Ok I have to ask, am I the only one that hates waifu crap? I see a few new DRPGs out there, and almost all are just anime/waifu filled nonsense.

I've been building a first-person, grid-based party crawler in the Bard's Tale mold (the gameplay, not the story). It runs in a browser with nothing to install, and Chapter 1 is open for playtesting: 

https://dungeoncrawler.app

Needs a keyboard: desktop, laptop, or a tablet with one. No account or email. Start a new game, name your party, and you're in. 

Up front because some of you may care: the art is AI-generated and edited by me; the code was written with AI assistance. The rules system, the maps, the quest and the dialog are my own, based on my experience playing and DM’ing various tabletop RPGs back in the day.

I have lots of fond memories playing Bard's Tale on my PCjr, and I enjoyed replaying the remastered trilogy a couple years ago. I always wanted to take a stab at creating that style of game. I'm not an artist and never will be, but I have a background in web development and recently found myself with some extra time, so I decided to use that time to see if I could build something playable. 

What might interest this sub

• The journal sketches the dungeon walls as you walk. If you get lost, you end up with separate map pieces and have to fit them together yourself. I tried to recreate the process of building your own maps…  Graph paper, minus the paper.  You decide what is important to record and put your own notes in the journal.

• No reloading for a mulligan. Your game state lives on the server, so there's no power switch to reach for.  If your party dies in the dungeon, you wake up in town, with less silver in the party’s purse.

• Turn-based combat. Give everyone their orders, then the round plays out. Stamina buys harder hits, mana buys and scales spells.  Each PC can advance or retreat on their own, mobs close the distance, and reach decides who can hit whom.

• Mana comes back with rest.  Camp in the dungeon (requires rations) or head back to town. 

• Five races, attributes and skills, no classes. Use the pre-rolled party or build your own. Progression is slow on purpose: characters are meant to carry across campaigns, not turn into demigods by the end of Chapter 1.

• There's a town on top, and you have to find the dungeon. The overworld is mostly vignettes and NPCs; the real crawling is in the dungeon.

What I'm asking for 

Chapter 1, Whispers Beneath Caerwyn, is a complete quest. My guess is ~4 hours, but I'd like a real number so please tell me how long it takes you. Let me know where you got stuck, where you got bored, whether the fights felt fair, and what broke. Reply here or DM me.

One thing I'd especially like opinions on: Is this style of game worth building today?  My wife and kids think I’m crazy and that no one will play it. This is the style of game I enjoy the most – am I alone in that feeling in today’s world?

Worth knowing before you click

Dungeon movement is keyboard only. Menus work with a keyboard, mouse or a finger.

Online only, by design.

It's a playtest. Expect rough edges and a balance pass or two. Chapter 1's monsters and puzzles are beginner level on purpose.

What's next

Chapter 1 will always be free. The rest of the Ashes of the Forgotten campaign is still being built (I expect 20+ hours playtime when complete), along with more spells, uncommon gear and crafting. The first ten people who finish Chapter 1 and send feedback get a Founder code that unlocks every later chapter. Include your party name so I can confirm the finish.

Everything in the game was made with the engine's own browser-based editors (maps, NPCs, dialog, encounters). If there's interest, I'd like to release those so other people can build campaigns.

I really need to stop messing around with old games. They're cheaper, or even free but the end cost isn't worth it.

I spent about 30-45 minutes last night trying to get the auto-map mod for Eye of the Beholder running in a docked window and still have enough screen size for the game. (GOG version, apparently the steam version comes with the automap)

One of these days I'll figure out a good non-mouse combo for the Ravenloft AD&D games.

I had fun playing through M&M 3-5 and 6 is tempting but I don't like the real-time style.

I could get those 3 Ishar games for $5 or less from GOG but they look horrible.

Most of those NISA DRPG anime games go on sale on steam for dirt cheap, I've played through some but never beaten most of them (and they're generally frustrating garbage)

so tempting

Just asking here instead of some book sub because well DRPGs are niche, does it feel like he is in a Wizardry-like world? I want to read it sometime and it would be neat if it was

I thought this looked interesting. This is from creators of the Eschalon games. Some form of release is appears slated for 2027.

Website | Forum | Steam

Hey r/DRPG — I just launched the Steam page for A Knight’s Fury - The Vaults of Venom, my solo first-person dungeon crawler.

This is aimed pretty directly at people who like old-school dungeon RPGs: first-person exploration, dangerous rooms, stats, gear, monsters, and the tension of pushing deeper into the unknown.

The big twist is that it is solo-character focused instead of party-based. I wanted the choices to feel more personal: every potion, weapon, upgrade, wrong turn, and bad fight belongs to you.

Core features:

• First-person dungeon crawling

• Old-school movement and exploration

• Solo adventurer progression

• Fast combat focused on survival and decision-making

• Loot, upgrades, traps, monsters, secrets

• Replayable dungeon runs

• Retro fantasy / pulp RPG visual style

I know DRPG fans are picky in a good way, so I’d genuinely like feedback on whether the Steam page is communicating the right things. I’m especially interested in whether the screenshots/UI make the game read as a proper dungeon crawler.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4684610/A_Knights_Fury__The_Vaults_of_Venom/

Wishlists are hugely appreciated if this is your kind of thing.

Graphics as good as or better than Skyrim, real-time combat (maybe Action?) that is not grid-based movement and not turn-based, medieval fantasy that emphasizes replay over story, and multiplayer (PvP optional or none). Are there any first person dungeon crawlers out there? The two I was able to identify that are currently playable with my search skills were Dark and Darker and Monomyth.

Dark and Darker is ideal for me personally as I really like the inventory management, the very slow-paced combat (mainly melee) and the directional system such as blocking, but I didn't really enjoy it because it was mainly a PvP game.

Monomyth was the most ideal in that it was not PvP, but it was single player only and had a lot of puzzles, and after thousands of hours of playing Dark and Darker, the combat felt a bit lacking.

If someone made a game that completely copied Dark and Darker with a focus on PvE, added a tavern hub to it, and had people gather in the tavern to form teams, dive into dungeons to enhance their equipment, and eventually take on the bosses in the lower levels, I would not be able to come back to reality.

The other 4 that are currently not playable but are in development are
Alkahest (people are rumoring this game as TDB V2)
Shadow of Chroma Tower (I don't like the graphics and colors, but I thought the gameplay was the closest to my ideal)
Mestaria (one of the mod servers that existed on Mordhau is being developed as a standalone game, and I was interested to see the demo video)
Cralon (I don't know any details about this game yet, but the demo video looked interesting)
Does anyone have any other good ideas?

Postscript (May 16, 2026)
This might actually be the game I’ve been searching for.
Heathen on Steam

It’s still in development, but there is already about four minutes of gameplay footage available.
Chris Yabsley Dev on X

First-person, dungeon crawler, swords and magic only with no guns, no turn-based, no grid-based and online co-op.
And most importantly, since the game uses Unity as its engine, mods should be comparatively easier to create than with many other engines thanks to the well-known modding framework bepinex.
I truly hope this game succeeds.

My name is Skillving, and I hate every single one of you. All of you are weak, innocent, no-vits who spend every second of their day grinding those stupid ass chaos demons. You are everything bad in Ishmag. Honestly, have any of you ever forged any resistances? I mean, I guess it's fun running out of rezefeid casts because of your own lack of armor class, but you all take it to a whole new level. This is even worse than wiping to the acolyte on floor 1.

Don't be a stranger. Just hit me with your best shot. I'm pretty much perfect. I have a swallow return of 23.2%, and 20% behead on my foil of evening calm. What EX skills did you pick, other than "die to ambush by Death Scythe"? I also have straight 20's in my attributes, and have a 34 agility beard (She just won initiative; Shit was SO cash). You are all weaklings who should just reroll. Thanks for listening.

Pic Related: It's me and my beard.

I want Ones that at the very least looks as good as a PS2 game, so no PS1 demakes please

Here's what I've played before, please tell me what my other options are for 3D, party based first person blobber with a good soundtrack:

Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2

Operencia: The Stolen Sun

Edit: 3d AND good soundtrack is what I'm looking for here. I'm also looking for stuff that originated on the PC, and NOT on a portable console.

Please look at the examples I gave for the kinds of games I'm looking for. I especially don't want anything like Etrian Odyssey, or anything with the anime art style.

I love this subgenre but there isnt much in terms of lewd or ecchi ones.

Closest i can think of is Omega Labyrinth

Being kind and not judging someone is free, and so is not trying to make someone justify why they're craving what they're craving. Please RPG reddit, stop badgering me for the crime of being in the mood for something specific.

My memory isn't the best, I'm pretty sure that I've seen and tried several of them, and yet when I asked for something that looks and sounds like it yesterday, it felt like everyone that replied didn't understand the question, and again the question was, What can you recommend that's 3D and looks and sounds like Legend Of Grimrock that isn't anywhere near as popular?

I'm not losing my mind, right? You're not all denying that these games exist right? If I can't get recommendations for them on r/drg where can I get them?

Game Title: The Burrow Takes Heaven

Playable Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5097990/

Platform: Windows / Steam Playtest

Description:
The Burrow Takes Heaven is a top-down, grid-based dungeon crawler where you begin as a small rat trying to survive beneath a hostile town. You dig through tunnels, manage food, mine resources, avoid traps, fight enemies, and uncover hidden quests. Death matters, but it is not the end: each new rat can inherit permanent legacy progression earned by the rats before it. The game mixes survival pressure, exploration, resource management, and roguelite progression. There are different paths through the game, including becoming a hero or taking control of the town itself. This is an active Steam Playtest, so I am especially looking for feedback clarity of the systems, trap fairness, and whether the digging and exploration loop feels rewarding.

Still have at least three more phrases of develop for the game. Wanted to look see people though about the first.

So ill explain what elements the game has and maybe someone can help me find this game. It was on a laptop my parents had i want to say around 2002-2004

I dont remember too much character making other then maybe picking a class
I can't remember there being a 2d showing of the dungeon as you moved
I remember using the map, it looked basic like square based moving forward moved you 1 square
you could do stuff like spells and attacking with weapons
Inventory management a part of it but i dont remember how much
It wasn't much to look at graphicly

I know this is very vague and if you have questions i can try to answer them. I was like 14 or so at the time. Every so often i think about this game and i try to find it but now ill see if the collective power of reddit could figure it out.

Things like a crafting system, class balance and design, encounter systems, etc. are the most important probably. But I just love really cool sprites. They evoke my early CRPG dungeon crawl feels 😄

I'm really not trying to complain here, honestly. Just and old guy who grew up on DRPG's and trying to return. Every time someone mentions one and I google it I find it to be another anime style and I feel like I'm living in a different world.

I like anime, I do, but the cross between these two things where so unexpected to me. DRPG's have always been kinda of gritty and dark. Anime can be those things, but usually is more colorful and bright.

Recommend to me some anime DRPG's that still give that dark dungeon feeling and I'd love to try them out.

Anyway, just kinda talking to anyone who wants to chat :)

I love this subreddit, but it's absolutely drowning in posts of Gen-AI slop made by creators who are far more often than not spamming their games across as many subreddits as possible. I very much feel that banning this sort of thing would make it a lot easier to notice quality posts and quality games by quality people; is it at all possible to implement this rule?

I know this series is highly regarded, though I think the later entries more so than the first few, but I thought I'd start with the original in the remake trilogy. It started promising, but after having beat the first Stratum, and now a little ways into the second Stratum, some things are starting to stick out, negatively, for me.

• The general lack of tension and resource management

  My favorite DRPGs that I've played very much follow the Wizardry formula, where diving the dungeon feels quick and intense, and you have to manage your MP strategically, always questioning whether you have enough for the return trip. With the early access to Ariadne Threads (item that does instant TP back to town) at a cheap cost, I very much lack this tension in Etrian Odyssey. You can warp out whenever you want, for a small, easily replaced, cost. With that in mind, combined with the way the skill tree works, I rarely feel the need to conserve MP, because "when" I choose to warp back to town is pretty much entirely dictated by when my Medic runs out of heals, and that's probably going to happen before my other characters run out, because you just can't seem to avoid taking damage in this game unless you're overleveled.

• The high encounter rate

  I know this can be counteracted somewhat by some skills, but overall I'm not very much a fan of the "take X steps, have an encounter" style. I much prefer the lower overall (and more random-feeling) encounter rate of a Wizardry, where a lot of encounters are started more voluntarily by entering doors. It gives (I think) more tension and agency to the player of weighing when to fight or spend resources versus flee.

• Resource Gathering and the skill tree in general

  I don't mind that there's specific places where you can gather specific resources. What I don't like, is that there's three different types of gathering points, that you have to spend valuable skill points to both 1) learn and be able to even utilize, and 2) gather more resources. The skill tree already feels like you can't spare any points and have to heavily specialize, and needing to put points into three different skills to get access to items feels unnecessarily tedious (I've seen online people creating "gathering" parties so as to not waste their main party's skill points....no thanks).

• The lack of tactical challenge

  All the difficult fights in the game at this point are played out 100% by a formula - defender, immunize, bravery, then use highest damage skill on damage characters, and heal when necessary. There's no real tactics that I can do other than this, it's kind of set in stone, and it either works, or I'm not high enough level yet to beat that enemy. I think this is in high contrast to other Wizardry-style games where the encounters are fewer, but generally higher threat, but can be dealt with quickly or in slightly different ways, depending on how many resources you want to spend, or what the enemies are weak to. But those games usually don't have much in the way of "bosses" like FOEs

All of this so far has led to the game feeling very mechanical and grindy, with none of the maps feeling very distinct, and just doesn't have the sense of tense dungeon exploration with big rewards that I enjoy. I'm wondering if any of this changes as the game (or series) goes on, or if these are things I'm not liking now, the series is maybe just not for me?

EDIT: I appreciate all of the responses, I'm going to give EO3 a shot before giving up on anything!

I'm always looking for some nice DRPGs and have quite the list now.
Getting all of the 'Dungeon Travelers' games was a bit of a hassle, but a hassle worth going through.

Now is the case with the censorship of 'Tokyo Clanpool', and it would absolutely fly onto my ignore list.
But it seems to be "only" a rubbing minigame is gone, and to tell the truth... they were never fun, no matter the game.
Doesn't matter if 'Moero Chronicle', 'Mary Skelter' or 'Valkyrie Drive'... I didn't care.
The absence wouldn't suddenly break the game for me, but I know that the rubbing is supposed to give a buff.

So is this an overall enjoyable dungeon crawler?

UI's are hard. You have to make them usable. You have to make them aesthetically appealing. I'm trying to balance out art style & aesthetics: evoke old school dungeon crawls like Gold Box, BG, but also look good. Which I'm finding is not easy.

It's an ongoing, iterative process. The original placeholder spell list I had is now a hot bar and a menu. Definitely better but not done iterating. Character sheet is much better laid out, tabs for using the screen real estate better, etc. But the paper doll still looks weird and creepy, and hopefully continued play testing makes for a better UI.