This summer we decided to completely step back, and put all of our focus into the final stages of ZOR development.
All our efforts are pushing towards the release of 1.0, and the goal was to finish this penultimate patch at the end of August. While we didn't quite make that deadline, we are very close and down to testing and bug fixing and the beta should be available within a week or two!
This massive new patch will expand the game substantially, including
- Doubling the regions, which are now more focused and thematic
- Expanding progression by spreading out complexity over more stages
- Improving astrolabe perk and difficulty design
- Adding the final arm of the astrolabe and a new Slorf
- A pile of tuning and new content
Hey, a new Slorf, and it seems to have been eating psionic tubers.
Doubling the Regions
Runs are expanding from 2 to 3 legs, increasing the total number of clearings from 13 to 18. Each leg will be one of 2 possible regions, with a boss encounter at the end.
I said we were busy right? :D
Having more regions allows each segment to be more thematic, and separate different content and gameplay themes. Not only does this improve pacing, but it makes choices more interesting as you balance different possible challenges ahead.
Leg 1
A thematic split of the previous first leg, with less of a kitchen sink feel as the categories of content have the time and space to breathe.
Hunting Grounds
A wooded area near the village, where Slorfs often hunt Grimps. Also frequently occupied with trees possessed by the will of the wood.
Rugged Steppes
A rough grassland with sharp cliffs. Slorfs generally gather their resources and get out as the lands are infested by bugs, including the new prickly bug boss.
With a thorns level of 4 you won't be swatting this bug from close range and living to tell about it
Leg 2
Here we add two new regions that are a home for content that was previously sprinkled around the game.
Spooky Forest
Ghosts, graves and scarier tree enemies have staked out their own turf. The gameplay theme is simple, don't get hit.
Beware of Blinker, a new type of ghost with the ability to teleport
Wretched Wastes
This bone littered and poisoned wasteland is scarce of water and seems to be especially interesting to the Underflock. The home of large beasts and the deadliest bugs.
Excavating giant bones is a lot of work but uncovers something amazing
Leg 3
The regions of the third and final leg of the journey remain the Thrix Warrens and Maddening Murk, although reworked. Thanks to the addition of other regions, we are able to focus in more tightly on the themes.
Progression
Pacing
Progression is now more spread out, and you must unlocking arms of the astrolabe to extended the length of your runs. Also, some of the more complex content will be held back until you get deeper so that one layer of the game can be mastered at a time.
Gustwood trying to push your Slorfs into sinksand is an acquired taste that we want everyone to enjoy as we do!
Slorf unlocks have been revised to be more straightforward, generally requiring success using certain perks.
Data Reset
Due to how huge the changes are, progress will be reset this patch and any runs in progress will be lost. This is the one and only time this will happen.
If you have previous progress in the game, it will be reset to just after hunting the big grimp. So don't worry, you wont have to replay the tutorial stuff. Also, we will not take away any unlocked Slorfs. Although some of the unlocks have changed, the old ones were generally much harder so you earned them!
Astrolabe rework
There has been a complete overhaul of perk and difficulty design, and even the visuals of the astrolabe itself!
Nodes are no longer restricted to one per arm. Who will be the first to complete a 20 node run?
Some quick notes on the changes:
- Inner perks are used to set difficulty
- Outer perks give a twist with an advantage and disadvantage
- Perks focus on changing the way the game plays, rather than just adding things
- Unlocking is more straight forward and less of a puzzle. They are still unlocked via achievement style goals, but we removed the complex interdependencies (that no one was really liking or getting)
New Content and Tuning
Too numerous to provide a full detailed breakdown on top of this already lengthy diary, but here are a few of the highlights:
- New tree enemies including an angry tree that attacks from beneath the ground, thrashing the Slorfs around violently, and a haunted wood that spawns obelisks that boost the Ghost's speed
- More ghost content from the nightmarish Blinker who teleports across the map, to baby ghosts who instead of doing 99 damage like their older siblings, only do 9
- Turret placement and behavior has been improved and later turrets can have wide blasts. Scarier but also more opportunities to trick them into doing your dirty work!
- Grubs and many other cases of turn based timing have been changed to trigger on enemy killed, as the meaning of a single turn can be so different depending on the situation. By changing it to something the player controls it makes it much more interesting.
Thanks for hanging in there with us, stay tuned for the beta branch release soon!
Clint and Gavin