Shattered Pixel Dungeon 9+

For those who are new or unacquainted with the Pixel Dungeon variety of games, go into this game expecting nothing but with patience, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn.

Evan, Shattered PD’s developer, has developed his version of this game into a well-balanced, fun, complicated yet easily understandable and satisfying game to play at any time: whether you have five minutes or an hour, Pixel Dungeon is the game to play. The game, being a dungeon crawler, perhaps isn’t what most mobile games are nowadays, but the intensity and replay-ability of this game is one that isn’t found among most. The developer himself is everything a consumer could ask for. He explains every single change he makes in the game, such as why he’s changed the spawn rate of an enemy based on data or tweaked the damage of a certain weapon in the early stages of the game. Every update adds more playability, and makes the game more fun.

I’ve put hundreds of hours into this game between shifts, late at night, waking up in the morning, and everything in between. It is a wonderful stress reliever, mind exerciser, and, sometimes, time stealer. I wholeheartedly recommend that even those with no experience of this kind of game try it.

This game is worth every penny. For only costing $5, you get some serious hours of gameplay. Five different heroes, each with different sub-classes and talents that let you play with a lot of combinations along with a massive library of dungeon layouts means each run is a surprise. Also, the developer is truly dedicated to following up on the game with more than just bug fixes. He regularly introduces new mechanics, items, class changes, etc. so the game seems to never get stale.

Some people have mentioned they feel the game is tough and they aren’t wrong. If you’re familiar with rogue-like games, you should know you’re going to die a lot more often than you’ll actually complete the dungeon. It’s kind of integral to rogue-like games. In my opinion, it makes it all the more rewarding when you do actually complete a run!

And probably my favorite thing about the game: NO ADS OR IN GAME PURCHASES! It’s five bucks and then you’re not bothered anymore or have to “pay to win” like so many games on the App Store.

Hey- props to the devs for making a game that is certainly challenging and lets you relive the ‘Nethack’ experience, with a bit more than ASCII characters.

However this game is just frustrating. In most cases you’re dependent on what you randomly get. Didn’t get enough food? Die of starvation. This alone is ok, but if the randomizer doesn’t supply enough food, you’re done. I would’ve even thought that for everything those stupid seeds do one of them would feed you. Doesn’t that make sense? You grow something that you could eat? There are no potions that feed you either. I don’t think I’ve ever played an RPG that doesn’t give you full health when you level up. Is that so hard?

I don’t know how many times I made it to level 15 or more and just got so ganged up on all of a sudden that I had to start over. And over. And over. Would it be so hard to make a version that you can continue with? And then maybe have a hard-core version for everyone else that likes to be tortured? For all the selections of RPG’s that are available now on mobile, the frustration that this one creates just isn’t worth it. I respect the fact that the game is made to be relentless, but starting over again, and again, and again is just not fun. Moving on.