Shattered Pixel Dungeon News

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)

Hey Dungeoneers, v1.4.0 has been released on Google Play, the App Store, Steam, and GitHub! Note that v1.4.0 is currently held up in review by Google on Google Play, it should become available there within another day or two tops.

[h2]What’s new in v1.4.0[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
v1.4.0 is focused on new in-game lore and loads of other miscellaneous improvements. There are 30 pages of story text to find, a new ring, various reworks, a new tutorial, and over a hundred smaller tweaks and fixes!

I talked about this update in two previous blog posts:

• Status Update: v1.4.0
• Coming Soon to Shattered: Lore and the Big Patch!

Here's a condensed runthrough of the major changes this update. You can check out the changes screen in-game for a fully detailed list.

• v1.3.0 is releasing 105 days after v1.2.0, which released on Mar 23rd, 2022
  
• Support for user-enterable custom seeds
  
• Offline daily runs with local score history
  
• An overhauled scoring system to go along with seeds and dailies
  
• New mechanics that make ascension a proper challenge
  
• Improvements to UI/UX, mainly for desktop and controller users
  
• ~15 new badges, ranging from easy to extremely hard
  
• Reworks and replacements for several curse effects
  

• v1.4.0 is releasing 90 days after v1.3.0, which released on July 6th, 2022
  
• A new lore system has been added, with 30 pages of lore text to find
  
• The Ring of Arcana has bee added, itpowers up enchantments and glyphs
  
• The Sandals of Nature have a new active ability based on seed effects
  
• The Berserker has been been partially redesigned, berserking is now manually activated
  
• A new short guided tutorial has been added at the start of the game
  

• Some T3 talents have been redesigned
  
• The blocking enchantment has been redesigned
  
• Hero select now has a new interface for landscape/desktop users
  
• 30+ misc. changes
  
• 50+ bugfixes
  

• Ring of Wealth now gives better equipment when highly upgraded
  
• Buffed wand of transfusion damage vs. undead
  
• Telekinetic grab now grabs all items at a location, not just one
  
• Annoying curse has more dialogue
  

[h2]What's Coming Next?[/h2]
[hr][/hr]



The next Shattered update will be v2.0.0, which is going to focus almost entirely on adding a new hero!

The new hero in v2.0.0 will be the Duelist! The duelist will be able to use weapons in ways other heroes cannot, through charge-based special abilities, and other mechanics via her talents and subclasses. Like all the other heroes, the duelist will have 2 subclasses, 3 armor abilities, and 26 talents!

I don't yet have any specific plans for other content in v2.0.0. I want to mostly focus on the Duelist, so don't expect as much side content as in previous updates, but I'm sure that there will be some amount of smaller additions and adjustments.

I was originally planning for the next update to be v1.5.0, and include a rework to the blacksmith's quest. We're now in the last quarter of 2022 though, and I suspect people would much rather see a new hero release next. I also heavily implied a new hero would come this year back in the 'Shattered Pixel Dungeon in 2022' blog post. This doesn't mean that the quest rework is never going to happen though, I'm just readjusting my priorities and will likely get to it in 2023 instead.

v2.0.0 will likely have a few blog posts as I make progress on implementing the new hero. Expect to see the first of those posts in November. In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter if you'd like some quicker mini-updates!

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)

Hey Dungeoneers, v1.4.0 is ready for beta!

The beta for v1.3.0 is live right now! To access it on Steam, go to your game library, right click on Shattered and select 'properties' then go to the 'betas' tab and select the beta from the dropdown list.

In this post I'm going to go over what's coming in this update. The headline content is new in-game lore, but there's a LOT of other changes as well.

[h2]New Lore![/h2]
[hr][/hr]
The most significant addition this update is a big expansion to the game's lore! There is a new tab in the journal window for lore documents, and each region has a new six page document to find. In total there are 30 pages of letters, journal entries, and notes to find that give a little more detail on each of the dungeon's regions.



Each of these documents is written by someone who has been in the region before the hero. I've tried to have each of them convey both a short character story and reveal more information about events or conditions in these dungeon regions before the hero arrives. Early on the documents are quite recently written, but by the end they are over 100 years old. Here's a quick example, this is the first page of the document from the prison:



This is the first time I've done significant writing for Shattered's story. A lot of these things have been in my head for years, and it's great to finally get some of it into the game. Please let me know what you think! I'm also happy with the replay value this adds to the game, as you'll need to play through each region multiple times to find all the pages.

This also won't be the only time lore gets added to the game, eventually I'd like to have individual journals for the game's heroes, and possibly documents about specific technical topics.

[h2]Other New Content[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
v1.4.0 also includes a significant amount of more medium sized content additions!



Firstly, v1.4.0 includes a new item! The Ring of Arcana passively enhances the power of enchantments and glyphs, letting them activate more often and with stronger effects. There is a lot of interesting gameplay potential in this ring, as upgrading it gives enchantments and glyphs a much bigger power budget than they've ever had previously.

The Sandals of Nature are also getting a big expansion this update. Their active effect is a bit phoned in currently, so I've expanded it to allow for a lot more flexibility based on the seed you've most recently fed the item. This should hopefully let the sandals be used for more than just farming seeds.

I'm also changing up the Berserker to make his berserk effect more controllable by the player. Berserking now has to be manually activated whenever rage is at or above 100%, but in exchange it has a much, much lower cooldown than before. I'm hoping that this makes the Berserker a bit more appealing to experienced players who didn't need berserking as a safety net. Players who still want the safety net can access it via a new talent.

Lastly, I'm making some significant adjustments to the new player experience, including cutting down on early text and adding a short guided tutorial. The goal here isn't to hold the players hand, but rather ensure they know how the basic game mechanics work, and to encourage them to read the game log and the guidebook. This new tutorial takes less than a minute.

[h2]The Big Patch[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
v1.4.0 also includes more smaller changes and improvements than probably any other update. When I decided to postpone the rework to the blacksmith quest, I also decided that v1.4.0 would be a good opportunity to catch up on a big list of smaller changes I've been building for years. v1.4.0 has addressed about 90% of the items on that list!



There are far too many things to cover in this post, but here's a quick rundown of the highlights:

• I'm redesigning the subclass talents Empowered Strike, Excess Charge, and Bounty Hunter to be more varied/interesting, and to better encourage interaction with other subclass mechanics.
  
• The blocking enchantment is being redesigned to sometimes grant a barrier instead of always boosting armor. This should make it feel a lot stronger.
  
• There are a few more minor item balance changes as well. Most notably, the ring of wealth is getting a sizeable boost to the power of the equipment it drops at high levels.
  
• Players can now replay daily runs if the daily is still available. Replay runs won't stay in your daily run history, but will briefly show up so that can view rankings info about them.
  
• Lots of QoL tweaks have been made to player actions, enemies, and items. Most notably, allies have better AI behavior when they are told to hold a position.
  
• There are several small visual tweaks and improvements, including better indications when thrown items are about to break.
  
• Several smaller quality of life tweaks have been made for controller and desktop users, including new options for camera following behavior.
  
• I've made over 50 bugfixes, many of which are for smaller hard to fix bugs and inconsistencies that have been in the game for years.
  
• Lastly, I am hoping to make a few desktop-focused interface improvements over the course of the beta or following the update in patches.
  

[hr][/hr]
I'm expecting the beta for v1.4.0 to last for about a week, as usual. Look forward to a full release in early October!

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)

Hey Folks, I'm making a quick status update blog post as my plans for v1.4.0 have changed a bit, and so the information I gave when releasing v1.3.0 is no longer accurate.

Despite my attempts to keep the scope of v1.4.0 limited, the amount of smaller content additions I want to add to it got pretty large. At the same time, I've been running into some delays with implementing the new blacksmith's quest. Previously this would have just led to 1.4.0 being delayed, but I want to try something different.

v1.4.0 is going to be split into two updates. The blacksmith quest overhaul will now be in v1.5.0, and v1.4.0 will instead contain all of the smaller content additions and changes I'm currently working on. This way v1.4.0 will release on schedule and I will be able to focus exclusively on the blacksmith's quest once v1.4.0 is done. This does delay the quest rework slightly, but there will still be plenty of things to look forward to in v1.4.0.

[h2]So What is Coming in v1.4.0?[/h2]
[hr][/hr]

You can expect another blog post sometime in early to mid September with a beta and more details on v1.4.0, but here is a quick summary of what is coming and roughly how far along it is:

• 🟩Loads of Smaller Fixes (100%): I maintain a list of small low priority changes and fixes that I want to investigate, but over the last two years or so I've let that list grow and grow. for v1.4.0 I've chewed through that list, knocking it down to about 1/8 of its previous size.
  
• 🟩Ring of Arcana (100%): A new item! The ring of arcana will passively enhance the power of enchantments and glyphs, letting them activate more often and with stronger effects. This one has a lot of interesting gameplay potential.
  
• 🟩Footwear of Nature Rework (80%): I'm also planning on reworking the footwear of nature! The item's active effect is a bit phoned in currently, so I'm going to expand it to allow for a lot more flexibility based on the seed you've most recently fed the item.
  
• 🟨Berserker Rework (60%): I'm planning to change berserking around so that it is manually activated, which will let me give it a significantly larger power budget. Players who like the automatic berserk safety net will still be able to access it via a talent.
  
• 🟧Tutorialization Improvements (50%): Shattered plays pretty intuitively on touch screens, but really needs a little more of a lead-in for users on mouse/keyboard or controllers. I plan to add a very short initial tutorial that guides the player though the game's basic controls.
  
• 🟧Lore Additions (40%): I'm planning to finally expand the game's journal system beyond just guidebook pages. Each region is going to have a separate bit of lore text to find, which will give more details about that region and the people who were there before the hero.
  
• 🟥Interface Improvements (20%): Just like with the changes screen in v1.3.2, I'd like to expand a few of the game's interfaces to convey more information, especially for users on large screens. Big candidates are the alchemy screen, hero select, and the rankings screen.
  

I'm going to start sharing some more bite-sized info on these changes on Twitter very soon, so follow me there if you'd like some quicker updates.

Hey folks, here's the final planned patch for v1.3!

You can check the in-game changes screen for a full list of changes, but here's a summary of the most important adjustments, which are more significant than usual for a patch:

[h2]UI Adjustments[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
As promised, I'm making a few UI improvements in v1.3.2. Unfortunately, these ended up being smaller than expected due to some design troubles:

• Boss health bars have been expanded to show current health and active buffs/debuffs.
  
• The Changes scene has been expanded on large enough displays. This is the first of several UI expansions I'd like to make over time.
  

I've mentioned more detailed enemy info at the top-left for desktop users a few times now (each enemy getting a small info pane with health and buffs/debuffs), but have unfortunately decided to scrap that feature. After playtesting it the additional UI elements just added clutter. Most critically, when many enemies were present at once (the exact situation that extra enemy info was supposed to help with) it became impossible to tell which enemy was which. Instead, in a future update I'm going to look into giving enemies expanded health bar info if you hover over them.

[h2]Seeded Run Bugfixes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
I have identified and fixed a couple of bugs which made levelgen of seeded runs with the same seed not always identical.
Unfortunately, the fixes for this will mean that some of the items generated by a particular seed will be different on v1.3.2 than v1.3.1 or v1.3.0. I generally want to avoid smaller updates changing seeded runs like this.

• Fixed a bug where colors of potions, glyphs on scrolls, and gems on rings could vary between runs with the same seed.
  
• Fixed a bug where the number of enemies spawned over time could affect item generation on the next floor.
  

[h2]Misc Changes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]

• Characters with guaranteed dodges (e.g. spirit hawk) can now evade Yog's laser beam
  
• Dates and countdowns for daily runs are now language neutral (only use numbers)
  
• The rankings scene now automatically opens the daily run window if you just ended a daily
  
• Minor visual improvements to the amulet scene
  
• Fixed ~10 bugs, including incorrect button prompts for controller users (I'm working towards getting Steam Deck verified!)
  

Hey folks, a small patch today to fix a few bugs with v1.3.0's release and update some translations. Expect another patch in about a week that will include some UI improvements, then It's on to v1.4.0!

You can check the in-game games screen for a full list of changes.