Author Archives: Herbie

The Necropolis Awaits

Posted by Herbie on

Screenshot11

Hey folks. :) Interdict just received a new, fairly beefy update. Two months in the making, it adds a whole lot of new things including:

  • Necropolis, the second dungeon! Necropolis adds four new dungeon floors to explore, allowing the party to reach Level 17 and much more deeply explore Interdict’s mechanics.
  • Tanking mechanics: it is now possible for allies to protect each other from enemy attacks using certain skills.
  • Encounters with a strange merchant who offers valuable goodies in exchange for your precious Cells and Scrap.
  • 18 new monster species, which add an additional 500 or so new possible monsters that can be generated.
  • Over 20 new skills to use in customizing your party.
  • Linux support! From here onwards, Linux builds should be available at releases alongside the Windows builds. Thanks to Tchey of Jeux1d100.net for the debugging and testing help to get the Linux builds working!

You can download Interdict at ferretdev.itch.io/interdict. There is also the Ferretdev.Org Discord where you can chat with other players and receive frequent updates about development progress and what’s coming up next. :)

I hope you enjoy the new update, and I wish good luck on your adventures! Cheers!

Could You Keep It Down Please?

Posted by Herbie on

BadBansheeBad

I’ve released a small update for Interdict, which you can grab now at Interdict’s itch page: https://ferretdev.itch.io/interdict

The new build, among other things, reigns in the power of Banshees a bit. Funereal Wail spamming was just a bit too effective, and a bit too difficult to counter. In the 3/15 build, they cannot use the Funereal Wail ability directly any more, instead, it is only used as a reaction to one or more of their allies dying.

Of course, this means they needed something else to do with their actual turns, so they now use Psionics and warcries. The overall effect should still be a scary monster, but one which gives more options for countering and combating it.

Additionally, the new update includes improvements to the Hide, Flying, and Exorcism mechanics. The Hide changes are particularly nice: Hidden status now allows you to use any hostile action on any enemy, regardless of your position, the enemy’s position, or the normal range of the ability. This allows hiding to be useful to a much wider variety of characters, and will hopefully lead to some interesting ideas and character builds.

Don’t forget that there is now a FerretDev Discord where you can talk with other Demon and Interdict fans. I’m usually around too, and happy to answer any questions you have about either game. :) You can join the FerretDev Discord using this invite link: https://discord.gg/9vuDeKfPPg

Finally, as a reminder, I will be phasing out this blog in favor of Interdict’s itch.io page and the FerretDev Discord over time, so updates will eventually no longer be posted here. Please follow me on itch.io, add Interdict to your itch.io collection, or join the FerretDev Discord if you’d like to remain up to date about Interdict.

Thank you, and good luck on your adventure!

First Update to Interdict Posted

Posted by Herbie on

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The first update for Interdict has been posted over on its page at itch.io: https://ferretdev.itch.io/interdict

Interdict’s first update includes some balance adjustments based on player feedback, three new species of monsters (resulting in over 60 new possible monsters you can encounter), and several new skills to discover and use for creating the perfect party.

Also, feel free to join the FerretDev Discord if you’d like to chat with other players about Demon and Interdict: https://discord.gg/9vuDeKfPPg

As a reminder, I will be slowly phasing out this devblog and website as we go from here out. I’ll continue to post Interdict updates here for a bit, but eventually everything will be done through the itch page linked above.

Cheers, and good luck on your adventure!

Interdict: The Post-Empyrean Age

Posted by Herbie on

Hello! :D I’m happy to announce that Interdict: The Post-Empyrean Age’s first public release is now available for download!

Cover

I’m not going to say much more about it here, as I intend for itch.io to be my primary website going forward, so instead, here is the link to that, where you can read all about it and grab a copy to play. :D

https://ferretdev.itch.io/interdict

Also new as of now, I have created a Discord for both Demon and Interdict, which you can join with this invite.

https://discord.gg/9vuDeKfPPg

However, if you prefer to hang out in the roguelikes Discord’s Demon channel, don’t worry, I don’t plan to leave that, so you can still find me there like before.

I hope you enjoy this new adventure. :) I look forward to working on it and improving it for many years to come, just as I did with Demon. Good luck, and thank you for your support and kind words over the years.

What Lies Beyond the Tower…

Posted by Herbie on

Assuming nothing crazy happens here in the last stretch, I plan to release the first public version of my next project, Interdict: The Post-Empyrean Age, within a couple of weeks. :)

To give you a little idea what it is like, here is a tiny teaser in the form of the message displayed when starting a new game.

InterdictNewGame

Interdict is primarily a dungeon crawler in the vein of the older Wizardry and Might and Magic titles, but it has a very generous amount of roguelike DNA. As the new game message shown above states, it features a very large degree of procedural generation, and a form of permadeath (in this case, “permawipe” might be a better name, since the defeat condition here is all of your party members being dead at the same time.) It is also entirely turn-based, both when exploring the dungeon, and while in combat.

When the first public release is ready, I will post here again with a link to the itch.io page. Going forward from that point, I will be using itch.io for further Interdict updates. The first public release is relatively small, taking roughly 3-6 hours to complete a run of the available content, but is enough to demonstrate what the game is like and hopefully show what is fun and interesting about it.

Like I did with Demon, I plan to work on and update Interdict for a good, long time, so it will continue to grow, improve, and receive additional content. I’m not silly enough to promise up front that I will stick with it most of a decade like Demon ended up getting. :P But, so long as I and at least some other folks remain interested, I plan to work on it for quite awhile. :)

This is probably also a good time to mention that, like Demon, Interdict will always be available for free, so don’t have any worries on that front. :D

Alright, that’s enough of me bending my “don’t talk about it until the first public release” rule. I’ll be posting again to announce the public release soon. Cheers!

8/4: This Is A Bug Hunt

Posted by Herbie on

Hey folks. :D Been awhile!

I’ve uploaded the 8/4/2023 build, already available on the links to the right. This fixes a number of bugs that have been reported since the 5/23/2022 build, including some errors in the purchase costs of Far Summon I, Far Summon II, and Nightingale, and a few late-game abilities that weren’t working as advertised. It also includes some typo fixes, and a revamp of the Horns of the Hunt relic that focuses on high Capacity and Far Summon rather than Brand upgrades. While it was nice to have a Brand-focused Relic, practically speaking, the Brand upgrades are only of limited use to have early on.

Note that Horns is actually still one of the better Relics to take if you plan to invest in Brands: almost everyone eventually picks up Capacity Up IV which it starts with anyway, so you can easily just go straight into buying Brand upgrades as soon as you have the points.

Finally, I added the Auraward ability to the elemental Sworn/Kin/Born modifiers, as well as to Anzu’s unique modifier, finally making it possible to give this esoteric ability to demon allies.

Since I’m rusty at making Demon builds, I’ve left the 5/23/2022 builds available for now just in case I goofed something up, but they will eventually be removed if I don’t get any reports of problems with the 8/4/2023 builds.

Cheers, and good luck in the Tower!

PS: The new game is coming along nicely. :) I’m sticking with my plan of not really talking about it much until a first playable is ready though. That said, we’re getting pretty close to that point now…

5/23: Bad Omens

Posted by Herbie on

It figures that I’d release 5/22, and then get a report of a (very rare) crash-on-load bug related to a certain set of end game abilities that has probably existed for half a year. :P The 5/23 build, already available at the links to the right, fixes this crash. :) Cheers!

5/22: The Demons of Mensa

Posted by Herbie on

Hey folks. :D New builds are up at the links to the right. :)

Alright, I admit, the AI changes I added maybe aren’t enough to bring the demons to Mensa-level intelligence, but they probably are at least a move in that direction. :P

This build fixes a few bugs that’d been reported over the past couple of months, most notably a number of AI bugs that have been sorted out and should result in better behavior from the AI, particularly concerning high level demons with low level summoners, demons using “weak” abilities, and demons acknowledging that just because an ally is on fire already doesn’t mean it is okay to re-ignite them. :)

There are a few minor balance changes and text updates as well to make a few abilities and modifiers a bit more clear, and some other minor bug fixes.

Enjoy, and please let me know if there are any AI problems in particular, since a decent amount of the changes were to that. :D

3/13: Teeny Tiny Change

Posted by Herbie on

Hey folks. :) I’ve updated the build links at the right with 3/13 build, which addresses a tiny change that had been requested to the Show Suggestions option: namely, it now also blocks carrying level up bonus points from causing the Transmutation button to blink.

Note you still see Level Up blinking pink anytime you open the Transmutation menu, and as before this happens regardless of that option’s setting. Also, you will still get warning messages when you enter a new level while carrying a significant number of bonus points, also as before. So if you liked being reminded of level ups but didn’t want the other suggestions, you should still be good, you’re just down to 2 reminder methods instead of 3, with the one that was removed being the most intrusive for those who absolutely didn’t want the suggestion. :)

Cheers!

2/24: Just Before A Visit To The Lands Between

Posted by Herbie on

Hey folks,

Updated the build links with the 2/24 build, which fixes a nasty bug that causes the game to lock up if you have the Item Sense upgrade and fully map Tower:30. If you have a game in progress with Item Sense on an earlier build, you should either remember not to fully explore Tower:30, or transfer your save files over to the new build’s save directory. Cheers!