Shattered Pixel Dungeon in 2024

Happy New Year rat punchers!

After a busy holiday, and getting sick =S, I’m back with some news about v2.3.0 and my plans for the year ahead! This post starts with a year in review, and then lists the major changes and additions that I have planned for Shattered Pixel Dungeon in 2024 and beyond.

I’ve written one of these posts every year since 2019, you can take a look at the previous ones here: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019.

2023 in Review

While 2023 was another year with just 3 game updates, they were at least some pretty big ones!

• In March we had the release of the Duelist, Shattered’s first ever new hero!
• While it wasn’t a game update, in April Shattered released on GOG.com and Itch.io.
• June saw the release of a followup update, with balance tweaks and a few smaller additons.
• In October the caves quest redesign started to release, alongside 20 minutes of new music!

I would have preferred to release more in 2023, but I am happy that two really major pieces of new content came out this year. The new caves quest in particular has been very popular. I’m really happy that people are enjoying it as it’s some of the most new and unique content I’ve ever added to Shattered.

On the business side of things, 2023 has been Shattered’s best year yet, with continued strong sales on both the App Store and Steam. In fact, in late 2023 Shattered Pixel Dungeon passed 100,000 units sold across all platforms! Your support has allowed Shattered to grow from a hobby project into my full-time job, thank you so much!

The Plan for 2024

Here are the major pieces of content that I’d like to add in 2024, in the order I’m currently planning to implement them. Please note that while I’d very much like to stick to this, game development rarely works out exactly as planned. There is a high chance that I won’t get through everything here in 2024, and it’s also possible that the order may shift or things may change entirely.

Releasing v2.3.0

The gnoll caves quest I talked about last time is finished, but the final third caves quest variant is still pretty incomplete. The caves quest has also already taken forever to make and has been extremely well received as-is. So, I’ve decided to release v2.3.0 with just the second gnoll variant, and move on to other content for now.

I know that changing priorities like this is a disappointment for people who were expecting three variants to the caves quest, but at this point I’ve been actively working on it for more than 2/3 of a year, and have been doing serious concepting since early 2022. I think it’s time to move on to other content and revisit the caves quest at a later date to add another variant. The good part of this is that v2.3.0 will release fairly soon! Expect that to happen some time next week.

Trinkets

I’ve alluded to these in prior posts, but it’s time to be a bit more specific! Trinkets are a new item type produced and upgraded via alchemical energy, and are more about tweaking gameplay variables than giving direct power or utility. As an example, one trinket will increase the chance of encountering rare enemies!

Region Splash Arts

I first mentioned this last year, but new splash arts for each of the game’s five regions by Aleksandar Komitov are still coming! These will show up during loading transitions and show off each environment in fully rendered detail. Check this post’s header image for a better look at the sewers splash art.

The Cleric

I’d like for 2024 to have a new hero release, just like 2023. The Cleric would likely be the headline release for the year, with abilities based on divine magic, to contrast with the Mage’s more arcane magic. While I don’t plan on releasing the Cleric first, they are easily the thing I most want to release this year.

City Quest

Lastly, with the caves quest finished for now, it would be nice to get moving on the city quest! My current concept is to have the Imp ask the player to raid a special dwarven vault. The major catch will be that none of the player’s items can go with them, leading to a little microcosm of gear progression that will only exist within the vault.

Smaller Things

Shattered updates usually include some pretty significant smaller changes in addition to headline content. Here are some of the smaller things that I’m currently considering for side content in future updates in 2024 and beyond, in no particular order.

• Adjustments to hero and talent mechanics
• UI and UX improvements for larger screens, and keyboard/controller players
• More badges or a challenge to test the skill of experienced players
• A few more supporter benefits for users who’ve purchased the game
• Further streamlining to the alchemy system and tweaks to specific recipes
• Reworks, tweaks, and additions to existing item categories
• Further improvements to shops, possibly including some new ones
• New room types and general improvements to level generation
• And, of course, every update comes with a bunch of bugfixes and small QoL tweaks

It’s worth noting that this sort of smaller content is often the subject of polls on my Patreon. If you’d like to influence what smaller content I focus on, please consider pledging and voting!

Longer-Term Plans

Here are some other things I’d like to do in Shattered that I’m definitely going to be implementing after 2024. Think of these are longer term ‘nice ideas’ or ‘stretch goals’. The higher an item is on this list, the more clearly defined my idea is for it.

Halls Quest

There’s an obvious opportunity to add a quest to the game’s final region. While I don’t want to make the game overly long, a bit more gameplay at the tail end of the game is sorely needed, and I have a few ideas for interesting quests that could test an endgame character.

Hero-Focused Lore

Once I’ve added the Cleric, I would really like to start adding lore documents that focus on the heroes themselves. These could include journals written by the heroes from their perspectives, or documents that describe interactions and conversations between the heroes.

More Subclasses

It would be nice to add one more subclass to each hero, to better take advantage of Shattered’s increased equipment and class diversity. However, it’s important that I have enough good ideas to ensure that all of the new subclasses are interesting.

New In-Game Art

Over the years Shattered has gotten loads of audiovisual improvements, and the game’s pixel art and environments are starting to look pretty dated by comparison. I’d really like to work with an artist to improve the game’s spritework and environmental detail, while still staying true to the current art style.

Endless Mode

Some form of endless mode is an extremely common request. This partly ties in to the last region of the game being the shortest, but also there’s just a desire for players to see how far they could get with particularly strong character builds. I have a few loose ideas for how endless might work, but no solid design at the moment.

Alternate Paths

Another common request is to have more dungeon floors, but just tacking more on risks making the game too long. An alt path could offer new environments and enemies without making the game directly longer. This would be a huge time commitment though, so I’d only really consider it when ShatteredPD is otherwise finished.

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And that’s everything I’ve got plans or ideas for right now; here’s to another great year of Shattered Pixel Dungeon! I’ll keep posting larger news articles here, of course, but if you’d like smaller incremental updates, you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter, or follow me on Mastodon.

If you enjoy Shattered and want to help me keep making it, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Patrons get access to exclusive weekly mini blogs about upcoming updates, monthly Q&As and content polls, physical loyalty rewards, and early alpha access to updates!

You can discuss this blog post on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community, or on the Steam Community Forums!