(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey Dungeoneers, v3.1 is ready for beta, just in time to meet the estimate I gave (for once)!

In this blog post I'm going to go over what's coming in v3.1! This update has a a mini Warrior rework, some new rooms in the dungeon, and an assortment of miscellaneous changes and additions.

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As a quick recap, the Warrior currently has an ability that gives him one passive shielding every 30 turns, which is effectively +33% health regen that works even when hungry. This power is hard to notice and impossible to interact with, but also easy to use and very impactful over the course of a run. This results in the Warrior feeling a lot weaker than he actually is, and I'd like to make the seal's power easier to notice and interact with without making it outright stronger or harder for new players to use.

Here's how that's happening: When the Warrior is about to take damage that would reduce him to 50% health or lower, he will now instantly gain a shield that scales with his armor's tier, with a cooldown of 100 turns. This up-front shield boost is way easier to notice compared to a passive shield that just takes 1 or 2 off most attacks. To start out you'll get 5 shield, and this can go as high as 15 with T5 armor and the iron will talent. Here's how that looks in action:

This means that in theory the Warrior is going from 30 turns per shield to 20 at the start, going as low as 6. That's a huge buff on paper, but it also assumes that the player is constantly fighting at 50% HP or lower. This creates a nice little point of interaction for experienced players, who'll want to try and maximize shield uptime. Newer players don't have to do anything in particular to just use the ability though, as it still triggers automatically whenever the Warrior needs it.

Other Warrior mechanics are getting smaller changes to compensate for this. Several talents are getting shuffled around a bit, and the Berserkser subclass is getting its own separate shield buff instead of piggybacking on the seal's shielding buff. The Berserker's shield still scales with armor level as well, so players who want to dump their upgrades into armor will still have a mechanic that scales with that.

---

(Note that the new visuals shown here are placeholders and will be improved)

v3.1 is going to include a new terrain type in each region and some standard room changes to make use of them! I ended up getting a little carried away with this, and in the end each region is getting a new room type, changes/expansions to some existing rooms, and two new entrance/exit variants!

Firstly, here are some of the entirely new rooms that take advantage of the new terrain:

Next, here are some existing rooms that have been changed around a bit to include new terrain types:

Finally, here are some of the new entrance/exit variants. Some are similar to old ones, but I’ve added a few new ones focused on enclosed starting spaces.

Overall I ended up taking longer making these changes than I initially expected (at first it was just going to be the new terrain), but I'm pretty happy with the result. In particular, with these additions the typical empty rooms that were near universal a few years ago are now entirely gone!

---

The Warrior changes and levelgen expansion are the biggest parts of v3.1, but there's a nice assortment of smaller things too:

v3.1 includes one new item: the Ferret Tuft! The tuft is a simpler evasion-boosting trinket with more of a cute aesthetic. It boosts evasion for you and for enemies, but there are lots of ways to counter enemy evasion, so use wands or go for those surprise attacks! The tuft is a little reference to a favorite ferret.

---

I expect this beta to last for about one to one and a half weeks. If you'd like more frequent incremental updates on Shattered's development, you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

Hey Dungeoneers, here's that second patch I was mentioning. Just some more smaller fixes and translation updates.

Here's the full list of changes in v3.0.2:

---

A bug was fixed in this patch which affected display scaling on Steam Deck. Due to a quirk in how the Steam Deck reported display dimensions, the game incorrectly thought Steam Deck's screen was about 4", instead of 7".

As a result of this fix, you might notice that the interface appears differently as it now defaults to the 'full' UI mode instead of 'mobile'. If you prefer the previous interface mode, you can swap to it in the settings by using the mobile interface mode and 5x interface scale.

- Music muting while game is in background on desktop now also applies to blacksmith's hammering sfx
- Improved number rounding logic when damage hero takes is affected by several modifiers at once
- Updated translations and translator credits

Fixed the following bugs:
Caused by v3.0:
- Errors with Android golden supporter UI and full interface mode
- Cleric's Recall Glyph spell not working with some runestones while time was frozen

Existed Prior to v3.0:
- Game incorrectly thinking it is on a phone screen when played on Steam Deck
- Water of Awareness buff persisting between floors if the hero is very fast
- Various errors when saving/loading custom controller bindings
- Visual errors when Tengu's sprite animations are frozen (e.g. via paralysis)
- Characters still appearing as visible if knocked out of hero FOV in specific cases
- Talisman of Foresight's scry ability not detecting hiding mimics
- Quick-using an item from a bag not using that item's autotarget properties (for real this time)

Hey Dungeoneers, after two weeks I've just released the first patch for Shattered Pixel Dungeon v3.0!

v3.0 ended up not needing any urgent changes so I've taken my time with it. I'm planning one more smaller patch a bit later, and then it'll be on to v3.1!

Here's the full list of changes in v3.0.1:

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So far the Cleric is doing surprisingly well balance-wise! There are definitely some things to adjust, but nothing that's serious enough to need doing in a patch. I'm just making one change to put a limit on ring of energy shenanigans for the Paladin:
- Holy Weapon and Ward can now be extended to a max of 100 turns at a time.

After v3.0's nerf to the Mossy Clump, I'm going to experiment with scaling back its absurd upgrade cost. Hopefully it's at a power level now where it doesn't need to cost massively more than other trinkets:
- Mossy Clump upgrade energy cost reduced to 10/15/20 from 20/25/30. This is now the same as other 'higher cost' trinkets.

Firstly, two trinket changes that are meant as QoL, but are effectively mild buffs:
- Salt Cube's regen reduction now automatically disables itself during boss fights, the trinket doesn't need to be dropped.
- Waterskin drinking now more intelligently handles the extra healing from vial of blood, no longer consuming excess dew.

And some other things:
- Updated Translations
- Cursed wand pitfall effect no longer drops items if triggered via wondrous resin
- Feint armor ability no longer autotargets
- Removed support for runs in progress from prior to v2.3.2
- Removed internal code for old blacksmith quest from prior to v2.2

Fixed the following bugs:
Caused by v3.0:
- Enemies getting many actions after recovering from transmogrification
- Save/load errors with sniper's mark buff
- Incorrect shielding amount shown when using Warrior's remains item
- Various uncommon crash bugs

Existed Prior to v3.0:
- Exploit involving unidentified crossbow and curse infusion
- Exploit involving placing wards on a necromancer's summoning position
- Shocking enchantment missing valid targets in some cases
- Rare cases where bees would refuse to attack near enemies vs. far ones
- quick-using an item from a bag not using that item's autotarget properties
- Alchemy guide items being greyed out in main menu
- Various rare crash bugs
- Various minor visual & textual errors

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

To celebrate v3.0.0's release, Shattered is also 40% off on Steam for the next while! v3.0.0 includes new title art and hero splash art, so I'll be taking the opportunity to refresh the game's description and image assets in all the various places over the next little while.

---

v3.0 includes Shattered's second new playable character! The Cleric is a divine spellcaster who learns and upgrades spells via the talent system! They're releasing with 2 subclasses, 3 armor abilities, and over 30 different spells! There are also visual improvements, a new title graphic, and loads of smaller changes!

I talked about this update in two previous blog posts:

• Status Update: v3.0 Coming Soon![shatteredpixel.com]
  
• Coming Soon to Shattered: The Cleric![shatteredpixel.com]
  
• Coming Soon to Shattered: A Sixth Hero![shatteredpixel.com]

Here's the full changelog for v3.0.0! Click or tap on each entry to read more. Note that this changelog will become slightly outdated as patches are released and dev commentary is added, so check the changes screen in-game for the most up to date version.

(This sections contains expandable text boxes, you may need to view the post directly in order to see them properly.)

New Content:

• Developer Commentary [expand]
  - Released February 27th, 2025
  - 197 days after Shattered v2.5.0
  - 548 days after Shattered v2.0.0
  
  Dev commentary will be added here in the future.[/expand]
  
• The Cleric! [expand]
  Shattered Pixel Dungeon has another new hero, making for six total!!
  
  The Cleric is an entire new hero class with a variety of unique spells that they learn via talents! They can be unlocked by removing the curse on any piece of equipment, but existing players who already have a win will automatically unlock them!
  
  Much like how the Duelist can use a bunch of weapon abilities, I want the Cleric to be an ability-centric hero focused on Magic. Unlike the Duelist, these abilities are tied into the hero and their talents, instead of equipment items.[/expand]
  
• Cleric Subclasses [expand]
  The Cleric has two subclasses, each with their own emphasis!
  
  The Priest is focused on ranged spell combat, effects that synergize with magical items like wands and artifacts.
  
  The Paladin is focused on melee spell combat and defensive power. Their effects most strongly synergize with weapons and armor.[/expand]
  
• Cleric Armor Abilities [expand]
  The Cleric has three lategame armor abilities as well!
  
  Ascended Form grants the Cleric access to new spells, extra attack ranged, and shielding whenever they cast spells.
  
  Trinity lets the Cleric access the effects of items they've previously identified in their run without the items themselves.
  
  Power of Many empowers or creates an ally for the Cleric, and grants them new spells to cast with that ally.[/expand]

Changes:

• Visual & Interface Changes [expand]
  Shattered's title graphic has been totally redrawn! The new title graphic, by Aleksandar Komitov, improves on text quality and style while trying to stay true to the original title. There is now a landscape and portrait variant of this title as well.
  
  The game's Hero Splash Arts have been improved as well! After so many years, Aleksandar has revised some of the game's hero splash arts to bring them up to his current standards:
  - The Huntress and Rogue have recieved major changes
  - The Mage has recieved moderate changes
  - The Duelist has received only tiny tweaks to some face details.
  - The Warrior's splash remains unchanged for the moment, but improvements to it are coming soon as well!
  
  The Games in Progress screen has been expanded too, with up to 6 runs at once, info about recency, and sorting options.[/expand]
  
• 15+ Misc. Changes [expand]
  Highlights:
  - Turned off auto-targeting in cases where it was almost always wrong (Bless spell, Wand of Warding, etc.)
  - Enemies are now more willing to switch targets if their target is retreating and they are being attacked by something else
  - Enemies are now more consistently drawn to the hero's position if they are attacked from out of visible range
  - Internal adjustments to hunger and regeneration effects, they should now be more responsive when hunger or regen rate changes.
  - Fixed Reclaim trap spell exploits, and allowed it to be dropped while charged
  - Traps triggered by time freeze ending now always resolve after other effects/actions (e.g. teleportation, item pickup)
  - Improved visual contrast for symbols on runestones
  
  Characters:
  - Crazed bandits now have their own description
  
  Effects:
  - Blast Wave no longer knocks back characters if they are killed over a pit
  - Cloak of Shadows (and new Holy Tome) can no longer be transmuted.
  
  Misc.:
  - Adjusted icons for Sucker Punch and Followup Strike
  - Camera no longer re-centers on hero when adding custom notes
  - Camera panning to enemies now respects the 'camera follow intensity' setting.
  - Improved the game's monochrome Android icon
  - Added developer commentary for v2.0.0
  - Improved text clarity in a few cases
  - Updated internal code libraries[/expand]
  
• 35+ Bugfixes [expand]
  Fixed the following bugs:
  
  Highlights:
  - Various issues with system gestures registering as game inputs on Android and iOS
  - Various cases where closing the game inside of the alchemy scene could result in lost progress
  - Rare cases where multiple ascension wins could be recorded for one run
  - Runestones working while hero is magic immune
  - Unstable spell never triggering scroll effects that could apply either in or out of combat
  - Exotic crystals trinket not applying to monster drops in many cases
  
  Items:
  - Rare cases where bomb AOE could be influenced by nearby potions shattering
  - Exploits involving juggling salt cube to get slower hunger with full regen
  - Cursed armband not updating player gold display on desktop after stealing gold
  - Very specific cases where disarming traps could make items unattainable
  - Icecap incorrectly being blocked by high grass
  - Stone of detect magic incorrectly being usable on thrown weapons
  - Artifact uniqueness being affected by runs from prior game versions
  - Crashes when aqua brew is dropped down chasms
  - Rare errors when cancelling scroll of enchantment on armor
  - Multiplicity glyph not working correctly with ghouls in some cases
  - Corrosion gas from chaotic censer always starting at 1 damage
  
  Effects:
  - Monk abilities which ignore armor using the incorrect damage icon
  - Damage type not showing when hitting downed crystal guardians
  - Very rare cases where spawned high grass could interfere with the floor 20 shop
  - Certain effects not having on-death or rankings messages
  - Specific cases where cursed wand effects would forget they were spawned by wondrous resin
  - Duration of greater haste not being preserved on save/load
  - Disarming traps not teleporting the hero's weapon in some cases where they should
  - Cursed wand effects potentially applying levitation to immovable characters
  - Geomancer rockfall attack being cleared on save/load
  - Duelist's block ability not working properly with save/load
  
  Misc.:
  - Rat King's description sometimes being incorrect in journal
  - Pacifist badge unlocking when it shouldn't in rare cases
  - Retreating characters failing to retreat through crowded area in some cases
  - Various minor UI errors when holding down inventory buttons just before moving
  - Rare cases where game win scene wouldn't trigger immediately
  - Ripper demons sometimes losing their target early
  - Various minor textual errors
  - Various rare crash errors[/expand]

Buffs:

• Trinket Buffs [expand]
  Overall trinket balance is in a much better place since v2.5, but there are still some that can do with being more powerful or fun to use:
  
  - Chaotic Censer now only spawns gasses when enemies are present, and gives a warning one moment before the gas is spewed.
  - 13 Leaf Clover slightly redesigned, now has a 15% chance to set damage to max and 10% chance to set damage to min per level. This results in ~10% more average damage at +3.
  - Mimic Tooth ebony mimics now have normal mimic stats, down from +25%, but still deal full damage on surprise attack.
  - Trap Mechanism now also makes 10% of a level's traps spawn visible per level.
  - Shard of Oblivion now prevents ID effects such as scroll of ID and wells of knowledge. Items are instead set to be ready to be IDed by the shard.[/expand]
  
• Weapon Ability Buffs [expand]
  The Duelist continues to do better following all the changes in v2.X updates. A couple of weapon abilities are still lagging behind though, and so I'm giving them a little help:
  
  - Combo Strike ability damage boost buffed by 25% for Gauntlets. 33% for Sai, 50% for Gloves.
  - Charged Shot knockback +1, base bonus damage on untipped darts +1.[/expand]

Nerfs:

• Trinket Nerfs [expand]
  Despite nerfs in v2.5 the Mossy Clump is still far and away the strongest trinket. For now I'm going to experiment with adjusting the ratios on the floors it grants.
  
  - Mossy Clump now generates grassy floors 1/3 of the time and water floors 2/3 of the time, instead of 1/2 each. This will usually result in one fewer grassy floor over a whole run.[/expand]
  
• Shared Upgrades Nerf [expand]
  Thrown weapons aren't an especially popular category of item to upgrade, and I would like to make more extensive changes to them in the future, but for the moment I'm making a targeted adjustment to the Shared Upgrades talent. The bonus damage it provided wasn't tied to the tier of thrown weapon used, which made T2 thrown weapons disproportionally powerful for the Sniper.
  
  - Shared Upgrades now grants 2.5%/5%/7.5% bonus damage per upgrade per tier, instead of a flat 10%/20%/30% bonus damage per upgrade. Functionally, this means -50% bonus dmg for T2 thrown weapons, -25% for T3, no changes for T4, and +25% for T5.[/expand]

---

• The next major update to Shattered will be v3.1, which will mainly focus on followup to v3.0 and some changes to the Warrior!
  
• For a long while now the Warrior has been the least appreciated class among experienced players. This is partly intended because he is meant to be the most simple, but I do think there are some changes that can be made so that the Warrior's class ability is a bit more visible and interactive. This is not going to be a hero rework, but rather some targeted changes to improve the Warrior's game feel without making him much harder for new players to use.
  
• I'm more confident that the Cleric is releasing in a better initial state than the Duelist, but there will always be needed changes to balance or mechanics, and fixes for bugs. I expect to make those changes in v3.1 after taking a little time to gather feedback and gameplay data from v3.1.
  
• I want v3.1 to be a fairly lightweight update, so that it can come out quickly in response to v3.0, but there should be room for a few smaller changes too. In addition to the usual bugfixes and smaller QoL tweaks, I might add a couple of smaller content additions such as new trinkets and other items, a new rare enemy, etc.
  
• Unfortunately I will have to make some changes in 2025 that will remove support for very old devices from the game's iOS, Android, and plain Java versions. iOS 11 support is being dropped after this update, and Android 4.0-4.4 and Java 8-10 support will be dropped closer to the end of the year.

I expect v3.1 to be a relatively lightweight update, much like v2.1 was after the Duelist. v2.1 took almost 3 months, and while I'd like to do better than that I also don't want to end up overpromising. Hopefully you'll hear from me with progress on v3.1 sometime in mid April to mid May.

Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

In the meantime, if you're like more frequent incremental updates, you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey everyone, happy Valentines day!

Back in December [shatteredpixel.com]I estimated that v3.0 would be gearing up to release in late January or early February, so it's time for a little update! While I have missed that estimate, v3.0 is very close to being ready. I now estimate that it'll be releasing around the end of the month, maybe the very start of March.

This delay isn't for any one specific reason, every little thing for the Cleric has just ended up taking longer to design and implement than I expected. Currently the Cleric is almost totally playable in beta, and I expect to be releasing their final armor ability (Power of Many) in the next few days.

This is actually going to put the Cleric's total development time at almost exactly the same 5.5 months that the Duelist took! I do think that the Cleric is going to launch in a better place than the Duelist though. While there will always be things to improve post-launch, gameplay analytics and player feedback are both notably better for the Cleric than they were for the Duelist at this stage.

v3.0 is also launching with a little more side-content than v2.0 did! There's some pretty big balance changes to several trinkets (Clover and Censor are actually good now I promise!), and new game visuals!

Firstly, the new title screen I teased last time is now in-game!

There are also improvements to the older hero splashes! It's been about 5 years since these splashes were added to the game and Aleks wanted to revisit and spruce them up a bit. The Warrior's improved splash isn't quite ready for primetime though, but v3.1 is going to focus on him anyway so that works out.

Here are some GIFs comparing old and new. Note that because of GIF compression these splashes look a bit different than how they appear in-game though:

If all goes well then v3.0's beta should be content complete in another week, and then it'll be time for final polishing before release!

---

If you'd like more frequent incremental updates on Shattered's development, you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]
I've actually been posting about The Cleric's development incrementally on these places for the last couple months.

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey Rat Punchers, happy new year once again!

After a bit of a holiday break, I'm back to work on Shattered Pixel Dungeon, which includes laying out some plans for the coming year! 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 2025 and beyond.

I've written one of these posts every year since 2019, you can take a look at the previous ones here: 2024[shatteredpixel.com], 2023[shatteredpixel.com], 2022[shatteredpixel.com], 2021[shatteredpixel.com], 2020[shatteredpixel.com], 2019[shatteredpixel.com].

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2024 saw the release of 3 updates and one beta, which overall completed 3.5 out of the 5 items listed for 2024 in last year's post. It seems I've settled into a steady cadence of an update every 3-4 months, especially as I've been moving toward making bigger content additions these days.

• v2.3 released[shatteredpixel.com] in January, adding a second variant to the caves quest!
  
• v2.4 released[shatteredpixel.com] in May, adding a new category of item: Trinkets!
  
• v2.5 released[shatteredpixel.com] in September, overhauling the journal and adding new splash art!
  
• v3.0 went to beta[shatteredpixel.com] in December, giving an early look at the game's sixth hero!

While I'd obviously like to do more, I am happy to be able to consistently check off more than half of the things I'd like to do every year. Clearing the whole list would be ideal, but that's always set as more of a best case scenario, and reaching 70% of that is just fine.

---

Here are the major pieces of content that I'd like to add in 2025. The higher something is on the list, the more I'm prioritizing it for this year. Please note that while I'd very much like to stick to this, game development rarely works out exactly as planned. It's very likely that I won't get through everything here this year, and it's also possible that the order may shift or things may change entirely.

I expect to do other small changes this year as well, both in v3.1 and later. These tend to get pinned down right when I start work on an update though, so I can't really say what specific smaller things will happen. Despite that, here's a quick list of some smaller things I may do this year:
- Further improvements and additions to item categories, mainly trinkets
- UI and UX improvements for larger screens, and keyboard/controller players
- More badges or a challenge to test the skill of experienced players
- 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

---

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.

---

And those are my current major plans for 2025 and the future! Thanks to Shattered's continued success (thank you!) I expect to get to pretty much everything here eventually, it's all a question of ordering and prioritizing.

- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey Dungeoneers, v3.0.0 and the Cleric are finally ready for beta!

In this blog post I’m going to share more details about the Cleric! Just as with the Duelist, I’m releasing the Cleric’s beta a little early. There’s still one subclass and two armor abilities to implement before the Cleric is content-complete and ready for release.
Note that visuals and specific balancing are still a work in progress. Details may change significantly before full release.

---

I went over a lot of the Cleric's base class features in the last blog I wrote[shatteredpixel.com]. As a quick recap, the Cleric is an ability-focused spellcaster who gains access to a variety of supportive spells through the talent system! They cast these spells using charges from their holy tome artifact, and the variety of spells they can access makes them very flexible. I already shared several T1 and T2 spells last time, but here's a couple more, with animated GIFs!

Recall Inscription lets you spend tome charges to repeat the effect of the last runestone or scroll you used. There are almost 40 different items you can duplicate, though some are more expensive than others.
Bless increases accuracy, evasion, and shielding when the Cleric uses it on themselves. When used on allies it offers a longer buff and healing instead!

---

Each of the Cleric's subclasses include a new innate spell, a buff to some starter spells, and three additional spells that are learned via talents. As usual both subclasses also get two shared talents, one of which is a spell as well.

Probably the two flashiest spells the Priest gets access to are Holy Lance and Hallowed Ground. Holy Lance is a devastating ranged spell that can absolutely obliterate a single target, but comes with a hefty charge cost and cooldown.
Hallowed Ground, meanwhile, is a much more strategic spell that creates advantageous 'hallowed' terrain for 20 turns. This spreads grass, lightly heals allies, and impedes enemy movement.
Unfortunately I haven't implemented the Paladin yet, and so don't have anything to show you, but here are some spell designs I'm pretty solid on:

• Smite is a fantasy Paladin staple, and will be the Paladin's innate spell. I expect it to be a fairly straightforward physical attack buff, granting the Paladin a guaranteed hit, and probably some mix of extra damage and enchantment power.
  
• Lay on Hands is another Paladin classic, and will probably be the Cleric's only 100% direct healing spell in the game. Lay on Hands will grant a nice chunk of shielding if the Paladin uses it on themselves, or healing if it's used on an adjacent ally.
  
• Cleanse is actually the spell that's shared between both subclasses, so Priest gets it too. It's a useful defensive spell that removes debuffs from the Cleric and allies, applies shielding, and can even grant brief debuff immunity.

---

I'm going to be a bit lighter on info here to avoid lategame spoilers, and as two of the abilities aren't implemented yet. Just like with subclasses, each armor ability has three unique spells that are learned and upgraded via talents.

---

The Cleric is shaping up to be the most complex and strategically flexible hero in the game, and I’m very excited for people to start playing with them. I expect they’ll be a treat for experienced players in particular, who are going to have quite a few options available via all the different spells. Please let me know what you think of the Cleric in v3.0.0’s beta!

I expect the beta to last a fair bit longer than usual, both due to the work still needing to be done, and the upcoming holidays. I’m going to be taking things easy for the next week or two, so expect for the Cleric to start getting filled in during January, and for v3.0.0 to start getting ready for release around late January or early February.

Finally, some of you may be wondering about the in-game visual improvements I shared in the 10th anniversary blog post[shatteredpixel.com]. I'm afraid there's nothing new to share there yet, but I might have a couple other visual improvements cooking for v3.0 instead...

Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

---

I’ll be a little quiet over the holidays, but if you’d like more frequent incremental updates on Shattered’s development (including further work on the Cleric!), you can:
- Subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com]
- Follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]
- Follow me on Bluesky[bsky.app]

You can discuss this Blog Post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)[shatteredpixel.com]

Hey Dungeoneers! Progress has been made on the next major update to Shattered Pixel Dungeon, and it's finally time for me to start showing some things off!

v3.0.0 will feature the game's second new hero: The Cleric! This blog will go over some of my design thoughts and early implementation work on this new hero.

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Two years ago, when I started work on the Duelist, I talked about how I wanted six heroes: two fighters (Warrior & Duelist), two agile tricksters (Rogue & Huntress), and two magic users (Mage & Cleric). You can also look at this in terms of game mechanics: two simpler equipment focused heroes (Warrior & Mage), two environment focused heroes (Rogue & Huntress), and now two ability focused heroes (Duelist & Cleric).

So what would an ability focused magic user looks like? The Duelist's ability focus took the form of a special attack being given to every melee weapon in the game. For the Cleric I'm taking a bit of a different approach, the Cleric's abilities tie into the talent system!

The Cleric will posses a holy tome artifact which they can use to cast a variety of spells that mainly focus on defense and utility. The Cleric unlocks and upgrades spells via the talent system!

Here's an early low-res peek at their splash art:

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(Note that the visuals below are a work in progress and subject to change)

Currently talents are all passive or triggered effects because I didn't want them to warp Shattered's gameplay too much by being too complicated or powerful. In a way the Cleric is an exploration of the inverse approach, with more powerful talents that are active abilities.

The Cleric's holy tome artifact makes this possible, as even though most of their talents are now stronger player-triggered effects, they're all accessed from a single place in the UI, and all share a charge system. Scrolls of upgrade will still be the biggest source of power for the Cleric, of course, but expect talents to play a much bigger role for the Cleric than other heroes.

So what sort of spells can the Cleric actually cast using their tome? Firstly, the Cleric starts with three innate spells:

- Guiding Light is a basic ranged attack option that deals a little damage and guarantees the next physical attack on its target will hit.
- Holy Weapon is an offensive buff that's best early on when you have no weapon enchantment. This spell temporarily replaces the weapon's enchantment with a damage boost.
- Holy Ward is Holy Weapon's defensive counterpart, adding a temporary glyph that increases damage blocking.

Here's a little GIF showing off those three spells:
All the other base Cleric spells are tied to talents. Most Cleric talents let you cast a new spell at +1, and make the spell more potent at +2. Here's a few examples:

- Detect Curse is a T1 talent/spell that acts as the Cleric's talent option to help with identification. For a fairly hefty charge cost, the Cleric is able to tell whether an unidentified item is cursed or not.
- Shield of Light is a T1 talent/spell that is a great defensive panic button. For a short duration, the Cleric gains a significant armor bonus against a single target, and the spell is cast instantly!
- Sunray is a T2 talent/spell that gives the Cleric a stronger ranged option. The spell 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 this can only be done once per enemy.
- Divine Sense is a T2 talent/spell that gives the Cleric a visibility option. For a moderate charge cost the Cleric gains temporarily mind vision in a fairly wide (but not level-wide) area.

And here's a little GIF showing off sunray, the flashiest of these spells:
Of course this just covers some of the Cleric's powers up to level 12. It's looking like there will be about 30 Cleric spells in total. Some of these are tied to the base class like the ones above, but others are tied into things like subclasses...

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I'm currently working towards Cleric subclass choice being about choosing a set of abilities/spells that each synergize with different classes of items.

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Unfortunately the Cleric isn't quite playable in their current state. I want to at least have the base class, one subclass, and one armor ability fully implemented before starting the beta.

Things might be a little rough, but I would like to try and push for a beta release of v3.0 around mid to late December, just before the holiday season. That'll give everyone a chance to try the Cleric out and for me to gather feedback to start to push for a release in the new year.

...Of course, I do also release Alphas on Patreon[www.patreon.com] a bit before betas go out, and am less concerned about the Cleric not being fully playable there. I'm not able to commit to an exact timeframe, but I expect Patreon folks will be getting Alpha access sometime this week...

Please keep in mind that while I always try to keep to the ETAs I provide, they are just estimates. If you don't hear from me by the ETA, it means I'm still busy with the update!

In the meantime, if you’d like more frequent incremental updates on Shattered’s development, you can subscribe to the Shattered Pixel Newsletter[shatteredpixel.com], or follow me on Mastodon[mastodon.gamedev.place]!

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You can discuss this blog post here on the Steam Community, or on the Pixel Dungeon Lemmy Community[lemmy.world].

v2.5.4 is probably the final patch for v2.5 before I start moving on to development of the next update. It's just a few bugfixes this time, plus one tiny misc. change.

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(This sections contains expandable text boxes, you may need to view the post directly in order to see them properly.)

Misc. Changes
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- Toxic gas rooms can no longer contain extra traps
- Updated translations and translator credits
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Bugfixes
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Fixed the Following Bugs:
Caused by v2.5.3:
- New flashbang not using electricity damage type
- Various errors with damage numbers in bomb descriptions
- Various rare textual errors

Caused by v2.5.0:
- Very rare Gravity Chaos cursed wand effect not being triggerable
- Rare cases where ambitious imp could cause terrain to not behave correctly

Existed Prior to v2.5.0:
- Assassinate/execute effects not working on enraged brutes
- Cases where a locked laboratory room could contain the solution potion to a hazard room that contains its key
- Cases where the gnoll geomancer could be awoken via debuff
- Specific cases where beacon of returning could place the hero inside of closed dooors
- Necromancers not being able to summon their minions in unlocked doors
- Specific cases where one scroll of transmutation couldn't be used on another
- Rare cases where the rot heart could be boxed in and not spawn gas
- Specific cases where the parchment scrap trinket could still influence level generation
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