It's totally possible to finish the dungeons in each run of House of Necrosis using only what you find in that run. You may die a few times along the way, but hopefully you'll be having fun.

This guide will stick to generic advice, and not reveal anything about specific enemies or items. This means you won't be spoiled, and it also means this is good advice for other traditional roguelikes too (like Mystery Dungeon or Rogue).

We'll cover broad advice first, and get more and more specific until we cover combat tactics at the end. These are all just guidelines: you can win while breaking some or even all of these rules. This is just my personal advice if you're having trouble.

If you remember only one thing: use consumables, even against enemies that aren't that scary.

Most of the time it's good to fully explore each floor. Killing the enemies gives you experience and lets you get items. You'll need to spend consumables to get everything, but you'll generally get even more back. You have freedom to dive faster if you want, but it will make the game harder.

If you find the exit early, it can be good to clear that room out right away. That opens up the option to leave the floor early:

• If you're in trouble
  
• If you peek the last room and there's nothing good in there
  
• If it's late in the game and you already have good items and levels

You'll want to clear out each room completely before moving to the next. This gives you safe areas to retreat to. A loop of safe rooms is great if you can get it.

Monsters generally won't start chasing you until you get close, so you can take it slow. Often you can clear out a room just a few enemies at a time if you want. Sometimes you may want to leave a particularly dangerous enemy alone.

While walking around, the most cautious playstyle is:

• Don't walk around on low health. If you're low, use an herb.
  
• Walk one step at a time and stare at the minimap: see what dots appear before you take your next step.
  
• Nearby enemies will appear as red dots. Use your first person camera to look at the faraway ones and see what they are.
  
• Traps right next to you will appear as blue dots. Swing your weapon at them to see what they are.

There are advantages to playing fast too, though:

• You can finish more games and get faster feedback
  
• You may just find the slow playstyle boring

At minimum, I do recommend slowing down when you're in danger. That will help your survival a lot. Otherwise, play in the way you enjoy the most.

Some equipment has unknown properties. Often I recommend equipping it against weak enemies and seeing if you can figure out what it is. These are two situations where I wouldn't (both situations are common on later floors):

• If you already have great equipment
  
• If the enemies are dangerous

If you find items that let you identify your inventory, it's usually best to save them until you can identify a bunch of items at once. Don't wait for too long though.

By the way: many other traditional roguelikes will have *very* dangerous equipment, and often it can be cursed and unremovable. Wear-ID is a lot less dangerous in House of Necrosis than average for the genre.

By the way 2: if you are using rescue crystals and storage boxes, the shopkeeper in the main hub can ID equipment for you. But you can definitely finish the game without even quite knowing what all of your equipment is.

It's often best to use/throw a serum to identify it. Every serum of that type you find in the rest of that run will come identified. It's good to waste one serum in a safe situation, because:

• You may clog your inventory with serums if you don't know whether to leave them behind or not
  
• If you get into a dangerous situation, unknown serums are often ineffective. They may waste turns or actively make things worse (although if you're going to die, you should give it a try anyway).

It's best to ID serums after you've cleared (or nearly cleared) a floor, and have high health. That way if you get a bad effect you'll still be okay.

You can either drink them or throw them at a lone enemy: if you've IDed a lot of positive serums, you might want to start throwing unidentified ones. If you've IDed a lot of negative serums, you may want to start drinking the unknown ones.

The other option is to wait until you get an item that can identify the serum. Waiting can be okay if you don't expect danger and you have spare inventory space. If you're out of space or the next floor is dangerous (or you don't know), I recommend use/throw-IDing.

You obviously want to fill your equipment slots.

You want stacks of consumables for tough enemies. If you find you're never using a certain type of consumable, try using it a few times and figure out where it can help you the most. You never ever want to die with a stack of consumables: you always want to die with an empty inventory. Use items all the time: you'll keep finding more. Even junk equipment can be thrown at enemies instead of sitting in your inventory.

You may want some backup equipment with situational effects. Consumables stack and equipment doesn't, but sometimes you can get a lot of use out of one extra weapon with a unique property.

At any given time, you may be carrying stuff that's unidentified. When your inventory fills up, probably at least try to figure out what it is before throwing it or leaving it behind.

If you're not planning to save your items for future runs, coins and rescue crystals are a lot less valuable (although you can actually still throw them at enemies).

It can be helpful to use an empty room as a stash for items that don't quite fit in your inventory. You can even use consumables directly from the floor. Don't forget about your stash before heading to the exit. Many roguelikes have enemies that will mess with your floor items, but not House of Necrosis (the launch version, at least). Stashing can slow the game down and introduce backtracking: if you don't enjoy it, you can win without doing it.

That reminds me: many games have things that will steal stuff from your inventory. You can put stuff on the floor to prevent that from happening, but you can also usually chase down the thief or just accept that the item is gone. You do get a lot of stuff, and that one thing may not make a difference in the end.

House of Necrosis lets you permanently gain an inventory slot (up to a cap) when you find a small pouch. You could definitely clear the whole game with the starting inventory size if you wanted. You'd want to stay lean on equipment, use stashes a lot and aggressively use consumables to not have to leave stacks behind (all stuff you kind of want to do anyway). A big inventory mostly just gives you room to keep junk you don't need (but I do love to hoard junk).

Extremely important rules:

• If you're even slightly in danger, USE ITEMS to make it safe. You get a LOT of items, and only one life. Using items cleverly will turn deadly fights into an easy victory or escape.
  
• Usually the earlier you use an item (when the enemy isn't quite on top of you and you're high on health), the more efficient you can be. If you trade some blows first and then start using items, you'll probably have to spend more stuff.
  
• Always have a clear retreat path. Usually this means not straying too far from the hallway; definitely do not let anything get in between you and the hallway (especially in this game where you can't move diagonally).
  
• Fight one enemy at a time. Usually this means luring enemies into hallways, where some get stuck behind the others.
  
• Do not step directly in front of an enemy: they'll hit you immediately on their turn. Let them come to you instead. (note: if there are two empty spaces between you, you can step towards them safely).
  
• Some enemies have moves that they have to stand still for. You can kite these enemies back and get multiple ranged attacks on them.
  
• If you have a temporary debuff or the enemy has a temporary buff, you can run back until the buff goes away and then resume fighting.
  
• Even moderately dangerous enemies should be peppered with guns and throwables as they approach you. You're basically spending those resources to save healing (likewise you can melee a guy and spend healing to save ammo; it's a choice you make for each enemy).
  
• Consider all of your options. If there's a scary guy in front of you, don't just act without thinking. Maybe you can run away. Maybe you can throw something or drink something. Maybe you can get another guy in front to block. You have a lot of different items and every enemy is different, so there's a lot of room for creative and non-obvious damage control. This is the really fun part of the game, in my opinion.

Tips for situations that come up less often (there are exceptions to every rule):

• If you do get stuck with no retreat path and get surrounded, it can be good to move to a wall or corner. This means only 3 or 2 enemies can hit you at once. By the way, this is way more important in games where enemies can attack you diagonally: being surrounded by 8 enemies almost always means death. 4 is still pretty bad though.
  
• Prioritizing targets: if you're going to be surrounded, try to get weak enemies on some sides of you. You can attack the other sides and let the weak enemies block other enemies out.
  
• Luring each enemy to the best possible position before engaging is usually good, but consider that sometimes you may need to rush an enemy down quickly even if you take some extra hits. For example: maybe you need to take out a weak guy asap before a strong guy arrives.
  
• Some effects are more powerful when you can hit as many people as possible. These bend the "one enemy at a time" rule.
  
• There are some strategies to milk enemies for extra items or XP. These aren't strictly necessary: there are a lot of items and XP available. Just know that there are some tricks available to you.
  
• I'll just mention that you can definitely clear the whole game without using spells if you want. P.S. I do use spells; I just don't grind for them.

More than any other part of this guide, there's a lot this section did not cover. It deliberately avoided talking about specific items and enemies, which are really the heart of the game. Keep playing, and come up with your own tactics! And remember to USE ITEMS ALL THE TIME!