Sept 13th 0.502371
The Card Update
We hope everyone is enjoying ZOR, and is as excited as we are to start seeing fresh content and tuning in the patch notes.
There are many areas we want to focus on, and we decided to start with cards. Adding new cards, and balancing existing cards in the roster. Of course, we are constantly fixing bugs and improving the experience too!
New Cards
Prepare (Triobelisk, Move) - 1 food: 1 action, +1 damage next turn. Upgrade -> 2 food cost, 2 action, +2 damage next turn
Foresight (Upgrade, Move) - 2 food: 2 actions, draw 2 cards. Upgrade -> draw 3 cards
Disengage (Upgrade, Attack) - 1 water: 1 damage, step back 2 tiles and gain stealth for 1 turn. Upgrade-> 4 tiles
Mark (Upgrade, Attack) [Exhaust] - 1 water: 1 damage, range 3, target receives +1 damage when attacked. Upgrade -> range 6
Shredder - (Crafted, Attack) [Consume] - 2 water: 1 damage, range 4, bleed. After impact the spinner spawns on a tile at the impact site
Poison Bait (Crafted, Effect, Structure) [Consume] - poison the attacker for 3 turns
Barbed Shield (Crafted, Effect) [Exhaust] - 1 water: gain 2 armor, gain thorns for 2 turns
Snack (Crafted, Effect) [Exhaust] - gain 2 food (share)
Drink (Crafted, Effect) [Exhaust] - gain 3 water (share)
Harpoon (Crafted, Harvest) 2 water: harvest at range 4
New Clearing
Dunes - midway through the warren, you may stumble on this battle of wits where you face a gustwood across a maze of sinksand
Tuning
Note: Free cards remove too much tension from the game which is at the core of what makes ZOR tick so we have removed many cases of them, especially attack and move cards. However, making costs cheaper via secondary methods is still alive and well (day fire, work)
Sneak - reworked: gives extra slorf turns instead of skipping enemy turns (a subtle but meaningful difference, and clearer)
Dig Stick - reworked: recipe in early pool and cheap to make, cost 2. Additionally harvests the tile beyond the target
Hiking staff - reworked: no attacks, food cost 1, 3 actions
Run - reworked: interaction rules removed, now a cheap long distance move with no attacks that exhausts
Collect - cost reduced
Cyclops wand - cost of 1 water
Work - exhausts, upgrade removes exhaust
Rock flinger - distance increased, nut flinger no longer a component of recipe
Thrix enrage - now +2 damage for 2 turns but does not stack
Thrix babies now hide when all Thrix are eliminated and not all enemies
Food placement in early ringed level improved
Delays tuned and simplified to improve consistency of turn flow timing and feel
Lots of tooltip and text polish
Bug Fixes
Area harvest hang fixed - system reworked to be safer and resolve in sequence
When swapping the player can scroll
Climb bonus now effects attacking uphill
Hypno thrix can target decoys, and respects stealth
Unmaker can now target non enemies at close range
Food previews disappear when thrix babies leave
Jump no longer stops map from panning
Encourage aura hides at appropriate time
Work can no longer target a 0 cost card in hand
Charge behavior fixed and clarified - does not enter any hex but final tile. Note: Escaping quicksand via attack cards like charge is intended (since immobilization is simple being unable to use move cards and nothing more)