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Delve prototype · daily return loop · product design

A daily dungeon game: easy enough for coffee, worth coming back to.

A short daily dungeon run built to feel easy on the eyes and easy to return to, whichever time of day you open it.

I was thinking about the habit created by Wordle, LinkedIn's daily games, and Chess.com's daily puzzles: something quick enough to open casually, but satisfying enough to compare with friends. I wanted to mix that with the feeling of an RPG dungeon crawl. Delve is a personal prototype built around that return loop.

See the screenshot tour Why I built it
The boundary A short run, a shared weekly world, and a reason to return. Delve combines the quick habit of a daily puzzle with the feeling of an RPG dungeon crawl: one short run, a risky choice, a shared weekly world, and a Trophy Hall that gives the next day a reason to exist.
5 floors in a normal run
4 classes with different route identities
6 themes built around the same readable controls
1 weekly lair, with a Friday boss
The full gameplay loop

A full run makes more sense when you can see every beat.

These are real screenshots from the retained Delve v15 build, ordered from the first choice through the end of the week. The playable local build is still clearing a release check, so the product loop is shown here rather than presented as a public demo.

Delve v15 title screen for D, Candlelit Cathedral, with the option to begin the week.
Start the week.The title screen establishes the dungeon and the return loop before play begins.
Delve v15 body selection screen showing the available starting bodies and their traits.
Choose a body.The first meaningful decision is compact, readable, and immediately connected to play.
Delve v15 body selection screen with the chosen body details visible.
Commit to the build.The chosen body turns a menu choice into visible strengths, limits, and consequences.
Delve v15 camp screen showing the selected Fighter, Obols, daily progress, and limited skills.
Set up the run.Camp puts body, resources, progression, and limited abilities in one place before the descent.
Delve v15 floor screen showing three readable door choices with different room types and risks.
Read the room.Each floor becomes a small risk decision instead of a blind sequence of clicks.
Delve v15 duel screen showing the Fighter entering a room encounter on floor one.
Enter the duel.The room choice becomes a concrete encounter with a visible round, cost, and consequence.
Delve v15 encounter result screen showing cost and loot.
See the result.The cost and reward arrive together, so the player can understand what the choice changed.
Delve v15 floor-two run screen showing the run continuing with rooms remaining and skills available.
Keep going.The floor counter and remaining rooms make progress easy to read at a glance.
Delve v15 mouth screen after five floors, offering the choice to bank the run or go down into the deep.
Reach the mouth.After five floors, the loop offers a clear choice: keep what you earned or risk it in the deep.
Delve v15 confirmation screen showing the risk of the deep.
Confirm the risk.A second prompt prevents the most consequential choice from feeling accidental.
Delve v15 completed-day screen showing the banked result.
Land the day.The run closes with a concrete result before the weekly loop moves forward.
Delve v15 Friday boss screen showing a tactical prompt.
Face Friday.The week ends with one readable tactical prompt that tests the choices made earlier.
Delve v15 week-result screen summarizing the run and offering the next-week action.
Leave a trace.The week closes with a result and a visible reason to return.

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Why I wanted to make it

Casual to start. Hard to master. Fun to compare.

A player picks a class, enters the same seeded lair as everyone else, chooses between three visible doors per floor, and clears a short weekday descent. The basic run should be approachable enough to finish casually. The depth comes from the route: which risks you take, which abilities you find, and whether you save enough to face Friday's boss.

That is the mix I wanted: a daily game with no long session requirement, but enough identity that a result can start a conversation in a group chat. You can play it quickly, then come back because your friend took a different route or because the Trophy Hall still has something missing.

The loop in one sentence Five floors, one shared weekly seed, four classes, and a Friday boss give a casual player a complete session and a committed player a harder route to compare.
Comfort is part of the design

One readable loop, six visual moods.

The layout and controls stay stable while neutral, cool, sage, warm, plum, and ash themes change the feel of the lair. The Minimal direction removes decorative weight so the next choice stays easy to scan.

Seasonal rotation is a documented next idea, not shipped adoption.

What it took

The small loop took more judgment than the feature list suggests.

Time and scale
Five floors, four classes, six themes, and a weekly boss had to read as one short session.
What broke
The build is verified locally, but its release metadata and public-readiness checks are not finished.
Next time
I would validate the release boundary earlier, before polishing exploratory screens.
Why it belongs
It shows product judgment—what to keep, what to cut, and what not to claim yet.
The release boundary

Small on purpose. Honest about what is next.

A working build is not a finished product.

01 / Prototype A personal prototype This is a fun, small game project. The claim is the build and release discipline, not commercial success, user growth, retention, or revenue.
02 / Pre-release Not a finished public release The evidence is a verified local build plus active UI work; public release is a separate gate.
03 / Next gate Reach still needs proof Audience understanding and the next feature both need evidence.

Delve belongs here as a build story: product thinking, iteration, and release discipline without pretending a local build is a market result.

Why it belongs here

I built a game because I wanted to play it.

Delve is a personal experiment in making a small daily experience feel worth opening, worth sharing, and worth returning to.

The common thread with my marketing work is still there: make the experience clear, make the system coherent, and be honest about the distance between a good build and a proven audience.

Read how I work → See how I check the work →

If this sounds like your kind of thing

Let’s build something small.

The habit of shipping something small and complete is the same one I bring to client work.

Let’s talk on LinkedIn → Download my resume ↓
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