Dice Dungeon is a 2D dice-based roguelike game developed for nwHacks 2026, hosted at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
The project explores how randomness (dice rolls) can be combined with player agency and strategic decision-making to create engaging, replayable combat encounters.
The game is implemented as a browser-based prototype using Phaser, with an emphasis on clean architecture, modular scenes, and rapid iteration under hackathon constraints.
#Devpost
https://devpost.com/software/1164524
Dice Dungeon features turn-based combat where players roll a set of dice each turn and decide how to use them to attack enemies. While dice introduce randomness, players retain control through:
- Selective dice usage
- Optional rerolls with associated costs
- Anticipating enemy intent before committing to actions
The game follows a roguelike progression model, with short runs composed of multiple floors and escalating difficulty.
- Dice-driven combat system with player choice and risk management
- Turn-based battles with enemy intent preview
- Roguelike structure with floors, tiers, and boss encounters
- Lightweight UI and scene-based architecture
- Designed for fast iteration and extensibility
- JavaScript (ES6+)
- Phaser 3 (2D game framework)
- HTML5 Canvas
- Modular scene and entity-based architecture
The project prioritizes meaningful decisions over mechanical complexity.
Rather than minimizing randomness, Dice Dungeon embraces it while providing players with tools to mitigate risk, plan ahead, and adapt their strategy on each turn.
This approach is inspired by modern roguelike and probability-driven games, where depth emerges from simple systems interacting in interesting ways.
nwHacks is Western Canada’s largest collegiate hackathon, held annually at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The event brings together hundreds of students from across North America to design, build, and demo software or hardware projects within a limited time frame (typically 24–36 hours).
nwHacks emphasizes:
- Rapid prototyping
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration
- Learning through hands-on development
- Creativity under time constraints
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a leading public research university in Canada, consistently ranked among the top universities globally. UBC is recognized for its strong programs in computer science, engineering, and entrepreneurship, as well as its active and diverse student developer community.
Through initiatives like nwHacks, UBC fosters innovation, experiential learning, and student-led technical exploration.
This project was developed as a hackathon prototype. While functional, it is not production-ready and is intended as a demonstration of gameplay concepts, system design, and rapid development rather than a complete commercial game.
This project is provided for educational and demonstration purposes.