Deskrawl Beginner Guide: Your First Hours

Before you start

Online or offline. You choose when you create the character. Online characters can use the leaderboard and the Steam Market; offline characters cannot. Since the launch hot fix, online is the default. If the game cannot connect, update your Steam client first.

Class. All four classes are available from the start: Warrior, Sorcerer, Hunter and Monk. Launch players found the Warrior the sturdiest and the Monk quick to level. Ranged classes depend more on finding a weapon, and several Hunters reached level 10 without a bow drop.

The first hour

Run the first nodes in Kings Woods. Your hero fights on their own. Your job is gear, talents and deciding when to move on.
Spend talent points as you get them. Rows open by total points spent. Put the first five points into one talent in the first row so the second row opens.
Equip upgrades by the numbers. Hover a weapon to see whether DPS goes up or down. Keep items with your main stat, your damage type and life on hit.
Go back to town when the carriage is full. The carriage drops loot in town. Treasure chests can only be opened there.
Fight the Raptor. Players call it a level 7 boss. 94.5% of Steam players have beaten it.

Set up the idle loop

The game is meant to be left running. Three settings make that work:

Auto retry keeps repeating the current node. There is no auto-advance to the next node yet; players have asked for it.
Auto revive brings you back after a countdown with full health and potion charges.
Carriage settings decide what gets picked up. At first you can only pick up everything. Buy the first gold find node in Life Skills to unlock auto-sell, then sell commons automatically.

Farm the highest node you can clear reliably. Players who compared found that experience drops when you out-level a node, so moving forward beats repeating an early boss.

First purchases

Buy	Why
Gold find node (Life Skills)	Opens auto-sell and pays for everything else
Movement speed potion from the Merchant	Faster runs; one player puts the 15% potion at 3,000 gold
Combat potion slot (Life Skills)	Lets you equip a battle potion in Combat Settings (C)
Market access at level 5	Reported cost 500 gold; needs an online character

First bosses

The first region has two bosses, the Raptor and the Bloodmoon Werewolf. One launch player farmed the Raptor for boss keys until they could beat the Werewolf, then moved to Northhill Crypt. Another advised farming a boss only until it drops the item you want, then moving on.

After Northhill Crypt the game gets harder quickly. See the boss list for the full order.

Your first minion

Minions come from reins. A wolf or spider rein is a common first drop, usually before level 10, but some players went six hours without one. Summon your minion in town. Only the summoned minion gives its bonus. More on the minions page.

Mistakes to avoid

Salvaging or selling by accident. You can buy back the last 8 items sold to an NPC. Lock items you want to keep; locked items are skipped by Sell All.
Drinking an XP potion and returning to town. Players report the buff ends when you go back to town or die.
Spreading talent points. Reach the capstone rows first.
Leaving the rein filter on overnight without checking it. A missed rein is hours of drops lost.

Sources: developer patch notes from June to September 2026, Steam achievement percentages, and Steam forum threads from launch day.

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