Another quick hotfix to address a few bugs that are a bummer when encountered

• Zombie Virus node now rewarded as described (cure poison with cane)
  
• Evil Eye and Keep Digging hypnotic cards no longer added to a deck slot on redraw
  
• Upgrade buttons in deckbuilding screen no longer clipped in wild slot in largest case

• Card drop no longer blocked on left side of screen
  
• Camp info tabs no longer unclickable when viewing a reward
  
• Tooltip of gameplay no longer disappears in some camp info flows
  
• Underflock egg animation fixed when being knocked back
  
• Footwrap and Flying Slippers tooltip info corrected

• Improved tooltips for Turrets and Missiles, and added the Structure keyword (for card built structures)
  
• If no move cards in hand, the game will attempt to draw a move card from the deck
  
• Astrtolabe node "Overgrowth" no longer rewarded when Death Weeds self destruct
  
• Mask now costs 6 sticks to craft

Thanks to everyone who have been reporting bugs since 0.95 release!

Fixed a number of layout issues in tutorial camp
Fixed issue where help button in camp was mapped to system menu
Fixed issue where in one weird case, the profile version wouldn't update leading to seeing the popup every boot sequence
Fixed disappearing tooltips when using the upper menu during game

After 4 months of hard work, our penultimate patch has arrived!

The changes are so massive, that a point by point breakdown of every change would just be listing the entire game, and also spoiling some surprises, so we are going to keep it to a general overview.

There is some extra detail on many of these changes in our last preview diary, so if you haven't seen it we recommend taking a peek!


Slorf progress through the wilds is now paced more gradually. They must complete runs that are short, then medium to unlock a full length run. More complex content appears in medium and full runs.

At each of these milestones, two new arms of the Astrolabe are revealed, with new nodes to unlock via in game challenges.

• Node design has been overhauled, with inner arm nodes controlling difficulty, and outer arms adding twists with a mix of advantage and disadvantage that add a new layer to consider.
  
• Nodes are no longer exclusive per arm, you can activate any you wish.

The 20 node run is now a thing. I have tried it and it is absolutely bonkers!

The number of regions has doubled from 3 to 6, allowing each region to have a stronger thematic focus. The full run has 3 legs with 2 possible regions per leg.

A massive amount of tuning from stats to placement and frequency of content. Too much to list! Some highlights:

• Improved the logic that picks recipe rewards. The system also weighs what resources you have more as you approach late game
  
• Grub behavior is now based on enemies killed and not simply turns
  
• Fear behavior improved - Now each unit evaluates threats per tile and runs as far as possible from threats.
  
• Underflock turrets have advanced, with smarter behaviors relating to height and unplayable tiles, and new blast patterns

A new Slorf, Zink has been added to the roster!

Zink spent way too much time in the Thrix warren, but was able to escape before becoming a mindless thrall to the god tuber. Zink becomes enraged when the other Slorf is damaged allowing you to setup an insane one two punch.

• With new regions comes a heap of new clearings, including new layouts and challenges.
  
• Hypnotic cards are powerful but dangerous and gained only from certain rare effects. Destroyed on camp, cannot be discarded, and cannot have more than one in hand.
  
• New Spooky Forest content such as scary stumps, bone piles and new ghost types.
  
• Some water in the Thrix Warren is now colorful and gives a hypnotic card when drinking
  
• New bug boss in the rugged Steppes
  
• Root challenge and Bug nests challenge promoted to leg 1 bosses.
  
• The will of the wood have expanded their roster with several new enemies.
  
• Mask is now a movement card with multiple upgrades

• All camp info is now available in game, not just crafting
  
• Recipe screen now better explains bonuses/penalties to chance of discovery
  
• Main menu streamlined and made less confusing
  
• Improved camera and visuals for character select screen

This patch is a massive step up and the last patch before 1.0 so we hope you give it a try and enjoy ZOR again like it was the first time! :D

Thanks for playing ZOR,
Clint and Gavin

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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!

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)

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

The May update is now live!

See the preview for details:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1162990/view/4212631768944033521?l=english

In our upcoming May patch we get back to business with a ton of new content and a complete overhaul of the camp UI.

Burle is unlocked via the new Murk astrolabe arm and features extra health and the ability to climb using food instead of action points. With lower starting food, you will need to be extra careful managing your food economy as you build your deck and campsite.

Burle enjoys the simple things in life: climbing and punching

This new challenge has the Slorfs protecting an oasis that is under siege by the spreading poison of some nasty oozing pustules!



The Murk arm of the astrolabe and it's nodes are now available to unlock. Would you like more poison, spreading muck, or some zombie enemies?



The Camp UI has been in an awkward state for a while, a relic of a time before recent changes. Finally, it is getting the overhaul it needs.

Camp will now use the same tab driven flow as the pilgrimage setup. This allows for instant moving between screens while always seeing the situation at a glance. The map presentation has been overhauled and an overview panel added, to remind you of which astrolabe nodes you have active.

• Terrain penalties now indicated on path during movement
  
• Elder attack cards clearly show they aren't playable
  
• Rowans food previews now display his cap of 1
  
• Yell cards buffed
  
• Mask now gives stealth instead of evade

• Mudsnacks that are dropped as loot now offer dual choice
  
• Fixed case of turret not properly transforming into ghost mode
  
• Objects can no longer be placed in the single tile in front of root mother on day 3 root challenge

This smaller update brings an overhaul to the Astrolabe UI, and adds the remaining consumable card content that didn't make the previous patch.

• Overhauled Astrolabe UI with tabs and list menus, and more node info available
  
• New button and UI art (partially applied to the game, will be fully applied in the next update)

• Tuber is now a dual choice consume card. Eat for food or use as a blunt thrown object
  
• Mudsnack is now a dual choice consume card. Eat raw for high calories but with poison, or clean and the food value is low and costs water
  
• Chrono cabbage is back as a consume card. Use for defense, or a high risk/reward modification to cards in hand

• Tuning of consume card placement and pacing in second region
  
• Safer confirmation layout/style when choosing continue/retry from main menu
  
• You can no longer discover an upgrade to a recipe you discovered that same day

Hope you enjoy!
Clint and Gavin

It's finally here!

This update is the most important update since we started early access just over a year ago. Yes, it has a bunch of fun new content including some seriously powerful cards. More importantly though, it fundamentally changes some of the core design and boldly corrects issues that were holding the experience back.

For a thorough breakdown of what those changes are, and why they are so important, check out our previous dev diary here

Or, an even better idea: Give it a try and let us know what you think!

• Health now replenishes each camp, starting health values balanced accordingly. Health is no longer a long term concern, but a clock per day
  
• Cards are no longer crafting ingredients, and the days of your hand being clogged with branches are no more. Many are now resources, and others have become consumable cards.
  
• Consumable cards gained in the world now offer a choice of cards representing different ways to use the item
  
• Camp improvements now use ambition, which is gained by filling deck slots. Growing your deck now has serious benefits.
  
• Crafted cards have upgrades and a brand new UI

• A few new Grimp types have been added to fill in the difficulty curve from runt to monstrosities. The Sneaky Grimp has evade, while the Tough Grimp is a nuisance with higher health but low damage.
  
• Added many new powerful crafted cards, and expanded the tiers of others like campfires and decoys

• When gaining a card in game, you have the choice to draw to your hand or discard that card
  
• Turrets no longer do lengthy animation on turn when not firing, instead showing possible target tiles in red
  
• Game checks for save file issues, and offers a UI to decide how to handle them

• Several progression generation algorithm improvements
  
• Cards have been thoroughly balanced including buffing many max level cards
  
• Knockback and Stepback improved, including handling of big grimp knocking back from the 'pocket'
  
• Triobelisk card pool now contains all cards, previously exclusive cards added to the upgrade pool
  
• Traps and decoys can be placed anywhere on the map (this is super fun)
  
• Avenging grave doesn't spawn if the enemy killed is a spawn
  
• Conjuring bowl now offers resources, and has its own visuals with a cool new background
  
• Recipes are weighted, the chance of discovery is shown in the UI. The weight of upgrades vs initial cards grows with time
  
• Some categories of objects are placed with a better algorithm that spreads them out more evenly (food, resources to name a few)
  
• Eggs no longer sometimes spawn a tougher bug, which added randomness counter to the game's philosophy
  
• Rolling objects cut from game, wildstone source is now a huge crystal with high health. Note: we plan to bring them back in more puzzly scripted ways where they can shine!
  
• Graves drop loot when self destructing so there is no longer any hidden skill of knowing difference between grave and ghost loot.

• Rowan unlock fixed, and info is now clearer (just have chill of the wood active, and protect the friendly trees)
  
• Fixed several issues caused by an enemy dying on own turn and triggering an event with the wrong reference
  
• Camp UI no longer lies about possible crafting options
  
• Attempted fix for rare crash with regenerating weeds
  
• Invulnerable buff icon and tooltip info improved
  
• Weird scaling no longer happens when clicking a selected item in a choice UI

Thanks for playing ZOR, and hope to see you in the ridiculously dangerous wilds!
- Clint and Gavin

Last year as we finalized our plans to release, there was a huge choice to make:

Finish the game as is?
or
Take one final pass at the formula based on all the feedback we have received?

Well, Slorfs never give up, so of course we chose the latter, which is why we have been quiet for a while. It has been a very intense and nerve wracking few months, but the results have been amazing!

The changes coming in the next patch strike at the very heart of ZOR, and have meant an almost complete rebalancing of everything in the game.

There is way too much to cover in one diary, but today we are excited to finally share the major points, so lets get into it!


Four health? Excuse me?

This is the biggest change, and you will notice that the chess-like tension of “I need to find the perfect move” is diminished. It might feel weird at first, but that tension is replaced with something much, much better.

• Now the tension is about “how can I get through this clearing, and get every resource”
  
• The game is more forgiving in the turn to turn tactical gameplay, but the strategic level is more important.
  
• Difficulty can be tuned based on the fact that you just need to survive, so beating the boss with 1 health left no longer feels like failure. No more starting the level with 2 health and being ambushed by Thrix.
  
• The exciting ups and downs of being overconfident and then suddenly being in deep trouble, yet knowing that you are ok if you can just make it through
  
• The decision to take damage is now a valid tactical decision, no longer almost always a bad idea. For example you will still often kite an enemy but, you may just take one damage to reduce the movement needed
  
• Healing is now a short term tactical mechanic and not a long term maintenance task, which allows for it to be stronger and more prevalent than before
  
• Healing is also much more rich as a mechanic with cards like strain, and buffs based on damage being much more interesting and viable.

There is a weird saying in the world of writing: “Kill your babies”. It is meant to remind you not to cling irrationally to something that isn’t working. This was that feature in ZOR.

We have been nibbling around the edges of this design problem for years and finally decided to make a tactical withdrawal. The idea of cards being used as ingredients or for their action was something I stuck to for far too long, as it had some great moments (like picking up a rock and using it to take down a bug across the pond). More often though, they just clog the hand and prevent a draw. Also, the sheer number of ingredients leads to too much fragmentation in the crafting system where decisions are often made for you based on what you happen to have.

The cards that previously doubled as crafting components have been either:

• Converted into a resource - Stone, Bark, Claw, Eye and Wildstone are now resources
  
• Became a dual use consumable card - Fish, Nuts, Cane, Horn, Healing pods
  
• Removed - Branch, Shell

You can still occasionally get cards during the game, either via rare objects like the triobelisk, or from consumable card sources scattered among the clearings. All consumable cards now offer you two uses for the card. Knowing it's not a crafting component means no need to hoard (although lets be real, we all will)

Also something a long time coming: any time you gain a card in game, you have the choice to draw or discard the new card.



ZOR innovated on deck building by going all in on upgrades, which not only powers up your cards, but branches them into different directions. This replaces the deck thinning mechanics of most deck builders where you destroy your bad cards.

The problem with this system (that has been very difficult to solve) is that it always makes more sense to improve your cards rather than expand your deck. The main way we tried to solve this was either forcing new cards, or making them powerful enough to tempt you to expand. At the end of the day though, the tension of expand vs upgrade was just not where I had hoped for it to be.

Enter ambition and crafted card upgrades, a complete overhaul of the entire system.

The new system works like this:

• Experience is used for base cards. Upgrading as before, and now adding basic cards to the deck
  
• Resources are used to craft new cards, and the new ability to upgrade crafted cards.
  
• Ambition is used to improve the camp, and is gained from filling empty deck slots.

The result is that spending XP and resources is no longer torn between different screens and modes of thinking, but you will have to think carefully about expansion vs upgrades as filling slots now progresses your passive buffs from the camp improvement tree.

If you have played a ton of ZOR, it’s going to feel a bit weird at first, but it won’t take long to feel the benefits in a huge way.

Along the way we have also added content and fixed issues

• Many new cards and objects
  
• Soothe mechanic
  
• Tuning and bug fixes

We will get this update on the beta branch as soon as possible, and our focus will turn to:

• A bit more testing and we will get the build up on beta for everyone to try. Changes have been monumental so I expect some bugs we will have to jump on.
  
• Steam page and roadmap updates. Our page is a bit out of date and could use a refresh, also we are so close to release now we can safely create a roadmap that will be accurate and not constantly revised.
  
• Our next milestone will focus on UX, tuning and onboarding and we will get a demo back up

We hope on this very special Valentine's update you are feeling the love, and appreciate how absolutely possessed we have been with improving and fixing issues at the core of ZOR!

Thanks for playing ZOR,
Clint and Gavin