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Update notes for release 59



  • Important! This game release is not compatible with the save games of the earlier releases (r58 and older)!
    • If earlier save files are detected, they are moved into "(game folder)\Backup_r58\Save". When you start the updated game, a menu will open where you can launch older releases of the game and finish those runs.
    • If you had an unfinished extended game going on where you plan to utilize previously ascended characters, you can continue that with the older release.
    • Check the "Skip this menu until a new release is out" checkbox if you don't want to see the menu anymore until a new release is out.
    • You can also manually run the older version of the game from the "Backup_r58" folder, but close any other running version of the game first.
    • Older game release backups that don't have any unfinished save games are removed after a month.
    • If you launch an old game release from the menu, and the game doesn't seem to react to keyboard presses,
      it might be that the game window just isn't active. So click somewhere on the game screen with the mouse, and you should be ok.
    • Troubleshooting forum thread here.


  • Some new options during character creation:
    • Spirited Learner is a talent that can be chosen only on the 1st experience level and only during ability adjustment. It costs 1 talent point.
      • You might not be the smartest but you sure are spirited. You learn new things by hard work and sheer determination. With this talent, Spirit-ability is used for skill and talent point progression instead of Mind. Note that even with this talent, Magic- and Search -skills still retain Mind as their key ability, and all spell talents have a Mind requirement. Mind of at least 6 is needed to be able to read.
    • When using the point buy -system for ability scores, you can trade 5 points for 1 talent.


  • New talent: Bloodlust.
    • When you kill a creature with a melee or a ranged attack, your Stamina gets restored by 10% of your max Stamina, and you gain a temporary 1d4 point boost to your Body-ability for 11-20 rounds. The ability effect does not stack with other temporary ability effects. Half-orcs get this for free.


  • New talent: Holy Warrior.
    • Spiritual upbringing enables you to channel holiness to attacks against evil-aligned creatures. 1 point of holy-damage is added to melee and ranged attacks. The damage is increased to 1d2 once you reach experience level 12 and your adjusted Spirit-ability is at least 16. Only evil-aligned creatures are affected. Holy damage is doubled against most undead creatures. Stacks with holy damage from weapons and from temporary effects.


  • New talent: One with Darkness.
    • You have an extraordinary knack to be fully functional in complete darkness. You gain darkvision of 8 tiles, +3 to Stealth-checks when trying to remain unseen in darkness, +5 to perception checks to detect creatures in darkness, +5 to attack rolls against creatures that don't see you (stacks with the normal +10 bonus, also a bonus to score critical hits). When you score a critical hit, you do 25% extra damage (stacks with the base 50% extra from critical hits and extras from other sources). Can only be taken on the 1st experience level.


  • New talent: Veil of Darkness.
    • When activated, you emit a burst of darkness which extinguishes seen lightsources within 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).


  • Melee Elemental Damage / Ranged Elemental Damage talents: These now scale with experience level.

  • Stonesense talent: You'll get +1 to Search-checks when trying to detect secret doors, +2 to Search-checks when trying to detect living statues. Recruitable rogue saints (living statues) are stronger when you have this talent.

  • Changes to the companion list on the upper right corner:
    • Shows max 20 companions.
    • Added keys for commanding companions 10-20 individually.
    • Some of the commanding keys have changed!
    • INS or F11 toggles the list.
    • CTRL + INS or CTRL + F11 toggles the viewing of expendable companions (constructs, animated, summoned, charmed).
    • CTRL + number to command companions 1-10, CTRL + F1-F10 to command companions 11-20.
    • DEL or NUMPAD_0 to command all companions.
    • CTRL + DEL or CTRL + NUMPAD_0 to command all expendable companions (constructs, animated, summoned, charmed).
    • You can use mouse wheel up / down to hide / show the list.


  • Rogue saints are no longer counted as real recruits, they're grouped with golems as "constructs".

  • Companion options:
    • On the second page of a companion's character sheet are some options to control more of the companion's behavior. Currently just one: you can set an option that a companion won't animate or summon creatures.


  • New item: Orb of Nullifying.
    • This orb creates a nullifying field that removes a group of resistances from all creatures on the dungeon level for the duration of the effect. The nullifying affects randomly either physical (blunt, pierce, slash) or elemental (fire / cold / lightning / acid) resistances. Only one nullifying field can be active at a time.


  • Some changes and clarifications to critical hits:
    • A critical hit does 50% more damage. Affects all damage element types (physical, cold, fire, etc.).
    • Improved Melee Criticals and Improved Ranged Criticals talents add an extra 25%.
    • One with Darkness talent adds an extra 25% if the defender can not see the attacker.
    • If the defender is sleeping, critical hits do 100% extra damage, but this does not stack with above modifiers.


  • Some changes and clarifications to stealth:
    • If the defender can not see the attacker, the attacker gets a +10 attack bonus. One with Darkness talent adds an extra +5.
    • If the defender is sleeping, the attack roll for melee attacks is an automatic 20, ranged attacks get a +10 attack bonus.
    • After an attack made from a neighboring tile, an unseen attacker is always marked visible to the defender. For attacks made from distant tiles, a Search vs Stealth skill check is made to determine if an unseen attacker is seen. A spotted creature can move to a new position to try to gain stealth again.


  • Added some new mouse commands to the inventory screen: changing between companions, switch between equipment / inventory etc. These can be activated by left / right clicking the inventory list title bars. See tooltips for more info.

  • Creatures flash in blue when they heal themselves.

  • Good and neutral aligned creatures get 99 holy-resistance, making damage output in the log more consistent to other element types. Previously the holy-element was simply zeroed if the defending creature was not evil.

  • Fixed an inconsistency in logged damage calculations that occured when a creature died, so that the damage element calculations make sense. Previously you could see something like "...and kill it! (Blunt: 1 = 4 - res 1)". Now you'll see "(Blunt: 1 = 2 - res 1)"

  • Fixed a bug where the autosave wasn't deleted when the game was won. (thanks to Lights for mentioning)

  • Keybindings have changed. This release should automatically reset them to the defaults, but if it doesn't, do so from the keybindings menu.

  • The command "Toggle low health warning" in the WASD-keys -preset now defaults to CTRL+H. Previous CTRL+W was in conflict with "continuous walk to north".

  • Added 44 new Steam achievements for a total of 64. (thanks to ZeroAffex and Lights for ideas!)

  • Tutorial and PDF manual updated. PDF manual now has descriptions of all talents.

  • Small changes to sound effects.

  • The leaderboard has been reset. The old leaderboard is here: http://wins.zorbus.net/r58/.

Update notes for release 58.4

  • The game now autosaves before going to a different dungeon level and after each level up. Autosave is deleted when the game is saved normally. Hopefully this will help players who suffer from power outages.
  • Autoexplore (to remaining hostile creatures) no longer autopilots to friendly animals if you have the Animal Friend talent or an item that grants it. (thanks to Grey Lensman for mentioning)

Update notes for release 58.3

  • The teleporter to Carillo should now always be generated in an area that has enough connections to other areas of the map.
    • What could happen is that the teleporter was in small group of areas that were connected to the rest of the map through a single secret door, and if you used some item (Carillo Express Card, for example) that teleported you to the teleporter, you could end up stuck in that area if you could not detect the secret door (and had no items to boost your Search-skill). (thanks to Vulpy for providing a save file)
  • Fixed yet another bug in autoexplore. (thanks to Vulpy for providing a save file)

  • Several players have reported that Steam thinks that the game is running although the game process has ended.
    • Moved the call to SteamAPI_Shutdown as the last thing that the game does when it closes, to the game form's OnDestroy() event, to see if that helps.

Update notes for release 58.2 + Zordiac Challenge results

  • Fixed a bug where autoexplore would not pilot in front of an unexplored area if the door to that area was trapped.
  • Friendly creatures (non-companions) should no longer block autoexplore / autopilot. Happened mostly when there was just one corridor exit from an area.
  • If no clear path to a container / item / trap can be found, autoexplore / autopilot automatically clears the flora (plants and fungi) from its way if a path is found that way.
  • Yet another new setting: "Flora overgrowth".
    • For immersion, some areas in the dungeon are overgrown with plants and fungi. You might need to clear your path to get through the area.
    • Enabled by default: overgrowth areas similar to previous releases of the game.
    • If unchecked, plants and fungi are not placed next to each other.
    • A minor impact to gameplay: creature's Stealth is boosted when surrounded by plants and fungi.
  • If a companion runs out of ammunition, there's now a red "A" (for arrows) or "B" (for bullets) indicator on the bottom right corner of the companion's image in the companion list. Had to set the letter background to solid black, otherwise it looked garbled, even with a text shadow.
  • When a creature is charmed or tamed it is cleared from being the target for autoattack.
  • Examining a creature with the target cursor shows in its description if it can be recruited or tamed.
  • If the new commands (V for full heal, CTRL + T for autopilot to nearest trap) introduced in release 58.0 don't seem to work, reset the keybindings in the keybindings menu.


The Zordiac Challenge

The cipher was first solved by Herr Harold!

The solution: www.zorbus.net/cipher.txt.

Update notes for release 58.1

  • Fixed a bug that could happen when autoexploring and "Auto use key on lock" setting was unchecked: autoexplore would not try to find alternative routes around a locked door. (thanks to Tempe for providing a save file)
  • Fixed a bug that could happen when "Stop (autopilot) when mildly hostile creatures are seen" setting was on. (thanks to Tempe for providing a save file)
  • The current Health / Stamina values after level up are now set to the same percentages of max Health / Stamina as they were before the level up. Previously the Health warning sometimes launched when the current Health of max Health percentage dropped under the warning threshold. So now there's a small boost to your current Health and Stamina on each level up.