Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a free and open-source traditional roguelike dungeon crawler for desktop and mobile, created by Canadian developer Evan Debenham and built on the source code of Pixel Dungeon by Watabou. Every run drops you into a procedurally generated dungeon of 26 floors across five regions, where turn-based combat, hunger, unidentified potions and scrolls, and permanent death make every decision count. What started in 2014 as an effort to rebalance Pixel Dungeon has grown over a decade into a full game of its own: six heroes, each with two subclasses, three endgame abilities and more than 25 talents; over 300 items; 60-plus enemy types, 30 traps and 10 bosses; and an in-game catalog of around 500 entries to fill in. Version 1.0 arrived in 2021 alongside the iOS release, and the game still receives new content roughly every three months.

Key Features

• Six playable heroes — Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Huntress, Duelist and Cleric, each with two subclasses, three endgame abilities and over 25 talents to shape your build.
• Procedurally generated dungeon — five regions and 26 floors, more than 100 room types and trillions of possible layouts, so no two runs are ever the same.
• Deep item system — over 300 items including enchantable and upgradable equipment, wands, rings, artifacts, trinkets, consumables and items made through alchemy.
• Classic roguelike tension — unidentified potions and scrolls, cursed gear, hunger and permadeath; each death teaches you something for the next run.
• Dozens of enemies and bosses — more than 60 regular enemy types, 30 traps and 10 bosses spread through the sewers, prison, caves, dwarven city and deeper still.
• Long-term goals — a roughly 500-entry in-game catalog to complete, 9 stackable challenges and over 100 achievements for completionists.
• Runs everywhere — Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Linux, with interface modes tuned for both small phone screens and large desktop displays.
• Free and open source — released under the GPL-3.0 with the full source on GitHub; free builds are also published via GitHub releases, while paid versions on Steam, GOG, itch.io and the App Store exist to support development.

Why Use Shattered Pixel Dungeon?

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is one of the best-regarded open-source games of the last decade, and it earns that reputation by making a traditional roguelike genuinely approachable without watering it down. There is no account and no always-online requirement — just a complete, offline, single-player game you can play on the phone in your pocket or the laptop on your desk, with free builds published alongside the paid store releases. Ten years of steady, community-sourced updates have produced a depth of items, classes and challenge modes that few commercial roguelikes can match, while the clean pixel-art presentation and short run times keep it easy to pick up for five minutes or lose an evening to. Widely praised by players and covered on lists of the best Android games, it is also a well-documented study piece for anyone curious about Java and libGDX game architecture, procedural level generation or long-term game balance.

Use Cases

• A complete offline single-player dungeon crawler for a commute, a coffee break or a long flight.
• Traditional roguelike fans who want deep, tactical systems without a command-line interface.
• A study piece for procedural generation, Java/libGDX game architecture and decade-long balance work.
• Low-power, offline gaming on modest or older hardware — including a phone with no network connection.
• Self-imposed challenge runs: 9 stackable challenges and 100+ achievements keep skilled players busy.

Platforms

Android · iOS · Windows · macOS · Linux (also distributed on Steam, GOG and itch.io)

Licence

GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0) — open source. Based on the source code of Pixel Dungeon by Watabou, also GPL-3.0.

Website

shatteredpixel.com/shatteredpd · source on GitHub

Similar open-source game

A Dark Room — another open-source, single-player roguelike-flavoured game with procedural progression, permadeath and a strongly minimalist design.