Contents
Guides
Deskrawl guides
Four Deskrawl guides for the demo, ordered the way the questions arrive: what to do first, how a run behaves when nobody is watching, what happens to the loot, and the fight the demo ends on.
The guides
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Beginner guide: the first hour
The demo hands you one hero, an open map and no explanation of either. This guide gives the first hour as an order of operations, the price behind each step, and the three habits worth dropping before they cost a run.
Guide 6 sections -
Offline progress and unattended play
Offline progress is the point of the game: it is built to run as a strip along the bottom of your desktop. The page sets out what a long unattended run depends on, what it has to pay for, and where the build defines nothing.
Guide 8 sections -
Auto-open chests and auto-sell
Chests are one of the demo’s income lines and they only open in town. This page prints the switches the build defines for auto-sell and filters, and keeps the community’s requests in a column of their own.
Guide 6 sections -
The level 25 boss: how to beat it
The demo’s content ends on one fight at level 25, and the community does not agree on the method. The page prints what the announcements and the build say, marks the disagreement as a disagreement, and settles nothing.
Guide 5 sections
What these Deskrawl guides give you
Each guide below answers one question a demo player actually arrives with, in the order those questions come up in play. Reading them in that order is the intended path, but nothing breaks if you jump straight to the one you need: every page stands on its own and links to the others.
A guide here is not a walkthrough of an evening and not a dump of tables. It gives you the order of operations for its question, the numbers the build defines, the places where players genuinely disagree, and an explicit statement of what the demo settles and what it leaves open.
Everything on this site describes the demo rather than the full release: a demo hero, a demo map, and the values the demo build stores. The demo’s patches have run from 0.1.9 to 0.1.13f, and the newest of them is the one the home page reports today.
How to read a guide here
Four conventions do the work on every guide page, and all four are printed in words rather than left to colour:
- Every guide ends with what it does not claim. Where the demo defines nothing, the page says so instead of filling the gap with something plausible.
- Each statement carries a state: confirmed against the build, pending verification, locked in the demo, or contested between players.
- A disagreement is printed as a disagreement. The level 25 boss page shows the two answers that contradict each other and does not pick a winner.
- Every number is a demo number. Nothing here describes the full release, and the demo’s own values have moved across its patches.
Why the guides come in this order
The order follows the community, not the site. These are the questions that keep coming back across the demo’s reviews and discussion threads, and each one is answered by a page below.
The questions behind the order
| The question | Where it keeps coming up |
|---|---|
| How do I start, and does my demo progress survive? | The game ships no tutorial and no in-game glossary, and the question of whether demo progress carries over is asked in three threads across two languages with no official answer. |
| Does it keep earning while I am away? | The most repeated complaint in the reviews is about the session nobody is watching: how long a run survives on its own, and what the game does when you are not there. |
| Can the chests and the junk gear handle themselves? | Two threads by different authors inside five hours, plus reviews asking for chests that stack and open on their own, and for rules that clear out the gear nobody will wear. |
| How do I beat the level 25 boss? | The single most repeated question in the community, and its answers disagree about the method rather than about the details. |
What is missing from the guide set
Four of the seven guides planned for the demo are written. The three still to come are already covered as data on this site, and the questions they answer come up in the same threads as the four above:
- Capturing creatures and what they carry — the minion pages already hold the creatures, their abilities and their loads.
- The carriage’s loot rules — the equipment tables already cover the slots, rarities and chest odds involved.
- Upgrading equipment — the progression page already carries upgrade costs and the pacing behind them.
Two things no guide here can settle yet
Whether demo progress carries into the full release is asked in several threads and has no official answer, and the level 25 fight has two contradictory methods in circulation. Both are marked as open on the pages that touch them rather than guessed at.
Deskrawl guides: the questions that come back
Is there a Deskrawl tutorial or an in-game glossary?
No — the demo ships neither, which is why the first hour is written out step by step here instead: it puts the opening into an order of operations and prices each step. Answered in full by Beginner guide: the first hour
Does demo progress carry over to the full release?
There is no official answer. The question is asked in three threads across two languages, and this site marks it as unanswered rather than repeating somebody’s guess as if it were a fact. Answered in full by Offline progress and unattended play
Does it keep earning while the window is closed?
The game is built to sit as a strip along the bottom of the desktop, so unattended time is the point rather than an afterthought. What a long run depends on, what it has to pay for, and where the build defines nothing at all are set out on their own page. Answered in full by Offline progress and unattended play
Can the chests open themselves and can junk gear sell itself?
The build defines switches for auto-sell and a ceiling on how wide a filter can be; stacked and self-opening chests are still player requests rather than settings. The page keeps the build’s own rules in one column and the requests in another. Answered in full by Auto-open chests and auto-sell
What is the Deskrawl level 25 boss, and how do I beat it?
The demo’s content ends on a single fight at level 25, and the community’s answers disagree about the method rather than the details. The page prints both sides as a dispute and says what evidence would settle it. Answered in full by The level 25 boss: how to beat it
Which patch do these guides describe?
The demo’s patches have run from 0.1.9 to 0.1.13f, and 0.1.13f is the newest — the version the home page reports. Every official announcement is collected on the patch-notes page, each with its own anchor and a link to its original post. Answered in full by Patch notes
Where to go next
The guides answer the questions players arrive with; these pages hold the numbers behind them, and each one is linked from the guides that use it.
- Progression What a kill pays, how fast the opposition grows, and what an upgrade costs.
- Equipments Every entry’s slot, rarity, sell price and the chance a chest rolls it.
- Minions The creatures a run captures, their abilities, and how much they can carry.
- Zones and maps Every place the build knows about, and the one city the demo opens.
- Heroes The four heroes the build defines, and the one the demo hands you.
- The demo What it holds, what it holds back, and when it went live.
- Patch notes Every official announcement, newest first, each linked to its original.
- Disconnects and rollback What a dropped connection costs a run, and what survives it.