press the charge button; pick the foe if there is more than one. +2 on the blow (+4 from a warhorse). |
| Ride | Buy a mount from a merchant (a paladin of fifth level calls a warhorse for nothing). Press Mount in a corridor or a wide hall — six tiles each way, four for a dog. Ridden, you cover two tiles a turn. Cramped rooms, water, pits and boats want you on foot: press the button again to dismount. |
| Cross a river | Swim (Swim DC 10 each tile; floundering can hurt), build a bridge over a two-tile channel (2 timber per tile), or build a boat (6 timber, 2 hide) beside the water and step aboard from the tile next to it. The boat carries you and your retinue along the channel and stays moored where you step ashore. River mouths at the square's edge are exits of their own. |
| Open a locked chest | Walk into it: the log says it is locked. Press the Open the lock button that appears (Open Lock check; a rogue's trade) or break it. F first if you suspect a trap; Disarm appears when you find one. |
| Use a chest of yours | Stand beside a chest you built (or a shared one) and press the chest button: stash and take items and materials. A sacked chest is destroyed with what was in it. |
| Take a job | Find someone who is not a merchant in a safe room. G to talk — Diplomacy opens them up — then J to take the work: escort, hunt, fetch, or clear. The quest log on the sheet tracks it; return to them to be paid. |
| Hire help | Someone for hire stands in some safe rooms: Y hires them for a share of gold. They follow you, fight, and can be dismissed. Druids and rangers call a companion of their own. |
| Buy, sell and haggle | In a merchant's room press the shop button: buy from the stock, sell from the pack, Haggle for 10% off this week (Diplomacy or Bluff); loyalty earns more. Some merchants have a healer. Identify unknown magic there or by a rested Spellcraft check. |
| Trade with players | The market button in a merchant's room opens the world's board: list an item or materials at a price, buy what others list, cancel your own. Heroes also post to the trading post, seen in every world, for a 15% fee. |
| Use a waystone | Walk onto a waystone to touch it. From beside any waystone, the waystones button lists every one you have touched: step to it for a toll of five gold and two a square. |
| Join a squad | Everyone in the same square and world is in reach. Your squad shares its map and its chat channel. The Squad panel shows who is near and lets you form up. Tick Follow the leader through doors there and you cross with them without pressing anything (the Follow button still works by hand). A chest anyone opens with mates in the square is shared: the gold is split, each item goes to the winner of a d20 among those present — unless the leader sets the squad to finder keeps. |
| Form a company | Profile → Company: found one with a name and a tag, or join with a code. Companies have their own chat scope, share Frontier holdings, can claim a hall in a sanctuary (banner, notice board, chests), and post company quests with gold and renown as the reward. |
| Send mail | Profile → Mail: write to a username; attach gold or an item from a character's pack — it is held in escrow until they claim it, or you recall it. Twenty unread at most per inbox, fifty sends a day. |
| Find the Drowned Reliquary | Every river leaves the world somewhere on the rim (ring 128). Follow one to the outer wall and step into the water where it goes out: you come down into four squares under the edge of the map. Ring the Belfry's three bells in the order the water says for the Chime; answer the hymn's page in the Choir for the Verse; both open the Coral Door to the Drowned Abbot and the three chests behind him. The Weir's north door is the way back up to the square you came from. |
| Pass the Core Gate | Carry all four Wardens' keys to the centre square. Through the gate a character may retire with honours or walk into the deeper dungeon (+1) beneath; a retired character can later be reborn at level 1 in that deeper world carrying one epic feat. |
| Travel between worlds | Profile → your character → Travel (Hero). Ironman worlds are entered with a new character and left only by the gate or the grave. |
| Keep a save file | 💾 on the sheet or the profile downloads the character as a file. The create-character screen of a world takes it back — once, on the same account, and only after the original is gone. |
| Share a chronicle | 📜 on the sheet or the profile turns on a public page for the character — levels, bosses, the map of the squares they saw — and anyone can watch them play from it. |
| Change language, contrast, motion, sound | The menu under your name: Language cycles English, French and Spanish; Contrast, Motion, Sound and Music are there too. |
What things cost to build
| Build | Tool | Materials | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stone wall | hammer | 2 stone | Blocks movement and sight. |
| Door | hammer | 2 timber, 1 iron ore | Monsters cannot pass it. |
| Bridge | hammer | 2 timber | Over a pit or water; plain floor after. |
| Boat | hammer | 6 timber, 2 hide | Built on water; step aboard from beside it. |
| Clear rubble | pick | — | Gives a little stone. |
| Hearth | hammer | 4 stone, 2 timber | Claims the room. |
| Bed | hammer | 2 timber, 2 hide | A real sleep. |
| Sconce | hammer | 1 iron ore, 1 timber | Five tiles of light in a lightless world. |
| Well | hammer | 4 stone | Clean water, no fever. |
| Workbench | hammer | 3 timber, 1 iron ore | Craft beside it. |
| Forge | hammer | 6 stone, 2 iron ore | Metalwork; steel needs one. |
| Alchemy table | hammer | 2 timber, 1 glowcap | Brewing. |
| Farm plot | hammer | 2 timber, 2 cave moss | A ration every rest in a claimed room, up to three. |
| Chest | hammer | 3 timber, 1 iron ore | Yours in Private Resources. |
| Shared chest | hammer | 3 timber, 1 iron ore | Anyone may open it. |
Reading the screen
The log on the right is the game: every attack says the roll, the bonus and the armor class it had to beat. The bar under the map shows hit points, experience, gold, the square you are in and its ring. Your needs — food, water, light, and fatigue when it is on you — sit in the map's bottom-left corner: amber when low, red when critical; tap Hungry, Thirsty or Dark to eat, drink or light up. Effects list what is on you and for how long. The minimap in the maps panel marks doors, chests you have seen, the merchant, the shrine, and your squad.
Rings: the centre square is ring 0; the edge is ring 128. Monsters are chosen by the ring. The leaderboards' <i>Lairs cleared</i> board shows which bosses have fallen and to whom.
Dying, and not
At zero hit points you fall. In an ordinary world you wake at the door you last came through, short some gold; your gear is yours still. Parting blows, poison and falling into a pit all count. In an ironman world the character is gone, and goes on the ladder. In an ironman world a cleric with raise dead, beside a gravestone less than a day old, can bring the fallen back with one hit point and a negative level — for 250 gold and 50 a level.
The guide
Your first character is walked through the first hour by a guide card above the log — eight steps, each judged from what you actually do, each with a hint pointing at the nearest place to do it. Finishing pays fifty gold, a potion and the Apprentice achievement. Skip on the card dismisses it (it is on your sheet if you want it back), and every character after your first can start without it.