At the very start of the game, an intro is presented - short storytelling setting the magical world of Dungeon Drafters and the chaos that is being brought by the Stranger cards.
Right after the shipwreck, the player is awoken at the beach. There starts the tutorial dungeon of the game - Misty Grove Ruins. This initial dungeon is relatively short, approximately 20 minutes of gameplay, where the player is presented with the basic card usage, basic combat interacting and simples mobs. While playing the tutorial the player collects card drops and trinkets as a reward. The apex of the first dungeon comes at the intense battle with the Ancient Effigy.
After most likely being killed in the final challenge of the tutorial, the player is granted freedom to explore the Lobby and access the other five dungeons. She can gather new cards if they are lost with the Stonekeeper.
The game cycle of Dungeon Drafters is focused around on the interplay between the Lobby and the Crawler.
The Lobby is distinguished as the slow-paced part of the game cycle. This area offers no harm at all, the player can move freely and interact with unlocked elements of the lobby. It mainly features deckbuilding, shop & trade, quests, NPC interactions, storage, and challenges. This area also plays a significant atmospheric role in the game, where the player can walk freely and explore.
Dungeon crawling is comprised of two distinct gameplay phases/states. The first is exploration: free movement and card casting. Movement is based on a fixed coordinate system using tiles. When the player steps into a room containing monsters, the combat phase begins. Exploration resumes once the combat is over.
The exploration phase is quick and mostly requires the player to move from one dungeon room to the next, with the occasional puzzle involving traversing a particular room full of hazards or getting to a hard to reach treasure.
Symbols on the doors indicate what type of room awaits next (ie. combat, puzzle, pitstop, etc.), encouraging the player to choose a path she is comfortable with and/or calculate risk/reward considering her current circumstances.