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Shattered Pixel Dungeon is an open-source traditional roguelike dungeon crawler

747 points by notamy 3y ago

Borealid 3y ago
I'm not really sure what this is doing on Hacker News, but the game (Shattered Pixel Dungeon) is fun. One of the nicest features is that whenever you observe an effect that unambiguously tells you what a potion/scroll does - such as throwing a potion - that type of object is automatically identified for you. In more "traditional" hack games you'd have to write notes yourself even though obviously a thrown potion exploding into fire means it's a potion of liquid fire, right? Shattered Pixel is a good way to kill some time on public transit or similar.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
  Nethack identifies objects once you've observed their effect as well
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - schoen 3y ago
    Some, but not all. For example, "Call a white potion:" or "Call a scroll labeled VE FORBRYDERNE:" prompts. These often appear after observing an effect where an experienced player or one consulting spoilers knows what the potion or scroll must be, but the game didn't auto-ID it.
  - Pwntheon 3y ago
    Only in the most obvious of cases. Your cat reluctantly steps on an item? Cursed. Grey stone moved less than X tiles when kicked? Loadstone. Hundreds of these.
- notamy 3y ago
  > I'm not really sure what this is doing on Hacker News Incredibly fun game, open source, and in a genre that likely fits well into many HN users' interests. I rediscovered it recently and remembered it was open source, so why not submit it?
  - DrSiemer 3y ago
    The title should include a [year], to save people like me from needing to check if anything significant changed in the game that made me miss half of a trip to Thailand in 2014.
    - 12345hn6789 3y ago
      The game has regular updates, so sort of.
  - mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
    Thanks for submitting it, I have never heard of it. Maybe because I exist in the iOS "walled garden" and generally game on console only. Do you know what game engine its based on? Or is it a custom thing?
    - bru 3y ago
      Custom AFAIK. There's an iOS version: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shattered-pixel-dungeon/id1563121109 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shattered-pixel-dungeon/id1563...
    - severine 3y ago
      See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39775664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39775664
  - SkyBelow 3y ago
    I think the open source part is the main justification. Getting kids into tech and programming seems a HN sort of article, and an open source game is one way of doing it. Much more advanced than the entry level things like Scratch Jr. and not nearly as wide spread an audience, but a great step around the high school level for the few who wants to get deeper without committing to some formal education.
- klik99 3y ago
  I saw this post and immediately thought “there’s probably a lot of potential trad roguelike fans on hacker news”, for one thing it’s probably the genre with highest percentage of fans are devs or have dabbled into game dev. SPD is a good gateway to brogue, DCSS, cogmind, qud, etc
  - aireo 3y ago
    I’ve already mentioned Cogmind, but Brogue is a beautiful game with tight gameplay. Another great recommendation.
    - IggleSniggle 3y ago
      It's not a roguelike really, but Brogue was my gateway to CDDA (Catalysm: Dark Days Ahead). Not sure if I've lost more of my life to one of those or to Slay the Spire. I don't regret it one bit. Been meaning to get into Cogmind (which seems even more aesthetically appealing than Brogue) and Caves of Qud, but I have children now, and must wait until they are of age before re-engaging with such things.
      - aireo 3y ago
        Brogue was my introduction to the genre. I also tried Golden Krone Hotel, a beginner-friendly title (and the first one I beat)! I played CoQ for a while, too, but there's something about Cogmind that clicked with me. I'm not very good at it, but it's a _total_ blast. And I agree with you -- it is, imo, the most beautiful roguelike that I've seen or played. And it's got hundreds of unique sound effects, too, which makes a huge difference. I've thought about CDDA, but honestly, the amount of material there is intimidating. But it looks very cool. These games are indeed dangerous! I don't have kids, but I'm still in school, so I have to be careful. When you have some time, definitely give Cogmind a try. Hope you enjoy it!
        klik99 3y ago
        You probably know all this, but for others: Cogmind is a lot of really thought out small touches that sum up to an engaging experience despite at first glance looking like any other roguelike. It's got great animations/explosions and an intuitive UI. The developer is the main mod of r/roguelikedev, has been running a great blog for years where he dives deep into aspects of roguelike dev (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/ https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/), and is also just a wonderful human who genuinely loves supporting the community and playing roguelike games.
- II2II 3y ago
  The fun part is trying to identify certain items before actually using them. (The guesses won't always be perfect, but you can greatly improve your odds.)
- jasonjmcghee 3y ago
  Game dev is historically pretty popular on hn.
- uaserussia 3y ago
  Skyrim had that mechanic. You could eat ingredients for potions and if you had a duplicate it would tell you the effects, and the next time you found the ingredient again you would know what it was.
  - zelphirkalt 3y ago
    Good that they also have potions, so that no poison in the world is strong enough to kill you in Skyrim (or is there one?)
    - wishfish 3y ago
      There is one raw ingredient in Skyrim which will kill the player. But it can't be found in the wild. It's given to you for a Dark Brotherhood quest. But you don't have to use it in the quest. Can keep it for later use.
- mminer237 3y ago
  Don't Nethack and DCSS do that as well?
  - schoen 3y ago
    DCSS does; NetHack sometimes does but there are very many cases in which you observe some effect and are then asked "Call a milky potion:" or "Call a scroll labeled ANDOVA BEGARIN:".
- mock-possum 3y ago
  I can also recommend POWDER as a solid not-many-frills classic roguelite.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  It would be nice if you could manually identity items though; sometimes the context you get a potion from tells you what the potion is but you have to remember that until you use it. Using the stones of intuition for this kind of seems wasteful.
- axus 3y ago
  It's reminding me I need to rebuild my very-slightly-modified version to keep my Google Play developer account active! Shattered Pixel encourages variants and branches, though sometimes Google tries to block the blatant clones that want to publish on Google Play, even though the license and developers want that outcome. On the other thread of "brutally punishing", there is the "Too Cruel" variant of an earlier version of Shattered for those of us who need more difficulty. PD is more like a long game of chess than a dungeon crawler.
whalabi 3y ago
I was aware of Pixel dungeon but didn't realize it was available on PC, Mac, and iOS. Particularly impressed that it builds for iOS when written in Java - turns out the game is built on libgdx which builds for all these platforms. Also, it's fun if you like roguelikes.
JoshTriplett 3y ago
Highly recommended. It's a fork of the original Pixel Dungeon, and quite a bit more fun than the original.
KirinDave 3y ago
If you like these kinds of games but find SPD to be a little too mechanically simple and lacking in build diversity, you may also enjoy DCSS (dungeon crawl stone soup) and my personal favorite: Frogcomposband. You can play the later at angband.live, and it's an exceptional game with incredible depth and variety.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  And BTW, if I can figure out how to do Eclipse CDT and get the source code running in an IDE, so that I can do LOTS of fun things with class skills, you can to! Because the last time I did C/C++ was 1998. Also, Remnants of the Precursors (java) you can do some fun things. I got "doomstars" half-implemented, a race skill that marks planets with resources or artifacts (archaeology bonus), and lots of other fun things. I really like open source games, half the fun is hacking them. I have yet to download nethack from the net and hack it though.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
  I agree about SPD. While it's great for a mobile game and looks gorgeous, I find the gameplay somewhat shallow for a roguelike. If I have a monitor and keyboard at hand, I prefer to play the likes of ADOM (classic version, not Ultimate), Brogue, Legerdemain, Sil, DCSS, etc. which offer more depth, strategic complexity and meaningful choices, IMHO. Haven't tried the frog one, will do at some point.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  There was a Nintendo DS port of Stone Soup that I really loved. Had some great times provoking monsters into fighting each other while I hid in the shadows.
bilekas 3y ago
This is cool, I love a good roguelike especially on my phone for flights and other time sinks. I am curious though, why is the iOS version €4.99 but the Android version is free ? I've seen this a lot actually and have always wondered, I figured it might just be Apple's annual developer license fee but not sure.
- sphars 3y ago
  Yep that's exactly the reason, plus not wanting to compete with Pixel Dungeon. The developer talked about it when first announcing it was coming to iOS > Shattered Pixel Dungeon will cost $5 US when it fully releases on the App Store. I’m charging because of a mix of Apple’s higher platform fees, not wanting to undercut Pixel Dungeon, and because Shattered is releasing in a much more finished state. https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shattered-pixel-dungeon-is-coming-to-ios.html https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shattered-pixel-dungeon-is-c...
- chongli 3y ago
  I’m on iOS and I paid for it without hesitation. Evan deserves it, just read his blog for the game [1] to see how much he puts into it! [1] https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/ https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/
- awelxtr 3y ago
  I guess it is the same reason Anki isn't free either on iOS: you must pay Apple's dev account whether you make a profit or not
- grodriguez100 3y ago
  And also because historically iPhone users have been more inclined to pay for apps than Android users.
  - truth5656774 3y ago
    Can’t shake the thought that this is mostly caused by Apple not allowing easy side installs. Android making it easy to just install a custom app but not on iOS so basically the developer is (ab)using to let iOS users pony up install money.
Townley 3y ago
Excellent game, I lost an embarrassing amount of time last year getting all of the badges. The mobile versions are great because they’re ad-free, and work without internet access when on airplanes. And since it’s turn-based, it’s very interruption-friendly. The Reddit community is also a lot of fun: equal mix of strategy and memes.
- boothby 3y ago
  All of them? I gave up on that goal partway through the pandemic; I spent about a year's worth of occasional games without seeing Tengu and eventually accepted that I wasn't interested enough to get that 6-challenge badge. Strategy on Reddit, you say? Perhaps that could help. But, perhaps it's better if I don't spelunk that particular rabbithole.
  - Townley 3y ago
    For the last badge, it wasn't masterful strategy: I played until I got lucky with an overpowered Ring of Wealth run, and farmed the dwarven floors for like 3 days before breezing through the demon halls and ascending. That one and only six challenge run landed with 1,050,700 points, which was just enough to get the final "Over 1 million points" badge. That was the last round I played, almost a year ago. I consider myself free from the game now, but look back on it fondly :)
PlunderBunny 3y ago
I love roguelike games (still miss you 100 Rogues), and I played Shattered Pixel Dungeon 77 times before finally winning with a Rogue class. Once I'd done that, I never had the urge to play it again.
rjmill 3y ago
Well, there goes the rest of the week. I don't install games on my phone, but I always give SPD a pass because open source. The first time I installed it, I almost lost an internship because I was too focused on the game. The most recent time I installed it, my wife thought I was cheating on her because I was acting so shady and obsessive about my phone. Don't say I didn't warn y'all.
- Quiark 3y ago
  If you only play open source mobile games and are afraid of wasting your time, make sure you avoid the factory tower defense game Mindustry which presents itself at https://mindustrygame.github.io/ https://mindustrygame.github.io/
  - _kwef 3y ago
    Was on my way to suggest this game to avoid, which is also available for free on desktop.
    - rizky05 3y ago
      Man, anyone will do what you are suggesting to avoid! we will bear the sin together.
  - rjmill 3y ago
    Oh no, it's on f-droid, my hands are tied! I'll have to ahem contribute my free time to this important open source library.
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    Honestly though, Mindustry is so much better with keyboard/mouse controls. It's a shockingly good mobile factory/automation type game, but I'd just rather play it on PC. (Or Mac, which runs it fine)
    - IggleSniggle 3y ago
      Sure, but it's much harder to hide your laptop screen under the covers at 2am, back to spouse, shielding the light, keeping your secret safe. Plus, a screen tap is much quieter than a laptop k/m. ...What? Nobody else is doing this?
johnsillings 3y ago
This looks sick. Can't wait to try!
codetrotter 3y ago
So after reading the positive comments here I went ahead and bought a copy for iPhone in the App Store. I was hoping that it supports controllers, as i recently bought a pretty neat controller that you plug the phone into the middle of, and you get buttons and thumb sticks on each side of the screen. Kind of similar to the joycons you have with a Nintendo Switch. This controller is PlayStation branded, but produced by a different company that has licensed the right to brand the controller that way. Anyway, I am happy to report that yes indeed this game works with my controller. Left thumb stick moves the character around, and right thumb sticks moves a sort of aiming square around! Edit: the pointer sensitivity was a bit high for me, but it is adjustable in the game settings and after adjusting it it is comfortable
- nihilist_t21 3y ago
  Backbone One? I recently got the non-PlayStation branded one for my iPhone and I love it. I had been wanting one for a while, and finally jumped when they released the Gen 2 version with swappable mounts to support cases. It’s been fantastic for playing SNES games on mobile. I can’t recommend it enough. Only downside would be the included app is hot trash. Always tries to sell you some subscription. Luckily, I haven’t found the need to ever use the app.
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    Yep, Backbone One. I was waiting a bit too, because it’s not exactly cheap. Eventually I found one that was brand new that someone was selling second hand because they had bought the wrong version. They had the latest iPhone which has a USB-C port, but they had bought the Backbone One with lightning connector. I have a slightly older model. The iPhone 14 Pro. So mine has lightning connector. He got most of his money back that way, and I got a discount compared to buying one in the store. Everybody wins :) Anyway yeah, I’ve been enjoying mine too. I’ve mostly been using it with Nvidia Now or what it’s called. Via the Backbone app. This way I can play some of the games I have in my Steam account on a computer in the cloud using my phone and my Backbone One. I only play at home on WiFi, and I’m on the free plan so I have to wait in a queue and each play session lasts 1 hour and then I have to start a new session. Been re-playing one of the modern Tomb Raider games this way and have been quite enjoying it so far.
demondemidi 3y ago
Ohhhh this is perfect. I hit the wall with BG3 because it got mind numbing by the end of Act 2, so I totally needed something fast and easy. NICE. (Desktop)
- Loughla 3y ago
  Got most of the way through act 3 and uninstalled bg3. I like that game, but just didn't feel compelled to complete it. At that point, it has been so long since the characters leveled up that gameplay was just sort of repetitive. There weren't really any new tactics to learn and employ. The level cap killed that game for me, it turns out.
IgorPartola 3y ago
So I used to play Pixel Dungeon and then saw a bunch of clones that looked like it. Is Shattered Pixel Dungeon the original project or a clone of a closed source game? Or completely unrelated?
- romanows 3y ago
  "It's based on the source code of Pixel Dungeon, by Watabou." I also played the original Pixel Dungeon, great game and bonus points for being free and open source!
- davewasthere 3y ago
  original creator: https://twitter.com/watawatabou https://twitter.com/watawatabou Was always free... now people have gone to town with the source code.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  I've played a fair number of PD spin-offs / remixes and Shattered stands out as the best. It get regular updates that sometimes add or substantially change large chunks of the game.
- knodi123 3y ago
  It's a variant, with lots of quality-of-life upgrades, some very well thought-out new mechanics, and new biomes and missions.
  - iCarrot 3y ago
    I always found the game becoming easier with more mechanics/weapons/potions added (in other variants). Is this the case with SPD?
    - knodi123 3y ago
      I don't necessarily think so. Evan puts a LOT of effort into balance. But even so, I've gotten to where I have 5 challenge modes turned on to make it a challenge, so maybe you're right.
FrostKiwi 3y ago
Was absolutely obsessed with it couple of years ago. Hard, deep mechanics for its genre, super fun. First finish was quite the ride. What a win for FOSS.
aireo 3y ago
I hadn’t played games for a long time, mostly because of school, but recently I picked up Cogmind, a fantastic sci-fi roguelike. Basically, you’re a robot that can attach and replace different items, including utilities, propulsion systems, weapons, and power sources. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had playing a game in ages. The developer, Josh Ge, is also very kind and deeply engaged with the community, which is great. Highly recommended!
hubblesticks 3y ago
Check out YAPD (Yet Another Pixel Dungeon) if you're on Android for a nice variant of the original. I found I like the mods in YAPD better.
- gaudystead 3y ago
  I (perhaps mistakenly?) started with YAPD but then got my friend hooked and he went for SPD. I love how active the SPD dev is, but the mechanics are juuust a tad too different for me to want to learn them all. Both are great games though!
eadmund 3y ago
This does look really neat, but IMHO ASCII art is one of the keys to being traditional. Nothing at all against Shattered Pixel Dungeon, just that a quick look through the site didn’t reveal a terminal version.
jpsouth 3y ago
I’ve played this for a while, and not to brag, but I’ve got to chapter two on a warrior AND mage. I love the identification process and relatively quick, albeit very tactical if you want, gameplay. It’s my go to iPhone game when on short journeys, mostly because I can just save where I am and pick up whenever without having to remember dungeon layout or potions/food etc.
desiarnezjr 3y ago
DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS. I downloaded (not Shattered) Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered, and nearly a decade later I'm still playing. In fact it's 70% of my non-work computing time. Not only that Shattered's dev updates often with sometimes great changes. You've been warned.
- Graziano_M 3y ago
  I've never seen a game, or software for that matter, with a better version history screen.
- metadat 3y ago
  Glad to know I'm not the only one.
- GolfPopper 3y ago
  Thank you for the warning. I am going to download it. But I'm not going to touch it until I'm on vacation next month. :) I've got a lot of work between now and then.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- smaddox 3y ago
  I feel your pain. I've spent more time playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup than I care to admit. The fact that this can be played on Android makes it even more dangerous.
- wredhyn 3y ago
  Same. It's really the only mobile game that I keep coming back to.
Graziano_M 3y ago
This game is so good. It's probably the thing I miss most from having an Android phone.
- notamy 3y ago
  It is available on iOS!
  - Graziano_M 3y ago
    It wasn't at the time, and I didn't need to know that! I have it on PC but luckily that's easier to avoid.
zem 3y ago
this is far and away the best roguelike i've played on mobile. indeed, it's pretty much the only roguelike i've ever seen that has a decent mobile user experience. you can tell that the dev team has put a tremendous amount of work into making it look and feel good.
- prirai 3y ago
  You should try Dead Cells.
  - zem 3y ago
    i looked it up, and it looks like more of a metroidvania than a roguelike. also the play store reviews say the controls aren't great on mobile. might pick it up for steam deck though, it does look fun :)
LelouBil 3y ago
6 or so years ago I wondered why they were so much Pixel Dungeon versions on the Play Store. Now I know why ! The game was Open Source !
wanderingmind 3y ago
Any reason this is not provided for download through F-Droid. I trust apps on F-Droid more than Google Play and helps with installing in degoogled phones.
- sphars 3y ago
  There's a thread on GitHub where the dev explains why: https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/issues/1394#issuecomment-1572229565 https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/issues/13... Downloading the APK direct from GitHub is the official way to get it without the Play Store. App updates take a bit more work, but you can set up notifications through GitHub to be notified for new releases.
  - discardedrefuse 3y ago
    Just FYI, there's an Android app called Obtainium that lets you add Github (and a few other VCS) repos to it. Obtanium will then check those repos for updates and install the new APK for you. Its pretty slick for people that prefer to get their APKs direct from the dev. https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium
  - wanderingmind 3y ago
    I like Fdroid because it automatically compiles from source and does vulnerability scanner. Its not a safe practice to download random binary blobs from github. Its a shame it looks like a nice implementation but I will have to give it a pass.
    - pests 3y ago
      It looks like another commentor posted the Fdroid link.
    - yorwba 3y ago
      Well, you can get it from https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shattered... if you don't mind the vulnerability scanner having a false positive occasionally.
monetus 3y ago
It has been neat watching this game change over the years. Every year or so, enough new updates have been had that it feels like a new "season"; similar to online games. It keeps getting better.
howenterprisey 3y ago
You gotta check out Yet Another Pixel Dungeon too! I like it very much. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.consideredhamster.yetanotherpixeldungeon https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.considered...
mproud 3y ago
It’s available on Homebrew: `brew install shattered-pixel-dungeon`
flykespice 3y ago
I see they accept donations (and it's probably the only way they keep themselves financially supported), does it need to go through Play Store's billing system? Afaik, Google takes down open-source apps that link to their donation page without going through their billing system because it falls on their "no circumvention" policy. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268389
magicalhippo 3y ago
Semi-unrelated but this reminded me of the countless hours I spent playing Castle of the Winds[1] as a kid. Based on this thread I went searching for it and, as it turns out, the original author is working on porting[2] it to Unity! [1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/842/castle-of-the-winds/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/842/castle-of-the-winds/ [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CastleOfTheWinds/comments/172ckn6/it_lives/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CastleOfTheWinds/comments/172ckn6/i...
- jd3 3y ago
  While imperfect, I nevertheless adored Reign of Swords/Clash of Kingdom on my old iPod touch back in ~2008. I've looked for a replacement for years but 99.9% of similar games on the App Store are spam/pay to win/microtransaction hell with the typical cheap ugly "international" art style. https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/06/reign-of-swords-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/06/reign-of-swords-revi... https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/08/03/reign-of-swords-2-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/08/03/reign-of-swords-2-re... https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/07/mobile-battles-reign-of-swords-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/07/mobile-battles-reign... http://web.archive.org/web/20111001213349/http://www.mobilebattles.com/buy.html http://web.archive.org/web/20111001213349/http://www.mobileb...
  - canadianfella 3y ago
    [dead]
- FranOntanaya 3y ago
  So many hours trying to farm cube slimes to get rare items in that game. I loved it.
- stavros 3y ago
  Oh man, that reminds me of my childhood in rural Greece, where the only software I could get was from magazines, where they downloaded demo/shareware versions of stuff and put it on a CD. Obviously there was no way for me to pay or get the full software, so I spent hours and hours playing the same levels over and over in the demo. I loved Castle of the Winds, and another turn-based games with pirates. There was also a similar one with tanks and such, called Metal Knights maybe?
system7rocks 3y ago
I think you are the best. Period. End of story.
thejarren 3y ago
I’ve been stuck playing Pixel dungeon and now Shattered Pixel Dungeon since ~2014. Fantastic game, highly replayable. I’ve not been heavily committed, so I’ve only really “won” about 2-3 times total.
sspiff 3y ago
My 5 year old son got REALLY into this a few months back. He played up to the first boss and then had me take over. We had a lot of fun with it.
worksonmine 3y ago
I've only played the original Pixel Dungeon and never tried any of the forks. How does this compare?
notorandit 3y ago
You die a little bit too often when compared with old school rogue, nethack and moria. But it is very nice.
- chongli 3y ago
  You don’t have to die often. Winning streaks of 20+ (with 6 challenges active) are completely doable. This guy RunningFromCake [1] has some nice tutorials on how to get better at the game. He also has videos showing his winning streaks and how he accomplishes them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@runningfromcake https://www.youtube.com/@runningfromcake
nurettin 3y ago
This is the only game I ever donated to. I open it up almost every time I recompile and run. My previous build was an experimental corrupt mage with corpse dust. I wanted to see if I can balance charges and corrupting an army of wraiths that spawn all the time because of the corpse dust. Current build is a plain old assassin with +10 assassin's blade and anti-magic armor. Trying out the badder bosses challenge this time.
- Loughla 3y ago
  Doesn't corruption require you to hit the enemy? How does that work with wraiths when they die after one hit?
  - nurettin 3y ago
    Via wand of corruption. But you need a lot of recharge. Ring, ability and armor needs to be able to recharge your wands. Wraiths become very resistant to wand towards the end, so you will need those charges.
lambdanil 3y ago
For those who enjoy SPD I recommend checking out some other popular roguelikes, many of them are also open source. Some of my personal recommendations would be brogue (probably the most beginner friendly), DCSS (friendly, tons of content), ADoM and Cataclysm DDA (a sandbox survival roguelike, quite a unique mix)
- sandspar 3y ago
  What do these acronyms mean?
  - bananicorn 3y ago
    DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup ADoM = Ancient Domains of Mystery Cataclysm DDA = Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead I swear I didn't make the first one up ;) Edit: ah well, you got your answer already^^
    - zenorogue 3y ago
      "Stone Soup" refers to the Stone Soup folk story, where people contribute their supplies to make a great soup for everyone (it is developed by many people who contribute to the open-source project started by Linley Henzell as Linley's Dungeon Crawl). Still a better name than NetHack (which is not a game about hacking networks... "Net" just refers to collaboration over net to improve the game Hack). There is also BrogueCE ("Brogue Community Edition").
  - lambdanil 3y ago
    I should probably have used the full names for clarity, either way the acronyms mean, in order: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Ancient Domains of Mystery and Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead.
  - zuik 3y ago
    Shattered Pixel Dungeon Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Ancient Domains of Mystery Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead
- rjbwork 3y ago
VagabundoP 3y ago
ha never knew this was open source. Awesome game! When my kid was young I'd have this on my phone to keep her busy for a few minutes if she was melting my brain. She was always killed by a rat at some point.
hiergiltdiestfu 3y ago
It's a great game, and feels very very close to crawl, aka Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It's also fair regarding the payment model (cosmetics only, otherwise completely free on the mechanics side).
- nottorp 3y ago
  Oh. Lost me right there. Are you sure you're rich enough to afford games with IAPs?
rkagerer 3y ago
This is one of those games I wish I could play on an emulator or VM or something where I could take a snapshot and subsequently undo my inevitable, catastrophic mistake.
- Grangar 3y ago
  That's called save scumming
- pid-1 3y ago
  Like DF, this sort of game becomes terribly boring after you have won / seen all things. You don'y want to win quickly.
pjmlp 3y ago
Oh well, now I now what I should add into my phone. Being in Java and a roguelike dugeon crawler with cute graphics already makes it for me.
zeograd 3y ago
It's an awesome game, I'm playing it non-stop since last summer and embarked my 9-years old daughter along. We're sharing games and exchanging bits of information (yes, she's thinking out of the box, and it sometimes works :) ) The author, Evan, is maintaining a fediverse community for all mods of the original Pixel Dungeon, accessible via https://photon.lemmy.world/c/pixeldungeon https://photon.lemmy.world/c/pixeldungeon for instance, after the Reddit troubles from last year.
JyB 3y ago
What is gameplay/control like on mobile? Is the crawling and combat engaging?
- sandspar 3y ago
  As of my reply there's 120 other comments raving about it.
normaler 3y ago
I have been playing Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered Pixel Dungeon since ~2016. Such a great game.
afatc 3y ago
The original Pixel Dungeon isn’t available in the iOS App Store in Portugal, anyone know how to get around it?
lensi 3y ago
But it requires you to login with your Google account. Weird for an open source game.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  No such requirement if you get it from F-Droid, which you should.
- tgkudelski 3y ago
  This is not true. Probably you installed it through the Play store?
- gaudystead 3y ago
  From my experience, you can just skip it and still play the game. Most of those Google prompts can just be bypassed by hitting the "back" button (on android, at least).
- whitehexagon 3y ago
  I dont have google account, but noticed they release apk builds directly on github, side-loaded and running, I may be gone a while...
hamilyon2 3y ago
How does it get around apple GPL ban?
- richardwhiuk 3y ago
  If you own the rights to all of the code, you can dual license under GPL and non-GPL, and then you can post on the appstore. They don't accept code requests, so that might be their strategy
luckyshot 3y ago
If you like Magic The Gathering card playing game, avoid Forge (Desktop + Android) because it is open source (made in Java) and it has all the cards, gameplays, you can build your deck or choose from a huge list of ready-made ones and play against the AI and online up to 4 players in the same game I believe. https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge
- mdaniel 3y ago
  recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38651346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38651346 and XMage is usually submitted alongside them when any M:TG makes the front page, including the quarterly(?) "M:TG is Turing complete" paper thread
6mian 3y ago
https://pixeldungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Pixel_Dungeon https://pixeldungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Pixel_Dungeon is a great resource if you are new to the game and genre, although I suggest first trying discovering everything by yourself (prepare to die a lot) and start reading the wiki after getting through the first boss on lvl 5. I've been playing SPD for years now and for me the best strategy to win the game is to keep Scrolls of Upgrade until you get a hold of a weapon of at least tier 4, same goes for armor. This makes the initial levels much more risky, but if you survive it's a matter of not making mistakes or getting yourself into high risk situations. Using this method I get to the Amulet in about 30% of the runs. Since the recent updates getting back to the ground has become a much more fun challenge. Besides postponing the use of Scrolls of Upgrade, here are a few things that work for me: * You don't have to identify potions and scrolls right away, often you can keep them until you gather more information. For example, killed flies sometimes drop health potion and they are on early levels, so you can learn the color without using it. * Before you get the Scroll Holder that protects the scrolls from fire, it's a good idea to stash all the scrolls in water at the beginning of each level and retrieve them back before going to the next one. * Scrolls of Mapping are absolutely crucial on levels >20 because of the traps and they are relatively cheap in the first two shops. * Summoning trap rooms are great to gather a lot of xp if you have potions of paralytic gas and fire/toxic gas. After the level is cleared, you just open the doors by throwing something at it, go as far away as possible, throw paralytic and then fire/toxic potions. And run to the next level. If you like the game, consider donating to the project, you can do this directly in the game, at least in the Android version.
- ourmandave 3y ago
  (prepare to die a lot) No thanks. Repeatedly punishing you for stupid shit isn't a fun game. Like the Sims will burn you alive for not buying a smoke detector and then having the audacity to make toast.
  - ohwellhere 3y ago
    This may not be the genre for you, then. And that’s fine!
berkeleynerd 3y ago
Love this! I purchased both the iOS and Steam version. Completely happy to support indie game devs willing to open source their software.
gamblerrr 3y ago
https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/blob/master/docs/recommended-changes.md https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/blob/mast... This is such a useful document. It details how to get your own fork up and running. I’ve seen a lot of open source software go in the other direction.
thurn 3y ago
Interesting that this project seems to contain a bunch of sprite assets released under GPL3. How does GPL apply to something like an art asset?
rlonstein 3y ago
I started an opinionated and still incomplete guide for new players https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide. I didn't put it out there and was going to take it down because I couldn't finish it let alone maintain it. It's impossible to keep up with the pace of Evan's updates so the walk-throughs with seeds probably don't work, but someone might find it useful.
- EduardLev 3y ago
  I can't seem to load the page, would love to read.
  - rlonstein 3y ago
    I don't know why that would be, but someone archived it: https://web.archive.org/web/20240321134120/https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide https://web.archive.org/web/20240321134120/https://spd-huntr...
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  As someone who was intrigued by this post but felt a little overwhelmed starting out, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing, whether its incomplete/outdated or not.
- lupire 3y ago
  I'm probably biased, but I liked PD and then SPD better when I first played it, and felt the later updates to be overwhelming.
TalEs 3y ago
Just got hit with a wave of nostalgia, I remember playing it in 2015, and I opened up the link to Google Play, and I still see my comments there, that the dev even responded too. Great game that I will have to pick up again!
bastawhiz 3y ago
By sheer coincidence I'd installed this a few weeks ago. It's really well made, but I ended up uninstalling it because—unless I'm really missing something—it is punishingly difficult. Maybe I don't know all the controls? Or there's some sort of mechanic I'm missing? Or maybe my expectations are wrong? This very much seems like the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I find myself getting absolutely obliterated by the first snake or two that I encounter. I've yet to figure out how to sneak up on or by them. I've yet to find or earn any early loot that might help. If anyone knows what I'm doing wrong, please let me know. I'd love to just crank the difficulty down by 50%.
- untech 3y ago
  Coming from classic Pixel Dungeon and a bit of Nethack, I can suggest the following heuristics: - Don’t leave a level without finding a ration - Identify scrolls and potions as early as possible by using them in a safe context - Use doorframes to fight one enemy at a time
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    I'm rarely even getting to the end of the first level let alone leaving it unprepared!
    - chongli 3y ago
      The real trick to surviving the early game is to abuse the heck out of surprise attacks. Do not fight enemies in the open early on! Throw/zap stuff at them from a distance and then retreat behind a door. As soon as they step through the door, hit them! You should see a yellow ! indicating a surprise attack (guaranteed hit). Now retreat and do it again! This trick works with anything that breaks line of sight. Doors and tall grass are my preferred options. It even works if you step through a door (closing it behind you) or around a patch of tall grass (to the opposite side of the grass from the enemy) and the enemy immediately opens the door or otherwise follows right behind you. See my other reply [1] for more tips! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779664
tacocataco 3y ago
As a super fan of roguelikes I appreciate the recommendation. I found a doom roguelike recently, maybe yall would be interested to. https://drl.chaosforge.org/ https://drl.chaosforge.org/
max_k 3y ago
Why does the Android app require access to my location? I wouldn't expect open source apps to spy on me.
entelechy0 3y ago
[dead]
metadat 3y ago
An open-source multiplayer version of this would be pretty sweet! I've been playing on and off for about 3 years now, I'm not even very good, have never beat it yet. In the past week or two I've learned about better strategies, e.g. max out your weapon so you can one-hit most enemies. Trading blows is a death sentence. This play guide has more helpful knowledge information: https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/comments/4tthsy/shattered_complete_guide_to_winning_and_fun_tips/ https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/comments/4tthsy/shatte... Ome additional note: Don't let thieves get too far away after they steal from you, else This stolen item will disappear forever. This just happened to me a few minutes ago.
- skulk 3y ago
  How would multiplayer work with the turn-based aspect? Do you have to wait for other players to take their turns? This would be terribly boring IMO. Do you instead allow anyone to take a turn whenever? That turns the game into an RTS. I've thought about this a lot and I don't really think it's possible.
  - metadat 3y ago
    Yeah it'd have to be a RTS/ Diablo type of mechanic, although if you keep food as a number-of-moves-limiter, the turn-based aspect may be less critical. Maybe a game could work where each player explores the map independently but when a creature is encountered, the other player is teleported in, and then returns to prior spot after the fight? Could be fun.
canadianfella 3y ago
[dead]
lupire 3y ago
A bit different, but Hoplite is another fantastic game with turn-based single-hero tactical fighting. No dungeon exploration though.
- klondike_klive 3y ago
  Thanks for reminding me of it, I used to play it all the time but haven't even installed it for several years. I bought it after a recommendation from Roguelike Radio, the podcast hosted by Darren Grey, one of the ADOM and TOME devs (If I remember correctly)
bilsbie 3y ago
I just downloaded this on the iPhone. It seems like it would be more fun if you could save checkpoints instead of starting over.
- nomel 3y ago
  Permadeath is a primary aspect of the genre [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
  - bilsbie 3y ago
    Interesting. It seems like it would be hard to make much progress.

747 points by notamy 3y ago

I'm not really sure what this is doing on Hacker News, but the game (Shattered Pixel Dungeon) is fun. One of the nicest features is that whenever you observe an effect that unambiguously tells you what a potion/scroll does - such as throwing a potion - that type of object is automatically identified for you. In more "traditional" hack games you'd have to write notes yourself even though obviously a thrown potion exploding into fire means it's a potion of liquid fire, right? Shattered Pixel is a good way to kill some time on public transit or similar.

ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
Nethack identifies objects once you've observed their effect as well
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- schoen 3y ago
  Some, but not all. For example, "Call a white potion:" or "Call a scroll labeled VE FORBRYDERNE:" prompts. These often appear after observing an effect where an experienced player or one consulting spoilers knows what the potion or scroll must be, but the game didn't auto-ID it.
- Pwntheon 3y ago
  Only in the most obvious of cases. Your cat reluctantly steps on an item? Cursed. Grey stone moved less than X tiles when kicked? Loadstone. Hundreds of these.
notamy 3y ago
> I'm not really sure what this is doing on Hacker News Incredibly fun game, open source, and in a genre that likely fits well into many HN users' interests. I rediscovered it recently and remembered it was open source, so why not submit it?
- DrSiemer 3y ago
  The title should include a [year], to save people like me from needing to check if anything significant changed in the game that made me miss half of a trip to Thailand in 2014.
  - 12345hn6789 3y ago
    The game has regular updates, so sort of.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Thanks for submitting it, I have never heard of it. Maybe because I exist in the iOS "walled garden" and generally game on console only. Do you know what game engine its based on? Or is it a custom thing?
  - bru 3y ago
    Custom AFAIK. There's an iOS version: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shattered-pixel-dungeon/id1563121109 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shattered-pixel-dungeon/id1563...
  - severine 3y ago
    See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39775664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39775664
- SkyBelow 3y ago
  I think the open source part is the main justification. Getting kids into tech and programming seems a HN sort of article, and an open source game is one way of doing it. Much more advanced than the entry level things like Scratch Jr. and not nearly as wide spread an audience, but a great step around the high school level for the few who wants to get deeper without committing to some formal education.
klik99 3y ago
I saw this post and immediately thought “there’s probably a lot of potential trad roguelike fans on hacker news”, for one thing it’s probably the genre with highest percentage of fans are devs or have dabbled into game dev. SPD is a good gateway to brogue, DCSS, cogmind, qud, etc
- aireo 3y ago
  I’ve already mentioned Cogmind, but Brogue is a beautiful game with tight gameplay. Another great recommendation.
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    It's not a roguelike really, but Brogue was my gateway to CDDA (Catalysm: Dark Days Ahead). Not sure if I've lost more of my life to one of those or to Slay the Spire. I don't regret it one bit. Been meaning to get into Cogmind (which seems even more aesthetically appealing than Brogue) and Caves of Qud, but I have children now, and must wait until they are of age before re-engaging with such things.
    - aireo 3y ago
      Brogue was my introduction to the genre. I also tried Golden Krone Hotel, a beginner-friendly title (and the first one I beat)! I played CoQ for a while, too, but there's something about Cogmind that clicked with me. I'm not very good at it, but it's a _total_ blast. And I agree with you -- it is, imo, the most beautiful roguelike that I've seen or played. And it's got hundreds of unique sound effects, too, which makes a huge difference. I've thought about CDDA, but honestly, the amount of material there is intimidating. But it looks very cool. These games are indeed dangerous! I don't have kids, but I'm still in school, so I have to be careful. When you have some time, definitely give Cogmind a try. Hope you enjoy it!
      - klik99 3y ago
        You probably know all this, but for others: Cogmind is a lot of really thought out small touches that sum up to an engaging experience despite at first glance looking like any other roguelike. It's got great animations/explosions and an intuitive UI. The developer is the main mod of r/roguelikedev, has been running a great blog for years where he dives deep into aspects of roguelike dev (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/ https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/), and is also just a wonderful human who genuinely loves supporting the community and playing roguelike games.
II2II 3y ago
The fun part is trying to identify certain items before actually using them. (The guesses won't always be perfect, but you can greatly improve your odds.)
jasonjmcghee 3y ago
Game dev is historically pretty popular on hn.
uaserussia 3y ago
Skyrim had that mechanic. You could eat ingredients for potions and if you had a duplicate it would tell you the effects, and the next time you found the ingredient again you would know what it was.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  Good that they also have potions, so that no poison in the world is strong enough to kill you in Skyrim (or is there one?)
  - wishfish 3y ago
    There is one raw ingredient in Skyrim which will kill the player. But it can't be found in the wild. It's given to you for a Dark Brotherhood quest. But you don't have to use it in the quest. Can keep it for later use.
mminer237 3y ago
Don't Nethack and DCSS do that as well?
- schoen 3y ago
  DCSS does; NetHack sometimes does but there are very many cases in which you observe some effect and are then asked "Call a milky potion:" or "Call a scroll labeled ANDOVA BEGARIN:".
mock-possum 3y ago
I can also recommend POWDER as a solid not-many-frills classic roguelite.
lupusreal 3y ago
It would be nice if you could manually identity items though; sometimes the context you get a potion from tells you what the potion is but you have to remember that until you use it. Using the stones of intuition for this kind of seems wasteful.
axus 3y ago
It's reminding me I need to rebuild my very-slightly-modified version to keep my Google Play developer account active! Shattered Pixel encourages variants and branches, though sometimes Google tries to block the blatant clones that want to publish on Google Play, even though the license and developers want that outcome. On the other thread of "brutally punishing", there is the "Too Cruel" variant of an earlier version of Shattered for those of us who need more difficulty. PD is more like a long game of chess than a dungeon crawler.

whalabi 3y ago

I was aware of Pixel dungeon but didn't realize it was available on PC, Mac, and iOS. Particularly impressed that it builds for iOS when written in Java - turns out the game is built on libgdx which builds for all these platforms. Also, it's fun if you like roguelikes.

JoshTriplett 3y ago

Highly recommended. It's a fork of the original Pixel Dungeon, and quite a bit more fun than the original.

KirinDave 3y ago

If you like these kinds of games but find SPD to be a little too mechanically simple and lacking in build diversity, you may also enjoy DCSS (dungeon crawl stone soup) and my personal favorite: Frogcomposband. You can play the later at angband.live, and it's an exceptional game with incredible depth and variety.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
And BTW, if I can figure out how to do Eclipse CDT and get the source code running in an IDE, so that I can do LOTS of fun things with class skills, you can to! Because the last time I did C/C++ was 1998. Also, Remnants of the Precursors (java) you can do some fun things. I got "doomstars" half-implemented, a race skill that marks planets with resources or artifacts (archaeology bonus), and lots of other fun things. I really like open source games, half the fun is hacking them. I have yet to download nethack from the net and hack it though.
Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
I agree about SPD. While it's great for a mobile game and looks gorgeous, I find the gameplay somewhat shallow for a roguelike. If I have a monitor and keyboard at hand, I prefer to play the likes of ADOM (classic version, not Ultimate), Brogue, Legerdemain, Sil, DCSS, etc. which offer more depth, strategic complexity and meaningful choices, IMHO. Haven't tried the frog one, will do at some point.
plagiarist 3y ago
There was a Nintendo DS port of Stone Soup that I really loved. Had some great times provoking monsters into fighting each other while I hid in the shadows.

bilekas 3y ago

This is cool, I love a good roguelike especially on my phone for flights and other time sinks. I am curious though, why is the iOS version €4.99 but the Android version is free ? I've seen this a lot actually and have always wondered, I figured it might just be Apple's annual developer license fee but not sure.

sphars 3y ago
Yep that's exactly the reason, plus not wanting to compete with Pixel Dungeon. The developer talked about it when first announcing it was coming to iOS > Shattered Pixel Dungeon will cost $5 US when it fully releases on the App Store. I’m charging because of a mix of Apple’s higher platform fees, not wanting to undercut Pixel Dungeon, and because Shattered is releasing in a much more finished state. https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shattered-pixel-dungeon-is-coming-to-ios.html https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shattered-pixel-dungeon-is-c...
chongli 3y ago
I’m on iOS and I paid for it without hesitation. Evan deserves it, just read his blog for the game [1] to see how much he puts into it! [1] https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/ https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/
awelxtr 3y ago
I guess it is the same reason Anki isn't free either on iOS: you must pay Apple's dev account whether you make a profit or not
grodriguez100 3y ago
And also because historically iPhone users have been more inclined to pay for apps than Android users.
- truth5656774 3y ago
  Can’t shake the thought that this is mostly caused by Apple not allowing easy side installs. Android making it easy to just install a custom app but not on iOS so basically the developer is (ab)using to let iOS users pony up install money.

Townley 3y ago

Excellent game, I lost an embarrassing amount of time last year getting all of the badges. The mobile versions are great because they’re ad-free, and work without internet access when on airplanes. And since it’s turn-based, it’s very interruption-friendly. The Reddit community is also a lot of fun: equal mix of strategy and memes.

boothby 3y ago
All of them? I gave up on that goal partway through the pandemic; I spent about a year's worth of occasional games without seeing Tengu and eventually accepted that I wasn't interested enough to get that 6-challenge badge. Strategy on Reddit, you say? Perhaps that could help. But, perhaps it's better if I don't spelunk that particular rabbithole.
- Townley 3y ago
  For the last badge, it wasn't masterful strategy: I played until I got lucky with an overpowered Ring of Wealth run, and farmed the dwarven floors for like 3 days before breezing through the demon halls and ascending. That one and only six challenge run landed with 1,050,700 points, which was just enough to get the final "Over 1 million points" badge. That was the last round I played, almost a year ago. I consider myself free from the game now, but look back on it fondly :)

PlunderBunny 3y ago

I love roguelike games (still miss you 100 Rogues), and I played Shattered Pixel Dungeon 77 times before finally winning with a Rogue class. Once I'd done that, I never had the urge to play it again.

rjmill 3y ago

Well, there goes the rest of the week. I don't install games on my phone, but I always give SPD a pass because open source. The first time I installed it, I almost lost an internship because I was too focused on the game. The most recent time I installed it, my wife thought I was cheating on her because I was acting so shady and obsessive about my phone. Don't say I didn't warn y'all.

Quiark 3y ago
If you only play open source mobile games and are afraid of wasting your time, make sure you avoid the factory tower defense game Mindustry which presents itself at https://mindustrygame.github.io/ https://mindustrygame.github.io/
- _kwef 3y ago
  Was on my way to suggest this game to avoid, which is also available for free on desktop.
  - rizky05 3y ago
    Man, anyone will do what you are suggesting to avoid! we will bear the sin together.
- rjmill 3y ago
  Oh no, it's on f-droid, my hands are tied! I'll have to ahem contribute my free time to this important open source library.
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  Honestly though, Mindustry is so much better with keyboard/mouse controls. It's a shockingly good mobile factory/automation type game, but I'd just rather play it on PC. (Or Mac, which runs it fine)
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    Sure, but it's much harder to hide your laptop screen under the covers at 2am, back to spouse, shielding the light, keeping your secret safe. Plus, a screen tap is much quieter than a laptop k/m. ...What? Nobody else is doing this?

johnsillings 3y ago

This looks sick. Can't wait to try!

codetrotter 3y ago

So after reading the positive comments here I went ahead and bought a copy for iPhone in the App Store. I was hoping that it supports controllers, as i recently bought a pretty neat controller that you plug the phone into the middle of, and you get buttons and thumb sticks on each side of the screen. Kind of similar to the joycons you have with a Nintendo Switch. This controller is PlayStation branded, but produced by a different company that has licensed the right to brand the controller that way. Anyway, I am happy to report that yes indeed this game works with my controller. Left thumb stick moves the character around, and right thumb sticks moves a sort of aiming square around! Edit: the pointer sensitivity was a bit high for me, but it is adjustable in the game settings and after adjusting it it is comfortable

nihilist_t21 3y ago
Backbone One? I recently got the non-PlayStation branded one for my iPhone and I love it. I had been wanting one for a while, and finally jumped when they released the Gen 2 version with swappable mounts to support cases. It’s been fantastic for playing SNES games on mobile. I can’t recommend it enough. Only downside would be the included app is hot trash. Always tries to sell you some subscription. Luckily, I haven’t found the need to ever use the app.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  Yep, Backbone One. I was waiting a bit too, because it’s not exactly cheap. Eventually I found one that was brand new that someone was selling second hand because they had bought the wrong version. They had the latest iPhone which has a USB-C port, but they had bought the Backbone One with lightning connector. I have a slightly older model. The iPhone 14 Pro. So mine has lightning connector. He got most of his money back that way, and I got a discount compared to buying one in the store. Everybody wins :) Anyway yeah, I’ve been enjoying mine too. I’ve mostly been using it with Nvidia Now or what it’s called. Via the Backbone app. This way I can play some of the games I have in my Steam account on a computer in the cloud using my phone and my Backbone One. I only play at home on WiFi, and I’m on the free plan so I have to wait in a queue and each play session lasts 1 hour and then I have to start a new session. Been re-playing one of the modern Tomb Raider games this way and have been quite enjoying it so far.

demondemidi 3y ago

Ohhhh this is perfect. I hit the wall with BG3 because it got mind numbing by the end of Act 2, so I totally needed something fast and easy. NICE. (Desktop)

Loughla 3y ago
Got most of the way through act 3 and uninstalled bg3. I like that game, but just didn't feel compelled to complete it. At that point, it has been so long since the characters leveled up that gameplay was just sort of repetitive. There weren't really any new tactics to learn and employ. The level cap killed that game for me, it turns out.

IgorPartola 3y ago

So I used to play Pixel Dungeon and then saw a bunch of clones that looked like it. Is Shattered Pixel Dungeon the original project or a clone of a closed source game? Or completely unrelated?

romanows 3y ago
"It's based on the source code of Pixel Dungeon, by Watabou." I also played the original Pixel Dungeon, great game and bonus points for being free and open source!
davewasthere 3y ago
original creator: https://twitter.com/watawatabou https://twitter.com/watawatabou Was always free... now people have gone to town with the source code.
blacksmith_tb 3y ago
I've played a fair number of PD spin-offs / remixes and Shattered stands out as the best. It get regular updates that sometimes add or substantially change large chunks of the game.
knodi123 3y ago
It's a variant, with lots of quality-of-life upgrades, some very well thought-out new mechanics, and new biomes and missions.
- iCarrot 3y ago
  I always found the game becoming easier with more mechanics/weapons/potions added (in other variants). Is this the case with SPD?
  - knodi123 3y ago
    I don't necessarily think so. Evan puts a LOT of effort into balance. But even so, I've gotten to where I have 5 challenge modes turned on to make it a challenge, so maybe you're right.

FrostKiwi 3y ago

Was absolutely obsessed with it couple of years ago. Hard, deep mechanics for its genre, super fun. First finish was quite the ride. What a win for FOSS.

aireo 3y ago

I hadn’t played games for a long time, mostly because of school, but recently I picked up Cogmind, a fantastic sci-fi roguelike. Basically, you’re a robot that can attach and replace different items, including utilities, propulsion systems, weapons, and power sources. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had playing a game in ages. The developer, Josh Ge, is also very kind and deeply engaged with the community, which is great. Highly recommended!

hubblesticks 3y ago

Check out YAPD (Yet Another Pixel Dungeon) if you're on Android for a nice variant of the original. I found I like the mods in YAPD better.

gaudystead 3y ago
I (perhaps mistakenly?) started with YAPD but then got my friend hooked and he went for SPD. I love how active the SPD dev is, but the mechanics are juuust a tad too different for me to want to learn them all. Both are great games though!

eadmund 3y ago

This does look really neat, but IMHO ASCII art is one of the keys to being traditional. Nothing at all against Shattered Pixel Dungeon, just that a quick look through the site didn’t reveal a terminal version.

jpsouth 3y ago

I’ve played this for a while, and not to brag, but I’ve got to chapter two on a warrior AND mage. I love the identification process and relatively quick, albeit very tactical if you want, gameplay. It’s my go to iPhone game when on short journeys, mostly because I can just save where I am and pick up whenever without having to remember dungeon layout or potions/food etc.

desiarnezjr 3y ago

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS. I downloaded (not Shattered) Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered, and nearly a decade later I'm still playing. In fact it's 70% of my non-work computing time. Not only that Shattered's dev updates often with sometimes great changes. You've been warned.

Graziano_M 3y ago
I've never seen a game, or software for that matter, with a better version history screen.
metadat 3y ago
Glad to know I'm not the only one.
GolfPopper 3y ago
Thank you for the warning. I am going to download it. But I'm not going to touch it until I'm on vacation next month. :) I've got a lot of work between now and then.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
smaddox 3y ago
I feel your pain. I've spent more time playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup than I care to admit. The fact that this can be played on Android makes it even more dangerous.
wredhyn 3y ago
Same. It's really the only mobile game that I keep coming back to.

Graziano_M 3y ago

This game is so good. It's probably the thing I miss most from having an Android phone.

notamy 3y ago
It is available on iOS!
- Graziano_M 3y ago
  It wasn't at the time, and I didn't need to know that! I have it on PC but luckily that's easier to avoid.

zem 3y ago

this is far and away the best roguelike i've played on mobile. indeed, it's pretty much the only roguelike i've ever seen that has a decent mobile user experience. you can tell that the dev team has put a tremendous amount of work into making it look and feel good.

prirai 3y ago
You should try Dead Cells.
- zem 3y ago
  i looked it up, and it looks like more of a metroidvania than a roguelike. also the play store reviews say the controls aren't great on mobile. might pick it up for steam deck though, it does look fun :)

LelouBil 3y ago

6 or so years ago I wondered why they were so much Pixel Dungeon versions on the Play Store. Now I know why ! The game was Open Source !

wanderingmind 3y ago

Any reason this is not provided for download through F-Droid. I trust apps on F-Droid more than Google Play and helps with installing in degoogled phones.

sphars 3y ago
There's a thread on GitHub where the dev explains why: https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/issues/1394#issuecomment-1572229565 https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/issues/13... Downloading the APK direct from GitHub is the official way to get it without the Play Store. App updates take a bit more work, but you can set up notifications through GitHub to be notified for new releases.
- discardedrefuse 3y ago
  Just FYI, there's an Android app called Obtainium that lets you add Github (and a few other VCS) repos to it. Obtanium will then check those repos for updates and install the new APK for you. Its pretty slick for people that prefer to get their APKs direct from the dev. https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium
- wanderingmind 3y ago
  I like Fdroid because it automatically compiles from source and does vulnerability scanner. Its not a safe practice to download random binary blobs from github. Its a shame it looks like a nice implementation but I will have to give it a pass.
  - pests 3y ago
    It looks like another commentor posted the Fdroid link.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    Well, you can get it from https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.shatteredpixel.shattered... if you don't mind the vulnerability scanner having a false positive occasionally.

monetus 3y ago

It has been neat watching this game change over the years. Every year or so, enough new updates have been had that it feels like a new "season"; similar to online games. It keeps getting better.

howenterprisey 3y ago

You gotta check out Yet Another Pixel Dungeon too! I like it very much. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.consideredhamster.yetanotherpixeldungeon https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.considered...

mproud 3y ago

It’s available on Homebrew: `brew install shattered-pixel-dungeon`

flykespice 3y ago

I see they accept donations (and it's probably the only way they keep themselves financially supported), does it need to go through Play Store's billing system? Afaik, Google takes down open-source apps that link to their donation page without going through their billing system because it falls on their "no circumvention" policy. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268389

magicalhippo 3y ago

Semi-unrelated but this reminded me of the countless hours I spent playing Castle of the Winds[1] as a kid. Based on this thread I went searching for it and, as it turns out, the original author is working on porting[2] it to Unity! [1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/842/castle-of-the-winds/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/842/castle-of-the-winds/ [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CastleOfTheWinds/comments/172ckn6/it_lives/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CastleOfTheWinds/comments/172ckn6/i...

jd3 3y ago
While imperfect, I nevertheless adored Reign of Swords/Clash of Kingdom on my old iPod touch back in ~2008. I've looked for a replacement for years but 99.9% of similar games on the App Store are spam/pay to win/microtransaction hell with the typical cheap ugly "international" art style. https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/06/reign-of-swords-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/06/reign-of-swords-revi... https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/08/03/reign-of-swords-2-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/08/03/reign-of-swords-2-re... https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/07/mobile-battles-reign-of-swords-review https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/07/mobile-battles-reign... http://web.archive.org/web/20111001213349/http://www.mobilebattles.com/buy.html http://web.archive.org/web/20111001213349/http://www.mobileb...
- canadianfella 3y ago
  [dead]
FranOntanaya 3y ago
So many hours trying to farm cube slimes to get rare items in that game. I loved it.
stavros 3y ago
Oh man, that reminds me of my childhood in rural Greece, where the only software I could get was from magazines, where they downloaded demo/shareware versions of stuff and put it on a CD. Obviously there was no way for me to pay or get the full software, so I spent hours and hours playing the same levels over and over in the demo. I loved Castle of the Winds, and another turn-based games with pirates. There was also a similar one with tanks and such, called Metal Knights maybe?

system7rocks 3y ago

I think you are the best. Period. End of story.

thejarren 3y ago

I’ve been stuck playing Pixel dungeon and now Shattered Pixel Dungeon since ~2014. Fantastic game, highly replayable. I’ve not been heavily committed, so I’ve only really “won” about 2-3 times total.

sspiff 3y ago

My 5 year old son got REALLY into this a few months back. He played up to the first boss and then had me take over. We had a lot of fun with it.

worksonmine 3y ago

I've only played the original Pixel Dungeon and never tried any of the forks. How does this compare?

notorandit 3y ago

You die a little bit too often when compared with old school rogue, nethack and moria. But it is very nice.

chongli 3y ago
You don’t have to die often. Winning streaks of 20+ (with 6 challenges active) are completely doable. This guy RunningFromCake [1] has some nice tutorials on how to get better at the game. He also has videos showing his winning streaks and how he accomplishes them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@runningfromcake https://www.youtube.com/@runningfromcake

nurettin 3y ago

This is the only game I ever donated to. I open it up almost every time I recompile and run. My previous build was an experimental corrupt mage with corpse dust. I wanted to see if I can balance charges and corrupting an army of wraiths that spawn all the time because of the corpse dust. Current build is a plain old assassin with +10 assassin's blade and anti-magic armor. Trying out the badder bosses challenge this time.

Loughla 3y ago
Doesn't corruption require you to hit the enemy? How does that work with wraiths when they die after one hit?
- nurettin 3y ago
  Via wand of corruption. But you need a lot of recharge. Ring, ability and armor needs to be able to recharge your wands. Wraiths become very resistant to wand towards the end, so you will need those charges.

lambdanil 3y ago

For those who enjoy SPD I recommend checking out some other popular roguelikes, many of them are also open source. Some of my personal recommendations would be brogue (probably the most beginner friendly), DCSS (friendly, tons of content), ADoM and Cataclysm DDA (a sandbox survival roguelike, quite a unique mix)

sandspar 3y ago
What do these acronyms mean?
- bananicorn 3y ago
  DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup ADoM = Ancient Domains of Mystery Cataclysm DDA = Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead I swear I didn't make the first one up ;) Edit: ah well, you got your answer already^^
  - zenorogue 3y ago
    "Stone Soup" refers to the Stone Soup folk story, where people contribute their supplies to make a great soup for everyone (it is developed by many people who contribute to the open-source project started by Linley Henzell as Linley's Dungeon Crawl). Still a better name than NetHack (which is not a game about hacking networks... "Net" just refers to collaboration over net to improve the game Hack). There is also BrogueCE ("Brogue Community Edition").
- lambdanil 3y ago
  I should probably have used the full names for clarity, either way the acronyms mean, in order: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Ancient Domains of Mystery and Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead.
- zuik 3y ago
  Shattered Pixel Dungeon Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Ancient Domains of Mystery Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead
rjbwork 3y ago

VagabundoP 3y ago

ha never knew this was open source. Awesome game! When my kid was young I'd have this on my phone to keep her busy for a few minutes if she was melting my brain. She was always killed by a rat at some point.

hiergiltdiestfu 3y ago

It's a great game, and feels very very close to crawl, aka Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It's also fair regarding the payment model (cosmetics only, otherwise completely free on the mechanics side).

nottorp 3y ago
Oh. Lost me right there. Are you sure you're rich enough to afford games with IAPs?

rkagerer 3y ago

This is one of those games I wish I could play on an emulator or VM or something where I could take a snapshot and subsequently undo my inevitable, catastrophic mistake.

Grangar 3y ago
That's called save scumming
pid-1 3y ago
Like DF, this sort of game becomes terribly boring after you have won / seen all things. You don'y want to win quickly.

pjmlp 3y ago

Oh well, now I now what I should add into my phone. Being in Java and a roguelike dugeon crawler with cute graphics already makes it for me.

zeograd 3y ago

It's an awesome game, I'm playing it non-stop since last summer and embarked my 9-years old daughter along. We're sharing games and exchanging bits of information (yes, she's thinking out of the box, and it sometimes works :) ) The author, Evan, is maintaining a fediverse community for all mods of the original Pixel Dungeon, accessible via https://photon.lemmy.world/c/pixeldungeon https://photon.lemmy.world/c/pixeldungeon for instance, after the Reddit troubles from last year.

JyB 3y ago

What is gameplay/control like on mobile? Is the crawling and combat engaging?

sandspar 3y ago
As of my reply there's 120 other comments raving about it.

normaler 3y ago

I have been playing Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered Pixel Dungeon since ~2016. Such a great game.

afatc 3y ago

The original Pixel Dungeon isn’t available in the iOS App Store in Portugal, anyone know how to get around it?

lensi 3y ago

But it requires you to login with your Google account. Weird for an open source game.

lupusreal 3y ago
No such requirement if you get it from F-Droid, which you should.
tgkudelski 3y ago
This is not true. Probably you installed it through the Play store?
gaudystead 3y ago
From my experience, you can just skip it and still play the game. Most of those Google prompts can just be bypassed by hitting the "back" button (on android, at least).
whitehexagon 3y ago
I dont have google account, but noticed they release apk builds directly on github, side-loaded and running, I may be gone a while...

hamilyon2 3y ago

How does it get around apple GPL ban?

richardwhiuk 3y ago
If you own the rights to all of the code, you can dual license under GPL and non-GPL, and then you can post on the appstore. They don't accept code requests, so that might be their strategy

luckyshot 3y ago

If you like Magic The Gathering card playing game, avoid Forge (Desktop + Android) because it is open source (made in Java) and it has all the cards, gameplays, you can build your deck or choose from a huge list of ready-made ones and play against the AI and online up to 4 players in the same game I believe. https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge

mdaniel 3y ago
recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38651346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38651346 and XMage is usually submitted alongside them when any M:TG makes the front page, including the quarterly(?) "M:TG is Turing complete" paper thread

6mian 3y ago

https://pixeldungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Pixel_Dungeon https://pixeldungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Pixel_Dungeon is a great resource if you are new to the game and genre, although I suggest first trying discovering everything by yourself (prepare to die a lot) and start reading the wiki after getting through the first boss on lvl 5. I've been playing SPD for years now and for me the best strategy to win the game is to keep Scrolls of Upgrade until you get a hold of a weapon of at least tier 4, same goes for armor. This makes the initial levels much more risky, but if you survive it's a matter of not making mistakes or getting yourself into high risk situations. Using this method I get to the Amulet in about 30% of the runs. Since the recent updates getting back to the ground has become a much more fun challenge. Besides postponing the use of Scrolls of Upgrade, here are a few things that work for me: * You don't have to identify potions and scrolls right away, often you can keep them until you gather more information. For example, killed flies sometimes drop health potion and they are on early levels, so you can learn the color without using it. * Before you get the Scroll Holder that protects the scrolls from fire, it's a good idea to stash all the scrolls in water at the beginning of each level and retrieve them back before going to the next one. * Scrolls of Mapping are absolutely crucial on levels >20 because of the traps and they are relatively cheap in the first two shops. * Summoning trap rooms are great to gather a lot of xp if you have potions of paralytic gas and fire/toxic gas. After the level is cleared, you just open the doors by throwing something at it, go as far away as possible, throw paralytic and then fire/toxic potions. And run to the next level. If you like the game, consider donating to the project, you can do this directly in the game, at least in the Android version.

ourmandave 3y ago
(prepare to die a lot) No thanks. Repeatedly punishing you for stupid shit isn't a fun game. Like the Sims will burn you alive for not buying a smoke detector and then having the audacity to make toast.
- ohwellhere 3y ago
  This may not be the genre for you, then. And that’s fine!

berkeleynerd 3y ago

Love this! I purchased both the iOS and Steam version. Completely happy to support indie game devs willing to open source their software.

gamblerrr 3y ago

https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/blob/master/docs/recommended-changes.md https://github.com/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/blob/mast... This is such a useful document. It details how to get your own fork up and running. I’ve seen a lot of open source software go in the other direction.

thurn 3y ago

Interesting that this project seems to contain a bunch of sprite assets released under GPL3. How does GPL apply to something like an art asset?

rlonstein 3y ago

I started an opinionated and still incomplete guide for new players https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide. I didn't put it out there and was going to take it down because I couldn't finish it let alone maintain it. It's impossible to keep up with the pace of Evan's updates so the walk-throughs with seeds probably don't work, but someone might find it useful.

EduardLev 3y ago
I can't seem to load the page, would love to read.
- rlonstein 3y ago
  I don't know why that would be, but someone archived it: https://web.archive.org/web/20240321134120/https://spd-huntress-guide.pages.dev/guide https://web.archive.org/web/20240321134120/https://spd-huntr...
nonethewiser 3y ago
As someone who was intrigued by this post but felt a little overwhelmed starting out, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing, whether its incomplete/outdated or not.
lupire 3y ago
I'm probably biased, but I liked PD and then SPD better when I first played it, and felt the later updates to be overwhelming.

TalEs 3y ago

Just got hit with a wave of nostalgia, I remember playing it in 2015, and I opened up the link to Google Play, and I still see my comments there, that the dev even responded too. Great game that I will have to pick up again!

bastawhiz 3y ago

By sheer coincidence I'd installed this a few weeks ago. It's really well made, but I ended up uninstalling it because—unless I'm really missing something—it is punishingly difficult. Maybe I don't know all the controls? Or there's some sort of mechanic I'm missing? Or maybe my expectations are wrong? This very much seems like the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I find myself getting absolutely obliterated by the first snake or two that I encounter. I've yet to figure out how to sneak up on or by them. I've yet to find or earn any early loot that might help. If anyone knows what I'm doing wrong, please let me know. I'd love to just crank the difficulty down by 50%.

untech 3y ago
Coming from classic Pixel Dungeon and a bit of Nethack, I can suggest the following heuristics: - Don’t leave a level without finding a ration - Identify scrolls and potions as early as possible by using them in a safe context - Use doorframes to fight one enemy at a time
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  I'm rarely even getting to the end of the first level let alone leaving it unprepared!
  - chongli 3y ago
    The real trick to surviving the early game is to abuse the heck out of surprise attacks. Do not fight enemies in the open early on! Throw/zap stuff at them from a distance and then retreat behind a door. As soon as they step through the door, hit them! You should see a yellow ! indicating a surprise attack (guaranteed hit). Now retreat and do it again! This trick works with anything that breaks line of sight. Doors and tall grass are my preferred options. It even works if you step through a door (closing it behind you) or around a patch of tall grass (to the opposite side of the grass from the enemy) and the enemy immediately opens the door or otherwise follows right behind you. See my other reply [1] for more tips! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779664

tacocataco 3y ago

As a super fan of roguelikes I appreciate the recommendation. I found a doom roguelike recently, maybe yall would be interested to. https://drl.chaosforge.org/ https://drl.chaosforge.org/

max_k 3y ago

Why does the Android app require access to my location? I wouldn't expect open source apps to spy on me.

entelechy0 3y ago

[dead]

metadat 3y ago

An open-source multiplayer version of this would be pretty sweet! I've been playing on and off for about 3 years now, I'm not even very good, have never beat it yet. In the past week or two I've learned about better strategies, e.g. max out your weapon so you can one-hit most enemies. Trading blows is a death sentence. This play guide has more helpful knowledge information: https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/comments/4tthsy/shattered_complete_guide_to_winning_and_fun_tips/ https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/comments/4tthsy/shatte... Ome additional note: Don't let thieves get too far away after they steal from you, else This stolen item will disappear forever. This just happened to me a few minutes ago.

skulk 3y ago
How would multiplayer work with the turn-based aspect? Do you have to wait for other players to take their turns? This would be terribly boring IMO. Do you instead allow anyone to take a turn whenever? That turns the game into an RTS. I've thought about this a lot and I don't really think it's possible.
- metadat 3y ago
  Yeah it'd have to be a RTS/ Diablo type of mechanic, although if you keep food as a number-of-moves-limiter, the turn-based aspect may be less critical. Maybe a game could work where each player explores the map independently but when a creature is encountered, the other player is teleported in, and then returns to prior spot after the fight? Could be fun.

canadianfella 3y ago

[dead]

lupire 3y ago

A bit different, but Hoplite is another fantastic game with turn-based single-hero tactical fighting. No dungeon exploration though.

klondike_klive 3y ago
Thanks for reminding me of it, I used to play it all the time but haven't even installed it for several years. I bought it after a recommendation from Roguelike Radio, the podcast hosted by Darren Grey, one of the ADOM and TOME devs (If I remember correctly)

bilsbie 3y ago

I just downloaded this on the iPhone. It seems like it would be more fun if you could save checkpoints instead of starting over.

nomel 3y ago
Permadeath is a primary aspect of the genre [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
- bilsbie 3y ago
  Interesting. It seems like it would be hard to make much progress.