Dungeon Crawl - Devils Advocate (not game title)

Well, if what you're looking for is a way to create a solo dungeon crawl with a heavy narrative aspect, you really want an element to randomly interact with a story you're telling. You could use a device like Story Cubes to create random cues (even make your own "Dungeon cubes"). You could use something like a scene resolution system to give just enough guidance but still leave you to figure out the details. You could use a random character generation system to help avoid character tropes you frequently explore. You could retheme the dungeon crawl to emphasize different aspects (think heavy stealth mechanics, or maybe you're an archer and need to continually find cover and line up perfect shots, or maybe you drastically retheme to a 'political' dungeon crawl where you need to beat various charisma challenges rather than swording things). Or you could do any combination of the above.

Really you want to look at the core reasons the dungeon crawl appeals to you, strip away all the rest, and see if you can find ways to play up what you have left. You're designing your game for you. What do YOU WANT to do?

Devils Advocate nails it. I really, really don't like dungeon crawlers. I played some Hero and Star Quest back in the day but somehow that whole genre lost all my interest. So let me be a devils advocate too and let me defend the accused.

If you look at the history of dungeon crawl games I would say that they were simply visual representations of early roleplaying games. I still have my first D&D box: the red one. It was all about 'draw a dungeon, fill it with monsters, traps and treasures and let the heroes have a go at it!' And that is pretty much how we played it. Then I saw Hero Quest and that game is all about 'build a dungeon filled with monsters, traps and treasures and let the heroes have a go at it!'

But roleplaying developed. New games popped up like White Wolfs World of Darkness which first put the emphasis on narrating and storytelling. That never stopped. Roleplaying games kept developing. We have games with no dungeon master in which all players contribute to that part and we have games like Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Edition that actually uses a lot of board game mechanisms.

So, the assumption that a dungeon crawler is just all about hack n slash is a little outdated and archaic in my opinion. I can't see why dungeon crawlers shouldn't evolve too. And one game that has done a wonderfull job doing that is Mansions of Madness. Of course here is still monster slaying in the game but it is not the main goal anymore. What I believe would perfectly fit in a solo game is the puzzle mechanism of MoM. If you don't know it I propose you check it out because I can easily see that something like this could be the heart of a non hack n slay solo dungeon crawler game. Just shift the player's task from killing stuff to problem solving.
Of course that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any fighting at all.

Yes, that is unlikely. Unless your game has a unique twist. Mice and Mystiques for example has its very unusuable and enjoyable theme (and there you have the only two dungeon crawlers I enjoy: MoM and M&M. So you should use the letter M in your game twice and I will most likely play it.) If you just create another stereotypical dungeon crawler the chances of it getting publishes are slim and you should be content to play it with your friends and family. If on the other hand you manage to give your game something unique I don't see why it shpuldn't have the same chance as any other game. As long as it is good of course.