Lore art would be neat but I'm afraid doing it in any real functional capacity would be a huge amount of work and time. It's definitely possible but it would have to happen after lore stuff is already completely locked in, and it would need to be MUCH lower detail than the current splash arts.
I'll probably keep the reward fairly similar overall (high value misc. equipment), but might give the player a bit more choice and/or add artifacts as possible rewards (not at +0).
Whether or not the quest is like the sewers is entirely up to how it's designed. I would design the quest with this sort of limitation in mind and the intention certainely wouldn't be to have it kill >50% of runs. If anything I think giving everyone a common starting point will make it much easier to balance this quest, as the state the player is in during the quest can be much more tightly controlled.
Hey Dungeoneers, if all goes well there will be an early beta for for Shattered Pixel Dungeon v3.0.0 tomorrow, just in time for the holidays!
The beta includes the new Cleric hero, with a fully implemented base class, 1/2 subclasses, and 1/3 lategame armor abilities. I'll be taking a bit of a break over the holidays, so expect the hero to be filled in and released through January and February.
Here's a look at the Cleric's full splash art! Expect a blog post tomorrow too.
(Image Description: Full detail splash art for the Cleric hero.)
A bless spell is a fantasy Cleric stable, so of course Shattered Pixel Dungeon's upcoming Cleric hero needs one.
This tier 2 talent/spell grants bonus accuracy, evasion, and shielding when the Cleric casts it on themselves. It's much more potent on allies though, granting a longer bless buff and healing instead of shielding! You can even use it to overheal frail allies like mirror images!
Look out for more posts soon, fingers crossed I'll be ready to release a beta on Wednesday or Thursday this coming week!
(Image Description: A short GIF demonstrating the bless spell. Two characters are fighting each other and it's unclear which will win. The Cleric uses the bless spell to turn the odds so that one of them wins easily.)
Time for another spell teaser for Shattered Pixel Dungeon's upcoming Cleric hero! This time it's the Cleric's version of a 'scroll use' talent: Recall Glyph.
This tier 2 talent/spell lets the Cleric expend some holy tome charges to recreate the effect of their most recently used scroll or runestone. This is a really flexible spell, with almost 40 different items you can duplicate. You can deal extra damage with some items (like in the GIF), or get multiple uses out of adventuring tools like scrolls of magic mapping or identify. Naturally, some items are more expensive to recall than others, and scrolls of upgrade in particular can't be used with this spell.
(Image Description: A short GIF demonstrating the recall glyph spell. The cleric first throws am explosive runestone of blast at two enemies, then as they approach they cast the spell and can throw a reproduced version of the stone again.)
Happy 12th birthday to the original Pixel Dungeon, first released on December 4th 2012!
Unfortunately it's a bit hard to find the original Android versions these days, but if you're okay with APK downloads, you can find an archive of old versions here: https://github.com/00-Evan/pixel-dungeon-gradle/releases/tag/archive
If you're more interested in desktop platforms, the game is free on itch or paid on steam:
https://watabou.itch.io/pixel-dungeon
https://store.steampowered.com/app/365900/Pixel_Dungeon/
Unfortunately there is no proper way to play the game on iOS currently.
Here's another Cleric spell teaser, first shared in this week's blog post: Sunray!
Sunray is a tier 2 talent/spell that deals a bit more damage than guiding light and blinds the target for a few turns. Casting the spell twice in a row will upgrade the blind to a stun, but only once per enemy.
It's not going to take out enemies as consistently as a damage wand, but the ability to disable enemeis at a distance makes it quite potent as a defense or utility option.
(Image Description: A short GIF showing off the sunray spell. A skeleton approached the Cleric, but after two casts of the spell the skeleton is frozen in place. The Cleric then simply walks away.)
Hey folks, I'm just about ready to release a new blog post that'll share a bunch more Cleric info! Expect it early this coming week. I'm afraid I won't be releasing a beta with that post, but that's not too far off either.
In the meantime, here are two more innate spells that the Cleric gets: Holy Weapon and Holy Ward! These spells grant temporary enchantments to weapons and armor, slightly boosting damage dealt and damage blocked. They last for a little while too, perfect for casting right before a drawn out fight.
The effects these spells give don't stack with existing enchantments and glyphs though, so their usefulness falls off as the game progresses.
As mentioned last week, Shattered Pixel Dungeon's upcoming Cleric hero has a variety of unique spells which they can access via their holy tome. The first of the Cleric's spells is a simple supportive ranged option: Guiding Light.
Guiding Light is an innate spell (no talent needed to unlock) and does some damage while 'illuminating' the target. This guarantees that the next physical attack made against that target will hit.
(Image Description: a short GIF showing off the guiding light spell. The Cleric casts it on an enemy, which begins to glow. The Cleric then waits for the enemy to approach, and attacks them.)
Here's how Shattered Pixel Dungeon's mobile hero select screen will look with the upcoming Cleric added to it. Some visuals are still a WIP, (the cudgel's sprite in particular is very rough) but all the important bits are in place.
You can see the info window for the Cleric here too, showing off some info about their abilities. Just like the Rogue, the Cleric has a unique artifact that lets them access class abilities.
Unlike all the other heroes though, the Cleric gains a wide variety of active abilities (spells) via the talent system! I'll be sharing more info about some of the Cleric's spells in the coming weeks!
(Image Description: A screenshot from Shattered Pixel Dungeon showing the hero select screen and the Cleric selected. On the left the screen is shown with no info window open, on the right the hero info window is open, showing various information relating to the new hero. Most notably: "The Cleric starts with a unique holy tome, which they can use to cast various spells. Most of the Cleric's talents are focused around learning or upgrading spells.")
Did you know that in a way the Cleric is the first hero ever to appear in the original Pixel Dungeon?
Pixel Dungeon had a different default hero sprite for about 6 days after its first release in 2012. This was back before the game even had hero classes, and this sprite was quickly scrapped and replaced with the Rogue's sprite. I saw a screenshot of this design back in 2015, and it was my initial inspiration for the Cleric in Shattered Pixel Dungeon! The design has changed a lot since, but it's neat to think that in a way this hero is about 12 years in the making!
Also, I now have an account on Bluesky! While it isn't my first choice, I have been happy to see that Bluesky has been replacing Twitter for many people in the last little while. If you'd like, you can now find me there as well: https://bsky.app/profile/shatteredpixel.com
(Image Description: A screenshot from the original Pixel Dungeon circa 2012. Several graphical elements are outdated compared to the current version of Pixel Dungeon, and compared to Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Most notably, the hero sprite is completely different in this screenshot, using a design that was scrapped shortly after.)
It's worth noting that this game has nothing to do with Pixel Dungeon, and seems to just be trying to piggyback on its popularity by stealing its name.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, I'm closing the comments on this thread.
It's a rainbow colored potion wishing people a happy pride, it is as similarly inoffensive as any of the other holiday items, and will be gone in a few days. Obviously not everyone celebrates such a holiday, and that's fine, but If pride existing in the game offends you but halloween/christmas/chinese new years doesn't, then you should consider why that is.
Gold and hidden rooms are never contained deep into walls, there's no reason to dig more than 1 or 2 tiles out from a room in search of secrets.
The horn charges based on exp gain, not based on time, mainly to prevent people using an upgraded horn to stall out hunger forever. The amount of charge you get per hero level scales from ~0.33 rations to ~2.25 rations at +10. Each ration you put into the horn will be recovered after about 5 levels.
It depends a lot on what items you have. Generally upgrade/reforge/harden are better if you already have good gear, and smith is good if you need to fish for a good weapon or armor. Reforge, harden, and upgrade can each be used a second time, but the second use costs 1000 more favor.
Generally anything that isn't equipment can be used in the alchemy interface, but not all items have a recipe.
I was very happy with RoA when I first thought up the concept for it. I was mulling over adding a new ring but didn't have a great idea, and knew arcana was a winner the moment I thought of it. Enchants and glyphs have always been fun for players to use, so letting them access the power budget afforded to SoU allowed me to really heavily boost them.
It's hard for me to really address this specifically when the quest is an idea in my head and not precisely designed currently, All I can really say is that I am going to try to plan for the player to have proper means of skill expression, I agree that just forcing the player into basic equipment and then turning the quest into stats vs. stats would be boring and overly punishing for chal players. That doesn't have to be how it's designed though.