Crypt of the NecroDancer
A roguelike rhythm game where you move to the beat.
Crypt of the NecroDancer, a 2015 release from Brace Yourself Games, fuses the dungeon-crawling structure of a roguelike with the timing demands of a rhythm game. Its original soundtrack was composed by Danny Baranowsky. Players must move and attack in time with the beat; actions performed on the beat are most effective, while missing a beat impairs the player and resets a scoring multiplier earned by defeating enemies in succession. The game accepts custom music and can be played with a dance pad, keyboard, or gamepad. It launched for Linux, OS X, and Windows in April 2015, co-published by Klei Entertainment, and later reached PlayStation 4 and Vita (February 2016), Xbox One (February 2017), and Nintendo Switch (February 2018). A Pocket Edition for iOS arrived in June 2016. A crossover title, Cadence of Hyrule, which incorporates elements from The Legend of Zelda, debuted on Nintendo Switch in June 2019. A pinball table DLC for Pinball FX was released on April 13, 2023, and a spin-off, Rift of the NecroDancer, followed on February 5, 2025.
The game is presented from a top-down 2D perspective. Players control a character through procedurally generated dungeon levels. Unlike traditional roguelikes, movement and attacks are only possible when performed on the music’s beat. Enemies drop coins, and killing them consecutively without missing a beat or taking damage increases a coin multiplier. Missing a beat does not directly harm the character in most cases, but it resets the multiplier and can leave the character vulnerable to nearby monsters. Moving into a monster’s attack path also causes damage. When the health meter empties, the game ends. Monsters follow predictable patterns—skeletons, for instance, target the player directly but only move and attack every other beat.
As players explore, they collect weapons, armor, items, and treasure, with inventory managed automatically. Coins buy items from in-dungeon shops, while diamonds purchase permanent upgrades in the game’s lobby. The dungeon has four zones, each with four levels. The first three levels require finding an exit and defeating a mini-boss; the fourth level is a boss fight. A song’s length limits each level; when the song ends, a trapdoor sends the player to the next level, landing near powerful enemies if the boss was not defeated.
Quick Facts
- Title
- Crypt of the NecroDancer
- Developer
- Brace Yourself Games · Vortex Buffer
- Publisher
- Brace Yourself Games · Klei Entertainment (PC) · JP · Spike Chunsoft
- Director
- Ryan Clark
- Producer
- Heather Wilson
- Programmer
- Oliver Trujillo · Ryan Clark
- Artist
- Ted Martens
- Writer
- Ryan Clark · Oliver Trujillo · Kathryn Clark (now Sykes)
- Composer
- Danny Baranowsky
- Platforms
- Linux, OS X, Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android
- Released
- Linux, OS X, Windows · April 23, 2015 · PS4, PS Vita · February 2, 2016 · iOS · June 30, 2016 · Xbox One · February 10, 2017 · Nintendo Switch · February 8, 2018 · Android · June 8, 2021
- Genre
- Roguelike, rhythm
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Crypt of the NecroDancer was created by Canadian programmer Ryan Clark, inspired by thinking about the traditional structure of roguelike games. Clark found that player-character death in roguelikes often occurred due to conditions created by procedural generation rather than player skill, and wanted to make a game that was more 'fair' to escape difficult situations. He considered how games like Spelunky put the player more in control of their fate, and sought a way to maintain the turn-based nature of roguelikes while removing the unfairness. He came up with the idea of using turns where each turn lasted only a short amount of real-time, which he recognized was similar to beat-matching rhythm games, and refined the concept around the rhythm-based roguelike. The title plays on the pun of the word 'necromancer'.
The game's plot follows Cadence, the daughter of a famed treasure hunter who has gone missing. She falls into a crypt controlled by the NecroDancer, who steals her heart and forces her to challenge his minions to retrieve it. She fights through the crypt with her actions tied to the beat of the music. Near the heart of the crypt, she finds a minion named Dead Ringer, defeats him, and reveals it is her missing father. They take the NecroDancer's golden Lute and use it to kill him, then resurrect Cadence's dead mother, Melody. However, the lute is cursed, and Melody must keep playing it forever, gradually losing her humanity. Melody enters the crypt to break the curse, eventually resurrecting the NecroDancer and defeating him. Aria, Melody's mother, is brought back to life by the lute and reveals she knows how to break the curse. She ascends out of the crypt to a shrine, where the lute mutates into a monster. After defeating it, Aria sacrifices her life to destroy the cursed instrument, restoring Melody to full life.
Reader's Guide
Crypt of the NecroDancer is significant as a pioneering hybrid of roguelike and rhythm game genres, demonstrating that turn-based roguelike mechanics can be adapted to real-time beat-matching. The game's development by Ryan Clark focused on fairness, expanding the accuracy window for beat-matching and implementing an autocalibration system to reduce frustration. The game was released for multiple platforms between 2015 and 2018, including Linux, OS X, Windows, PlayStation 4, Vita, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, with a Pocket Edition for iOS in 2016. Its legacy includes a crossover title, Cadence of Hyrule, featuring elements from The Legend of Zelda, released in 2019 for the Nintendo Switch, and a spin-off, Rift of the NecroDancer, released in 2025. The game also received a DLC pinball table for Pinball FX in 2023. The article notes that the game's songs are ordered in ascending tempo across zones and levels, making deeper levels more challenging, and that players can import custom music. The game's lobby allows permanent upgrades using diamonds, and multiple characters with different play styles become available as goals are completed.
Did You Know?
- The game was co-published by Klei Entertainment.
- Players can use a dance pad instead of traditional controllers or keyboard.
- The monk character dies immediately if he touches gold.
- The game's soundtrack was written by Danny Baranowsky.
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