RoguedexPart 1 (Sep 2023) · #5 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (0:50:17)
Dungreed is a 2D side-scrolling action game with 2D Rogue-LITE elements. You become an adventurer exploring a continuously evolving dungeon to prevent the town from being destroyed. Eliminate enemies, use a variety of weapons and magic, eat food, and defeat evil in the dungeon!
Consensus
B73.9/100
Steam players93.3% positiveVery Positive9,605 reviews
Metacritic ↗Users: 7.2/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈443K copies · ≈$3.3M gross
What creators say
Ranked Apr 2023 · #1 of 30 in that tierWatch the moment (2:03:54)
What players say
A 2D side-scrolling, mouse-aimed action roguelite by TEAM HORAY (Steam, Feb 2018) where you dash and jump through procedurally assembled dungeons, collect weapons and accessories, manage a hunger/food system, and buy permanent stat upgrades between runs.
Dungreed is a long-running indie favourite on PC: Steam shows roughly 9,600 reviews at about 93% positive (Very Positive), and the positive reviews come from players with very high playtime (often 50-250 hours) who praise weapon and build variety, snappy dash-based combat and the Workshop mods. Critic coverage is thin: Metacritic has no Metascore (only one Nintendo Life review of the Switch port, 80) and a tiny Switch user score of 7.2 from 5 ratings. The complaints are consistent: awkward keyboard/mouse and controller handling, repeated items and thin area variety, RNG-driven balance where lucky builds trivialise the game and unlucky ones are stuck, and bullet-hell late bosses. Steam reviewers say the developer has moved on to Sephiria, so content updates appear to have slowed, but the modding scene keeps it alive.
Players love
- Huge weapon and accessory pool that synergises into many different builds; several reviewers cite 'god runs' from item combinations
- Fast, snappy dash-based movement and combat that feels good once a build comes together (one reviewer likens the movement approach to Rogue Legacy)
- Character customisation per run, with many valid playstyles and a difficulty curve that adds new content gradually
- Food/hunger system: buying food for buffs fills a hunger meter that drains, forcing you to budget stat gains against saving room for better food
- No contact damage from enemies, which one reviewer singled out as a relief
- Active Steam Workshop: custom weapons, characters and even items imported from Sephiria extend replay value (reviewers call the Workshop community 'legends')
- Strong value at about $10 and good long-tail engagement, with many players returning every few months
- Pixel-art style and movement praised by several reviewers (one calls it a personal favourite 2D roguelike)
Common complaints
- Controls draw the harshest complaints: aiming and dashing follow the mouse pointer so keyboard players dash the wrong way, and keybinding/settings menus were reported as broken by some
- Controller support is inconsistent: one PS5-controller user reports the game flipping between Xbox and 'Undefined' input mid-run; others say it plays best on a gamepad
- Item and loot rotation feels repetitive: the same items recur in shops and chests, so the large library feels smaller than it is, and there is low visual variety across areas
- Balance is swingy: lucky weapon/evasion/block combos make you near-invincible while a poor-loot run leaves you with weak items; some legendary items are reported weaker than commons and some characters feel underpowered
- Late bosses are bullet sponges that flood the screen with projectiles; one complaint notes a boss using red/orange/brown projectiles in a red/orange/brown hell stage where attacks blend into the background
- Enemy attack timings feel slow compared with the very fast player and spam-attack weapons, making dodging feel jarring (detailed in one long negative review)
- Bland, minimal story and lore according to several reviewers
Can feel tedious
- Achievement hunting and the optional true final boss: reviewers describe completion as long, repetitive and in places annoying (one says the true boss looked more annoying than satisfying)
- Repeated runs through the same few areas, with a lack of area variety, leads to fatigue after dozens of runs
- Spending runs with only low-rarity gear and no healing is frustrating once meta-progression is maxed out
- Bullet-hell late stages and projectile-spamming bosses become a slog rather than a skill test for some
- Keyboard controls and cursor-relative dashing cause cheap hits, making the keyboard experience a chore
What's unique
- Food/hunger meter as a build-management resource: buffs are bought and limited by stomach capacity, which is unusual for the genre
- 2D mouse-aimed shooter/melee hybrid platformer with a dash-centred movement kit and no contact damage
- Town-rebuilding and training meta layer: permanent stat training plus unlockable vendors and NPCs rescued from the dungeon
- Active Steam Workshop scene adding custom characters and weapons to a game with a simple pixel-art pipeline
- Available on PC, Switch, PS4 and iOS
Players want
- Better input handling: a working rebinding menu and reliable controller detection (PS controllers especially)
- More permanent upgrades or meta-progression to help struggling players, since progression tops out and later success is skill plus RNG
- Better item rotation/pool management so shops and chests do not keep showing the same items
- More area and visual variety, and more enemy/boss diversity to reduce repetitiveness
- Rebalancing rarity and weak characters so legendary items and unorthodox builds are not punished; clearer guaranteed healing rather than mostly RNG healing
- Fix or clarify achievement bugs (one 100% player reports the final food-eating achievement not unlocking) and quest progress not carrying across a single run
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Action RoguelikePixel GraphicsRogue-liteRogue-likeActionIndie2DDungeon CrawlerSingleplayerDifficult
Similar games
More runs with shared subgenres and Steam tags.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Dungreed is a 2D action roguelite dungeon crawler where you explore rooms, fight enemies and collect weapons and items. He calls it a hidden gem that looks basic on Steam but turns out to have a huge amount of content and polish. He praises its smooth controls, weapon variety, food mechanic, bosses and music. He places it at the very top of A tier, just short of S.
Liked
Disliked