A forsaken castle. A party of hapless adventurers. Puzzles. Goblins. A map drawn on graph paper. The Secret of Weepstone demo is short and to the point - it's proof that the developers at Talesworth Game Studio absolutely adore classic Dungeons and Dragons. Happily, they also seem to be quite competent at making videogames.
You can grab the demo for The Secret of Weepstone right now on Steam. It is very short, more of a canapé than a full appetizer. Even so, I came away eager to play the full game - it has potential for a slot on Wargamer's guide to the best DnD games.
When I say The Secret of Weepstone is based on old school Dungeons and Dragons, I mean really old school Dungeons and Dragons: a time when 'Dwarf' and 'Elf' were DnD classes and characters were lucky if they started with six hit points. It's actually running on a variant of the 1981 B/X D&D system.
If you're familiar with older DnD editions, that will be immediately obvious both in the combat system (which isn't so different from modern D&D that current players will have any difficulty with it, and mercifully does not include THAC0) but also in how the game is presented.
The Secret of Weepstone is presented as a classic adventure booklet, with evocative cover art and the promise that it's part one of a three module adventure - perhaps a hint at the scope of the finished game. As you explore the titular castle Weepstone you'll fill in an iconic blue and white map on the inside cover of the booklet.
The game's black and white, line drawn art style is pure Larry Elmore. And, as you enter each room, you're greeted by the narrator - who has a pleasant British accent - reading out the keyed room description from the booklet.
The demo covers a portion of the ground floor of the castle, culminating in a boss-fight against a sorceress and her skeleton minions. There's no easy way to heal throughout the adventure other than finding a rare healing potion, and I lost a party member in that scuffle.
Character death is just par for the course for this era of D&D - and starting with six characters and acquiring another in the dungeon, it seems that the module is designed to accommodate a degree of inevitable attrition. But if that has your loss-aversion twitching, there's a silver lining - dead party members impart a Mortal Favor on the rest of the group, a permanent buff that may ease the sting.
My one real complaint is how slow the combat is, even for a turn-based system. Each action is resolved by throwing a virtual die, which looks cool the first dozen times, but just eats up time after that. An option to turn it off would be welcome.
The Secret of Weepstone is due to release some time in 2026. If you're a big fan of the dungeon crawler genre, I'd love to hear your recommendations in the Wargamer Discord community - I got heavily into Cryptmaster last year, and put a fair amount of time into Dungeon Levels and The Legend of Grimrock, but I'm keen to learn more about what's out there.