Zorbus is a fantasy-themed, graphical, turn-based, role-playing roguelike game. Your goal is to delve deep into a dungeon, find a portal to a mythical place called the Zorbus where a mere mortal can ascend to demigodhood. You don't have to go to the fight alone but can recruit other creatures along the way.
Being a roguelike game, Zorbus creates the dungeon randomly so that every played game is slightly different. The game uses permadeath meaning that when a character dies, it really is permanent and the player must begin a new game. You can save the game but the save file is deleted when loaded.
Thematically Zorbus draws influence from the late 70s and early 80s tabletop D&D campaigns, adventures and lore.
The goal is to create a tight dungeon crawling experience where the dungeon feels alive, eventful and rich in content. Diversely shaped levels with themed content (throne rooms, prisons, lots of hidden treasure caches etc.) with good connectivity between the areas.
There are bits of D&D-lore hidden in the game. Lots of familiar monsters from the various editions of D&D. The "skull on a red rectangle" death animation is straight from the Gold Box games.
The rule system for the game is slightly influenced by the d20 system used in the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Zorbus has experience levels but no character classes (race is selected). On each level up, you point buy skills and talents (mostly combat maneuvers and spells).
Zorbus needs Windows 7 or newer but also works in Linux with Wine. Can be run on Windows XP but without sound effects. The game is free.
More info and download here: http://www.zorbus.net
More screenshots: http://www.zorbus.net/gameplay.html
Random dungeon maps: http://www.zorbus.net/dungeon.html
