How to play
What Dystopia One is, every feature as it stands, the keys, and the things that take more than one step — digging, building, crafting, casting, riding, conduits, trading, companies, the gate.
The short version
Dystopia One is a turn-based roguelike played in the browser, on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 with the Tower's own weapons and horrors laid on top. Civilisation lives in towers now; this is one of them, and nobody has seen the corporation that owns it in a generation. The lobby is safe. The roof is a rumour. A world is the Tower: 1,024 floors, each a grid of 8 × 8 squares, and every square is a whole level of 128 × 128 tiles with doors in its walls leading to the squares beside it. Stairs and elevators join the floors; a floor may have several, and a stair can land you in a part of the next floor that leads nowhere — go back down and find another. You start on floor 0, in the lobby. The way out is the roof door, 1,023 floors up: it opens only to the four keys held by the four Wardens — on the 256th, 512th and 768th floors and the roof — and every sixteenth floor has a boss whose lair holds that floor's only stair up. Map your seed. Nothing moves until you do: every step, swing, shot and spell is a turn, and the log tells you every roll.
You can play alone, with a squad in the same square, in a public world with everyone, or in a private world you open for friends. Dying is not the end (except in ironman worlds): your body is dragged back to the last door you came in by, lighter by some credits.
Features, as the game stands
The Tower. 1,024 floors, each with a type from the seed — offices (most of it), residential, retail, medical, security, maintenance, server farms, hydroponics, parking (low down) and the lobby floor — each of 64 squares generated from the seed. Coolant conduits run across one floor in six (swim them, bridge them with a walkway, or build a raft). Squares get harder the higher you climb; every sixteenth floor has a named boss, its vault and the only stair up. Refuges are squares where nothing hunts you. Lairs grow if left alone. Worlds have seasons (Frontier), factions that war with each other, world events, a weekly hunt, bounties, and sieges in PvP Frontier worlds. Unpowered worlds need a torch. Seeds are numbers: share one and anyone can open the same Tower.
Worlds. The public Dystopia One; private worlds (Hero) in PvE, PvP or PvPvE, at a chosen difficulty, invited by link; ironman worlds, where death is final and a seasonal ladder ranks the highest; the Daily Run, one seed for everyone, closed at midnight with a title for the day's best; Towers beyond (+1, +2, …) beneath any world — a Tower +1 — reached through the roof door or by rebirth.
Characters. Eleven classes to start — enforcer, operator, medtech, brawler, marshal, scout, striker, netrunner, psion, biohacker, face (the fighter, rogue, cleric, barbarian, paladin, ranger, monk, wizard, sorcerer, druid and bard of the 3.5 rules, under the names the Tower gives them) — and three prestige paths (sharpshooter, assassin, chrome ascendant) taken when their prerequisites are met. Multiclassing at each level-up. Levels to 20 and epic levels past it, with epic feats. Forty-plus feats, every SRD skill that makes sense in the Tower, spells of levels 1–9, metamagic, preparation for wizards and clerics, spontaneous casting for sorcerers and bards, turning, rage, smite, lay on hands, wild shape, inspire courage, favoured enemies, tracking, summoning, raise dead. The old arts still work out here. A legend grows across all your characters: renown buys perks that shape the next one.
Monsters. Two hundred and forty of them, CR 1/4 to 30 and past, in nineteen families, all the Tower's own: gangers, scrappers and contract troopers; the revived — tenants and guards brought back by nanite filament; heavy cyborgs, from juiced bruisers to storm-rigs; warmechs, the corporation's dragon-shaped war machines, prototype to flagship; daemons — rogue AIs wearing drone-bodies, from errand daemons to the Executive; drones, from sentry to dreadnought to the Prototype titan; bioforms that got out of the labs, from lab mites to the hive queen; the lockdown — the building's own cleaning nanites, from nanophages to the Clot; and the lab beasts, splices, horrors, sludges, hazards, automata, feral animals, vermin and overgrowth between. Scavenger gangs and Board cultists hold the offices nobody wants. Conditions (poison, disease, paralysis, fear, negative levels, spell resistance) that work like the book says. Traps — and traps you set yourself.
Gear and loot. Blades and bows from the old world beside the Tower's own: shock batons, vibroblades, power fists and plasma swords; laser and plasma pistols and rifles and the gauss carbine, which need no ammunition and strike the incorporeal; vacc suits, flak vests, composite panelling, hardsuits and powered exoskeletons; riot shields and energy bucklers; targeting visors, shield belts and servo harnesses. Weapons, armor and shields with special abilities; stims, chips, emitters, staves, rods; cursed items and remove curse; special ammunition and overcharged cells; magic recipes. Chests, locked and trapped; vaults behind bosses; the Vault of the Nine, opened by riddles.
Surviving. Hunger and thirst (ration packs and the canteen), light (torches, work lamps, flares, floodlights), foul water and fever, rest that heals, safe rooms with traders and hermits, camps, hirelings and a retinue, escort jobs, mounts (scout walker, hoverbike, cargo hauler, combat walker, tamed stalker), rafts.
Frontier worlds. Cut through plasterboard, concrete and panelling with a pick or a plasma cutter; build partitions, doors, walkways, rafts, a hab core that claims a room, bunks, floodlights, condensers, lockers (private or shared), workbenches, fabricators, chem benches, hydroponics beds. Gather concrete, steel studs, copper, hide, glow-mold and synth-bloom from nodes and from monsters; circuitry and servos from machines, carapace and glands from xenos, ichor from the Tower's own cells. A hundred and thirty crafting recipes: alloy, isotope, repair kits, stims, stims, energy weapons, powered armor, enchanted gear. Tools wear and are mended. Seasons — Thaw, Flare, Bloom, Freeze — change what grows.
The markets and the Exchange. Square 3-3 of the lobby floor is the Lobby, the settled hub of the Tower, and every 64th floor above it (64, 128 … 960) has a market cut from the same plan: the Concourse, the Grand Exchange, four Counters, the Arena and the Clinic with its autodoc. A market always has a relay, and no stair or elevator lands in it. Six trading houses work every world: two keep berths at the Lobby and never leave; four run convoys up the Tower — the Lobby, then three to five markets, with the refuge eight floors below each on the way — moving every four hours on the real clock, so a house is in one square at a time and everyone sees it there. Where a house is, its factor stands in the safe room: walk up and the counter opens. A house sells its specialty at the rate plus a tenth and pays a premium (20–60%) for the three things it wants this week, half the rate for anything else, as long as its cash holds out. Between visits the houses trade on the market board too: they buy fairly priced listings of what they want while you are away (the board pays you out as usual) and post their own stock. Every price follows the index: one rate per material and class of goods per world, moved up by every purchase and down by every sale, drifting a tenth of the way back to book each day; the board shows today's rates and marks listings dear or cheap against them. Peddlers walk the squares that have no trader of their own, one square in eight: a cart of a few local materials and sundries at the rate plus the walking, new every day, and three fifths of the rate for anything you sell them. Nothing hunts them and they hunt nothing; walk into one to trade.
Your own counter. Stand on one of the marked pitches along the north and south walls of any market's Concourse and the business button offers a stall (150 credits); stand in a room you have claimed with a hab core in a Frontier world and it offers a shop (100). Name it, step off, and walk back into the counter to run it: put materials and items from your pack out at a price a unit (the rate is shown beside each), reprice, take things back. Other players buy at your price; the houses send for what they want this week when your price is under their premium; the crowd buys on the hour's ticks whenever a price sits at or a little over the rate — a stall at the Lobby sees all of it, a shop in the Towers a share. Takings go to a till you empty at the counter. A stall pays the Lobby 5% of each sale; upkeep comes out of the till every real day, and a week unpaid shutters the business until you settle up. Twenty sales and 600 credits make an Emporium (ten slots, a bigger crowd that pays more over the rate); a hundred and 2,000 a House (sixteen). The market board lists every business in the world. One business a character in a world.
The Arena. South of every market's Concourse. Stand on the sand and the arena button offers three fights at your weight — sparring, a bout, a title fight — each naming the beast it would bring, the stake and the purse. Stake it, and the book opens: anyone in the world may wager on you or the beast from wherever they are, and the crowd bets too. Start the bout and the gate lets the beast in; the fight is the ordinary fight. Kill it for the purse. Drop under a fifth of your hit points and the marshals call it: you keep your life and lose the stake. Leave the sand and you forfeit. When it ends, the winning side of the book splits the losing side less a tenth to the house; the bookmaker pays you the next time you open the arena.
Duels (PvP and PvPvE worlds). On the same sand the arena button also lets you post a duel for a stake of your own choosing (10 to 5,000 credits). It stands on that market's sand until another player there takes it up for the same stake — or you take it back. Once taken up the book opens on both of you (the crowd backs the higher level), and either duelist starts it from the panel when both stand on the sand. The refuge's peace lifts for the two of you alone: walk into each other to strike, with the ordinary rules. The winner takes both stakes less the house's tenth. The marshals call it when either drops under a fifth of their hit points; leave the sand and it is forfeit; past an hour it is void and the stakes go back. A duel is for the stake: the loser's belt is not touched, though a death on the sand is a death. The challenged may step back before the start, which gives both stakes and the wagers back.
Together. Squads (the party in your square, with a shared map, chat and follow-the-leader through doors); companies that last across worlds, with a tag, a channel, shared holdings, a office in a refuge, and company quests; mail between players, with credits and items in escrow; a market board in every world and a cross-world trading post (Hero); leaderboards and titles; spectating any character from their chronicle; a public chronicle page per character you choose to share.
Your account. Achievements (122), titles, a profile page, renown and legend perks, push and email digests, save files for your characters, French and Spanish, a high-contrast palette and reduced motion, a screen-reader description of every square. The Hero plan ($3 a month) adds private worlds, PvP, travel between worlds, more characters, the trading post and every legend perk.
The keys
Everything on the toolbar has a key. Hover a button for its tip. Press Esc to cancel anything half-done.
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Arrows or W A S D | Walk one tile. Q E Z C walk diagonally. Walk into a monster to attack it, into a chest to open it, into a door to go through it. Tap a tile beside you to step there; tap a tile further off to walk toward it along floor you have seen (up to eight steps a tap); tap a foe in range of your gun or bow to shoot it. |
| Space or . | Wait a turn (monsters still move). |
| P | Inject a stim of cure light wounds. |
| R | Rest: eight hours, hit points and spells back. Safe in a trader's or hermit's room, beside your own hab core or bunk, or in a refuge; anywhere else something may find you. |
| F | Search the room for traps, secret doors and hidden things. |
| L | Look around: what is in the square and where. |
| T | Shoot your ranged weapon (see Stacked actions). |
| G | Talk to the person in the room — Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive. |
| J | Take the job they offer. |
| Y | Hire the gun for hire beside you. |
| K / V | Eat a ration pack / drink from the canteen or the pool beside you. |
| O | Switch on a torch, work lamp or flare; press again to switch it off and keep what is left. |
| H | Gather again from the node under your feet. |
| I / N / U | Intimidate an adjacent foe / feint it out of its guard / escape paralysis. |
| X | Whirlwind Attack: one swing at every adjacent foe (with the feat). |
| 1 / 2 | Frontier worlds: dig / build — then a direction. |
| B | The spellbook (and the target list for anything that needs a target). |
| M | The maps: this square, and the whole Tower. |
| Tab or @ | The character sheet: worn and carried gear, skills, feats, crafting, materials, standing. |
| Esc | Cancel a dig, a build, a target pick, or close the drawer. |
Class powers (rage, smite, lay on hands, turn undead, track, wild shape, inspire courage, breathe fire, arcane arrows, mount, charge) appear as buttons on the toolbar when your character has them.
On a phone the direction pad in the corner walks you (hold to keep walking); the toolbar and panels are the same; swipe the drawer closed.
A controller
Pair a Bluetooth pad (Xbox, PlayStation, MFi or any standard-layout pad) with your iPad, phone or computer and press any button on it: the game switches to it at once, and back to touch or keys when it goes away. There is nothing to set up.
| Control | Does |
|---|---|
| D-pad / left stick | Walk, eight directions; hold to keep walking. A dig or build takes the direction too. With a target list open, moves the highlight; in a drawer or menu, moves the cursor. |
| A | Act on the tile you last faced: attack, open, talk, cross, or step. With a target waiting: fire at the highlighted foe. In a dialog: OK / Next. |
| B | Cancel: a pending shot, a dig or build, the drawer, the menu, a dialog. (Nintendo-style pads: swap A and B from the menu's "Controller" line.) |
| X | Shoot. With several foes in range, X again cycles the highlight; A fires. |
| Y | Inject a stim. |
| Hold RB + A / X / Y | Eat / drink / light (or douse). |
| LB / RB (tapped) | Open the drawers in turn — sheet, spellbook, squad, shop, maps, and the rest as they appear — and past the end, back to the map. |
| LT / RT | Rest / search the room. |
| Back (View, Share) | Look around. |
| Start (Menu, Options) | The menu under your name. |
Inside a drawer, the menu, a dialog, or any screen that is not the map, the D-pad moves a gold cursor between the controls (nearest in the pressed direction; up and down wrap), <b>A</b> presses the one under it — buy, equip, cast, take — and <b>B</b> backs out. LB and RB land the cursor on the first control of each drawer they open. A text field takes the focus with A; a drop-down steps to its next choice.
Stacked actions
Some things take two or three steps. Here is each one, start to finish.
| To… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Dig through a wall | Carry a pick (Frontier worlds start you with a concrete pick, or buy or craft one; a plasma cutter is the best there is). Press 1 (or the pick button), then a direction key or pad arrow toward the wall. Each press is one hit; the maintenance floors falls in one, the offices in two, server farms and channels in three, and harder walls want a better pick. The rubble can be cleared for a little concrete. Esc cancels. |
| Build something | Carry a hammer (or a nano-welder) and the materials (see the list below). Press 2 (or the build button): the Build panel opens with every thing you can make and what each costs — grey ones say what is missing. Click one, then press a direction toward the floor tile to build on. Doors and walkways go on floor, pits or fluid; furniture on floor. In Private Resources worlds what you build is yours alone; in Shared Resources anyone may use it; company-mates may always use yours. |
| Claim a room | Build a hab core (4 concrete, 2 steel studs) in it. Monsters never return to a claimed room, resting there is a camp, and a hydroponics bed in it grows a ration every rest. |
| Gather materials | Walk onto a node (a stripped cable run, a salvage heap, a grow tray, a e-waste bin) — you gather on arrival; H tries again. Monsters leave parts: hide, fang, scales, circuitry, servos, carapace, ichor. Concrete comes from digging and clearing rubble. Materials are weightless but sit on the sheet; set them down or stash them in a locker. |
| Craft | Stand beside a trader's bench, a workbench you built, a fabricator (metalwork, plasma, powered armor) or a chem bench (brewing, cells, stims). Open the sheet (Tab) → Crafting: recipes you can make are listed with the skill check and the materials; click one. Failure costs some of the materials. Magic recipes need the spell known and a caster level. Blades and batons are Craft (weaponsmithing); beams, slugs and bows are Craft (gunsmithing); suits and panelling are Craft (armorsmithing). |
| Make an isotope | Plasma wants an isotope. At a fabricator, Refine isotope turns two gold contacts and a brimstone into one (Craft (alchemy) 18). |
| Mend a tool | Tools wear with use. A repair kit (crafted) mends one; or craft a new one at a fabricator. |
| Set a trap | With a trap kit in the pack, open the sheet (Tab), press Set beside the kit, then press a direction toward the tile. It fires on the first monster (or, in PvP, player) to step on it. |
| Cast a spell | B opens the spellbook. Click a spell. A spell with a target lists what is in range — click the foe there or tap it on the map. Netrunners and medtechs prepare after a rest: Prepare in the spellbook chooses tomorrow's slots; psions and heralds cast from what they know. Metamagic rods and feats add a toggle above the list. |
| Shoot | Hold a laser or plasma weapon, a gauss carbine, a bow, a crossbow or a sling. Tap the foe on the map, or press T (or the shoot button): one foe in range fires at once; several open a list — tap one there or on the map. Beams need no ammunition and strike the incorporeal; a pack of overcharged cells rides on every beam, as a quiver of special arrows does on a bow. Void archers pick an arrow kind (seeker, phase, hail, death) from the toolbar first. |
| Charge | On a mount, with a foe two to four tiles away down a straight, clear line: press the charge button; pick the foe if there is more than one. +2 on the blow (+4 from a combat walker). |
| Ride | Buy a mount from a trader (a templar of fifth level calls a combat walker for nothing). Press Mount in a corridor or a wide chamber — six tiles each way, four for a scout walker. Ridden, you cover two tiles a turn. Cramped rooms, fluid, pits and rafts want you on foot: press the button again to dismount. |
| Cross a conduit | Swim (Swim DC 10 each tile; floundering can hurt), build a walkway over a two-tile channel (2 steel studs per tile), or build a raft (6 steel studs, 2 hide) beside the fluid and step aboard from the tile next to it. The raft carries you and your retinue along the channel and stays moored where you step ashore. Conduit mouths at the square's edge are exits of their own. |
| Open a locked chest | Walk into it: the log says it is locked. Press the Open the lock button that appears (Open Lock check; an operative's trade) or break it. F first if you suspect a trap; Disarm appears when you find one. |
| Use a locker of yours | Stand beside a locker you built (or a shared one) and press the chest button: stash and take items and materials. A sacked locker is destroyed with what was in it. |
| Take a job | Find someone who is not a trader in a safe room. G to talk — Diplomacy opens them up — then J to take the work: escort, hunt, fetch, or clear. The quest log on the sheet tracks it; return to them to be paid. |
| Hire help | Someone for hire stands in some safe rooms: Y hires them for a share of credits. They follow you, fight, and can be dismissed. Biohackers and scouts call a companion of their own. |
| Buy, sell and haggle | In a trader's room press the shop button: buy from the stock, sell from the pack, Haggle for 10% off this week (Diplomacy or Bluff); loyalty earns more. Some traders have a healer. Identify unknown magic there or by a rested Spellcraft check. |
| Trade with players and houses | The market button in a trader's room opens the world's board: list an item or materials at a price, buy what others and the houses list, cancel your own. Today's rates are at the foot of the board; a house buys your listing while you are away if it wants the thing and the price is fair. Heroes also post to the trading post, seen in every world, for a 15% fee. |
| Trade at a counter | Walk into a house's factor (in a safe room, or a berth at the Lobby) or a peddler (anywhere), or press the counter button when one stands beside you: buy from what they sell, sell from your pack at the prices shown. A house wants three things this week and says so. |
| Run a business | On a Concourse pitch or in your claimed room, the business button founds one. Walk into your counter to stock it, set prices, empty the till, step up a tier, or close. Walk into anyone else's to buy. |
| Fight in the Arena | On the sand at the Lobby, the arena button: stake a challenge, start the bout, fight. From anywhere in the world the same button lays wagers on open bouts. |
| Use a relay | Walk onto a transit relay to touch it. From beside any relay, the relays button lists every one you have touched: step to it for a toll of five credits and two a square. |
| Join a squad | Everyone in the same square and world is in reach. Your squad shares its map and its chat channel; the leader's party walks through doors together with Follow. The Squad panel shows who is near and lets you form up. |
| Form a company | Profile → Company: found one with a name and a tag, or join with a code. Companies have their own chat scope, share Frontier holdings, can claim a office in a refuge (banner, notice board, lockers), and post company quests with credits and renown as the reward. |
| Send mail | Profile → Mail: write to a username; attach credits or an item from a character's pack — it is held in escrow until they claim it, or you recall it. Twenty unread at most per inbox, fifty sends a day. |
| Pass the roof door | Carry all four Wardens' keys to the roof floor's lair. Through the door a character may retire with honours or walk into the next Tower (+1) beneath; a retired character can later be reborn at level 1 in that deeper world carrying one epic feat. |
| Travel between worlds | Profile → your character → Travel (Hero). Ironman worlds are entered with a new character and left only by the gate or the grave. |
| Keep a save file | 💾 on the sheet or the profile downloads the character as a file. The create-character screen of a world takes it back — once, on the same account, and only after the original is gone. |
| Share a chronicle | 📜 on the sheet or the profile turns on a public page for the character — levels, bosses, the map of the squares they saw — and anyone can watch them play from it. |
| Change language, contrast, motion, sound | The menu under your name: Language cycles English, French and Spanish; Contrast, Motion, Sound and Music are there too. |
What things cost to build
| Build | Tool | Materials | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partition | hammer | 2 concrete | Blocks movement and sight. |
| Door | hammer | 2 steel studs, 1 copper wire | Monsters cannot pass it. |
| Walkway | hammer | 2 steel studs | Over a pit or fluid; plain floor after. |
| Raft | hammer | 6 steel studs, 2 hide | Built on fluid; step aboard from beside it. |
| Clear rubble | pick | — | Gives a little concrete. |
| Hab core | hammer | 4 concrete, 2 steel studs | Claims the room. |
| Bunk | hammer | 2 steel studs, 2 hide | A real sleep. |
| Floodlight | hammer | 1 copper wire, 1 steel studs | Five tiles of light in an unpowered world. |
| Condenser | hammer | 4 concrete | Clean water, no fever. |
| Workbench | hammer | 3 steel studs, 1 copper wire | Craft beside it. |
| Fabricator | hammer | 6 concrete, 2 copper wire | Metalwork; alloy, isotope, plasma and powered armor need one. |
| Chem bench | hammer | 2 steel studs, 1 synth-bloom | Brewing, overcharged cells, stims. |
| Hydroponics bed | hammer | 2 steel studs, 2 glow-mold | A ration every rest in a claimed room, up to three. |
| Locker | hammer | 3 steel studs, 1 copper wire | Yours in Private Resources. |
| Shared locker | hammer | 3 steel studs, 1 copper wire | Anyone may open it. |
Reading the screen
The log on the right is the game: every attack says the roll, the bonus and the armor class it had to beat. The bar under the map shows hit points, experience, credits, the square you are in and its ring. Your needs — food, water, light, and fatigue when it is on you — sit in the map's bottom-left corner: amber when low, red when critical; tap Hungry, Thirsty or Dark to eat, drink or light up. Effects list what is on you and for how long. The minimap in the maps panel marks doors, chests you have seen, the trader, the autodoc, and your squad.
Floors: the lobby is floor 0; the roof is floor 1,023. Monsters are chosen by the floor. The maps panel (M) shows your floor: ▲ a stair up, ▼ a stair down, ◆ both, ▣ an elevator; walk onto a stair to take it, into an elevator car to pick a floor from its panel. The floor map in an unpowered world shows only what you have found. Under it, the Tower: all 1,024 floors, 32 to a row, floor 0 at the bottom left — floors you have stood on lit, markets gold, refuges green, lairs red until someone in the world clears them, and a white box on your floor. The leaderboards' <i>Lairs cleared</i> board shows which bosses have fallen and to whom.
Dying, and not
At zero hit points you fall. In an ordinary world you wake at the door you last came through, short some credits; your gear is yours still. Parting blows, poison and falling into a pit all count. In an ironman world the character is gone, and goes on the ladder. In an ironman world a chaplain with raise dead, beside a grave marker less than a day old, can bring the fallen back with one hit point and a negative level — for 250 credits and 50 a level.
The guide
Your first character is walked through the first hour by a guide card above the log — eight steps, each judged from what you actually do, each with a hint pointing at the nearest place to do it. Finishing pays fifty credits, a stim and the Apprentice achievement. Skip on the card dismisses it (it is on your sheet if you want it back), and every character after your first can start without it.