Shattered Pixel Dungeon News

Hey Dungeoneers!

The first patch for Shattered Pixel Dungeon v2.5.0 should now be out on all platforms! v2.5.1 includes an assortment of small fixes, and some balance changes to three of the new trinkets. I expect to make more changes in future patches as well, before moving on to work on v3.0.0.

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
New Trinket Buffs
[expand]
Based on some early balance data it looks like some of the new trinkets aren't quite hitting the mark. I'm open to more extensive changes after getting in some more data, but for now I'm doing some simple buffs:

- Chaotic Censer internal RNG adjusted, now much more likely to fire gas at useful times. Now also tries to avoid firing at all in shops or enclosed spaces, as long as you don't loiter there.

- Salt Cube health regen loss down to 20/33/43/50% from 30/50/65/75%. This means total HP granted per food item is now unchanged with the salt cube, the regen just happens more slowly.

- Shard of Oblivion bonus loot per unidentified item up to 20% from 12.5%.
[/expand]

Misc. Changes
[expand]
- Jumping toward a distant well now clears it from the notes page
- Statue enemies no longer become passive again when ascending
- NPCs are now fooled by the disguise buff
- Sniper's Mark now shows its duration in its buff description
- Added Google Play Games achievements for the new researcher badges
- ShatteredPD is now categorized as a game on Android devices
[/expand]

Bugfixes
[expand]
Fixed the following bugs:
Caused by v2.5.0: - Various crash and freeze bugs with the chaotic censer
- Goo and DM-300 benefitting from terrain while levitating
- Defeating temporarily transmogrified enemies not counting for the bestiary
- Underscores being incorrectly interpreted by the game in custom notes
- New 'remembering fullscreen monitor' functionality for desktop users not working properly
- Various minor textual and graphical errors

Existed Prior to v2.5.0: - Shopkeepers often failing to clear gasses from their shops
- Debuffs disappearing from DM-300's pylons on save/load
- Rare cases of levelgen hanging
- Game log spam during the tutorial in specific cases
- Corpse Dust sometimes spawning many wraiths in quick succession after spawning none
- Direction compass not pointing to exit after defeating Tengu
- Split alchemy guide not updating with inventory state in various cases
- Magic well note entries not being cleared if there are two wells in a level
[/expand]

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



[h2]What’s new in v2.5.0[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
v2.5.0 includes a total overhaul to the journal, some new trinkets, and tonnes of smaller tweaks and balance changes. There are also new splash arts for each of the dungeons regions, viewable during loading screens! Be sure to check the changes screen for full details.

I talked about this update in two previous blog posts:

• Coming Soon to Shattered: New Trinkets and Splash Art!
• Coming Soon to Shattered: A Journal Overhaul!

Also, while not related to v2.5.0 in particular, Shattered celebrated its 10th anniversary last month, I wrote a blog post for that too, that includes an exciting teaser at the end:

• Ten Years of Shattered Pixel Dungeon!

Here's the full changelog for v2.5.0! Click or tap on each entry to read more. Note that this changelog will become slightly outdated as patches are released and dev commentary is added, so check the changes screen in-game for the most up to date version.

New Content:

• Developer Commentary [expand]
  - Released September 11th, 2024
  - 119 days after Shattered v2.4.0
  
  Dev commentary will be added here in the future[/expand]
  
• Journal Overhaul! [expand]
  The game's Journal interface has been completely overhauled!
  
  The Notes section has an entirely new grid-based UI with new icons, and support for custom notes! Custom notes feature user-enterable text and can be tied to a floor, specific item, item type, or just be plain text.
  
  The Catalogs section has also been moved to a grid UI, and has been massively expanded with almost 500 entries! The catalogs now contain almost every item in the game, and a bestiary featuring almost every character, plant, and trap! There are also 9 new badges which can be unlocked by filling the catalogs out!
  
  You can also now view badges directly from the journal, both the ones for your current run and overall badges.
  [/expand]
  
• New Trinkets! [expand]
  Four new trinkets have been added! Bringing the total to 15 trinkets.
  
  The Salt Cube extends the duration that food keeps you full, but also reduces HP regeneration.
  
  The Vial of Blood increases the healing granted by major healing sources, but also slows that healing down.
  
  The Shard of Oblivion increases the amount of loot you'll find from enemies when you are wearing unidentified equipment.
  
  The Chaotic Censer randomly spreads gasses nearby, that are harmful to you and to enemies.
  
  There is also now a fourth 'random' option when selecting trinkets, if you don't want any of the first three.
  [/expand]
  
• Region Splash Arts! [expand]
  New splash arts have been added to the game's loading screens!
  
  There's one for each of the five regions, once again made by Aleksandar Komitov!
  
  Loading times have not been increased, but the first loading screen of each region now pauses to display that region's story text. This gives an opportunity to appreciate the art without making players wait longer on every loading screen. The game will even start panning the loading screen art during this pause for mobile portrait users!
  [/expand]
  

Changes:

• Interface Improvements [expand]
  In addition to the journal overhaul, there are several smaller UI changes and additions in this update too:
  
  Scrolls of Upgrade now have a preview window that appears when they are used, that summarizes how the stats of an item will change when upgraded.
  
  The main menu Badges Screen has been replaced with a new journal screen, containing the catalogs and guidebooks as well as unlocked badges.
  
  The Alchemy Screen has been adjusted, primarily for desktop users. The guidebook button is now more visible, and shows the guidebook to the side when used on desktop.
  
  The game now displays a little congratulations message after your first win, and clarity on what winning the game unlocks has been improved.
  [/expand]
  
• Cursed Wands [expand]
  Cursed wand effects have been massively expanded! There are now 16 new effects bringing the total number of effects up to 32. These include simple common effects like shooting bubbles and new super rare effects like a giant supernova explosion!
  
  A few existing cursed effects have also been changed:
  - Reduced healing from the uncommon health transfer effect by 50%
  - The uncommon 'shock and recharge' effect is now a lightning bolt, does more damage to a target and grants less wand recharge
  - The rare inter-floor teleport effect now caps at sending the player back 10 floors
  [/expand]
  
• Inventory Management Improvements [expand]
  I've made various smaller changes to make inventory management a bit easier:
  
  - The potion bandolier can now store the waterskin, and the scroll holder can now store arcane styli
  - Converting a potion or scroll into alchemical energy now also identifies it
  - Reduced the chance for multiple equipment drops from slimes, skeletons, guards, DM-200s, and golems
  - Increased the base drop rate of equipment from DM-200s and golems to compensate
  - Stones of Intuition now always get 2 uses each, even if the first guess is incorrect
  - Dark dungeon levels no longer contain a torch, but also reduce vision by 3/8, down from 4/8
  [/expand]
  
• 30+ Misc. Changes [expand]
  Highlights:
  - Enemies are now less willing to follow the hero's movement path when approaching from a distance
  - Improved the quality of loot from tormented spirits
  - Traps which choose targets now have a max range of 8 tiles (or 6 on dark floors)
  - Burn and Ooze now end the moment water is entered, but still always do at least 1 turn of damage
  - Improved visibility of the ambitious imp
  - Trinkets can now be energized to get 5 energy back
  - Rings transmuted from artifacts can now be +1 or +2 if the artifact was +5 or +10.
  - Blooming now produces furrowed grass if regen effects are disabled during boss fights
  
  Characters:
  - Tengu no longer avoids ground-based effects as if he were flying
  - Flying characters now visually fall into pits when they die
  - Flying characters now only wake sleeping enemies they are next to
  - Shadow clone now inherits silent steps from the Rogue
  - DM-300 no longer spews gas at inorganic allies
  - Necromancers now interrupt the hero if they start summoning within vision
  
  Effects:
  - Drowsy debuff now states its remaining duration in its buff description
  - Thorns glyph no longer rebounds damage to allies
  
  Items:
  - Rapier's lunge ability no longer triggers weapon ability use effects when it is aimed at empty space
  - Warrior's broken seal now includes glyph info in its description
  - Added a cancel confirmation window to scrolls of enchantment
  - Armor now always takes 1 turn to equip, instead of 2 turns multiplied by movement speed
  - Minor visual changes to hourglass stasis effect
  - Potion of Storm Clouds no longer triggers traps when thrown
  
  Misc:
  - The game now remembers which monitor it was set to fullscreen on in multi-monitor setups
  - The journal window and hero info window can now be closed via key binding
  - Single wraiths can now spawn adjacent to their spawning cell if it is blocked
  - Added a little game log text when shopkeepers flee
  - Reduced the maximum size of some trap-filled rooms
  - Updated internal code libraries
  - Made slight tweaks to tutorial functionality
  - Added a new buff icon for wand-based buffs
  - Updated translations
  - Added dev commentary for v1.4.0
  [/expand]
  
• 35+ Bugfixes [expand]
  Fixed the following bugs:
  
  Highlights:
  - Hall of Heroes pages 5-10 not syncing via Google Play Games on Google Play version
  - Incorrect behaviour when game is force-closed from trinket selection window
  - Scroll of remove curse not being consumed when freeing tormented spirits
  - Sleeping enemies not being alerted by allies in many cases
  
  Misc:
  - Various rare crash bugs
  - Various minor visual and textual errors
  - Surface victory badges not being added to the rankings screen
  - Very rare cases of players getting outside of boss arenas
  - Settings defaulting to audio tab and not languages tab when user is using a language with an incomplete translation
  
  Effects:
  - Warrior being able to gain extra upgrades on his armor via hero armor transfer effect
  - Earthroot and living rock armor not applying to bone explosion damage
  - Precise Assault not working with unarmed melee attacks
  - Deferred damage sometimes being delayed on save/load
  - Various situational errors when enemies are transmogrified over chasms
  - Challenge Arena effect briefly persisting between floors
  - Magically slept enemies waking up when terror expires on them
  - Duelist's Spike ability incorrectly triggering on-kill effects in specific circumstances
  
  Items:
  - Trinkets becoming unidentified when transmuted
  - Wondrous resin applying its effect to chaos elementals
  - Exotic crystals and Parchment Scrap trinkets affecting levelgen in some cases
  - Auto-aim not working correctly with cursed wands
  - Aqua brew always knocking hero up and left when thrown on self
  - Bomb fuses not being visually cleared when boss levels are reset by unblessed ankhs
  - Exotic crystals and Parchment Scrap trinkets affecting levelgen in some cases
  - Helpful darts dealing damage to allies in rare cases
  - Tipped dart cleaning window showing 'clean all' and 'clean one' even with just 1 dart
  - Death via a reclaimed trap not counting as dying to your own magic item
  
  Characters:
  - Final boss not immediately advancing to its final phase in some cases
  - Sad Ghost rarely spawning inside of walls
  - Ally position swapping working when allies are paralyzed
  - DM-300's exposed wire shielding mechanic and the vertigo debuff interacting incorrectly
  - Brutes not being affected by terror in specific cases
  - Enemies not properly prioritizing targets based on distance
  - Very specific cases where the hero would refuse to walk onto visible traps
  - Ripper Demons refusing to leap onto enemies above chasms
  [/expand]
  

Buffs:

• Trinket Buffs [expand]
  I'm handing out buffs to several trinkets that are underperforming:
  
  - 13 Leaf Clover upgrade cost up, but it now only affect the hero's damage rolls. It no longer applies to armor or enemy attacks. This should preserve the intended chaos of the effect without making enemies way more dangerous.
  - Dimensional Sundial upgrade cost up, but it now slightly reduces enemy spawn rates during daytime. 'nighttime' has also been adjusted to be 8pm-8am, from 9pm-7am.
  - Wondrous Resin's bonus cursed wand effects are now always neutral or positive.
  - Mimic Tooth now boosts loot from all mimics.
  [/expand]
  
• Duelist Buffs [expand]
  The Duelist is doing much better balance-wise since v2.4.0, but there are various specific abilities that are getting boosts this update:
  
  Weapon Abilities:
  - Lunge, Cleave, Spike, Retribution, and Brawler's Stance abilities all now deal more bonus damage
  - Crossbow's Charge Shot ability can now also cause a melee attack to knock back, or an untipped dart attack to deal bonus damage. Tipped dart benefits unchanged.
  
  Talents:
  - Liquid Evasion talent evasion at +1 reduced to 3x from 4x, but the talent now also grants bonus accuracy on the next attack.
  - Lethal Haste talent now grants instant movement, instead of haste.
  - Swift Equip talent's second use at +2 no longer has a 5 turn timer.
  - Deadly Followup talent damage per level up to +10% from +8%.
  - Precise Assault accuracy bonus increased to 2x/5x/inf., up from 2x/4x/8x.
  - Expose Weakness talent now applies weakness as well as vulnerable.
  [/expand]
  
• Monk Buffs [expand]
  v2.4.0's Duelist buffs were mainly focused on weapon abilities, which mainly benefit the Champion, so it makes sense that the Monk has fallen a little behind. I'm giving out several buffs and mechanics changes to boost the Monk back up, which should improve every ability she has, except meditate.
  
  - Removed ability cooldowns entirely, except for flurry which has a 1 turn cooldown
  - Flurry damage increased by 50%
  - Focus now works on magic attack and has infinite duration
  - Dash range increased by 33%
  - Dragon Kick damage doubled
  
  - Unencumbered Spirit energy gain changed to 50%/75%/100% from 40%/80%/120%
  - Combined Energy is now more permissive and reduces charge use by 1, instead of 50%
  [/expand]
  

Nerfs:

• Bomb Identification [expand]
  This is actually an exploit fix, but I'm listing the change here for clarity. Explosions will now avoid destroying any equipment, previously they would destroy un-upgraded equipment only. This led to some players purposefully blowing up un-identified items to see if they were upgraded.
  
  I've been hesitant to change this functionality as I know it lessened inventory congestion, but after taking in feedback during the beta it's become clear to me that some players were relying on it to effectively avoid ever equipping unidentified items. Apologies for letting this persist for so long, I would have removed this exploit much sooner had I known how dependant some players were on it.
  
  I am, however, considering some compensation changes to bombs (to make them more useful for their intended purpose), and to other items to lessen the risk of trying on unidentified gear a bit.
  [/expand]
  
• Grassy Floors [expand]
  The Mossy Clump is still far and away the strongest trinket, despite several nerfs since adding it. At this point it's clear the value of that trinket is more reflective of how powerful grassy floors are, rather than the trinket itself.
  
  So, I'm nerfing the drop-rate of dew from grassy floors by 50%, meaning that they will generate 2x as much dew as a regular floor on average, down from 4x. Seed drops from these floor are unaffected.
  
  This reduces the bonus dew granted by the mossy clump by 67%, which should hopefully bring it more in-line with other trinket. I've also reduced the upgrade cost of the mossy clump to compensate.
  [/expand]
  
• Other Item Nerfs [expand]
  - Whip's Lash Ability bonus damage reduced to 0%, from +20%. Ability still guarantees a hit on every target.
  
  - Ring of Haste bonus speed per level reduced to 17.5% from 20%.
  
  Elixir of Featherfall adjusted:
  - Output quantity reduced to 1 from 2
  - Recipe energy cost reduced to 10 from 16
  - Falling into a chasm now reduces effect duration by 10 turns instead of ending it. Total duration unchanged at 50 turns.
  [/expand]
  

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

• The next major update to Shattered will be v3.0.0, which will add the game's 6th hero: The Cleric!
  
• The Cleric is going to be a divine spellcaster who focuses on defense and utility magic that they access through a unique item! I expect them to contrast best with the mage, who's arcane magic abilities enhance the power of wands. I expect to share more details about the cleric in blog posts when v3.0.0 gets closer to releasing. Like all other heroes, the Cleric will have 2 subclasses, 3 armor abilities, and 26 talents!
  
• v3.0.0 is also likely to feature some visual improvements, potentially including some of what I've teased in the recent 'Ten Years of Shattered Pixel Dungeon' blogpost, plus a few others I've not shared yet. Unfortunately the new art is still in the early stages, and so it's very hard for me to say where things will be when v3.0.0 releases, and what things in particular might be ready.
  
• As always there will be some smaller changes in v3.0.0 as well, including bugfixes and minor balance/mechanics tweaks. Given that v3.0.0 will take a while to make, I'll likely give v2.5.0 some bigger patches that usual, including any needed balance or mechanics tweaks that I don't want to delay into v3.0.0.
  

v2.0.0, which added the duelist, took about 5 months. While obviously I would like the update to release faster than that, I can't make any promises. I do expect to make some posts as development progresses though, so you should hear something from me about progress and design on the Cleric before the end of the year, ideally before December.

Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

In the meantime you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon if you'd like more frequent incremental updates.

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

Hey everyone, after a bit longer of a wait that I initially planned, Shattered Pixel Dungeon v2.5.0 is now ready for beta! In this post I’m going to share some more of the new things coming in this update!



Shattered is also on sale on Steam right now as a part of the No Time To Loot Festival from August 26th to September 2nd! During the sale you can grab Shattered at 40% off, which is a new all-time low price on Steam! There are also a bunch of other great dungeon crawler games on sale as part of the festival.



[h2]New Trinkets![/h2]
[hr][/hr]
v2.5.0 is fairly light on new content, with most of the emphasis being on the things I talked about last time. There are some new trinkets I’m adding though! Trinkets have been designed with lots of room for expansion, and in this update I’m adding four more to bring the total number to 15!

• The Salt Cube is a fairly simple trinket that makes satiety from your food last longer at the cost of reduced HP regen. At +3 your food will last 50% longer, but at the cost of no passive health regen while you’re satiated.
  
• The Vial of Blood is another simpler trinket that enhances the amount of healing from major healing sources at the cost of also slowing it down. You’ll get 50% more healing at +3, but you’ll need to plan around healing much more slowly.
  
• The Chaotic Censer produces puffs of different harmful gas near to you. With good positioning you can stay out of these gasses while kiting enemies into them. Higher levels make the gas effect more frequent and increase the chance of more powerful gasses.
  
• The Shard of Oblivion increases your chance of finding loot from enemies for each unidentified item you’re currently wearing. The trinket also comes with a built-in way to turn off passive identification, making it easy to Minmax which items you want identified or not.
  

[h2]Content Changes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
While those new trinkets are the only direct new gameplay content coming in v2.5.0, there are also a bunch of smaller tweaks and changes that should impact game feel quite a bit:


[h2]Region Splash Art![/h2]
[hr][/hr]
Lastly, while it doesn’t affect gameplay directly, there is one more major change coming in v2.5.0. In Shattered’s 10th anniversary blog post I talked about new in-game pixel art, but I’m also working with Aleksandar Komitov on some new splash arts for Shattered as well! That pixel art is still a long ways out, but some of Alek’s new art is ready to go now!

In v2.5.0 Shattered is getting five new full detail splash arts, one for each of the dungeon’s regions! These arts appear during the game’s loading screens, and will pause to display story text when you first descend to each region.



Much like the hero splashes, I think these region splashes go a long way toward enhancing Shattered's presentation, and help fill in some of the more subtle visual details that aren't present in the lower-res pixel art within the game. There are also lots of lovely new larger details in each art, some of which I'd love to better represent in the game itself at some point.

You can see the sewers art above, and the metropolis art below, to see the rest you'll have to play through the regions in the game ;).



Mobile portrait users will get to see vertical slices of these arts during loading screens, instead of seeing them all at once, but I am going to experiment with adding a panning effect when story text is displayed. You can also minimize the story text to view the region splash arts on their own.

[hr][/hr]
I expect the beta for v2.5.0 to last a little longer than a week, as I've got to get a couple more trinkets functioning in it before release. If you'd like to keep up to date on that progress, or get more updates in general, you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon. Folks who's been following those have been getting little bite-sized trinket teaser for almost the last two months now.

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community.

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

On this day, 10 years ago, I released Shattered Pixel Dungeon v0.1.0. This tiny initial release was my first serious attempt at gamedev and was distributed to maybe 50 people on the Pixel Dungeon subreddit.



Fast forward 10 years and Shattered is my full-time job, with roughly 5 million combined downloads and roughly 150 thousand combined sales over several platforms. Even after all these years, more new people are discovering Shattered now than ever before, and the updates I make are getting bigger and better.

Join me for a quick walk down memory lane, and for a preview of something very exciting that's yet to come...

[h2]Ten Years Of Updates Visualized[/h2]
[hr][/hr]


In the last ten years Shattered has received 11 major updates, 36 minor updates, 124 patches, and hundreds more beta releases and internal revisions. I've already done a lot of writing about the gameplay content of these updates, so instead I'm going to go over some of the biggest visual changes that Shattered has had over the years!

(If you’re only interested in what’s new, feel free to skip down to the next section)

[h3]Music[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3][/h3]

Firstly, before we get into the visuals, here’s some music to listen to. Shattered received new remastered music in v1.0.0 by Kristjan Haaristo, replacing the original tracks from Pixel Dungeon. While the replacements where a stylistic change, they are much grander, higher fidelity, and have been expanded on since v1.0.0 as well.

The main menu theme is above, and the in-game theme is below, old on left and new on right.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3][/h3]

[h3]Game Icon[/h3]

Shattered’s icon went through some early iterations before settling on the current gold and green chest design, and refining it from there.

The chest icon was always iconic to Pixel Dungeon, so staying in that theme was an obvious choice. The vast majority of Pixel Dungeon versions use a chest with changed colors, and I like to think I started that trend.

[h3]Title Screen[/h3]

The title screen starts with a simple torch recolor, and then porting the glowing effect added in Pixel Dungeon v1.7.5.

Keeping the unchanged ‘Pixel Dungeon’ title for so long seems silly in retrospect, but back in the early days Shattered wasn’t really considered to be its own distinct game.


Over time I did add a proper unique title graphic though, and eventually overhauled the buttons as well.

Shattered’s original main menu just needed four big buttons, but as I’ve added more and more functionality to the game it became necessary to redesign and expand the main menu. Every screen that the main menu goes into has been substantially changed or totally overhauled as well.

[h3]Hero Select[/h3]

The first and second hero select UI were unchanged from the original Pixel Dungeon (v1.7.1 and v1.7.5). Eventually I moved the UI into a window and tried to add better hero info, but then redesigned the entire UI again when adding hero splash arts! Shortly after releasing on Steam I also made an expanded verison of this UI for desktop users:


The story here is all about the splash arts, done by Aleksandar Komitov. I always wanted to include more fully detailed images of the heroes, like you might find in the title screen of a classic computer game. The splashes have been important both for those hero details and for Shattered’s visual identity, I try to use them in promotional material whenever I can.

[h3]In-Game Visuals[/h3]

The game screen started out with simple changes, first with additions from Pixel Dungeon v1.7.2, and then a design change that swapped one of the toolbar buttons for four quickslots total.

Moving up to four quickslots was a direct response to Shattered’s growing complexity. With new usable items (most notably artifacts) and big improvements to existing items, players really needed quick access to more items at once.


Later on there were more small improvements and additions to the UI, plus one big change to the environment visuals in v0.5.0. Desktop users also got a big interface change in v1.2.0 with a dedicated large-screen UI (pictured below). Mobile users got a quickslot swapper in v1.3.0, an attempt to get them up to 6 slots to match with desktop users.


The largest change to overall game visuals was easily v0.5.0. Changing the game’s walls to be raised instead of flat was a big visual adjustment that a lot of people felt unsure about at the time, but now can’t do without.

The shape of the levels themselves was also totally overhauled in v0.6.0. If you’re curious about the v0.6.0 changes you can read these two blog posts, which were actually the first long-form blog posts I ever made! part 1, part 2.

If you’re interested in more details on Shattered’s history in general, consider reading more of the posts here or check out the in-game changelog. If you want to go even deeper, you could take a look at my archive of old Shattered releases, or old Pixel Dungeon releases (Android only). These archives go all the way back to the first version of both games!

For now though, let’s move on to what’s to come…

[h2]New Graphics![/h2]
[hr][/hr]
Looking back on how the game has changed visually, you might notice one detail that’s pretty absent: the actual direct game visuals themselves! Most in-game visuals from Pixel Dungeon are unchanged by all the updates over the last ten years, with the notable exception of v0.5.0.

That might be changing soon though… I’ve been working with artists and gathering feedback behind the scenes, and I'm finally ready to announce some very exciting visual improvements I have planned for the game! These changes are focused around improving the in-game pixel art while staying true to the game’s existing style. This is a big undertaking, and today I’ve got lots of early WIP art to show off!

(You can click/tap on any of the following images to see a zoomed in version. Many of these images compare the existing visuals to new ones, the old version is always either above or to the left.)

[h3]Items[/h3]

Most of the game’s T2-T5 melee weapons are shown above along with a sampling of thrown weapons. The emphasis here is to try and keep the item’s sihouette similar while improving the shading to add details or better convey shape. You’ll see that approach a lot in the various art samples here.


Various other items are shown above with similar improvements. Some changes are very mild, while others deviate a bit more from the original design. We’re generally more willing to play with an item’s silhouette when it feels like a justifiable improvement.

[h3]Terrain[/h3]

While v0.5.0 did give the game a new 2.5D art style, it largely just remixed the existing wall visuals, rather than using new ones. Shown above is a first attempt at adjusting the wall visuals with new texturing and bolder outlines to better take advantage of the 2.5D style.


Above is a bigger shot, showing an entire sewer level with improved walls and other potential additions. The game currently re-uses generic terrain visuals quite frequently, which leaves a lot of room for detail improvements.

[h3]Characters[/h3]

Here are a few prospective enemy improvements, ranging from very mild shading additions to pretty expansive adjustments. Many of the game’s character designs are quite iconic, so it’s important to try and preserve that where possible, while also improving detail, shading. and shape.


Of course characters have animations, so here are a few examples demonstrating those as well! A lot of the game’s existing animations are pretty stiff or minimal, so there is a LOT of oppourtunity for added detail and flair here.


Not all characters are enemies though, the heroes could do with some improvements as well! The hero sprites are probably the most iconic in-game visuals, so getting this right is really important. The potential payoff is creating in-game visuals that more closely match with the splash arts, and better convey each character within the game world.

…And lastly, we’re also considering making more dramatic changes to enemy designs in a few specific cases…

Please keep in mind that all of this is WIP and I am actively looking for feedback, please let me know what you think! Obviously it's impossible to make everyone happy, but taking in and responding to feedback is the best way to ensure the new art is as good as it can be. There's still a lot of work to be done before any of this appears in-game, and none of the art shown here is final.

[hr][/hr]

Thanks so much for reading, and for playing! The enthusiasm from Shattered Pixel Dungeon’s players is the reason why it’s been able to grow so much over the last decade. Thank you so much, whether you’ve been around since the original Pixel Dungeon or just started playing today.

I’ve not got any firm times for when the art shown here will appear in-game, but expect to hear more about it in the future as development on Shattered continues. As for v2.5.0, Shattered’s next regular update, I’m still hoping to get another blog post and beta out in about 2 weeks. As always, if you’d like smaller incremental updates about Shattered’s development you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon!

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

Hey Adventurers, July is coming to an end and I owe you guys an update!

Unfortunately, I’m going to miss my earlier estimate of a beta during July. This is mainly due to v2.5.0 becoming a much bigger update than I originally planned. I’m now anticipating v2.5.0 will be ready for beta around the second full week of August. In the meantime though, let’s go over some of the new stuff that’s coming soon!

I was originally planning to make some targeted interface improvements to the journal in v2.5.0, but that slowly ballooned into almost totally overhauling it! In this blog post I’m going to mostly focus on those journal changes and other UI improvements, but there are some gameplay changes coming too, which I’ll cover in another blog post when the beta releases.

[h2]Adventuring Notes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
The first major journal change comes to the adventuring notes section, which is currently laid out in a list view and records points of interest within the dungeon like unused keys and landmarks. The list layout and samey visuals end up making this UI pretty cumbersome though, and so it goes mostly unused.



To remedy this, I’ve redone this UI with a more grid-based layout. This new UI is more compact and visual, which should make it much easier to see what important things are where at a glance. Individual grid items can also be selected to view a more detailed description. Thanks to the more compact UI, there’s also room to add some new landmark types, such as for special floors.



You might also notice that little ‘+’ icon on the top right, which leads into another new thing this UI supports. After years of requests, Shattered Pixel Dungeon is finally going to support user-enterable, custom notes!



In v2.5.0 it will be possible to record custom notes and attached them to items or dungeon floors. These notes can contain whatever text you like, and even appear in the descriptions of items they are linked to. This will not only help people keep track of information between play sessions, but also lets players note down suspected properties of items they haven’t identified yet.

[h2]Catalogs[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
The catalogs are another part of the journal UI that’s badly in need of a more compact design. The current list UI contains every identifiable item in the game (about 100), and is full to bursting with 7 tabs and support for only about 9 items visible at once.



Just like with adventuring notes, I’ve moved catalogs to a new grid-based UI and expanded them massively. With the grid UI it’s possible to put many more items into the catalogs, and so I’ve expanded them from ~100 items total to instead include almost every item in the game!



But why stop there? An in-game bestiary has been another common request, and so I decided to fullfill that demand too. The catalogs UI now also includes almost every character in the game, plus traps, plants, and lore documents in the final tab.



In total there are now just shy of 500 things in the catalog for players to discover! To go along with all these new things, I’ve also redesigned the badges that tie into the catalogs. There are 9 badges in total, 5 which are based on reaching certain thresholds of filled catalog entries, and 4 which are based on more specific criteria. The catalogs now also track a few statistics, such as how often an enemy has been killed, how often a consumable has been used, and how often and equipment item has been upgraded.

[h2]Other Journal Changes[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
While those two interface overhauls are the biggest journal changes this update, there are a few important smaller ones as well:

Badges are now viewable in-game using the journal UI. You can look at badges that you’ve earned this run, or badges overall. Previously it wasn’t actually possible to see a run’s unlocked badges until after it was completed.



The alchemy guide can now be directly viewed in the alchemy scene if you’re playing on a large enough screen! This makes alchemy much more conveient in a similar way to how desktop users already enjoy an inventory pane in the main UI.



And lastly, the ‘badges’ button in the main UI has been replaced with a ‘journal’ button that lets you view badges, catalogs, and guidebooks from the main menu!



[h2]A New UI for Upgrade Scrolls[/h2]
[hr][/hr]
Also, while it’s not a journal change, one last significant UI adjustment coming to v2.5.0 concerns scrolls of upgrade.

Smart scroll of upgrade use is an extremely important part of effective game strategy, but despite that the game currently doesn’t do anything to actually show you how upgrades affect any particular item. In fact the only way to know how an item will respond to upgrading currently is to actually spend a scroll on it. I’m changing that in v2.5.0 by adding a new UI that summarizes how upgrading an item will affect it before the scroll of upgrade is actually used up!



I hope that this will really help improve clarity on upgrading mechanics, especially for less experienced players. The window shows almost every stat in the game that scales with upgrades, properly handles cases like unidentified items, and even shows extra information such as curse or enchant removal chance!



If you’re an experienced player and worry that this seems cumbersome, you might be happy to know that if you have multiple scrolls the window will automatically re-show itself after each upgrade, making dumping multiple upgrades into an item actually faster than before.

[hr][/hr]

While all of these changes don’t directly affect gameplay, almost all of them are very long-standing things I’ve wanted to get done. While v2.5.0 isn’t addressing every UI/UX ‘to-do’ (in particular I still want to improve controller support) it’s definitely shrinking that list quite a bit. While it’s meant the update is coming a little later, this is a lot better than my original plan of just doing one or two things.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m now expecting v2.5.0 to hit beta around early to mid August. Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

In the meantime you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon if you’d like more frequent incremental updates.