Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Announcements => Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) => Topic started by: Joonas on March 23, 2019, 02:03:07 PM
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/s05.png)
Zorbus is a fantasy-themed, graphical, turn-based, role-playing roguelike game. Your goal is to delve deep into a dungeon, find a portal to a mythical place called the Zorbus where a mere mortal can ascend to demigodhood.
The goal is to create a tight, streamlined dungeon crawling experience where the dungeon feels alive. Thematically Zorbus draws influence from the late 70s and early 80s tabletop AD&D campaigns and adventures.
The rule system for the game is slightly influenced by the d20-system used in the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Zorbus has experience levels but no character classes (race and gender is selected). On each level-up, you point-buy skills and talents. Talents are mostly combat abilities and spells.
By design, Zorbus does not have a hunger mechanic, item identification, crafting, autoexplore, an overworld map or quests.
More info, online manual and download here:
http://www.zorbus.net
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It looks promising. What does "dungeon feels alive" mean?
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It looks promising. What does "dungeon feels alive" mean?
My plan was:
Dungeons are themed (both in map layouts and themed content in areas). There are special areas like throne rooms, banquet halls and prisons. There are several factions in the dungeon and also some wild life usually in caverns. Creatures also comment things and act somewhat intelligently.
I have mostly done all that. Whether these things are good or done well is a different story. Some players might prefer plain rooms, corridors and random monsters who never flee or use potions etc.
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Release 4
- Manual updated with clarifications on closing doors, rest until healed, setting traps and other stuff.
- Difficulty finetunings: some creatures removed from dungeon levels 1 and 2, bigger chance of a recruitable creature on the levels.
- Rest until healed -command added (S or NUMPAD_0). Rests until healed or rests 100 rounds if already at full health so you can use it also to regenerate Stamina. Seen hostile creatures interrupt the rest. Can also be interrupted by pressing any key.
- Health bars under creatures change color gradually from green to red as they get more angry at you.
- Doors can now be closed also with ALT+DIR. The floor has to be clear of items.
- Fixed ranged weapon enchantment. Ranged weapons can now be enchantent with "enchant weapon" and "vampiric weapon" -scrolls. When a ranged weapon and ammunition is equipped then elemental damage scrolls target ammunition.
- Inventory now shows the key for dropping items.
- Ability/skill/resistance-modifiers in item descriptions are now color coded.
- Equipment ability requirements actually implemented (mainly for heavy armor, large weapons and large shields).
- When you use target mode on a creature it shows the devices it's carrying (potions, wands etc.).
- Some talent requirements and values finetuned.
- Item price formula finetuned.
- Spirit-modifier adjusts item prices in stores (+-10% per modifier, max +-30%).
- Offscreen creature warning -setting draws red warning arrows in the edges of the map to directions where hostile creatures are seen. Mainly for small screens.
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At least one player has gotten to the endgame and of course there was a bug in there.
Release 5
- Fixed an endgame related bug.
- Fixed a rare but fatal dungeon generator bug which would result in a crash.
- Fixed another smaller dungeon generator bug (sometimes you would see a single oddly colored floor tile in an area).
- "Arrow of Explosion" and "Bullet of Explosion" now actually create a 3x3 explosion on the target.
- Shops have more healing-, endurance- and blink-potions.
- "Create obituary" -setting is now saved to the settings file.
- Obituaries now have usage counts of talents and devices.
- "Offscreen creature warning" -setting is now on by default. Can be changed from the settings.
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Release 6
- Intelligent hostile creatures nearby follow player when using stairs.
- You no longer get xp from killing animated/summoned creatures unless they're animated/summoned from a trap. The xp award from creatures with animating/summoning talents is slightly increased.
- You can quick switch ammunition for the current ranged weapon with [Q].
- Equipping / switching ammunition is now a free action (doesn't take time).
- Correct ammunition type is automatically equipped when switching to a ranged weapon if the quiver slot is empty or the ammunition type is wrong.
- Armor penalties on Motion, Stealth and weight reduced. Magical armors and shields are lighter.
- More bullets and arrows created on the 1st dungeon floor. Players also start with 30 bullets now.
- Removed to-hit-penalties from the Multistrike-talent.
- A shield bash attack is made every round if you have the talent.
- Natural Leader -talent raises the max amount of recruits by 2.
- New talent: Lone Wolf. +2 to all abilities but can not recruit creatures. Can animate/summon normally.
- Great Body/Motion/Mind/Spirit -talent descriptions now show your current ability score.
- Closing doors is now little slower.
- If you stumble upon a teleport trap, your autopilot coordinates are set to your former location so you can autopilot back to the former location if you have the map between the points explored.
- Scrolls and elixirs are no longer quickslotted.
- Removed "Save settings" and "Save keybindings" from settings/keybindings-menus. These are now automatically saved when exiting the menus.
- Manual clarification: If you want to attack a friendly creature through the "chat" dialog, you need to have a melee weapon in your active weapon set.
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At first I was put off by the apparent simplicity of the game, but it's actually really good.
Your dungeons are some of the best I've seen in a roguelike, and they do feel "alive" like you described.
The chatter the characters make is also pretty fun. The gameplay is immersive and has decent depth.
It is hard to put my finger on it, but something about it is unusually enjoyable.
Great job, I haven't seen something like this before. I hope you keep working on it.
I'll be playing it the next few days before getting you some more detailed feedback.
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EDIT:
I've been playing maybe once or twice a day for this last week. I put in some more effort today and managed to beat it!
Got the ultimate ending (Though no sign of "that guy" yet, but I could have probably easily defeated him with this last character anyway).
This has quickly become one of my favorite roguelikes. The gameplay is engaging, the lore is charming, and the dungeon makes exploration fun and death not too frustrating.
My biggest complaint right now is that the later levels got a bit too easy. Though it was pretty cathartic melting demons left and right and punting liches around.
My winning strategy this time was producing some kind of lone-wolf "super wizard" which also took advantage of the talent bonus mind gives to boost all my abilities sky high.
This worked out a little bit too well, and I destroyed the second half of the game. First half went well too. The EXP bonus from a mind-based character also helped with that part.
There is not a lot of reward for diversifying your spell repertoire at the moment, so this didn't have many drawbacks at all. I focused on energy bolt/blink/acid cloud for ~90% of the game.
By the end I was a jack of all trades who could even hold up in melee against many tougher opponents, though spells were still king.
The avaliablity of summons largely made the penalty for lone-wolf irrelevant, and probably should not have been an option.
Though there were other reasons not to use summons (which I talk about below) that drove me away from their use for the most part.
Anyway, here are my notes for the game.
I wont post my victory log since there are no spoilers, unless you think it's okay.
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(notes)
1.Some way to instruct allies from a distance would be nice. You can use "Y" to yell, so you should be able to shout commands.
2.It's easy to accidently kill a fungus in a fungaloid garden. I noticed the game warns you if you try to steal from them.
Maybe this should give a warning too?
3.Haven't tested this yet, but if you start out with a mind of 13 or something, and then take the "great mind" perk to raise it,
will you get the talent points for the levels that you earned before you got the perk?
4.The EXP penalty for killing enemies using allies can be pretty steep for spirit-based characters
Depending on allies is not very viable, (or even wise considering no respawning enemies) as a result right now.
This factor made me only consider using summons as a desperation move most of the time (mainly fighting one or two of the final bosses).
5.The game switches to the 100-turn wait when you have full-HP but doesn't take stamina into account
This resulted in a lot of tedious tapping when waiting out stamina regeneration.
Though I did get the rhythm down to the point it was almost seamless!
7.Could the Autopilot browse for known locked containers? Often when I find a key, I want to head back to one, but I forget their location.
8.I was constantly wasting health potions confusing 1 with F1. This was a big pain, I had just turned off auto-quickslots as a result.
9.Theoretical question: Does a dagger in the off-hand still lower melee defense?
I'm not really sure what this mechanic is supposed to simulate beyond two-handed weapons being unwieldly.
10.Coins have weight and auto-loot grabs coins automatically. This adds some annoyance when managing my stash of coins.
11.Auto-loot in general is a pain when stashing arrows, shots, scrolls, potions, and similar things.
Maybe there can be an option when opening a container to exclude it from auto-loot, or maybe even an option not to auto-loot containers at all?
Otherwise the containers in the dimensional market would be good to have something like an exclusion for auto-loot at least, as they have nothing.
(Actually this issue turned out to be the worst of them all, "Auto-pickup" from my stashes constantly went on my nerves)
12.Could you make it so I could pull up more character info during a level-up? Like what 'c' does normally in play.
Often I want to make some decisions with regards to how my stats are, but I forget the details off hand.
13.Does lone-wolf bar the simulcruim spell from being useful? I have never cast it, but I don't know if it would act like a summon or "real" character.
14.There should be a confirmation for selecting the non-saving "quit" options from the menu.
(cosmetic remarks)
1.A lizardman on level 2 refered to me when I was not in his line of sight, and also in an adjacent room.
2.When something is trapped, the game refers to it by the name probably in the code.
Like "There is a trap in the fu_altar" rather than just the altar. I guess fu is short for "furniture".
3.I ran into the merchant plane to escape a monster who had poisoned me. It followed me in, and the poison killed me.
The greeter there then called me a thief when I died, even though I had just waked in a few seconds before.
4.Animal bones produced a humanoid undead minion? (This may not have actually happened, I was not paying much attention at the time).
5.Confusion description grammar is wrong "End of fighting each other"
6.Githyanki warrior spelling mistake, he says "otside" rather than "outside" when he meets the player
7.Generally speaking, enemies may refer to the player when talking to another hostile.
For example, the Mycon said "Why did you do this human?" when fighting a zombie.
He continued to say this to me, even though he killed the zombie and we were never fighting.
8.Nightvision sounds nice, but it is so hard to see in the darkness that it was not worth the eye-strain for me.
This is a pretty big problem if you want to attempt a stealth-heavy run. As a result I have not as of yet.
9.Missing punctuation for an engraving: "Just take a look around you (.) What do you see (?) Pain, suffering, and misery.
(Or something like that)
(bugs)
1.The great-flail doesn't seem to count as a "great" weapon in the case of the "great reach" talent
2.Clicking "Return to main menu" sometimes just restarts the game with the same character
This button is generally buggy. The character I get sometimes starts with a halberd and platemail as well. (Debug?)
3.My summons wont attack a hostile enemy who became hostile after they were summoned.
See: Animals that lose their patience and attack. Try summoning before they get angry.
4.You can not ctrl-move into other characters diagonally as far as I know.
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/s10.png)
Troubler,
thanks a lot for your post! I read it first before you edited it and didn't notice until now that you had updated it (date of the post didn't change).
I just updated the game to release 8. I'll try to fix the things you mentioned.
Major stuff in release 8:
- If you enable the option "Check for updates on start" from the settings, you'll be informed when a new release is available and asked if you want to update. The check is made when the game is started. Remember that you will lose your saved games if you update!
- Character sheet now shows more detailed information on how the current values of abilities, skills and resistances are calculated (modifiers from equipment and temporary effects are shown).
- Some AI and morale adjustments.
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Release 9 is out and fixes some issues that Troubler mentioned:
- All bump actions now work also in diagonal directions.
- Fixed a bug where companion/summoned/animated did not always get hostile against an attacker.
- A warning dialog is shown when you try to smash a fungus when there's a myconid nearby.
- Containers in the shop-level are no longer autolooted.
- You can now press [L] to browse locked furniture (doors, chests) in the autopilot mode.
- Character sheet can be displayed with [C] in the level up - menus.
- A lantern is automatically quickslotted if the "auto set quickslots" setting is on.
- Some grammar mistakes and typos fixed.
13.Does lone-wolf bar the simulcruim spell from being useful? I have never cast it, but I don't know if it would act like a summon or "real" character.
Lone wolf -talent does not affect Simulacrum or other cloning methods. Added a note to the talent's description.
9.Theoretical question: Does a dagger in the off-hand still lower melee defense? I'm not really sure what this mechanic is supposed to simulate beyond two-handed weapons being unwieldly.
Each hand / item has their own attack/defense rate. For defense, the item with best defense value is used or dodge-skill if its skill value is higher. I'll have to create some extra character sheet page where these values are listed.
1.The great-flail doesn't seem to count as a "great" weapon in the case of the "great reach" talent
This is odd. I tested this and it worked. Note that the reach attack indicator is not shown if a creature is not aggroed enough to attack you. You can still attack it with [f]ire.
2.Clicking "Return to main menu" sometimes just restarts the game with the same character This button is generally buggy. The character I get sometimes starts with a halberd and platemail as well. (Debug?)
Hopefully this was already fixed in some earlier release. Yes, those items were for the debug character.
1.Some way to instruct allies from a distance would be nice. You can use "Y" to yell, so you should be able to shout commands.
This might be added at some point. Any ideas for what commands to have? Or what kind of UI to have for it?
3.Haven't tested this yet, but if you start out with a mind of 13 or something, and then take the "great mind" perk to raise it, will you get the talent points for the levels that you earned before you got the perk?
No, it doesn't affect previously earned talent points.
8.I was constantly wasting health potions confusing 1 with F1. This was a big pain, I had just turned off auto-quickslots as a result.
You can also change quickslot key bindings to letter keys (H for healing potion) or shift + function key etc.
8.Nightvision sounds nice, but it is so hard to see in the darkness that it was not worth the eye-strain for me. This is a pretty big problem if you want to attempt a stealth-heavy run. As a result I have not as of yet.
Yes, this is annoying. Not sure how to handle this.
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I probably should have just double-posted, it's not like there is much competition anyway.
But good to see you are still at it. I'm particularly excited about the autoloot change.
Also I forgot to mention that I was playing release 6 when I took those notes.
This is odd. I tested this and it worked. Note that the reach attack indicator is not shown if a creature is not aggroed enough to attack you. You can still attack it with [f]ire.
I think I had pressed 'f' and it gave me the red text that says I need a reach weapon.
Maybe I was wrong here though, and may have not have picked up the talent for that particular character.
But I could have sworn I double checked by picking up a great-sword with the same guy and it worked.
This might be added at some point. Any ideas for what commands to have? Or what kind of UI to have for it?
I'm not so sure anymore. I wrote that when I was using allies more, but now mostly do lone wolf characters.
I remember wanting this when one of my allies ran off to fight a powerful enemy I was escaping from, and they got themselves killed.
I wanted a way to get them to follow me away from the danger. It could also be used to prioritize targeting when against multiple enemies.
You could maybe also use it to talk to or recruit characters from a distance, which would make sense to me since they already talk to you over distances.
For UI I was just thinking about expanding the 'y' command to have some sub-options. Similar to how autopilot works now.
You point at a target and press the button for what you want to do.
Yes, this is annoying. Not sure how to handle this.
Maybe what is covered by night-vision could be tinted a certain color (something easy on the eyes), but only when not covered by actual light.
That's all I can think of.
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In the meantime I beat the game again in release 8.
I had a feeling about that key in the end... It was a bit anticlimactic, but worth going back just for fun anyway. The secret boss was kind of a pushover.
He should be able to blink away when stuck, or have resistances, or something. Since I just filled up his room with acid and he would helplessly melt.
I had to block the door, but his damage output wasn't enough to compete with the devastating and ongoing background effect of the acid.
Then again, I saved him for last, expecting more of a fight, so my character was also tremendously over-leveled for the occasion.
Otherwise the final bosses were considerably more difficult this time due to me lacking a cloak of immunity or something like that.
This is despite the fact that I was a much higher level when fighting them.
I had also put more effort into searching and leveled the skill this time around. It payed off well in items, experience, and entertainment.
Though even with a very high search (26 with true-sight), it was pretty hard finding every nook and cranny of each level, I tended to get ~%97 coverage.
I also put more points into disarm, but it was not so useful. Traps themselves are never a big threat, and setting them is not worth the investment.
But maybe a more limited character would find use in it. This guy had better (magical) ways of doing all the things disarm does.
The potential for additional EXP for disarming things was alluring though, but ultimately I didn't invest enough to see how far that goes.
Just a few more things I noticed this time around. These are all for release 8 unless otherwise noted.
(notes)
1.The game should give a warning before stepping into dangerous terrain, like an acid cloud.
It wasn't a big issue, and I only slipped once or twice into one. But I could see it being a particularly frustrating death.
2.The "true-sight" spell was pretty tedious to tap over and over when searching old levels for hidden doors.
Not sure what to recommend, since it's the only spell with this problem.
3.Maybe there could also be an option in the autopilot to help with backtracking to unsprung traps.
Once I had the disarm skill leveled, I wanted to go back and disarm some, but finding them again was difficult.
4.I noticed the game has this strange habit of greying out the option to save occasionally. It has only happened a few times and I don't know what it is for.
All 3 times this happened to me were pretty inconvenient though, particularly since I use wine and the screensaver popping up crashes the game.
Usually it "clears up" after a while as well, and I can save again, but I don't know what causes that either.
5.The victory/obituary file should have a note somewhere for which release this happened in.
6.The secret boss doesn't drop that essence stuff like all the others do in the end (Though that might be intentional).
(cosmetic remarks)
7.Mimics in the victory/obituary file are listed 3 times, but not as which one (chest, coffin, or door I presume)
Same for "Wolf" and several other enemy types, it might just be from these kind of cosmetic differences.
(bugs)
8.This is actually something I remembered from the last version I played (release 6), but forgot to mention.
Once picking out one of the final bosses to kill, if you cast confusion the rest of them will gang up on the one.
They might be allied, but are not hostile to you yet, so the effect was kind of strange. It wasted the one guy pretty quick iirc.
I think I had just cast confusion to deal with his summons. My memory is kind of hazy so you may want to see what happens yourself.
9.If you switch spots back and forth with an enemy type that loses it's patience (like a snake or centipede), it will not become angry.
So long as you spend your turn switching spots with it, their HP bar will remain the same color. You can do this indefinitely.
10.Interestingly I had 100% map exploration of level 3, yet only found 12 out of the 15 hidden areas there. I am not sure how that is.
If it's determined by opening containers, I have a possible explanation: Often I do not open containers with a guardian in the room.
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7.Generally speaking, enemies may refer to the player when talking to another hostile.
For example, the Mycon said "Why did you do this human?" when fighting a zombie.
He continued to say this to me, even though he killed the zombie and we were never fighting.
This should be fixed now.
6.The secret boss doesn't drop that essence stuff like all the others do in the end (Though that might be intentional).
Yes, it's intentional.
10.Interestingly I had 100% map exploration of level 3, yet only found 12 out of the 15 hidden areas there. I am not sure how that is.
If it's determined by opening containers, I have a possible explanation: Often I do not open containers with a guardian in the room.
This was hopefully just a rounding error which should have been fixed now. Hidden areas are counted as found if you just find a way in and explore at least 1 floor tile there. Containers have no effect.
4.I noticed the game has this strange habit of greying out the option to save occasionally. It has only happened a few times and I don't know what it is for.
All 3 times this happened to me were pretty inconvenient though, particularly since I use wine and the screensaver popping up crashes the game.
Usually it "clears up" after a while as well, and I can save again, but I don't know what causes that either.
By design, you can only save once per dungeon level and you can't save at the endgame level. It this was not the case then it's a bug.
7.Mimics in the victory/obituary file are listed 3 times, but not as which one (chest, coffin, or door I presume)
Same for "Wolf" and several other enemy types, it might just be from these kind of cosmetic differences.
Yes, they are separate monster definitions with the same name.
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Release 10 is out:
- You can loot items from explored floor tiles and checked containers by pressing SPACE. By selecting an item from the list and pressing SPACE or ENTER you will be autopiloted to the item and the item will be picked up. If an item is in a container it will be listed only if you have at least once checked the contents of the container.
- Containers are marked with green corner lines if you haven't yet explored their contents.
- When selecting an autopilot target you can cycle still locked doors and unlooted containers with F.
- In the autopilot mode portals can be cycled with A or TAB so you can press A to start the autopilot mode and then the same key to cycle through the portals and ENTER to pilot to the target location.
- Autopilot is no longer interrupted so easily with neutral creatures or closed doors.
- Duration of the True Seeing -talent increased.
- Obituary file now shows game release number.
- Fixed a bug where a creature could be indefinitely displaced without it getting angry.
- Manual reorganized and info on the new features added.
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Cool. I've been trying to get a melee character going, and have been fairly successful, but I ran into a really nasty crash twice which ended my game.
Also I recently realized I have been using dodging wrong this whole time, and that it only works when unarmed. Should have read the fine print.
Realizing this has changed a lot. Particularly my opinion on how weak melee is, since I was investing in dodge and melee in equal amounts.
Fully investing into melee, even with less intelligent characters, has made them much more viable than before.
Though this also makes unarmed magicians sound incredibly powerful, as I also armed them before while investing in dodge.
I have also tried messing around more with disarm and it's not so bad. The EXP is decent later on.
Here is what I noticed playing release 9:
(notes)
1.When holding two melee weapons that can be thrown (like a hammer and a dagger), there is no way to choose which one to throw.
At least as far as I know. The character seems to choose randomly at the moment. I first noticed when he kept throwing his dagger, instead of his weapon that returns.
2.Is there a way to set a map point to a different location if you have no free ones left? I misclick 'm' occasionally.
3.Opening a chest with a key seems like it should be optional, since you could instead try to disarm it for the EXP.
What I mean is that using the key costs you that opportunity, but bumping the chest to inspect it automatically uses the key.
4.If you are using autopilot and discover a secret door on the way to your destination, it doesn't stop.
Sometimes I forget where I found it when traveling that way, since it went by too fast.
5.I was thinking it would be nice if autopilot could take you to unsprung traps as well, for similar reasons to containers.
6.Guardians of some containers shouldn't get angry if you just look at their contents, at least in theory.
For example, if there is an altar, I would be physically able to see what is on top of it without angering the myconid guarding it.
Maybe through targeting mode even? Since you could see it from a distance. With some containers like a chest though that wouldn't be possible.
Again, just theoretically. That's not taking into account any issues with how containers currently work, balance, implementation, etc.
(cosmetic)
1.Missed "you" in "The myconid might get angry if (you) hurt the fungus."
(bugs)
1.Sometimes I can't put tankards into the quick-select, and sometimes I can. Not sure what causes it.
2.Lost my first character to a crash. When I was traveling back upwards to level 5 from 6. I got a message saying "Out of memory" and the game froze.
That was a shame too, since that was my first viable melee-based character. And it happened again going from level 6 to 7 (or 7 to 8?), with another good melee character.
I never ran into this crash before release 9(I've been playing since 6), if that helps any. I also updated from 8 to 9 through the game this time as well. Also playing on Wine.
3.The automatic re-equipping after throwing an item seems to be odd. At least when duel-wielding.
For example, once I threw a dagger and he put an Urgosh (two-handed) into his main hand and another dagger in the other.
This only happened once and I couldn't reproduce it.
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Release 11 is out.
- Removed the limit of saving the game only once per dungeon level. You still can't save the game on the endgame level though.
- Pressing A in the autopilot mode cycles through unexplored areas. T cycles through known traps. Autopilot is stopped when a secret door or a trap is found.
- Pressing E autopilots you to the nearest unexplored location directly without going into autopilot mode. The autopilot takes you just to the unexplored tile and does not explore further. As your line of sight and possible lightsource reveals new areas you can press E again to move to one of these. You will be missing a lot of secret doors if you constantly use this command as autopilot does not walk near all walls. It's best to be used in short bursts of movement or for backtracking or finalizing the level exploration.
- Pressing H opens a keyboard image that shows the current keybindings. This can be opened from the main game view and from the keybindings screen. You can press ALT, CONTROL or SHIFT to show bindings that require one of those keys to be pressed.
- If you walk near a furniture container that is opened (chests etc.) or is lidless (altars etc.), it is assumed that you have peeked into it and can then use target mode from any distance to see the container's contents. The items are not shown in the level loot list until you actually loot (bump) the container at least once.
- You can press C in the target mode to cycle through seen containers. Known empty containers are skipped.
- If all 9 map points are set, setting a new one replaces the nearest one.
- "Auto use key" setting. If disabled, you won't automatically use a key on a lock but the dialog that pops up when bumping a locked furniture has the option to use a key among the normal options.
- If you dualwield two throwable items and only the other one has the "returning"-property then the one that doesn't have the property is not thrown.
Big thanks again for Troubler for feedback.
1.Sometimes I can't put tankards into the quick-select, and sometimes I can. Not sure what causes it.
3.The automatic re-equipping after throwing an item seems to be odd. At least when duel-wielding.
For example, once I threw a dagger and he put an Urgosh (two-handed) into his main hand and another dagger in the other.
This only happened once and I couldn't reproduce it.
I tried to reproduce these but couldn't. I will keep them on my to-check list as well as all the other stuff you mentioned earlier.
2.Lost my first character to a crash. When I was traveling back upwards to level 5 from 6. I got a message saying "Out of memory" and the game froze. That was a shame too, since that was my first viable melee-based character. And it happened again going from level 6 to 7 (or 7 to 8?), with another good melee character.
I never ran into this crash before release 9(I've been playing since 6), if that helps any. I also updated from 8 to 9 through the game this time as well. Also playing on Wine.
This is bad. There's a problem with memory fragmentation in the game. I use a lot of memory streams and dynamic arrays. There unfortunately is no quick fix for this. If you play for long sessions it's best to save & quit and restart the game once in a while. I removed the "only save once per dungeon level" thing.
Before each release I stress test the game with an autoplay that explores all levels and then starts again with a new game. Eventually it crashes after doing about 15-20 complete runs of the game. The crash happens when changing a dungeon level when lots of data is written and loaded.
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Release 12
- Fixed a memory leak.
- You can quickly get to the nearest stairs down by pressing (A)utopilot and then (D)ownstairs.
- Dodge is now automatically used for defense in combat if it's better than your Melee-skill based defense.
- Some additional combat related stats of equipped weapons listed in the descriptions of the items.
I stress tested the game for several 12-15 hour sessions with autoplay without a crash. Autoplay uses the game AI for the player character to clear all levels and then it starts over again. It's quite fast: it only takes about 4 minutes to go through the game.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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That's great news. The possibility of another crash was pretty demoralizing. Though I have played version 11 some.
As soon as I saw release 12 out, I managed to get a melee character to victory. And it was my most successful character yet, reaching level 40 by the end of the game.
Also thanks for all these features you have gone out of your way to add, they certainly are appreciated. Though I've always enjoyed the game.
Anyway, I finally got my win with a no-magic (except for true-sight), melee character. Getting a viable one was tricky but worked out.
I had started trying some races other than humans out. All of my fighters so far had been humans with a 14,14,16,14 start.
You begin with the guy at 12,12,13,12 and use great-mind and lone-wolf to blow him up to 14,14,16,14. And you are at 1-talent-per-level by level 3.
But starting with a "warrior" ability at 16, and only starting out with 14 mind is more viable. I thought this was only possible with elves and dwarves, but in hindsight not really.
It looks like humans are capable of this as well(and with an extra talent). So far it seems racial ability changes don't make too much of a difference. Maybe for extreme characters?
For my victory I played as an elf thinking it would. The night-vision was pretty good, though like I said before, hard on the eyes, so I did not use it too often.
Then gradually I would get back to 1-talent-per-level status by around level 7 through focusing on the great mind talents.
I can get a good 16,12,14,14 or 12,16,14,14 start with a lone-wolf. With 12 body you can wield anything and high-motion makes heavy weapons very powerful.
The 16 motion build is just superior as far as I can tell. Trying the 16 body one might give me a bit more in damage, but when I keep missing it doesn't feel worth it.
I might try a 12 mind one in the future, as the talents just go to spells in the end, which I don't use, but the penalty for skills may not be worth it.
With a melee character the game is still notably harder than a mind-centered run, though with 16 motion it's more manageable and success is more easily replicated than what I was doing before.
A lot of close calls, though I suppose melee combat would be by nature more risky than ranged combat. Regardless, by the end of the game my guy was a tank who slaughtered everyone.
The secret boss was notably harder this time around, though not incredibly so. Either he is tougher in melee or you buffed him when I wasn't looking.
His necrotic damage took several chunks out of my HP, but it was nothing one potion of holiness couldn't easily mitigate. His dodge was impressive though and kept me busy.
The final boss came to my aid, and helped finished him off. My theory is the secret boss actually exists to give less combat oriented players an edge in the end-game through this fighting.
And speaking of potions, by the end you will have so many stored up that it makes much of the endgame very safe. Health potions don't help so much, but heroism wrecks the final bosses.
Also I beat the game with Nightbringer. I was pretty sentimental with all the great-flails that used to spawn, even though I had better weapons. The comments were pretty funny too, especially when I reached the endgame.
I had that cloak of protection for the endgame again (and the ring of resistance to boot) so most magical attacks just bounced off. That may have made this melee run easier than it otherwise would have been.
By the way, I've noticed so far all of my successful runs take about 5-6 hours.
I might try a ranged-combat character next time, though I have found ranged combat pathetically weak.
Alright, here are my notes for releases 11 and 12.
(notes)
1.When an enemy opens a door, it makes a *creak* noise, and produces a small bit of fading text on its tile to indicate where the door is.
The text fades pretty quickly, but maybe should only fade once you make your next turn, or gradually fade with turns, since this can track enemies.
There is some other text like *sounds of battle* which also seem to work like this. Right now it's slightly reflex/memory based.
2.A lot of enemies like to run away after you have knocked them down to low health. One thing that might happen is they run out of sight.
I haven't really tested this, but in the process they may run into someone your guy would be friendly with, and get killed, thus forfeiting all the EXP if you didn't see it happen.
Again, I don't know 100% what happens. But it's a big reason I chase after most enemies who flee. Though it seems like I would get some of that EXP from chasing them off.
But that's just from my immediate point of view. Like with seeing what's on a container, this is not taking into account any bigger picture.
3.I think the explore function once ran me into a (known) door mimic, activating it and causing it to attack.
4.Inactive golems still seem to walk around, though that might be intentional.
(cosmetic)
1.The ability to change your characters sprite at the start of the game with left and right is undocumented as far as I know.
This whole time I had been playing with the default sprite not knowing you could change it. Neat easter-egg otherwise.
2.If you pick a locked door while holding it's key, a message will say you unlocked it with the key even though you used disable.
(bugs)
1.The tankards bug seems to extend to all usable items, like healing potions. Only the first few in your menu appear in the quick-select options.
For example if you drop something, then other things will be available. Eventually you will come around to what you need by dropping things.
2.Ran into a strange bug. I autopiloted into (or near?) a locked door. The auto-use-key option was off when I bumped into the door.
The prompt for what to do would not take any options except for using the key to open it. That was pretty scary, I thought I would be stuck there!
3.Once a druid in a prison got upset at me for trying to open a chest in the prison-room, from inside his cell.
I'm guessing they claim whatever containers are in the room they spawn in, but this was kind of funny.
4.The bouncer didn't attack me when I opened the secret door, because I think he didn't see me do it.
I don't really know what happened. But the point is I got away with it and he did not become hostile after I came out.
This one has only happened in release 12 as far as I could tell.
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Thanks again, Troubler.
No new release yet but some answers:
2.A lot of enemies like to run away after you have knocked them down to low health. One thing that might happen is they run out of sight.
I haven't really tested this, but in the process they may run into someone your guy would be friendly with, and get killed, thus forfeiting all the EXP if you didn't see it happen.
Again, I don't know 100% what happens. But it's a big reason I chase after most enemies who flee. Though it seems like I would get some of that EXP from chasing them off.
If a creature has 10 health points and you damage it for 7 and it then runs away and some other creature kills it, you'll get 70% (7/10) of the XP, whether the killer is friendly or not and whether you see the death or not.
1.The ability to change your characters sprite at the start of the game with left and right is undocumented as far as I know.
This whole time I had been playing with the default sprite not knowing you could change it. Neat easter-egg otherwise.
This is actually mentioned in the Race-screen when the selector is on the name field and in the Character-screen when the selector is on "Create a new character". I think the text has been there from release 1 but I'm not sure. It's easy to miss as the help text is not seen when the selector actually is on the selected race/character.
I'll try to fix those other things in the next release.
Kyzrati (Gogmind developer) streamed the game:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/425931154
There's a feedback friday on the game in Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/bpmwgs/feedback_friday_45_zorbus/
Elephantman played through the game (spoilers):
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-codex-of-roguelikes.71097/page-74#post-6131680
Nigetai played through the game (spoilers, japanese translated with google translator):
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnigetai.blogspot.com%2F2019%2F04%2Fzorbus1-threnders-journal.html
More from Nigetai (spoilers):
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://twitter.com/search%3Ff%3Dtweets%26vertical%3Ddefault%26q%3Dfrom%253Att5074%2520zorbus%26src%3Dtypd&xid=17259,1500004,15700022,15700186,15700190,15700256,15700259&usg=ALkJrhhGRA1LaQHpsTJsSQBnvFaggTdwvQ
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Release 13
- Search range is now 2. You don't have to walk close to walls to spot secret doors but can detect them from 2 steps away.
- Heavily reduced the amount of xp gained from skill use (finding secret doors and traps, disabling locks and traps).
- You can now close doors even if there are items in the doorway. Items will be moved towards the creature closing the door.
- Rest until healed / Rest for 100 rounds should be a bit faster now (screen is no longer rendered during the rest).
- New talent: Strengthened Shots. Body-modifier is automatically added to ranged attacks.
- Ranged Elemental Damage talent's damage raised from 1 to 1d2.
- Divine essences no longer give you experience.
- If you pick a locked door while holding it's key, message about unlocking it with a key will no be longer shown.
- Autopilot is stopped if you have disabled auto-use-key setting and a locked furniture blocks the path.
- If a creature is friendly to you, it's also friendly to your recruits and animated/summoned creatures. There was a bug that if you for example had the Animal Friend talent, animals would still attack your animated skeletons.
- Autopilot / autoexplore ignores walking through doors which are known mimics.
- Fixed a bug where lots of devices where missing from the quickslotable item list. Big thanks for Troubler for mentioning this bug!
- Prisoners no longer care if you loot containers in the prison's main area.
- You can press a binded key in the help-screen to get a longer description of the command.
- Target-mode shows the name of a creature under the target cursor with a black background.
- Menus with adjustable numeric values have small arrows as visual clues.
- HOME and END keys can be now used to quickly get to the top / bottom of inventory and other lists.
- Screen can be maximized / minimized with ALT + BACKSPACE.
- Fixed a bug where choosing "Return to main menu" from the game menu didn't go to the main menu if you had restarted with the same character.
- Added a picture (drawn by Zyalin) to the main menu.
- Fixed some typos.
1.The tankards bug seems to extend to all usable items, like healing potions. Only the first few in your menu appear in the quick-select options.
For example if you drop something, then other things will be available. Eventually you will come around to what you need by dropping things.
I think I got this fixed now.
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I just saw your update when I booted up the game.
If a creature has 10 health points and you damage it for 7 and it then runs away and some other creature kills it, you'll get 70% (7/10) of the XP, whether the killer is friendly or not and whether you see the death or not.
I must have not noticed because the text does not appear when they are away, or it doesn't happen that often. Either way that's a relief.
Theoretical question though. What if the creature heals in the meantime?
Anyway, it's good to see that the game is getting attention. It was interesting comparing my experience with the other victories.
I share some of their opinions, like that acid cloud and wail of the banshee are OP, even in the later game, for similar reasons.
I'm surprised to see people beat the game without lone-wolf. Though I didn't know the NPCs level with you.
Didn't know the final bosses had special diologue if you don't kill them all before the final-final boss either. That's interesting.
Ranged-characters are having trouble holding my interest. The fire-power is so weak for ranged weapons I just end up using melee even with lower skill.
Feels like that route is not too fleshed out yet. Like ranged combat is primarily intended to be used as a supplement to melee combat rather than on it's own.
I will probably keep playing with melee or magic characters for a while, though I think I prefer melee even if weaker because magic is always the same process.
(i.e. I will always start with energy bolt, then blink, then acid cloud, then holy burst, then wail, etc) A few of the spells really outshine the crowd.
No wins this time around. Though I did take a few notes for release 12:
(Notes)
1.You don't start out with enough ammo to get very far with a ranged character for some builds.
Quickly you will run out of shots and be brought to throwing daggers or whatever you can find.
Sometimes at this point I just go to melee, which feels like less of a hassle even if my character is less proficient.
Interesting as emergent gameplay though. My ranged characters often become the rogue from nethack, flinging daggers around.
2.Speaking of that, it would be nice if throwing talents like duelshot could be used with thrown weapons as well.
I know daggers don't stack, so I don't know how awkward it would be to implement, or any balancing issues with it.
3.The starting ability priorities (i.e +2 body,-2 motion) of any race seem to make no difference. Any build can be made with any race.
Race only seems to be functionally seperated by posession of dark-vision vs the extra talent of humans as far as I can tell.
4.I've noticed there is really not much variety in ranged weapons. There is the short-bow, sling, and long-bow.
Compare that to the many spells and copious melee weapons in the game. There are also no ranged artifacts as of yet (that I have found).
(Bugs)
1.I once accidentally wandered into a myconids poison cloud while non-hostile, and it became hostile and attacked.
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Theoretical question though. What if the creature heals in the meantime?
Doesn't affect the XP.
Ranged-characters are having trouble holding my interest. The fire-power is so weak for ranged weapons I just end up using melee even with lower skill.
Feels like that route is not too fleshed out yet. Like ranged combat is primarily intended to be used as a supplement to melee combat rather than on it's own.
This is true. I added the Strengthened Shots -talent to boost the ranged damage and upped the "elemental ranged damage" -talent a bit but even that might not be enough. Not sure if pure ranged characters will ever be viable.
I will probably keep playing with melee or magic characters for a while, though I think I prefer melee even if weaker because magic is always the same process.
(i.e. I will always start with energy bolt, then blink, then acid cloud, then holy burst, then wail, etc) A few of the spells really outshine the crowd.
More meaningful spells are needed but I'm badly out of ideas.
1.You don't start out with enough ammo to get very far with a ranged character for some builds.
Quickly you will run out of shots and be brought to throwing daggers or whatever you can find.
I added two new ammunition types in release 13: everlasting arrows and bullets. If you have one in the quiver it will last forever.
3.The starting ability priorities (i.e +2 body,-2 motion) of any race seem to make no difference. Any build can be made with any race.
Race only seems to be functionally seperated by posession of dark-vision vs the extra talent of humans as far as I can tell.
True. It's now mostly cosmetic if you don't count darkvision. At some point I'll need to add some new races.
4.I've noticed there is really not much variety in ranged weapons. There is the short-bow, sling, and long-bow.
Compare that to the many spells and copious melee weapons in the game. There are also no ranged artifacts as of yet (that I have found).
There's at least one named bow but sure, more is needed. Crossbows, blowguns or something more exotic? Having many ammunition types created randomly might lead to running out of ammo if you're using just one type of ranged weapon.
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(Bugs)
1.I once accidentally wandered into a myconids poison cloud while non-hostile, and it became hostile and attacked.
I can't reproduce this but I remember this happening to me as well. Stepping on a friendly creature's harmful effect does not raise its aggro-level itself so there's something more involved. Do you remember if you had allies or summons at that point?
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There's at least one named bow but sure, more is needed. Crossbows, blowguns or something more exotic? Having many ammunition types created randomly might lead to running out of ammo if you're using just one type of ranged weapon.
I had not considered the ammo issue. And there are not really that many historical weapons to work with after all. All I can think of is the recurve bow and the staff-sling.
There is also the more fantastic great-bow, which could also use arrows. You could invent some of your own launchers like you did with melee weapons (reacher, viper whip, trinity, great-flail, etc.)
Those are just some ideas. And if ranged weapons remain secondary, it wouldn't really matter so much either way.
I've been playing with everlasting ammo some and it has been an interesting addition. I'll try a ranged guy using strengthened-shots soon.
More meaningful spells are needed but I'm badly out of ideas.
Personally I think the variety in spells is fine, and you could think up more as you go along, but it needs balance so there is not one best route to go with them.
Some are underpowered or overpowered. For those people who like to mess around with making specific builds, it would need more balance and depth.
But for me, I think I just enjoy melee more because it's less predictable what you will get in the end.
True. It's now mostly cosmetic if you don't count darkvision. At some point I'll need to add some new races.
Actually, one quick way to fix this is to do a flat addition or reduction of those points after the player has gone through the ability screen instead.
So you might have someone start with 10,14,10,12. After they continue past the abilities screen a dwarf becomes 12,12,8,14, and an elf becomes 8,16,10,12.
That would make it so that the player can't just weasel around it and the points matter.
I also forgot the other races start with different skills, and these still matter, so there is that.
I can't reproduce this but I remember this happening to me as well. Stepping on a friendly creature's harmful effect does not raise its aggro-level itself so there's something more involved. Do you remember if you had allies or summons at that point?
I was almost certainly playing a lone-wolf character, so no companions. And I have not used summons for a while, so none of those either.
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/a02.jpg)
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
Release 14
- You can now enchant ranged weapons with elemental damage - scrolls. Randomly generated ranged weapons with elemental damage can also be found.
- Some named ranged weapons added.
- A new weapon, the hoopak, added. The hoopak is a staff topped with a fork and a sling on one end and a sharp spike on the other. It can be used both as a melee weapon and a ranged / reach weapon. It uses sling bullets as ammunition.
- Help text added to the inventory screen.
- You don't have to pick up a book to read it but can press CTRL + ENTER in the loot screen to read the it. Book reading supports PAGE UP / PAGE DOWN / HOME and END keys.
- Added more of Zyalin's art to loading screen, main menu and manual.
Zyalin's ingame art:
http://www.zorbus.net/art.html (http://www.zorbus.net/art.html)
Zyalin's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/zyalin_art/ (https://www.instagram.com/zyalin_art/)
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Hoopak! Ah, some Gold Box nostalgia right there of a most particular sort~ 8)
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Hoopak! Ah, some Gold Box nostalgia right there of a most particular sort~ 8)
First time I heard of a hoopak was when I played Champions of Krynn, so yes, it's from the Gold Box games / Dragonlance. The death animation in Zorbus is also a tribute to that game serie.
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I've gotten a few archers down to the end. Didn't win because I was being careless experimenting in the endgame. Strengthened shots helps and is a good addition.
It works well as a barrier to being a "real" archer. If you don't start off with it, you just have to use melee weapons until you can afford it or find enchanted bows.
Though it may be confusing to people why their skilled archer is doing 0-2 damage when shooting at kobolds, so it is slightly cryptic.
True archers are now about as viable as melee characters with this. The change in elemental damage is probably overkill.
I played around some with the silver spoon talent when I was looking for good early melee weapons. Though eventually I realized the melee bonus from motion is enough alone.
Some aspects of the talent can encourage start-scumming though, since sometimes you get a good launcher or better sword out of it.
The reduction in EXP from searching and disabling has made the game more difficult, I am maybe 3-5 levels lower by reaching the endgame.
Disable has lost a lot of utility now, but just using it for the EXP never really felt right anyway.
The hoopak weapon is a pretty interesting additon, but by chance I have not used it much.
I already found some of the artifact ranged weapons, which are good additions.
(Notes)
1.For a while, webs have been extremely frustrating with melee characters, because I thought I could not attack while stuck.
However, I noticed wizards and archers can, which made me wonder what the mechanics of being stuck were.
I did a little bit of experimenting and think the reason for this may be technical rather than intentional, as it seems I can still hit things by pressing CTRL.
If it is intentional, being stuck to the point you can not move your arms seems like it should put a pretty hefty penalty on wizards spells, considering the effects of cumbersome armor.
2.Shops could use a way of bartering with items or holding credit, since the shopkeeper runs out of coins pretty quickly.
For example, I had this happen: A shopkeeper had this nice Holy Vampiric Rapier +4 I wanted to buy for 4900 bucks.
I have about 3000 on me in the form of coins, and 2000 worth in the form of misc items I want to dump.
There is no way to turn those items into something of worth without coins in someone's possession.
3.A quick-autopilot to the store teleporter (like the one for the nearest down-stairs) would be useful.
I go back and forth to that place a lot more often then I need help finding the nearest down-stairs.
4.The new rooms in the tavern are a neat addition, as are the chests full of loot. However, they can be easily looted at the very start of the game.
All you have to do is wait in the guys room next to the chest until he falls asleep. At that point you can do whatever you want.
Open the chest and grab the high-quality goods inside, and you are better off than a character who took the silver-spoon talent.
I did this once to get a +3 holy rapier at the start of a game. (I was testing the viability of archers so I didn't end up using it)
5.It seems some items should prevent a door from being closed. For example, if an elephant corpse is in the doorway, shutting it would not be such a casual thing.
(Cosmetic)
1.The glaive has the description of the bardiche
2.Strengthened shots says your "body-modifier added to ranged attacks", but added to which aspect?
I think it means ranged attacks work more like melee attacks in damage, but I don't know. This could use some clarification.
3.If a zombie or skeleton comes out of an opened grave, shouldn't that mean that there would not be a corpse in the grave after?
(Bugs)
1.Found a pretty big exploit. By rerolling the ability scores enough, you can get more points than is normally possible.
I was once messing around with it and rolled a total of 52. I thought it was odd, since I can normally never get it past 49 at best.
So I moved the abilities back down to 6,6,6,6 and noticed I had 47 points to spare! Looks like rolling does not take modifier prices into account.
2.Once a shopkeeper just walked out of his shop, I noticed his items were no longer for sale.
Not sure what made him do this. It happened again with a recent character when I was luring a quaist into the bar to be killed.
I swung by the shopkeepers shop and he was out again, wandering around the center room. He did not get hostile with the quaist, but it was when I noticed this.
3.Funny trick I found. If you are trapped in a web or slimed, you can displace enemies into the slime to free yourself if you manage it.
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Release 15
Character creation changes:
- Ability modifiers from race are added to the base value after adjusting / rolling.
- If you roll the abilities randomly you can not adjust them.
- New playable races: centaur, half-orc, halfling, gnome.
- Small changes to the old races.
- Some of the playable races start with talents. Smaller races have a smaller health dice and movement is a bit slower.
Changed a bit how restraining map effects (web, slime) work:
- Magic- and Ranged-skills have negative modifiers when a creature is in the effect of Web.
- Made the effects little weaker so that it's easier to struggle free. You can try to move or melee attack to get free. The check is a Body-ability check against the effect strength.
- AI also tries to get free by moving if it can not teleport away.
- You can not displace a creature when you or it is restrained.
Store changes:
- Item selling price is automatically lowered if a shopkeeper doesn't have enough coins.
- Shopkeepers slowly "regain" coins when you are not on the store level.
- You can autopilot to store teleporters in the dungeon by pressing (A)utopilot and then (S).
4.The new rooms in the tavern are a neat addition, as are the chests full of loot. However, they can be easily looted at the very start of the game. All you have to do is wait in the guys room next to the chest until he falls asleep. At that point you can do whatever you want.
Now they don't fall asleep.
1.The glaive has the description of the bardiche
2.Strengthened shots says your "body-modifier added to ranged attacks", but added to which aspect? I think it means ranged attacks work more like melee attacks in damage, but I don't know. This could use some clarification.
Fixed the descriptions. With Strengthened Shots Body-modifier is added to ranged damage.
3.If a zombie or skeleton comes out of an opened grave, shouldn't that mean that there would not be a corpse in the grave after?
Yes, have to fix this at some point. Currently it's also possible that several bones are created in the same grave.
2.Once a shopkeeper just walked out of his shop, I noticed his items were no longer for sale. Not sure what made him do this. It happened again with a recent character when I was luring a quaist into the bar to be killed. I swung by the shopkeepers shop and he was out again, wandering around the center room. He did not get hostile with the quaist, but it was when
Could not reproduce this no matter how I tried.
Now that Disable-skill use doesn't give that much XP, do you still think that the option "auto use key on lock" is needed?
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Hey Joonas,
I love the new race options in update 15. Just wanted to say I think Zorbus is super fun and very well made from what I've seen thus far.
Couple of small cosmetic bugs:
- The spiked shield has the description for the bladed shield. I did see this in update 14 so maybe it's fixed now.
- I started a half orc when 15 came out and when npcs refer to me by race, the string is "half_orc" which I figure isn't supposed to have the underscore.
Do you have some kind of bug tracker users could submit to or is this thread the best option?
Looking forward to seeing what comes of Zorbus!
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Couple of small cosmetic bugs:
- The spiked shield has the description for the bladed shield. I did see this in update 14 so maybe it's fixed now.
- I started a half orc when 15 came out and when npcs refer to me by race, the string is "half_orc" which I figure isn't supposed to have the underscore.
Do you have some kind of bug tracker users could submit to or is this thread the best option?
Thanks, I will fix those in the next release. No bug tracker so this thread can be used for that.
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Now that Disable-skill use doesn't give that much XP, do you still think that the option "auto use key on lock" is needed?
I still go back and unlock doors and chests with disable, just to scrape up as much EXP as possible, unless I don't invest in it at all.
As of release 14 it feels like level 20 is a soft limit to how high you can go before the endgame without disarm, and 21 is what I got with disarm.
But I don't know how much of that came from the chests and doors.
Could not reproduce this no matter how I tried.
Neither can I. If I see it happen again I will report the circumstances.
Got another ultimate ending but for release 14, with a mixed character I wanted to make for a long time.
With fewer chances to level up, the final bosses were considerably more difficult, but I managed it at level 21.
The final fight took all the tricks I had to pull off. First I released the two secret bosses, killing off half of them.
Then I took the remaining bosses on one by one. Using up every potion I saved up, most of my summons, and several clones.
The final-final boss died to the secret boss luckily, though was always pretty weak compared to a few of the rest.
The pure combat guy with the crazy +5 sword, bow, and ammo was the most fearsome, but I managed to outsmart him at range eventually.
I had used everything but stealth to kill them all. It was a lot of fun. I could have won without killing the last few, but that was plan B.
The endgame is really shaping up at this point. It is a lot less trivial now with the EXP changes.
Looks like some of the bosses were also buffed, though that may just be me fighting them at a lower level.
Some of the changes in the new version look very interesting, particularly the new races.
(Notes)
1.With the increase in books and other items that can be sold, it seems like you get more money in the early game recently.
2.The wording is strange when an enemy tries to hit you but misses. It's something like "The Orc bashes you with the hammer but misses"
3.You changed a lot regarding this in release 15, so I don't know if it still matters now, but a magic/melee character with web makes a lot of the combat trivial.
Nigetai's tweets reminded me of pastebin, so I will just use that to post victory files from now on.
These are all full of spoilers obviously.
(Release 6)
https://pastebin.com/raw/XT003bqB
(Release 8)
https://pastebin.com/raw/Na8QRUf1
(Release 12)
https://pastebin.com/raw/idJuBuMW
(Release 14)
https://pastebin.com/raw/pmticKZr
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Release 16
- Adjustments to playable races.
- Tamed animals get their Health, Stamina and skills boosted when your character levels up.
- New room content and monsters.
- New item: Flask of Poison. Can be used to coat the active melee weapon or active ammunition with poison. Poison coating on a melee weapon wears off after 10-20 hits. Change to a weapon set that contains a ranged weapon if you want to coat ammunition. One flask is enough for coating 20 arrows / bullets. If you have more ammunition equipped then the rest of the ammunition is put in backpack.
- Some typos fixed.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S
Don't know if anyone has noticed but if you manage to get your character to the Zorbus level and ascend to a demigod/god then the character data is saved. A new character that enters the endgame level should see the old character there with the name slightly changed. Now if you challenge any of the gods then the old character will help you in the combat. You can try talking to your former character (well, you just get one reply but anyway).
The plan is to set the ultimate ending difficulty so high that you need to ascend a few characters to demigods/gods before having a chance against the ultimate boss. The "ascended characters" save file is deleted if you challenge the ultimate boss so you'll get just one try.
S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S ===== S P O I L E R S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
2.The wording is strange when an enemy tries to hit you but misses. It's something like "The Orc bashes you with the hammer but misses"
You mean this should be something like "tries to bash you with the hammer but misses"?
Thanks for those pastebins.
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I like the Ascension mechanic's direction---probably the first project that comes to mind in ages that is trying to leverage such in an interesting way since Triangle Wizard and whatever madness Wouter has cooking on the sequel now. 8)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/a04.jpg)
Release 17
- Pressing F now targets/cycles creatures that are not yet at hostility level high enough to attack the player but not friendly either.
- Option not to render the screen on every step when continuously walking / autopiloting / autoexploring. The default option is not to render. The game feels a lot snappier this way.
- Pathfind / autoexplore shows dots marking the path that the player took. Green dots if the target was reached and red dots if the autopilot was interrupted (hostile creature seen, trap / secret door detected).
- Option to exit lists (inventory etc.) with movement key up when the selector is at top position (not shown). Might be more convenient to browse containers, especially if there's nothing you want to get from the container.
- Settings-menu now has descriptions of the options.
- Obituary is more detailed. Shows the commands used count, creatures you damaged but someone else killed (damaged to 50% or lower of their health), latest log messages etc.
- New ingame art by Tony Forsman showing an adventurer standing before the portal to Zorbus.
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You mean this should be something like "tries to bash you with the hammer but misses"?
Yeah, something like that.
I came back after a break and played a character with a randomized ability start. I managed to get them pretty inflated.
It was considerably easier than the usual game, though the final-final boss and the secret final boss still held up to a degree.
With this character I was able to beat everyone in the end all on my own. I used a few clones on the secret bosses but they didn't matter much.
I had forgotten to try out poison weapons. I guess it just slipped my mind. Webs are a lot less annoying now that you can struggle out of them.
The new victory idea is interesting. I'll try leaving some guys down there next time.
The final-final boss and the secret final boss were harder in this version, though this character was a bit cheesy and managed them both.
I could still tell that they would be more difficult with a weaker character, particularly the secret final boss.
I was also lucky on top of everything else, finding two rings of resistances and a cloak of protection.
I didn't notice much this time around to take notes on, just one thing:
In the victory file the L is capitalized in cloning: "Cloned himself by drinking a Potion of CLoning"
(Release 17)
https://pastebin.com/raw/dBpdeQ8P
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Now here is something interesting.
I was playing again recently when I was stricken with a certain thought. Could the game be completed without killing anything at all?
Obviously it was not designed for it, but I could see it being theoretically possible. There are no necessary boss fights throughout the game.
The biggest problem is that enemies are fast and so you will quickly be overwhelmed and killed in no time at all with a low level character.
But there is one race which has an advantage here: Centaurs. These guys are incredibly fast and can keep pace with even endgame foes.
Further, the current stealth mechanics can be synergized with a fast character to make a lot of progress through the dungeon mostly unseen.
Centaurs start with a substantial stealth penalty at the start of the game, but a decent mind can bring the penalty back to zero.
With some phenomenal rolls during character creation and the lone wolf feat, this plan is made even more viable.
The only consistent issue is the gate at the end of the dungeon. You need knock to get in, and there is no viable build with a knock spell.
However, there is the possibility of finding a wand of knock in the store. So if you get lucky there, you can pull through the rest of the dungeon.
The second problem are the guardians to the teleporter after you enter the gates. I couldn't find a good solution to these, and was killed by them once.
A wand of summoning might give you a distraction, and a potion of holiness might save you from a blast, but really all you can do is cross your fingers and run for it.
I drank what few buffing potions I had and managed to slip past them and get into the teleporter, luckily avoiding the traps nearby.
And so after several attempts I pulled it off, the lowest level victory possible in Zorbus.
(Notes)
1.If you drink an elixir at level 1, and then die, it wont make a note of it in the abilities section of the obituary.
It will make it out like you started with that extra point. Though it will still appear in the device uses.
2.The devices used section in the victory screen does not take into account how many times you used a wand of knock (probably because it's through a menu).
(Release 17)
https://pastebin.com/raw/3uJmMTvV
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That's just amazing.
Level 1 character, 15 health points and in 32 minutes to demigod ending. Bravo!
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Youtuber pieceoftheuniverse playing Zorbus release 13:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHhFKKyvmqo
Sadly he doesn't grasp how to switch weapons or how to use ranged weapons.
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Release 18 (02-Aug-2019)
This release is noticeably bigger than before (almost 170 megabytes) and the reason is...
- Sound effects! Roguelikes don't usually shine in this area but try this one out. The sounds really make the dungeon feel like a living thing. Most creatures have custom sounds and the speech bubbles work well with the sound effects. There are also some short ambient pieces playing when you for example discover a hidden treasure chamber or a tomb etc. Splatting those kobols and goblins is just so more satisfying with a proper sound effect.
Hopefully the sounds work on all configurations. I could only test with Windows 10 on a real hardware. I tried with Windows 7 and Ubuntu with Wine in VirtualBox and sadly the sounds lagged there. Sound effects won't work on Windows XP.
Sound effects are on by default and can be disabled from the settings. - Online leaderboard. When you ascend, your character information is sent to a server and added to a leaderboard. Again, I'm hopeful that this works. At least it worked on all configurations (WinXP, Win7, Ubuntu Wine) when tested in VirtualBox. This option is on by default and can be disabled from the settings.
- The leaderboard can be accessed from the main menu, from the homepage or going directly to http://wins.zorbus.net.
- You can start the game with a randomly generated character. This option is added to the birth screen where you decide whether to make a new character or use a pregenerated one. You can press R when the menu selector is on the random character to roll a new one until satisfied and then press ENTER to start the game.
- When looting things you usually pick up stuff by pressing ENTER. You can now directly equip stuff from the loot screen by pressing CONTROL + ENTER on an item. Same rules apply as for normal equpping meaning that you can't equip armor if there are hostile creatures seen.
- Changed the key for switching inventory list type from F12 to CONTROL + TAB. Many probably haven't used this but with it you can switch between equipment/backpack-view and backpack/ground-view without exiting the inventory. F12 is now used to toggle item compare mode.
- You can now exchange items with your companions and edit their equipment. This is launched through the talking dialog by pressing CONTROL + direction towards the companion. If hostile creatures are seen then the options are not shown. The above mentioned inventory switch command is useful here as you can for example first give some items to a companion, then switch the view and equip them without first exiting the inventory screen.
- Magical enchantments in armor and weapons no longer increase critical defense modifier / critical attack modifier.
- Settings menu updated with stuff related to sound effects and leaderboard. You can also set a default name for your character or change the text font / size. (Previously you had to manually edit Settings.txt to adjust these).
- Obituaries have some new statistics like the current pantheon before you entered the endgame and again after you have ascended. Now shows your starting abilities / skills as level 0. Wand of Knock usages are now listed.
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Release 19 (04-Aug-2019)
- Fixed a bug in calculating skill maximum values during level-ups: ability-modifier was not added. (skill maximum = level + ability-modifier)
- Sound effects are now compressed making the download and memory usage smaller.
- Manual updated.
- In-game help Zorbupedia can be opened from the game menu. It explains some of the statistics (health, stamina, ability scores etc.).
With the sound effects compressed, the download size is now under 30 megabytes.
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Got another victory in the new version. The leaderboard doesn't seem to work yet because it doesn't have it up, but the options said it would send it.
Anyway, it was a pretty standard run except for some weirdness at the very end.
The sound effects are great. They add a lot to the ambiance.
I'm also enjoying the ability to change the text as well.
Here are my notes.
(Notes)
1.If you have the everlasting arrow in your quiver, maybe it could prevent you from auto-picking
plain arrows that are of it's enchantment or lower? After that point they are obsolete.
2.Just a question. Is there ever a point in raising an ability score to an odd number?
3.This is the important bit. You can completely cheese all of the final bosses by turning out all the lights, and then
using ranged weapons to snipe them from the dark. They wont react at all and will just wait to be killed.
(Bugs)
1.While I was killing all of the final bosses using the above method, I found another strange bug.
I was putting everything into defeating the final-final boss from the dark, but then for some reason it became friendly.
And I couldn't finish it off due to the sheer tedium of going through the friendly confirmation. So I guess it wins this time.
2.The encumbrance notification on the left side of the screen sometimes does not update until you switch your weapon.
(Cosmetic)
3.Odd wording in the description for "improved ranged criticals" talent
"You get a +4 modifier when determined whether you score a critical hit."
(Release 19)
https://pastebin.com/raw/ML678356
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The upload to leaderboard worked, it just isn't updated in realtime.
The leaderboard can be seen here (can also be launched from the game's main menu):
http://wins.zorbus.net
It's nice to see the leaderboard opened. Not so nice that the game still has exploits in the end game.
Everlasting arrow / disable auto-pick for equal/lower enchantment:
Yes, have to add this. In some cases you might want to hoard ammunition for current / future companions.
No point of raising an ability score just to an odd number unless you have a +1 item for that ability.
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1.While I was killing all of the final bosses using the above method, I found another strange bug.
I was putting everything into defeating the final-final boss from the dark, but then for some reason it became friendly.
And I couldn't finish it off due to the sheer tedium of going through the friendly confirmation. So I guess it wins this time.
Classic variable overflow: Creature's emotion (hate/love) against other creature is stored in a 16 bit signed integer. Negative values are hate and if it goes below -32768 the value wraps to positive and hate becomes love. Fixed.
2.The encumbrance notification on the left side of the screen sometimes does not update until you switch your weapon.
Couldn't reproduce/fix this yet. Let me know if you manage to narrow down the situation when this happens.
(Release 19)
https://pastebin.com/raw/ML678356
By looking at the commands you've used:
- Fire ranged 1468
- Ranged / reach attack marked target 8
you haven't used the [R] command almost at all but mostly fired with [F].
Release 20
- Fixed some endgame related bugs.
- If you have an everlasting arrow/bullet equipped, ammunition of equal or lower enchantment won't be autopicked.
- Inventory: You can adjust the amount of a selected item by 10 with CONTROL + movement key left/right. You can adjust the amount of a selected item by 50 with ALT + movement key left/right.
- Summoning animation is now repeated 2 times instead of 3, making it a bit faster.
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Release 21
- Leaderboard now has a section for non-winning characters of at least experience level 2. Only the highest level character per player and per game release gets added to this list. This option is on by default and can be changed from the settings.
- Removed weight from coins and ammunition.
- Small stealth / visibility tweaks.
- Small AI tweaks.
- Max range of ranged attacks set to 10. Max range of talents set to 8.
- Shopkeepers can no longer be lured with items from their shop area.
I hope that last one fixes this:
2.Once a shopkeeper just walked out of his shop, I noticed his items were no longer for sale. Not sure what made him do this. It happened again with a recent character when I was luring a quaist into the bar to be killed.
Some tips to new players:
- Don't try to kill everything! Bears, lions, tigers and other big animals are deadly for low-level characters.
- Instead of the dumb brute try the "intelligent warrior"-type by having a Mind-score of at least 12 or even 14. You get more skill- and talent-points per level. Humans get extra points at 1st level.
http://www.zorbus.net
Leaderboard at http://wins.zorbus.net
Some behind-the-screens screenshots at http://www.zorbus.net/bts/
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Release 22 (25-Aug-2019)
- Player and recruitable creatures get full Health- and Stamina-points at experience level 2. After that the points are randomly rolled.
- Player gets 50% of the XP from creatures killed by companions (recruited / animated / summoned). Was previously 20%.
- New playable races: aasimar, half-troll, saurial, tiefling.
- Some small changes to the old playable races.
- The log shows a line "xxx comes into view" when you see a creature type for the first time. Also shows the creature's name / type over the tile for 5 rounds.
- Fixed a bug where some tamed creatures might get hostile against neutral creatures.
Someone already got the ultimate overgod ending:
http://wins.zorbus.net (http://wins.zorbus.net)
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Greetings, Joonas. Your recent update has gotten me thinking... Are there plans to add more races to Zorbus? Or do we have all we need for quite some time?
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Saurial is definitely a deep and juicy cut on the racial gains---nice. 8) Keep delving deeply!
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Greetings, Joonas. Your recent update has gotten me thinking... Are there plans to add more races to Zorbus? Or do we have all we need for quite some time?
Yeah, maybe these will be enough for some time as they probably need some tweaking and balancing.
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Greetings, Joonas. Your recent update has gotten me thinking... Are there plans to add more races to Zorbus? Or do we have all we need for quite some time?
Yeah, maybe these will be enough for some time as they probably need some tweaking and balancing.
Thank you for answering my question, although I do have another one.
Will we ever obtain any sort of "bestiary", as a place to see the monsters we've discovered in our games and to perhaps obtain lore about them? I am fascinated by your little world you have going here, and I would very much like to learn more about it, more particularly, the races, creatures, and cultures of it.
Of course, if that is something you plan on, of course. I am only curious, that's all.
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Will we ever obtain any sort of "bestiary", as a place to see the monsters we've discovered in our games and to perhaps obtain lore about them? I am fascinated by your little world you have going here, and I would very much like to learn more about it, more particularly, the races, creatures, and cultures of it.
Maybe at some point in the form of some kind of monster memory database but probably nothing with deep lore. The game's lore is mostly just drawn from classic D&D lore with some own stuff thrown in. I'd like to have more lore in the game, mostly as lore books, but it's really hard to come up with those.
Release 23
- There's a letter "R" displayed on a creature's tile when it wields a ranged weapon and "r" when it wields a reach weapon.
- Log shows how much a creature resists of the damage done to it.
- Loot distribution tweaked. Bosses, uniques and treasure containers should now have a bit more magical equipment.
- Removed negative skill adjustments (disable, magic, search) from most helmets.
- Obituary shows what method was used for character creation (fully random character / rolled abilities / point buy abilities).
- Obituary shows if you witness an unique being killed by some other creature than you or your companion.
- Fixed a bug that caused errors when the game was played without sound effects.
Tips to players
- By looking at the leaderboard obituaries, I've noticed that the [R] command (reach/ranged attack marked target) is not used that often. Remember, you can use the command for both reach and ranged attacks. The command makes you attack a creature marked with red corner lines. Much easier than spamming [F] and selecting a target unless you want to target certain creature.
- You can also equip animated skeletons with the new "equip companion" commands (bump to companion with control pressed to get the dialog).
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
Leaderboard at http://wins.zorbus.net (http://wins.zorbus.net)
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Release 24 (15-Sep-2019)
- Recruitable creatures that you haven't yet recruited go to Carillo (the trading demiplane) after you descend deeper into the dungeon from their initial dungeon level.
- Shop inventories get restocked with some potions (blink, endurance, healing) after a while.
- Some changes to playable races (starting talents and ability / skill adjustments tweaked).
- A new talent: Team Spirit. Normally you'll get 50% of the experience points from creatures that companions kill but with this talent you'll get the full 100%. Requires the Natural Leader -talent (which can only be selected on the 1st level).
- A green bar appears under the XP bar when you have fully explored the dungeon level even if you don't have the Stonesense -talent.
- Some new magical equipment added.
- Loot distribution and level difficulty tweaks.
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A japanese blog has screenshots of the endgame and the ultimate ending.
SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY
https://bb5074.blogspot.com/search/label/Zorbus (https://bb5074.blogspot.com/search/label/Zorbus)
The leaderboard has several new winners:
http://wins.zorbus.net (http://wins.zorbus.net)
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Release 26 (27-Sep-2019)
- New command: Rest until (Stamina) restored. By pressing D or NUMPAD_DIVIDE you rest until Stamina is fully restored or until interrupted by hostile creatures. If you already are at full Stamina you rest for 100 rounds or until interrupted. Resting can be stopped by pressing any key.
- New item: Scroll of Magic Mapping. Reading this scroll reveals the layout of the current dungeon level. Areas that are hidden behind secret doors are not explored but the secret doors themselves are revealed. It's easiest to use autoexplore to enter these areas.
- Some small tweaks. Typos fixed.
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I was bored the other day and decided to check on how Zorbus was doing. Finished the run today.
This time around I played a Saurial, a powerful new race. Rolled a crazy 58 on the stats and decided to go with it.
I feel like I got much more EXP this time than usual, but I am not sure exactly what I did differently this time.
I did have a lot more luck searching for hidden rooms, and found all of them but those on level 5.
I happened upon 2 potions of EXP as well and was able to make use of them to get up to level 28 by the end.
Hardly used any consumables this time due to my ridiculous stats and resistances. Check the victory file.
Only a few notes. The game runs pretty smoothy at this point.
(Notes)
1.A way to quickly remember special locations would be useful.
For example, when I finish a level, I like to free the prisoners last, but I often forget where the prison is.
Another thing is near the very end I go back and check for a cloning vat, for a clone to take into the endgame.
Also there are those "challenge lever" rooms, which I might miss at first but then return to later.
(Now I remember I can set map points to maybe do this, but that's still a bit forgettable)
(Bugs)
1.Store level does not show a green line, even if completely explored.
2.The obituary file went pretty wild with the attacks on the final bosses. But I don't remember doing anything unusual here.
Maybe it was when I released the secret gods on them? But I don't think the times line up.
(Release 26)
http://wins.zorbus.net/files/overgod_2019-10-01_221927_xl28_untas.txt (http://wins.zorbus.net/files/overgod_2019-10-01_221927_xl28_untas.txt)
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Release 27 (13-Oct-2019)
- A map note can be added to your current location by pressing N. Many themed areas have automatic notes.
- You can display the map of the current dungeon level in fullscreen by pressing V. Shows stairs, teleporters and notes.
- Autopilot now has two display modes which can be changed by pressing SPACE in the autopilot screen. The new one (set as default) shows the navimap enlarged to the game view.
- Autopilot can pilot you to the nearest upstairs by pressing U in the autopilot screen.
- When you bump against stairs leading up, you can select to go to any previously visited upper level. When you bump against stairs leading down, you can select to go to any previously visited lower level. These options are only usable if there are no hostile creatures seen. Nearby hostile creatures may still follow you. At the moment this does not take more time than a regular level change.
- The ascend/descend stairs screen now shows some info about visited levels like how much of it you have explored, if there are still challenge / cloning / etc. switches left and so on.
- There's now only one setting for sending obituary files for the leaderboard. This settings needs to be on before you start a new game to affect that game. This is to prevent savescumming in the leaderboard.
- Fixed a bug where attacking an avatar resulted in several history lines added to the report.
- Fully exploring the shop level now shows a green "stonesense" line.
- Fixed a bug where some challenge switch rooms did not summon monsters.
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Release 28 (20-Feb-2020)
Biggest changes: ASCII mode, mouse control, endgame much more challenging, leaderboard reset, better handling of friendly fire
(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/s17.png)
Visual changes
- Support for ASCII mode. You can adjust the ASCII visual style from the settings. Uses truetype fonts. Press HOME to toggle between ASCII and tiles.
- Red flash on a creature tile when it's damaged. Can be disabled from the settings.
- Some new wall tiles.
- More control of the visuals from the settings.
- You can for example disable flavor coloring so that only one color for walls/floors is used per dungeon level.
Audio changes
- Lots of new sound effects (now over 2000).
- You can mute/unmute audio during game play with END.
UI changes
- Mouse support. Tooltips when hovering over UI elements. For me, using the mouse feels very clumsy but it may be helpful when still learning to play the game.
- You can view other visited dungeon level maps in the full screen map viewer V. Select a map with movement keys or mouse.
- Message log viewer can be launched with L.
- The message log and book texts can be filtered with a keyword. Just write a wanted word when the message log / book reading screen is active. CTRL + C copies the text to the clipboard.
- When bumping against stairs, you'll see the map of the target level (if level is already visited).
- When you bump against a furniture, it's name is displayed is on the log if it can not be interacted with. May be useful in the ASCII mode when learning which glyph represents what furniture.
- You can adjust the interface zoom up to 200% (was previously 150%). Note that text might not fit into UI elements with bigger zoom values.
- In the keybinding screens there are presets for default / WASD / VI -keys.
- Map points 1 and 2 are automatically set to the two shops on the shop level. So you can autopilot to the shops quickly by pressing A, 1 or 2 and ENTER. Remember that you can get to shop teleporters quickly by pressing A and S, on the shop level too.
- Up to 40 quickslots (was previously 20), the amount is restricted by your screen height.
- Only one device per type is automatically quickslotted. So if you have 2 x Wand of Energy Bolt, only one is quickslotted.
- Save on exit. If you quit the game from the menu or just close thw game window, the game is automatically saved.
- You can now filter inventory / level loot with "+" symbol so you can for example write "+2" to filter all +2 enchanted items, or "3+" to filter all items with at least +3 enchantment.
- Character creation / level up screens list if there are talents with ability- or skill-requirements when the menu selector is on an ability or a skill.
Content changes
- Endgame is now much more challenging. Previously it was way too easy to get the ultimate ending. The ingame book "Deities & Demigods" has some information on the avatars of the gods.
- Dungeon structure changed a bit. Changed some of the levels from 128x128 to 96x96.
- New interactive furniture: thrones and wells. These can now be interacted with and can provide both harmful and positive effects. The ingame book "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" has some information on these.
- Crystal balls were previously just static, non-interactive furniture. Now the orbs can be taken from these orb stands. Orbs are devices and can be used like wands.
- New partially handcrafted room content.
- New items (Flask of Slime, Wand of Dismiss, Orb of Anchoring etc.).
- New lore books and some of the older ones updated.
- Shops restock more ammunition.
- Falchion has now the great-property so it can be used as a reach weapon with the Great Reach talent.
- Summon Animals talent: some variation of what kind of animals get summoned.
- Potion of Cloning is renamed to Elixir of Cloning. This item won't be quickslotted.
Gameplay changes
- Better handling of friendly fire. Companions should no longer get angry at you or each other when taking friendly fire.
- Critical hits deal 50% more damage (was 100%). Charge deals 50% more damage with shafted weapons (was 100%).
- No experience points from killing creatures still in prison cells.
- You need Mind-ability of at least 6 to be able to read books, scrolls or other texts.
- By default, all ammunition is now autopicked. Ammunition doesn't have weight but if you feel that your inventory gets cluttered, you can disable this from the settings.
Companion changes
- Maximum number of companions is calculated from your base Spirit-value (previous from item/effect modified one).
- Another way to see/adjust companion equipment. Press F11 in inventory screen to cycle between you / companions.
- CTRL + E in inventory screen toggles item exchange mode. F11 to change companion.
- You can see the stats of your companions by first opening the character sheet with C, then using the movements keys up/down to cycle between companions. TAB or movement keys left/right cycle between two character sheet pages. You can also see the stats before recruiting a creature by selecting CHARACTER SHEET from the "bump friendly" -dialog.
- Companions do not change equipment (other than ammunition) that the player has set to them.
Other
- Some critical bugs fixed. These occured very rarely but would have made the game impossible to win.
- Huge amount of small bug fixes and tweaks.
- Manual updated. More gameplay tips. Last page of the manual has some small spoilers of the dungeon structure and endgame.
- Leaderboard has been reset.
http://www.zorbus.net
Some gameplay videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChx0zJ89cyTfqKc30BWzikQ
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Potent update! 8)
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:'( :'( :'(
Number 2 on the leaderboard
http://wins.zorbus.net/
ANDVARE
Human male, level 12
Killed by sitting on a throne.
Duration 03:14
You sit on the throne. The throne has a mind of its own! You lose the battle of wills! You are killed! (Necrotic: 80 = 81 - res 0)
2020-02-23 15:07 03:14 dl 7 xl 12 hp 000/080 Killed by sitting on a throne.
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:'( :'( :'(
ANDVARE
Human male, level 12
Killed by sitting on a throne.
Duration 03:14
Auch. That's too harsh. Have to change that.
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I downloaded the game a couple of days ago, and I'm having a lot of fun playing it.
Not sure if this was asked here or somewhere else, but what programming language was used to build this?
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It's written in Pascal.
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Release 29 (02-Mar-2020)
http://www.zorbus.net
- AI tweaking:
- Consumable / device usage tweaked, especially for companions.
- AI tries first to target hostile creatures that are not summoned or animated.
- AI can unlit its lightsource when fleeing.
- AI can unlit furniture lightsources to ensure safe resting / sleeping in dark areas.
- Companion morale presets tweaked, hopefully resulting in better survivability.
- Killing friendly creatures no longer gives experience points.
- Weakened the necrotic damage effect that can happen from sittig on a throne or drinking from a well. The old effect could instakill characters in full health.
- Updated the descriptions of the item enchantment scrolls:
- Armors: Every enchantment point decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points.
- Weapons: Every enchantment point, elemental damage point, holy property, vampiric property and on-hit effect decreases the enchantment chance by 10 percentage points (used to be 15).
- Log entry when your companion learns a new talent (companions level up at the same time as the player).
- Fixed a bug where animated / summoned creatures would sometimes disappear from view after animation.
- Fixed a small bug in ASCII mode.
- A new lore book, "Legends & Lore", a list of ascended players.
- Some typos fixed.
Already a couple of god-tier wins in the leaderboard:
http://wins.zorbus.net
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(http://www.zorbus.net/tutorial/t07.png)
Release 30 (28-Mar-2020)
Highlights:
- 1 year anniversary of public releases
- List of companions above the quickslots
- Commanding companions
- Optional description of a heard sound on the map if the sound source is not seen
- Tutorial: Pressing H once opens the old keyboard help layout, pressing H second time opens the tutorial
Full changelog:
http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt (http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt)
Tutorial:
http://www.zorbus.net/tutorial/index.html (http://www.zorbus.net/tutorial/index.html)
Leaderboard:
http://wins.zorbus.net (http://wins.zorbus.net)
No ultimate endings yet.
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Hey Joonas, fantastic updates.
The game is much more challenging than last time I played through.
I think I've come across a game-crashing bug.
If I have a bunch of poison/slime in my inventory and apply them to regular arrows or bullets, eventually the ammotype will change to blank.
This is fine if I hit Q to change ammo type but if I don't notice for some reason and then attempt to range-attack an enemy the game crashes and quits without saving.
I've been able to reproduce it a couple of times, usually the ammo type changes to blank after adding poison/slime 3 or 4 times in a row.
https://i.imgur.com/oNXJch0.png (https://i.imgur.com/oNXJch0.png)
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I quickly tested, and it is indeed bugged. Thank you!
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Oh no; I was playing the 30 release, and my best run so far (Human lv.10), when I do alt+tab (I'm running Zorbus in Ubuntu with Wine) to look some tips in the leaderboard information, and for first time the game crashed. When I reload the game, it seems my savegame is gone. In 'save' forlder there are only 'avatars.zav' and 'characters.zav' files.
I guess this means I've lost the game, no? Or is there some way to get it back?
Thanks in advance
p.d.: and by the way: after more than 10 years playing traditional roguelikes (nethack, crawl, adom, brogue, etc.), I can say that zorbus is by far my favorite roguelike (except Cataclysm DDA, which I do not consider it a "traditional" ;). A great example of well done game. Thanks you!
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Unfortunately the save is gone. Did the game pop up any error message, or did it just crash to desktop?
I think it was Troubler in this thread who mentioned a crash with Wine after alt+tabbing, but that was several releases ago.
Based on a quick google search, crash after alt+tab is a problem with other games run under Wine as well.
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No log or error message, but, yes: I've noticed that alt+tabbing freezes some programs running under wine in fullscreen mode (without virtual desktop), but usually not with Zorbus. Anyway, isn't a problem or bug of Zorbus executable. I wondered only if the game has some kind of automatic backup. However, I prefer a "perma-crash-dead" than do manual backups and end up giving in to the temptation of the save-scummin XD
Thanks for your answer!
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Had to release a new version this quickly because the bug Zero mentioned above is quite severe.
Release 31 (04-Apr-2020)
- Fixed a bug that happened when you poison/slime coated your ammunition with scrolls, and already had that kind of ammunition in your inventory. The new coated ammunition would be combined with the previous batch, leaving the ammunition equipment slot empty. This would lead to a crash, if you didn't equip something to the empty slot before firing. Big thanks to Zero for figuring this out!
- All found magical or otherwise major items are now logged into the obituary log. Previously only the most powerful items were logged. For devices (scrolls, wands, etc.), only the first found item of specific type is logged.
- Item enchanting with scrolls is now logged into the obituary log.
I stress tested the game with Wine in Ubuntu. I used autoplay which automatically plays the game over and over by controlling the player with AI, and couldn't get it to crash. I didn't try fullscreen or alt-tabbing though, only windowed, but will look into it.
Want to help with the development? I’m especially looking for:
- Ideas for handcrafted room content
- Ideas for new talents or items
- Text for lore books
- Dialogue lines (especially for dragons, demons, devils, companions)
Congrats to Flauel, who was first to get the ultimate overgod-ending! (Leaderboard: http://wins.zorbus.net (http://wins.zorbus.net))
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The game skinned with a Star Wars -theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5di9ehQTLg
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Mr. Delightful made a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEVoJlrPAzU
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Release 32 (17-May-2020)
- If you update to this release with autoupdate, it might be best to update without restoring old settings.
- Sound effects revisited. Lots of new sound effects, some old ones removed / edited. Complete overhaul of the ambience sound system. Dungeon ambience is constant by default. Can be configured / turned off from the settings.
- Optional creature wiggle. On by default, can be configured / turned off from the settings.
- Health bars of summoned, hostile creatures are now in blue. Can be turned off from the settings.
- Names of summoned creatures are in blue in the target mode / when a new creature is discovered.
- Creature possession tweaked. Duration is now longer. Duration can be seen after the Break Possession talent in the quickslots.
- There was a bug when calculating how much of the level is explored. Hopefully now fixed.
- New book reading screen. Press SPACE to switch between the new and the old one. You can configure the font from the settings. Uses the "Segoe Print" font by default (comes with Windows). You can switch between the book font / regular font with TAB.
- Monsters pick up boots, belts, rings and other equipment, and also equip them. Previously only picked usable devices (potions, wands, etc.).
- AI tweaks.
- Some new items.
- An option to automatically create a map collection, an image of all dungeon maps you visited with the character. Unexplored areas are drawn in blue. The map collection is saved as a PNG image to the Obituary-folder after character death. It's also included in the character report uploaded to the leaderboard. A map collection is always created if endgame is reached.A map collection named "Last character - Maps.png" is always created but overwritten when the next character wins or dies. A map collection named "Best character - Maps.png" is created if the character''s experience points are higher than the experience points of any previous character.
- An ASCII map of the character's last view is added to the obituary file.
- Probably never mentioned this before, but you can press TAB to jump to the next divided section of a menu.
www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
New gameplay video:
https://youtu.be/JC3zvoy0ZvQ (https://youtu.be/JC3zvoy0ZvQ)
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Release 33 (13-Jun-2020)
Full changelog:
http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt (http://www.zorbus.net/Zorbus.txt)
Huge lore update! Some of the old lore books were rewritten and many new books introduced. Massive thanks to Helical Nightmares for help.
http://www.zorbus.net
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Release 35 (22-Jun-2020)
- Optional low Health warning popup dialog that blocks all commands. The dialog is visible for the configured duration or until closed with ESC, SPACE, ENTER, or left mouse click. The warning thresholds can be configured from the settings. You can set a cooldown in seconds between dialogs. You can disable the dialog when it's visible with DEL or CTRL + W. You can disable or re-enable the dialog with CTRL + W in normal game mode.
- Optional Health bar / UI frame flash when low on Health. Can be configured from the settings.
- When no hostile creatures are seen, companion movement speed is the same as the players.
- Companions that were not near hostile creatures are regrouped around the player after autopilot / autoexplore regardless of their movement speed.
- Setting for autopilot / autoexplore: stop if companion sees hostile creatures (off by default). Summoned / animated / charmed creatures are not counted as companions here.
- Tweaked autoexplore so that it stops before a locked door even if you have a key to the door. Next autoexplore command will open the door.
- New behavior for companions: HANDLE. You can command companion to disable or force a lock / disable a trap. Target a lock or a trap with the cursor in target mode, then press companion number to command a companion, or press 0 to select the best companion for the job. There must be a clear path to the target when issuing a HANDLE command. You won't get experience points from locks or traps disabled by a companion.
- Companions in FOLLOW behavior will try to disable or force a lock after your failed attempt if there's one with better Body-ability or Disable-skill nearby and neither the player or the companion sees hostile creatures. The same method (disable / force) will be used. Can be disabled from the settings.
- New pro tip to the manual / ingame book: Give Disable-skill boosting items to a companion. If you have found items that boost the Disable-skill, but don't want to wear them or don't have room in your equipment setup for them, give them to a companion with the highest Motion-ability. Then, when needed, command the companion to disable a lock or a trap. They will also do that automatically after your failed attempt if their Disable-skill is higher than yours.
- Better handling of charmed creatures. Fixed some related bugs.
- Previous release introduced some bugs to the book page changing with mouse. Fixed.
- Fixed a bug with book keyword filtering.
- NPCs no longer pick up scrolls.
- Fixed a bug where recruitable NPCs wouldn't always appear in the shop level.
- Since there are quite a lot of settings now, you can filter the settings-menu items by writing a keyword. Hold down SHIFT if you have binded letter keys for movement.
Here's a video of the low Health warning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKho9KuEsFA&feature=youtu.be
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Release 36 (27-Jun-2020)
- Improved autoexplore: There is no need to manually walk around the dungeon to search for remaining hidden areas. Once autoexplore no longer finds anything to explore, it will check if your Search-skill is high enough to detect any of the possibly existing secret doors on the map. If something is found, autoexplore autopilots you to the found secret door. You may want to boost your Search-skill with items, potions or talents, even temporarily, for better results.
- Type "0" as a filter in inventory / level loot lists to filter special items, unique items, devices (potions, wands, etc.). Remember that you can filter with an item type (function keys) and a keyword at the same time, so you could press F3 to filter weapons and then type "0" to filter only unique or special weapons.
- Some difficulty finetuning.
- Leaderboard has been reset. The old leaderboard for releases 28-35 can be found at http://wins.zorbus.net/r35.
- You can add a timestamped comment to the journal by pressing CTRL + N. The log journal is added to obituary files.
- Some new sound effects. Fixed some audio related bugs.
- Added new gameplay tips to the manual and ingame tips book: dualwielding, different ways to open locks, level loot.
- The ingame Zorbupedia now has a list of all talents in the game. You can filter Zorbupedia topics with a keyword. Zorbupedia can be opened from the game menu, during character generation and during level up.
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Release 37 (04-Jul-2020)
- Fixed a bug where NPCs could equip a 2-h weapon after only a shield was equipped in off-hand. (thanks to KurzedMetal for reporting this)
- Charmed creatures no longer react to player looting containers in their home. (thanks to KurzedMetal)
- Fixed a bug where the shop level teleporter wouldn't work if the game was saved before all companions arrived at the level. (thanks to szary)
- Changed weapon enchantment a bit: There's a chance that the weapon will be destroyed in the process if it's already enchanted with more than 3 enchantments. Every enchantment point above 3 decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points. Plusses, extra elemental damage points, holy-/returning-/vampiric-properties and on-hit effects count as enchantments.
- When the selector is over an enchantment scroll in the inventory, the info box shows which item the scroll would target and the enchantment success chance.
- New item: Scroll of Returning Weapon. Adds the returning-property to a weapon (thrown weapon returns to thrower's hand).
- Small fixes and polishing done.
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Release 38 (13-Jul-2020)
Most of the stuff in this release is implemented after feedback, so big thanks for it!
- Hopefully fixed a severe infinite loop bug that could happen when you looted home furniture of charmed creatures. (thanks to Horvatii and Mkok)
- Companions no longer enter a teleporter that you just came out from. (thanks to Claudio)
- Companions follow the player better in corridors and other tight areas. (thanks to Claudio)
- Resting 100 rounds for Health / Stamina is interrupted when one of your companions reach full Health / Stamina. (thanks to Claudio)
- Companions use ammunition now more intelligently. (thanks to Claudio)
- You can give a Flask of Poison or a Flask of Slime to a companion who will then automatically use it.
- New feature: Autoammo. When autoammo is enabled, the best ammunition against a target is automatically selected. Autoammo tries to restrain, poison, or otherwise select an ammunition that the creature is most vulnerable to. Ammunition of Dismiss or Explosion are not used, but ammunition of Slime and Poison are. Can be toggled with [CTRL] + [Q]. Can be toggled from the main game mode or from target mode. A green "AA" text is shown in the weapon set box when a ranged weapon and autoammo is active.
- Squirm talent grants a bonus when trying to squirm through a restraining map effect (web, slime).
- Fixed checking if a creature is on a restraining map effect when he uses reach or ranged attack.
- AI spellcasters are not so spammy with web / poison cloud spells.
- It is no longer possible to edit inventories of summoned celestials. (You could summon them, take their weapons and sell them at the shop, thanks to Mkok for reporting this)
- Drow companion now has a proper dualwield talent that is listed on his character sheet. (thanks to Claudio)
- Log viewer [L] separates which messages belong to a given round. (thanks to Claudio)
- Amulet of Health no longer grants immunity to poison but resistance of 2 points.
- The miscellaneous statistics in obituary files shows the number of animated and summoned creatures.
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Hi guys, love the game Joonas, I have been in this roguelike-discovering spree for the last month, trust me when I say I have played dozens of them, both well-known and obscure, link-deleted 7drl's and all, and this one has been my clear favorite! I recently found employment so the first thing I get the chance I'm supporting this gem.
I imagine this is the correct place to post feedback so I will, hope it's welcome. A point I wanted to make as I've been retrying for ascension:
-Races seem a tad inflexible. I know, some choices are clearly not supposed to be as flexible (half-troll), but I feel like some others could be more so (elf, half-orc, saurial). If I want to make a half-orc death-knight (melee guy with animate dead basically), with the -3 mind and -2 magic, it's REALLY tough to make one work. "Why not use Saurial, they are tough but they don't get magic penalties?" True, but they do get mind penalties, which restrict your stat allocation, which is also fine, as my OP class needs tradeoffs, but the "free" camouflage I get is somewhat useless with a shambling horde of corpses right behind me!
Those races were just examples. My ultimate point is, the classless system is cool, but it feels like the game either requires a lot more races and sub-races, and/or a bunch more talents to be a lot more replayable and flexible. When I'm not playing a human with no penalties, 2 free talents completely up to me to choose, AND free bonus skills to start with, I feel like I'm missing out and handicapping myself or playing in hard mode. I'm sure you guys have a lot more planned down the line, but I hope this little bit will help. Cheers!
-Unless I'm missing something, every base one-handed sword type weapon is outclassed by a rapier or a shortspear? Some weapons seem like the "no-brainer" types.
Edit: -I also should mention that I feel like this kind of design would amazingly benefit from "negative talents" just like in Qud or C:DDA to balance and mix and match!
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Thanks for the feedback, Halkrath!
I see what you mean with the races. A brutish warrior with Animate Dead or any other spell is problematic also because heavy armor affects the Magic-skill. So there would need to be talents that have other pre-requirements / skill-checks than Magic. Maybe alternative versions of Animate Dead and so on.
According to the leaderboard, human as a race is not that popular actually.
I'm currently really out of ideas for new races / talents so any ideas you have are really welcome.
Does negative talents mean "flaws" that give you both a bonus and negative modifier / restriction?
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I just had a 4 dungeon level success (my furthest...) with a human "death knight" (melee talents, high intelligence for frequent talents, 3 magic for animate dead). I found a +1 flail and enchanted it with scrolls, got shield bash and used spiked shields and elemental blade (?) talent. Key talent was lone wolf for +2 all attributes, since I'd have my undead horde to assist me anyway. It was LOTS of fun to play with! What a blast! The problem is, I believe this playstyle is only possible with a human. This makes the game race-ist ;D. In a game with colorful races to pick from, especially from a game with a well done classless system, I have grown to expect being able to pick whatever race I want and mold it with talents. It really surprised me people didn't prefer humans! (Tip: just remove your armor to prepare your undead horde, then don your plate armor again :) )
Yes, that's exactly what I meant, "flaws", such as losing 1 body (or 2) to gain 1 talent points, or losing a racial trait such as darkvision, to get another talent point, you get the idea. I feel like the more easily customizable the character you want to play, the more interactive, the awesomer. To prevent abuse of these "talents/flaws", they'd have to get progressively aggressive; "blink tic" from Qud that randomly teleports you against your will, amnesia that makes your character forgot some parts of the map after some time, schizophrenic that makes your character hear and see things in the fog of war that aren't really there, phobias (just like DnD rangers' hated enemies) for creatures that make you weaker against them, or if taken multiple times, forces you to flee if you fail a spirit save.
Oh I have lots of little ideas floating around my head, glad you've asked! So, I haven't been able to go past level 4, but from what I've seen so far an overwhelming majority of creatures are "evil", thus making the unholy enchantment or related roleplaying/alignment concepts obsolete. You automatically have to play as a selfless hero, not a selfish villain (mind that this is what I feel from my impressions so far, might be completely false; still felt like would be valuable feedback), because even if I go out of my way to swarm a recruitable character's room and murder him for his gear, I get no experience. I can't make deals with devils, I can't seduce/recruit demons, I can't use a talent that is essentially an "animal friend" talent for undead creatures, etc.
-Other playable races
I personally find great joy in games that let me beat difficult enemies to unlock them as playable characters in a later playthrough. I feel like this game has a great potential for it, because we already have goblin and kobold kings and leaders that could issue us those unlocks. Let's say you unlock the goblin race. Sure maybe it won't be as strong as a human, but no goblin will be hostile to you, and any goblin you see will be recruitable! With the caveats, perhaps, of not being able to recruit "normal" recruitable characters (this race has the "weak but numerous theme after all), being automatically hated by all races (myconids & elephants automatically hostile) etc. all that good stuff. I was going to suggest deep-races such as deep dwarves (duergar), deep gnomes (forgot the traditional name), illithids, myconids as playable races or as enemies, but I've seen spoilers of some of them existing, although I'm not sure which ones specifically.
-New talent ideas
Animal Friend for undead creatures. Possibly for a lot more creature types as well.
Hated Enemy or however you wanna call it, just like the typical DnD ranger feat that gives attack and damage bonuses against a chosen race.
Metamagic talents, which improve specific aspects of spells cast after the said talent being activated (range, damage, area of effect), at the cost of stamina
Either a talent that lets you use your HP pool as magic fuel instead of stamina (Blood Ritual for example), or a seperate set of talents that use HP pool as resource (Blood Magic).
Extra 1d5 HP per a tough monster's skull (kings, bosses, adventurer party leaders, special characters) you carry with you.
Right to gain 1 kill contract per dungeon level from carillo tavern, which pays money (I'd say about 200 gold) to use in the store. Possibly spawns an extra difficult mob into the current dungeon level after contract is accepted.
Cleave talent, which gives you a free attack roll as soon as you kill something and still got another thing to hit next to you.
Language talents, that give you the chance to talk to the specific race you learnt the language for, and get to roll dice to convince it to join you or cease hostilities at least; maybe show you its personal stash! This could also go hand-in-hand with the ability for players to not understand what goblins speak for example, without knowing their language first.
-Other suggestions
Altars and Gods would be amazingly awesome to implement for this game.
A very barebones quest system would give more life. What I have in mind is the goblin king giving you a "slay this adventurer on this floor" quest if you are playing as a goblin, which spawns a rather buff random adventurer and maybe a small party of them, and if you succeed you get to gather more goblins to help you in your goblin dungeoncrawling. Or a bounty-hunter talent that gives you contracts in the tavern in Carillo once you visit them for each dungeon level. This could be integrated to a race just like that merchant race you got in Carillo; a bounty-hunting race that exist for the hunt (Predator franchise comes to mind). Another talent would be extra 1d5 HP per a tough monster's skull you carry with you, for example.
That's all for now. I don't know how well received fan ideas are for a dev, but if you'd like more I can always spawn more of these. Hope you like them!
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Release 39 (24-Jul-2020)
- By pressing A you automatically approach and attack nearest seen hostile creature with a melee- or a reach-weapon. You can use autoattack just for approaching so you can use it to chase down a creature or to narrow the range to it for a ranged attack, spell, etc. If no openly hostile creature is seen, a target creature is selected from those who get gradually more hostile against you. Autoattack ignores creatures in areas blocked from autopilot. Autoattack is disabled if your current Health is under 30% of max Health (the percentage can be changed from the settings).
- The default keybinding for autopilot changed to P. Blocking autopilot areas changed to O, clear all blocks to CTRL+O. If you use the game updater, it's best to reset keybindings because of these changes.
- If the game crashes, it tries to save the game. A crash report is created into the Crash-folder.
- Settings: Option to disable log top add (new messages added on top of the log instead of the bottom, on by default).
- The game is saved if you select "Return to main menu" from the game menu and the setting "Save on exit" is on (on by default).
Thanks Halkrath, I'll definitely think about all that stuff for future versions.
A quick thought about altars and gods. Many have asked for these, but currently it doesn't really fit the theme as in the endgame you may not settle just for demigodhood, but can challenge one or several of the ruling gods. It feels a bit off if you have worshipped a god and then may challenge its position. Also, if you kill a god, then it's gone from the pantheon, and would not be available as a deity (the ascended character takes its place). Needs a lot of thought. Never say never, I've already changed my mind several times before.
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(http://www.zorbus.net/tmp/splat.gif)
Release 40
- New setting: Never flee. If on, creatures other than companions never flee. Some creatures, usually those using ranged attacks or spells, still try to maintain distance. Character obituary will not be sent to the leaderboard if this setting is on or turned on during a game. Off by default.
- New setting: Death splash animation. Procedurally generated death splash animation instead of the "skull on red square" animation on creature death. Off by default. Thanks to Lagi for the idea.
- New setting: Brighter darkvision. If on, the tiles seen with darkvision are a bit brighter, but only if your lightsource is unlit. Off by default.
- Fixed a bug where you could auto reach attack a creature behind another creature. Other autoattack tweaks as well.
- Buffs are listed when you inspect creatures with the target cursor. Previously only harmful effects were listed.
- Small tweaks here and there.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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A new gameplay video showcasing some of the special areas, ambient sound and sound effects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E37BrD6Wz_0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E37BrD6Wz_0)
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Hi Joonas, looks like the Amulet of Health is bugged.
Offers immunity to disease, but can still be diseased.
(https://i.imgur.com/Y0YpNVz.png)
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Hi Joonas, looks like the Amulet of Health is bugged. Offers immunity to disease, but can still be diseased.
Thanks for that. Fixed in this release.
(http://www.zorbus.net/tmp/mushroom_soup.jpg)
Release 41 (09-Oct-2020)
- (Regular, not Greater) Amulet of Health was bugged, it didn't protect against disease. (thanks to Zero for reporting this)
- Fixed a bug where the game unnecessarily created crash saves into the Crash-folder. You can delete your existing Crash-folder.
- Duration listed in descriptions of items with duration effects.
- New item: the Orb of Withering. This orb creates a necrotic field that prevents all creatures on the dungeon level from regenerating Health or Stamina (naturally, by talents, or by items) for the duration of the effect. Also affects vampiric attacks.
- Added archetype characters (warrior and wizard) to character creation. These are pregenerated, quickstart character types.
- Some new sound effects.
- Small fixes and tweaks here and there. Some typos fixed.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/tmp/level_loot_1.png)
(http://www.zorbus.net/tmp/level_loot_2.png)
Release 42 (17-Oct-2020)
- Fixed a bug where you would not get experience points from a creature (that you have damaged) dying outside of your view. A log entry is now also made in the style of "x dies elsewhere. (n XP)". (thanks to Robsoie for finding the bug)
- Autoattack now functions on blocked areas if you and the target are already on that blocked area.
- Two charm effect related bugs fixed.
- Added mass loot function to level loot. When you press CTRL + ENTER on an item, all items of that same type are picked up. Autopilot automatically pilots you through the items and picks them up. Mass loot can be used with ammunition, devices other than books (potions etc.), keys, and trapkits. Most of these items are normally autopicked, but autopick isn't used when hostile creatures are seen. It's best used after the level is cleared of hostile creatures, and you want to collect the remaining coins, potions, etc. Remember that you can use "0" on level loot to filter coins, special or unique items and devices (potions, wands etc.).
- Level loot now shows the distance to the item directly in the list.
- New setting: Always bright Health bars. Normally Health bars under creatures are dimmed depending on the light amount of the tile. If this setting is checked, health bars are always drawn at full brightness. (off by default) (thanks to BenightedAlizar for the idea)
- Added Archer and Leader quickstart archetypes to character creation.
- You can now change the gender of archetype / random / past characters by pressing G in the first character creation screen.
- Small fixes and tweaks.
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/tournament.jpg)
A tournament with Amazon eGift Card prizes is active from Friday 27-Nov-2020 to Thursday 31-Dec-2020.
For the rules and leaderboard check http://tournament.zorbus.net (http://tournament.zorbus.net).
Release 43 (27-Nov-2020)
- A tournament version of the game is included (Zorbus_Tournament.exe). You can not save the game in this version. The "hostile creatures never flee" setting can not be used in this version.
- When you are about to use a Flask of Poison or a Flask of Slime, the item description shows which item it will affect.
- The wiggle effect of partially seen multi-tile creatures was bugged. Fixed. (thanks to lemon10 for reporting)
- If a default character name is set in settings, it is now used for archetype characters as well.
- As usual, small tweaks here and there.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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Release 44 (05-Dec-2020)
First of all, big thanks for all the feedback and bug reports!
A tournament with Amazon eGift Card prizes is still running until the end of December.
For the rules and leaderboard check http://tournament.zorbus.net (http://tournament.zorbus.net).
- Target mode renamed to examine mode.
- New setting: Furniture animations. Teleporters, lightsources and crystal formations are animated. On by default, can be disabled from the settings.
- In the autopilot-screen (P command) you can move the target cursor by 10 tiles with CTRL + arrows / numpad. Same works in the examine mode. (thanks to ZXC for the idea)
- Recruitable creatures no longer pick up devices (potions, wands, etc.). You can still give them devices, but can not transfer devices from them to you, so you can no longer recruit creatures just to get their potions. Companions may also have equipment that can not be removed.
- Changed weapon autoequip so that only thrown weapons are re-equipped (if you're still unarmed). Thrown weapons are also autopicked if no hostile creatures are seen. The notoriously buggy autoequip is hopefully finally fixed. (thanks Masterox and others before for reporting)
- Keyboard help screen is color coded: movement, combat, resting, items. The screen is quite crowded and couldn't really fit any description for the colors.
- Keybindings menu has presets for DCSS-style keybindings. Might need more tweaking.
- If mouse is disabled but mouse tooltips are enabled in the settings, you can now see tooltips of items / talents in the panels of the main game view. This makes it possible to quickly see descriptions of items / talents without risking accidentally using them. (thanks to ZXC for the idea)
- Mouse hovering over the current weapon set in the main game view shows the same extended info as the equipment screen.
- Fixed the behaviour of creatures animated / summoned by a charmed creature so that when the charm is broken they stay friendly with the animator / summoner. (thanks to Adam Skinner for reporting)
- Dismiss no longer affects multi-tile creatures. Some creatures are now immune to dismiss. (thanks to Adam Skinner for reporting)
- Fixed a bug related to Arrow of Dismiss / Bullet of Dismiss.
- Fixed a bug with the ability point-buy method in character creation. (thanks to Pieter Kirkham for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where CTRL or ALT + NUMPAD 4 / 6 didn't adjust item amount in inventory. CTRL pressed adjusts the amount by 10, ALT pressed adjusts the amount by 50. (thanks to Adam Skinner for reporting)
- Fixed several bugs related to multi-monitor setups. The game now remembers which monitor it was played on. (thanks to ZXC for help)
- Removed the penalty to Search-skill check from having your lantern turned off when using autoexplore to detect secret doors. (thanks to ZXC for reporting)
- Several typos fixed. (thanks to Tone and YARD, noticed them while watching / reading their let's play of the game)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/zorbuspunk.jpg)
Release 45 (10-Dec-2020)
- Autoexplore now picks up items that you would normally autopick, first from the current area that you're in, then after nothing to explore is found on the dungeon level, any remaining items from the whole level.
- As the autoexplore in the game works in bursts, area by area, it may look like it skips nearby items, but those items are then likely located on a different area number.
- If you press CTRL + ENTER in the level loot list when the selector is on the top position, it will automatically pick all items from the explored areas on the level that would normally be autopicked. Pressing CTRL + ENTER on an item in the lists picks up all items of the same type (only works with ammunition, devices, keys, trapkits and coins).
- Negative modifiers from equipment to Search-skill are not taken into account when autoexplore is used to detect secret doors. So you don't have to unequip your helmet even if it has a negative Search-modifier. This only applies to searching with autoexplore, not to normal searching during movement.
- You'll get no experience points from animated or summoned creatures that are created after initial level creation. These can be identified from blue Health bars if the setting "Blue Health bars" is checked.
- The inventory encumbrance bar now has slots for better encumbrance level visualization.
- Items show the price that they can be sold for. Items that can be sold are in green in loot lists.
- Buy / sell price adjustments now use modifier from the base, unadjusted Spirit-value.
- You can no longer transfer books or scrolls to companions.
- If you have an everlasting ammunition in your possession, same type of ammunition of equal or lower enchantment won't be autopicked. Branded and coated ammunition will always be autopicked. If the setting "Pick all ammunition" is disabled, then only ammunition for your currently equipped weapon will be automatically picked up.
- Changed a bit how Elixir of Experience works: now you get the needed for next level minus needed for current level xp added to your current xp amount. Previously it just set xp to needed for next level amount.
- Trapkits are now autopicked.
- Current dungeon level is shown in the corner of the minimap.
- Added color group descriptions to the keyboard help image.
- Keybindings menu now has some help text. Binding conflicts (same binding used twice) are in red. Changed the DCSS preset a bit as it had some conflicts.
- Obituary files now have more detailed dungeon level statistics (kills, xp total, xp from combat / skill use / exploration / other).
- Talent descriptions now list their speed.
- You can autopilot to containers which are mimics. Note that if some destination seems unreachable in autopilot mode, try moving the cursor around a bit.
- Fixed a bug where some creatures (guardian ghosts etc.) would forget their hostility against the player.
- Hopefully finally fixed a visual glitch where a map cloud effect like web or slime could stay on the map forever.
- Fixed a bug where enchantment chance to succeed was negative with some items. If chance is 0%, enchantment is automatically aborted. (thanks to ZXC for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where last log lines in obituary files would be wrong when "Log new messages on top" setting was no checked. (thanks to ZXC for reporting)
- If your base Mind-ability increases, the talent counter will be recalculated properly. Previously it was reset when you got a talent-point.
- Fixed a bug where taking the Lone Wolf talent didn't set the talent counter properly at the start of the game. (thanks to ZXC for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where using hoopak and the Dualshot-talent at an enemy in reach attack range resulted in a reach attack instead of two ranged attacks. There's still the problem that you can not make a normal ranged attack at that range, it always makes a reach attack. Sometimes you might want to make a ranged attack in that situation with special ammunition. (thanks to Cookedpoo for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where you could not reach attack using the mouse. (thanks to Cookedpoo for reporting)
- Fixed descriptions of the Silver Spoon talent and the Wand of Fireball. (thanks to Tone for reporting)
- Manual updated with some clarifications (experience, critical hits).
- Several typos fixed.
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Release 46 (18-Dec-2020)
- After character death, a new statistics table and maps of visited dungeon levels are shown. The maps show unexplored areas in blue. The statistics table shows "actions/s" which is a sum of keypresses and mouseclicks per second. You can switch between the tables with up/down or mousewheel. In the "game over"-dialog there's also a new button for opening the character obituary file (opens in system default text editor).
- New setting: Never blink. If on, creatures other than you or your companions never blink (teleport away). Off by default. Character obituary will not be sent to the leaderboard if this setting is on or turned on during a game.
- Autoexplore now picks up items that you have thrown. (thanks to Boomaye for reporting)
- Autoexplore now picks up items from nearby areas if the tile they're on is explored and near enough to current location.
- Autoexplore should now find a path to secret doors that are blocked by immobile creatures such as fungi or plants.
- If one of your companions has a higher Search-skill than you then it is used with autoexplore to detect secret doors. You can give equipment to companions to boost their Search.
- When you examine a creature the description now says if there is no XP awarded from killing it.
- You can press W in the autopilot screen to cycle between wells, thrones and switches.
- You get XP from killing a creature after its charm effect has ended (if the creature awarded XP in the first place). (thanks to Cookedpoo for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where the max distance for a ranged weapon was calculated wrong. (thanks to Cookedpoo and Boomaye for reporting)
- Fixed a bug where autopickup didn't pick up items with no weight when you were encumbered. (thanks to ZXC for reporting)
- You can only have one clone (or simulacrum) at a time, a second clone will go berserk and attack you. Some update broke this, the clone would not turn hostile. (thanks to Dynast for reporting) Added warning about several clones to elixir and talent descriptions.
- Fixed a bug where some unlikely creatures (golems, statues, etc.) were stealthy in darkness. (noticed from Tone's stream)
- Creatures that follow you to another dungeon level are now ready to act faster after arriving. (thanks to Boomaye for mentioning) Their distance to you determines in what order they arrive on the new level. Companions still follow you from anywhere on the level, but that might change in the future.
- Companions now react faster to creatures who slowly turn hostile against you. (thanks to Cookedpoo for reporting)
- Shop restocking is now tied to several values, not just game rounds spent away from the shop level. (noticed from Tone's stream)
- Skill tooltips in character sheet show the related key ability. Same for Zorbupedia skill descriptions. (noticed from Tone's stream)
- In the level loot list, the "0" filter now also shows weapons with at least 3 enchantments.
- Holy-damage now affects only evil-aligned creatures.
- Fixed a bug where 1.5 x negative Body-modifier was added to damage with two-handed and versatile weapons (negative modifier should be added as is).
- The visited dungeon levels table in the obituary files now show actions (keypresses / mouseclicks) per second per dungeon level.
- Added some clarifications to skill descriptions.
- Added examples of weapon combinations / sets to the manual. Also basic explanation of how the action queue in the game works.
- There's now support for smaller patches that only replace the executable files. These patches are much smaller to download (below 5 megabytes). Autoupdate informs if a patch is available. Save files should be combatible but I wouldn't risk it so it's best to update only after you don't have any unfinished games.
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Video:
https://youtu.be/jEyJ-p9Hbug (https://youtu.be/jEyJ-p9Hbug)
Release 47 (21-May-2021)
- You can no longer return to the previous dungeon level. The reason for this was to remove tedious gameplay, where you returned to previous levels to find remaining secrets, and cheesy gameplay, where you returned to previous level to rest safely.
- Support for game controllers. I've only tested it with Microsoft Xbox Wireless Controller, hopefully others will work too. Controller needs to be enabled from the settings, and you can configure / test various things from there. The last page of the tutorial shows the controls, and the same page can also be seen if you enter the game menu with the controller.
- Replaced old raycasting-based field of view -routine with an algorithm by Adam Milazzo (http://www.adammil.net/blog/v125_Roguelike_Vision_Algorithms.html). If you are creating a game yourself, check it out. It's absolutely brilliant!
- Removed the Map-command (V). Autopilot-command (P) can now be used for map. It can now be opened even when hostile creatures are seen.
- Removed the map note- and journal note -commands.
- Creature AI changes:
- Some creatures can now track you by scent. Races have different odour intensities, shown in character creation.
- When you blink away, creatures might spread around to nearby areas to search for you.
- When searching for you, some creatures may lit a lightsource (if they have one), even if they have darkvision.
- Creatures can now set up traps when they're fleeing from you.
- Some creatures may enter a berserk-state if wounded enough. A wardrummer drumming may also trigger this state. In the berserk-state creatures get combat bonuses and never flee.
- Lots of other small AI tweaks.
- Challenge ratings for creatures.
- When you see a creature type for the first time, its name is shown on top of it for a few game rounds.
- The color of the name indicates its challenge rating, ranging from "harmless" (yellow) to "deadly" (red).
- Examine-mode and fire-mode show the ratings of all seen creatures. Also shown in creature description in the right side panel.
- A creature's rating is updated when its or your stats change.
- Just remember that while there are quite a lot of calculations behind the rating, it still is just a rough estimate.
- New effect: Tracking. Available as ammunition, flasks and as a talent.
- Tracking forms a mental link between the attacker and the target. The attacker knows exactly where the target is for the duration of the effect (the target is marked on the navi- and autopilot maps). The target also glows as if wielding a lightsource, making hiding in darkness impossible. Only one creature can be tracked at a time. The latest hit creature always becomes the target. The tracking link to a creature breaks if the attacker enters another dungeon level or Carillo.
- There's also a talent ("Teleport to Tracked") and potion ("Potion of Stalking", needs a better name?) which teleports the tracker near the tracked creature.
- Monsters can use tracking too. One might shoot you with a tracking arrow and know your exact location for the duration of the effect. And of course it will also inform its friends of your current whereabouts.
- This effect might not be as usable or fun for the player as I envisioned it to be, but at least the monsters seem to like it a lot.
- Character sheet has some changes. Some new stats on the 1st page, 2nd page redesigned, now showing the weapon sets with stats. Equipment and talent lists now have tooltips.
- Weapon and talent speeds are hidden from the player. Action Cost and APR (actions per round) are used instead.
- Weapons now have APR (actions per round) and DPR (damage per round) calculations.
- This was a UI nightmare since you can use some items one-handed, two-handed or dualwielded which changes the stats.
- Attack and defense values include all current ability-, skill- and other modifiers. Separate values are calculated for melee / throw / shoot attacks and melee / ranged defense. Ranged defense is only used with shields.
- Inventory item statistics for one-handed and versatile weapons are calculated with an (imaginary) off-hand shield in use. The actual statistics can differ when weapons are dualwielded or when a versatile one- handed weapon is used two-handed. Second character sheet page shows the actual in-use values.
- When you now blink, your companions are also teleported near you. Tweaked the algorithm behind blinking as well.
- The Health-bar and UI frame flash in green when you're poisoned.
- Autoattack target is now marked with two red triangles.
- Autoattack automatically swaps to the other weapon set if it has a melee weapon and the active weapon set does not, and there's a hostile creature next to you. This can be disabled from the settings.
- Attack marked -command (R) automatically swaps to the other weapon set if it has a shooting weapon and the active weapon set does not, and the nearest hostile creature is at least minimum distance away. Minimum distance can be adjusted from the settings.
- Throwable weapons are no longer thrown with the Attack marked -command (R) unless the weapon has the returning-property, so you no longer accidentally throw your weapon. You can make throw attacks with the Fire ranged -command (F). Why didn't I do it like this from the start?
- If you for some reason end up being unarmed, a warning text is displayed on the top of you character tile.
- Removed the extra 1.5 x speed duration for returning thrown items.
- Off-hand thrown attacks get 1/4 of positive Body-modifier added, full if the modifier is negative.
- Fixed various problems with the Multishot-talent:
- You no longer shoot at creatures that are blocked by other creatures.
- You shoot at creatures next to you if you have the Close Combat Ranged talent.
- In gameplay, the talent is enabled when your current Ranged-skill is high enough for at least 2 targets, and there are at least 2 hostile targets that can be shot at (the lines of fire to them must to be clear).
- When a large creature hits a smaller opponent, it's now possible that the opponent is pushed backwards by the strength of the blow.
- You can bump into furniture that has a noted-indicator ("!") on them to "wake" up the creature (mimics, statue, etc.)
- Autoexplore tries to struggle free from a restraining map effect (slime / web).
- You can now try to escape a map cloud effect into the direction where your companion is standing. With (CTRL) + direction you can try the same with a hostile creature.
- The inventory screen is no longer opened when you bump empty containers.
- Empty barrels and barrels with only corpses or bones are automatically opened and marked as looted. Same with cauldrons.
- Changes to quickslots:
- The "F1" slot is automatically reserved for the lantern even if you have it turned off when clearing the quickslots.
- Trapkits can be quickslotted for easier use, but they will never be automatically quickslotted.
- A quickslot is dimmed if there's no sense of using it at that moment. Disabled if you can not use it at that moment.
- (CTRL) + (D) clears set quickslots in the quickslot manager, but preserves player set quickslots.
- You can toggle allow/disallow quickslotting of a device/talent with (DEL) in the quickslot manager.
- You can lock a slot to certain item, which keeps it reserved even if you use the last of its type.
- Related new setting "Hide corpses and bones". Hide corpses and bones from the "items on ground" side panel. This has the benefit that the "items on ground" side panel won''t be displayed when there are just corpses and bones on the ground, so the quickslots stay visible.
- Remember, you can set up quickslots from the quickslot manager (F12), but also by pressing a quickslot-key that isn't yet binded to anything. For example, if the "5" slot is free, press it, and directly choose what to bind to it.
- Some renovations in Carillo (the shop hub level):
- Limited the amount of visits to Carillo per dungeon dungeon level. There's a chance that the teleporter is destroyed after you have visited Carillo 3 times.
- The Tomb Raiders Guild has opened a shop in Carillo. Their prices are double to standard unless you have a guild membership card. No, you can't actually join the guild, but have to obtain a card somehow else.
- The bouncer and the shopkeepers will tell you if they've added new items to their inventories. You can press (F10) when checking the shop inventory to filter only items that are new since your last visit.
- Speech bubble from a friendly creature in Carillo no longer stops autopilot.
- When browsing a shop inventory, the item description states how many of those items you already have in your inventory (devices only).
- Hiding (in darkness) near plants and fungi now give bonus to Stealth-checks. Each neighboring plant/fungus gives a +1 to Stealth. This is not shown anywhere, but is used in calculations. Mentioned in the skill description.
- The amount that "Health Surge" talent will heal is listed after its name in parentheses (in quickslots panel and talent list).
- Two new switch rooms: anchoring and withering.
- You can no longer use teleporters when you're anchored or when there's a level-wide anchor effect active.
- Sound effects revisited, again. Even after removing and replacing many, there are now over 4000 sounds effects. Main menu now has music. It can be volume controlled from the settings, disabled if you set the volume to 0.
- There's now a name for the currency used in the game, instead of just "coin". It's now called "zorbit", of course.
- New settings:
- Closing doors by bumping at the wall tile right of them is now an option that you can disable from the settings (on by default).
- Option to require (CTRL) + direction to be pressed to interact with furniture, instead of just bumping at them. Does not affect bumping at doors to open them. You might want to turn this setting on if you constantly keep accidentally bumping at map objects.
- Option to pick up trapkits, on by default. Trapkits have no weight, but you may feel that they clutter the inventory, especially if you don't use them.
- Keybindings-menu can now be filtered with a keyword.
- Clairvoyance-talent didn't work when you used it from the talents-menu with a hotkey (happened in Tone's stream last year).
- Animal bones and corpses removed. I had an idea for them to rise as animal skeletons and zombies when animated, but don't have proper tiles for those.
- Life saving items (Amulet of Life Saving, Plot Armor, etc.) always save life even when you don't have any Stamina left. They also save you from death even if you're withered.
- Potion of Antidote cures poison, but now also gives immunity against poison for a duration.
- Potion of Extra Healing / Potion of Superior Healing give immunity against disease for a duration.
- New potion: Potion of Life. "This powerful potion restores 100 Health-points, cures disease and poison, and removes withering effect targeted against the drinker (map-wide withering effect is unaffected). The potion also grants regeneration and immunity to disease, poison and withering for the duration."
- Trapkits can now be set even if you see hostile creatures, as long as they don't see you. Trapkits can be quickslotted for easier use. Some new trapkits added.
- Summoning items (horn, figurines, etc.) have a longer duration.
- Small changes to the playable races. Odour listed in race descriptions (hostile creatures can track by scent).
- Talent progression changed. You now need Mind-ability of at least 18 to gain 1 talent per experience level.
- Lone Wolf -talent gives +1 to all abilities (was +2).
- New ASCII-mode setting: "ASCII wall / floor color adjustment". Random adjustment to wall / floor base color.
- Huge amount of tweaks here and there.
- Game balance has probably changed a lot, so the leaderboard has been reset.
- There's an external tool, "Zorbus Dungeon Generator", available at http://dungeon.zorbus.net. It's a random dungeon generator to create tabletop RPG -style maps. You can run it in step-mode to see how the algorithm creates the map.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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Release 48 (29-May-2021)
- Added navimap and map preview to the level loot screen. It now shows a path to the item. (thanks to Cadex Emu for the idea)
- New companion behavior: Regroup. When in this behavior, companions try to stay close to you, melee attack only nearby creatures, use ranged attacks or talents against distant creatures, and blink away only if surrounded. In the default follow-behavior, companions move around more, and when fleeing try to move to a nearby area or blink away.
- Related new setting: "Companion auto regroup-behavior", on by default. Companions will automatically enter regroup-behavior from follow-behavior when they need to flee, trying to move towards you. Does not affect animated, summoned or charmed companions.
- Related new setting: "Companion auto follow-behavior", on by default. Companions will automatically enter follow-behavior from regroup-behavior when in full Health, in at least half Stamina, and no hostile creatures have been seen for some time. This affects only companions that have automatically entered the regroup-behavior (see the setting above).
- Companion list is now shown also on top of the "items on ground" list in the right sidepanel (thanks to Cadex Emu for the idea). Valuable (sellable) items are now on top of the list.
- Added a new command: "(Toggle) mundane ground items in sidepanel" with default binding (CTRL) + (BACKSPACE). Toggles showing mundane (non-sellable) ground items in the sidepanel. If mundane items are not shown in the panel, they're listed in the log, ensuring that quickslots stay visible.
- Continuous resting won't start if you're poisoned.
- Summoning traps set by the player should now be more useful as the summoned creature now attacks also other creatures that hate the player instead of just the trap springer.
- Disabling your own traps is now always successful (and you get the trapkit back).
- Creature wiggle is now asynchronous by default, controlled by "Wiggle synchronous" in the settings. (thanks to Lagi for the idea)
- Hopefully at least reduced the low health / poisoned flashing frame flickering that happened when you used mouse / controller.
- Hopefully fixed a controller error. (thanks to Renan for reporting)
- Fixed controller sensitivity when entering side panel.
- Added a note to (F)ire-mode's help-text: "A friendly creature needs to be manually targeted". So if you want to make a shoot or reach attack against a friendly creature, you need to manually target it. Cycling targets does not select friendly creatures.
- Replaced Homepage-button with a Zorbupedia-button in the main menu.
- Zorbupedia talent list is sorted to boost/combat/spell/utility-talents.
- Added better explanation for (CTRL) + (TAB) to the help text in the inventory-list. The command changes the inventory list type: When looting stuff from the ground or from a container, use it to switch to your equipment & backpack, and vice versa. When exchanging items to a companion, use it to get to your or your companion's equipment & backpack (depending on which side is active).
- Also remember: (F11) to switch companion in inventory-lists. (CTRL) + (E) to enter exchange-mode from your equipment & backpack -list. You can enter exchange-mode with a controller by pressing right thumbstick in personal inventory.
- Several typos and errors in item/creature descriptions fixed. (thanks to Cadex Emu for reporting)
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Release 49 (05-Jun-2021)
- Added some post-processing to the field of view -algorithm for better corner wall exploration.
- Made some optimizations to autoexplore.
- Fixed a bug where some throwable weapons without reach (hand axe, dagger, etc.) still could be thrown with the (R)-command when distance was 2, even if not of returning-type.
- Distances to items in blocked areas are listed in red in level loot list. Blocked areas also drawn in red in the minimap of that screen.
- Autotargeting for ranged attacks and talents (the red and yellow corners around creatures) tries first to target a non-summoned creature.
- New setting: "Autoammo uses anchoring & withering", on by default. If this setting is enabled, autoammo uses anchoring and withering ammunition automatically. Anchoring is used against creatures that can blink away with a talent (usually spellcasters). Withering is used only against unique creatures.
- Companions now use anchoring and withering ammunition automatically. So you can now give anchoring ammo to companions who will then shoot them at those annoying blinking spellcasters.
- Companions won't go to blocked areas to pick up items.
- Creatures summoned from traps set by the player won't get angry at player's companions.
- Traps won't be created on containers that are automatically opened / peeked (empty barrels and cauldrons, or barrels and cauldrons with only bones or corpses in them).
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/rel50.jpg)
Release 50 (25-Jun-2021)
- An alternate grid path for ranged targeting is now calculated and used if the first path is blocked. Also affects reach attacks and Charge-talent. Ranged attacks should now be symmetric, meaning that if creature A can target creature B, B can also target A. There are still some cases where you can see a creature but can't target it. Ranged attacks use Bresenham's line drawing routine to traverse grids, while the field of view algorithm does not.
- New command: Continuous autoexplore, default key (CTRL) + (E). Keeps exploring until a hostile creature is seen, something is detected, a trap is sprung, or until the whole dungeon level is explored. Can not be used when in low Health (controlled with "Health flash percentage threshold" from the settings).
- New command: Autopilot to next unlooted container, default key (CTRL) + (C). You can now autopilot to next unlooted container directly from the main game mode.
- Autopilot-screen shows the contents of peeked containers when the cursor is on them.
- Lidless / opened containers are automatically marked as peeked when an area is fully explored, unless the area has creatures that get gradually more hostile. Peeked means that you know the contents of the container.
- Hopefully fixed a bug where the autopilot-screen displayed wrong amount of unlooted containers. (thanks to Mkok for mentioning)
- Fixed a bug where encumbrance wasn't recalculated in all cases where items were picked up. (thanks to Nopenope for mentioning)
- Die Hard talent now heals the same amount as Health Surge. (thanks to Mkok for mentioning)
- Limited the amount of simultaneous similar sound effects when looting or dropping big amount of items, and in some other cases as well.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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Release 51 (24-Jul-2021)
- Not so much new stuff in this release, but had to make a full release after some structural changes to data files.
- Fixed a bug where alternate paths to target were not properly calculated at distance 2 (affected reach attacks among others).
- Resting does not start if creatures that get gradually hostile are seen.
- You can now drop items from your or your companion's inventory when exchanging items.
- Creatures with lightsources waiting in ambush no longer lit wall tiles until the ambush is sprung.
- Lots of small tweaks.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/rel52_1.jpg)
Release 52 (06-Sep-2021)
- Fixed a bug where animated skeletons would needlessly pick up several armors and shields. (thanks to Faeren for reporting)
- Level-wide anchor/wither-effects are removed when you go to another dungeon level / Carillo. (thanks to nopenope for reporting)
- Golems and clones are no longer counted as real recruits when maximum number of recruits based on Spirit-ability is determined. (thanks to nopenope for suggesting)
- Holy Burst talent is disabled in quickslots and talents list if there are no evil creatures seen. Same for the wand.
- Some devices, mostly wands, are disabled in quickslots and inventory if they can't be used (for example, a wand might affect seen hostiles, but is disabled if none is seen).
- Health bars under creatures are now framed with black, making them stand out more. (thanks to Namsan for suggesting)
- New setting: White Health bars under friendly creatures. If enabled, Health bars under friendly creatures are white instead of green. Might help to distinguish friendly creatures from hostile creatures if you are suffering from red-green color blindness. (thanks to Namsan for suggesting)
- Clicking left mouse button on a distant hostile creature no longer throws a throwable weapon unless it's of returning-type.
- Clicking left mouse button on a distant hostile creature now respects the "Attack marked auto swaps to shooting set" setting, meaning that if the setting is enabled, and passive weapon set has a shooting weapon, then weapon set is swapped.
- Fixed several characters in in-game books and help texts, that caused odd characters in some non-English Windows-versions. (thanks to Namsan for reporting)
- http://building.zorbus.net (http://building.zorbus.net) has a roguelike development related "book" in PDF-format called "Building Zorbus one brick at a time".
Big thanks to Maximum Break (Gidon) and Another Dying (Jay) for making YouTube let's play videos of the game!
Another Dying: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt8DIPRtpvB6Na5aBXH6ZIbMb0XDG6xdg (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt8DIPRtpvB6Na5aBXH6ZIbMb0XDG6xdg)
Maximum Break: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7yHTTOjLsXkZn7t5Qsuc3wcGXT8vjHii (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7yHTTOjLsXkZn7t5Qsuc3wcGXT8vjHii)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/rel53.jpg)
Release 53 (19-Sep-2021)
- New talent: Expert Trapper. Normally you can set traps to nearby tiles only, but with this talent you can set traps traps on tiles up to distance 3. Setting a trap never fails and takes only half the time it would normally take to set. Traps set by you are harder to avoid, and possible damage or duration is increased by 50%. You will also gain a +4 bonus to Disable-checks when disabling traps.
- New talent: Expert Enchanter. Normally you can safely enchant an item with 3 enchantments, and every enchantment point above 3 decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points. Plusses, extra elemental damage points, holy-/returning-/vampiric-properties, and on-hit effects count as enchantments. With this talent you can enchant items safely without any restrictions. Tieflings get this talent automatically.
- New item: Elixir of Ability. Increases a random ability score. Only available in shops, restocked every now and then.
- Non-unique armor, shields, and weapons in shops are a bit cheaper now.
- Fixed a bug where companions would just drop a better item after you gave it to them through item exchange. Reminder: Companions won't change equipped items that are set by the player in companions' equipment lists. Ammunition is an exception.
- Trap tweaks. Fixed a bug where no dialog was opened when you walked on a known floor trap that was on a tile with an opened door. You can now safely walk on floor traps set by you (the dialog is still opened). Reminder: in some situations you may want to intentionally spring a known trap, for example Animate, Confusion, Dismiss, Summon, or Anchoring traps. If you spring your own Animate or Summon trap, then the created creatures will be friendly towards you, and attack creatures that are hostile towards you. Animated creatures without a master will eventually turn hostile against everyone.
- Fixed some grammar mistakes and typos.
http://www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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Release 55 (12-Aug-2022)
- Resting until healed took quite a while in late game when you had hundreds of Health points. Optimized to be at least a bit faster.
- Companion tactics. You can now command a companion to prefer ranged tactics instead of the default tactics. Ranged tactics means that the companion tries to maintain distance to hostiles and use mostly ranged weapons. Default tactics uses both melee and ranged weapons, and wont't try to maintain distance to hostiles. Ranged tactics is indicated with a "R" letter on the companion image in the companion list. Default key for changing tactics is ALT + 1 - 9 (companion number) or ALT + 0 to change tactics of all companions.
- You can use "ranged attack and retreat" tactics if you set behavior to REGROUP and tactics to RANGED on all characters. Can be very useful in some situations, like when retreating from a group of oozes that would otherwise destroy the party with their acid attacks.
- Companions follow the player better in corridors. Companions no longer try to follow the player / chase enemies through unexplored areas.
- New talent: "Seeker Shots". With this talent you can target anything that you see within your shooting weapon's range. There's a -3 modifier to attack per each obstacle in the line of fire. Can not be used with Dualshot or Multishot.
- Tweaked autoammo a bit, so that regular or everlasting ammunition will be used against creatures with a "harmless" or "mostly harmless" challenge rating. There was a small bug in the previous implementation and it didn't take challenge rating into account, so autoammo would waste better ammo on harmless creatures. Autoammo can be toggled with CTRL + Q.
- Hoopak can be used for reach attacks and shoot attacks. If the DPR of the shoot attack is higher than the DPR of a reach attack, then a shoot attack is made when distance to target is 2 (or at distance 1-2 if you have the "Close Combat Ranged" talent).
- The area of effect of "Chain Lightning" talent and wand changed to "chain". Targets can now try to dodge the effect.
- Dodging vs spell damage now takes the spellcaster's Magic-skill into account. The higher the caster's Magic-skill is, the more difficult the spell is to dodge.
- Removed kick attack from playable character races. Unarmed fighting isn't really a thing for the player character, and previously punch + kick attacks in the beginning of the game were more powerful than most weapons.
- You can see skill and talent progression when you mouse over the Mind-ability in the character sheet.
- In-game Zorbupedia has a talent progression table in the talents info section.
- Changed weapon enchantment a bit:
- You can now safely enchant a weapon with 4 enchantments, and every enchantment point above 4 decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points. Plusses, extra elemental damage points, holy-/returning-/vampiric-properties, and on-hit effects count as enchantments.
- With the "Expert Enchanter" talent you can now safely enchant weapons with 9 enchantments. Every enchantment point above 9 decreases the enchantment chance by 15 percentage points. This talent enables armor enchanting without any restrictions.
- You can no longer enchant a weapon with a "Scroll of (element) Weapon)" if the weapon already has that damage element.
- New enchant scroll: Scroll of Returning Shield. You need the "Shield Bash" talent to throw a returning shield.
- New item: Carillo Express Card. Included in the items from the "Silver Spoon" talent. With the card, you will automatically get discount from the regular shops in Carillo. The card has charges which can be used to teleport the party to the Carillo teleporter. The card vanishes once the charges run out.
- New item: "Unearthed Arcana" book (Halaster's diary) has finally some content. Some new text added to "Dungeon Master's Guide" as well.
- New item: Wand of Wind. Conjures forth a strong gust of wind, which extinguishes lightsources and disperses cloud effects in 15 tile radius. Environment lightsources (torches, braziers, etc.) and lightsources carried by creatures are affected. Creatures whose lightsources are extinguished won't be able to relight them for a small duration (10-15 rounds).
- New item: Arrow of Extinguishing / Bullet of Extinguishing. Ammunition that can extinguish lightsources. Environment lightsources (torches, braziers, etc.) and lightsources carried by creatures can be targeted. A creature whose lightsource is extinguished won't be able to relight it for a small duration (10-15 rounds). If you have enabled autoammo then this ammunition will be automatically chosen when the target cursor is on an environment lightsource.
- New character archetype (quickstart character type): "Noble". Has the "Silver Spoon" talent which includes the new Carillo Express card.
- Small adjustments to character archetypes.
- Some new monsters. The nastiest new one probably is the "Sentinel", which on a successful hit teleports the target to the most dangerous location on the level.
- The magic lamp djinni's inventory has now ammunition and some random devices (wands, horns, figurines). The djinni's inventory is different on each summoning, so you might have only one chance to buy certain items.
- Companion / monster AI tweaks.
- Death splash animation on by defaut. If you want the old skull death animation, uncheck "Death splash animation" from the settings. Several new death splash animations added.
- Fixed a bug where items from the "Silver Spoon" talent weren't always created.
- Fixed a bug where the rising indicator text was rendered over a wrong creature tile.
- Fixed a rare bug where the dungeon level was completely explored, but no XP award for exploration was given.
- Lots of other small tweaks here and there.
- Leaderboard has been reset. The previous leaderboard can be found here (http://wins.zorbus.net/r54/).
Finally wrote some text to Halaster's diary, you can read it online here (http://www.zorbus.net/lore.html). Spoilers obviously!
www.zorbus.net (http://www.zorbus.net)
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(http://www.zorbus.net/graphics/steaming.jpg)
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The game is now available on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/ (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/).
Release 56 (14-Sep-2022)
- The game can now be found on Steam.
- Steam version has currently 20 achievements: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/2125420/achievements (https://steamcommunity.com/stats/2125420/achievements).
- You can take screenshots to game library with F12.
- Possible future tournaments can be played with the Steam version only.
- Steam overlay is not possible because the game doesn't use DirectX or OpenGL.
- Changed some of the default keybindings:
- Screenshot: from [CTRL] + [F5] to [F12].
- Mapshot: from [CTRL] + [F6] to [CTRL] + [F12].
- Quickslot manager: from [F12] to [CTRL] + [ENTER] or [DEL].
- Item compare in inventory / shop: from [F12] to [INS] or [CTRL] + [BACKSPACE].
- Tiefling's Fire Ray talent's damage changed to: fire: 2d4 + 1 per 2 levels. Difficulty to dodge the effect now scales with the tiefling's level.
- Companions who are separated from the player behind unexplored tiles no longer group themselves around the player after autoexplore finishes.
- Removed device use checks from wands. Now using wands is always successful.
- Fixed a bug where some possessed creatures like dragons could not open doors. All possessed creatures can now open non-locked doors.
- Elixir of Cloning is dimmed in inventory if you already have a clone in your party. Cloning chambers won't clone you if one already exists.
- Effects from sitting on a throne and drinking from a well now last longer.
- New item: Scroll of Darkvision. This scroll enchants the currently equipped armor to grant the wearer darkvision of 7 tiles.
- Added darkvision-property to some of the existing items: Shadow Dragon Scale Armor, Night Club, Nightbringer.
- Renamed "Kit of Dimensional Anchor trap" to "Kit of Anchoring trap", and changed the effect to target only the creature that sprung the trap (was a level-wide effect previously).
- Renamed "Kit of Necrotic Field trap" to "Kit of Withering trap", and changed the effect to target only the creature that sprung the trap (was a level-wide effect previously).
- New trapkits: Acid, Sonic Burst.
- Fixed a bug in field of view postprocessing: sometimes it revealed wall torches of unexplored areas.
- Some new content, lore, and dialogue added.