Video Game / Equin: The Lantern

Years ago
Before you were born
A lantern appeared
One early morn
Nobody saw it coming
Nobody knew what it did
And off to its dungeon
Went one brave kid...

Equin: The Lantern is a 2012 PC roguelike dungeon crawler rpg game by DXF Games which was later rereleased on Steam in 2016. Hardly featuring a plot, the game tasks the player, in the role of a Xtoli Warrior, Thief, Wizard or Cleric, with exploring 50 randomly-chosen floors of the mysterious Lantern's dungeon while fighting off monsters and figuring out the local rules and tricks to survive.

The dungeons are explored on a top-down perspective with several mechanics, both helpful and harmful, to learn about. Battles are turn-based and presented on a traditional Dragon Quest-esque interface. The game is also heavy on stamina management, having you become practically helpless if you misuse it.

It takes place in the same setting of Just a Cleric and in 2021 it got a sequel titled Equin 2: The Warren Peace.

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Tropes featured in this game include:

• Action Initiative: Enemies are more likely to ambush you on a purple Lantern phase. Even more so on a Darkness floor. Killer Plants will have more initiative on rainy floors.
• All Webbed Up: The player can get stuck on spider webs that block various paths. You need to tap the confirmation button to break free of webs and enemies will have the initiative if they manage to catch you in one. If you manage to obtain a Spider Ring you'll become immune to webs.
• Always Accurate Attack: Spells never miss, so they have a high stamina cost to compensate.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game has a Suspend function.
  • At levels 4, 7 and 10 your character's class evolves and becomes able to instantly stomp some of the weaker enemy cast. This still requires 1 stm, though, and engaging a weak enemy while having zero stamina will still bring the battle screen up.
  • When not fighting, some actions like mining, busting out of webs and closing doors cost some stamina. This doesn't apply to opening barrels and chests, which is something you'll be doing a lot.
  • You might find items that your class can't use every now and then, but at least Shops will never sell them.
  • The Compass item sometimes gives inverted directions for where the goal is, but there is a way to tell: the beep it plays will be on a lower pitch.
  • If you decide to not start with a weapon, the first chest in either floor 7 or 9 you open will have one in case you don't find any until then.
• Anti-Magic: Levels with an anti magic field are a nice sight as a Warrior or a Thief but can of course spell doom for you on a Wizard run. Sometimes a device that dispels those fields and awards a sizable exp bonus is spawned in those levels.
• Artifact of Doom: The Lantern is self-aware and antagonistic towards the adventurers who come for it. It is capable of shaping the dungeon to its liking.
• Artifact Title: The game doesn't star the titular character from the series' previous games. Although those aren't even listed on the developer's page anymore, making The Lantern a reboot.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Grim Ring gives you a large hp boost... along with a large physical defense penalty. On top of that, it is a cursed item.
  • Black Potions either grant you several stat bonuses or kill you instantly.
  • There is some gear for the Warrior that gives a good increase in defense, but lowers dexterity. You do not want your Warrior to get even more inaccurate. Some other gear decreases magic defense instead, which would be a concern later on — until the Warrior was nerfed such that he loses magic defense with each level up anyway.
  • The Grenade causes the Time Bomb floor's explosion effect and kills everything including you. It only works in your favor if you have the single armor that protects against the explosion.
  • Stealing items costs several stamina points and gives the enemy a free turn in a game battles usually don't last long for either side. The random item you end up with might not be really worth the effort, either.
• Black Magician Girl: The playable Cultist is female.
• Blackout Basement: A floor type is set on the dark, reducing the visible area to the tiles around you and making it more likely for enemies to have the combat initiative and dodge your attacks. You can light the screen back up with a torch or a campfire if it's not raining at the same time. If you get the Nightvision bonus, however, all those penalties turn into advantages.
• Booby Trap: Chests that flash red are booby trapped and will more often than not damage you when opened. They deal random damage ranging from minor to high depending of the chest's type.^* Even a plain wood chest can unexpectedly kill you by dealing over 5 damage. The trapped gold chests add the toxin status on top of even bigger damage! There is also an event that makes them indistinguishable from normal chests. A Thief has the best chances to bypass their traps with their exclusive key items and isn't affected by the aforementioned event. You also get an exp bonus every time you open a trapped chest unharmed. One update eventually changed trapped chests to only open when successfully unlocked, as the author didn't like how most of the time people were able to tank all the trap damage they wanted without a care in the world.
• Bookends: The game begins and ends with a short narration poem.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Time bomb and ice levels aside, once you clear an level of enemies there will be nothing to keep you from running back and forth or skipping your turns on the spot until you recharge all your stamina. It just takes a boringly long time even at max speed, as you need over a dozen steps to regain one stamina point. Unfortunately, this strategy was made impossible with the addition of the hunger meter, which forces players to move on through the levels to get new food items.
  • The compass never breaks and though it may malfunction, you can still tell from the noise it makes and just use it again.
• Boss Battle: Floors 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 will spawn an unique boss character near the goal ladder. Bosses can be avoided but once you tackle them you can't retreat. There are also some bonus bosses with unique requirements as previously mentioned.
• Boss-Only Level: The Quiet event level only features the Reaper boss wandering on it, but this doesn't keep champion cages from spawning there.
• Breakable Weapons: Wooden gear that's currently equipped will burn away if you step on a normal fire tile (blue fire doesn't count) or get hit by fire spells. Several items such as the basic magic wand can also randomly break when you try to use their special effect. This becomes more likely on a green phase but will never happen on a purple one.
• Cap: The Auto Kill Rank caps at 4.
• Chest Monster: The chest monsters do move but it's still easy to stumble on them by mistake while running around. They are always a considerable threat because their stats increase as you go deeper into the dungeon.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The titular Lantern has 5 color-coded phases that grant certain bonuses and penalties. Some of those effects apply to both you and the enemies and some don't last for the entire duration of their lantern phase.
  • Champion-class monsters have a flashing blue outline. The bosses have a red outline instead.
• Combos: The blue gauge is filled by hitting enemies and grants exp bonuses once it is full. It's easier said than done though, as not only the gauge is completely drained if you happen to miss an attack (and don't think using spells makes it easier: the Wizard has a longer bar to fill), but will be set to zero anyway once the Lantern reaches its yellow phase. Resting at an inn or a campfire also drains the streak gauge, while some food items fill it a little.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Enemies can get stuck on webs but they'll walk over the rest of the traps unharmed. Also, confronting an enemy that's standing on a web will still result in you being the one stuck and at a disadvantage.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: The Cleric to the Cleric from Just a Cleric (The Lantern predates Just a Cleric but the Cleric class got added after Just a Cleric's release). He just won't turn his back on a fight, even if it means his own death. The other Cleric, however, was called a wuss by people and could often take the safer way in battles by keeping distance from his enemies.
• Crate Expectations: Barrels may contain money or common items.
• Critical Hit: Attacks can randomly deal extra damage, which is indicated by a sparkle over the enemy.
• Crystal Ball: Gives a small bonus to Mag and Mdef while equipped. As an usable item, it has a 40% chance of giving a hint about the game's mechanics. If not, it will give a gag prediction like a Magic 8-Ball or break.
  The crystal ball speaks!
  "It's in the Alamo... In the basement!"
• Due to the Dead: Normally, the person who reports your death after a game over steals your money ("...not like he'll need it anymore!"), but they'll bury it with you if you die by old age upon beating the game.
• Dungeon Bypass: The shovel item skips the current floor. The developer later nerfed it to not work on icebox floors, citing the fridge logic of trying to dig hard ice as the reason.
• Dungeon Shop: Some levels have shops and inns in fixed locations. They close after the player leaves, but will reopen if a Service Bell is used. Having over 2000, 5000 and 10000 worth of gold increases their appearance rate.
  • Shops sell 3 random items. A rare shop run by a Xtoli Guard Army knight has its own item pool, but they're much more expensive.
  • Guilds can recover either your stamina or both your health and stamina to full for cheap. You can also buy a hint for 100 gold. Sometimes a Guildmaster will show up instead. He sells temporary offensive and defensive powerups instead of recovery.
  • The Cultist offers items in exchange for maximum HP instead of gold. The playable Cultist gets a discount and is able to donate money in exchange for stat increases since she can't enter Shops or Guilds.
• Elite Mooks: Several enemies have a Champion counterpart with much better stats.
• Enemy Summoner: Some enemies have the ability to call up to four more guys to surround you after the battle ends. The summons depend of the enemy calling them; for instance, the Were Rat will always call Plague Rats.
• Excuse Plot: Some weird lantern on a monster-filled dungeon is flashing different colors. What's that all about?
• Experience Booster: The "Streak Gauge" fills as the player scores hits. Once it is full enemies will be worth more EXP, but missing a melee attack, resting at a guild or campfire and the Lantern cycling back to the yellow phase will set it back to zero. The Knowledge status and some rare gear can also give bonus EXP from battles. On the other hand, battles are worth less EXP during the red Lantern phase.
• Fantasy Character Classes: The classes you can choose from are a Fighter, Mage, Thief plus a Cleric and a Cultist. Each class has unique special moves.
  • The Warrior is strong, has good HP and STM growth and can equip most of the gear you find, but he also has low accuracy, becomes weaker and weaker to spells the more he levels up, takes more damage from trapped chests and is more likely to break special items.
  • The Thief has good accuracy and some useful support abilities like better chances at escaping from battles, stealing from enemies and opening trapped chests but is the weaker of the three.
  • The Wizard has three attack spells that never miss. Good, but they're also costly and has low HP, STM and most stats other than his magic damage and defense suck. He's unable to equip the better weapons and armor and can't equip shields at all.
  • The Cleric can equip all blunt weapons but refuses to run from a fight. He has a Status Buff skill that improves as he levels up. And later learns an attack spell that's very strong against the undead and a healing spell.
  • The Cultist has powerful dark spells and gains the instant kill buff during yellow phases, but has several restrictions such as being unable to visit shops and guilds.
• Fight Woosh: A circular fade-in effect.
• Final Boss: The Lich at floor 50. He has both terribly high physical power and an even chance of using each of the three attack spells and the sleeping spell.
• Fishing for Sole: You can rarely catch a boot while fishing. It is a single-use support item that is thrown to damage the enemy's health and defense.
• Fishing Minigame: Not actually a minigame, but you can fish on ponds if you have a rod, which is a possible starting item for the Warrior. The fish you get can be worth the spent stamina, but as previously mentioned there is a chance to catch the Water Dragon enemy — an impossible fight early on.
• Fluffy the Terrible: The boss version of the Shadow Chest Monster is named Bob.
• Gimmick Level: There are several events that might happen once a level loads. Most of them put the odds against you, and they can stack. Level 20 will always be one with fire tiles spread around.
• The Goomba: The normal bats are one of the first and weakest enemies that can appear in the game.
• Gradual Regeneration: Stamina regenerates after an uncertain number of steps, except on icebox levels.
• Gratuitous Ninja: Early on you fight through bats, snakes, skeletons and a Troll... and then you find the second boss is a Ninja of all things. Must be something of an Author Appeal, considering some of the previous works from DXF Games also featured ninjas in some fashion.
• The Grim Reaper: One of the tougher bonus bosses, found alone on an event level.
• Guide Dang It!: Comes with the genre. And it's lampshaded by the game's plot, which has a bunch of people venturing into a dungeon just to understand what the heck the Lantern does. The game's developer has written a couple of guides to help people out and some good advice can be given by the in-game Hint System.
• Have a Nice Death: Every time you die the game creates a text file listing your cause of death and the stats and items you had back then. Nothing like reviewing things and realizing how much unlucky and/or stupid you just were!
  We found a dead guy down on floor 14 of the dungeon!!
  Doc said he was most likely killed by a Druid.
  His wallet had 1030 gold pieces in it, not like he'll need it anymore!
• Healing Potion: Red potions will fully heal your character and Green ones restore all stamina. The Purple potions have both effects. The Totem is also an important item to have, as it is the only one that fully restores either HP or STM mid-fight.
• Healing Spring: Campfires can be used to fully recover both your HP and stamina as many times as you need. Levels can rarely have a campfire already set on them, while the indoor rain event will prevent the player from setting one up. Wells can also recover stamina and health, but they can only be used once.
• Hint System: You can buy random hints about the game's mechanics at the Inns and review them later at the main menu. The Crystal Ball item can also give out hints, but has a higher chance of babbling nonsense instead. Or just break.
• Honor Before Reason: The Cleric will never run from a fight because he's no "coward". Better not stumble on enemies you know are too strong for your level.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: They come in wood, gold and shadow (black) varieties. Several of them are booby trapped, with a high chance of your character taking random damage upon opening it.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Tree Trunk is usable by both the Warrior and the Cleric and has an impressive 32 Attack power. Problem is, the further you go, the more you meet enemies who can cast the Flames spell. Don't rely on it too much, or...
• Infinity +1 Sword: The items with particularly good stats and effects have flashing green names. You usually get them from very rare Shadow treasure chests.
• Informed Equipment: Each class has a set of three animations that depict them wearing fancier equipment as they level up. Those animations depict gear that does exist within the game, but often have nothing to do with what you've currently equipped on them.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • One weapon you can find is a heavy Tree Trunk. 32 atk, but keep it away from fire.
  • The Locksmith is a keyblade that does extra damage to chest monsters.
  • The Abstract Spoon is weak but increases retreat chances by distracting enemies.
• Interface Screw
  • Anti-magic floors have a purple mist obscuring the view. Thankfully a patch toned the effect down.
  • Disruption floors invert the controls and negate the effect of the compass.
  • If an enemy happens to catch you trapped in a web, the web will appear over the screen when the battle interface comes up.
  • From floor 40 on, the Lantern will shine brightly over the screen.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: Originally the player could store up to 10 items, but updates increased the limit to 15, 18 and finally 21. If you open a chest while the backpack is full, the chest's contents will be set to gold.
• It's the Journey That Counts: After going through 50 floors of the dangerous dungeon to figure out what the Lantern is, the player character finds it turned off. It was just bait to see if any adventurer would become strong enough to get this far.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The "Quiet" level normally has no enemies except for the Reaper who has already killed them all.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When a floor gets particularly crowded with strong enemies, it might be better to run the heck away into the next level. In fact, once you get to level 11 or 12, fights most likely won't be worth the exp anymore and are best avoided.
• Level Drain: One scroll sets you back to level 1, but your stats remain the same.
• Level Goal: The ladder to the next floor.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Mercifully, your health and stamina are refilled on a level up.
• Life Drain: The Vampiric Blade drains enemy hp with each hit. The Hunting Knife gets you one hp for every kill, which you must use on auto-killable enemies because the knife is pitifully weak.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields have a chance to negate damage, but it won't work if your character is put to sleep.
• Magic Knight: The Rival enemies can use the Flames spell, as suggested by the flame coat of arms on their shields. A Warrior player can also cast it with certain weapons.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Originally the Warrior had no magic power growth, but eventually the developer nerfed him such that he loses magic defense with each level up.
• Man-Eating Plant: The Killer Plants are one of the strongest enemies that can appear early on, despite their silly appearance and the lack of a glow to warn you they're dangerous. If any level has poison grass on it, then there's a chance they'll spawn.
• Mana Meter: Your stamina counter is the most important stat in the game. Almost every attack and action costs some and without it you can only do Scratch Damage and are prevented from escaping battles. Fail to keep it filled and you'll certainly die to any enemy.
• Maximum HP Reduction:
  • One shop type sells items in exchange for Max HP instead of gold.
  • Enchanted statues might lower both your maximum hp and stamina.
  • Crappie fishes exchange HP for STM.
• Mighty Roar: Some enemies can roar and increase their attack power by 50%.
• New Game Plus:
  • By clearing the game with a class, you'll be able to choose a fourth starting item for them on your next runs.
  • Killing bosses get you points you can exchange for certain useful items on your next run.
• Nintendo Hard: The game is very difficult and there is a luck factor involved as expected from the genre. One bad decision is often all there is between you and Yet Another Stupid Death and you cannot continue after dying, either.
• No Fair Cheating: The game checks for modification of the level and suspend files. If anything looks fishy, the game drops you on a level completely blocked by red wells. It might kill you instantly as well, resulting in a blank game over message with -150 points.
• Oddly Shaped Sword: The Locksmith is a key-shaped sword that's strong against the chest monsters.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • The Grave Dust item gives this effect to your physical attacks for a while.
  • The Reaper and Bob can cast a Death spell. The chance to avoid being killed by this is 50% + your MDEF score. You can also completely protect yourself 100% of the time if you have the Bless effect on.
• Optional Boss:
  • Beware that if you fish too much you might end up catching a very powerful Water Dragon...
  • Graveyard floors can have a Ghost in them. It would be very unlikely, but it is the only boss enemy that can be fought more than once.
  • The Quiet floor has the Reaper boss which always drops an untrapped Shadow Chest if you manage to beat him.
  • The powerful Fuzzy Chicken can appear instead of the Troll in floor 10. Other alternate bosses followed in the next updates.
  • The Construct can appear in Icebox Floors.
• Palette Swap: The Ninja boss sometimes appears wearing black. The only difference is that you can obtain the Shadow Garb armor from this version.
• Piñata Enemy: Will O' Wisps, rare enemies worth 2000 exp. There's also a rare money bag enemy worth a lot of gold.
• Play Every Day: A late 2017 update brought several kinds of perks for playing the game on certain days of each month. For instance, every day 9 boosts the Thief and every weekend lets you pick one more starting item.
• Poison Mushroom:
  • Eating mushrooms on the floor can either recover a little bit of hp or cause you to lose several by damaging you AND inflicting poison that can last for several steps.
  • Spazz Weeds have random effects ranging from full hp recovery to setting your stamina to zero, increasing or draining your stats or setting the darkness effect on the level, similar to the pills from The Binding of Isaac. And they're always unidentifiable.
  • You might find enchanted statues that can give you powerups or increase both your max hp and stm. Problem is, they might also drain your max health and stamina. They can also randomize one of the items in your bag.
  • The rare Black Potions can either fully recover health and stamina AND increase every stat by 3... or outright kill you on the spot! They are only really useful as a last resort.
  • Rotten food can only be properly eaten by the Cultist.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: The Warrior can do the most physical damage in the game, but he misses frequently enough that you'll be wasting stamina and dying like a fool anyway. Battles in blue phases are to be avoided when playing as him.
• Power-Up Letdown:
  • Again, statues and Spazz Weeds are risky to use because their effects can be either negative or irrelevant to the task at hand.
  • The extremely rare shadow chests used to have boring items such as the Learning Scroll (worth a mere 250 exp) in their item pool, but in late 2017 those were removed.
• Pre Existing Encounters: Enemies are visible outside of battles and can usually be avoided if that need comes.
• Production Throwback: Several items come from DXF Games' past works, including some that originated in the cancelled Hasslevania 2.
• Randomly Generated Levels: Levels aren't procedurally generated, but instead chosen at random from a pack of over 150 maps. Certain features of certain levels are also fixed, but otherwise item and enemy placement is randomized.
• Random Drop Booster:
  • The Lucky perk at Level 10 increases the chances of Gold chests appearing. If one comes up, then there's also a slighty higher chance of it turning into a Shadow chest.
  • According to one tip, one positive to wearing a full cursed set of gear is finding "interesting" things in chests more often.
  • The event that makes trapped chests not flash also increases the odds of any chest having good items.
• Randomly Drops:
  • Barrels may contain money or basic equipment and healing items. Sometimes they're just empty instead.
  • Chests always contain larger amounts of money or better items. If they're flashing it means they're trapped and there's a chance you'll take some damage while opening them. Golden chests are of course better than the wooden ones. The Shadow ones are the best and rarest, often containing a Infinity +1 Sword-level item.
  • Normal enemies do not drop chests, but mimics, champions and bosses do.
  • Item shops will have three random items on sale. Shops will close once the player leaves, but a Service Bell can be used to reopen them with different items.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: The Fist of Fury weapon sets the Speed Burst effect on during battles and improves it, making it likely for the player to dish blows for several turns in a row.
• Retraux: The game is rendered in 8-bit style pixel art.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: Large rats can appear early on.
• Scoring Points: Your score is shown once the game ends. On the game over screen, it affects how many people come to visit your grave.
• Secret Character: You must collect 50% of the game's items to unlock the Cultist.
• Set Bonus:
  • Equipping a set of items related to characters from previous Equin games lets you visit a secret area after clearing the current level. This set also prevents damage from thunderstorm levels and increases the Auto Kill rank by 1.
  • A set of cursed items will let you eat the scattered bones you see every now and then. Chests will also have better contents.
• Shield Bash: Shields have a special bash move that lowers the enemy's defense.
• Shout-Out:
  • The achievement for resting on a campfire almost calls them "bonfires".
  • The author credits the F.O.E.s from Etrian Odyssey as inspiration for the Killer Plants' difficulty and role.
  • The Bat Mask's description notes it is useful for hiding your secret identity.
  • The Crystal Ball claims something's on a basement in the Alamo.
  • One headgear is a Devo Energy Dome.
• Situational Sword: Several weapons have an advantage over a specific enemy.
• Skippable Boss: All the bosses can be baited out of the way and avoided if the level design allows.
• Spikes of Doom: Spike traps toggle themselves on and off every few turns, so they're less danguerous than the poison grass and fire you would have seen by then.
• Squishy Wizard: The Wizard has powerful spells that never miss but is unable to use some of the better physical weapons and tough armors. You'll often find he can't survive two hits in a row, so battles end up decided by initiative. There's also a floor type that prevents use of spells, so you should try to keep some average physical weapon with you.
• Stalked by the Bell: Late 2018 saw the addition of a hunger meter, so players cannot just wander around a floor for too long anymore.
• Starter Equipment: Each of the three classes have their own set of nine possible starting items from which you must pick three. Clearing the game with a class lets you choose one more item for them when starting a new playthrough.
• Status Effects:
  • Toxin does some damage by itself whenever it is inflicted and then causes you to lose more hp with every step you take several times.
  • Sleep makes you a sitting duck in battles for several turns.
  • The Shield Bash action usable by both you and some enemies lowers defense.
  • There are several kinds of offensive and defensive status buffs in the game.
• Stuck Items: Cursed equipment can only be removed by a Holy Cross item or the Blessed status. You won't know what's really cursed or not until you equip them, but their descriptions do hint at their effects (beware of stuff related to bones). On the positive side, wearing at least three cursed items at once does grant some benefits.
• Suspend Save: Writing a suspend save outright closes the game.
• Timed Mission: One possible level gimmick requires you to find the exit under a certain number of steps, or else the floor blows up and it's game over. The Pocket Watch item increases the amount of steps left until the explosion.
• Too Awesome to Use: Several items bring this feeling, the most obvious ones being the colored potions that completely restore health and stamina. Even better is the campfire that lets you repeatedly recover your health and stamina, unless it is raining. Just don't hoard items and then die by mistake when they could have helped...
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: It takes several tries to get a proper feel on how to survive until floor 51, figure out how the Lantern affects the gameplay and memorize the level designs. Even when you know how the game works, bad luck and any mistake can easily set you back to square one.
• Turn Undead: The Cleric's unique spell. It's effective on enemies like the skeletons, but don't expect it to beat the Lich as easily.
• Updated Re-release: The Steam version is one to the original one the developer used to sell on his own site. Over the course of several updates it got new items, enemies and a fourth class. The developer then made a widescreen version of the game and started making further changes on it.
• Video Game Stealing:
  • The Thief can steal items from enemies once he reaches level 7. Certain enemies can also do this to you.
  • Thieves can also steal from shops, but there is a chance to fail this and become blacklisted from all shops during the playthrough. There is a single item that removes this penalty and another one that allows the punished Thief to enter shops in disguise, though without the option to steal.
• Video Game Tutorial: There's a tutorial in the menu that's really an illustrated instruction manual.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: A December 2017 update made it so upon starting the game, the player is reminded they should check their inventory to actually equip their chosen starting items.
• Weird Weather: Indoor rain levels prevent the use of campfires and torches, douse fire tiles and increase the odds of ponds, flower patches and mushrooms. Fishing also becomes easier. Towards the end of the game, those will turn into thunderstorms that will sometimes strike random panels. Thunder can deal you 10 damage if you don't have lightning resistance, but if it happens to strike an enemy, any enemy, it will instantly kill them.
• A Winner Is You: Below floor 50, your character finds the Lantern dim and reasons its purpose was simply to give adventurers a challenge. The way the usual death text file comes up simply saying your character "died of old age" on floor 51 with no details on what happened in-between makes it even more underwhelming. At least they buried your gold with them.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: A hunger meter was eventually added. Once it runs out you take damage from every step you make, like how the poison effect works.
• You Are Already Dead: When out of stamina you can only do minimal damage (plus any stat buffs you might have) and are unable to even run away, so manage it well and do NOT EVER engage in battle if you know you don't have enough STM to finish it.

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