(Last Updated December 2022)
This guide covers a few technical changes developers will likely want to make when creating their own Pixel Dungeon version based on Shattered's source code.
There are a number of variables defined in the root build.gradle file that you may want to change:
appNamedefines the user-visible name of your app. You must change this to whatever you wish to call your game.appPackageNamedefines the internal name of your app. Android and iOS use this name to distinguish your app from others and Desktop uses it and appName to determine the game's save directory. You must change this from its initial value. You should use the formatcom.<dev name>.<game name>appVersionCodedefines the internal version number of your app. You want to increment this whenever releasing a new update. Read the next section for more details on this one.appVersionNamedefines the user-visible version name of your app. Change this to whatever you like, and increment it whenever you release a new update.
The other variables do not need to be changed when setting up your own version of Shattered, they are mainly technical configurations that do not need to be adjusted.
Note that some guides may recommend that you change the package structure (i.e. the folder names) of the application. This used to be required, but is now optional as the appPackageName variable can be used instead.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon has an internal version code which should be incremented with each release. It is defined with the appVersionCode variable in the root build.gradle file.
You may be tempted to set this value back to 1, but Shattered has compatibility code for previous versions which may be incorrectly triggered if you decrement the version code. The version code is entirely internal so there is no harm in using Shattered's current version code as a starting point.
If you wish to set it to 1 anyway, the various constant variables toward the top of ShatteredPixelDungeon.java are a good starting point for finding all of the cases where the game refers to the version code for compatibility purposes.
You will likely want to change the application icon and title screen to better visually distinguish your version from Shattered Pixel Dungeon. This is as simple as modifying image assets, but there are quite a few of them.
For the title screen, you can find the game's title graphic and separate glow layer Here.
For icons, you can find the icons for each platform here: Android(debug), Android(release), Desktop, iOS.
You will likely want to add yourself to the credits or change the current supporter link. Feel free to adjust these however you like, the relevant code is in AboutScene.java and SupporterScene.java. If you wish to disable the supporter link, simply comment out the line add(btnSupport); in TitleScene.java.
The game also has a one-time nag window that appears when the player first defeats Goo. If you wish to edit this window, the code is in WndSupportPrompt.java. If you wish to disable it entirely, the triggering logic is in SkeletonKey.java.
Note that due to the GPLv3 license, any edits you make to the credits scene must avoid removing any existing credits, though you can reposition them however you like. Additionally, while not required, I would appreciate leaving in a reference and a link to my Patreon, though you are free to add your own as well.
Note that if you plan to distribute on Google Play, Google has a history of removing apps which mention Patreon, as they want all revenue earned via Google Play apps to go through them. It is therefore strongly advised that you disable the supporter button or replace the text/links within it if you want to release on Google Play.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon includes a github-based update notification which likely will not be useful unless it is modified.
To simply disable the notification change :services:updates:githubUpdates to :services:updates:debugUpdates for the release configurations in the build.gradle files in the desktop and android modules. The debug updates module does nothing by default and so works just fine in release builds.
To modify the notification to point to your own github releases, go to GitHubUpdates.java and change the line: httpGet.setUrl("https://api.github.com/repos/00-Evan/shattered-pixel-dungeon/releases"); to match your own username and repository name. The github updater looks for a title, body of text followed by three dashes, and the phrase ` internal version number: # ` in your release.
More advanced developers can change the format for releases if they like, or make entirely new update notification services.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon includes a news feed which pulls blog posts from ShatteredPixel.com. The articles there may not be useful to you so you may wish to remove them.
To simply disable news entirely, comment out the line add(btnNews); in TitleScene.java.
You can also point the news checker to a different feed by modifing the URLs in ShatteredNews.java. Note that the current logic expects an atom feed and is slightly customized to ShatteredPixel.com, but the logic can be modified to work with other xml feed types.
More advanced developers can also write their own news checker services and use those.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon supporters a number of languages which are translated via a community translation project.
If you plan to add new text to the game, maintaining these translations may be difficult or impossible, and so you may wish to remove them:
- In Languages.java remove all of the enum constants except for ENGLISH.
- In the messages resource folders remove all of the .properties files which include an underscore followed by a language code (e.g. remove actors_ru.properties, but not actors.properties)
- Finally remove the language picker by commenting out the lines
add( langs );andadd( langsTab );in WndSettings.java - Optionally, if you are multilingual or have translators and wish to retain some languages, do not comment out the language picker and only remove the enums/resources for the languages you won't be using.
If you want to have a language other than English as the base language, you can simply remove the .properties files that do not have a language code, and remove the underscore+language code from the language you want to use. The game will consider this language to be English internally however, so you may want to look into where the ENGLISH variable is used and make adjustments accordingly, and possibly rename it.