Dungeons of Hell

Dungeons of Hell is a challenging turn-based tactical roguelike set in a dark fantasy world plagued by demons. Players take on the role of a lone hero who must descend into procedurally generated dungeons to battle hordes of demons and defeat powerful bosses including Baal, Malphas, and The Devil himself. The game emphasizes strategic planning and tactical choices, featuring permanent death, unlockable skills, and progressively difficult levels that require careful resource management and combat positioning.

Dungeons of Hell: A Forgotten Echo in the Roguelike Abyss

In the vast, ever-expanding catacombs of indie gaming, countless titles are forged, released, and often fade into obscurity. Among these spectral entities is Dungeons of Hell, a 2017 turn-based tactical roguelike from the one-person studio GoldenGod Games. It is a game that exists not as a landmark, but as a curious footnote—a modest, budget-priced attempt to capture the essence of minimalist strategy. This review seeks to exhume this artifact, analyzing its ambitions, its execution, and its quiet, almost imperceptible, place in the annals of game history.

Development History & Context

The Solo Forge of GoldenGod Games

Dungeons of Hell was the product of a solo developer operating under the banner of GoldenGod Games, Lda. In the indie landscape of 2017, the tools for solo development—primarily the Unity engine, which this game utilized—had become democratized, allowing a single visionary to build and publish a game across multiple platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux) with relative ease. The developer’s own announcement on ModDB in October 2017 was a humble affair, proudly presenting the game as a new creation “from the forge.”

The developer’s stated inspiration was clear and singular: Douglas Cowley’s acclaimed mobile game, Hoplite (2015). Hoplite was a masterclass in minimalist design, a turn-based tactics game played on a hexagonal grid where every move was a weighty decision. Dungeons of Hell was conceived as a spiritual successor in a fantasy setting, aiming to translate that tense, tactical purity into a dungeon-crawling context. The technological constraints were those of a small-scale project: low system requirements (a mere 512MB RAM, 100MB storage), simple graphics, and a scope manageable for a solo creator. It was released into a gaming world saturated with roguelikes, from the monumental The Binding of Isaac and FTL: Faster Than Light to a thousand smaller imitators. Its goal was not to reinvent the wheel, but to offer a specific, focused experience at an impulse-purchase price point.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

A Skeletal Framework for Demonic Slaughter

To call Dungeons of Hell’s narrative “barebones” would be generous. It functions purely as a premise, a classic archetype providing context for the gameplay. The world is “plagued” by demons who have “possessed” many men. The player is an unnamed, undefined “lone hero” whose “sacred mission” is to descend into the eponymous dungeons to vanquish three archfiends: Baal, Malphas, and The Devil himself.

There are no characters to speak of, no dialogue, and no plot twists or lore to discover. The narrative exists solely on the Steam store page and in the game’s brief introductory text. The themes are the most primordial of the genre: the eternal struggle between good and evil, order and chaos, a single beacon of hope against an overwhelming darkness. The game explores no deeper philosophical questions; its story is a delivery mechanism for its mechanics. The hero is a cipher, a tactical avatar for the player, and the demons are obstacles defined not by motivation but by their combat stats and abilities. Thematic depth is sacrificed entirely at the altar of pure, unadulterated gameplay.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

A Calculated Descent into Repetition

Dungeons of Hell is, at its core, a turn-based tactical roguelike played from a top-down perspective on a grid-based battlefield. The core loop is familiar to the genre: enter a procedurally generated dungeon floor, defeat all enemies to proceed, gather experience points and equipment, and face a boss every few levels. Death is permanent, sending the player back to the very beginning with only unlocked skills persisting as a form of meta-progression.

The Tactical Core: The game’s most direct inheritance from Hoplite is its emphasis on deliberate movement. Each action—moving, attacking, using a skill—consumes a turn and allows the myriad demons on the map to respond. Positioning is paramount. Being surrounded is often a death sentence, forcing the player to use the environment to funnel enemies and manage threats one at a time. The “Holy Hand Grenade” item, referenced in an achievement, suggests the presence of limited-use abilities to control crowds.

Progression & Systems: Defeating enemies grants experience, which leads to level-ups, theoretically making the character stronger. Deeper dungeons promise better equipment. The Steam store page and achievements hint at a skill system to be unlocked, suggesting abilities like a dash or powerful attacks. The “Veteran Warrior” achievement, which requires reaching Level 12 without taking damage, points to a high-skill ceiling for perfectionists.

Flaws and Limitations: However, the available information also hints at the game’s shortcomings. The promise of “progressive difficult[y]” suggests enemy scaling, which can often feel unfair rather than challenging. The developer’s curious assurance that “it’s so fast you won’t even notice” you’ve died and started over points to a potential lack of gravitas in the roguelike cycle, where death should feel meaningful, not trivial. Community discussions on Steam are sparse but telling; a thread asking “What are the differences compared to Hoplite” indicates players were directly comparing and likely finding this iteration less refined. Another thread, “stuck in dungeon 2,” speaks to potential balance issues or a steep difficulty cliff.

World-Building, Art & Sound

A Functional, Not Evocative, Hell

The artistic direction of Dungeons of Hell is best described as functional. As a Unity project from a small developer, it almost certainly employs simple asset store models or rudimentary custom sprites. The top-down perspective and grid-based movement prioritize clarity over visual spectacle. The setting is “Fantasy,” but the aesthetic is a generic dark dungeon—stone tiles, fiery pits, and monstrous but likely low-polygon enemies.

The sound design is an even greater mystery. The PCGamingWiki entry explicitly states the game has “no audio nor subtitles,” a claim that, if true, is devastating for atmosphere. A game set in the depths of hell thrives on auditory feedback: the clang of armor, the shrieks of demons, an oppressive ambient soundtrack. To lack sound entirely is to strip away a fundamental layer of immersion, reducing the experience to a silent, abstract board game. This single factor alone would massively compromise the game’s ability to build a compelling world or generate any palpable sense of dread or atmosphere. The hellish setting becomes a mere backdrop, not a living, breathing, or screaming world.

Reception & Legacy

The Whisper of Obscurity

Dungeons of Hell was released to a deafening silence. There are no critic reviews on Metacritic or MobyGames. User engagement is minimal: only 5 players have collected it on MobyGames, and its Steam forum has a mere 10 discussion threads in its entire history. Its most significant metric is its Steam user reviews: 30 total, with a “Positive” rating of 90%. While this seems strong, the sample size is microscopic, likely consisting mostly of players who knew exactly what they were getting—a ultra-niche, budget title.

Its legacy is virtually non-existent. It did not influence a new genre wave or become a cult classic. Its primary historical significance is as a data point in the study of indie game development—an example of how the tools of the era allowed a single developer to quickly create and distribute a functional, if ultimately forgettable, game inspired by a more successful predecessor. It stands as a testament to the sheer volume of games released in the modern era, most of which fail to make any lasting cultural imprint. Its connection to Hoplite is its only notable lineage, but it remains a distant, paler relative.

Conclusion

A Verdict of Historical Curiosity

Dungeons of Hell is not a bad game by the metrics of its ambition. For its price of 50 cents, it delivers a functional, challenging tactical roguelike experience clearly built with a understanding of its genre’s basics. However, it is an incomplete and flawed experience. The near-total absence of narrative, the reportedly missing audio, and the lack of any distinguishing creative spark relegate it to the status of a derivative clone.

Its final verdict is one of historical curiosity. It is a game for the completist historian, the archaeologist of obscure indie games, or the tactical die-hard desperate for another fix after exhausting all other options. For the average player, even the ardent roguelike fan, Dungeons of Hell is an easy skip. It is a whisper in the cacophony of gaming—a brief, earnest echo from a solo developer’s forge that faded almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind only the barest of footprints on the path to gaming oblivion.