Underkeep: three people in Prague bring the grid-based dungeon back to life

"If I let you in without permission, Durok would have my beard nailed to the palisade by sundown."

That is a line of dialogue from Underkeep, and it was enough for me. You know immediately which game you are in, and it is from 1992.

The interface as a statement

Look at the screen. The inventory takes the whole left column, armour, apparel and potions sorted by type. The first-person view sits in a frame in the middle. The four portraits are on the right, health and mana bars underneath, weapons a click away. The parchment map is bottom left, with its orange arrow and compass rose.

None of that is accidental or decorative. It is the exact layout of the Eye of the Beholder and Might and Magic games, and it is back because it works: the party's entire state is visible at all times, without opening a single menu.

Movement is square by square, combat is turn-based, and the tension comes from the slowness. You advance one tile, you listen, you back off.

What they agreed to throw away

The good news is that the nostalgia stops at the screen.

Rake in Grass promises modern controls, clear visuals and what they call thoughtful conveniences, meant to remove the old frustrations. Translation for anyone who was there: no mapping it yourself on graph paper, no keyboard layout to memorise, no maze built to spite the player.

What remains is what was good. A party of four adventurers picked for their strengths and flaws, where synergy decides everything. Corridors built by hand rather than generated. Hidden alcoves, fake walls, optional bosses and puzzles that belong to the world instead of breaking it.

The numbers you want to reread

What finally convinces me are the little description panels. Storm Chain, skill: chain lightning that strikes two enemies, 10% chance to strike the same targets again. Mana cost: 14. Lightning damage: 6 to 18. Recast chance: 10%.

Everything is numbered, everything is legible, and the flavour line underneath talks about dark clouds gathering before the lightning falls. That is stat-block craftsmanship, and it has been badly missed.

Same for the housekeeping: in one rest by the fire you brew a Potion of Cure Poison, a Wardstone Elixir and a Mushroom Stew.

Three people, twenty-six years

Rake in Grass is a three-person studio based in Prague since 2000. They gave us Jets'n'Guns, the generously brutal side-scrolling shooter from 2004, and Rampage Knights. Which is to say this dungeon is not their usual ground.

They also pushed the game back a full year to finish it properly, which, the way things are going, deserves noting rather than holding against them.

Underkeep launches today, 5 November, on PC, with a Switch version announced for the first quarter of 2027. A demo is available on the Steam page.

There is definitely one of you who still has hand-drawn dungeon maps in a ring binder. Post them on the InsertCoins Discord, we want to see that.