Zorbus

[Joonas]

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.

[Asin]

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.

[Joonas]

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

Leaderboard at http://wins.zorbus.net

[Joonas]

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.

[Joonas]

A japanese blog has screenshots of the endgame and the ultimate ending.

SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY

https://bb5074.blogspot.com/search/label/Zorbus

The leaderboard has several new winners:

http://wins.zorbus.net

[Joonas]

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.

[Troubler]

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

[Joonas]

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.

[Joonas]

Release 28   (20-Feb-2020)

Biggest changes: ASCII mode, mouse control, endgame much more challenging, leaderboard reset, better handling of friendly fire



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

[getter77]

Potent update! 

[andvare]

 

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.

[Joonas]

ANDVARE

Human male, level 12

Killed by sitting on a throne.

Duration       03:14

Auch. That's too harsh. Have to change that.

[Nemesis]

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?

[Joonas]

It's written in Pascal.

[Joonas]

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