What's new — PocketZot

4 September 2026

Online and Offline play sections are now collapsible.
Runes collected outside the app are now synced when you open the character overview (%).

3 September 2026

Crypt inscriptions now vary by character outcome.

1 September 2026

In X mode, you can now drag to pan the level map. Tapping it still places the cursor at that location.
Other minor improvements.

31 August 2026

Added a Thanks section to the About page.

29 August 2026

New map touch interactions: while targeting or examining (x), tap or drag to move the cursor. In X mode, tap a location to send the cursor there. Long press any map cell to inspect it.

28 August 2026

Control buttons now show tap feedback on Android as intended, instead of only on iOS.
Restyled the control tabs selector.
Restyled the menu row cursor.

26 August 2026

Message log adjustments: reduced line height, +1 default line (new installs; existing settings unchanged), and +3 lines while spectating.
Improvements to character card content and styling.
Other minor improvements.

25 August 2026

Reordered the custom control rows for several menus.
The ability menu (a) and spell list (I) now have their own control rows: Esc + the menu's mode/column toggle.

24 August 2026

Character cards now show the runes a character has collected, and the Orb of Zot if carried. Characters on the login screen, in the crypt, and on the offline save list also show these as badges.

23 August 2026

Redesigned the character creation screens.
Fixed a black screen that could occur after resuming a game directly into the skills screen (no skills being trained).

19 August 2026

The character overview, dungeon overview, and game end screens can now be exported as images at full width.
Opening a skill's description from the skills menu now keeps the menu's context controls instead of swapping in the d-pad.
On Android, the app should now always use the device's default monospace font instead of an unintended fallback. Unverified as I have no Android device.

18 August 2026

Online char dumps (#) now link the server's dump file in the message log.

17 August 2026

Offline games now use less memory and release it sooner after exit.
Offline morgue files can now be downloaded from the morgue view.
Offline char dumps (#) can now be downloaded from the message log.
Held touch controls no longer auto-repeat when the app loses focus mid-press.
The app now recovers on its own if the device relaunches it into an outdated cached version.

14 August 2026

Reworked the --more-- prompt.
Fixed an issue with evoking while in an item description.
While spectating, tapping anywhere in the monster panel now closes it.

13 August 2026

Map rendering is now ~3.5x faster in ASCII mode and ~30% faster while moving in tiles mode.

10 August 2026

Reworked the Android back button/gesture. Back now dismisses whatever is topmost: keyboard, chat, or any menu. It also brings up the game's save-and-exit prompt when nothing is open, and returns to the lobby while spectating. I have no Android device to test on. Reports welcome.

9 August 2026

Fixed the installed app on iPhone allowing the swipe-from-left-edge gesture during a game.

8 August 2026

Improved iPad/tablet layouts, including the portrait controls, landscape sidebar and stats panel, and lobby.

7 August 2026

Polished character cards for offline's active saves and ended games.
Some touch controls repeat on tap-hold: d-pad, virtual-keyboard characters, backspace, and Tab.

5 August 2026

Offline play: PocketZot can now run DCSS entirely on your device. Tap "Play offline" on the login screen. The first launch installs the engine and tile data as a one-time download. After that, games play with no network at all, including in airplane mode.
Offline characters get named save slots, a past-games browser with scores and full morgues, an editable options (RC) file, and one-file backup export/import.
While spectating as a guest, the Guest chip at the top of the lobby now opens a server menu, so you can switch to another server's spectate lobby without going back to the home screen.

4 August 2026

Fixed a tiles-mode bug where you could be drawn as translucent while standing on a square where an invisible creature had died.

31 July 2026

Tiles mode supports trunk's new item-stack markers, added yesterday: the marker on a pile of items now comes in three styles, indicating the presence of artefacts, special items, or only mundane ones.

23 July 2026

New size settings: the D-pad and the message log (number of lines shown and text size) are now adjustable in Settings. While playing, you can adjust these directly over the live game.

20 July 2026

Shift-tapping a spell in the quick-cast row now force-casts it (sends Za).

18 July 2026

Flipping to another inventory category now starts you at the top of it instead of carrying over the previous category's scroll position.
Menus that fit on one screen no longer show scrolling hints and position.
In long menus, pressing an item-class key now jumps to that section.
Fixed the position indicator at the bottom of the inventory sometimes not updating after switching categories.

17 July 2026

Made prompt menus easier to reach and polished their appearance. Prompts now float over the center of the map instead of covering the whole screen.

16 July 2026

Made it harder to accidentally press touch controls while dragging down to scroll the message log.
A dot on "What's new" now marks unread release notes.
Fixed the place name's tap target, which opens the minimap, being clipped to a fraction of its intended size.
The minimap now avoids drawing under the device status bar and cutouts.
In tiles mode, the monster list now shows remaining health the way the map does, replacing the console-version health chips, which remain in ASCII mode.
Other improvements.

15 July 2026

While playing, the chat/spectator chip no longer floats over menus.
Made it easier to exit the monster panel. Esc closes it, like any menu, and tapping empty space below the list also closes it.
The phone's back button now works like Esc: it closes the open menu or panel instead of leaving the game.

11 July 2026

Chat added: tap the ◉ spectator count to read and send messages while playing or spectating. When playing, the count appears once a spectator is present. New messages show a brief preview. Tap the message preview or the unread count to view.
Customizable control sets added: edit the control tabs' button grids, including keys, short macros, Ctrl- and F-keys, tab names, and grid size.
Added support for exporting/importing control-set strings, to back up or share.
The level map (X) supports trunk's new X-mode descriptions, showing what's under the cursor as you move it, with tappable describe / travel / help buttons.
While spectating, the minimap now remembers its open state, instead of switching closed after the watched player views certain menus.
The map now extends up to the top edge of the screen, under camera cutouts. Player centering is still based on the map clear area.
Tiles mode supports trunk's reworked monster invisibility.
The monster list warns about invisible monsters sensed nearby but not yet located.
Improved tiles mode support for oversized monster sprites.
The on-screen keyboard buttons now claim the small gaps and edge margins between them, so a tap that lands just off a button still registers.
Various other improvements.

6 July 2026

Long menus now keep scroll position after opening and closing an entry's description.
Added orbs and tesseracts to the procedural PocketZot logo. Now over 2.8 trillion unique rolls. See them all!

4 July 2026

The HUD now shows the wielded weapon in pre-0.33 versions.

3 July 2026

Minimap added: toggle by tapping the place name in the HUD (e.g. "@D:1"). Shows layout, stairs, portals, items, and monsters. The controls stay live while it's up. Tap the map, or the place name again, to dismiss.
The HUD now uses the standard short branch names (D:5, Elf:3, Zot:5) in portrait.
Draconians now show their color in the HUD, and the piety row now shows penance (in red) and Xom's mood.
Fixed the skill menu sometimes showing a mastered skill's line twice.

2 July 2026

Map and monster-list rendering while moving is now ~3.5x faster in ASCII mode and ~25% faster in tiles mode.
Monster markers in tiles mode — status icons (asleep, poisoned, caught…), threat and ally highlights, damage indicators — now display correctly on older DCSS versions, and automatically keep up with future trunk changes.
The lobby's full version list now notes the 0.24 support cutoff, and starting or watching a game on an older version shows a brief heads-up with a way back to the lobby if character creation doesn't appear.

1 July 2026

The login screen now shows your recently played characters, as they were last seen. Tap to view the full gallery.
Switching away from the app mid-game no longer lands you back on the login screen: PocketZot now reconnects and resumes your game (or the game you were spectating) automatically when you switch back, even if the app was reloaded.

29 June 2026

Fixed the monster list sometimes requiring a double-Escape to clear it.
Replaced 'z' since the quick-cast buttons make it obsolete.

22 June 2026

Added 1.96 trillion new PocketZot logos. Each is procedurally generated from actual ASCII-mode glyphs. At one a day, enough to outlast the Sun.

17 June 2026

Stash search (Ctrl-F) and similar text fields now work properly on pre-0.34 DCSS versions.

12 June 2026

Spellcasters now get a quick-cast row below the message log, with tappable icons that send z plus the spell's letter.
The message log now floats translucently over the map's bottom edge instead of taking its own band of the screen, so the map shows several more rows.
Tile rendering now fills the map area edge to edge, including partial tiles.
Dimmed the touch controls so they don't outshine the dungeon in darker areas.
Overhauled how description text is rendered. Many kinds of text the game sends (property lists, stat lines, indented notes, prose, etc.) now wrap better for a phone screen.
Fixed an issue with certain text input prompts.
Various other improvements.

8 June 2026

The skills menu (m) now displays in a single column.
Polished the appearance of various other in-game menus.

4 June 2026

Prompts and messages no longer drop a literal < character.

3 June 2026

A stray "–" no longer appears before entries in the "Items not yet recognised" menu.

2 June 2026

The stable and trunk buttons now look distinct.
Stable and trunk now appear as lobby buttons on CPO, where they were previously hidden inside "Show all versions".

1 June 2026

Switching the map from ASCII to tiles now works during your own game on servers where it previously only worked while spectating.
Fixed the map shifting downward shortly after loading a game or starting to spectate.
The status bar no longer appears with placeholder values while creating a character.

30 May 2026

Info (?) controls now include a $ button (show gold / shopping list), in place of the save-and-exit button.
Map display mode (ASCII or tiles) is now remembered across sessions.
About and What's new pages are now viewable inside the app.

29 May 2026

Long character titles no longer wrap to a second line in the HUD; the title is truncated with an ellipsis so piety stars stay visible.
After a game ends, the lobby now shows a dialog with your character summary and a link to the morgue/dump file.
The HUD now shows drained stats alongside their natural maximum (e.g. 12 (15)), plus Contamination and Doom meters when either is active.
Fixed occasional stray specks of color left next to monsters and items in tiles mode.

28 May 2026

Optimized map rendering to be ~40% faster during movement-heavy play.
Rewrote message log handling to be an order of magnitude faster when many messages are arriving.
The noise indicator is now a graphical colored bar instead of an ASCII meter.
In tiles mode, HP and MP bars now appear beneath the player tile.
The HUD no longer briefly flashes empty bars and stat captions before the first game update arrives.

27 May 2026

Acquirement now shows a dedicated ⎋ / ! control row.
y/N confirmation buttons now appear during any open menu, not just shops.
The floating monster list can now be collapsed to a one-row summary. Collapsed state is remembered across sessions.

26 May 2026

Skill-menu hotkey buttons no longer drop right-column skills whose partner skill has a training manual.
Add inline buttons for more prompts (e.g. * to list on the cast-spell confirmation).

24 May 2026

Lobby rows now include game version.

23 May 2026

The Gods list under ?/ no longer renders each entry with a duplicated hotkey letter.
Allies and neutral monsters no longer show threat highlight in the monster list.
Use correct d-pad mode in the Ctrl-F result preview.

22 May 2026

Tapping a shop item to view its description no longer swaps the shop's bottom control bar for the d-pad.
Improve shop shift-tapping behavior.
The HUD now displays an offhand weapon on its own row when dual-wielding.
Guest spectate remembers the last server you picked.
Polished the lobby and spectator header styling.

21 May 2026

Improved search (Ctrl-F) handling.
Setting an exclusion zone with radius (R#) in X mode now pops up the on-screen numpad to pick the radius value.
Shift-tapping a shop row to add an item to your shopping list no longer highlights an unrelated row.
X mode now zooms out in tiles mode, matching existing ASCII mode behavior.
In tiles mode, a monster re-entering FoV at a memorized location no longer renders as a bare floor tile in the monster list.

20 May 2026

Fixed a brief flicker when opening the message log (Ctrl-P) and other long in-game popups.
Fixed a jump-back when scrolling those popups to the bottom on phone-width screens.
In tiles mode, the highlight marking cells you can Rampage to now shows.
In tiles mode, mangroves rooted in water now show the water through their bases.

19 May 2026

Fixed a black screen that could appear when resuming a game on experimental or trunk servers after the server had been updated.
In describe menus, very long monster descriptions now stay a single tappable entry instead of splitting into separate rows.
Menu highlight follows the d-pad immediately on up/down, instead of after a server round-trip.
D-pad diagonals page through long menus and jump to top/bottom.
Fixed a visible jump-back after paging on phone-width menus with tall description rows.

18 May 2026

Initial public release. PocketZot is an unofficial, mobile-first WebTiles client for Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: the full standard ASCII map on a phone in portrait mode, on-screen touch controls, multi-account login, spectating with an expanded map view, and installable as a Progressive Web App.