When I started working on By Sign And Seal, I wasn’t trying to make another roguelike.
I was asking myself a much simpler question:
Could the logic of Minesweeper become the foundation of an adventure game?
Traditional Minesweeper is almost pure deduction. Every number tells the truth, and every decision comes from interpreting that information.
What if those numbers became a dungeon?
Instead of clicking squares, you would physically move through them. Instead of simply avoiding mines, you’d decide whether to interact with them. Instead of restarting after one mistake, hazards would become part of the adventure.
That simple idea slowly evolved into the core philosophy of the game:
Every clue is true. Every decision is yours.
From puzzle to dungeon
The first challenge was preserving what makes deduction satisfying while introducing exploration.
That meant changing several assumptions:
- The hero physically walks into the unknown.
- Information is local instead of global.
- You don’t reveal the entire board from afar.
- Sometimes the safest path simply doesn’t exist.
Unlike classic Minesweeper, the dungeon always guarantees physical connectivity—but never guarantees a safe route.
Sometimes you’ll have to accept risk.
That became one of the game’s defining pillars.
Four kinds of danger
Rather than using a single “mine”, hazards were split into different families. Each creates a different kind of decision.
- Trap
- Beast
- Curse
- Corruption
They don’t simply damage the player. Each changes the state of the dungeon in its own way.
A dark-cozy dungeon
Another goal from day one was the atmosphere.
Rather than making a horror game, I wanted something I describe as Dark Cozy.
Quiet. Ancient. Melancholic.
A place where danger exists, but exploration remains relaxing.
What’s next?
The next milestone was making all these ideas actually playable.
That meant building procedural dungeons, movement, clues, hazards, and a complete gameplay loop.