If only I had a dollar for every good working app that Google has broken for no reason whatsoever other than the force people to upgrade I'd be a multi-millionaire.
Although it usually doesn't, it can. However, I find more often than not, with large spaces like that there is often a hidden room or two.
Pro: I like the new items and numerous expansions
Con: It all happens too fast. By the time I reached level 5 I already had over 125 upgrade scrolls, 500,000 gold, every common item from armor to rings and identified.
IMHO there should be less starting items, spread them accross the dungeon.
The title screen should be changed to identify your mod.
Why put a security lockout on the game to prevent screenshots?
Update: The game crashes when destroying pillars on the DM-300 boss fight. Can't proceed any further.
Sometimes the ledge with a chest is just out of view and you won't see it until you get closer.
Other times, it is just an empty room waiting for you to rush in and fall to your death.
It will cost you to find out.
A potion of levetation, a torch to see further, etc.
I once had a warroir with brimstone armor and an elastic sword. I stood in a room full of burning traps and used a scroll of rage. When the monsters came running I just kept snapping them onto the traps. Quite amusing too.
I also get a good laugh when the leaping demons jump into pits, killing themselves. Or, Ratmogrifying an Evil Eye as it hovers over a pit. Did you know that rats can't fly?
Another method I like to use is throwing a Stone of Aggression at the King after he has summond his minion's and just let them attack him.
An upgraded wand of lightning is another effective tactic.
That is what I love about these games, figuring out HOW to beat it. It isn't just about hack-n-slash.
Very nice.
I did 10 run's with 7 assends, 1 called, 2 deaths on the new v2.3.0 SPD.
I use the Huntress as I prefer ranged fighting. My last run was the worst though as I didn't get a Tier 4+ weapon until I bought one on level 20; food was scarce; and I didn't find a Tier 4+ armor until level 15. A +3 Ring of Arcana, projecting Great Shield, Bow with lightning enhancement, armor of Thorns, and several Bland Fruit with green seeds are what saved me in the lower levels. Defeated Yog but with no health or food remaining and a far more difficult assent, I called it a day.
The random aspect of the game absolutely plays a part.
January 2024
What started out as a brief history on the evolution of Rogue into Pixel Dungeon left me somewhat annoyed that several games (particularly Rogue itself) are no longer available on Android. Several years ago an app called "Angband Classic" brought Rogue to Android, but ever since the changes in v11, most of those apps no longer work. There are a few other later Rogue-likes that I also wanted from Windows 3.x. Years ago I compiled a version of DOSBox for WinXP that was designed specifically for running Win3x and included over 3,000 games and utilities, but that doesn't run on Android. And thus my quest led me to recreating an Android build of DOSBox. WinBox for Android is a stripped down and modified DOSBox v0.75 with a similarly stripped down and modified Win3x. Special driver's, DOS components removed, this app and data run Win3x on my Samsung Galaxy running Android 13. Now, it isn't a straight forward install, but the setup isn't that difficult either.
Unzip the archive. (I assume you did if you are reading this message.)
Install "DBTurbo v220 for Win3x_mod.apk" Run it. By default it wants to put everything into DOWNLOADS. Press the 3 dots, select Settings, and the first menu option of Configure DOSBox setting's. Scroll all the way down. Select MANUAL mode. Change the location of where you intend to store your Win3x folder. (See images 1 and 2 if unclear). Exit the app.
Move the Win3x folder to where ever you want it, just make sure that the location matches the configuration.
In the Win3x folder is "dosbox.conf" Open it with any text editor. Scroll all the way down and look for MOUNT Change the info to match the location of the folder. (See image 3 if needed.) Save
Start the app back up and you should quickly see Win3x with several installed game's. (See image 4) Rogue - the original game that started all Rogue-likes! Exile 1, 2, 3 - Some of the earliest tile based FRPG's ever, you may see some similarities to the infamous Android game, Andor's Trail. Rogue's Quest - Another very early tile based roguelike. It also includes a dungeon editor. This is not a procedurally generated random dungeon however. This falls between a true Rogue-like and a something like Andor. (When I do the cave quests in Andor, it reminds me of this game.)
And so, we now have Rogue (and a few extra's) running on Android again.
Yes, you can add additional game's. Extended graphic support for 800x600x16K, Win32 bit extensions, and bluetooth keyboard and joystick are included. Touch screen works too. However, as this is a stripped down and tweaked build, it will not run DOS game's, nor will most 32bit programs work.
Snail
Dragon magazine reported on several occassions wherein the two met and banged heads. Although fans rarely saw them argue, it happened.
Dragon articles -
For example, he says:
I found the "Ring Trilogy" . . . well, tedious. The action dragged, and it smacked of an allegory of the struggle of the little common working folk of England against the threat of Hitler's Nazi evil. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Professor's dedicated readers, I must say that I was so bored with his tomes that I took nearly three weeks to finish them.
And then later on:
Gandalf is quite ineffectual, plying a sword at times and casting spells which are quite low-powered (in terms of the D&D game). Obviously, neither he nor his magic had any influence on the games. The wicked Sauron is poorly developed, virtually depersonalized, and at the end blows away in a cloud of evil smoke . . . poof! Nothing usable there.
In addition, several civil action suits were filed between the two, the most notable when Tolkein sued TSR over copyright infringement.
"During the first few years after the introduction of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in 1973, Gary Gygax, who had the strongest impact on the fantasy elements of the game, denied any direct influences from fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien. Many players recognized immediately that numerous D&D character and creature names came directly from the books. But it took until 1977 for intellectual property lawyers from a firm which had licensed the rights to Tolkien’s work to send a cease-and-desist order, at which point TSR Inc. (then known as Tactical Studies Rules) Gygax’s publishing house, famously changed the names of characters with ties to those works. Thus, in basic D&D “hobbit” became “halfling,” and “ent” became “treant.”"
Beyond the press, media, and courts, we, the members of Evermoore Knight's (a group of people who gamed and playtested with Gygax), and I, who did work for TSR, Paladium, G.U.R.P.S. and other gaming systems, knew at a personal level the arguements that took place. Although to the fans the two systems, LotR and D&D, bare a strong resemblance, what inspired them and the creator's behind them were polar opposites.
(Of course, all that paled in comparison to how much Gygax's wife would come to want him dead, his lifes work destroyed, and D&D burried forever. She nearly succeeded too, creating Wizard's of the Coast and turning D&D and many other board games into indiscernible D20 garbage, wherein if not for a title one can't tell the difference from D&D, Shadowrun, etc. But that is a whole other matter and unrelated to Pixel Dungeon.)
Most of the source codes are released on Github. Through Github one can look at the Commits and compare code between version's. I don't know that anyone has ever done a percentage comparison report. That would be interesting, though very time consuming.
Also, comparing the APK's won't do. The Smali code (compiled JAVA) is bundled into DEX files, and that code is archived into zip files. To compare code differences that way, one must unpack and decompile every APK and perform a CRC/MD5/etc type comparison of every file, requiring about 15Gb of storage. A simple change in the use of AAP vs AAP2 compression can result in code changes wherein 100% of the code might look different when it is the exact same code. This tripple (or more) packing process for APK's makes CRC/MD5/etc. comparison nearly impossible to get accurate results.
I know as I did a similar method to create my PD database.
https://lemmy.world/post/10401791
Too, several hundred Github repositories are nothing more than clones of the original with names changed and nothing else.
Years ago there was a DOS tool to do comparison of BIN files for the Atari 2600 roms. It decompiled and examined code changes between thousands of roms and produced a family tree output. However, those files are 4K and not compressed. I will look around and see if a modern tool might be able to do the same for Android files, however, I think the Github data is goint to be the easier route.
After much work and many days, I finally used new apktools v2.9.2, other tools, and my own code to decompiles all manifest files of all my PD apk's and produce a new database.
Image is just an example. The HTML can be downloaded from link.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/120onCKqQAXxqcbrJASpnuHhhQC9ponj7/view?usp=sharing
About 6Mb
It is not a simple thing to sort out PD code repositories. Over 2000 forked repositories on Github alone. Of those, about 150 built APK's. About 170 unique repositories of mods that can be compiled. The rest... copies of PD or SPD with no changes are the majority. Worse, are ones like Sexy PD. (a 1.7.4 SPD core) that changed 8 file's with what was likely a GREP tool to replace "Shattered" with "Sexy". That is the only change, which means big waste of time and bandwidth. Moreso, I have found about 40 such repositories, all associated to a school project to modify SPD code, and then seemingly abandoned. That is just one repository server of about 50 I have been routing in to find forgotton PD's. Very time consuming and often frustrating. That is just the finding... after comes the building, and that can be just as bad. I do not even store most of the APK info, just the APK's.
Because most archivists stopped around 2020, I am seeking a tool to help build new database. I am looking, without finding, a tool like APK Analyzer
However, as pointed out, that tool doesn't create reports. I want -
1.) It can generate output report
2.) It can do batch APK's (folder select)
3.) Prefer it save icon with data
If anyone can provide, I will process my 300+ PD APK's and provide report to public. Thank you.
This inspired me to dust off my old Zeki tablet and install Shattered PD.
https://www.brandsmartusa.com/zeki/220232/7-android-4-3-quad-core-tablet.htm
Wand of fire works well.
Mixing potions of Paralysis and Toxic holds and poisons them.
A stone of Aggression to make them attack each other.
It's tough when they don't come to the door.