EMBERDEEP

A small Brogue-like ASCII roguelike in true color: dark jewel-toned dungeons, field-of-view lighting, risky item identification, and terrain that fights back — spreading fire, explosive gas pockets, water, lava. Descend to depth 15, take the Emberheart, and climb back out alive.

Built with python-tcod. No assets, no build step, pure ASCII.

Run it

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python -m emberdeep        # or: python main.py

The game renders glyphs from a system monospace font. If none of the built-in candidates work on your machine:

EMBERDEEP_FONT=/path/to/mono.ttf .venv/bin/python -m emberdeep

Controls

key	action
arrows / numpad / hjkl + yubn	move (bump to attack)
. or numpad 5	wait a turn
> / <	descend / ascend stairs
g	pick up
i	inventory (use / equip / remove; d to drop)
x	look around
q	abandon run / quit

The game

• 15 depths, permadeath. XP from kills; each level offers +strength, +accuracy, or +max HP.
• Identify minigame. Potions and scrolls start shuffled ("a murky crimson potion"). Quaffing identifies the type for the run — but some potions are incineration. Scrolls of identify play it safe. Enchanted gear shows as "unusual" until worn once (no curses; we're not monsters).
• Terrain matters. Lichen and glowfungus burn; fire spreads. Gas vents fill rooms with a flammable haze — one spark and the whole pocket goes up. Water douses burning; lava is a bad place to stand. Imps and firebolts weaponize all of it.
• Diablo-style itemization. Weapons, armor, and rings drop as normal / magic (1–2 affixes) / rare (3–4), with depth-weighted odds. Fourteen affixes from Ember (fire damage) to of Swiftness (free turns).
• Eight legendaries, one copy each per run, each a build-around: Emberbrand (ignites terrain on hit), Stormcall (chain lightning), Whisperfang (backstab ×3), Grudgekeeper (damage grows with your wounds), Gloomward (fire/gas immunity, less light), Bulwark of the Deep, Ring of the Salamander (lava heals you), Ring of Echoes (kills may raise allied shades).
• Eleven monsters, each with one trick: bats flutter randomly, goblins rout, jellies split, imps hurl fire, wraiths blink away when struck, ogres are slow and enormous, the Ember Warden guards the Heart.

Development

Docs live in docs/: player's guide, original design plan, decision log.

.venv/bin/python -m pytest tests/            # 26 seeded tests, no window needed
.venv/bin/python scripts/balance_probe.py    # duel matrix: avg HP lost per kill

Layout: emberdeep/engine.py (state + turn loop), dungeon.py (generation), terrain.py (fire/gas sim), entities.py (bestiary + AI), combat.py, items.py (affixes/legendaries), identify.py, actions.py (player verbs), render.py + ui.py + screens.py (presentation), __main__.py (SDL loop). All map arrays are indexed [x, y]; all randomness flows through one seeded random.Random.