The Battle of Fell Desert

Devlog

• Version 0.0.052 - Keyboard controls to select actions
  September 01, 2025 by Chadius#keyboard controls

  You can use the keyboard to select actions. Press 1 to select the first listed action. 2 for the second, and 3 for the third. Sir Camil has 2 actions, so you would press 3 to end the turn. Nahla has 3... Continue reading

  
• Release 0.0.051: Attack Roll Thermometer
  August 26, 2025 by Chadius#attack roll, #animation, #thermometer

  Sir Camil attacks- it's a critical hit! Now you can see the attack roll animate through the 4 degrees of success. Visual Testing is a pain, especially when you have to code the animation logic by hand... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.050 - Attack Modifier Animation and a Readme
  August 16, 2025 by Chadius#attack animation, #ui, #readme

  Sir Camil sees the debuffs, no problem. I added a new animation underneath the die roll. Now you can see the modifiers in effect. The next step is to animate the thermometer and then I can start worki... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.049: Animated dice rolling and speedup
  August 10, 2025 by Chadius#pathfinding, #attack roll, #dice animation

  Sorry Nahla, it's your turn to demonstrate attacks. When you attack, the numbers you rolled will appear as well as the overall result. The goal is to get rid of the text boxes here, and that will happ... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.048: Training Wheels are go
  August 04, 2025 by Chadius#Training Wheels

  Take it easy until your first defeat The demons conveniently miss until you defeat your first target, who conveniently gets a critical hit. This should help newcomers in a relatively safe environment... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.047: New Reaction Drop
  July 26, 2025 by Chadius#Cutscene, #Event Trigger, #Bugfix, #Squaddie Selector

  I kicked a hornet's nest of Tech Debt this week, so I'm still not done with the training wheel buff. I had to rework how cutscenes are triggered so I can trigger other events. I added a method to trig... Continue reading

  
• Nahla Sketch
  July 19, 2025 by Chadius#Character Sketch, #Nahla, #Debug Mode

  Resketching Nahla Working on redrawing the main characters of the campaign. I have a sketch for Nahla figured out. I'm working on Sir Camil now. Last week: Debug Mode To get more control over the game... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.046: Status Ailment Tabs
  July 12, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Status Ailments, #Tabs, #Text, #Refactor, #Cleanup

  Now you can see modifiers and effects on a squaddie when you hover over or click on them. After you Raise Shield with Sir Camil or use Torrent Surge with Nahla you can see the effects. Hover over the... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.045: Action Hints
  July 06, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Attribute Modifier, #Status Effect, #Absorb

  What does Elusive mean, again? A small tab appears when you select an action with status ailments attached. Hover over them with the mouse to get more detail. I have also added an icon to represent Ab... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.044: Dialogue text formatting
  June 30, 2025 by Chadius#dialogue, #dialog, #text formatting

  Light week as I prepare for a needed vacation. The dialogue text is reformatted so I can add more text into a dialog box. The bad news is that the text changes size. The good news is that I don't have... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.043: Action Description
  June 22, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Action Selected Tile, #Bugfix, #Pathfinding, #Text Wrap

  Action UI Enhancements The Action Selected Tile was hard to read and understand, so I cleaned it up. Always displays AP cost, range and damage Text can break against multiple lines Text line wrap algo... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.042: Friendly targets turn green
  June 15, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Targeting

  Friendly units turn green when you target them. You can see Nahla trying to heal Sir Camil in the first screenshot. In the second Sir Camil is improving his own defenses. What's next? Rewrite the acti... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.041: Stability and Performance
  June 08, 2025 by Chadius#Performance, #Pathfinding

  A big performance boost during player turns. The Pathfinding algorithm is only run at the start of your turn and after your move. Used to be called every frame you tried to move. Whoops. I'll work on... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.040: Chance to hit update
  June 01, 2025 by Chadius#Action Preview, #Bugfix

  Action Preview now shows the real chance to hit The game rolls 2 six sided dice to determine hit rates. I now display that chance out of 36. In the screenshot, there is a 21 out of 36 chance to crit,... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.039: Minor Fix, New Portrait
  May 24, 2025 by Chadius#Select Target, #Birnham, #Bugfix

  Finally drew Birnham, the fourth member of the crew. He's a fire djinn and a demolitions expert who became a saboteur. He's good with smoke, explosives and Dad jokes.\ Otherwise this week is a small r... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.038: Free Range Movement
  May 19, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Free Range Movement

  Free Range Movement I've been blabbing about this since March. Finally got it running. So many bugs got squashed on the way over, but it's here. You can redo your movement until you take an action or... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.037: Targeting updates
  May 06, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Targeting, #File Access, #State Machine

  Under the covers, I finished rewriting the targeting system. There was a lot of rewriting that made it easier to test and fix some bugs. But it also took several weeks. As a bonus, only the valid targ... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.036: Smarter targeting for helpful abilities
  April 26, 2025 by Chadius#targeting

  This is an "under the hood" update where there was a lot of refactoring of the targeting system. There's only one change you will notice. When Nahla uses her Healing Touch, she now knows when people d... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.035: Cooldown and rounded buttons
  April 12, 2025 by Chadius#buttons, #ui, #Actions, #State Machine

  The start game button has rounded edges. The next 3 weeks will slow down in updates. Expect much smaller updates as I work on Free Range Movement. Rounded buttons The Start Game button and the Fast Fo... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.034 - Highlight Squaddies when acting and targeting
  April 05, 2025 by Chadius#State Machine, #UI, #Targeting, #Map Highlight, #Bugfix, #Movement

  Highlight actors and targets The currently acting squaddie fades in and out, and also has a white circle pulsing from them. This makes it clear who is acting. Also, potential targets glow red. You can... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.033 - Add to Collection, Target UI cleanup
  March 27, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Targeting, #Wishlist Button

  Add to Collection Now you can add this game to your Itch.io Collection right from the title screen. A new button and will take you straight to your collection page. Don't have an itch.io account? It w... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.032 - Scroll that Map
  March 22, 2025 by Chadius#map, #scrolling the map, #drawing the map, #bug fix

  This build adds more ways to scroll the map. Click and Drag - Just click on the map and move the mouse. Mouse Wheel - Mouse wheel will scroll vertically by default. Hold Shift to scroll horizontally... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.031: New moves, New tutorial
  March 16, 2025 by Chadius#ui, #tutorial, #miss chances

  Longer tutorial My tutorial was too brief - too much information at once, not enough information to assure players. So now I try to spell out more information. There are still pages that are too cramp... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.030: End Turn Button
  March 07, 2025 by Chadius#ui, #end turn, #faster enemies, #status ailment

  The end turn has a new look. I'm still struggling with the look and feel, but for now I'll make it clear. Under the covers, the old button style has been removed entirely. Skipping text in cutscenes a... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.029: Health Meter and Buttons
  March 01, 2025 by Chadius#Health, #Meter, #UI, #Buttons, #Loading Bug

  More button updates! Health Meter Above the Action Point Meter is a Health Meter. Had a lot of fun styling this. The bar will pulse faster when you are low on health. Nahla is at full health, 3 out of... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.028: Title Screen buttons show a hover state
  February 23, 2025 by Chadius#Button, #TItle Screen

  Title Screen buttons show a hover state When you hover the mouse over the start button and continue button, they will react. That will help them look more like buttons. This is the first fruits of my... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.027: Squaddie Selector
  February 17, 2025 by Chadius#ui, #squaddie select

  HUD is always open You no longer have to select which character to control first - one is always selected for you. Squaddie Selector I added buttons to switch between characters. You could already swi... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.025: New Game Title, Movement Action Point preview
  February 10, 2025 by Chadius#title, #action points, #hud, #movement

  The Battle for Fell Desert Lady of Arid Tranquility That's the new title and subtitle. We'll keep it simple, have a marketable name that won't cause collisions, and it's mysterious enough to be memora... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.025: Name change, preview action points
  January 30, 2025 by Chadius#Action Point Meter, #Character rename, #HUD

  Torrin's name is Nahla now Say hello to Nahla, formerly known as Torrin. Her stats are the same, but her name is more appropriate. It has roots to Arabic and African languages referring to the first d... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.24: Demo Night feedback
  January 23, 2025 by Chadius#demo night, #feedback, #ui, #targeting

  Boston Indies Demo Night Wow, so much feedback. The UI still sucks, but it's good enough that some people fought through it long enough to ask about gameplay. I got about 7 responses. Here's the highl... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.23: KO!
  January 17, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Preview Window, #Loading

  Just in time for Demo Night. KO! If your attack deals enough damage to defeat the target, the forecast will show "KO!" Here's a screenshot of Torrin about to blast a demon to oblivion. Loading Fixes A... Continue reading

  
• Version 0.0.022: Keyboard Camera Controls
  January 09, 2025 by Chadius#keyboard controls, #text, #refactor

  Screen Scroll You can now use Shift + Arrows to scroll the screen. I am adding more keyboard controls for a faster way to play (assuming you remember all of the key binds.) Bug Fixes Version 0.0.021 a... Continue reading
• Version 0.0.021: Preview Window
  January 01, 2025 by Chadius#UI, #Preview Window, #Race Condition, #Map Icon

  Happy New Years, folks. Preview Window! I'm glad for the week of work off, because this window took way too long. It gave me several ideas to codify UI creation and drawing so I can reuse some of it... Continue reading

  
• Action preview updates
  December 23, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Action Preview, #Attack Range

  Improvements to the action preview: An icon shows the action you selected and the general summary of what it does. When you click on the target, the effect is displayed OK and Cancel buttons appear to... Continue reading

  
• Elusive: Enemies don't block
  December 19, 2024 by Chadius#Elusive, #Status, #Pathfinding, #Rolling, #DegreeOfSuccess, #0.0.019

  Elusive lets you pass through enemies Torrin's Torrent Surge now lets her pass through enemies so they can't block her way. Not super useful right now but the next playable character will benefit grea... Continue reading

  
• New UI: Basic stats
  December 10, 2024 by Chadius#UI

  Yeah, that took a lot of work. But hey, new interface. Next to your name and portrait is: Armor Hit Points Action Points Movement per action Also your map coordinates which will help me a lot while de... Continue reading

  
• Engine update
  December 04, 2024 by Chadius

  Now with Vite I was using Webpack up until now. Vite's faster, the configuration makes much more sense, and the final game is about half the size as before (so it will load faster for you.) You should... Continue reading
• Beginning new UI: Name and portrait
  November 23, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Status

  UI updates take way longer than I thought. When you click on or hover over a squaddie, you will see their name and portrait appear in a new window. I'm keeping the old window underneath so you can see... Continue reading

  
• Torrin can ignore rough terrain
  November 16, 2024 by Chadius#Movement, #UI, #Torrin

  Torrin has a new action: Torrent Surge! It's used to cross around difficult terrain like sand. She will ignore movement penalties and treat 1 square as costing 1 movement. It costs 1 action, so she us... Continue reading

  
• Even Smaller Text boxes!
  November 09, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Text, #Refactor

  This build has smaller text windows and truncated text. I felt my writing was too wordy. There's a major refactoring project I was working on for several months behind the scenes, and it's finally ove... Continue reading
• Click to Move towards enemies... again
  November 02, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Click to Move

  This release has one change - Torrin can click on enemies to move closer to them. Also if she moved already, you can click on Sir Camil and she'll close in to help him. There's a 1000 page book on AI... Continue reading
• Shield disabled, Track criticals
  October 26, 2024 by Chadius#Mission Statistics, #Critical Hits, #UI

  Raise Shield works once per turn Disable the Raise Shield action if it's been used already. If the action would try to buff you but fail, it will be disabled. Right now this works for Sir Camil. Torri... Continue reading

  
• Disable invalid actions and animate pathfinding
  October 20, 2024 by Chadius#ui, #map, #pathfinding, #invalid actions

  This week brings a few UI improvements. Expensive actions are grayed out Torrin's Healing Touch costs 2 Action Points. If she only has 1, it will be grayed out. If you hover over the action, it will t... Continue reading

  
• Animation Update for Critical Hits
  October 13, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Commands, #Attack Animation, #Save

  Critical Hits even when you don't roll a 12 Against these enemies, rolling 6+6 was a critical hit, and Torrin and Sir Camil would react by charging in! But 5+6 or 6+5 was also a critical hit. Now, the... Continue reading
• Highlight enemy range: Now less grating
  October 05, 2024 by Chadius#ui, #map, #enemy range

  The most recent update includes a new color scheme for enemy range. When you hover or click on them, a dull purple overlay forms. It was hard to stare at all of the blue. Next up: A few UI improvement... Continue reading
• Absorb damage with a new status
  September 27, 2024 by Chadius#Absorb, #Status Effect, #Sir Camil

  Absorb When Sir Camil raises his shield, he will absorb 1 HP worth of damage. You can see the big bright Absorb HP in his HUD. When he gets hit he'll lose the absorb first before taking damage. This i... Continue reading

  
• Smaller Text boxes
  September 14, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #ui, #TextWindows, #Production, #Version0.0.006

  Changes for this release: Smaller text boxes so I can position them differently and avoid long lines of text. Acutally using a production build, which should increase performance. You can't stack the... Continue reading

  
• Click to Move towards enemies
  September 06, 2024 by Chadius#Moving, #Refactor

  3 weeks in the making, you can move towards enemies by selecting Torrin or Sir Camil and then clicking directly on a demon. You will move into melee range. A few caveats: You move into melee, even if... Continue reading
• Highlight enemy range
  August 24, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Range

  Preview Enemy Range You can now hover over enemies to see their movement range- no need to click. Now, if you DO click, you can "lock" their movement range so you can click on multiple squaddies to co... Continue reading

  
• More Raise Shield updates
  August 17, 2024 by Chadius#Version0.0.003, #UI, #Armor, #Buff, #ActionPoints

  Raise Shield in detail Here are some screenshots showcasing Raise Shield in action. An icon showcases Sir Camil's Armor bonus after using Raise Shield. Here's the button for Raise Shield. And the atta... Continue reading

  
• Shields! Armor!
  August 16, 2024 by Chadius#Buffs, #UI

  Sir Camil can Raise Shield and increase his Armor by 1 until the start of his next turn. Now he's less likely to get hit. After using it you can see a shield icon in his summary. ...So many bugs just... Continue reading
• Add a version number
  August 03, 2024 by Chadius#version

  Tucked in the lower left corner is text displaying the version number. Right now it's 0.0.2. This week had mostly behind the scenes fixes. There will be more for the next release. My goal for the next... Continue reading
• Preview squaddies by hovering over them
  July 28, 2024 by Chadius#UI

  Now you can preview squaddies by hovering over them. The window will eventually disappear, unless you click on it. Here's a screen shot of the preview windows appearing when you use abilities. I'll ha... Continue reading

  
• Target Summary Window
  July 08, 2024 by Chadius

  This release allows me to show two summary windows, which took more work than I thought it would. Now you can see the actor and their target. (Here's a screenshot of Torrin about to attack a demon, no... Continue reading

  
• NPC statuses appear on the right side
  July 05, 2024 by Chadius#UI

  NPC status is in the lower right corner Characters you can control are in the lower left corner, but NPCs like enemies are in the lower right. Thanks to all of the refactoring this was a quick change... Continue reading

  
• Action Buttons are closer. Look at that tech debt!
  July 02, 2024 by Chadius

  New button placement The action buttons have been moved from the bottom of the screen to nearby your mouse when you click. Now you don't have to travel as far to attack or end your turn. The move butt... Continue reading

  
• Here's a hint: Heal yourself!
  June 09, 2024 by Chadius

  1

  #Tutorial, #Cutscene, #Messaging

  The first time Torrin or Sir Camil is injured, they will give a hint to the player to use Torrin's Healing Touch ability. During demo, I noticed some players were too wound up attacking to heal. Some... Continue reading

  
• Performance boost and Map Textures
  May 28, 2024 by Chadius#Bug, #Images, #Map

  Finally fixed the crash bug. And I can add textured map sprites, too. Before this update, running this game on Firefox would crash after about 20 minutes. Chrome wouldn't crash but instead would play... Continue reading

  
• Boston Indies demo game night
  May 23, 2024 by Chadius

  Thank you, everyone who tried out Torrin's Trial yesterday, whether in person or online. Bringing an extension cable was a good idea, Boston Indies was packed! Also the tagline did its job. If you did... Continue reading
• Memory Leak fix
  May 19, 2024 by Chadius

  Build has been updated to reduce CPU usage and avoid a memory leak. Offscreen Map Tiles are no longer rendered. This is the build I will take to Boston Indies Demo Night. Let's see what feedback I get... Continue reading
• Demo ready
  May 19, 2024 by Chadius

  I may have one more build ready by Tuesday. The biggest change is adding a pop up window that warns you if you haven't finished moving Torrin when you try to move Sir Camil (and vice versa.) I noticed... Continue reading
• Boston Indies demo game night
  May 13, 2024 by Chadius#Boston Indies, #Testing, #UI

  Boston Indies is hosting a game demo night on May 21st. If you're in the area feel free to show up on MIT's open space near Kendall Square that evening. Compared to the demo night on Tuesday, I've foc... Continue reading
• Title Screen update and new UI plans
  May 04, 2024 by Chadius#title screen, #ui

  The last 2 weeks were spent tweaking the title screen to make it less messy. The tutorial screen is a lot shorter and sweeter as well. Too many words! Besides that I did a bunch of behind-the-scenes w... Continue reading

  
• Title Screen and some new controls
  April 23, 2024 by Chadius#UI, #Title Screen, #Controls

  The work on the new UI is in progress, but I added a few updates to the current one. Right Mouse Click cancels everything but movement. Keyboard controls: Enter confirms, Escape cancels (backspace and... Continue reading

  
• New Logo!
  April 14, 2024 by Chadius#logo, #Mica Fishman

  Mica Fishman ( https://micafishman.com/ ) designed a new logo. A bit more professional than my programmer art can handle. It was a joy working with her. The next build will redesign the title screen t... Continue reading

  
• GUI rewrite, step 1: Save and Load buttons
  March 30, 2024 by Chadius#UI

  My first UI change: Move the save and load buttons to their own component with their own rules. The upper left corner now shows Save and Load buttons. Now Saving and Loading are separate concepts. Nex... Continue reading
• Map Icon status bars
  February 29, 2024 by Chadius

  This week's update adds a few more UI updates. If you don't have full health or full actions, we'll draw 1 or 2 bars on your map icon. The gray one on top represents your remaining actions while the b... Continue reading

  
• Action Icons
  February 23, 2024 by Chadius

  I've finally updated the new icons on the HUD. It took a month to set this up due to loads of tech debt, but it was worth it. Bow = Long range attack Heart = Healing ability Sword = Melee attack The i... Continue reading

  
• Refactor
  February 17, 2024 by Chadius

  In my attempt to update the action template icons I realized I had to refactor the whole thing. So no obvious changes on the outside for this release... Continue reading
• Bug fixes
  January 26, 2024 by Chadius#bugfix, #campaign

  This was another "lots of bug fixes under the hood" release. - When you try to Load or Continue, several bugs would crop up if you canceled the file dialog. Sometimes your game would load an empty fil... Continue reading
• 3rd character sketch, bug fixes.
  January 22, 2024 by Chadius

  Minor patch, as there was a lot of fixes under the hood. I spent some of my time drawing the third teammate, Petra. She's an earth djinn who focuses on stealth and sneak attacks. But that's a ways off... Continue reading

  
• Multiple Attack Penalty and HUD updates
  January 12, 2024 by Chadius

  Hello everyone. Here's what changed. Multiple Attack Penalty To encourage more strategic decisions, there's a penalty if you attack more than once per round. The enemies obey this rule, too. You can f... Continue reading

  
• Critical Hits, Pathfinding, RNG
  December 24, 2023 by Chadius

  Torrin's Trial went through a beefy upgrade, just in time for the New Year. 1 Critical Hits and chances to miss - You'll see a juicy MISS if your attack roll is too low. Deal double damage with a CRIT... Continue reading
• Chance to hit. Continue game from the start.
  December 10, 2023 by Chadius

  Chance to hit Armor finally matters: Attacks have a chance to hit. You will roll 2 six-sided dice and add them up to determine if you hit or not. Here's Sir Camil deftly dodging an attack. Continue fr... Continue reading

  
• Minor updates
  December 04, 2023 by Chadius

  Not too much happened for this release, but I did move the attack vs defender windows closer. I'm switching from loading files to working on RNG. Now your attacks will have a chance to miss and a chan... Continue reading
• Saving! Again!
  November 27, 2023 by Chadius#Saving, #BugFix

  Working on bugs while saving. Extracting world state into an interface and checking its stability is tough. I tripped on so many integration issues! I'll have to roll out some kind of automation scrip... Continue reading
• Saving and Statistics
  November 13, 2023 by Chadius

  Saving You can now save and load your progress. During your turn, you can click on "save" to download a file. Then you can click on "load" to bring that file back. Expect incompatibilities in the futu... Continue reading
• Testing is open
  October 12, 2023 by Chadius#testing, #update

  Torrin's Trial is now available for testing. Click "Launch Game" to try it out. You need a web browser and a screen resolution of 1280x768. Guide Torrin and Sir Camil as they clear out a temple courty... Continue reading