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

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

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

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  • krakenfury@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    Awesome stuff! I remember when development stopped on Pixel Dungeon all those years ago, and Shattered stayed on my phone after trying out the myriad of variants (Sprouted anyone?).

    If you’d indulge me, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on a few things:

    • Equipment degradation - This being one of the last features that watabou implemented before halting the project always seemed kind of extreme to me. What do you think about the mechanics of it, and do you think it could have been improved upon, if development had not ended? Have you tested with it much in development for Shattered?

    • The other projects from watabou have been pretty cool to see. His proc-generative skills have really shone with the TTRPG tools, and I have actually used them in my own campaign, to some extent. Just wondering if you have checked them out.

    • Any aspirations of starting something new, or is it SPD from here on?

    Thanks for sharing your gift to the world! It’s helped me pass countless hours enjoyably.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPM
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      3 months ago

      Thanks for the kind words! I’ll answer your questions in order:

      • It’s interesting that you mention this because you’re already playing with ‘improved degradation’! The changes I made in v0.4.0 with strength scaling, and subsequent adjustments in updates like v0.4.1 and v0.8.0 are sort of my version of the degradation system. I think the goal of the system was good, nerfing the ‘dump every upgrade into the first high-tier weapon and win’ strategy, but there was too much collateral damage. I solved the problem by making it harder to access high-tier gear early, and generally making raw offense with no planning or strategy much less effective.
      • I have checked then out! I don’t really have a use for procgen tools myself, but I do keep tabs on what Watabou is doing. Amusingly, a D&D campaign I was in a couple years ago did actually make fairly regular use of Watabou’s medival fantasy city generator.
      • I do have some plans, obviously I can’t keep working on Shattered forever, but for the foreseeable future I still have ideas for Shattered and the game is doing way too well for me to consider stopping development.
      • krakenfury@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        Thanks for taking the time to answer! I will admit that I often wait way too long to use my SoU’s. Nice balancing act you did there to punish those of us who cling too hard to the old ways.

        It’s also really cool to see you using Lemmy!

        Anyway, wishing all the continued success to you.