Dev Diary: Update Preview

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?

Health now replenishes each camp

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.

Cards are no longer used as crafting components

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

Dual use consumable cards

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.

Crafting Overhaul: Ambition and Upgrades

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.

And More!

Along the way we have also added content and fixed issues

• Many new cards and objects

• Soothe mechanic

• Tuning and bug fixes

Next Steps

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