Shattered Pixel Dungeon
The roguelike that respects your time and ruins your evening.
The PlayBound Bar
Shattered Pixel Dungeon clears all five: free with no monetisation on desktop, complete and exceptionally well balanced, actively developed with regular releases, better than most paid roguelikes, and open-source so it cannot be lost.
Genuinely free
No trial, no paywalled campaign, no pay-to-win, no cosmetic treadmill. Free means free, forever.
Finished enough to enjoy
Playable and satisfying start to finish today — not a promising alpha you should check back on.
Actively maintained
A release or meaningful commit within the last twelve months. Someone is still looking after it.
Stands on its own merits
Good enough that we would recommend it even if it cost money. Free is not the reason it is here.
Won't disappear
Open-source or self-hostable, so no shutdown, delisting or licence expiry can take it away from you.
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About Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is the best-balanced roguelike we know of that costs nothing, and it fits in under 100 MB.
It is a traditional roguelike in the strict sense: turn-based, grid-based, procedurally generated dungeons, permanent death, and unidentified items you have to risk using to learn what they are. You pick one of several classes, descend through increasingly hostile floors, and almost certainly die somewhere in the middle while learning something useful for next time.
What distinguishes it from the many free roguelikes is balance. This is a game that has been tuned obsessively over years, and it shows in how many viable builds exist. Almost every item has a use, almost every class has multiple genuine strategies, and losing rarely feels arbitrary — you can usually identify the decision that killed you. That is much harder to achieve than it sounds and it is why the game sustains hundreds of runs.
The item identification system deserves specific mention because it drives the tension. An unidentified potion might save your run or end it, and deciding when to gamble is the central skill. Combined with permadeath, this produces the specific roguelike quality where each run teaches you something that makes the next one better.
It is turn-based and pixel-art, so if you want real-time action or modern visuals, look elsewhere — Veloren is the alternative in this catalog. And permadeath means nothing carries over between runs, which some players find punishing rather than motivating.
The desktop version is free and open-source. The mobile store listings are the only place any payment exists.
Why we picked it
Balance is the hardest thing to get right in a roguelike and this one nails it — hundreds of runs in, you are still finding viable builds and still learning. That it is under 100 MB, free, open-source and runs on literally anything makes it the single best value in the catalog by download size.
Who it's for
Great if you want
- Traditional turn-based roguelikes with permadeath
- Exceptional balance and genuinely varied viable builds
- Very short sessions — a run fits into a lunch break
- The smallest hardware and storage requirements in the catalog
- Players who want difficulty that feels fair rather than random
Look elsewhere if
- You want real-time action combat
- You dislike permadeath and losing all progress on a run
- You want modern visuals rather than pixel art
- You want multiplayer, since this is single-player only
Features
System Requirements
Minimum
1 GHz CPU · 1 GB RAM · Any GPU · 200 MB storage
Recommended
Any modern machine
Frequently asked questions about Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Is Shattered Pixel Dungeon free?
The desktop version is entirely free and open-source under GPL-3.0 with no purchases or advertising. The iOS and Android store listings are paid, which is the only place money changes hands.
Is Shattered Pixel Dungeon good for roguelike beginners?
Yes, unusually so. The rules are transparent, deaths are almost always explicable, and runs are short enough that starting again is cheap. It is one of the better introductions to the genre.
How long is a run in Shattered Pixel Dungeon?
A full successful run takes roughly an hour or two. Most early runs end much sooner, which is part of the design — each attempt teaches you something.
Does Shattered Pixel Dungeon have permadeath?
Yes. Death ends the run and nothing carries over except what you have learned. This is central to the design rather than an obstacle to it.
How is Shattered Pixel Dungeon different from Pixel Dungeon?
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a long-running, heavily expanded fork of the original Pixel Dungeon, with substantially more content, more classes and far more refined balance. It is the actively developed version.
