...What? Nobody else is doing this?

On one of my phones it doesn't even render whole the items on the screen, making some actions unselectable.

Also, the small activation regions for some items/blocks/selections suggest it may be easier to play with one of those touch-active styluses.

Most of the time I go with "rule of cool", blaze ahead, and die somewhere around the time I get to the sandworm tunnels.

The farthest I ever got was what felt like the first real boss who just teleports you to <FUN> which came out of left field and my character in that run was _not_ prepared to handle that.

If more games did this, the difficulty slider could go away. As an added bonus, there is a satisfaction of getting to the point where you are so overpowered the game essentially breaks (see: vampire survivors)

It's like viewing a desktop version of a website on mobile. It's usable, but kinda sucks and made me not want to play

I ask because I played the game and found it very easy (though obviously not as fast as desktop, but since you can pause...)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Are_Billions

But I can confirm that pixel dungeon is an exception, I have lost many hours to it, but it has been years since I've played it.

IIRC shattered is a fork with slightly different game play.

I do love rogue like games.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=thirty.six.dev...

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.adaway/

I've never had much luck with system wide VPN-based ad blockers, and I don't have a rooted phone.

I think anyone hunting for a first win should play as a huntress or mage. Ranged attacks are pretty overpowered in comparison to melee and don't require as much position play. And since both classes begin with their final weapon, you don't need to rely too much on the RNG to survive.

I never tried World of Warcraft years ago until that South Park episode came out. Currently about the only games I still play on my phone are chess and Plants vs Zombies 2, which for some reason has had me hooked since the very first one came out. Luckily, my wife likes it too.

Unciv

https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv

One of the nicest features is that whenever you observe an effect that unambiguously tells you what a potion/scroll does - such as throwing a potion - that type of object is automatically identified for you. In more "traditional" hack games you'd have to write notes yourself even though obviously a thrown potion exploding into fire means it's a potion of liquid fire, right?

Shattered Pixel is a good way to kill some time on public transit or similar.

Incredibly fun game, open source, and in a genre that likely fits well into many HN users' interests. I rediscovered it recently and remembered it was open source, so why not submit it?

Do you know what game engine its based on? Or is it a custom thing?

SPD is a good gateway to brogue, DCSS, cogmind, qud, etc

Been meaning to get into Cogmind (which seems even more aesthetically appealing than Brogue) and Caves of Qud, but I have children now, and must wait until they are of age before re-engaging with such things.

And I agree with you -- it is, imo, the most beautiful roguelike that I've seen or played. And it's got hundreds of unique sound effects, too, which makes a huge difference.

I've thought about CDDA, but honestly, the amount of material there is intimidating. But it looks very cool.

These games are indeed dangerous! I don't have kids, but I'm still in school, so I have to be careful. When you have some time, definitely give Cogmind a try. Hope you enjoy it!

Cogmind is a lot of really thought out small touches that sum up to an engaging experience despite at first glance looking like any other roguelike. It's got great animations/explosions and an intuitive UI.

The developer is the main mod of r/roguelikedev, has been running a great blog for years where he dives deep into aspects of roguelike dev (https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/), and is also just a wonderful human who genuinely loves supporting the community and playing roguelike games.

But these days I don't really have the time to really get into games and after discovering only little of the lore I lost interest :-/

Shattered Pixel encourages variants and branches, though sometimes Google tries to block the blatant clones that want to publish on Google Play, even though the license and developers want that outcome.

On the other thread of "brutally punishing", there is the "Too Cruel" variant of an earlier version of Shattered for those of us who need more difficulty. PD is more like a long game of chess than a dungeon crawler.

Based on this thread I went searching for it and, as it turns out, the original author is working on porting[2] it to Unity!

[1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/842/castle-of-the-winds/

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CastleOfTheWinds/comments/172ckn6/i...

I've looked for a replacement for years but 99.9% of similar games on the App Store are spam/pay to win/microtransaction hell with the typical cheap ugly "international" art style.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/06/reign-of-swords-revi...

https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/08/03/reign-of-swords-2-re...

https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/02/07/mobile-battles-reign...

http://web.archive.org/web/20111001213349/http://www.mobileb...

Obviously there was no way for me to pay or get the full software, so I spent hours and hours playing the same levels over and over in the demo.

I loved Castle of the Winds, and another turn-based games with pirates. There was also a similar one with tanks and such, called Metal Knights maybe?

I probably logged 50 hours just in the free demo level.

I was hoping that it supports controllers, as i recently bought a pretty neat controller that you plug the phone into the middle of, and you get buttons and thumb sticks on each side of the screen. Kind of similar to the joycons you have with a Nintendo Switch. This controller is PlayStation branded, but produced by a different company that has licensed the right to brand the controller that way.

Anyway, I am happy to report that yes indeed this game works with my controller. Left thumb stick moves the character around, and right thumb sticks moves a sort of aiming square around!

Edit: the pointer sensitivity was a bit high for me, but it is adjustable in the game settings and after adjusting it it is comfortable

It’s been fantastic for playing SNES games on mobile. I can’t recommend it enough. Only downside would be the included app is hot trash. Always tries to sell you some subscription. Luckily, I haven’t found the need to ever use the app.

I was waiting a bit too, because it’s not exactly cheap.

Eventually I found one that was brand new that someone was selling second hand because they had bought the wrong version. They had the latest iPhone which has a USB-C port, but they had bought the Backbone One with lightning connector. I have a slightly older model. The iPhone 14 Pro. So mine has lightning connector. He got most of his money back that way, and I got a discount compared to buying one in the store. Everybody wins :)

Anyway yeah, I’ve been enjoying mine too. I’ve mostly been using it with Nvidia Now or what it’s called. Via the Backbone app. This way I can play some of the games I have in my Steam account on a computer in the cloud using my phone and my Backbone One. I only play at home on WiFi, and I’m on the free plan so I have to wait in a queue and each play session lasts 1 hour and then I have to start a new session. Been re-playing one of the modern Tomb Raider games this way and have been quite enjoying it so far.

So, I 3D-printed one of those holders that holds an XBox controller and your phone above it. A bit heavy, but works perfectly for all controller-enabled games! And worthy of mention, Geforce Now also works! So I'm "PC-gaming" from my bed with this, and all for "free" (if you don't count the cost of the plastic, phone, or controller lol).

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2553522

The developer, Josh Ge, is also very kind and deeply engaged with the community, which is great.

Highly recommended!

I love the identification process and relatively quick, albeit very tactical if you want, gameplay. It’s my go to iPhone game when on short journeys, mostly because I can just save where I am and pick up whenever without having to remember dungeon layout or potions/food etc.

Afaik, Google takes down open-source apps that link to their donation page without going through their billing system because it falls on their "no circumvention" policy.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268389

Was always free... now people have gone to town with the source code.

If you're the wizard, the horn of plenty is almost a cheat code, because one of your character upgrades gives you brief recharging when you eat, and the horn allows you to "nibble" constantly. Plus you can't starve.

Also, if you go warlock, you have a character upgrade that lets you get food and healing from bopping a marked enemy. That's super useful.

The monk has a class skill that lets you "meditate" to heal, and the fuel for that is defeating enemies. Right now my character is starving most of the time, but I meditate often enough to mitigate it.

Using the alchemy pot to mix 1 ration, 1 pie, and 1 piece of meat (any kind), gives you a super food that lasts longer than the combination of all plus additional healing over time. And feeding a super food to the horn of plenty is 4 upgrades at once.

But the biggest trick is just avoiding all possible damage as much as possible, so that you can keep a reserve of healing potions.

https://watabou.github.io/ https://watabou.itch.io/

Some really great work here

The mobile versions are great because they’re ad-free, and work without internet access when on airplanes. And since it’s turn-based, it’s very interruption-friendly. The Reddit community is also a lot of fun: equal mix of strategy and memes.

Strategy on Reddit, you say? Perhaps that could help. But, perhaps it's better if I don't spelunk that particular rabbithole.

That was the last round I played, almost a year ago. I consider myself free from the game now, but look back on it fondly :)

`brew install shattered-pixel-dungeon`

You can play the later at angband.live, and it's an exceptional game with incredible depth and variety.

Also, Remnants of the Precursors (java) you can do some fun things. I got "doomstars" half-implemented, a race skill that marks planets with resources or artifacts (archaeology bonus), and lots of other fun things.

I really like open source games, half the fun is hacking them.

I have yet to download nethack from the net and hack it though.

If I have a monitor and keyboard at hand, I prefer to play the likes of ADOM (classic version, not Ultimate), Brogue, Legerdemain, Sil, DCSS, etc. which offer more depth, strategic complexity and meaningful choices, IMHO.

Haven't tried the frog one, will do at some point.

Particularly impressed that it builds for iOS when written in Java - turns out the game is built on libgdx which builds for all these platforms.

Also, it's fun if you like roguelikes.

Downloading the APK direct from GitHub is the official way to get it without the Play Store. App updates take a bit more work, but you can set up notifications through GitHub to be notified for new releases.

https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

I am curious though, why is the iOS version €4.99 but the Android version is free ? I've seen this a lot actually and have always wondered, I figured it might just be Apple's annual developer license fee but not sure.

[1] https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/

> Shattered Pixel Dungeon will cost $5 US when it fully releases on the App Store. I’m charging because of a mix of Apple’s higher platform fees, not wanting to undercut Pixel Dungeon, and because Shattered is releasing in a much more finished state.

https://shatteredpixel.com/blog/shattered-pixel-dungeon-is-c...

Now I know why ! The game was Open Source !

Nothing at all against Shattered Pixel Dungeon, just that a quick look through the site didn’t reveal a terminal version.

NICE.

(Desktop)

The level cap killed that game for me, it turns out.

I downloaded (not Shattered) Pixel Dungeon and then Shattered, and nearly a decade later I'm still playing. In fact it's 70% of my non-work computing time.

Not only that Shattered's dev updates often with sometimes great changes.

You've been warned.

I am going to download it. But I'm not going to touch it until I'm on vacation next month. :) I've got a lot of work between now and then.

Fantastic game, highly replayable.

I’ve not been heavily committed, so I’ve only really “won” about 2-3 times total.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@runningfromcake

Some of my personal recommendations would be brogue (probably the most beginner friendly), DCSS (friendly, tons of content), ADoM and Cataclysm DDA (a sandbox survival roguelike, quite a unique mix)

ADoM = Ancient Domains of Mystery

Cataclysm DDA = Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead

I swear I didn't make the first one up ;) Edit: ah well, you got your answer already^^

Still a better name than NetHack (which is not a game about hacking networks... "Net" just refers to collaboration over net to improve the game Hack). There is also BrogueCE ("Brogue Community Edition").

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Ancient Domains of Mystery

Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead

Really love that it's FOSS. I've got a bunch of scripts I run to scan the game files to learn things that are hard to get just from the in game menus.

Awesome game! When my kid was young I'd have this on my phone to keep her busy for a few minutes if she was melting my brain.

She was always killed by a rat at some point.

Are you sure you're rich enough to afford games with IAPs?

Being in Java and a roguelike dugeon crawler with cute graphics already makes it for me.

The author, Evan, is maintaining a fediverse community for all mods of the original Pixel Dungeon, accessible via https://photon.lemmy.world/c/pixeldungeon for instance, after the Reddit troubles from last year.

Such a great game.

Most of those Google prompts can just be bypassed by hitting the "back" button (on android, at least).

They don't accept code requests, so that might be their strategy

https://github.com/Card-Forge/forge

I've been playing SPD for years now and for me the best strategy to win the game is to keep Scrolls of Upgrade until you get a hold of a weapon of at least tier 4, same goes for armor. This makes the initial levels much more risky, but if you survive it's a matter of not making mistakes or getting yourself into high risk situations. Using this method I get to the Amulet in about 30% of the runs. Since the recent updates getting back to the ground has become a much more fun challenge.

Besides postponing the use of Scrolls of Upgrade, here are a few things that work for me:

  * You don't have to identify potions and scrolls right away, often you can keep them until you gather more information. For example, killed flies sometimes drop health potion and they are on early levels, so you can learn the color without using it.

  * Before you get the Scroll Holder that protects the scrolls from fire, it's a good idea to stash all the scrolls in water at the beginning of each level and retrieve them back before going to the next one. 

  * Scrolls of Mapping are absolutely crucial on levels >20 because of the traps and they are relatively cheap in the first two shops. 

  * Summoning trap rooms are great to gather a lot of xp if you have potions of paralytic gas and fire/toxic gas. After the level is cleared, you just open the doors by throwing something at it, go as far away as possible, throw paralytic and then fire/toxic potions. And run to the next level.

No thanks. Repeatedly punishing you for stupid shit isn't a fun game.

Like the Sims will burn you alive for not buying a smoke detector and then having the audacity to make toast.

If you were hand-held to the very end you'd only see a a narrow path you went through, which is also ok. It's just a difference in the journey, similar to Breadth-First Search and Deep-First Search in graphs.

Another thing is game fairness. In my opinion, SPD is fair, there's no "you stepped on something you couldn't detect if you tried and died". If you pay attention you will see enough information to identify threats after the initial die-a-lot period :)

Yeah, I could have detected that on a search, but I'm usually struggling to stay fed in the first place.

* Don’t eat right away when the game says you’re hungry. Wait until you’re starving and below 50% health. This makes each food ration last way longer!

* Don’t eat pasties or meat. When you find an alchemy pot, use the recipe that combines one food ration, one piece of meat, and one pasty to make a meat pie. The meat pie is way more nourishing and gives you a “well fed” health regeneration buff.

* Try to be efficient with your movement and exploration. If you’re not careful you can end up wasting a huge amount of time wandering around not accomplishing anything. This also leads to more monsters being generated which means you take more damage, taxing your resources.

* Along those same lines: always try to fight dirty. If you see an enemy coming towards you try to hit them a bit at range (throw stuff or zap wands) then retreat behind a closed door or around some tall grass. When the enemy comes through the door or around/through the grass, hit them with an attack. You should see a yellow ! mark on the enemy indicating a surprise attack. Now retreat behind another obstacle and repeat. As long as you keep breaking line-of-sight and then hitting the enemy immediately when they reestablish line-of-sight (this also works with ranged attacks) you’ll get guaranteed surprise hits. This lets you defeat enemies more quickly without taking as much damage standing there missing all the time.

* Don’t overdo it though. After you’ve gained some levels and find you easily outclass an enemy then kill them quickly. Leading enemies all over the place takes more time (costing food) and can end up getting you surrounded, causing even more damage!

* Throw stuff down pits instead of carrying it around. This applies mostly to weapons, armour, and scrolls (before you get the scroll holder). Anything you throw down a pit will show up on the next level. This is a great way to avoid running back and forth swapping items when you’re low on inventory space and you want to sell things or do alchemy. Don’t throw potions though, they break (but do throw them at enemies or obstacles when the situation calls for it!)

That's why it's a really good idea to collect 4 Scrolls of Mapping for levels 1-24.

Just some have a dial where the default isn't Ultra Nightmare mode.

Pixel Dungeon is one of the most beginner friendly roguelikes, widely considered the “next step” in difficulty after the Mystery Dungeon series. (I often recommend it to people that enjoyed Pokémon Mystery Dungeon but find Nethack and DCSS too intense)

> killed flies sometimes drop health potion and they are on early levels,

Stuff like this feels a little game breaking. Maybe potions should have no color until consumed (though this conflicts with the (arguably maldesigned) inventory system where duplicate objects have 0 encumbrance).

There's a delicate line between "learning how to play the game" and bypassing the intentional design that certain facts are not supposed to be known before a run starts.

This is such a useful document. It details how to get your own fork up and running. I’ve seen a lot of open source software go in the other direction.

This very much seems like the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I find myself getting absolutely obliterated by the first snake or two that I encounter. I've yet to figure out how to sneak up on or by them. I've yet to find or earn any early loot that might help.

If anyone knows what I'm doing wrong, please let me know. I'd love to just crank the difficulty down by 50%.

I primary play the huntress, so all these are from that perspective:

* only eat when necessary, that is starving or early on level and likely lot of enemies.

* your first upgrade scroll is for your permanent bow, upgrade the scroll, then apply it to the bow

* there is a specific path for enemy's approach, always

* use the seeds with statues and mimics in there presumed path

* ranged attacks where possible

* before walking into a well of health, put on all the cursed items, they will become uncursed

* in the shop order of buying is next bag/satchel, then food (even with horn of plenty), ankh (unless you are super confident), thereafter as augment your weaknesses with potions of healing, scrolls, rings, wands from the store

* when picking up things make sure you pick up in order of most preferred to least preferred. Items last picked up get stolen first.

* always try to "trap" enemy in a door. i.e. they stand in the doorway

* if you get a plate armour, dump every, single, upgrade into it. No questions.

* drink potions early, standing near door and water

* a broken honey pot & health potion brewed is worth more than individually

* upgrade potion of experience and scroll of transmutation, then use it to pick and improve a tiers of abilities.

* the frost and fireblast wands can turn your raw meat into good food. With frost, the meat needs to be against a wall or something. Fireblast just torches everything.

* rooms with traps - if they are single target traps, go to the furthest spot, then rest or make noise to bring the enemies in. Throw stuff on the trap triggering attacks on the enemy. for the avalanche rooms, drop something in the doorway, step back then throw stuff on the traps.

* enraged gnolls, just walk away. There is no arguing with someone who lost self-control :)

Good luck! You will need it.

- Don’t leave a level without finding a ration

- Identify scrolls and potions as early as possible by using them in a safe context

- Use doorframes to fight one enemy at a time

This trick works with anything that breaks line of sight. Doors and tall grass are my preferred options. It even works if you step through a door (closing it behind you) or around a patch of tall grass (to the opposite side of the grass from the enemy) and the enemy immediately opens the door or otherwise follows right behind you.

See my other reply [1] for more tips!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39779664

Alternatively, play as a mage (wands always hit snakes) or as an archer and shoot the snakes when they're still asleep.

Most of the game's difficulty curve is in learning tricks like this to cheese enemies. For instance, always fight flies (or any large group) in chokepoints.

I found a doom roguelike recently, maybe yall would be interested to.

https://drl.chaosforge.org/

I've been playing on and off for about 3 years now, I'm not even very good, have never beat it yet.

In the past week or two I've learned about better strategies, e.g. max out your weapon so you can one-hit most enemies. Trading blows is a death sentence.

This play guide has more helpful knowledge information:

https://old.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/comments/4tthsy/shatte...

Ome additional note: Don't let thieves get too far away after they steal from you, else This stolen item will disappear forever. This just happened to me a few minutes ago.

Maybe a game could work where each player explores the map independently but when a creature is encountered, the other player is teleported in, and then returns to prior spot after the fight? Could be fun.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike