CoreDumped

A roguelike where the enemies run on Lisp you can read, edit, and break.

Play in Browser | Install

Before thee lies a dungeon of rules, memories, slimes, and suspiciously readable machinery. CoreDumped is a text-graphical roguelike about understanding, editing, and eventually rewriting the rules of the thing trying to kill you.

It's also a tragic game about love, family, CYBERSECURITY EXPLOITS, and the beauty of coding macros to do repetitive tasks. If you're impatient, the lore is documented here.

Play now at bryanhu.com/coredumped

No installation required. Works in any modern browser with WebAssembly support.

# Clone and run
git clone https://github.com/ThatXliner/coredumped.git
cd coredumped
cargo run -p coredumped-tui

# Or install globally
cargo install --path tui
coredumped

Requires Rust. Native build has better performance and save/load support.

Every roguelike has rules, but these rules are typically only displayed on screen, forcing the gamer to infer them. CoreDumped puts the code itself available on the screen and lets you poke at them. Exploiting the holes is part of the game.

• Inspector panel shows real Glyph (custom Lisp) source for every AI rule
• Console lets you eval expressions, inspect state, bind keys
• The dungeon is a Lisp runtime with graphics attached

• 18 hand-crafted levels with narrative
• Turn-based movement, pathing enemies, directional flashlight
• Working Glyph console and inspector
• Custom ECS, no external dependencies
• Deterministic turn model (every action costs a tick, UI is free)
• Playbook system: drop .glyph files in ~/.xlyph/playbooks/current/
• Save/load (native only)

Three crates:

pub enum ActionCost { Free, Tick, Quit }

Every gameplay action costs a tick; UI actions are free.

• PROJECT.md — repo layout, runtime flow, contributor workflow
• glyph-reference.md — Glyph language tour
• language-spec.md — Glyph semantics
• level-design.md — campaign and narrative notes
• game-architecture.md — design vision

cargo test          # game logic + language tests
cargo check         # fast feedback
cargo fmt           # format

# Build and run web version locally
cd web-frontend
bun install
bun run build:wasm  # compile Rust to WASM
bun run dev         # start Vite dev server

# Or build for production
bun run build:all   # WASM + Vite bundle → dist/
bun run preview     # preview production build

Beta. Playable from depth 0 to 17 with an ending. Expect rough edges and things that kill you without explanation.

Some of the gameplay may be completely broken or just boring. Please, file an issue!

MIT