SPecial Surprise Pixel Dungeon

Preface

The developer has very recently released a new version, named "0.9.5 Birthday Party" which is a continuation of the directly previous version "0.9.4 Testers' Party - The Start". The newly released version celebrates the developer's actual birthday, but its introductory message is that of the previous version and is taking inspiration from the corona virus pandemic. All wiki pages, including this one, have already been updated with the additional features of the previous versions, but the developer has stated that soon a supplementary "fix version" will be released by him, and the wiki will be waiting for that to start getting updated. Readers who are curious about the new "Birthday Party" version can download it from here (the infobox below still leads to the directly previous version), but they should have in mind that there are some balance issues and 2 new skins are incomplete, as they spawn naked and without any equipment. The very short changelog about this new version written in discord by the developer directly follows:

"In this update, following playtesters' ideas, I have created Dream skins (they start with random equipment), and 5 playtester [Wonder] skins (sorry, for now I can't think of any ideas for the other two playtester skins). I have also added new hero's ability after eating, different for each hero. Because warrior already had that ability, now he can survive from deadly damage, if he has more than 75% health. All birthday skins are more powerful than before. [Hmdzl here most probably refers to the new Dream skins that have been now added to "Birthday party", as they all have a starting strength of 20. Note though that the new Wonder skins have a regular starting strength of 10.] New mobs, items, locked room types have also been added. I think this version will give a different adventure. I think that's all, and I will upload fix version after 1 week. Just tell me the bugs you find, so I can fix them if I can. Thanks for your playing."

The developer can be reached for bug reports or any other reason in reddit, by sending a message to his profile hmdzl001 and also in the main PD discord server, where he keeps a profile with the same name (hmdzl001#6869). Note that hmdzl001 is Chinese, so his access to both sites is restricted by the Great Firewall, but he generally responds to messages sooner or later.

Overview

Special Surprise Pixel Dungeon
#54 Released mod
Developer(s)	Hmdzl001 (reddit)
Download	GitHub
Source Code	GitHub
Current Version	0.9.4 Testers' Party

SPecial Surprise Pixel Dungeon (formerly Special Sprouted Pixel Dungeon), commonly referred to as SPS-PD, is an in-development fork of Sprouted Pixel Dungeon, based on its current non-beta version of Sprouted PD 0.4.1, but with a huge amount of innovations, and also some specific elements, especially items, borrowed from Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Yet Another Pixel Dungeon, and a few other mods. Its current version is named "0.9.4 Testers' party - The Start" and was released in early April of 2020. It is being developed by Reddit user hmdzl001.  This mod aims to add several improvements to the overall gameplay, while still retaining a small part of the grindiness of Sprouted PD. Like its parent, it allows players to farm stat boosts to a high degree, and grants access to items of very high levels. However, the gameplay of killing all of the enemies on the depth as fast as possible, something that had been an optional choice in Sprouted PD, has become the front and center of SPS-PD's gameplay, whereas grinding for rare resources like scrolls of Magical Infusion or Norn Stones, while still possible, has lost much of its importance. These, among many other rebalances, make gameplay much more fast-paced, less grindy and up the challenge to a relatively constant level. Some of SPS-PD's added features or changes in comparison to Sprouted PD are:

Alchemy

• The Alchemy mechanic is much enriched and completely reworked:
  • 18 new different types of enhancing ammunition for ranged weapons, named Ammo, are added, which are all craftable in alchemy pots.
  • 13 new different types of Bombs with regular or special effects are available, with the only bomb item that keeps its name from Sprouted PD being the regular bomb (but still, not the same sprite), while 9 of them are totally new. Almost all are also craftable in alchemy pots.
  • 45 new different types of Edible or Consumable Items are added, which almost all have secondary beneficial effects (and a very few of them negative) and almost all are cooked in alchemy pots. This makes the total amount of SPS-PD's edible or consumable items 65, or 79 if we count separately all the different blandfruit types (43, or 57 with the different blandfruits, can be cooked in an alchemy pot).

Armors

• Armors of all tiers apart from 0 and 1 (with the first tier having less and the second more) now come in three variants, Light, Normal, and Heavy, while two extra tiers, 0 and 6, are added. This makes the total amount SPS-PD's different armor types 21.
• None of Sprouted PD's Armor Glyphs exists with the same name in SPS-PD, while all 12 of SPS-PD glyphs are totally new, in the sense that even the most similar to Sprouted PD's glyphs have just one of Sprouted PD's effects in addition to new ones.

Artifacts

• 5 new Artifacts are added, whiile none of the 12 familiar Sprouted PD's artifacts has remained unchanged. Also all artifacts now provide a secondary ability after they get upgraded.

Buffs and Debuffs

• 30 new Buffs, some class-specific (19) and some available to al classes (11), and 16 new Debuffs have been added. This makes the total of SPS-PD's buffs, familiar (with the same name or renamed) and new, 58, and of its familiar and new debuffs 32.

Completing the game / Endless Mode

• SPS-PD is the only mod of Sprouted PD that offers to the player two totally different alternative options for completing the game fully. The first option is very similar to that of Sprouted PD: the hero has to defeat the final boss Zot, rescue Otiluke and then meet him in Dolya Town, where he/she will obtain finally the Amulet of Yendor and complete the game with it. The second option can be available even before defeating Yog-Dzewa, by adding 5 Magic Stones of different colors to the Power Hand unique item, which can only be obtained by completing the Bossrush Challenge. This item also gives access to an Endless Mode.

Dew Vial

• 4 new abilities are added to the Dew Vial (Clean, Light, Peek, Refine), with the 3 of them being already accessible from depth 2. The hero now has to choose between Accurate Upgrade and Random Bless, which are somewhat similar but not identical to Sprouted PD's options, while the Dew Drop buff is activated for all heroes in each new depth regardless of their choice for upgrading.

Dolya Slate

• Sprouted PD's Otiluke's Journal is renamed to Dolya Slate, with some of its depths also having been renamed or having gained a specific page (Safe Home, Dolya Town, Energy Core - Corrupted Otiluke's depth), and two of Sprouted PD's journal's depths removed (Dragon Cave, Vault).
• Sprouted PD's Dolyhaven is now renamed to Dolya Town, and includes 52 NPCs (with 47 of them being new), 10 shops and 6 enemies.
• In the current version of SPS-PD the Spring Festival Town area is still visitable, but this is a feature designed to be mostly available during the time of the Spring Festival celebration in China, so currently its page is dropped by the Year Beast only if it is killed very quickly, and practically the area won't be accessible in most runs.
• Sokoban puzzles are now much easier to complete due to the availability of the Jump Shoes, wall-breaking items and mapping the depths easily without the need of Spectacles.

Enemies

• An optional Bossrush challenge is added with 8 new bosses, 4 new minions and unique rewards, half of them being rather worthwhile. An item reward of this challenge, the Power Hand, also gives access to an Endless mode and to completing the game much earlier.
• 8 new Chapter Bosses have been added with 15 new minions and now in the end of each chapter the hero has the chance to fight one of 3 possible bosses (so the amount of chapter bosses that will actually spawn in each run still remains the same, 4). Also the Skill Kit now is dropped by the Prison chapter boss and the Tome of Mastery by the Caves chapter boss.
• A new "key" depth, the Treasure Map, is added, with 1 new boss and 1 new minion. Also, former Key depths are now renamed to Challenges, former Book depths to Trials, and all of them have received primary or secondary changes, with the most important being that all non-boss depths are now revisitable. 1 new enemy is added to the Power Trial (formerly Book of Life) replacing the familiar one, and regular enemies from the main dungeon have been added in most of the challenge depths as secondary enemies. Many of these depths' familiar enemies are also renamed and a few of them retextured.
• The Shadow Yogs fight now features 2 new minions, with the previous minions of Sprouted PD 1 removed and 1 relocated.
• 15 new Regular enemies are added in all chapters of the main dungeon and 2 new Rare enemies can also spawn in the main dungeon under specific circumstances.
• If we add the numbers of all the previous bullets to the enemies already existing from Sprouted PD, SPS-PD features 165 (!) different types of enemies.

Hero classes

• 3 new classes with their subclasses, the Follower (subclasses Artisan & Pastor), Performer (subclasses Joker & Surperstar) and Soldier (subclasses Agent & Leader), have been added. This makes the total number of SPS-PD's classes 7.
• All classes have now four options for their starting items and stats named Skins, the familiar from before option, named Classic, and the new Birthday, Halloween and Spring Festival skins. Each skin also has a different sprite, just keeping the face and the general body outline of its class and is chosen in the beginning of the run. This makes the available options to the player in the run's beggining 28 (7 classes * 4 skins each).
• Also all classes now have 4 Special Skills, the one familiar from before for the classes already exising in Original PD, and 3 new for each class. For each new class these is also a set of 4 skills, expectedly all new. There is no application of the Armor Kit to the armor anymore for the skills to become available (and no epic armor item at all as a consequence), but the skill kit creates a class- specific separate item with a different name and sprite for each class, which does not reduce the hero's HP but needs recharging.
• Moreover, almost all classes and skins with the exception of all the Spring Festival skins and the Plumber birthday skin have a Stuning item called the Ankh Shield and a Jumping item called the Jump Shoes, which in addition to jumping provides class-specific bonus effects.

Potions and Scrolls

• Almost all Potions and Scrolls now have secondary effects, most of the times being beneficial but also in a few cases harmful.
• 1 new Scroll and 3 new Scroll-like items have been added, with all of them granting different permanent increases to the hero's stats (the scroll also decreases HP after its first two uses).

Pets and Allies

• 3 of Sprouted PD's pets have been changed to temporary expendable Allies (Steel Bee and the two Fairies) and 6 new allies have been also added to those already existing in Sprouted PD. 11 new pet types are added as well, and there is now a distinction between the weaker Random Soul pets and the stronger Soul of Mobs pets. In addition, the Leader subclass of the Soldier summons enhanced versions of all the game's alllies he has access to. This makes the total number of allies available in SPS-PD 14 and of pets 19.

Plants

• 2 new Seeds with their respective Plants have been added (Seed Pod and Nut Vine), and 6 plants now drop items when trampled, which are either edible and have positive effects or used for transmuting and upgrading.

Rings

• The ring of Energy which speeds up the recharging of wands has been added and the ring of Wealth has been replaced with the Lucky Badge item, which has similar function but can't guarantee 100% drops, even when upgraded to max level. All familiar rings are also more or less changed in their details in comparison to Sprouted PD.

Strength requirements

• No longer it is possible, at all, to decrease almost all items’ strength requirement through upgrades.As a result most heroes will be switching to higher tier weapons and armors at a much slower rate (with the exceptions of the Rogue for weapons and of the Warrior for armors, who have a +2 Strength bonus when equipping armors - warrior and weapons - rogue, and of the Artisan subclass of the Follower who has a +2 Strength bonus for both).

Wands

• 10 new Wands are added, 8 common, 1 rare, and 1 only available to a specific skin, while 6 familiar wands of Sprouted PD are withdrawn. This makes the total number of wands available in SPS-PD 16. All familiar wands are also more or less changed in their details in comparison to Sprouted PD.

Weapons

• 14 new Missile weapons and 12 Thrown weapons have been added, making the total number of SPS-PD's ranged weapons 29 (or 42 if we also count the 13 bomb types, of which 10 are new). In the missile weapons category the new additions include a full set of guns in all tiers from 0 to 5, and two huntress skin-specific items. Also, missile weapons can now be enhanced with different types of ammo, which are crafted in alchemy pots.
• 44 new Melee weapons have been added, along with a new category that some of them are assigned to, the Holiday weapons, while the unique and class-specific weapons are much more than in Sprouted PD. This makes the total amount of SPS-PD's melee weapons, familiar and new, 60. Apart from their other stat differences, melee weapons are now also differentiated by the existence of Attributes, which are similar to enchantments in their effects, but are permanent characteristics of weapons and can't be changed.
• To sum up, the new weapons of SPS-PD (melee, ranged and bombs) are 80 and the total amount of all weapon items, familiar and new, are 102 (!).
• SPS-PD's Weapon Enchantments all refer to one of 7 different Elements, and each element governs two enchantments (making the weapon enchantments 14 in total), with the same element couples having somewhat similar but not same effects. None of Sprouted PD's enchantments exists with the same name in SPS-PD, while 10 out of 14 are totally new.

Weather

• Some dungeon rooms now have a specific Climate that in most of the cases (5) is negative and debuffs all characters inside it, but in 1 case is positive and only blesses the hero.

It should also be noted that SPecial Surprise PD is among the few mods with Chinese origin that are fully available in English (the other four are Darkest PD, Easier Sprouted PD, Easier Vanilla PD and Fushigi No PD). Each one of these mods makes very different and considerably original choices regarding the modifications applied to their source material, but Darkest PD, Fushigi No PD and SPecial Surprise PD share some common NPCs, who are unique to these mods and who all refer to actual members of the PD Chinese community.

Note that the use of word "some" for SPS-PD's added features and changes that were mentioned in the list above was intentional, these are just the important additions and changes. SPS-PD is worth a shot to any and all that don't mind its unfinished state, occasional (but nevertheless few) bugs, or its somewhat frequent language mistakes and few “No text found” game messages.

Although most of SPS-PD's wiki sections are rather extensive, they presuppose knowledge of the items and mechanics of Sprouted PD, on which SPS-PD is based (yes, they contain mostly SPS-PD's innovations and changes), so if details about a mechanic or class of items/characters are missing, that means that they are exactly the same with Sprouted PD. So, when a reader thinks that some information about SPS-PD that he/she needs is missing, he/she should search for it in the Sprouted PD pages of the wiki and there is a 99% chance he/she will find it there. Also, whenever a feature, item etc. is described in the SPS-PD's wiki pages as “new”, that means “new compared to Sprouted PD”, or else a more detailed expression is used (“totally new” / “new compared to all other mods” or something similar). Lastly, there is a good amount of spelling and expression mistakes in the game messages and even in the names of items, that are mostly put in correct form in the wiki sections, occasionally with also a mention to the game’s initial language form.

[Note: Due to the very big number of SPS-PD's features, an alphabetical order with small separate sections for each subject was preferred here, to avoid mixing subjects and confusing the readers. For a presentation with more subjects displayed in each of its sections, you can visit the SPecial Surprise Pixel Dungeon category page.]

Alchemy generally

Alchemy in SPS-PD was originally based on a combination of Sprouted PD's and Shattered PD's alchemies, but its parents can almost no longer be recognized with all the new features added to it. The Alchemy interface is changed and mostly resembles that of Shattered PD before the rework of v.0.7.1 (no alchemical energy is needed, no exotic potions & scrolls, brews, elixirs and spells are produced etc. but special bombs and ammuniton do get crafted following totally different recipes), but there is also a huge change made in that alchemy pots are now primarily useful for cooking and crafting and secondarily for brewing potion, as they can create a wide array of ammunition, bombs, consumable and edible items (read the sections just below for a few more details, and visit the links of each section for more details). The Alchemist's Toolkit is also drastically changed and makes cooking of more complex recipes possible, without its familiar function to brew potions with less seeds like it does in Sprouted PD, or functioning like a portable alchemy pot like in current Shattered PD (it functions primarily a Crafting and Culinary Toolkit in SPS-PD, although it is not renamed).

Alchemy and Ammo

Main article: Alchemy - Ammunition, Bombs, Potions

Ammo is a novelty of SPS-PD and is way to add a semi-permanent feature to a missile non-expendable weapon, which either increases the damage of its shots or adds a special effect to them. They are semi-permanent because they can't be erased and never wear off, but they can be replaced with a different ammo. Ammos are not sold, dropped or found in the dungeon, but can only be crafted in alchemy pots, most often by the combination of a stone ore and seed or of just two stone ores (very few skins can also have specific ammos as starting items) . For details about the effects of each different type of ammo and the combinations that craft them follow the link above.

Alchemy and Bombs / Destroying walls

Main article: Alchemy - Ammunition, Bombs, Potions

Apart from the familiar "plain" Bomb from Original PD, which is nevertheless retextured, SPS-PD has added 9 new craftable bomb items (Acid, Build, Dark, Huge, Fire, Ice, Mini, Storm, Two Bombs), while also keeping but renaming the Dumbling bomb to Fishing bomb and Holy Hand Grenade to Holy bomb from Sprouted PD, which have also become craftable. The first step in crafting is making a Build bomb, and the second is adding two seeds to the Build Bomb, in order to get any of the special bombs as a random outcome. The Soldier class by using one of his special skills has also the ability to summon one extra bomb type, the Bombing Robot, which is not available to any other class.

Unlike most other mods and also unlike Sprouted PD two bomb types, the Huge bomb and the Two Bombs, apart from having a very good offensive function, are also useful in destroying walls, and both are available for all classes to craft, unlike the Classic Performer's Shovel, the Vtuber Performer's Button, or the Builder Follower's Diamond Pickaxe, which have the same function, but are unique skin items. Players should note that after the Two Bombs item is put into the hero's inventory, it gets separated to 2 bombs with the sprite and name of the "plain" bomb, and the only way to distinguish between the two identical in appearance and name bomb items is to pay attention to their game description, as the "previously Two" bomb item will also include "and destroy walls" to its description:

	Bomb [regular]
	A fairly hefty black powder bomb. An explosion from this would certainly do damage to anything nearby. It looks like the fuse will take a couple rounds to burn down once it is lit.

	Bomb [separated from a stack of Two Bombs]
	A fairly hefty black powder bomb. An explosion from this would certainly do damage to anything nearby, and destroy walls. It looks like the fuse will take a couple rounds to burn down once it is lit.

Bombs either regular or in the form of two bombs (either in a stack or already separated) are also a more common find in the dungeon, are dropped often by Dwarf Musketeers, and are sold randomly in all the dungeon shops. All the other special bombs spawn rarely in the regular dungeon, are also randomly sold at its shops or found in the Rat King chests in the Tengu Hideout, but are regularly sold by the Fruit Cat in Dolya Town and can also get crafted by the hero in alchemy pots. Huge bombs, Two Bombs and the Button/Diamond Pickaxe/Shovel can't destroy few things in SPS-PD: a) air walls, which block the entrance/exit to pit rooms (but destroy without a problem the walls around them), b) specially colored walls or decorative tiles like gold veins, bookshelves or statues, c) locked doors (but destroy without a problem the walls around them), d) sheep and Sokoban puzzle boxes, e) traps. For details about the effects of each different type of bomb and for the combinations that craft them follow the link above.

Alchemy and Food / Hunger

Main article: Alchemy - Cooking Food

The hunger mechanic in SPS-PD is somewhat changed, as being overfed has a positive effect, while being hungry a negative effect, but most importantly, a new cooking system and 45 new different types of edible or consumable items have been added, which almost all have secondary beneficial effects (and a very few of them negative) and many of them can get cooked in alchemy pots. This makes the total amount of SPS-PD's edible or consumable items 65, or 79 if we count separately all the different blandfruit types (43, or 57 with the different blandfruits, can be cooked in an alchemy pot). Apart from "proper food items", these recipes can also also produce minerals, pills and beverages, with various degrees of hunger fulfilment, and many of them also offering buffs. In these 44 new food types the 5 new holiday variants of the pasty are also included, which are available only during a specific time of the year each and all offer buffs, unlike the plain pasty. For details about the effects of each different type of edible or consumable item and the recipes to cook them follow the link above.

Alchemy and Potions

Main article: Alchemy - Ammunition, Bombs, Potions

Seeds have the same effects and brew the same potions with Sprouted PD (with some exceptions) with only the Seed Pod plant from Shattered PD added and the new Nut Vine plant, while Blandfruits have almost the same effects with Shattered PD (also with some exceptions), apart from not leaving chunks when thrown. Lastly, potions have mostly their familiar effects from Sprouted PD but also some new effects are added, as additional secondary effects to the primary ones, and also each one has a distinguishing symbol, after it gets identified. Note that the effects of two familiar potions from Sprouted PD are rather drastically changed: a) the potion of Experience does not add any XP anymore but only grants the Bless, Haste and Stength buffs temporarily, while b) the potion of Might still spawns in the dungeon for heroes with increased luck, but it does not add Strength anymore, but only +15 max HP. For details about the effects of each different type of potion and the seeds that brew them follow the main article link above.

Armors

Main article: Armors

Two new tiers of armor have been added in SPS-PD, 0 and 6, and each armor tier now includes three different types of armor (with the exception of tiers 0 and 1, which have less: tier 0 - 2 and more: tier 1 - 4). These are: Light (less defense and lower strength requirement, more stealth and dexterity), Heavy (more defense and higher strength requirement, less stealth and dexterity), and Normal (the more balanced in their stats). As a consequence, SPS-PD has 21 different types of armor available, with 16 of them being new. Moreover, as will be mentioned afterwards with a few more details, none of the epic armors of Sprouted PD exists in SPS-PD, but they have all been replaced by class-specific skill items, which have armor sprites but are not equippable, and need charges instead of consuming HP. Also, none of Sprouted PD's Armor Glyphs exists with the same name in SPS-PD, while all 12 of SPS-PD glyphs are totally new, in the sense that even the most similar to Sprouted PD's glyphs have just one of Sprouted PD's effects in addition to new ones. For details about the different types of armor and their glyps follow the link above.

Artifacts

Main article: Artifacts

5 new artifacts (Alien Shoulder Bag, Ethereal Chains, Glass Totem, Robot HEART, Small Pylon) have been added to those of Sprouted, but also all the familiar ones have been changed in their details, with a common change that also applies to the new artifacts being that all artifacts now give a secondary option after they get more or less upgraded. The Ring of Disintegration has been removed, and all artifacts have now become rare instead of unique drops. For details about the function of each artifact follow the main article link above.

Awareness of enemies and AI in them

Like in Original PD the general chance of the hero to get noticed by a sleeping enemy is 1/(distance+stealth level) and by a wandering enemy 1/(distance/2+stealth level). You can read more details about the Stealth stat of SPS-PD here. When the hero is followed by a pet or an ally and an enemy notices them, it will choose to attack either him/her or the pet/ally. That means that the enemy will ignore the non-focused-on character (even when the non-focused-on character is attacking the enemy) and will try to attack the focused-on character, even chasing a pet or ally around the dungeon depth. Sometimes enemies have also speech balloons with punctuation marks or letters above their head, like they do in YAPD and some other mods.

• "!" means that they have seen the hero or the pet and are ready to attack / dodge / chase them. It is increased awareness, as enemies can be aware of the hero without the "!" balloon.
• "?" means that they have lost sight of the hero or the pet, that they were seeing until recently, they are unaware, and they will get surprised by an attack, as long as they continue to have the "?" balloon above them at the time of the attack.
• "Zz" means they are sleeping, unaware, and will get surprised by an attack, as long as they continue to have the "Zz" balloon above them at the time of the attack.
• Enemies without a speech baloon above their head that are distant from the hero will be sometimes also unaware of the hero's presence and will be surprised by an attack. Distant enemies being surprised or not by an attack depends on their field of view, which is different for each enemy and has no indication in-game.

Pets have the same focus mechanic with enemies, also chase focused-on enemies, and can also have the "!" and "?" balloons, with the same meaning that they have for enemies, but they never have the "Zz" baloon above them, even when thay are put to sleep by a scroll of Lullaby. The hero will also have the "Zz" balloon above him/her, while he/she is resting or sleeping, but has no other awareness indications displayed.

Badges

Main article: Badges

SPS-PD's badges are very similar to those of Sprouted PD but not identical. As in Sprouted PD and Original PD, in many cases a higher rank badge replaces the lower rank badge, or a superbadge replaces a group of specific badges, once they all get obtained. Unlike Sprouted PD the appearance of 16 NPCs and 3 enemy types in Dolya Town depends exlusively on obtaining a specific badge in the current run, while specifically the "Otiluke rescued" badge makes 8 NPCs add a new feature to their behavior. For details about the Badges of SPS-PD follow the main article link above.

Bosses

Main article: Bosses

The main bosses remain the same with Sprouted PD (Yog-Dzewa, Shadow Yogs, Corrupted Otiluke, Zot), but one new miniboss has been added to the Yog-Dzewa depth (Year Beast), Shadow Yogs now have 2 different minions (Fiend & Gold Eye Bokoblin), with the old minions of Sprouted PD being 1 withdrawn (Oni) and 1 relocated in the main dungeon (Shadow Rat), and also some special attacks are added to bosses and minions and some other special attacks are removed. For details about the four different main bosses of SPS-PD and their minions follow the link above.

BossRush Challenge

Main article: BossRush Challenge

The Dolyahaven Mines have been removed from SPS-PD but their entrance hasn't. A new enemy is located there, a blue dragon named Dungeon Guard, which after it gets defeated, drops a Book portal and so gives the option to the hero to visit a new depth crowded with bosses and their minions and with six unique rewards, four of which are rather interesting for different reasons: a) a very good weapon with extra reach, the Overload Handcannon, b) a stat boosting item, the Four-Leaf Mint Necklace, c) a pet card that releases a very strong pet not easily obtained otherwise, the Easter Bunny, and d) the Power Hand, which gives to the player the option of an Endless Run and also the option to complete the game from much earlier than normal. This is the BossRush Challenge and for details about it vilsit the link above.

Buffs and Debuffs

Main article: Buffs and Debuffs

33 new Buffs, some class-specific (20) and some available to al classes (13), and 17 new Debuffs have been added. This makes the total of SPeciial Surprise PD's buffs, familiar (with the same name or renamed) and new 58, and of its familiar and new debuffs 34.

The new Buffs (not those just renamed) are:

• Arcane, Attack Up, Blood Angry, Defence Up, Feed, Fushigi No Bless, Imbued with Ice, Muscle, Notice, Overfed, Treasure Search (all the aforementioned are available to all classes)
• Accompaniment, Alien Shield, Blood Imbue, Climb Higher, Counter Attack, Drive MECH, Gold Touch, Echo, Fighter Combo, Forever Shadow, Glass Shield, Needling, Pray, Rhythm, Surprise Attack, Star, Target Shoot, War Groove, Wisdom Reflection (all the aforementioned are available only to specific skins, classes or subclasses)

The new Debuffs (not those just renamed) are:

• Armor Break, Attack Down, Cold, Dead Raise, Disarm, Dry, Electrostatic Turbulence, Holy Stun, Hot, Hungry (has a negative effect now), Leech Seed, Locked, Shield Block, Silent, Stone Ice, Tar, Wet

Also, very few of the familiar buffs or debuffs of Sprouted PD have remained completely unchanged in their effects and only some have retained their original name. For details about the buffs and debuffs of SPecial Surprise PD follow the link above.

Challenge depths

Main article: Challenge Depths

Note: these should not get confused with the Challenges that follow directly below.

The Key depths from Sprouted PD are renamed to Challenge depths, are all stored in the Challenge Book and have received various changes in their drops and rewards, but retain their main function as dew farming depths and their familiar main enemies, but one type of regular enemy from the main dungeon has been also added in each and spawns infrequently there (Gnoll Brute, Huge Skull, Sewer Crab, Succubus). Those with regular enemies are all now revisitable, but not their respective boss depths. A new challenge boss depth is added to them, the Treasure Map, with the Gnoll King and his Gnoll Keeper minions as new enemies. For details about the Challenge depths of SPS-PD follow the link above.

Challenges

Note: these should not get confused with the Challenge depths that are mentioned directly above.

A general difference of SPecial Surprise PD from Original PD and most of its mods in that aspect is that challenges are already available by default from the first game and no unlocking is needed. Also, from all the familiar challenges from other mods and Original PD, only the "Into Darkness" challenge is kept in SPecial Surprise PD (also having been changed in its details), and they all now have also a minor advantage added apart from the expected disadvantages. There is also one challenge that has only advantages, the Test Time "challenge". Here is a list of SPecial Surprise PD's challenges, as they are ordered in-game and with their titles and their in-game descriptions in quotes [the info added by the wiki is inside brackets]:

Regular challenges

• "Item Phobia: You think that potions and scrolls are dangerous. You spend more time on drinking potions, using scrolls will harm you and silence you, but you also start with 1,000 gold pieces." [Drinking potions takes 5 turns and reading a scroll applies the Silent debuff for 5 turns and also deals damage equal to 10% of max HP.]
• "Listless: You feel weakness. You earn less max HP on levelling up, but you also start with a potion of Might and a Honey." [The max HP gained in each level up is a flat +2 (regardless of hero level and class which makes it range from +4 up to +7 in a regular run).]
• "Nightmare Virus: Everyone is infected by nightmare virus. When something dies it creates a nightmare virus, but you also start with an Ankh." [The nightmare virus is an enemy named "!!Data Delete!!" with a null item sprite and a plain "Virus" game description that produces Demon Blood Gas when it gets damage higher than its max HP/2, and spawns every time any other enemy is killed .]
• "Energy Lost: Based on coservation of energy, lots of energy is lost in other ways. You reduce less hunger by eating food and wands' max charges are reduced, but you also start with a Pasty." [Hunger satisfaction of all items is reduced by 60% and all wands have their max charges capped at 4/4. The power of wands keeps getting increased normally with upgrades though.]
• "Dew Rejection: Dew god hates you. Less dews are dropped, you spend more dews, but you also start with 2 Dewcatcher seeds." [Dew dropped is less from both enemies and high grass, while all functions of the dew vial have the double dew cost (for example Peek costs 10 dewdrops, Refine 20 etc.)]
• "Into Darkness: Darkness is grown. You can't record the map by yourself, but you also start with 2 scrolls of Magic Mapping." [The hero will be seeing only the specific location in his/her current field of vision and after moving on, that just visited location will be disappearing from the map, unless a Blue Berry or a scroll of Magic Mapping is used. Note also that the hero's field of vision remains normal in this challenge, so it ranges from 2 tiles (0:00 to 6:00 - deep night) up to 7 tiles (6:00 am to 10:00 - early morning), and like in no-challenge runs it is generally better during the game day and worse during the game night.]
• "Abrasion: Weapons are almost ready to break. A weapon will get destroyed by using it, but you also start with a scroll of Upgrade and a scroll of Magical Infusion." [All melee weapons get self-destroyed after appr. 100 hits, with a warning message at appr. 80 hits. Note that upgrading with dew or scrolls or enchanting them does not repair them like it does in Original PD, and the 100 hits counter does not get reset. Have also in mind that an unarmed hero without a ring of Force equipped will be always dealing a flat 1-7 of melee damage, regardless of his/her current strength, which makes this probably the most difficult challenge of SPS-PD.]

Test Time "challenge"

• "Test Time: This is just a test. Have fun :)" [This is the opposite of a challenge, as the hero starts with a ton of additional equipment and auxiliary, enhancing, or end-game consumables, while also having the defaullt starting items of his/her class and skin:
  • 10,000 gold and a Sewer Reward Bag
  • all containers with the exceptions the Shopping Cart and of the Portable Scarecrow
  • a Ghost Elevator
  • a Tome of Mastery and a Skill Kit
  • 199 Pasties or their holiday variant
  • 199 EXP Ores (item exclusive to the Test Challenge, which functions like the potion of Experience works in Original PD and most mods but not in SPS-PD anymore, and each grants a level up to the hero after consumption)
  • an Emergency Offline Device (also an item exclusive to the Test Challenge, functions like a portable Fire of Memory saving point, but which is always available for use)
  • 20 Error Ammos, a Firecrackers and a Shadow Eater melee weapons (this is the only way to obtain all three of these weapon types easily in SPS-PD)
  • 10 seeds of Seed Pod and 199 Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, Yellow Magic Stones
  • 199 scrolls of Upgrade, Magical Infusion, Identify, and Magic Mapping
  • 199 potions of Mind Vision and Strength
  • a wand of Flock of level +10
  • the Dolya Slate with all of its pages (including the Spring Festival Land) already in the scroll holder
  • without the Challenge Book but with all of its poster pages and the three trial books already in the scroll holder
  • the Power Hand, the Palantir, the already forged Triforce, and the Soul Collect Stone with the ready to get released Otiluke.

• Also:
  • The hero also starts with 10,000 max HP but gets very increased damage by all debuffs (for example starvation damage at level 1 is 100), so this amount of max HP doesn't make his/her as OP as it seems.
  • The hero spawns on depth 2 but depth 1 exists above in its regular form. Note that all exit stairs from depth 2 and on are occupied by a decorative statue, so descending is only available by the Ghost Elevator. The depth entrance ladders exist normally though (ascending them leads to a tile next to the decorative statue).

Essentially the "Test" challenge is faithful to its name, but not to its category of being a challenge, as it gives to all players the opportunity to test/try very quickly all the late-game and end-game features of SPecial Surprise PD (fight Yog-Dzewa by travelling to its depth with the Ghost Elevator, fight the Shadow Yogs by teleporting to their depth with the Triforce which is already in the inventory, rescue Oitluke by releasing him from the Soul Collect Stone which is already in the inventory etc.). In the case that a player will try to fully complete the game "Test challenge-style" from the first minutes of the run, the Magic Stones and the 199 scrolls of Upgrade and Magical Infusion of the inventory will be very useful, and the hero will perhaps also have to find a good weapon and armor in the regular dungeon shops or in the bottom shop in Dolya Town, because Corrupted Otiluke and Zot have their regular game stats, and so the hero won't receive considerable damage by having 10,000 max HP, but the starting weapons of most classes won't be doing enough damage against Corrupted Otiluke and Zot, even highly upgraded, so upgrading a better weapon and armor with the starting scrolls of Magical Infusion and Upgrade from the inventory will be necessary (the hero can also craft a tier 6 weapon in Dolya Town with the Magic Stones from the inventory, but he/she will be able to use only the inventory's scrolls of Upgrade on it).]

Chapter Bosses

Main article: Chapter Bosses

8 new Chapter Bosses have been added with 14 new minions and now in the end of each chapter the hero has the chance to fight one of 3 possible bosses (so the chapter bosses actually spawning in each run are still 4, there is just not a 1 chapter - 1 boss association anymore):

• Sewers: Sewer Goo with Mini Goos / Plague Doctor with Shadow Rats / Sewer Heart with Sewer Lashers
• Prison: Prison Warden / TANK / Tengu
• Caves: DM-300 with Old Productions and Broken Robots / Hybrid with Hybrid Clones / Spider Queen with Spider Eggs, Golders, Jumpers, Minders, Workers
• Metropolis: Elder Avatar with Obelisk, The Hunters, The Mechs, The Monks, The Warlocks / King of Dwarves with Eternal Tomb, Dwarf Liches, Undead Dwarves / Lich Dancer with Huge Skulls, Necro Batteries

Also the Skill Kit now is dropped by the Prison chapter boss and the Tome of Mastery by the Caves chapter boss, while the Metropolis chapter boss does not drop any hero progressing item anymore. For details about the Chapter Bosses of SPS-PD follow the link above.

Classes, Subclasses and Skins

Main article: Classes, Subclasses and Skins

This is the part of SPS-PD that has received the most drastic changes, with many innovations and original features having been added. Already from previous updates 2 new classes with their subclasses, the Performer (subclasses Joker & Surperstar) and Soldier (subclasses Agent & Leader), had been added making the total number of SPS-PD's available classes 6, and in the directly version "Year Hunter", the Follower skin has been added, raising the total amount of classes to 7. Note also that two of the new SPS-PD classes, the Follower and Performer are very original in their concept and no similar classes are encountered in any other PD mod, and just resemble the Bard and Cleric archetypes of roguelikes in general. On the other hand, the Soldier class has some similarities with the Gunslinger class of Moonshine PD, but still has many original features of its own. 

Also, all classes have now four options for their starting items and stats named Skins, the familiar from before option, named Classic, and the new Birthday, Halloween and Sprin Festival skins. Each skin also has a different sprite, just keeping the face and the general body outline of the class and is chosen in the beginning of each run. This makes the available options to the player in the run's beggining 28 (7 classes * 4 skins each). The available skins of current SPS-PD are (Birthday skins are mentioned second, Halloween skins third, and Sprig Festival skins last): 

• Classic Warrior, Fighter, Demon, Heavy Infantry
• Classic Mage, Explorer, Gnoll, Emcee
• Classic Rogue, Ninja, Undead, Samurai
• Classic Huntress, Maid, Taurcen, Archer
• Classic Performer, Vtuber, Slime, Lion Dancer
• Classic Soldier, Plumber, Mech, Doctor
• Classic Follower, Builder, Protoss, Merchant

Moreover, all classes now have 4 Special Skills, the one familiar from before, and 3 new for each class. There is no application of the Armor Kit to the armor anymore for the skills to become available, or an Armor Kit item whatsoever, but the Skill Kit dropped by the second chapter boss produces a class-specific special item with the sprite of the epic armor, but which is not an equippable armor, does not reduce the hero's HP, and only needs recharging (the epic armor item is generally withdrawn from SPS-PD). The special skills of each class in SPS-PD in the order displayed in each special class item are:

• Warrior: Source Power, Fighting Arena, Lay on hands, Surprise attack
• Mage: Molten Earth, Arcane Bombing, Ice Storm, Lightning Arrester
• Rogue: Shadow Bless, Steal Gold, Silent Killing, Falling Attack
• Huntress: Hunter Instinct, Prepare Hunting, Fairy in Bottle, Living Root
• Performer: Special Dance, Curtain Call, Magic Tricks, Fans Accompaniment
• Soldier: Mirror Army, Summon Mech, Moving Bomb, Air Drop
• Follower: Pray, Fund Raising, Language Trap, Bless Spell

In addition to all of these changes, all classes have been buffed very much in comparison to Sprouted PD, with many new abilities added by defult to all of them, and with much more versatile starting equipment and higher stats. For details about the different classes, subclasses, skins and class special skills of SPS-PD follow the link above.

Completing the Game

Special Surprise Pixel Dungeon is the only mod of Original PD available in English (see also the note at the end of this section though), that offers to the player two totally different alternative options for completing the game fully and also with one of the alternatives not including the Amulet of Yendor as a prerequisite.

• The first option is very similar to that of Sprouted PD: the hero defeats the Shadow Yogs and gets the journal page that will teleport him/her to the Stone Golem Otiluke depth renamed to "Energy Core" in SPS-PD, and there he/she defeats the Corrupted Otiluke Mirror Image and gets the Palantir that will teleport him/her to Zot, and after Zot is defeated the real Otiluke is finally free and the hero can meet him in Dolya Town, obtain from him the Amulet of Yendor and complete the game with it.
• The second option can be available even before defeating Yog-Dzewa, by adding 5 Magic Stones of different colors to the Power Hand unique item, which can only be obtained by completing the Bossrush Challenge. This item also gives access to an Endless Mode and details about this mode and the alternative way of completing the game follow a little afterwards in the "Endless mode - Power Hand" section.
• Note that an additional difference of SPS-PD from Sprouted PD is that heroes can't complete the game early after just killing Yog-Dzewa, by using the "End Game" option of the Amulet, because there is no Amulet of Yendor at all in depth 26. The hero finds on the pedestal there a pudding cup, which can serve as a portable save point, and that's it. As mentioned already in the first bullet, the Amulet of Yendor will be obtained after many more fights with enemies and after killing the end boss Zot, by the rescued Otiluke in Dolya Town. The only way for a game to get completed earlier in SPS-PD has been described in the second bullet, by completing the Bossrush Challenge and obtaining the Power Hand.

Note: If we zoom out and talk generally about all Pixel Dungeon mods, Youritaru Touhou PD, a mod available currently only in the Chinese language, also allows players to complete the game without the Amulet of Yendor. Furthermore, in Chernog FOTMA and Pioneer, two "mods" of Pixel Dungeon that have no resemblance with it in their gameplay but which only use many of its image assets, there is no Amulet of Yendor item in general, neither at the end nor anywhere else, and the amulet's sprite is used for a projectile weapon instead.

Containers

The familiar containers from Sprouted PD (Key Ring, Seed Pouch, Potion Bandolier, Scroll Holder, Wand Holster) have been kept, but they store more item types than their equivalents in Sprouted PD, as the item types of SPS-PD are much more. Two more containers have been added as well, the Portable Scarecrow and the Shopping Cart. Unike Sprouted PD heroes don't find the Seed Pouch as loot in depth 1, but it is always sold in the depth 1 shop. The other familiar containers are sold in the rast of the dungeon shops, and they spawn in each shop in the same way they do in Sprouted PD, based on the type of items the hero has more in the main inventory upon first entering the depth with the shop (for example with 5 potions, 3 scrolls and 1 wand in the main inventory upon first entering depth 6, the Prison shop will spawn a Potion Bandolier). With the only exception of the main inventory / backpack that has 28 slots, all the other containers have 25 slots.

Familiar

• Key Ring: It stores keys, rings and also teleporting items (Challenge Book, Dolya Slate) and most portals that get spent with one use (Tengu, Treasure Map, Triforce etc. but not the Palantir). It does not store Ankhs anymore. Note that it is the only container which all heroes spawn with it (all  the other containers have to be bought , get dropped by enemies or found) and also the only container that appears as a separate item in the main backpack / inventory and can be dropped or sold (all the other containers "disappear" as items after getting obtained, and they are displayed only as a tab in the inventory window).
• Potion Bandolier: It stores potions, mushrooms and also bombs. It spawns to get bought in a shop from the Prison and on.
• Seed Pouch: It stores seeds (but not plant-produced edible items) and also magic stones and stone ores. It always spawns to get bought in the depth 1 shop in the Sewers.
• Scroll Holder: It stores scrolls and also ally-summoning consumables (fairy card, mr. destructo etc. but not pet cards), challenge posters, and dolya slate pages. It spawns to get bought in a shop from the Prison and on.
• Wand Holster: It stores wands and also guns (but not missile or thrown weapons) and ammo. It spawns to get bought in a shop from the Prison and on.

New

• Portable Scarecrow: It stores weapons (melee, missile or thrown) and armors, but not guns. Although this is not a weapon, it also stores empty Lanterns of Soul Collect (lanterns hosting a pet move to the main inventory / backpack though). It is always dropped by either the Clockwork Scarecrow or the Test Mob in Dolya Town the first time one of them gets destroyed.

	Portable Scarecrow
	A portable scarecrow which can hold some weapons.

• Shopping Cart: It stores raw cooking materials like berries, food rations and meats and almost all items produced by cooking (beverages, foods, gels, pills) with the only exception of mushrooms. It is found inside a garden room either in the main dungeon from depths 1 to 24, or in the Power Trial depth (one always spawns per run, so if the hero doesn't find one even in the Power Trial depth, it would be useful to go back to the previous main dungeon depths and search in them extensively / map those that remain unmapped).

	Shopping Cart
	A modern trolley. You can put food in it.

Almost all items unique to specific hero skins (Ankh Shield, Horse Totem, Jump Shoes, Slime, Wooden Shield etc.) are stored in the main backpack / inventory. The only exception in this are the skin-specific melee weapons and the huntress-specific missile weapons, which are stored in the Portable Scarecrow (other unique items that get thrown like the Wooden Shield are still stored in the main inventory though).

Adamant items, Ankhs, Arcane Styli, Honeypots, Pet Cards, the Pickaxe, Random Souls, Souls of Mobs, Special Skill items, Transmutation Items, Upgrade Eater items, Upgrade Items and Weightstones are also always stored in the main inventory / backpack.

Cursed Items

Cursed armors, weapons and rings are all non-unequippable and can have negative levels down to -3, but most often from -2 to 0, but not cursed wands, that generally function in exactly the same way with non-cursed wands. The ring reward from the Ambitious Imp still is upgraded and cursed, but functions like being upgraded and is just non-unequippable, like it does in Sprouted PD. Cursed artifacts have a very mixed behavior: a few of them work as if they are not cursed and are just non-unequippable, some don't work but don't have any negative effects, and some other have also negative effects. Scrolls of Remove Curse always also reverse the negative stats of a cursed item (e.g. from -1 to +1) apart from uncursing it, and any form of upgrading with scrolls has a chance to reverse the negative stat to positive but always decreases it. Accurate Upgrading with dew doesn't uncurse items, but only upgrades them (they function with upgraded stats but can't get unequipped). In contrast, Random Blessing with dew, and using scrolls of Upgrade and scrolls of Magical Infusion uncurse also the item they upgrade. Lastly, items that spawn in skeletal remains that release a Chaos Wraith (formerly Red Wraith) or in tombstones are not necessarily cursed.

Depth Feelings, Terrain, Light and Darkness

Main article: Terrain and Depth Feelings

Like in Original PD there are three distinctive types of terrain apart from the regular one (Chasm, Flooded, Vegetation) and five different depth feelings (Echo, Nighttime, Secrets, Vegetation, Water), but the special terrain types appear in more occasions than in Original PD. For details about them follow the link above.

Main article: Light & Darkness - Hero's Vision

A unique characteristic of SPS-PD is that game time affects the hero's vision in a more complicated manner than it does in all the other mods, being much closer to what happens in the real world. There is an in-game clock in the hero's window named "Time", which counts 1 game turn as 1 minute passing and determines the part of the in-game day and night (which is not determined by the device's clock like in Original PD and most other mods). The hero's range of vision will vary accordingly from 2 tiles (0:00 to 6:00 - deep night) up to 7 tiles (6:00 am to 10:00 - early morning), but generally it will be better during the game day, and worse during the game night. There is also a Deep Night Phase that is preventing the hero from memorizing the depth areas he/she has already visited in the current depth and happens occasionally when the hero enters an new depth during the game night, but it has become more infrequent in the current version of the game (in any case, if that happens, use a scroll of Magic Mapping or a Blue Berry). Note also that a) the Deep Night Phase anyway can't happen everywhere, but only in the main dungeon from the Prison until Demon Halls, but not in the Yog-Dzewa depth (so it can't happen in the Sewers and in any of the Challenge Book depths, the Dolya Slate depths, the Bossrush challenge, or the in main Boss depths) and b) that the spawning of enemies is anyway increased during nighttime generally, but it gets very much increased during the Deep Night phase. For details about these features follow the link above.

Dew Vial

Main article: Dew Vial

SPS-PD's Dew Vial is inspired from Sprouted PD's dew vial but many new functions have been added to it and also some of its familiar functions are changed. From the beginning on depth 1 the Drink (healing), Light (invisibility and illumination), Peek (short term mind vision), and Refine (creates 1 drop of Clean Water which is needed in many cooking recipes) abilities are available. On depth 2, after the hero finds the Dew Mushroom and returns to depth 1 in order to give it to the first Dew Developer NPC, who is the equivalent of Sprouted PD's Tinkerer, the Plant (equivalent to “Water” in Sprouted) and Upgrade abilities become available, and the hero has also to choose between Accurate Upgrading (upgrades and identifies a specific item) or Random Blessing (uncurses the whole inventory and ugrades randomly items). Whatever option of upgrading the hero chooses, he/she will get anyway the Dew Dop buff upon entering in each new depth of the regular dungeon, which is an important difference from Sprouted PD (there only the choice of "draw out dew" grants this buff). On depth 12 the Rune Scholar Lynn NPC, who is basically the second tinkerer of Sprouted PD with his gender reassgned, will grant the Clean (extinguishes fire, washes off tar and caustic ooze and cures the weakness debuff) and Speed (hastes) abilities. Finally, the second Dew Developer NPC in the Power Trial (formerly Book of Life) depth wil increase the Dew Vial's max dew capacity to 350, and also will add levitation to Speed. For details about all these abilities and functions you can visit the link above.

Dolya Slate (formerly Otiluke's Journal)

Main article: Sweet Home & Sokoban puzzles

There are many important changes implemented in SPS-PD, which are related with this item:

• Otiluke's Journal is renamed to Dolya Slate, and 2 of its pages are sold in dungeon shops and not dropped by enemies anymore (Sweet Home - formerly Safe Room, and Dolya Town - formerly Dolyahaven).
• Scrolls of Magic Mapping and Blue Berries now work in all Dolya Slate depths
• The Vault and the Dragon Cave depths have both been removed (so with all these changes the Spectacles unique reward from Sokoban 2 puzzle has become useless in SPS-PD). Also, the Corrupted Otiluke depth has now a separate page, the Energy Core.

Many more secondary changes and sprite retexturings are also made to all Dolya Slate depths. Also, Sokoban puzzles have become now much more easy to solve, due to the existence of the Jump Shoes and of the wall-breaking bombs and unique skin items (Diamond Pickaxe, Shovel, Vtuber Button), while they can be all mapped without the need of spectacles. For details about the Sokoban puzzle depths you can visit the link above.

Main article: Dolya Town & Spring Festival Town

• Dolyahaven has also been renamed to Dolya Town and has been very drastically changed, and you can read the second paragraph for some of the details.
• In the current version the Spring Festival Town area is still accessible, but with its page being a drop from the Year Beast miniboss in the Yog-Dzewa depth only if defeating it takes 5 turns at most. Note that this area feature is designed to be mostly available during the period of the Spring Festival celebration in China, so its page is currently rather hard to get, but if this version will remain active until late January - early February of 2021 the Year Beast during that specific period will be dropping its page if it gets defeated in 1,000 turns at most.

Dolya Town is a small RPG town indeed, that could also be a real world village, being now inhabited by 58 character types. Its journal page is sold at the depth 11 shop, and this depth now contains 52 new NPCs, 6 new enemy types, 3 new sidequests (Challenge Book, Gnoll Clothes, Reimus Goei), 10 new shops and a portal to a new challenge, the Bossrush Challenge. Its altar is still used for the crafting of Tier 6 weapons with Magic Stones (formerly Norn Stones), but the Dolyahaven Mines with their Kupuas and Gullins have been removed from the game. Moreover after the last update 6 of Dolya Town's NPCs now add a new feature to their behavior after the hero defeats Zot, with these additions functioning currently as Easter Eggs, but that will be parts of an extended end-game storyline in a forthcoming version. For more details about Dolya Town you can visit the link above.

Endless mode - Power Hand

Main article: BossRush Challenge

Unlike other mods like Goblins PD or Unleashed PD, SPS-PD's Endless Mode is not available in the beginning of the run, but is accessible only by using a specific item which is one of the rewards in the Bossrush Challenge and gets dropped by the Original Yog Boss in it. It has a very similar sprite with Shattered PD's Stone Gauntlet, but a totally different function.

	Power Hand
	?????????? [After the first stone is put in, the game description starts including also an "It has 1/2/3 etc. stones now" message.]

Its option to "Add stone" asks from the hero to add Magic Stones, not stone ore and also not in bulk, but one of each available color (blue, green, orange, purple, yellow). After the first stone is put into it, the Power Hand's game description starts including also an "It has 1/2/3 etc.stones now" message, but it still can't get used. After all 5 stone colors are put in, the hero can finally use the Power Hand and a game window appears asking the player if he/she wants to finish the game or continue with it.

"Ending the game" will complete the run and get the player to the Rankings screen, while "Keep searching" will not take the hero back to the dungeon, but to a totally new depth with the number 85. A game message will appear, saying: "Can you hear me? I am Ada, from the assassin home. You must wake up, this world is just an illusion. Trust me, we don't have much time." This new depth has a handful of hidden distortion traps, which regenerate the depth upon stepping on them and can't get revealed by scrolls of Magic Mapping or Blue Berries, but only by searching, and all the enemies from the regular dungeon occuring randomly (approximately 10-13 spawn with each depth generation). An example of a depth 85 follows just below.

With a bit of luck the hero can fully explore the depth without stepping on a distortion trap, even if he/she doesn't search every tile, but even if the hero manages to do that, there are no stairs leading up or down, and he/she will eventually start searching for a distortion trap in order to step on it and generate a new depth. This is essentially SPS-PD's version of an Endless Mode, so players should choose "Keep searching" only if they feel that they have completed anything else that they wanted to do in that hero's run, because there is no way out of this depth back to the regular dungeon. The only three ways out of depth 85 (but still not back to the regular dungeon) is the hero a) to refill the hand with Magic Stones and choose now its End Game option, b) use the Amulet of Yendor if he/she has it to end the game, or c) just to die. Note also that regardless of the Amulet of Yendor being in the hero's inventory or not, when he/she uses the "End Game" option, his/her ranking will display the Amulet but will have the title: "Escaped?".

In the screesnshot image below the hero in the first place ended the run with the Power Hand and with the Amulet in the inventory, while the hero in the third position without the Amulet in the inventory, but as you see the runs' descriptions are exactly the same, and the only hero who "Found the Amulet" is only the one that completed the game by choosing the Amulet's End Game option. For details about obtaining the Power Hand you can visit the link above.

Hero's quickslots

Without the "More QuickSlot" option selected, there are two quickslots at the bottom of the screen and one at the right side, under the menu button. With the "More QuickSlots" option selected, one is added at the bottom of the screen and two are added below the one to the right, making the max amount of quickslot available 6.

Hidden Doors and Hidden Traps

They are both not revealed by Blue Berries and scrolls of Magic Mapping, but only by the well of Awareness. Blue Berries show all loot and keys in a depth though, as they activate the Treasure Search buff, even those inside hidden rooms, while the scrolls of Magic Mapping don't, but still can show random parts of the depth's loot. Hidden traps which are not deactivated by stepping on them once (like Gripping traps for example) still remain hidden, and the hero must specifically search their tile, for them to become visible.

Limited Saving

Rarely, the player can find rooms that are always hidden and are listed as Fire of Memory in the hero's Journal after they get discovered, but have very similar appearance to Original PD's sacrificial chambers, with their only visual difference that a green flame burns on the pedestal instead of a blue one.

They allow the player to create a single save point (up to the number of 5 for each class): this save point can be used only once, and the save file persists for each class even after a run is completed. Each pedestal can also be used only once, and that only if it's found (be careful not to check the tile of the pedestal but decide to leave saving for later, as the game considers the save point used and deactivates it). A similar but portable save point is offered with the Chocolate Pudding Cup item that is found after beating Yog-Dzewa in the same place that the Amulet of Yendor is normally found in most other mods, and randomly with the Robot Heart artifact when it gets upgraded to +10 and its secondary option "Determination" is activated. Due to their limited nature, it's best to use these after important milestones, or before attempting something very risky.

Miscellaneous Items

Main article: Miscellaneous Items

The Ankh and Pickaxe items have remained similar with Sprouted PD, with the Ankh's only differences being that isn't stored in the key ring anymore, but in the main inventory, while also being stackable and having the sprite of YAPD's Ankh. The pickaxe is now upgradeable and also functions as if it is enchanted, so it can also be used as a decent tier 3 weapon by the hero. The Honeypot, Mr. Destructo, and Weightstone items have received some secondary changes (there is no Steel Honeypot item anymore, Mr. Destructo 2.0 is available only to the Leader subclass, and the Weightstone enchants and does not balance weapons anymore). The transmuting function of the Phase Pitcher plants has been replaced by the use of Transmutation Items, which are dropped by trampling Phase Pitcher plants. Norn Stones, Dwarf Demon Hammers and Upgrade Goos are just renamed to Magic Stones, Magic Hammers and Upgrade Items. Also, the Ghost Elevator transporting item and the Four-Leaf Mint Necklace stat boosting item have been added. For details about these miscellaneous items of SPS-PD you can visit the link above.

NPCs

[Only NPC's that the hero meets in the regular dungeon and the Trial (formerly Book) depths are mentioned here. The 52 NPCs of Dolya Town are presented in SPS-PD's Dolya Town page.]

Ambitious Imp

	Ambitious Imp
	Imps are lesser demons. They are notable for neither their strength nor their magic talent, but they are quite smart and sociable. Many imps prefer to live among non-demons.

It appears either on depth 17, 18 or 19. Its quest and reward are the same with those of Sprouted PD and gives always an upgraded to +3 or higher cursed ring (the ring provides bonuses as if it is uncursed, it is just non-unequippable). Unlike Sprouted PD, its quest needs not to be first fulfilled, in order for it to open its shop on depth 21: after the hero defeats the fourth chapter boss, he/she will find the Imp in its shop in any case. Note also that for the Imp to lower the price of its books, it has to consider Yog-Dzewa dead, and this will happen only after the hero interacts with the pudding cup on the pedestal of depth 26. Before this interaction, the Imp will keep selling its books at their initial outrageous prices regardless of Yog-Dzewa being dead or not.

Dew Developers

	Dew Developer
	He seems to be waiting for something. / It looks like he is still waiting for something.

	Rune Scholar Lynn
	A scholar who lived in Dolyahaven. She has a lot of knowledge about Magic Stones.

Two of Sprouted PD’s Tinkerers, those in depth 1 (first message to the right of the game decription box) and in the Power Trial (formerly Book of Life depth, second message to the left), are renamed to Dew Developers, but their interactions with the hero remain very similar and have already been described in the Dew Vial section above. Two differences from Sprouted PD is that the first Dew Developer is relocated to depth 1 from depth 2 (but the Dew Mushroom he asks for still spawns on depth 2) and the more important that he Tinkerer of depth 12 has reassigned his gender and has become Rune Scholar Lynn, offering more reward options and also becoming a Dolya Town NPC after the hero gives the Dew Mushroom to her.

Old Wandmaker

	Old Wandmaker
	This old but hale gentleman wears a slightly confused expression. He is protected by a magic shield.

He always appears in the entrance room of depth 7 and gives an Adamant (Sprouted PD's Adamantite) Wand to all classes, and not only to the Mage. He has either the Corpse Dust or Rotberry Seed quests only available, like he does in Sprouted PD.

On the option to choose between a battle and a non-battle wand, note that the game makes the distinction between battle and non-battle wands rather randomly because most of its wands are practically damage dealing - combat wands, and the Wandmaker will give as a battle wand reward a Wand of Acid / Blood / Disintegration / Firebolt / Freeze / Light / Lightning, but as a non-battle wand reward a Wand of Charm / Flock / Flow / Meteorite / Poison / Thundercloud, with most of these wands, apart from the wands of Charm and Flock, dealing also direct damage. The reward wand is always upgraded and rarely cursed (which doesn't affect the wand's function in any way in SPS-PD). Stepping on the Rotberry plant to pick up its seed will release a cloud of Toxic Gas and Root the hero (breaking the plant by throwing any item on it, while keeping a safe distance, will save the hero from getting damaged and rooted), but picking up the seed will not function as an alarm trap.

Rat King

	Rat King
	This rat is a little bigger than a regular marsupial rat and it's wearing a tiny crown on its head.

He is the same with Sprouted's Rat King (sleeps in a hidden room at depth 5, after the hero visits the Caves and comes back to meet him, if he/she has not opened his chests, he gives the Spork quest etc.), with a slightly different message than that of Sprouted PD, which is inaccurate though: "Well, as a reward for your loyalty, I allow you to kill a thief, who stole one of my Forks, and I think he is hidding close to the exit of the prison. If you do that, I will give you that Fork as a reward.." The Life Bandit, who drops the Spork and not the Fork (despite not being its name, it actually resembles its shape though), does not hide close to to the depth 9 exit, but spawns after some regular enemies get killed at a random location of the depth and wanders constantly around, like the Shadow Bandit does in Sprouted PD. Also SPS-PD's Rat King is less materiallist, because if the hero steals from his chests, he now says: "They're all worthless things. I don't care about these." (he still cares a bit though, as he does not offer the Spork quest to the hero anymore).

Rune Scholar Lynn

	Rune Scholar Lynn
	A scholar who lived in Dolyahaven. She has a lot of knowledge about Magic Stones.

She is SPS-PD's equivalent of Sprouted PD’s Tinkerer on depth 12, but with his gender reassigned. Apart from the Dew Vial upgrade, she also gives the hero the option to choose between a Mr. Destructo, a Control Mobile or a Fairy Card as a bonus quest reward for providing a Dew Mushroom to her. After the hero interacts with her on depth 12 for the first time, he/she will be finding Lynn in Dolya Town for the rest of the game, with her saying that she had fixed the altar and and the hero can use it now (it is the altar that the Tier 6 weapons are crafted on).

Shopkeepers

	Shopkeeper
	This stout guy looks more appropriate for a trade district in some large city than for a dungeon. His prices explain why he prefers to do business here.

Their only interaction with the hero is by selling items to him/her or buying items from him/her like in almost all other PD mods. They also sell the Dolya Slate (formerly Sokoban Journal) on depth 1, the Sweet Home (formerly Safe Room) page on depth 6, and the Hometown (formerly Dolyahaven) page on depth 11. They are now also invulnerable, don't care if anything tries to harm or debuff them, and never leave their shop with their goods. Due to the change in the Master Thieves' Armband's function, the hero can no longer steal from them, but can only buy items at a discounted price or take them for free with the Armband equipped (although this is still named "stealing" by the game) and as the hero can't steal either successfully or unsuccessfully from them, they also never vanish for this reason.

Troll Blacksmith & Troll Welder

	Troll Blacksmith / Troll Welder
	This troll blacksmith / welder looks like all trolls look: he is tall and lean, his skin resembles stone in both color and texture. The troll blacksmith / welder is tinkering with unproportonionally small tools.

The two Trolls, the Blacksmith and the Welder (renamed from Bip and Bop) are always found on depth 11. Like in Sprouted PD the Blacksmith transfers upgrades between similar items via reforging, while the Welder reinforces items with adamantite. Adamantite weapon/armor/wand/rings are now renamed to Adamant weapon/armor/wand/rings (displayed in the same order in the image below), without any change to their function, and both Trolls still need vampire bat's blood on the pickaxe or dark gold before they do anything. The Troll Blacksmith still reforges the three separate Triforce pieces (Sprouted PD's Sanchikarahs) to a whole Triforce portal and does not need his quest to be fifrst fullfilled in orfer to do so.

Some minor changes to the reinforcement of items are that all classes and not only the Mage get by default the Adamant Wand after they complete the Old Wandmaker's quest, and that there is one extra Adamant Ring, that always drops from the Gnoll King in the Treasure Map challenge depth, as there are now 3 ring/artifact slots in SPS-PD.

As a side note, after the last update of SPS-PD the Troll Blacksmith will also forge the "No text found!" - [Chaos Pack], [Cursed Blood], [Tengu's Sword] given by the Honey Poooot, Mercenary, and Said by Sun NPCs in Dolya Town in Shadow Eater weapon in end-game, but this is currently an Easter Egg of SPS-PD and remains to be added in an extended end-game storyline in a forthcoming version.

Pets and Allies

Main article: Pets and Allies

Although some of them exist also in Sprouted PD, SPS-PD has created a full category of summoned, temporary and expendable Allies with 3 of Sprouted PD's pets getting transfered into this category (Steel Bee and the two Fairies) and with 5 new allies also added. This makes the total number of allies available in SPS-PD 14. The Leader subclass of the soldier almost always summons an enhanced version of all the allies he has access to. SPS-PD's allies are (the default version first, the Leader's version second):

• Fairy & Warlock Fairy
• Golden Bee & Steel Bee
• Little Tree from the special skill of the Huntress (as this is unique to the Huntress, there is no leader version for it)
• Mobile Sattelite & Ex Mobile Sattelite
• Mr. Destructo & Mr. Destructo 2.0
• Sad Ghost from the Dried Rose (it also has no leader version)
• Sheep from the wand of Flock (now aggros enemies and functions as a distraction) & Baba
• Thundercloud from the wand of Thundercloud & KEKE

8 new pet types are added as well, and there is now a distinction between the weaker Random Soul pets and the stronger Soul of Mobs pets. This makes the total number of pets available in SPS-PD 19 (6 random +13 of mobs) with 10 of them being totally new. SPS-PD's currently available pets are:

Random Soul pets

• Fly (new)
• Gentle Crab (new)
• Metal Klik (new)
• Ribbon Rat (new)
• Snake (new)
• Spidersilk Klik (new)

Soul of Mobs pets

• Blood Scorpion
• Blue Dragon
• Bug Dragon (new, variant of Gold Dragon that spawns only during September)
• Chaos Elemental (new)
• Gold Dragon (new)
• Green Dragon
• Light Dragon (new)
• Red Dragon
• Shadow Dragon
• Velocirooster
• Violet Dragon
• Web Spider

Unique/rare pets

• Baby Year (new, only available as a drop from the Year Beast miniboss and only in Spring Festival Town, which is not by default accessible in every run)
• Bunny of Easter Egg (its pet card spawns in the regular dungeon only during April and May, but is always dropped by the Ice Corps boss in the Bossrush challenge and is also occasionally sold by Pet Dealer Leryy in Dolya Town)

Random Soul pets, apart from being generally weaker, get instantly released from Random Souls, which are a starting item for all Classic skins. The almost all stronger Soul of Mobs pets have to get hatched in a Soul of Mobs after the hero finds or buys one in the dungeon, like the hero would do with eggs in Sprouted PD. Also most of the familiar Sprouted PD's pets have been renamed and besides that, stats, levelling up, special skills, eating habits in all familiar pets have been more or less changed. Also, all pet types are sold as ready-to-release pet cards by Pet Dealer Lery in Dolya Town (one randomly in each hero's visit) and one has also a 20% chance to be dropped by the Hybrid chapter boss, while Dwarf Warlocks have a random chance to drop a Soul of Mobs. For details about the pets and allies of SPS-PD you can visit the link above.

Plants and Seeds

Main article: Plants and Seeds

2 new Seeds with their respective Plants are added (Nut Vine and Seed Pod), and 6 plants now drop items when trampled (Dreamfoil, Nut Vine, Phase Pitcher, Starflower, Sungrass, Upgrade Eater) which are either edible and have positive effects or are used for transmuting and upgrading. Phase Pitchers and Upgrade Eaters do not trasmute or transform items anymore, but the items they drop (Transmutation Item and Upgrade Eater item) do that instead. For details about the plants and seeds of SPS-PD you can visit the link above.

Progression in the game: overview

Main article: Dungeon Depths

Players familiar with Sprouted PD won't encounter much trouble navigating in SPecial Surprise PD, as the general structure of the parent mod has been kept with some secondary changes made here and there (the most important of which being the total removal of Dolyahaven Mines, with the hero in SPecial Surprise PD being able to teleport directly to Corrupted Mirror Otiluke's depth after he/she defeats the Shadow Yogs and obtains the Energy Core journal page). Nevertheless, for players unfamiliar with Sprouted PD here is an overview of the hero's progression, from the start until the completion of the game.

1. Regular dungeon: Depths 1-24 (Sewers, Abandoned Prison, Mining Caves, Dwarven Metropolis, Demon Halls), Depths 25-26 (First Big Boss Fight with Yog-Dzewa). Visiting these depths is obligatory for the hero to proceed further in the game. Note that unlike Sprouted PD there is no key that teleports to Yog-Dzewa's depth, and the hero has just to use a Magic Breaker hammer in order to open the staircase to depth 25, like he/she has already done for depths 23 and 24. Another secondary difference from Sprouted PD is that on depth 26's pedestal there is no Amulet of Yendor but just a pudding cup - portable saving spot, and the hero has no option to complete the game from that early anymore.
2. Dolya Town: Depth 55. The hero can teleport there by adding to the Dolya Slate the Invitation to Hometown journal page, which is sold in the Caves shop. Visiting this area is obligatory for the hero's progression because the NPC Ren will give to the hero the Challenge Book, which is necessary for teleporting to the Trial depths, after their pages are added into it. This area contains many more useful options for the hero (two general shops, a food store, a pet store, various other NPCs etc.) but talking with Ren and obtaining the Challenge Book is the absolutely necessary thing to do there.
3. Trial (former Book) depths: Depths 31-33 (Courage, Power, Wisdom Trials). These depths are also obligatory for the hero's further progression, as gathering a Triforce piece from each trial depth is a prerequisite for the Troll Blacksmith to craft the whole Triforce, which will teleport the hero to the Second Big Boss Fight with the Shadow Yogs at depth 35. Very similarly to Sprouted PD teleporting to the Trial depths is possible by adding the trial book pages which are sold by the Ambitious Imp into the Challenge Book. In contrast to Sprouted PD though, the last defeated Shadow Yog drops a journal page that teleports the hero directly to the Energy Core after it gets added to the Dolya Slate (as the Dolyahaven Mines area has been removed, the Dolya Town and Energy Core depths have no connection anymore). This step is also obligatory for the hero's progression in order to complete the game.
4. Energy Core depth: Depth 67 (First Final Battle with Corrupted Otiluke Mirror). In this depth the hero will find the Palantir, which will teleport him/her to Zot's depth. This step is also obligatory for the hero's progression in order to complete the game.
5. Zot: Depth 99 (Last Final Battle). After the hero defeats Zot, he/she can go to Dolya Town, speak with the rescued Otiluke, obtain the Amulet of Yendor and complete the game.

There also some more depths that visiting them is not obligatory for the hero to complete the game, but they offer various types of useful loot like a lot of dew drops / different types of adamant items / portal items / unique weapons / scrolls of Upgrade / a lot of gold etc.

• Challenge (former Key) depths: Depths 27-30 (Forest, Prison, Caves, City challenge depths), and depths 36-38, 40, 43 (Tengu, Skeleton King, Crab King, Thief King, Gnoll King challenge boss depths)
• Dolya Slate's depths: Depths 50 (Safe Home), 51-54 (Sokoban puzzles) and 66 (Spring Festival Land).
• BossRush Challenge: Depth 71

There is also the depth 85 that starts an Endless mode. Visiting it becomes available after the hero obtains the Power Hand in the BossRush challenge and adds 5 magic stones into it, but this will essentially end the regular run, as the only way of exiting the Endless mode is by either completing the game with the Amulet / Power Hand or by dying.

Rings

Main article: Rings & Lucky Badge

One new ring, the ring of Energy, has been added (it increases recharging rate by +5% per level, with the degree of improvement increasing as it gets upgraded to higher levels) and almost all the familiar rings from Sprouted PD have received specific changes, with a common change being that the abilities of some of them have a level up cap at +30. Also, the ring of Wealth is replaced with the Lucky Badge item, which has a similar function but can't guarantee 100% drops, even when upgraded to max level, as it reaches its cap at +15 and can't be upgraded further. For details about the rings and the Lucky Badge of SPS-PD follow the link above.

Regular & Rare Enemies

Main article: Regular Enemies

14 regular enemies have been added in all game chapters of the main dungeon, and 4 unique enemies in any chapter (but these spawn only under specific circumstances):

• Sewers: Dust Element, Leech Seed, Patrol UAV
• Prison: Armor Skeleton, Troll Warrior, Zombie
• Caves: Sand Mob, Stone Bug (this also in Dolya Town)
• Metropolis: Dwarf Musketeer, Huge Skull, Spider Bot
• Demon Halls: Demon Flower, Sufferer, Thief Imp
• Any chapter, Unique or Rare: Cell Mob (only spawns when a boss or miniboss is shot with an Evolve ammo, and that only occasionally), !!!Data Delete!!! (only spawns in the Nightmare Virus challenge, but constantly there), Gold Collector & Level Checker (they spawn only when players exploit gold farming or levelling up)

Some more are duplicated or retextured and appear with different name and abilities in other depths / as chapter boss minions or have the depth they appear changed, and most of the familiar enemies have their stats rebalanced and their special attacks more or less changed. If we add to the aforementioned enemies the chapter boss and challenge depths enemies already mentioned, the trial depth enemies, the dolya slate depth enemies and the enemies already existing in Sprouted PD, SPS-PD features 165 (!) different types of enemies. For details about the regular and rare enemies of SPS-PD follow the link above.

Room types added or changed - Walls

Hidden skeletal remains

Rooms that: a) contain a row of bookshelves covering one of the walls, b) but do not contain scrolls c) and only a chest instead, do not belong to the regular Library type. Instead there are always hidden skeletal remains behind the bookshelves like in YAPD, that always contain items or gold and also always spawn Chaos Wraiths (formerly Red Wraiths), unless the hero searches in the bone pile while standing on it. In this case he/she loses 50% of his/her HP, but a Chaos Wraith will not spawn (this is generally unadvisable, unless the hero has no damaging wands and is of a skin without an Ankh Shield as a starting item, as all stunned chaos wraiths get defeated with one or two weapon hits). The hero has to burn the bookshelves to get to them, like he/she would do in YAPD, and if there is a room like that in a depth, a potion of Liquid Flame will always spawn, but not generally in depths with bookshelves (so having a potion of Liquid Flame spawn in the same depth which also has a row of bookshelves in one of its rooms is an extra indicator for the existence of hidden skeletal remains, apart from the room not containing scrolls inside). Skeletal remains can also spawn in plain sight in a room with bookshelves, but in this case the bookshelf tiles will be scattered around the room and not gathered together in a specific side of the room.

Pit Rooms

They have two differences from pit rooms of almost all other PD mods, with the first of them being major: a) Their walls can be destroyed by Huge bombs, Two Bombs or the Diamond Pickaxe/Vtuber's Button/Shovel, so the hero doesn’t have to jump into pit chasms any more, if he/she has any of these items available, and b) they don’t have a locked entrance, but an “air wall” which cannot be unlocked or destroyed by any means. This air wall mostly serves as a clear indication to the hero that a pit chasm exists in the depth above, making the pit rooms of SPS-PD usually overt, unlike what happens in Sprouted PD, where there is no indication for them at all.

Rooms with specific effects

Main article: Rooms with specific effects

In the dungeon the hero might encounter rooms that either buff only the hero, debuff any character that is located inside them or spawn constantly Skeletons, with 5 of them being totally new (Cold, Dead Raise, Dry, Garden, Hot, Quiet, Wet). For details about them visit the link above.

Walls

All walls in general can be destroyed by Huge bombs, Two Bombs or the Vtuber's Effect Button/Shovel/Diamond Pickaxe. The only walls that these bombs and items can't destroy are: a) air walls, which block the entrance/exit to pit rooms (but destroy without a problem the walls around them), b) specially colored walls or decorative tiles like gold veins, bookshelves or statues, c) locked doors (but destroy without a problem the walls around them).

Scrolls

Main article: Scrolls

The familiar scrolls from Sprouted PD remain basically the same, with some minor changes (mostly extra side effects added to their primary function), but 4 new scroll-like items have been added that work more like potions by changing permanently the hero's stats (most of the times only increasing them, but sometimes also decreasing another stat in the case of the scroll): the scroll of Sacrifice, and the "Learn how to Attack / Dodge / Use Magic" scroll-like items. Also each scroll now has a distinguishing symbol after it gets identified. For details about these changes follow the link above.

Also, all bookshelves can now also drop regular scrolls after getting burnt, like they do in YAPD after getting seached, but never Journal pages like they do in Sprouted PD, and never rare scrolls like Regrowth, Sacirifice, Upgrade or Magical Infusion like they do in YAPD with its equivalent rare scrolls.

Strength and Strength Requirements

There are many changes to how the game handles the hero's Strength, and to what equipment can be used as a consequence. No longer it is possible, at all, to decrease almost all items’ strength requirement through upgrades. Additionally, potions of Strength spawn in a specific number (9) and equipping a Lucky Badge doesn't affect this positively, while potions of Might give only +15 max HP and no additional Strength, instead of +5 max HP and +1 Strength like they do in Sprouted PD, and they also no longer transmute into potions of Strength. The only other items that give additional strength points permanently without heavy consequences is a) the second Scroll of Sacrifice, a unique drop of the Challenge depths (it adds +1 Str. but the first one gives only +15 HP, and the third and fourth scrolls subtract permanently a lot of HP while adding +1 Str.), b) the Golden Nut Bless by the Developer, a unique reward item, that the hero receives after killing 100 enemies in all 4 challenge depths and gives either +1 Str. and 60 HP or +2 Str. and 30 HP and c) the Rotberry seed from the Old Wandmaker's quest, when it is not used for the quest reward and instead gets cooked with a Blandfruit to become a Rotfruit (a Rotberry seed is also a rare drop from the Sewer Heart mini-boss on depth 5). The ring of Might also adds Strength points when equipped, but only +1 every 5 upgrades (it adds +10 HP with each upgrade though).

Effectively, this means that methods of gaining strength are few and far in between or RNG-dependant, so most heroes will be switching to higher tier weapons and armors at a much slower rate (with the exceptions of the Rogue for weapons and of the Warrior for armors who have a +2 Strength bonus when equipping armors - warrior and weapons - rogue, and also the Artisan subclass of the Follower, who gets a +2 Strength bonus in equipping both), even possibly as late in the game as the Demon Halls. All heroes will reach Yog-Dzewa with 19 Strength, if they have found all the spawned potions of Strength, and they can also add surely +2/+3 to their Strength without heavy consequences by reading the second scroll of Sacrifice and eating the Golden Nut Bless by Developer after killing 100 enemies in all four challenge depths. Before that, apart from the Warrior and the Artisan Follower all the other classes without a ring of Might or a lucky Rotberry seed drop will be only able to equip up to the tier 5 heavy and the tier 6 light armors, as the normal and heavy tier 6 armors have a +20 and +21 strength requirement, and apart from the Rogue and the Artisan Follower all the other classes will be able to equip only tier 5 weapons, as all the tier 6 weapons have a +20 strength requirement (tier 5 weapons are as good as them, or actually better for most types of gameplay, though).

Tips for End-Game

Main article: Tips for End-Game

SPS-PD is a mod of Sprouted PD and among the most famous (or infamous) characteristics of its parent is grindiness. Nevertheless, in SPS-PD most of Sprouted PD's grinding isn't actually needed (apart from the occasional dew farming in the challenge depths for upgrading equipment), as upgrading a tier 6 weapon with transmuted scrolls of Magical Infusion is absolutely not needed and the game can be completed easily with more than half of its available weapons when highly upgraded. Players who want to make the best out of the game's resources or want detailed advice about SPS-PD's end-game can visit the link above.

Traps new and changed

Trap types

• Alarm, Blazing, Chilling (don't shatter potions, unless the hero steps on water afterwards), Confusion Gas (they cause also the Locked debuff), Cursing, Disarming, Disintegration, Explosive (deal releatively low damage), Fire (create a fire blob), Flashing, Freezing (rarely shatter potions), Grim (deal heavy but not deadly damage and can be encountered earlier), Gripping, Guardian, Lightning, Ooze, Paralytic Gas, Pitfall, Poison, Rockfall, Shock, Spear, Storm, Summoning, Teleportation, Toxic Gas, Venom Gas, Weakening and Worn Out traps exist all in the game, are borrowed from either Shattered PD or Sprouted PD and are mostly the same in function and frequence, with some minor differences from Shattered PD or Sprouted PD already mentioned inside the parentheses.
• Chasm traps are an original addition of SPS-PD, which are never hidden, can't get deactivated and always cause Bleeding to the hero upon stepping them. They occur infrequently in the main dungeon but they occupy appr. 75% of the Wisdom Trial depth and are also common in the Thief King's Lair depth.
• Distortion traps are very rare (almost non-existing) in the main dungeon but are extremely common in SPS-PD's Endless Mode. In SPS-PD they restart the depth, and in the regular dungeon they also function as "time travel" traps, as the hero won't keep the items he/she had found and already put in his/her backpack while exploring the depth.
• Warping traps are also very rare, and teleport the hero to a previous dungeon depth without unidentifying their depth, like they used to do previously in Shattered PD. The pet is also teleported along with the hero (but not when the hero steps on a regular Teleportation trap and is teleported somewhere on the same depth).

Generally about traps

• All pets fly, so they won't activate any trap and will just hover above them.
• Changing depths due to a trap, either downstairs by stepping on a Pitfall trap, or upstairs by stepping on a Warping trap, makes the dew counter of the goal moves stop for this depth, and it will start counting again when the hero goes back to the depth, so stepping on either one of these traps won't prevent the hero from completing the depth within the goal moves.
• Hidden traps in general are not revealed by Blue Berries and scrolls of Magic Mapping, and when they are not deactivated by stepping on them once (like Spear and Gripping traps for example), they still remain hidden, and the hero must specifically search their tile, for them to become visible.
• Trap tiles in general can’t be destroyed by any bomb or activated when bombs are thrown next to them and not on them.

Trial depths

Main article: Trial Depths

The Book depths from Sprouted PD are renamed to Courage / Power / Wisdom Trial depths, and have also received various changes (with the Book of Heavens / Wisdom Trial being the most changed, as it does not allow falling anymore, and its former chasm tiles of Sprouted PD are now all occupied with chasm traps, also Fire Elementals have been added as an infrequent enemy to it). All the Trial depths are now revisitable and have become an option in the Challenge book along with the challenges, but only the Wisdom Trial (formerly Book of Heavens) respawns its loot in a new depth arrangement, with the other two only respawning their enemies in the previously visited depth. For details about these changes follow the link above.

Wands

Main article: Wands

10 new wands have been added to Sprouted's wands (Acid, Blood, Charm, Error, Flow, Freeze, Light, Metorite, Thundercloud + Reno's Rainbow Cannon, which is a skin-specific wand), 6 familiar wands have been removed (Amok, Blink, Regrowth, Slowness, Teleportation, Telekinesis) and all the familiar wands that remain have received minor or major changes (Disintegration, Firebolt, Flock, Lightning, Magic Missile). Also, all wands have now a specific permanent sprite, and not a random sprite that will change in each game, like they do in Shattered PD (some of their sprites are different in comparison to the similar wands of Shattered PD though). The total amount of SPS-PD's wands are now 16. You can follow the link above for details about all these changes.

Weapons - Bombs, Guns, Missile, Thrown

Main article: Weapons - Bombs, Guns, Missile, Thrown

14 new Gun and Missile weapons and 15 Thrown weapons are added, making the total number of SPS-PD's ranged weapons 29 (or 42 if we also count the 13 bombs). Also, misisle and gun weapons can now be enhanced with different types of ammo, which are crafted in alchemy pots (for the different types of ammo visit the Alchemy - Ammo section link above).

• A full array of tier 0 to tier 5 guns has been added in SPS-PD: Sling, Toy Gun, Gunslinger Pistol, Pistol, Blunderbuss, Fusil, Mortar with also the addition of the Pulse Pistol that has a special effect. Also, 5 more missile weapons have been added along with the Booomerang: Centaur Bow, Lzayoi's Thousand Knives, Mini Moai, Ryu's Hadoken, Wooden Shield (the centaur bow and thousand knives deal exceptional damage when upgraded, but the wooden shield and hadoken are basically debuffing items that deal some damage, and the Mini Moai deals the mediocre damage of almost all holiday weapons). This makes the total of missile weapons and guns of SPS-PD 14.
• 12 Thrown weapons have been added: EMP Bola, Empty Bomb, Error Ammo, Escape Knife, Huge Shuriken, Poison Dart, Red Packet, Rice Ball, Skull, Smoke, Shatttered Ammo, Wave, and almost all the thrown weapones that have remained from Sprouted PD have their stats, sprites and names somewhat changed. This makes the total of thrown weapons of SPS-PD, familiar and new, 14.
• 10 bomb items have been added (Acid, Build, Dark, Fire, Huge, Ice, Mini, Storm, Two Bombs), which have unique special effects, are all craftable and can be also found/sold in the dungeon. Two other familiar bombs of Sprouted PD, the Dumbling Bomb and the Holy Hand Grenade, are renamed to Fishing Bomb and Holy Bomb and are changed in some of their details. The Soldier class also has the option to summon Bombing Robots by using one of his special skils. This makes the total bomb items of SPS-PD 13.

For details about all of them visit the link above.

Weapons - Melee

Main article: Weapons - Melee

44 new melee weapons have been added in SPS-PD:

• 23 Regular weapons in all tiers: Assassin's Blade, Club, Dual Sword, Fight Gloves, Empty Bottle, Flute, Greatsword, Halberd, Hand Axe, Harp, Holy Water, Lance, Mage Book, Nunchakus, Prayer Wheel, Rapier, Scimitar, Stone Cross, Triangolo, Trumpet, War Drum, Wooden Staff, Whip
• 12 Unique Drop or Rare weapons: Error Weapon, Example Wooden Hammer, Goblin Shield, Legend of Hyrule, Overload Handcannon, Reimus Goei, Runic Blade, Shadow Eater, Special Knuckles, Tekkokagi, Tengu's Katana, Wraith Breath
• 9 Holiday weapons: Brick, Christmas Tree, Firecracker, Hook and Ham, Key Message, Lollipop, Pumpkin Lamp, Sing jump rap play with basketball and play music, Test Weapon

Adding these to the already existing weapons from Sprouted PD (of which the tier 6 Relic weapons are all more or less renamed), we have a total amount of 60 melee weapons in SPS-PD. After adding this number to that of the ranged weapons sum mentioned just above, we end up with 102 (!) different weapon types existing in SPS-PD. Moreover almost all melee weapons have a regular, enhanced or holiday attribute, which are similar to enchantments in their effects, but are permanent characteristics of weapons and can't be changed.

SPS-PD's Weapon Enchantments all refer to one of 7 different Elements of the game, and each element governs two enchantments (making them 14 in total), with the couples having somewhat similar but not same effects. None of Sprouted PD's enchantments exists with the same name in SPS-PD, while 10 out of 14 are totally new:

• Dark element: Dark & Weakness

• Earth element: Acid & Earth

• Electricity element: Electric & Shock

• Energy element: Dance & Energy

• Fire element: Fire & Tar

• Light element: Light & Shining

• Water element: Coldwave & Ice

For details about the melee weapons and the weapons enchantments of SPS-PD visit the link above.

Wells

All wells have received an important general change in their depth generation, as now in all well rooms a rare plant also spawns always (Blandfruit, Phase Pitcher or Upgrade Eater). Note that in the Wisdom Trial depth a rare plant spawns in every well room, no matter if the well is active or not, so this depth is totally suitable for farming Blandfruits, Transmutation Items and Upgrade Eater items. All types of wells are also much more common in SPS-PD than they are in Sprouted PD, as in some runs a well might spawn in almost every depth of the regular dungeon (but never more than one on the same depth). There are also some more changes implemented in specific well types:

• The well of Awareness, unlike the scrolls of Magic Mapping and Blue berries, also shows hidden doors and hidden traps, loot and keys inside hidden rooms and generally all loot without any omission.
• The well of Health now fills the whole Dew Vial, even when the vial is upgraded to the capacity of 350.
• The well of Transmutation, like the Transmutation Item, does not necessarily drop the same tier armor or weapon (or an armor of the same weight), and due to the artifacts not being unique drops anymore, the well can rarely even drop back the same artifact. Note that wells of Transmutation are the more potent part of this pair and can transmute potions and scrolls (which is mostly useful for transmuting scrolls of Magical Infusion to scrolls of Upgrade), while Transmutation Items can't.

Known Bugs - Exploits

The following four bugs (for two of them even being dubious if they are actually bugs or not, as they are positive for the player and don't have any negative effect on the run) can be considered few for a mod still in development and with a huge amount of new content, and it should be certainly acknowledged to the developer that he fixes most of the bugs reported to him with the release of each new version of his game.

Negative Bug

• This is the only bug that has remained unfixed in SPS-PD, as it was also occuring in previous versions of it, but in a stronger form. In current SPS-PD when the player selects the Rankings screen, the runs that are not very high in ranking will be randomly displaying info for characters with the best ranking, at first, second or third place, or alternatively only for the character that last completed the game with the Amulet. This bug is consiidered to have a weaker form in this version, because until recently (the "Halloween" version) the character that had last completed the game with the Amulet was always the one being displayed.
• The Dried Rose artifact has three bugs related to it: a) The hero might stop finding rose petals before the Dried Rose gets fully upgraded. b) When summoned along with a pet or ally, the ghost can disappear when the hero goes down a depth with the pet/ally but without the ghost and comes back to get it. c) Summoning a Sad Ghost in the Wisdom Trial depth or any Boss depth might crash the game (the save file also might get corrupted). From these three bugs only the first bug has been reported also for the current version, and the other two might have been fixed like almost all the other bugs have. In any case, you can make good use of this bullet when having the hero equip this artifact.

Positive Bug - Exploit

These two game features are certainly exploits, as they provide players with a not normally expected advantage, but they might be easter eggs instead of bugs and a conscious addition by the developer (they have certaily not been fixed for some releases until now). In any case they have only positive effects on the game run.

• The Performer class after the Glass Shield buff is first granted to him, keeps it for a huge amount of turns and it lasts until approximately depths 6 ≈ 8, making the Performer's defense constantly high.
• When playing the rogue class the Falling Attack option from the special skill item can be used to charge the rogue's damage, with the rogue simply sitting and waiting by a wall until the Damage Bound counter reaches a lot of charges, and then the rogue should also use the Steal Gold option from the skill item, and then attack an enemy (enemies close to walls that don't move around like Piranhas are good choices if a ranged weapon is available, but any enemy can serve the gold-dropping role). This will deal a huge amount of damage to the enemy, and grant to the rogue a huge amout of gold as a consequence.

Note: Almost all the negative bugs of the previous version "Halloween" have been fixed, with the exception of that of the first bullet and possibly of the second, but new bugs might exist in the new version "Testers' party", so feel free to add bug reports in the comments section below or communicate directly with the developer: you can message him directly in his profile page hmdzl001 in reddit or in the main Pixel Dungeon discord channel, where you will also find him with the same username. Have in mind that the developer is Chinese, and as China grants limited access to both of these sites, he will most probably not respond immediately, but in any case it will be rather soon.