DungeonCraft

Made with the help of Claude Code. The code, graphics, texts and documentation of this game were written together with Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding assistant.

An original dungeon building & defence game that runs in the browser (Rust + macroquad, compiled to WebAssembly).

Dig out your underground realm, claim the portal to attract creatures, keep them fed, rested and paid, fend off endless hero waves that adapt to your army – and finally destroy the Hero Gate.

• 3D isometric view with a freely rotatable and tiltable camera
• Procedural pixel art, irregular cave walls, flickering torch light
• CP437 text-mode style interface with the DINOBYTE bitmap font
• Map sizes from 64×64 to 256×256 tiles (one portal per 64×64 tiles, dwarf caves with treasure and rune forge plans)
• English and German (language files in lang/, easy to extend)

See DESIGN.md for all design decisions and CREDITS.md for third-party assets.

Running

The easiest way is Docker; the image builds the WASM file and serves it with nginx. A second container runs the savegame service (see below):

docker compose up -d --build
# open http://localhost:18093

Install as an app (PWA)

DungeonCraft is a progressive web app: browsers offer to install it (Chrome/Edge: install icon in the address bar or "Install app" in the menu; Android: "Add to home screen"; iOS Safari: Share → "Add to Home Screen"). The installed game starts in full screen and also works offline (the savegame list on the server then falls back to savegame files).

Browsers only allow the installation over HTTPS (or on localhost), so a public installation needs a reverse proxy with a certificate in front of port 18093.

Building without Docker

Requirements: Rust with the wasm32-unknown-unknown target.

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
cargo build --release --target wasm32-unknown-unknown
cp target/wasm32-unknown-unknown/release/dungeoncraft.wasm www/
cp ~/.cargo/registry/src/*/macroquad-*/js/mq_js_bundle.js www/
python3 -m http.server 8080 -d www   # open http://localhost:8080

Testing the game logic

The tests run natively: a headless simulation of whole games, a savegame round trip, rendering of all music modules and the audio engine:

cargo test --release

Music

The soundtrack consists of FastTracker 2 modules in assets/music/, generated by tools/compose_music.py (python3 tools/compose_music.py). They can be opened and edited in MilkyTracker. The game plays them with its own XM/MOD replayer (src/xm.rs); sound effects are synthesised chip sounds (src/sfx.rs). Both are mixed in src/audio.rs and streamed to the browser by www/dc_plugin.js.

Controls

Input	Action
Esc	Pause menu (save, load, settings)
Left click / drag	Use the active tool (dig and rooms: drag a rectangle)
Right click	Drop a unit from your hand (prisoners anywhere on your ground; onto a free torture place = locked up)
Shift + left click (hand)	Backhand own units (15 s faster, costs a little HP and mood) / punch heroes on your ground (15 damage, 1 s stun)
Right drag, WASD, arrows, screen edge	Move the camera
Middle drag, Q/E, R/F	Rotate / tilt the camera
Mouse wheel	Zoom
1–9, 0, X, V, K, J, B, C, T	Select a tool or spell
P / Space	Pause
M, +/-	Sound on/off, volume
G	Tile outlines on/off
H	Help

All keys except Esc and the arrow keys can be changed in Settings → Keys.

The toolbar groups the tools into categories (Dig, Hand, Rooms, Towers, Spells, Orders) plus a menu button; categories with several tools open a row above the toolbar. The keys select tools directly.

Touch (phones and tablets)

The touch interface switches on automatically on touch devices or after the first touch (Settings → Game → Touch interface: Auto / On / Off). It uses a larger interface and these gestures:

Gesture	Action
Tap	Use the tool (hand: pick up a unit; spells, flag, towers: at that spot)
Drag	Dig, rooms and sell: mark a rectangle; other tools: move the map
Two fingers	Move the map, pinch to zoom, twist to rotate the camera
Long press	Information about the spot; hand: drop the units there
Double tap (hand)	Backhand own units / punch heroes on your ground

The savegame name is entered with the browser's text dialog when the name field is tapped.

Savegames

When the game is served together with the service (server/, started by docker compose), it starts with a login:

• The very first login creates the admin account with the entered name and password - do this right after installing.
• The admin creates further users (title screen -> Account); every user can change the password there and log out.
• Every user only sees the own savegames on the server: Save Game and Load Game open the list (save under a new name, overwrite, load, delete).
• Download Standalone (title screen) downloads DungeonCraft.html: the whole game in one file, without login and without server. Savegame files (Download as file) open there as well.

If the service cannot be reached (for example the standalone file, www/ opened as local files or a plain web server), there is no login and the game uses savegame files: Save Game downloads a .dcsave file (JSON), Load Game opens the file picker; dropping the file onto the game window works too.

The game also autosaves into the browser every two minutes and when the tab is closed; Continue on the title screen resumes from there.

Savegame service

A small Rust service (axum) in server/ keeps the user accounts (Argon2 password hashes) and the savegames as files in the Docker volume savegames (one folder per user). nginx forwards /api/ to it; the service itself is not published. The standalone file is served under /standalone/ only for logged-in users (nginx auth_request).

Request	Meaning
GET /api/health	ok when the service runs (ok setup while there is no account yet)
POST /api/login	{name, password} -> {token, name, admin}; the first login creates the admin
POST /api/logout, GET /api/me, POST /api/password	session, own account, change password
GET/POST /api/users, DELETE /api/users/{name}	admin: list, create, delete users
GET /api/saves	own savegames (id, name, date, map size, wave, play time), newest first
POST /api/saves?name=...	store a new savegame (body: savegame JSON)
PUT /api/saves/{id}?name=...	overwrite a savegame
GET /api/saves/{id}	savegame JSON
DELETE /api/saves/{id}	delete a savegame

A forgotten password is set again on the server with docker compose stop saves && docker compose run --rm --no-deps saves dungeoncraft-saves set-password <name> '<password>' && docker compose up -d saves (ends the user's sessions). To start over with no accounts at all, delete users.json and sessions.json in the savegames volume.

All requests except health and login need Authorization: Bearer <token>. Limits: 1 MB per savegame, 500 MB in total, 30 write requests and 20 login attempts per minute. Settings: SAVE_DIR (default /data), LISTEN (default 0.0.0.0:8080).

Adding a language

1. Copy lang/en.lang to lang/<code>.lang and translate the texts (placeholders {0}, {1} stay as they are).
2. Add the file to SOURCES in src/i18n.rs.
3. Note: the DINOBYTE font only covers the CP437 character set.

License

DungeonCraft is released under the MIT License – this covers the code, the generated music in assets/music/ and the procedural graphics. The DINOBYTE font (assets/dbyte_1x.png) by mby is licensed separately under CC BY 4.0, see CREDITS.md.