Zephon
ZEPHON Demo 1 (Aug 3rd-10th)
Come join us in celebration of incredible small development teams and let us know your thoughts about ZEPHON.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
This is an early look at an in-development alpha version of the game. As such, there will be bugs, imbalances and missing assets.
The demo is limited to single player against one opponent on a tiny map. 2 leaders are available for selection and 1 NPC faction is present. Research progress is limited to the first 3 tech tiers and the game ends at turn 50.
The full version will contain co-op and pvp multiplayer, larger maps, advanced world generation parameters, 8 leaders, 3 NPC factions, over 50 units spread across 10 tiers of research, more terrain features and quests, an end-game grand finale, unlockable game modifiers, achievements, multiple languages as well as full workshop support.
ZEPHON Gameplay Trailer
The release date has been pushed back to 2024 to allow us to release a full version and give you the best experience possible.
In the meantime, we'll have a public demo coming in August. Wishlist and follow on Steam so you stay up to date!
ZEPHON Battleground After The Apocalypse
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Battleground After The Apocalypse
In this video, Abkluth Dragoons are coming out of a sandstorm to surprise and kill a missile team.
The map in ZEPHON is split into 6 different climate types.
Each climate has unique visuals, ambient sounds, gameplay boni and special phenomena.
The permanent climate-wide terrain bonus is economically focused—incentivizing specialized build strategies—while the phenomena are dynamic and shake up gameplay on the tactical level.
To mark each climate, region names will appear prominently on the map—alongside messages that someone is leaving for you …
This month we’ll be showing 3 of our 6 climates.
Desert
Open plains and stable weather made the desert a remarkably stable environment for generating electricity. But it gave our workers one hell of a hostile environment to work in. Dehydration could take down humans and aliens alike, and sandstorms did particularly nasty work to machines.
Properties:
· +20% energy output
· Sandstorms appear and travel across the region
· +33% ranged damage reduction
· +1 movement cost
· Blocks line of sight
Region name examples: Maldean Wastes, Slumbering Sandridge, The Scoripus Ridgebacks.
Construct
ZEPHON must have needed an inconceivable amount of power to wage its war against the Acrin. The techs guessed that if fossil fuels or renewables were being quickly taken online, it would react by building zones like these to generate a new, power-efficient resource. If you got far enough into one of these zones, you'd start to think the planet was now one giant machine.
Properties:
· +20% chips output
· A segment of tiles have Arc Discharge on them
· +10% damage output
· 5% self damage on attack
Region name examples: Point Upsilon, Elseif Assembly, Cerebumcore.
Swamp
All kinds of life made its home in the Swamps—if you could handle the humidity, you'd be able to find plenty of food to keep your army on its feet. Experienced trackers knew to watch for muddy terrain—if your feet sunk in too far, you were easy picking for any hunters on your trail.
Properties:
· +20% food output
· Chance for forest-adjacent tile to become forest
· Cicadas appear for a limited time every 10 turns on all forest and adjacent tiles
· +20% food output
· -10% healing rate
Region name examples: Crookkiller Swamp, Falaya Basin, Siren Marsh.
What do you think? Let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
ZEPHON Sentries
Join our Discord to follow each segment of a reveal as it happens every Monday.
Sentries
Guard bot.
ZEPHON wanted nothing to do with us. It could have just told us that directly. Instead it posted up Sentries that looked to be guarding something. We learned really quickly that they could hold a grudge. If you were the kind of grunt who liked to stomp ants because they couldn’t hit back, boy were these things a pain in the ass. More like an ant that would chew through your boot and try to take a few toes out before you put it down.
Mechanics
ZEPHON Unit · Tier 2
Attributes:
· 3 group members, 5 armor, 18 hitpoints, 4 accuracy, 8 morale, 2 movement
Traits:
· Mechanical: Classification
· Sentry Protocols: Always attacks if neutral (not ZEPHON-controlled)
Machines that wandered the wasteland didn’t care whose flag you marched under. They did care if you entered their line of sight and, if they were programmed to do so, they’d open fire without hesitation. You couldn’t even squeeze in a friendly “hello.”
Weapons:
· Armor-Piercing Minigun: 1.5 damage, 2 armor penetration, 3 attacks, 2 range
· Crippling
· Applies Crippled to non-Large units for 1 turn
· -67% movement
Spraying a hailstorm of armor-piercing bullets was bad enough, but this piece of hardware crippled infantry and recon. Once your prey slowed down, you could just chew them up until there was nothing left.
Abilities:
· Combat Routine: Usable if below 100% hitpoints, +2 accuracy for 3 turns, 10 turn cooldown.
The first machines we encountered weren’t always fully ready for combat—but they would be once the shooting started. It was eerie how they’d become better shots once they took a hit. Some kind of triangulation subroutine or something.
Cost:
· 30 production (5 turns), 16 minerals, 16 chips
Upkeep:
· 0.75 minerals, 0.75 chips
Design Commentary
The Sentry is a smaller cousin to ZEPHON’s fearsome Warden.
Sentry Protocols is an in-setting way for us to imbue neutral units with special AI behavior. Designed to protect key infrastructure, the Sentry’s default behavior is to relentlessly shoot on sight—which it will unless it’s synced to ZEPHON’s main control shard.
For contrast and to make this AI behavior less punishing, Combat Routine means the Sentry won’t be able to dish out its full damage potential unless attacked first.
Nonetheless, due to the Sentry's weapon possessing additional armor piercing capabilities, it is wise to exercise caution when deploying swift scouts on exploration missions.
What do you think? Let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
ZEPHON Ishim Enforcers
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Ishim Enforcers
Laser cyborg that can heal itself.
“A soldier’s broken body was just the foundation for a better weapon. Paralyzed? They shunted your spine. Missing limbs? They'd give you something better. Pretty soon they were standardizing the replacement parts and just outfitting the soldiers with them, whether they needed them or not.”
Mechanics
Cyber Unit · Tier 1
Attributes:
· 6 group members, 4 armor, 18 hitpoints, 6 accuracy, 8 morale, 3 movement
Traits:
· Biological: Classification
“We had a lot in common with the monsters we faced. They bled like us, breathed like us, and died like us. Humans were always good at hurting other humans. It just took a little creativity to hurt our enemies in the same way.”
· Mechanical: Classification
“You know what’s funny? People make machines to solve complicated problems. But on the battlefield, a machine becomes a problem to solve. Sometimes it took special skills to bring them down. Sometimes you just needed a bigger machine.”
· Shoulder Plate (Upgrade · Tier 2): +17% cover damage reduction
“Our techs didn't hit on this armor—the Enforcers did. One of them kicked in the door on a strategy session and unceremoniously dumped a prototype version of the armor on our war table. "Make more of these" was all he said before leaving the room.”
· Tactical Visor (Upgrade · Tier 3): +2 accuracy when adjacent to another allied Ishim Enforcer.
“Ishim Enforcers were the first cyborgs we created with access to networked intelligence. Our techs cooked up visors that could triangulate enemy positions by pulling data from different Enforcers together. Only problem was, you needed your troops to be close to each other for reliable targeting metrics.”
Weapons:
· Laser Gun: 1.5 damage, 1 armor penetration, 1 attack, 2 range
· Laser
· +2 accuracy
· Applies Low Power to non-Low Power weapon for 1 turn
· -50% damage
“A laser gun fires in a straight line from A to B. There’s no bullet drop, no wind resistance, nothing. Soldiers used to complain that they took the art out of aiming. Luckily we were still students in the art of killing. In time these became some of our favorite tools of the trade.”
Abilities:
· Cauterize Wounds: Restore 50% hitpoints, 10 turn cooldown
“The first soldiers we augmented with cybernetic tech were still vulnerable to attacks on vital organs. With a little extra programming, our techs could numb their pain sensors, but they still needed to be patched up. If they already couldn’t feel pain, there was no reason to not let them cauterize their own wounds.”
Cost:
· 30 production (5 turns), 8 food, 8 minerals, 16 chips
Upkeep:
· 0.4 food, 0.4 minerals, 0.8 chips
Voice Over Script
Direction: [Masculine. Calm, unused to new strength]
· Attack: “This is what I was made for.” “You’re going to die now.” “I hope this hurts. A lot.”
· Move: “I think I can do that.” “That’s in reach.” “Knew I should have stayed home today.”
· Hold Position: “Don’t make me wait… please.”
· Select: “I’m here—or, what’s left of me is.” “You said something? “Ready for the human race.”
· Appear: “Cleared for combat.”
· Endure High Damage: “I thought that would hurt more.”
· Kill: “We can scavenge them for spare parts.”
· Cauterize Wounds: “I—*grunts* I can still fight.” [A nasty sizzling noise playing under this would help sell the cauterizing.]
· Poke: “Killers aren’t born. They’re made in a factory.”
Design Commentary
With Ishim Enforcers we’re starting the Cyber path with a sturdy front-line infantry unit. Especially after acquiring the Shoulder Plate upgrade, they can truly take a beating compared to other early-game units. Cauterize Wounds then allows them to recover their health so they can stay in prolonged fights—this is such an essential element to the unit that we did not want to gate it behind an upgrade.
Their armament introduces the Laser category of weapons—an accurate, but power hungry gun that needs to cool off between shots to do maximum damage. We’ve found that this makes their use very tactical—and synergies beautifully with sacrificing an attack to use Cauterize Wounds.
Aesthetically, Ishim Enforcers represent humans merging with machines. Initially the process is grotesque, replacing individual limbs and augmenting senses in a crude way. Still, the Ishim operate on a biological substrate and a human brain.
You may have wondered about the inspiration for their naming. For earlier tier Cyber units we’re using a mix of religious connotations and basic technology. Later on, we delve deeper into transcendental and angelic themes—these won’t be just simple robots after all.
What do you think? Let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
ZEPHON Missile Team
Join our Discord to follow each segment of a reveal as it happens every Monday.
Missile Team
Anti-armor infantry with a walking missile launcher.
“Plenty of Militants were eager to pilot anti-armor bots far from the battlefield, but resentment grew quickly between the missile operators and front-line grunts. The solution? We docked rations every time the Missile Team pilots tripped their drones or missed a shot. It was better if they hated us—not each other.”
Mechanics
Human Unit
Attributes:
· 3 group members, 12 hitpoints, 4 armor, 6 accuracy, 6 morale, 3 movement.
Traits:
· Biological: Category. “Humans were always good at hurting other humans.”
· Mechanical: Category. “Sometimes you just needed a bigger machine.”
Weapons:
· Missile Launcher: 6 damage, 5 armor penetration, 1 attack, 3 range.
Heavy: -50% accuracy if unit has moved.
“I had a friend who treated the Missile Launcher like a sacred weapon. They waxed poetic about how standing still to properly aim one drew power from the earth itself. They died out in an open field, exposed to a sniper’s bullet.”
Abilities:
· Grounded Fire (Upgrade · Tier 3): Attack with +2 accuracy. 5 turn cooldown.
“Steady hands made for a steady shot. Same was true for the Missile Team’s attack platforms. Digging your heels into the ground… bracing yourself to absorb the shots’ recoil… it was good enough for men and even better for mechs.”
Cost:
· 30 production (5 turns), 16 food, 16 minerals.
Upkeep:
· 0.8 food, 0.8 minerals.
Voice Over Script
Direction: [Masculine, nerdy, like Radar from M*A*S*H.]
· Attack: “Danger close. Get clear!” “Arming munitions.” “You’re just in time for the fireworks.”
· Move: “Inputting coordinates.” “Ah… that’s still in range, right?” “Let’s hoof it.”
· Hold Position: “Fine, but we’re sitting ducks here.”
· Selected: “What do you need scrapped?” “Munitions delivery, at your service.” “Don’t let them get close.”
· Produced: “Portable missile platform ready to deploy.”
· Damaged: [Spoken calmly, like the operator is watching from a distance.] “The bot’s taking fire, requesting backup.”
· Enemy Killed: “Nothing but rubble.”
· Grounded Fire: [Hold the first letter in “and.”] “Hold—and—fire!”
· Poke: “I’m always worried about making this thing trip.”
Design Commentary
Happy Christmas to everyone!
As Command & Conquer made tradition, we think every game needs a rocket soldier. This is ours.
The unique twist is that the soldier isn’t just carrying a rocket launcher on his shoulder—he’s accompanied by a small two-legged mech to fire guided missiles. Have you seen …
A weapons range of 3 tiles with a focus against armored units makes this an early staple in a Human-centric army. The addition of Grounded Fire is especially useful to improve the mech’s accuracy after moving.
It also symbolizes the Human path’s continuous, but not full mechanization. It’s one of only 4 units in ZEPHON to be both Biological and Mechanical.
What do you think? Let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular reveals and exclusive closed betas to your inbox: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/
ZEPHON Build Cities For The Great War
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Buildings
“Let’s build something great here.”
Cities in ZEPHON have a radius of control that can be expanded by acquiring tiles. Though not for free. Each tile under the city’s command costs influence upkeep, but on these tiles you can construct buildings—the ever-important backbone of the economy. Your Construction Yard needs several turns to finish construction of each building. Once complete, you’ll pay an energy upkeep to keep the building operational—and of course sacrifice a worker’s time—but only by scaling your war machinery can you stand a chance against the horrors of post-apocalyptic Earth.
Familiar to players of Gladius, your production is split into different parallel queues under corresponding groups of buildings—so your city can create both Human infantry and Voice creatures simultaneously. One change to the formula is in the Construction Yard which can now produce Engineers to found cities; and to the Headquarters which trains heroes of all three branches.
Each building in ZEPHON has an entirely unique model. So you can recognize their branch as well as their function.
Let’s take a look at some human buildings …
(The graphics are still work-in-progress—by release we’ll have city walls, faction flags, dynamic lights, and better illumination and reflections.)
Barracks
“You never won any war without the grunts. Before you cracked open any advanced technology or gave into The Voice, you needed armed bodies primed for death. Great soldiers could come out of the infantry ranks—but they had to survive first.”
The Barracks train Human infantry units and do not need to be researched. As a side-effect they increase the population limit and help keep the population loyal.
It can produce: Militants, Missile Teams, Combat Medics, Assault Troopers and Praetorians.
It can be upgraded with Itinerant Recruiters, boosting production of Militants and Missile Teams.
Transuranium Stabilizer
“Now, this, I won't pretend to understand. I know the transuranic elements are unstable. I know that in that instability, there's huge amounts of latent energy. I don't know how the machines worked that stopped it escaping—that made those elements into something dense and unearthly strong. I don't know if there's anyone alive who understands, to be fair.”
Resources extracted from the ground aren’t enough for advanced units. The Transuranium Stabilizer converts minerals into transuranium—one requirement for high-end Human units.
Orbital Uplink
“The ground part of this system was familiar enough—a set of high-powered transmitters and dishes. But what it was communicating with wasn't—the wreck of the human satellite network mingled with the destroyed alien fleet. The clever bit was using the former to manipulate the latter for benefit on the ground. It mostly worked.”
Here operations for the Human path are constructed. Think of operations as stored-up abilities that can be used globally. As a side-effect the Orbital Uplink also increases research and influence for the player.
As an example, it can produce Orbital Scans, allowing you to reveal when and which enemy troops are moving under the fog of war.
Later on you’ll be able to create connections to Orbital Missile Silos floating since before the apocalypse and launch nuclear weapons. Maybe one apocalypse wasn’t enough for us.
What do you think? Let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
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ZEPHON 4 Big New Defensive Structures
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City Headquarters
“Defending the heart of a city took a certain kind of grit. If you saw action while stationed here, there’d be no running. This job was for the stubborn and the stupid—those who’d rather die than lose pride in defeat.”
The centers of economy and human life—cities. And towering at their core is a defensive structure, canonically dubbed Headquarters.
Each emplacement is generally equipped with 9 machine gun turrets and 3 missile launchers and looks unique to each leader.
Heartless Artificer
“Man can be more again. Become more by becoming less.”
Everyone was changed by survival. Some found themselves changed in their beliefs, others re-affirmed.
This one entered as an architect—and exited the same. But in the process, other things were stripped away—nation, family, love.
Honorable Aristocrat
“Oh, you simply must try one of these. Deviled Abkluth eyeggs, my chef pulled the spines by hand. Eine Delikatesse, I won’t take no for an answer!”
The Aristocrat was young when the sky fell—but his parents were connected globally and he was taken into a government bunker with them at the first sign.
He sat out the rapture, the war, the fallout, the starvation. His only complaint was that the preserved food was appalling and that no-one had thought to bring herbs or spices.
Fallen Soldier
“I know death. I’ve survived it—and I’ll train you to do the same.”
The Fallen Soldier never made it to a bunker. He was already dead. For cowardice in the face of the enemy—or rather, for desertion in the face of his elite platoon being crisped from space and the sky being on fire and the world ending—he was made an example of. Tried, convicted, executed as the world burned around them.
It kept him occupied, at least.
Hesitant Chieftess (NPC)
“D’yer mind if we skip the chit chat and go straight to stabbin’? I’m a bit fucked off from killing all yer mates.”
The Raider and her people survived the end of the world on the planet’s surface. To emphasize how rare that is, this is when nuclear blasts were scattered in the sky and the sea was evaporated.
Somehow the Raider’s crew lived through both the short war and the long fallout and thrived. No-one else who encountered them at that time did, though.
What do you think of the city headquarters?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular reveals and exclusive closed betas to your inbox: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/
ZEPHON Sound Effects Reveal
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Sound Effects
This time we’re putting extra effort into creating custom sound effects for every ability.
But aural enhancements don’t end there.
Weapon Sounds
In Gladius we only used single-shot weapon sounds—even for automatic weapons. This often decreased fidelity, overburdened the audio mix and decreased performance.
ZEPHON not only utilizes continuous-fire sounds where appropriate, but also supports wind-up/down sounds and delay firing of individual weapons.
The additional sounds let us create things like realistic whirring-up and cooling-down of machine cannons. Staggering when weapons fire adds drama and distinction to the attacks. The resulting experience is much more pleasant.
Algorithmic Variation
We also have a new computational technique: algorithmic sound variation.
It’s common to vary the pitch of a sound effect each time it’s played—you see this in sound effect tutorials all over the internet. We go a few steps further.
On top of randomizing the pitch and volume over the whole sound, we’re also using digital signal processing to take several randomized portions of the frequency spectrum and attenuating or amplifying them to varying amounts.
For looping sounds (like continuous weapon fire, movement and ambient), we’re additionally randomizing the offset at which point the sound starts playing.
All of this is to prevent listener fatigue—to try to keep the feeling fresh, but familiar.
UI Ambiance
Immersion is of critical importance for us with ZEPHON. That’s why we’re creating unique ambiance clips for each different screen, leader and quest.
This is it for audio for the moment; we’ll have more, exciting reveals about voice-overs later down the line.
What do you think of the improved audio systems?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive regular reveals and exclusive closed betas to your inbox: https://newsletter.proxy-studios.com/
ZEPHON Research Reveal
Join our Discord to follow each segment of a reveal as it happens every Monday.
Research
ZEPHON’s research continues the tradition of a tiered progression system. It will feature over 150 technologies across 10 tiers. To advance from one tier to the next, 3 technologies are required.
That may sound like a lot compared to Gladius, but we’re reducing research costs by 33% to compensate. Instead of a baseline of 6 turns to unlock a new technology, it will now only take 4 turns.
If that’s not to your taste for any reason, research cost and unlocks per tier will be customizable per game as a world setting.
Players begin by attempting to recover from a primitive and scrappy level of technology in the first third of the game (post-apocalyptic, think Mad Max), followed by a more advanced second third (Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell paired with magic), to a highly advanced last third (Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe or Dan Simmons’ Hyperion).
Each leader will also have 5 special technologies to enhance their unique properties—spread evenly through the research tiers.
We are pushing the boundaries of modifiers to new degrees. It’s very exciting to see conditional building bonuses in action—scaling building output depending on terrain features or even synergizing with other buildings to create combat effects in a radius.
To make all of this clear, we’re adding an often-requested Gladius feature: showing exact modifier numbers in technology hints. No need to search through the compendium for the information anymore.
Specimen Containment
Many of our early learnings were rediscovering what went before. In time, though, we realised how much the familiar had shifted—how far man had killed off Earth’s species before the Acrin even arrived and how much new life the aliens had brought with them across the stars, life that filled out the world’s emptied niches. Capturing and studying that new life proved to be inspirational for our eventual victory…
Tier 1 : Human : Player Upgrade
Gain research from killing unaligned neutral units.
In Death, Life
An old flame once told me how the Aztecs or the Mayans—one of those dead empires—how their gods drew power from bloody sacrifice in their city centers. I didn’t understand what she meant until I saw troops mown down on the doorstep of a Voice-corrupted city and heard the unearthly ullulation from within. Whether it was true magic or just motivation, that city grew strong on death.
Tier 3 : Voice : Building Upgrade
Regain production from biological units that die in 6 tile radius from the headquarters in each Canticle of Dusk in the city.
The Mind's Eye
When I was a young fool, gossip went around; of a scientist, a genius, who died attempting to fulfil that old billionaire dream of living forever by uploading herself. It didn’t work, of course-the giant machine was inert, unmotivated, left operating as a curiosity. Until ZEPHON found it and brought that mind to life, focussing its will as a weapon against the invading Acrin. In time, its—I should say, ‘her’—her will could stretch for miles, a thought could snuff out an enemy half a world away. A good reason not to gossip anymore…
Tier 5 : Cyber : Unit Upgrade : Emulated Mind Leader Special
Doubles Oblivion weapon range on headquarters.
What do you think of the new research mechanics? Discuss it below and let us know!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
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