Overshare alert, but when I was at primary school I played King Minos in a musical about Theseus and the Minotaur. I was so mean, my people would bow and lick my feet or else I’d have them beaten! At least, that’s how my theme tune went…
As you can tell, the minotaur and I go way back; it’s one of my favourite myths, and undoubtedly the thing that caught my eye about this update. That’s how it goes sometimes.
What is Zorbus?
Zorbus is a proper roguelike, not one of the many roguelites that I’ve been covering here more often than not (see the video below). I’ve had my eye on this one for ages, however, the introduction of the aforementioned minotaur (and a Steam Sale discount) was enough to persuade me to finally pull the trigger.
In all the key respects, Zorbus is a traditional roguelike, with turn-based gameplay taking place in a dungeon mapped across tiles. There’s an evolved fantasy setting inspired by classic tabletop RPGs from back in the ’70s and ’80s, with D&D 3E mentioned in the listing.
The update gets second billing behind a tournament being organised by the game’s developer. I’ll let you check that out yourselves if you’re so inclined, but I will dig into the gameplay update; you can check out the patch notes at the end, after the trailer.
There’s even more going on in the world of Zorbus, with a new art book available for players to enjoy. It’s free, full of spoilers, and decorated with AI-generated art. Details on this and more can be found over on Steam, otherwise, keep on scrolling for the fine print.
- New playable race: minotaur. Also added a minotaur archetype and a recruitable one.
- New talent: Morbid Fascination of Undeath. Can be chosen only during character generation.
You feel at home among the dead and the living dead. Your demeanor and affinity to the dead can be off-putting to others.
You gain a +3 bonus to necrotic resistance.
You are later able to learn the Animate Greater Dead and Disrupt Undead talents.
Skeletons and skeleton warriors animated by you are equally good in both melee and ranged combat, and their tactics (default / ranged / melee only) can be adjusted.
You can not recruit, tame, summon, or charm living creatures.
You can animate, summon elementals, activate golems and statues, and have a clone of yourself.
You can not learn talents or use items that summon living creatures or deal holy-damage.
Positive Spirit-modifier does not adjust prices in shops. - New talent: Animate Greater Dead. Morbid Fascination talent as a requirement.
- New talent: Disrupt Undead. Like Confusion but against undead. Morbid Fascination talent as a requirement.
- New talent: Soothing Solitude.
The extreme version of the Lone Wolf talent. Can be chosen only during character generation.
You are a hermit, a true loner. You want to do everything stubbornly by yourself, trust no one, and can’t stand the company of others.
You get a +2 bonus to all abilities, but can only have a clone of yourself in your company.
You can not recruit, tame, animate, summon, or charm creatures, and can not activate golems or statues.
You can use trapkits that animate or summon creatures as the created creatures are not added to your party. - Animal Friend ja Stone Sense talents can now be selected on any experience level (previously only on character creation).
- Some talents now block other talents. You can’t learn both Natural Leader and Lone Wolf, and so on.
- Gnomes now start with 1 point in Magic-skill instead of 2.
- Companion list is now ordered by recruitment round and stays ordered that way when you go to different dungeon level. Same for the character lists on the character sheet and in the inventory screen.
- New setting: “Number animated creatures”.
Number undead creatures animated by the player. Adds a count number after the name (skeleton 1, skeleton 2, …). Mostly for easier recognition of skeletons and skeleton warriors since you can equip them. - New wizard player tiles for elves, gnomes, and humans.
- New item: Orb of Blocking
This orb creates a planar block that prevents all animating or summoning for the duration of the effect. Does not affect already existing animated or summoned creatures on the level. Only one planar block can be active at a time. Also exists as a switch room effect. - New item: Potion of Martyrdom
Drinking this potion makes you lose 25 points of Health and Stamina, and restores Health and Stamina of all your companions by the same amount + any positive Spirit-modifier of the drinker. - New item: Ring of Bonding
When two creatures wear a Ring of Bonding, they form a bond where Health and Stamina restoring effects for one also affect the other. Only instant restorative effects to Health or Stamina are shared, duration effects are not. The other creature is restored the same amount as the other, so some amount of restoration must happen before it is shared. The effect is shared with Potions of Healing / Endurance / Life, the Health Surge talent, restorative effects from thrones and wells. Not shared with vampiric weapons or the Bloodlust talent. - New item: Boots of Tracklessness.
These boots make the wearer odorless and immune to any kind of tracking. - New lore books: Cinatas the Fallen, Divine Newsletter, Memorandum of Project Carillo. These can be read from the external lore book at http://lore.zorbus.net.
- Ring of Holiness renamed to Ring of Bones.
- Change to Bloodlust effect:
If you are at full Health before the Bloodlust effect, your current Health is set to the new max Health. (thanks to Bekhter for mentioning) - New setting: “Row height factor”. Adjusts the row height of the game font, making more fonts usable.
- If you press enter on any of the font settings, a font dialog now opens, making it much easier to preview fonts than with the old menu system.
- If you want to try something other than the boring default font, try Google’s Convergence. It’s not very usable on the smallest screen size, but try pumping up the interface zoom, and adjust font height and row height factor. Sample images: 1, 2.
- New setting: “Game controller, swap rest and autoexplore”.
If checked, X on a game controller rests a round and right stick press autoexplores. (thanks to FlyinJ for the idea)
