A keyboard roguelike where each prison cell is a single choice: fight, cast or shoot, and keep enough resources to go deeper.
Warden’s Duty hands you the keys to a jail that is bursting at the seams. Goblins, rats, dragons and stranger things fill the cells, and it is up to you to clear out every last one before moving down to the next level of the building. You never wander through halls. Each cell is one decision: how will you handle the creature behind the door?
Ondřej Žára created it during the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge of 2015, and it replaces the usual dungeon exploring with tight resource planning.
How a turn plays out
A floor is laid out as rows of cells, with a mini map in the corner marking your position. Move with the arrow keys, W A S D or H J K L. Walk into a cell and its prisoner takes over the screen, with a menu of actions underneath. Most of the time you can pick between hand-to-hand combat, a magic missile or your bow.
Tap a number key to highlight an action. Colored bars then preview exactly how it would change your health and mana, your arrow and gold supply, and your experience. Nothing is final until you press Enter, so check each option.
What everything costs
Fighting up close drains health, spells drain mana, and the bow spends one or two arrows. Higher strength reduces the hurt you take in melee, and better magic affinity lowers spell prices. Kills earn experience. When that bar is full, you level up, your stats grow and you are fully restored.
Choices you cannot survive or cannot pay for are grayed out. Some cells hold no monster at all but a chest (which may be trapped), a trap, a magic pool or a shopkeeper. Chests and pools come with an Ignore choice that counts as clearing them.
Strategy notes
- Trust the preview bars. They show the real outcome, so you never have to guess.
- Survey the entire floor first. Keep mana and arrows for the nastiest prisoner and pay for easy fights with health.
- Plan around leveling. A big fight that pushes your experience bar over the top heals you right after, so it can be the cheapest option.
- Keep a gold reserve. Shops on some floors sell arrows, potions and training.
- A few elemental creatures leave you a single breath attack. Aim it at a creature of another element, since it does poorly against its own kind.
Who it suits
This is a game of planning rather than reflexes. It will appeal to players who like doing the math and getting the most from every move. As you level, you build resistance to fire, water and poison, and deeper floors pack in more cells, so each run gets harder the longer it lasts.
Controls
| Action | Keyboard |
|---|---|
| Start the game, confirm the selected action, play again after game over | Enter |
| Move to a neighboring cell | Arrow keys, W A S D, or H J K L |
| Choose an action in the current cell | Number keys 1 to 9 |
Warden's Duty FAQ
Can I play Warden's Duty on a phone or tablet?
No. The game uses only the keyboard, with no mouse or touch controls, so you need a computer. A Chromebook or laptop keyboard works fine, since all you need are the arrow keys, number keys and Enter.
How long does a run last?
There is no fixed length. Floors keep going deeper with more cells each time, and a run ends only when nothing left on the current floor is affordable. The final screen shows your depth and how much gold you carried.
Is Warden's Duty a one or two player game?
It is single player. You alone run the prison, making every choice cell by cell. When a run is over, the final screen sums it up, and pressing Enter starts a brand new descent from the top.
How do I recover health and mana?
Each new level restores both bars to full. Shops also stock healing potions and mana scrolls if you have the gold. Drinking from a magic pool is risky, because the effect on your stats can go up or down.
