Zorbus News

• Find the 3 books (This is the Zordiac speaking, vol. I-III), solve the cipher. First one to solve it will get a $50 Steam gift card as a reward!
  
• When reading books, press TAB to switch between the script font and a plain font. Book text can be copied into the clipboard with CTRL + C.
  
• Check this webpage to see if anyone has yet solved this: www.zorbus.net/cipher.txt.
  
• Mail the solution to [email protected].
  

Edit, 24-Jan-2023:
The cipher has been solved. Congrats to the winner: Herr Harold!

You can see the solution here:
www.zorbus.net/cipher.txt

• Important! This game release is not compatible with the save games of the earlier 57.x releases!
  
  • If r57 save files are detected, they are moved into "(game folder)\Backup_r57\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_r57" 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
• Zordiac challenge:
  
  • Find the 3 books (This is the Zordiac speaking, vol. I-III), solve the cipher. First one to solve it will get a $50 Steam gift card as a reward!
    
  • When reading books, press TAB to switch between the script font and a plain font. Book text can be copied into the clipboard with CTRL + C.
    
  • Check this webpage to see if anyone has yet solved this: www.zorbus.net/cipher.txt.
    
  • Mail the solution to [email protected].
    
• New command: Full rest (V or NUMPAD_MINUS). Rest until both you and your companions are fully healed and restored. This will often take some (real) time when you have lots of Health / Stamina points and there are still lots of creatures on the dungeon level.
  
• Resting is now properly interrupted if a companion is hit by a ranged attack / spell from an unseen enemy or is otherwise damaged. Previously an unseen enemy could kill a companion during resting if the companion was set to regroup-behavior. (thanks to M for mentioning)
  
• New command: autopilot to next undisabled trap (CTRL + T).
  
• Changed "trap cycling" key to T and "focus cursor on tracked creature" key to X in the autopilot screen. The old key R for trap cycling still works.
  
• Autoexplore now checks if the player or companions can detect traps from already explored areas. (thanks to Tempe for mentioning)
  
• Continuous autoexplore now properly starts when there are autopickable items on the player tile. (Tempe)
  
• Autopilot command (P) now binded also to NUMPAD_PLUS by default.
  
• Companions that don't fit the companion list now respect the "command all companions" command (CTRL + 0). Change tactics works also with ALT + 0, but the indicator (none, M, or R) can be seen only on characters that fit in the character list.
  
• Command key in the companion list is in red if a companion is poisoned. It's just an indicator, you can still command the companion.
  
• Mouse tooltips in the companion list now lists states / effects that the companions has.
  
• Tweaked autoattack / approach and attack -command (A) so that it attacks creatures that are on a blocked area when the player is not, and the player is next to them or can reach attack them. (Tempe)
  
• Moving with mouse clicking: better pathing around obstacles when hostile creatures are around. (Tempe)
  
• You can now order companions to target (attack) friendly creatures in examine-mode. (Tempe)
  
• When you give orders to a specific companion (1-9) in examine-mode and the cursor is on the companion, following behaviors are cycled: follow, regroup, stay.
  
• You can now transfer devices (potions, wands, etc.) that you have given to companions back to you, but they won't let you transfer the original devices that they had in their possession. The original devices won't be combined with devices of similar type as long as they're in the companion's possession.
  
• Added floating text indicators when a creature is anchored / tracked / withering.
  
• Added floating text indicators on a creature when one of these effects end: anchored, diseased, poisoned, tracked, withered. (Tempe)
  
• New setting: "Attack marked Health percentage". Minimum Health percentage for attack marked to be available. 0 disables (default). Works similarly as the setting "Autoattack Health percentage", but instead for the attack marked -command (R) for reach / ranged attacks. (Tempe)
  
• New setting: "Centaur hooves sound effect". Hooves sound effect when playing as a centaur. Might be a bit distracting so is disabled by default.
  
• Inventory / level loot lists: typed filter accepts multiple keywords separated by spaces. Pressing SPACE is a bit problematic since it's also used for actions / selecting items, but this can be bypassed by pressing SHIFT + SPACE or by pressing ".". Remember that you can enter a filter keyword in lists by writing it with SHIFT pressed, but if you disable letter selecting from settings, you can just write a filter word directly without pressing SPACE. Level loot has letter selecting disabled as a default.
  
• Talents menu during birth / level up: you can filter talents by writing a keyword with SHIFT pressed. (SHIFT needs to be used as pressing C or H already open the character sheet / Zorbupedia)
  
• Settings / keybindings menu, book reading, log viewing: typed filter accepts multiple keywords separated by spaces.
  
• Added starting date id to save game filenames, so that you can have several ongoing games with the same character name, and no longer have to worry about saves being overwritten.
  
• Email address in settings menu is hidden, mainly for streamers. (thanks to Cowslanlr for the idea).
  
• By pressing O in the tutorial screen, you can open it in your designated PDF viewer so that you keep it open on another monitor. So from the main game mode press H twice to get into tutorial screen, then O. The PDF tutorial also exists in the game folder as "Tutorial.pdf" and has the keyboard help screen included as the last page.
  
• Better handling of corrupt save files. (thanks to Aeth for help)
  
• Some players have reported that their ascended characters were not saved on the endgame level, i.e. the avatars file was not properly saved or was recreated on later runs. Could not yet reproduce this problem, but the game now creates a log file to try to catch this problem. The log is saved to the game folder as "Log.txt", and shows changes to the avatars file among other things.
  

Happy New Year, everyone!

The tournament is over. The final results can be seen at tournament.zorbus.net.

The winners and prizes by category:

• Overgod ... Cat ... $50
  
• God ... Over-Troll ... $25
  
• Fastest ... Madnak ... $25
  

Congratulations!

• Fixed a bug where the Seeker Shots talent didn't work with the mouse when shots were made in the main game mode (not in fire mode). (thanks to General_Jah for reporting)
  
  
• New setting: Cursor centering in examine / target modes. Off by default. (thanks to Decay for the idea)
  
  • Disables centering the view around the cursor in examine / target modes, and instead the view is moved when the cursor is close to a screen edge. This setting is used as the default for started games, but you can toggle this ingame when in examine / target modes by pressing C. Automatically used if the "No view centering (push-scroll)" setting is checked.
    
• "Push-scroll" setting renamed to "No view centering (push-scroll)".
  
  
• Removed the cycle containers -command from the examine mode.
  
  
• Some changes to mouse commands:
  
  • Right mouse button in main game mode is now only used for "use last used talent at location".
    
  • Interacting with creatures is done with CTRL + left mouse click or with middle mouse button.
    
  • You can now attack gradually-turning-hostile creatures with a reach or shoot weapon from the main game mode.
    
  • You can melee attack gradually-turning-hostile creatures with ALT + left mouse click from the main game mode.
    
  • Added some mouse related tooltips to the info box.
    
• Changes to item exchanging with companions:
  
  • When exchanging items with a companion, first ENTER keypress or first left click on an unselected item under the selector just chooses the item, and the second ENTER keypress or left click transfers the item.
    
  • If the unselected item under the selector is a potion, just one item of the stack is selected. You can select the whole amount with SPACE or adjust the selected amount with movement keys left / right.
    
  • Items that can not be transferred back from a companion are color coded in red and there's a warning in the item info box.
    
• Fixed a bug where the email field in settings didn't output "@" character when SHIFT + 2 was pressed.
  

There's a tournament running from the 1st to 31th of December.

More info at tournament.zorbus.net.

The main menu will have a "Tournament rules & leaderboard" button during the tournament (also visible one week before / after).

When the tournament is active, you can choose between a regular and a tournament game when starting a new game.

PRIZES

• $50 Steam / Amazon eGift Card for the ascended Overgod with the highest score.
  
• $25 Steam Amazon eGift Card for the ascended God with the highest score.
  
• $25 Steam Amazon eGift Card for the fastest ascension.
  

RULES & NOTES

• You need to enter your email address in the game's settings. Needed so that you can be contacted if you win a prize. The email address is not publicly shown anywhere. Winners will be contacted after the tournament.
  
• Character data is automatically sent to the tournament leaderboard. The tournament leaderboard is not updated in realtime but in about 10 minute intervals.
  
• Saving the game is disabled. You have to play the game in one run, but it's ok to leave the game running and continue later. The game clock pauses in the game menu or after there is no user activity for 30 seconds.
  
• Normally ascended characters remain as gods and demigods on the Zorbus level, but not in the tournament version.
  
• For scoring, see the PDF manual (page 53) or ingame Zorbupedia ("scoring" 1 and 2).
  
• This tournament is run with a restricted race and talent selection with no ability rolling.
  
• Disallowed races: Aasimar, Gnome, Human, Tiefling
• Disallowed talents: Lone Wolf, Natural Leader, Team Spirit
• Disallowed archetypes: Infernal, Leader, Noble, Wizard
• The "Never flee", "Never blink", and "Never teleport player or companions" settings can not be used in a tournament game.
  
• For character progression tips, see the current regular leaderboard and old leaderboard.
  
• You can play as many time as you want.
  
• It is possible to win two prizes with the same run (Overgod-ending + fastest / God-ending + fastest), but most likely the fastest run is going to be one with a Demigod-ending.
  
• Please, do not cheat. Character data will be inspected and cheaters will be banned from all leaderboards and future tournaments.