How to Play Step Dungeon

Arrow keys or WASD; on phones, swipe. Hold a direction (or the d-pad) to keep walking until you hit a wall.

Step back onto the tile you came from — or press Z, R, or Backspace to rewind one tick from anywhere. Even a defeated hero can walk backwards out of the mistake.

Enter or Space — dismiss dialogs, advance after a win, re-enter a portal underfoot.

↺ Reset Level starts over from scratch. Unlike a rewind it can't be undone, so it asks first.

Reach it to win. A red-tinted padlock means it wants a specific key first — you can't even step on it until that key is in your pack, when it swings open and glows green.

A door and its key always share a color — the key's name is the color. Doors stop you until you hold the key, and stop monsters forever.

Open and close by channel, wired to levers and plates. Bars only ever block entry — a gate never slams shut on someone standing in it.

Step on one to flip its channel; it stays where you left it. Careful in tight quarters — stepping back off a lever the way you came is a rewind, which un-flips it.

Hold their channel open only while something stands on them — and "something" includes monsters and boulders. Luring a patrolling wolf across a plate at the right tick is an intended solution.

Bear your weight exactly once: the plank crumbles the moment you step off it, for everyone — including the wolf chasing you, which is sometimes the point. An island with one bridge is a place you visit once.

Step on and you slide until something stops you — ground, a wall, a monster (that's a fight), or a portal. The whole slide is one tick, and you only pick up items where you stop: gliding over a coin leaves it behind. Pushing back the way you slid retraces the slide as one rewind.

Walkable, but stopping there costs 1 HP — brambles above ground, iron spikes below, same rule. Monsters stroll through unbothered. They can kill; budget accordingly.

Impassable until you hold a pickaxe, then one swing breaks it into floor — but the swing costs a full tick standing still, and the world moves while you mine. Digging under a patrol's nose is a timing puzzle.

Color-matched pairs: step in one, appear at its twin. A portal jump is the one move no direction can walk back through — a ↩ marker appears while you stand on the far ring; click it (or Enter) to undo the jump.

Push one tile per shove, Sokoban-style. They skid across ice, ride portals, weigh down plates permanently, and — shoved into a chasm — fill it into a floor you can cross. Monsters can't push them, so a parked boulder is a wall of your own making. Park thoughtfully.

Raise your attack. In a fight both sides trade blows every round, so hitting harder means fewer rounds — and fewer rounds means less damage taken.

Raise your defense: every point shaves a point off every blow you take, every round. Against a long fight, armor is worth more than it looks.

Heal on pickup — but only up to your maximum. Drinking at full health wastes the healing, which makes when you walk over one part of the puzzle: bleed first, drink after.

Raise your maximum HP and heal the same amount. The deep levels are tuned so finely that skipping one is provably fatal.

Open the door, chest, or exit drawn in their color. Some are found on the ground, some are quest rewards, some are carried by monsters who won't hand them over politely.

Lets you mine cracked rock. One swing, one tile, one full tick.

Every coin and chest wears a chip showing exactly what it's worth — you can plan an economy from what's on screen. Chests may also hold keys or hearts (the tooltip names the contents), and some want a key of their own.

An item with a price tag buys itself when you walk over it with enough gold — and politely lets you pass if you're broke. Some levels have exactly enough gold for what must be bought, and tempting wares placed precisely to bankrupt you.

Visible but sealed — dimmed and untouchable — until you've accepted the quest that asks for them (no rifling the mayor's strongbox before he asks). Once the quest is active they sparkle until collected.

Walk a fixed loop, one tile per tick, forever — and the whole route is drawn on the floor as faint pulsing prints, moving in the walking direction. The route is public; the timing is the puzzle.

Give chase when you come within their range, pathfinding properly around walls and corners. Slip beyond their reach and they hold position wherever the hunt left them — which is baitable, and some levels expect you to bait it.

Every monster wears its ♥ health and ⚔ damage, tinted by how a fight would end for you right now: green you win, red you die, amber you both fall. If it's red, the level is telling you a sword or a heart comes first.

A golden ! means work: fetch shards, gather coins, or just carry a word across the map. Rewards range from gold to keys to reforged blades, and finished favors can wake new ones — some villagers only speak once another quest is done.