Shattered Pixel Dungeon News

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



Shattered is also 33% off on Steam right now, both to celebrate the release of v2.2.0 and as a part of the sale for Roguelike Celebration 2023!

This update also roughly doubles the length of Shattered's soundtrack! You can get the soundtrack on Steam Here.

[h2]What’s new in v2.2.0[/h2]
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v2.2.0 includes a brand new quest in the caves, almost 20 minutes of new music, and substantial improvements to the prison and sewers quests! there's also the usual bunch of big and small tweaks and bugfixes.

I talked about this update in three previous blog posts:

• Coming Soon to Shattered: The Crystal Caves Quest!
• Coming Soon to Shattered: A New Quest! …Eventually
• Coming Soon to Shattered: Sub-Floors and Digging!

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.

• v2.2.0 releases 138 days after v2.1.0.
  
• An entirely new quest in the caves, with a new environment, enemies, boss, and rewards!
  
• ~20 minutes of new music from the game's composer: Kristjan Thomas Haaristo!
  
• Extensive changes to all 3 prison quest variants
  

• Rebalanced the hostile champions challenge
  
• Redesigned T2 talents that trigger on potion and scroll usage
  
• 15+ misc. changes
  
• 35+ bugfixes
  

• Various weapon ability buffs, most notably to the sneak ability
  

• Mild nerfs to the katana, and to sacrificial and corrosion curses
  
• Reduced ascension enemy power scaling in caves and prison
  

[h2]What's Coming Next?[/h2]
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• The next update will be v2.3.0, and will add two new variants to the new caves quest!
  
• The first of the upcoming caves quest variants is an unstable gnoll encampment. The gnolls have taken to trying to mine out some gold themselves, but are preferring to use earth-moving magic with little care for cave stability. Expect a lot of closed in walls and fallen rocks, as well as gnolls that'll be able to use those rocks against you.
  
• The second upcoming variant is a mushroom forest. A large mycellium network has grown in this area, creating lots of hostile plant life. The abundance of tall vegetation isn't just pretty tough, you'll want to use it (or the cave walls themselves) to keep out of sight from the powerful, yet stationary, mushroom sentries.
  
• I also expect v2.3.0 will include followup changes to the initial new quest variant, as well as the usual assortment of other smaller improvements, fixes, and additions. I'd like for v2.3.0 to be fairly quick, so the other changes will probably be lighter than usual.
  

The new caves quest ended up taking quite a lot longer than intended, so I'm a bit hesitant to commit to an ETA for v2.3.0 currently. I should hopefully be able to announce something later in November or early 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 Dungeoneers!

I've got some more news to share about v2.2.0. I have decided to split the release of the new caves quest into two updates.

v2.2.0 is now going to include just one variant for the new quest: The crystal caves. The following update, v2.3.0, will include the other two quest variants. While this does mean a slight delay in getting all of the quest variants to you, it also means that v2.2.0 can release much sooner, in about a week in fact!


[h2]Why the Change?[/h2]
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It's now been a bit more than 4 months since v2.1.0 was released. At the current pace of development, the full caves quest will need another month of development at least, which would put its release around mid November at the earliest.

Those of you who've been reading these posts for a while might remember that I've consistently been disappointment at how long it can take to make large updates, and I've often regretted not splitting them up where possible. Here's a little chart illustrating that, with two updates I wish I had split up, and one significantly larger update that I actually did split up:


With 3 quest variants that each have unique enemies, bosses, and terrain, it is really starting to feel like v2.2.0 is another good candidate for being split. So, I'm going to take my own advice and split the new caves quest into two updates. This way everyone can enjoy the first variant very soon, I can work on the next two variants under a bit less time pressure, and I can get a wider breadth of feedback on the new quest sooner.

v2.2.0 also includes a bunch of other content in addition to the new quest, which I'm eager for players to get their hands on. You can read more about that in the previous blog post Here.

So what's the quest variant that's actually coming in v2.2.0 then?

[h2]The Crystal Caverns[/h2]
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Note that most of the visuals here are still WIP. I plan to improve them before releasing v2.2.0.

As I've mentioned before, the new caves quest tasks you with exploring a new sub-level, mining out gold ore, evading hazards, and defeating a boss. Unlike the rest of the dungeon, the player can dig through walls, which creates a bunch of interesting gameplay opportunities. Each quest variant has its own terrain, enemies, and boss. The first of these variants, and the one releasing in v2.2.0, focuses on Crystals.









[h2]The Other Variants[/h2]
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As mentioned, v2.2.0 won't include the other two planned quest variants, so I'll talk a bit more about them later, but here's some early information to give you a general idea:


The second variant is an unstable gnoll encampment. The gnolls have taken to trying to mine out some gold themselves, but are preferring to use earth-moving magic with little care for cave stability. Expect a lot of closed in walls and fallen rocks, as well as gnolls that'll be able to use those rocks against you.


The third variant is a mushroom forest. A large mycellium network has grown in this area, creating lots of hostile plant life. The abundance of tall vegetation isn't just pretty tough, you'll want to use it (or the cave walls themselves) to keep out of sight from the powerful, yet stationary, mushroom sentries.

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If all goes well then v2.2.0 should release in about another week. I'll give an estimate for v2.3.0 then. As a reminder, I am not longer posting to Twitter, Reddit, or Facebook. If you'd like some more incremental updates about what I'm working on, you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon.

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)

Hey Dungeoneers!

I've got some news to share about v2.2.0. The new caves quest isn't ready to show off yet, so in the meantime I am releasing the other content in v2.2.0 as an early beta!



[h2]Caves Quest When?[/h2]
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So, as mentioned above, the new caves quest isn't currently in the beta. This is due to a mixture of development taking longer than expected, and honestly August just ending up being a very busy month for me for a variety of personal reasons. This has put development significantly behind the ETA I previously gave of 'beta sometime in late July or August'.

Although the new quest isn't playable yet, I have made a lot of incremental progress since the last blog post.



Firstly, I've made some big improvements to the generation of the mining level since v2.1.3's tester area, as you can see above (old on left, new on right). Levels are now more random seeming, but are actually more consistent under the hood. As an example, while some rooms are still secret, they are now guaranteed to be adjacent to regular rooms. Gold is also now generated in more consistent patterns, creating larger chunks overall, and guaranteeing that the overall quantity of gold falls within a specific range.

There is still work to do though. Gold tends to cluster a bit too much currently, and I worry that these levels are currently a bit on the large side. They also seem pretty empty, mostly because of all the content that isn't quite done yet, including three different sets of hazards to place within these levels.



While I'd like to keep the specifics a bit close to my chest for now, I've pretty solidly worked out three variants for the quest. Each variant will come with its own hazards, enemies, and boss encounter. You'll be tasked with mining though a cave filled with **ancient and fragile crystals**, **thick vegetation and aggressive fungi**, or **cave-ins and magic-wielding gnolls**.

I'll talk more about the new quest in another blog post, once it's closer to releasing. I'm afraid I'm not totally sure when that will be just yet.

[h2]So What IS in the Beta?[/h2]
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The new quest is still going to come out with v2.2.0 when it fully releases, but v2.2.0 also includes a bunch of other smaller additions. I decided that it would be best to get a beta out now with all of the other content in v2.2.0, rather than just sitting on it while I finish v2.2.0's headline content.













[h2]Social Media Changes[/h2]
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Firstly, I have decided to end my use of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook as platforms to share news about Shattered Pixel Dungeon. This is both due to decisions these platforms have made recently, and also just being fed up with corporate, centralized, profit-driven social media in general.

I'll continue to post updates about my projects on Patreon, Mastodon, here on the Steam Community, and will now also be posting on the Pixel Dungeon community over at Lemmy! I owe Shattered's early success to the Pixel Dungeon subreddit community, and so I really hope its move to Lemmy works out.

Lastly, I understand that not everyone wants to make another new account on another new website, so I'm also starting a Shattered Pixel Newsletter! You can subscribe to get emails about new blog posts, and optionally also get more frequent emails with smaller incremental updates.

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I expect that I'll be fixing a few beta bugs over the next couple of days, and a little while after that I hope to finally get work finished on the caves quest. If you'd like smaller updates leading up to that, consider following me on Mastodon, or subscribing to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter. The beta itself should also get updated pretty quickly after the quest's content is ready.

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

Hey Dungeoneers, here is likely the final patch for v2.1 before moving on to full work on v2.2.

v2.1.4 includes a few smaller bugfixes and misc. changes, mainly focused on the new functionality added in v2.1.3.

Here's a quick rundown of the most significant changes:

• The stairs down to the blacksmith tester area now use custom visuals
  
• The mining test area now has darkened walls at the non-mineable borders
  
• Fixed various rare bugs caused by the new tester area functionality
  
• Made the new boss regen limit vs. Tengu a bit less strict when badder bosses is enabled.
  
• Adjusted the new gold visuals to only appear in the mining test area for now.
  

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

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

Hey Dungeoneers!

In this blog post I'm going to go over some of the new technical additions to Shattered in v2.1.3, and how they're going to allow for future content. In particular, I plan to use these additions in a reworked blacksmith quest in the next major update!

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is also 25% off right now, as part of the Steam Summer Sale!

[h2]Sub-Floors and Mining[/h2]
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Firstly, this new quest will not take place in a regular floor of the dungeon, but instead will appear in a brand new special sub-floor that will exist purely for the quest!

Currently, Shattered uses a numerical value called 'depth' to keep track of where the player is in the overall dungeon. You can think of this as all of the levels existing in a 1-dimensional line, where the depth value determines how far along the line we are.



To allow for sub-floors I've added a second number called 'branch', which effectively turns the 1-d line into a 2-d grid. When you descend to the blacksmith's quest area, depth won't change, but branch will go up by 1. Returning from the quest area sets branch back to its default of 0.



This change also includes code that lets levels have multiple entrances and exists that go to different locations! A lot of the code to support this has actually been in the game since v1.4, but I've added some more code recently in v2.1 patches so that sub-floors can actually exist. Here's a little gif showing off how this all works in practice:



In that sub-floor the player will be tasked with mining though walls in search of rare ores for the blacksmith. Mining itself was actually fairly easy to implement, as Shattered's systems for managing terrain changes are already pretty robust. A few bits of new logic in a few spots and everything was working! To mine the player simply moves to a wall tile and their character will get to work, assuming that they have a pickaxe and are in the quest area, of course.



You can test these new mechanics out right now in v2.1.3! This initial implementation is a simple empty tester floor that just exists to let players try this out. There aren't any special mechanics around mining yet, and being in the tester area pauses hunger/regen effects.

[h2]Making a Quest[/h2]
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These new mechanics are neat on their own, but what matters far more is how they're going to work in a completed quest!

In my initial concepting for this, back around v1.3, I wanted the quest to play a bit like a minigame, where Shattered's main gameplay was set aside in favor of something that felt very different. In such a design the player would be expected to mine through a level that's mostly filled with walls, somewhat like a game of Motherload or Dome Keeper.

I had trouble 'finding the fun' with this design though, which is why the quest rework ended up getting delayed so much. It kept feeling like I needed to add more complexity to make these new mechanics interesting. This made the quest design become extremely large and cumbersome. Eventually I realized that my minigame approach wasn't working. Trying to put an entire extra game within a regular run of Shattered was just far too much.

I went back to the drawing board and instead tried to design the quest's mechanics to complement existing gameplay interactions, rather than replace them. This would mean that the quest would play more like regular Shattered with some extra spice added in from the mining mechanic. Here are a few examples of how that might work:

• A passageway blocked by traps or other hazards is a big annoyance in regular Shattered, but during the quest it would be possible to mine around them.
  
• A level usually has to be pretty structured and interconnected, but with mining these levels could be much more free-form, possibly including rooms that are totally isolated.
  
• Large enemies normally can't chase you into a hallway, but in a more free-form level the mining mechanic could be what controls which areas of the level they can access.
  
• If the player can see some parts of the level before they mine to them, they would be able to choose how the level becomes interconnected and traversible.
  
• Of course, the player's ultimate goal is going to be to mine for gold, so the way that resource is placed in a level will influence how the player wants to dig to reach it.
  

These are some examples of how regular Shattered gameplay could be augmented a bit by the new quest's mechanics. I don't have the specifics of this pinned down just yet though, as I've mostly been busy with the technical implementation. There's quite a lot of work to be done on specific hazards and environments that would make use of the mining mechanic.

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I'm going to get to work on designing and implementing the environments of the quest itself. **If all goes well you should hear from me about it in late July or 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!

If you'd like some incremental updates on this leading up to the next blog post, consider following me on Mastodon or Twitter!