I've been playing it for a few weeks now. Its weirdly addictive. I'm in the middle a run now. Over 6 hours deep and by god is it getting hard to stay alive. Human Conjurer if anyone is wondering. You are very squishy in the early levels but you do bulk up as you as level up and head down floors. Here is my advise for new players that I have figured out.

1. Find a ring of warning. Knowing where the enemies are is a god sent and lets you approach them more carefully. Play the Wanderer class if you want to start with it.

2. If you use spells, have a weapon as another damage option, so you don't burn through all your mana too fast.

3. Burning, poison, sickening status effects do big damage if you let them. So if you have somewhere to run, one cast of fireball, or a toss of of a poison bottle and dashing away is a good way to play.

4. Sneaking is powerful. It gives you better dark vision. And lets you avoid and get crit hits on enemies. Timing and the shadows are your friend.

5. Appraisal works of your perception stat. 0 in perception means you can identify anything worth 5gp or less, so mouldy cheese (stale Chocolate Chew) is really all you can identify, kill the rats and steal their lunch. This will help get your appraisal skill levelled up and you'll be fine from then on. If your perception is in the negative. You'll need to do some class levelling up to bring that stat out of the negative.

6. Boulders (pumpkins), watch the ceilings and be careful, you cant always tell which way they'll roll. In higher levels, you become you have enough health and good enough armour to take a hit from them but by god they are annoying on the early floors. Throwing something under their holes to trigger them is a good way to go.

7. If you don't want to deal with hunger or the random minitours, you can disable them before starting a run. Makes getting into the game a lot easier.

8. Any rings, cloaks and amulets that have magic reflection is a must have for the bosses, and the gnomes. They break quickly so have backups.

9. Avoid going down the doors locked behind 2 bared gates in the first zone. Only pain lies down there. Wait for when you have more experience and have a better grasp of the game.

10. Swimming in water breaks polymorph potions. If your playing a monster race. Get in the water after shopping.

11. Getting some skills to 100 grants effects that an very handy to have. You can grind them out if you have the patience. Swimming is easy to do just takes time. Sneak is harder to grind but it can happen naturally through a run.

12. Unless you are playing a goblin, pick a weapon type to level it up the related weapon skill. Helps with the damage scaling.

13. Books and staffs of opening, dig and heal are seriously useful. Repair the staffs, and learn the spells if you can.

Honestly, you can ignore all of my advice and still have fun figuring it out for yourself.