DoomRL - Doom The Roguelike

DoomRL (Doom, the Roguelike) is a full-fledged standalone turn-based role-playing strategy game that turns a dynamic shooter into a deep tactical survival experience. It skillfully blends the nostalgic atmosphere of the source material with the strict rules of classic roguelikes.

Visual style and interface

The game offers two display modes: an old-school text-based ASCII mode, faithful to genre tradition, and a modern version with a full graphical tileset and mouse support.

Musical covers and authentic sound effects create a recognizable atmosphere, while monsters are neatly fit into the square grid. The game features a responsive interface: if your character was moving in auto-run mode, running instantly stops the moment an enemy appears in view, letting you assess the threat in time.

Turn-based tactics and gameplay features

Gameplay is fully turn-based, with enemies acting in sync with you. Any action — a step, a shot, reloading a weapon, or opening the inventory — counts as one turn.

To survive, you need to actively use tactical approaches:

• Taking position behind a wall lets you skip turns, waiting for a monster to walk into your line of fire and expose itself to a point-blank shot.

• Weapons need regular reloading, and the character can switch to running, which consumes limited stamina.

• Shotgun blasts break down doors, and rockets destroy walls. Explosive barrels are extremely dangerous — detonating one can completely destroy valuable loot lying nearby, and enemies are also known to blow them up deliberately to hurt you.

• The game is divided into 25 levels of the Phobos base. Once all enemies on a level are eliminated, the message "You feel relatively safe" appears, letting you calmly gather resources before descending further. There are no familiar colored keys here.

Role-playing system: Classes and skills

Before starting a run, you choose one of three classes that determine your playstyle:

• Marine: The toughest character, with +10% to max health. Effects from all spheres and bonuses (including Supercharges, which temporarily boost health up to 200%) last 50% longer.

• Scout: Moves 10% faster than the base speed and immediately sees the location of stairs on the map.

• Technician: Uses consumables instantly and can hack computers to track enemies.

As you level up, you gain access to 23 unique perks. These range from simple passive upgrades like Ironman (+health) or Hellrunner (+speed and evasion) to specialized ones — such as Reloader, which automatically chambers a shell into the shotgun with every step you take.

Inventory, crafting, and equipment

Inventory space is strictly limited, so a large medkit or a bulky BFG has to be carried wisely. Weapons and armor can be carried and used when needed, but keep in mind that wounded monsters aren't shy about picking up and using medkits left on the floor. To save space, unwanted guns on the ground can be unloaded (Shift + U) for ammo.

Special modifiers let you upgrade equipment right from the inventory. Certain mod combinations create unique weapons (for example, two damage modules turn an ordinary shotgun into the powerful "Elephant Gun"). Be careful with levers on the levels — they can either restore your armor or flood the room with acid or summon a horde of demons.

The cost of failure and the ending

Most levels are randomly generated, but there are also static locations. Occasionally, red staircases appear on levels. They lead to secret special levels (such as Hell's Arena), where you must fend off waves of powerful enemies for valuable rewards.

The main rule of DoomRL is permadeath. There's no quickload feature — a save is only created when you exit the game and is erased if your character dies. A full playthrough takes about 1-1.5 hours, and winning unlocks access to special, harder challenges.