Ascend the Pixel Dungeon is a traditional roguelike dungeon crawler that's simple to get into but hard to master. If you have played Shattered Pixel Dungeon, the crawl will feel familiar. But there are a few clear differences...

Take what they carried

You pick a race and climb a skill tree. When an elite falls, you take what they carried. Everything they carried becomes yours.

Spellbooks

You fight with a spellbook, and that book is how you decide the fight. Defeat powerful enemies to find more spellbooks. You register the book and spend its charges.

Factors and adaptations

Defeated enemies may drop factors. Absorb a factor to gain an adaptation. Adaptations change rules such as vision, hunger, equipment limits, and combat. They are not plain stat buffs. Some factors help. Some harm. The right set can fuse into one stronger factor. Some adaptations conflict, and one of them is removed. A chaos factor lets you pick one of three adaptations.

Food

There are many kinds of food. These foods can give you a lasting change or a short-lived buff.

The campfire

There is at least one campfire in each region of the dungeon. Monsters leave parts behind. At the campfire you turn those parts into weapons and gear. Teeth, bone, hide, and shell become material.

The dungeon changes

The first theme no longer always leads into the sewers! The choices you make as you go can change the theme of the next floor.

Fulfill your mission

Every race that comes down into the dungeon has a mission of its own. The ending changes with the choices you make while that mission is underway.

Succeed or die

Enemies, traps, and bosses want the run to end. You probably will not win on the first try.

A fork of Shattered Pixel Dungeon

This game is a fork of Shattered Pixel Dungeon, itself grown from Pixel Dungeon. Work on this fork began in October 2025, from the Shattered Pixel Dungeon source on GitHub.

@AI is used in art, music, and code.