# Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A free, open-source roguelike that people recommend as fun and fair for players who are new to the genre, with a design that makes it approachable even when you know little about it.

## Why people recommend it

- Fun and fair for new players (2 comments): "anti-Nethacks like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup make it a design goal to be fun and playable even assuming a totally spoiled player" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47992236)) "DCSS is actually a better nethack than nethack is in that the game is more discoverable and fair and less arbitrary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47995399))
- Tactical combat-focused encounters (2 comments): "DCSS focused on tactical encounters which I enjoy a lot more than" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47995721)) "much more combat oriented than the Slashem combinatorics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47666575))

## What people warn about

- Feels changed from original roguelike (3 comments): "It's maybe a better game in many ways, but it's not the game I spent time getting to know and getting good at." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47995698)) "But it says something about how much of the original game they ditched." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49774975)) "it's not the game I liked anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772862))
- Loses rough edges and feels soulless (2 comments): "DCSS has had every single one of its rough edges sanded off, leaving it a rather soulless game." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45908742)) "DCSS pretty much plays itself and not in a good way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45906793))
- Food system simplified to one type (2 comments): "entire major game mechanics changed, like moving from many kinds of food, to only one kind of food" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49773299)) "Food was almost never interesting in DCSS, except for maybe Centaurs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45906851))
- Gets repetitive and boring for some (2 comments): "I never "got" DCSS and despite several tries I always got bored immediately" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790578)) "I always got bored immediately" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45791448))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [NetHack](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nethack.md): 60 recommend
- [Chess-Inspired Roguelike](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chess-inspired-roguelike.md): 33 recommend
- [Xs of Y](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xs-of-y.md): 14 recommend
- [Noita](https://hackerapproved.com/p/noita.md): 13 recommend
- [Caves of Qud](https://hackerapproved.com/p/caves-of-qud.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dungeon-crawl-stone-soup/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).