Puzzle Dungeon Rules and Tips

It is a game that uses puzzles as attacks. Puzzle Quest (2007) turned a match-3 board into spells, and Puzzle and Dragons and Slay the Spire spread the floor-and-boss structure. Puzzle Dungeon boils that combination down to one line: one monster per floor, pick one of several mini puzzles, solve it, and the result becomes damage.

Every puzzle is one you already know: Sudoku, 2048, Minesweeper, the 8 Puzzle, Number Baseball, and general-knowledge questions drawn from the Korean driver's license written test bank (the Korean screen also has a Korean word game). The only new things to learn are how a result becomes damage and what each relic does.

Floors and monsters

The dungeon has eight floors; floors 4 and 8 are bosses. Each floor's monster has a fixed HP and a fixed counterattack, and you start with 40 HP. Bring the monster's HP to 0 to descend; if your HP reaches 0, the run ends there.

One turn

Pick a puzzle and solve it. When you finish, or stop on your own, the result turns into damage and comes off the monster's HP. If the monster is still alive, you lose HP equal to that floor's counterattack, then pick again. Each puzzle can be picked once per floor.

Relics

Defeat the monsters on floors 3 and 7 and three relics appear; you choose one. Relics last for that run only and do not carry into the next day. Nothing is bought and nothing is rolled.

From here on, this is what the code actually does. The numbers are read straight from the game constants and drawn into the table below, so the screen and this page cannot drift apart.

One dungeon a day, the same for everyone

The dungeon is generated from that day's date. Everyone who visits on the same day gets the same Sudoku on the same floor, the same mine layout, the same quiz questions. The three relic candidates are the same too. Generating and solving both happen in your browser, so nothing goes to a server and no account is needed. There is no timer.

Damage math

Each puzzle turns one fixed number into damage, never accuracy or time: mistakes for Sudoku, best tile for 2048, win state and cells opened for Minesweeper, moves used versus the shortest solution for the 8 Puzzle, the try on which you hit for Number Baseball, words found for Natmal, and correct answers for the quiz. Every puzzle tops out at 12, and an unfinished puzzle still deals partial damage for its progress. The formulas are in the table below.

Counterattacks and healing

The counterattack is a fixed value per floor with no luck involved. If you finish a puzzle and the monster is still standing, you take exactly that much. Clearing a floor heals 5 HP, never above your max. If all puzzles on a floor are used and the monster still stands, that floor counts as a loss.

The eight relics

Shield blocks the first counterattack on each floor. Healing draught heals 5 more on each floor clear. Sharp edge adds 2 to all damage. Number sense adds 3 to Sudoku, Number Baseball, and 2048; Keen eye adds 3 to Minesweeper and the 8 Puzzle; Way with words adds 3 to Natmal and the quiz. Big heart raises max HP by 16 and heals that much at once. Finishing blow doubles damage while the monster is at 35% or less of its floor max HP. Relics you already hold do not appear again as candidates.

Saved progress and sharing

The run state (floor, HP, puzzles used, relics) is saved in this browser and survives a refresh. The puzzle board you are in the middle of is not saved, so refreshing mid-puzzle restarts that puzzle from the beginning. When the date changes, yesterday's run is discarded and a new dungeon opens. The restart button can be pressed any time with no penalty.

When a run ends you can copy a result text. It holds the date, whether you cleared, a bar of floors cleared, HP left with relic and puzzle counts, and the address that opens that day's dungeon. Paste a friend's text and it is judged against yours, same-day dungeons only: floors cleared first, then HP left, then fewer puzzles played. There is no leaderboard and no reward.

What differs on the English screen

The English screen does not offer Natmal. It is a puzzle about digging Korean nouns out of Korean jamo, so it cannot be played as-is in English. The other six puzzles are the same boards on the same day, and the quiz uses the same question numbers from the English edition published by the Korea Road Traffic Authority.

Monsters by floor (straight from the game constants)

Damage formulas (each puzzle maxes at 12)

• Sudoku 6x6: Solved: 12 minus 2 per mistake (min 4). Unfinished: floor of 6 times the share of correct cells.
• 2048 (60 moves): Best tile 16 gives 2, 32 gives 5, 64 gives 9, 128 or more gives 12.
• Minesweeper 6x6: Win: 12. Lose: floor of 8 times the share of safe cells opened.
• 8 Puzzle: Solved: 12 if within 2 of the shortest solution, minus 1 per extra move (min 4). Unfinished: 2.
• Number Baseball, 3 digits: Hit on try k: 14 minus k, kept between 6 and 12. Fail: 3.
• Natmal (Korean words): 2 per word found (max 12).
• Driving test quiz, 5 questions: 2.4 per correct answer, rounded (12 for all five).

Strongest puzzle first

The counterattack lands after every puzzle, so how many puzzles it takes to kill the monster is how many hits you take. Lead with the puzzles you can reliably score 12 on to cut the number of turns. Save the puzzles you are unsure of for finishing off a monster with little HP left.

If you can't finish, press stop

Sudoku, the 8 Puzzle, Natmal, and 2048 can be stopped midway. Holding on to the end still costs exactly one counterattack, so once you are stuck it is usually better to take the partial credit and move on. The exception is the 8 Puzzle: giving up is only 2, so solve it if you can.

Minesweeper: start in the middle

Row 3, column 3 and the eight cells around it never hold mines. Starting there opens numbers all at once. Starting in a corner can hit a mine on the first move, and then you have opened nothing and deal 0.

Pick relics for the floors that remain

The relic you pick on floor 3 rides with you for five floors. Healing draught is 5 per floor, so 25 over five floors; Shield blocks one counterattack per floor, which is worth more the deeper you go. The floor 7 relic only sees the floor 8 boss, so an immediate effect like Big heart or Sharp edge is the better buy.

Finishing blow is arithmetic

Damage doubles once the monster is at 35% or less of its floor max HP. On the floor 8 boss with 47 HP that means 16 or below. Chip it down to near that line with strong puzzles, and keep a puzzle you can reliably score 12 on for the doubled turn to save a whole turn.

2048: only down and left

To reach 128 within 60 moves, keep your biggest tile pinned in a corner and push in just two directions. The moment you push up, the corner comes loose. Stopping at 64 is still 9, so don't lock the board chasing more.

Number Baseball: the first two pitches decide it

With three digits there are only 720 candidates. Read the strikes and balls from the first pitch, throw non-overlapping digits on the second, and you will usually hit on the third or fourth. Hitting on the fourth is 10.

Dying on the floor 4 boss

Floor 4's HP jumps well above the first three floors and its counterattack is 6. Arriving with HP to spare is the key. On the earlier floors, lead with two strong puzzles so each monster falls in two turns, and pick Healing draught or Shield at floor 3.

Mistakes piling up in Sudoku

A mistake is any number entered that differs from the solution. The red highlight only catches duplicates, not wrong answers, so mistakes can accumulate with no red on the board. Leave cells you are unsure of empty and fill the others first; on a 6x6 board the candidates are few and one pass usually opens it up.

No words coming in Natmal

Syllables without a final consonant are always allowed and jamo can be reused. Go for two-syllable words first. The list is nouns from the NIKL learner vocabulary, so most are everyday words. Missing the target still deals damage for what you found, so stopping at three or four is fine.

The quiz questions are hard

The questions are the Korean driver's license written test bank as published by the Korea Road Traffic Authority, with picture questions and multi-answer questions removed. Three out of five is already 7, so the quiz is steadier as an opener than as a finisher.