"You only live once, or so it seems. One life for yourself, or one for your dreams."
"This is it. No more fetch quests. No more giant rats. No more grinding. This time, you're going for gold. This is it. You're going to be a power."
Zorbus is a graphical Roguelike video game. The aim of the game is to descend through a multilevel dungeon, find a mythical place called the "Zorbus" and ascend to godhood. The game was once a freeware, but after September 2022 it turned into a paid game, and is now available on Steam. You can visit the official website here
Zorbus provides examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Feature: The December 2020 update added changes to your companions AI to allow them to more easily find you if you get separated and magic spells and items that allow you to instantly teleport all companions back to you under the same circumstances. As of May 2021 they now are now also brought with you if you "blink" (short range teleport).
- Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Nearly all armor (except robes) and shields penalize your magic skill.
- Artificial Brilliance: Any intelligent enemy will do their best to act like it:
- Enemies that spot you at a distance will shout warnings to alert their compatriots before moving to engage. Lone enemies may preemptively run to seek backup and return with reinforcements.
- Melee armed enemies will attempt to flank and surround you, averting Mook Chivalry to gang up on the player.
- If they have them, enemies will try to keep their distance and use spells/ranged attacks on you.
- Enemies will flee if you're obviously outclassing them and only return once they’ve recovered sufficient health. Intelligent ones may also seek reinforcements before returning.
- Enemies will use carried potions when appropriate.
- The standard "stand outside the door and fight them one at a time as they step up" trick that works in most Roguelikes won't work here a lot of the time. Most room doors open onto other rooms or open areas and enemies can and will move diagonally to slip past you so more than one can get into the fight - the classic Rogue Like single tile corridors leading to a room of enemies are comparatively rare in this game.
- Spellcasters with summoning spells will summon creatures over and over to wear you down while doing their best to stay out of range / line of sight of your ranged weapons and attack spells and avoiding getting close enough to melee.
- If you blink away, enemies will spread out and search for you and may call for friends to help find you.
- Enemies can track you via sight, sound and scent. Some have magical tracking abilities (innate, spell or potion) that mean they always know precisely where you are when it's active.
- Likewise spellcasters will often attempt to teleport away if you try to melee them.
- Auto-Revive: The "Die Hard" talent automatically converts any remaining stamina you have to hit points if you are reduced to zero hit points, allowing you to cheat death.
- Boring, but Practical: The spear might not be the flashiest weapon, but it's very versatile and effective, especially at low level. It does decent damage, has the "reach" property, allowing you to attack at twice the normal distance - correctly handled, this can give you two attacks before a normal enemy can attack you and it gives you an attempt to finish off an enemy that flees from close range before it gets away. It can be also be used with a shield and thrown as a missile weapon.
- Bottomless Magazines: Magical "everlasting" ammunition gives you these.
- Cast from Stamina: Both spells and many special combat skills use Stamina points to cast/use. If you have insufficient stamina you cannot use them.
- Class and Level System: The game has character levels but no classes. Character customisation is instead handled by choosing the race, stats, skills and talents that fit your play style.
- Critical Hit: Both you and the monsters can do these. Certain skills and items increase the chances of inflicting and reduce the chance of receiving one respectively.
- Dual Wielding: Possible with talent of the same name.
- Dungeon Crawling: A classic type. Descend through each level gaining experience, killing monsters and finding useful items.
- Early Game Hell: The very start of the game is where you'll lose a lot of characters. You have weak armor and weapons, only a few points in skills and relatively low health and stamina. You also have nowhere to retreat to if you walk out of the starting room into a bunch of enemies.
- Enemy Chatter: Enemies will insult and threaten you, shout that they'll come back with reinforcements if they flee and give pithy quotes on dying.
- Godhood Seeker: The final goal of the game is to ascend to godhood.
- Half-Human Hybrid: The game includes half-orcs and half-trolls as playable races.
- Hit Points: All creatures have these, if they are reduced to zero, they die (unless they have the "Die Hard" Auto-Revive talent and stamina points left).
- Honest Rolls Character: One option for generating your stats.
- Leaked Experience: Normally you only get 50% experience for enemies killed by your allies, your clones or creatures you've summoned/tamed. The "Team Spirit" talent allows you to gain 100% experience instead. Also any allies you have level up when you do.
- Manual Leader, A.I. Party: Companions, clones and summoned monsters use the standard AI when fighting enemies.
- Massive Race Selection: You can play as the following races:
- Aasimar: Humans with celestial ancestry. Strong willed and natural leaders.
- Centaur: Fast but noisy human/horse hybrids.
- Dwarf: Strong warriors but not as fast or magically inclined as others.
- Elf: Graceful and stealthy archers, but frailer than other races.
- Gnome: Small humanoids, good with magic and traps but weaker and frailer than other races.
- Half-orc: Strong but stupid warriors.
- Half-troll: Even stronger but even more stupid warriors.
- Halfling: Fast and sneaky, but not very strong or resilient.
- Human: Versatile with more skills and talents than other races, but lacking in their special abilities.
- Saurial: Strong in will and body but slow and stupid.
- Tiefling: Humans with infernal ancestry. Good with magic.
- Named Weapons: Several can be found, they tend to have special properties and be more powerful than most standard magical ones.
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Nintendo Hard: The game is not easy, especially when you first enter a level, it's very easy to get overwhelmed by enemies as stairs are one way only. The very start of the game is especially brutal as even the lowliest enemy you encounter can kill you in a one hit if it scores a critical. - Permadeath: As per most roguelikes, if you die it's all over. Likewise there's no way to resurrect any fallen companions.
- Plot Armor: Invoked in game - "Plot Armor" is an actual suit of armor you can buy or find in the dungeon. It's very protective and if you get reduced to zero hit points it triggers a simultaneous "Die Hard" effect (see Auto-Revive above) and teleports you to a safe location to recover. It only works once however, the suit crumbles to dust after the effect activates.
- Point Build System: One option for generating your stats.
- The Six Stats: This game uses a total of four stats, called Body (combination of Strength and Constitution), Motion (Dexterity), Mind (Intelligence), and Spirit (combination of Wisdom and Charisma).
- Send in the Clones: You can clone yourself using found elixirs or a randomly encountered room. The clone has 90% of your powers and abilities but not your equipment and cannot gain experience.
- Shield Bash: Aptly named "Shield Bash" skill allows you to bash with a shield.
- Shop Fodder: Averted - the shopkeepers are generally uninterested in most items, even magical ones. Most items will end up on the floor, though you can stash items you think might be useful in the trading post.
- Shout-Out: The entire game is chock full of references to Dungeons & Dragons and other Roguelikes.
- Square Race, Round Class: There's nothing stopping you playing a half-troll specialising in spell casting if you want to, apart from their generally poor "Mind" stat making it harder for them to do well at it.
- Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Characters with "Shield Bash" skill can throw their shield like a ranged weapon.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Certain weapons like a spear or hammer can be thrown.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: If you die, it's game over - your NPC companions, regardless of how powerful they might be, cannot continue on their own.
"Ain't it fun when you know that you're gonna die young?"
