Zorbus (D&D-inspired roguelike)

[Joonas]

Release 33 (13-Jun-2020)

Full changelog:
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

 

[Joonas]

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.

 

[Joonas]

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.

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.

To-do list is now completely empty. Feels like I'm done with updates for now and will wait for player feedback and bug reports. If you haven't yet tried the game, please do, and let me know what you think.

http://www.zorbus.net

 

[Horvatii]

Was on level 3. Charmed one of the tomb raiders, killed the rest. Sometime later, RMB on him, Remove. He remains friendly. I thought he would turn hostile. I go to the container to open it, friendly tomb raider warns me that he will turn hostile. I click 'try to disable trap', probably fail and the game hangs.

Callstack, though im not sure if its valid. Its not stable, the main Zorbus.exe is using the full core, might just be the gameloop.
When the game threw an exception, Windows creates that second suspended process and starts WerFault.exe, this might cripple the original callstack, I dunno.

Ah and IT DELETED MY FUCKING SAVE TOO!

 

[The Red Knight]

Ah and IT DELETED MY FUCKING SAVE TOO!

Saves get deleted the moment you load them - so if you can't leave/save the game properly (like because of some crash or power outage) then your character is lost.

 

[Horvatii]

Great Idea (tm)

 

[Joonas]

Was on level 3. Charmed one of the tomb raiders, killed the rest. Sometime later, RMB on him, Remove. He remains friendly. I thought he would turn hostile. I go to the container to open it, friendly tomb raider warns me that he will turn hostile. I click 'try to disable trap', probably fail and the game hangs.

What release number was this on? I think I got this fixed with the latest (r37) and can not reproduce it. Charmed creatures that are removed / uncharmed should turn hostile (fixed in r35).

 

[Horvatii]

37, try to repro on tomb raiders specifically.
Charm him and when he is charmed, try to kill him, ie do damage to him and then RMB->Remove and Open trapped chest.

 

[Joonas]

37, try to repro on tomb raiders specifically.
Charm him and when he is charmed, try to kill him, ie do damage to him and then RMB->Remove and Open trapped chest.

Thanks, tried to do exactly that, but the when removed, the charmed creature always turns hostile (as it should). Will investigate further.

Edit: I think I found cause for the hang, but why the tomb raider was friendly after removed still remains.

 

[Joonas]

Release 38

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 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.

http://www.zorbus.net

 

[Joonas]

Release 39

• 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).

 

[Lagi]

This rougelike is godlike!!
I just get late to work because of it.

excellent game system! Perfect graphics. Bouncing animation are little exaggerate. OMG the dungeon rooms are not empty?!

two major drawback:
- no classes
- no ratlings (skaven, rat-man) WTF were you thinking adding all other races?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Lordy i suck as i can't get past lvl 2.

 

[Aemar]

Enjoying the game so far. Everything looks and feels great.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I think being able to sell rubbish gear would be great. Just collecting it to buy a few potions or something. It all becomes junk otherwise.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

It's amazing the amount of time you invest in this. I want to salute your great gift to us and to tell you:

 

[Aemar]

Any additional features/content you would like to implement at some point?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'd ask any way to not make me suck so bad but... can't solve miracles. I die on lvl 2 every damn time no matter how careful. Damn!

I kind of do wish an easy mode with saves that didn't delete. Getting my ass kicked bt Telegard then hoping for a feel good followed by another perm made me wanna chuck my cpu into the wall.

 

[Lagi]

man, you created something unique. At first it looks like rougelike, as thousand others. But this one is excellently refined. this is one of the BEST game I ever play! I was feed up with rougelikes and this boring grinding, this powerfest of level gaining. But here you capture perfectly what is loved in rpg's. Game/Rule system that support the game!

i was curious about this animal tame mechanic and just generate "not-viable" character (with -2 melee and -2 range). Its my most successful run so far i reach lvl 2, and get so attached to my lizard char and my elephants that i will try to last with this one as long as possible.

Spoiler

======================
feedback:

wiggle animation - its customizable as i notice - great. But every actors on screen are wiggle in sync, like if its some dancing game. They should wiggle i desync.

ambient music is a balm for ear, i just stand and listen. It feels like from Fallout 1.

the actor sprite are not changing direction, not flip left / right. I think this add=on would be a significant visual benefit.

Help section is excellent. it really help me to just jump into the game. all keys are explain under H. the layout and accessibility of keys is very good!

When i kill something, they appear a skull on red square. It throws off from the mood. There should be some gore effect animation that cover the victim. Blood fountain, bones animation.

Light and sound mechanic is great. Dim light to gain edge in stealth. I cannot kill goblin shaman (bastard kill my monkey and my dog!!), who was constantly blinking or summoning creature to his aid, until I go for camouflage, dim lantern, tell my elephant to stay and then stealthy hit this scum with my great sword - oh.. so satisfying.

Potions of healing. Any chance you replace some of them with Bandage? Potions are little cliche, and you still has Potion of Max Healing etc. would be nice to see some mundane healing items (or ointments? character could craft that from corpses - healing ointments).

Map decorations that are seldom interactive. My LORD, this is new quality. Please improve this aspect. It feels almost like a real rpg when i check cauldron or tables or crystals. There could be some writing on walls that reveal something. Or some gem slots on statues, when you find a gem-key, and insert it into stone, something will open. Puzzle like that.

The text that monsters shouting are excellent touch. Really build immersion. I think instead calling my character, "saurian", they should call me sometimes "lizard","sleeker","reptile" etc.

Weight limit, seems to be very high.

Its good that the game is FULLY playable with keyboard, plus the mouse support for starters.

Fire of range weapons should be F,F .. instead .. F,Enter. Its faster to do FF.

UI design its perfectly functional. Design of switching between companions f.ex. minimum effort. If you add some ornamented frame graphic that would be

There could be more stats written on second character page, attack defense mdf, critical...

Gender could affect something. Otherwise its just "pointless" i guess. Depends of race man and woman could has some different things. Like woman +1 companion. Men +1 Build.

I have 3x identically looking elephants. Could you add at least some color filter option? So one is little more blue than other. Plus every of my animal is name the same in character sheet. not sure if its possible to rename them. But even if, the names could be auto-assigned; Elephant Ela, Elephant Corhod, .....

AI of enemies is decent!! they run away, call support, go past door to surround me. I was afraid some might want to surrender, and I would be forced for moral decision - exp or clean conscience

 

[Joonas]

Aemar, I currently have no big features in mind, but there has been quite a lot of feedback, so I probably work on those at some point.

Thanks for the feedback, Lagi and others! I'll keep these things in mind for the next update. Some quick answers:

• The skull-on-red-square death animation is a tribute to the Gold Box games. I could add an alternative animation, I just don't have any.
• Fire ranged weapon with F, F: The idea is to press R to make fast ranged attacks against marked targets (red corner lines around the creature), and F when you want to specify a target. You can press F again to cycle targets. http://www.zorbus.net/tutorial/t05.png
• Weight limits: many players were complaining previously because characters were so easily encumbered so I raised the weight capacity. Coins and ammo have no weight.

 

[Aemar]

Two small suggestions:

- add the option to delete any of the past characters
- add store/recall buttons when rolling the stats

 

[Joonas]

Two small suggestions:

- add the option to delete any of the past characters
- add store/recall buttons when rolling the stats

Past characters can be deleted with Control + Delete. Forgot to mention it in the character menu help.

 

[Lagi]

The skull-on-red-square death animation is a tribute to the Gold Box games. I could add an alternative animation, I just don't have any.

its distracting from reading

the best animation would be if you could take procedurally every sprite, cut it in half and add some generic red pixels as blood, or bone yellow.

1.
cut the spirite: horizontal, vertical or diagonal

Spoiler

2. move one or both half out of the grid.

3. create red line on the place where is no transparent color - bright red line in above example

4. shrink both half of the sprite 50%; do it again 50% - last 2x frames

5. add red pixels between halfs (or/and bones, organs).

6. between the halfs, there is darker red.
dark red should be in frame 3 and 4 - coherent [ code it to be 50% long, in the center of Light red lines], and on frame 5 and 6 just random mist. to create nice splash effect.

=============

I know its difficult but worth it imo. Every sprite in the world you would add will have 4x customized deaths.

 

[eXalted]

I really liked that Goldbox skull on enemy death but seeing what Lagi shared above - damn, I want those animations.

Decided to take a look at Zorbus today and I really really dig it. Haven't advanced a lot to comment but it grabbed me thanks to the good UI.

Also, all the minimalist sounds are a very nice touch.

 

[Aemar]

Lordy i suck as i can't get past lvl 2.

My most successful character so far died on the 5th level of the dungeon, a centaur upgraded to level 9. Spear/tower shield + longbow.

Health potions are a bit scarce, since those merchants don't seem to refill their stocks.