Overcome the challenge of the Dead King’s lair.

Make use of items, outsmart vicious creatures, and recognize patterns.

Reveal the dark secrets hidden behind a ritual.

Dungeons of Dreadrock is a dungeon-crawling puzzle adventure for iOS and Android.

You’ll be put into a story involving a tradition of boys putting the Dead King to rest. This year is a little different since the hero-to-be comes with his sister. When the savior of the year doesn’t emerge from his supposed victory, the sister comes after him. It’s customary in their village that women should not bear arms, but custom is damned if it’s a younger brother’s safety on the line.

This is where you take over.

You’re in charge of guiding the worried sibling through a long corridor filled with everything that tries to kill her. Horrors, traps, and all manner of deceptions stand in the way of your forced audience with the Dead King. Bits and pieces of the narrative are spread throughout the game. You’ll come across an important plot point once you light a fire at the end of specific stages.

Content comes in the form of individual challenge stages. You finish a level by either solving a puzzle, taking a doorway key from an enemy out to kill you or both. The game also encourages you to observe the entire room. There are some items you can keep on a ‘temporary inventory’ that lasts until those objects are used up. Don’t sleep on these, as you’ll find out that they’re key to revealing a new secret later on.

Out-of-the-box thinking is going to be required once you get past the first 5 stages. Having a hard time dealing with one of the Dead King’s minions? Maybe leading it outside of the level is going to do the trick. Can’t get past a specific stage? It’s possible that there’s a hidden path you haven’t discovered – on the level before it. The game expects you to inspect every nook and cranny for a way out – and go through many times dying while doing so.

Moving the character is a matter of swiping. Drag your finger in the desired direction. Swipe and hold to proceed in multiple steps. This control scheme may be easy, but it’s going to be a source of many challenges, especially in stages where timing is crucial. Going in a direction either too early or too late will cost your character its life. There are no hit points in this game, so everything the denizens of that cursed dungeon will throw at you means certain death. You have 2 tools to use in every stage. A reset button is on the top left of your screen, in case you have missed a crucial move or are out of options while playing. Consider this as one of your best buddies during your dungeon ventures. There’s another friend in the form of Hints. These typically hold the key to leaving the level alive, but it takes time for these to be available, and not all stages have them. A scene can have as many as 5 hints at a given instance. You can either use them all in one sitting or confirm a new hint once you get stuck on another section of the dungeon.

In conclusion, Dungeons of Dreadrock is one exploration puzzle loaded with unexpected challenges in every room. Give it a try by downloading the app.