Shattered Pixel Dungeon v0.3.1: It’s A Trap!

0.3.1 brings a bunch of UI and quality of life improvements as well as some new traps!

Here’s the changes list, plus change context:

New traps!:
- Over 20 new traps (and tweaks to existing ones)
- Trap visuals overhauled
- Traps now get trickier deeper in the dungeon
- Trap room reworked to make use of new traps

Balance changes:
- Ethereal chains now gain fewer charges the more charge they have.
- Staff of regrowth grants more herbal healing
- Monks now disarm less randomly, but not less frequently
- Invisibility potion effect now lasts for 20 turns, up from 15.

BIG UI changes:
- Adjusted display scaling
- Search and Examine merged into one button (double tap to search)
- New max of 4 Quickslots! 
- Multiple toolbar modes for large display and landscape users 
- Ability to flip toolbar and indicators
- Reworked settings menu with new controls
- graphics settings are now accessible ingame
- More consistent text rendering
- Recent changes can now be viewed from the title screen

QOL improvements:
- Quickslots now autotarget enemies
- Resting now works while hungry and at max HP
- Dew drops no longer collect when at full health with no dew vial
- Items on the floor now stay visible in the fog of war
- Many bugfixes

Traps!

The big new content addition of this update, new traps are designed to mix up gameplay a bit more, balance difficulty a little better, and provide for some interesting gameplay opportunities. Rather than stepping on a fire trap for the 5th time, now you’ll step on 5 different, equally bad traps instead! Have fun =). In the earlygame traps have been made less harsh to reflect the difficulty of those areas, but in the lategame traps can be much, much more dangerous. There are now some rare traps with neat effects too, and not all of them are purely bad (but most of them are).

Ethereal chains

Everyone’s favourite artifact lately, and I hope it’s not because they were a bit buggy! This update brings a few fixes to the chains and a nerf too. Firstly, no more shenanigans involving shopkeepers or levelling up past 10! Secondly, the chains no longer stack charge infinitely as long as you keep gaining exp, they will now gain less charge as charges stack. While I don’t think that the chains themselves are OP, the ability to stack tonnes of charge until you find a chasm floor was a bit ridiculous. Players should now be encouraged to use the chains more often in a variety of situations, instead of waiting to use them as a free pass in specific situations.

Monks

I’m not reworking the dwarvern city yet, so this isn’t a balance change so much as an annoyance change. Monks will now be much more consistent in how many hits it takes to disarm you. This means that it is now impossible for a monk to hit you once and knock a weapon from your hand, but on the flipside after they land a few hits they will be very likely to relieve you of your weapon. The average number of hits to disarm is unchanged, but the unlucky ones among us should find that this tweak makes dwarf monks much less overbearing without actually nerfing them.

UI

All of this sprang up from wanting four quickslots, it sort of snowballed from there. The intention for these UI changes is to provide a definitive interface for phones, as well as keeping tablet and desktop users reasonably happy until more specific interfaces can be made for them. There are a tonne of changes here, but the most controversial one is is-

No more Search button

Through user testing on the UI changes, the removal of the search button (and its integration into the examine button) was the most complained-about change. I’ve always said I take feedback very seriously, and that hasn’t changed, but it doesn’t mean I’m always able to make every person happy. In addition, 72% of people are happy with the tradeoff of the search button for more quickslots, and a whopping 95% of players are happy with the UI changes as a whole(based on the beta feedback survey). Unfortunately this is one of the situations where it isn’t really possible to create a solution that pleases everyone. After the wand rework it is apparent that the game needs more quickslots, and if the search button were still present there would not be room for more quickslots. I’m still open to talk about this change, of course, but as it stands the search and examine buttons have been merged.