DynaDungeons

About the game

DynaDungeons is a small arena game for friends who happen to be sitting at the same computer. Each player controls a little character in the corner of a grid-shaped dungeon filled with crates. You drop bombs, hide behind a wall before they go off, and blow open paths to the other players. When a bomb explodes, the fire runs in a cross along the corridors and stops at walls; crates that burn sometimes leave a power-up behind.

The last character standing wins the round. There is no computer opponent: the game needs at least two people, and it plays best with three or four crowded around one keyboard. If you are on your own you can still open it to see the menu and run around, but the fun is in the shouting.

It started in 2015 as a learning project for the then-new Godot engine, by one of the engine's maintainers, and it has been kept as a small, readable example of a complete game since.

Playing it here

Click Play and wait for the page to load (about 9 MB, downloaded only when you press the button). In the main menu, open Settings to choose the number of players (2 to 4) and how many lives each one has, then pick New Game. The game needs a physical keyboard that can handle several keys pressed at once, and some keyboards cannot register more than two or three keys at the same time. If a player's key does not respond, try a different layout in the Controls screen of the Settings menu.

Laptops without a numpad cannot use the keys for Player 4 as they are; open Settings > Controls and assign other keys.

Controls

Esc takes you back to the main menu. In Settings > Controls you can click any key and press a new one; the choice is remembered in this browser.

Tips

Always keep an exit. Before you drop a bomb, know which way you will run: the fire travels along straight lines.

Use the corners. A bomb in a corridor can trap a rival with nowhere to go.

Grab power-ups quickly. More bombs, longer flames, more speed and a kick that pushes bombs away all help. One pickup makes your controls confused for a few seconds, so be careful what you step on.

Mind the chain. A bomb caught in another explosion goes off as well.

FAQ

Can I play alone? No. The game has no computer players, so you need at least one other person on the same keyboard.

Does it work on a phone or with a gamepad? Not on a phone: there are no touch controls. The game also reads gamepad buttons, but it was made for keyboards and we have not tried gamepads here.

Is anything saved? Only your settings, in this browser.

Is it free to share? Yes. The game is free software; the code is under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later, and the source of this version is linked from this page.

Credits and licence

Code by Rémi Verschelde and contributors (GNU GPL, version 3 or later). The engine is Godot 3.5.3 (MIT).

• Graphics: tileset "Bomb Party - the complete set" by Matt Hackett, Cem Kalyoncu and /usr/share, with additions by Akien and Obani; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
• Sound effects: Obani, Mark DiAngelo and Mike Koenig; CC BY 3.0.
• Music ("dynadingo"): Obani, CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Fonts: Fira Sans, The Mozilla Foundation and Telefonica S.A., SIL Open Font License 1.1.

The only change in this version is that the Quit button does nothing in the browser. The complete licence texts and the source of this build are linked from this page.