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Zorbus (D&D-inspired roguelike)

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
You mean CTRL + the <--- key? doesn't seem to do anything, i always have a wide black frame all around while playing with a wide screen (16/9 screen in 1920x1080).
Oops, meant ALT + BACKSPACE. And you can adjust the screen size (view width & height in tiles) from the settings.
And another question: Is having below 0 skill modifier have any impact?
Yes, skill checks are d20 + skill total vs difficulty.

The game simulates every round when resting, so it might get very slow in the endgame when you have plenty of Health and need to rest for hundreds of rounds.

Locations of recruitable creatures are random. There are no rogue recruitables by design, as that could render the Disable-skill useless.

Certain powerful creatures have the Die Hard talent / item, but if you can make them wither, then they won't regenerate and Die Hard doesn't function for the effect duration. Wither is available as ammunition, flasks, and as a level-wide effect of an orb.

I'll check the other things as well.

EDIT:
Right mouse button uses the last used talent, but you can left click teleporters and containers. Works with Frost Ray as last used talent, too.
 
Last edited:

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Oops, meant ALT + BACKSPACE. And you can adjust the screen size (view width & height in tiles) from the settings.

Edit: My bad, it works with ALT, it's a game changer!
Thanks for your patience.


Certain powerful creatures have the Die Hard talent / item, but if you can make them wither, then they won't regenerate and Die Hard doesn't function for the effect duration. Wither is available as ammunition, flasks, and as a level-wide effect of an orb.

Well, i killed her and the clocked figure, i guess i'm an overgod now, it was tough to take them both at once but luckily, i slaughtered all of the other ones and the chained god killed the slime so it was me, my bddies and all the new gods against these two.
Withered and anchored worked, duidn't use it previously because it really looked like a bug.

Actually, i find die hard quite overpowered as it is, even with 0 stamina (possibly 1, i don't know) dies hard makes someone immortal as long as he's not anchored and withered.
It should at least require 1 stamina point per level or 4-8 stamina to work its magic.

The chained god is now roaming the Zorbus freely, i could barely damage it, seems like he has 15-30 points of resistance for every element but i didn't try holy, it might be the right one.

The last fight was quite something, had to blink away 4/5 times and I lost half my crew and the friendly gods in the process, luckily, they did half the job and at some point, my attacks started to seriously damage him...


EDIT:
Right mouse button uses the last used talent, but you can left click teleporters and containers. Works with Frost Ray as last used talent, too.

Doesn't for me, try clicking a closed chest for example.
Or maybe it comes from the settings?


About character creation :

It'd be nice to get :
  • A button to store/recall one roll
  • An option to switch two rolls
Either of these options or both or a mutually exclusive option in the settings to get one of them.

New features/options?
Unlockables after defeating some gods or creatures from the Zorbus.
  • Playing a slime (not the regular ones but more like the slime god)
  • Playing a Lich
  • Maybe some penalties to check to get better character creation rolls
  • Or the opposite, some bonus like elemental resistances but lower character rolls
 
Last edited:

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
Actually, i find die hard quite overpowered as it is, even with 0 stamina (possibly 1, i don't know) dies hard makes someone immortal as long as he's not anchored and withered.
It should at least require 1 stamina point per level or 4-8 stamina to work its magic.
Die Hard talent requires at least 1 point of Stamina to function. Items with a Die Hard effect always work, but crumble to dust after the use. Many of the gods have fast Stamina regeneration, so they very like survive unless you use withering in some form. You can give withering (and anchoring) ammunition to companions as well.

Actually, i find die hard quite overpowered as it is, even with 0 stamina (possibly 1, i don't know) dies hard makes someone immortal as long as he's not anchored and withered.The chained god is now roaming the Zorbus freely, i could barely damage it, seems like he has 15-30 points of resistance for every element but i didn't try holy, it might be the right one.
Remember to search for the Cosmic Essence item on the floor to become the Overgod, if you haven't already, and you have the game still running.

Doesn't for me, try clicking a closed chest for example.
Or maybe it comes from the settings?

You might have the setting "toggle furniture with control + direction" on?
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
You might have the setting "toggle furniture with control + direction" on?

I did, and right click on furniture/chest worked until the Frost Ray is the last spell used.

I did used the clocked figure special essence and had the overgod ending, not showing up in the leaderboard though even if i had over 800k xp.
I also didn't check the two options which prevent you to get to the leaderboard (enemies don't blink and don't regen), unless there is more of them, maybe those options should be in red, unless there is a warning if you check them.

Not that i care much about the leaderboard, it's just some feedback.

Archers
I started an archer and obstacles/enemies/companions obstructing your line of fire is a pain, archers can be powerful later on but still, turning this into to hit penalties would be nice, like -4 per obstacle with a perk to remove the penalties or reduce them to -1 or -2 per obstacle.
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
That setting probably caused the mouse thing. Right clicking shouldn't in fact work at all on furniture if I can remember right.

If a character shows as savescummed (save file backupped, and reloaded after death), then it doesn't appear on the leaderboard. Every setting that prevents leaderboard uploading is mention in the setting descriptions.

The obstacle dodging shooting is a nice idea, I'll think about some implementation.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
That setting probably caused the mouse thing. Right clicking shouldn't in fact work at all on furniture if I can remember right.

But it's great that it does.

Guilty, I'm not starting over and over again, as a mage there is just too many perks to pick so health surge, requiring two + enough body points is impossible to get when it matters.
What about the character creation rolls?

Did you just unrandomize the ability elixir? Fuck, i shouldn't have updated! That's a low blow...

It's a shame, the only motivation after completing it is trying to make an overpowered specialized build, what about removing abitily elixirs but getting one ability point every 5 levels?
Or a special shop selling one elixir once in a while but you get to pick the ability and it's twice as expensive?
 
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Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I just completed the game again and became the overgod once more, no death this time and i got way better items.

At some point, in the zorbus, i didn't think i'd have the patience to kill all the gods and then to kill the cloaked figure but after killing 3 or 4 of them, i freed the chained god and he severely injured 3 of the remaining ones so i killed 2 more, freed the mage and worked my way up.

I even killed the Flying Baby Atropal with holy burst and only one blink potion.
Last time, I had to flee multiple times and let the slime god do the job.

The last boss killed 1 of my mages, my cloud giant, a hippo fighter and my 2 golems and also the prisoner mage.


Joonas
Great combat, a real TB party based Zorbus 2 with full party control would be really nice for a RPG with a limited party and some handcrafted combat goodness.

Also, if you have more than 9 "companions" only 10 show up on the right window so you can't give any order to the 10th one.
I had 7 companions, 2 golems and a clone and the clone didn't show up in the list.
 
Last edited:

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
After completing the game twice and digesting it, here's a short review.

I played a mage twice, because there's more tactical options, the second one was more focused and even more optimized and i had way too much feat points (started with 18 int mind, 3 feats at level 1 and one per level up as opposed to every other level with 16 and ebvery 3 levels with 14 and so on...) even though you need a lot of feats as a mage.

Graphics
Well, i'm no graphic whore so check for yourself, i find them minimalist but good, it's no pixel broth, it's well made overall and serviceable.

Sound
I can't remember the music but the sound effects are quite good.

Combat
As a mage, it's really tactical because you have no defense for the first half or even 2/3 of the game and that's if you can spare skill points for dodge + dodge equipment and the evasion feat.
Aside from that, you have to identify the enemies weaknesses and use the right spells because even if you can rest to restore HP/MP, roaming monsters can surprise you and then call for reinforcements.
So, MP management is important, early on, potions are expensive and running out of spells could lead to a certain death.

Also, if you make too much noise; and you will if you don't invest in stealth and/or go with a party; you'll attract nearby groups and either get wrecked or not depending on your group, your strategy and you eventually overpowered build.

(chain lightning and holy AOE + full mind/ spirit and 14/16 some body for the extra HP)

Exploration and itemization
It's good, could be a little more crazy, like a unique sword teleporting you near an enemy in sight when killing one but still, vampire, throwing weapons returning when thrown, elemental damage, the basics are here.
There's also some nice armors and equipment.

The exploration is rewarding too with a lot of secrets leading to great items (most of the time), even some neutral monsters/ghosts you can wreck or not, some allies to recruit, some wild monsters to tame with the right feat...

Bestiary
It's huge and then when you think you've seen it all, you get some more, spectators, dragons, wraith, liches, demons, griffins, mushrooms ... Even Direphants ...
Also, the NPC you can recruit come in all forms and shapes, way more than the available races, even some strange ones, at least 5 extra races you can't use for your main char.

Conclusion
Really good, i'm not a big rogue-like fan but it's more of a RPG than modern RPG, it's probably why i like it, great ambient, good combat for a rogue-like with many feat and skills, some D&D spells, a huge bestiary 10 dungeon levels + and extra one, many secrets, even in strange places.
What's not to like?

And a leaderboard for the competitive ones, i rank on the 6th position, you can call me Rhialto the Marvelous Overgod...
 
Last edited:

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
rel55.jpg


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. If you want to read them online, see http://www.zorbus.net/lore.html. Spoilers obviously.
  • 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.
Finally wrote some text to Halaster's diary, you can read it online here. Spoilers obviously!

www.zorbus.net
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/

Release 56 (14-Sep-2022)
  • The game can now be found on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/.
    • Steam version has currently 20 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.
www.zorbus.net
 

Turn_BASED

Educated
Joined
Jul 2, 2022
Messages
212
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/

Release 56 (14-Sep-2022)
  • The game can now be found on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2125420/Zorbus/.
    • Steam version has currently 20 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.
www.zorbus.net
Congrats man, game’s awesome. Just digging into it now.
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland


That happened. Lead to huge traffic to the website and bandwidth limit for this month was exceeded. The site will be backup on Saturday, but I'll probably remove the free version so the game will be available on Steam only.



Anyone who has replied to this thread before this: if you want a free Steam key for the game, just PM me. The game has no DRM so you can play it without Steam. And if you really need it, I can give a link to the last free version once the website is back up. Future updates will be Steam only.
 

Aemar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 18, 2018
Messages
6,055
Congrats on getting the game on Steam! One of the best roguelikes in years.
 

Turn_BASED

Educated
Joined
Jul 2, 2022
Messages
212
Buy the game and leave a positive review if you like it. Too many dweebs complaining about petty stuff/difficulty in the reviews.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Buy the game and leave a positive review if you like it. Too many dweebs complaining about petty stuff/difficulty in the reviews.
I read through the reviews and most of them were bullshit, yeah. TBH I don't think it's fair to leave a negative review stating that you think X game is better. I've played and enjoyed a lot of games I thought were inferior to other games I've played but were still worth playing.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,860
Zorbus is awesome. Even if I never steam purchase it I'd be relatively happy with my last current free version. Sure I'd buy future version on itchio but it seems that won't be viable due to that overload. Cucking up to steam only leaves me dead inside.
 

Irata

Scholar
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Messages
304
Will people who previously sent some money through Itch still be able to receive updates somehow? I admit that when it comes to videogames I like to spend as little money as possible so I kind of hope there is. But, in this case, if that isn't possible then I'm cool with it.
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
Will people who previously sent some money through Itch still be able to receive updates somehow? I admit that when it comes to videogames I like to spend as little money as possible so I kind of hope there is. But, in this case, if that isn't possible then I'm cool with it.
Unfortunately no, but I can give a free Steam key for everyone who have sent some money through Itch. Just mail me from the email address you used in Itch and ask for a key. You need Steam just for downloading and updating the game.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Purchased.

Need to have periodic Pierre Sale where people can pay $39.99 if they like.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Hired an Elf companion hoping I could disarm traps. Am I supposed to be able to control the companions? Disarm with them? I’ve tried using numbers and ctrl-number but all it does is randomly travel then can’t figure out half the time how to get control of my MC back lol?

Seems kind of needlessly complicated.

Is there a step-by-step walkthrough of how this is intended to work somewhere?
 

Joonas

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
172
Location
Finland
You can command a companion to try to disable a trap in the examine-mode (TAB): select the known trap with the cursor, press companion number (1-9). Commanding this doesn't make sense if the companion doesn't have a higher Disable-skill than you. In general, companions will fail at trap disabling unless you somehow boost their Motion-ability and/or Disable-skill a lot.

Similarly, companions will try to automatically disable / force locks after you've failed if they have a higher chance of succeeding. They will use the same method as you did. Forcing locks makes more noise.

Companions won't boost their Disable-skill on level-ups because this would make the player's Disable-skill and traps/locks pointless.

If the player succeeds in trap disabling, there's a chance to gain the trap as a trapkit.
 

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