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The 2017 7DRL Challenge Evaluation Process Click a table header to sort. |
| Name | Author | Runs on | Play | Completeness | Aesthetics | Fun | Innovation | Scope | Roguelikeness | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Myst | Oleg Dolya |    
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.78 |
| Sleeping Beauty | Ondřej Žára |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.72 |
| Cyan Security | Numeron | 
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| The Abyss of Souls | Lyeeedar |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| MinotaurRL | James Haywood |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.75 | 2.25 | 2.25 | 2.50 | 2.62 |
| Everything is Fodder | Jeff Lait | 
| Play | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.61 |
| Rogue, Fighter, Mage: in the Goblin Caves | mathpunk |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.56 |
| Chomp! | Ross Pinkstaff |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.50 |
| Hero Trap | jtolmar |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.50 |
| Frostlike | Team Kalamakkara |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| Jellymancer | Lachlan Kingsford |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| Settler | graspee | 
| Play | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| Turbotron | Patrick Kenney |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.44 |
| Manicule of Fury | Badscribbler |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| Rogue River: Obol of Charon | chaos-dev |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.39 |
| Undeath and Taxis | James McNeill |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.39 |
| Woozoolike | Marukrap & Guuuuuum |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| PureSpace | Chao | 
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| They Look Strange And Have To Die | ratking |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| Arkham after Midnight | Lone Spelunker |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 |
| Black Jack is still at large | tndwolf |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 |
| Abyss | JB Vincent |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.28 |
| Schwarzwald Slaughter | Roni Saari |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.28 |
| Paladin Dive | thp |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.25 |
| CubeRL | Luca Giacometti |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 3.00 | 2.22 |
| Brazen Berry Bonanza | Ethan Hoeppner |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.22 |
| DOGUE | James Heslin (PROGRAM_IX) |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.22 |
| Gob! | st33d |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.22 |
| Serpentarius | High Sodium Games |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.22 |
| @lchemist | Pandaraw |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.17 |
| Apocalypse Post | Stephen Sherratt |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.17 |
| Book of Rogue | Key Wraith |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.17 |
| Cavern Collapse | Jonathon Logo Walsh |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.17 |
| Dungeon Scoundrel | kitty |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.17 |
| Gelassenheit RL | rubybliels |
| Play | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.17 |
| Rogue Artillery (Finished) | Artees |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.17 |
| The RoguePuzzleGame - Remastered | Ahmed Khalifa |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.17 |
| Zurvivors | jere |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.17 |
| @'S DIE | akirassasin |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.11 |
| The Oracle of Ithrakizar | Nanolotl |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.08 |
| Undertiled | Babis |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.06 |
| Catoblepas | Don Collins |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.06 |
| Caverns of Sevendral | Ross Andrews |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.06 |
| Dead Horizons 7DRL | IBOL17 |
| Play | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.06 |
| Jimmy in the Realm of the Dead | Evgenii Petrov |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.06 |
| Riders of Rhea | Dave Lloyd |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.06 |
| Scavenger of Broken Dreams | Steven Portzer |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.06 |
| Stir Mercury | ArchBang |
| Play | 2.33 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.06 |
| nullpointer | lycaon |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.06 |
| 7DKoboldicide | kalaeth |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| Fremde Brut | purestrain |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 |
| Isorogue | 23 & Chamotea |
| Play | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 |
| King of Nothing | Tinytouchtales |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 2.00 |
| MedicalRL | Srinivas Kaza + Matthew Pfeiffer |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 |
| The Darkest Deeps | Kirk |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| The Librarian | Dmitry Mamchur |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| Top Men | Magma Fortress |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 |
| Diecognizant | Edwin DeNicholas |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 |
| Your Past, My Future | Akhier Dragonheart |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 |
| Borderline | kipar |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 1.92 |
| Introvertia | Matt Ritchie (Cynapse) |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.92 |
| Loot'N'Run | Maciej Matejuk, Łukasz Miros, Grzegorz Zakrzewski |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.92 |
| PokemonRL | Slash |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 1.92 |
| Tower of Magi | Davide Pizzolotto |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 1.92 |
| Furthest Shore | Brian Bucklew |
| Play | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 1.83 |
| Legionnaire | Danny Spencer |
| Play | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.83 |
| Oh Fuck, Zombies! | Tristan W. Bonsor |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.83 |
| Pirates of Rogue Basin | Jeff Ripley (v4nz666) |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 1.83 |
| Rubaiyat | Brian Bleakley |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.83 |
| Unlichtwesen | Jan |
| Play | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.83 |
| Doge Rogue | geldonyetich |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.67 |
| RGBlike | rosalu |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.67 |
| Werewolf | Rakaneth |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 1.67 |
| CivilRL | Thom Robertson |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 1.61 |
| Tyran Jaager | Ignotus17 |
| Play | 1.33 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 2.67 | 1.61 |
| ROOM | serkan3k |
| Play | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.50 | 1.58 |
| House of Nothing | Jakob Virgil |
| Play | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.56 |
| Space Station Plunder | alxm |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.33 | 1.56 |
| Going Ham | James Fulop + Eric Nethery |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 |
| Ligis | hekst |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 |
| Nanorogue | Cody Ebberson |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.50 |
| Pepe the Frog vs. Dat Boi in the search of the lost Shadilay | chiguireitor |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.50 |
| Derelict | LittleBears |
| Play | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.33 | 1.33 | 1.33 | 1.44 |
| Corpse Stacker | Serin Delaunay |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.42 |
| Dungeon Penetrator #pico8 | Glen McNamee @glenmcnamee |
| Play | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.42 |
| Exterminate | RasmusErik, solsort.com |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.42 |
| BuildTowers | horaguchi |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.33 |
| The Forest | M. Tim Jones |
| Play | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 |
| A Roguelike Where You Plan Your Moves | Travis Moy |
| Play | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.25 |
| Cowboy Rogue | Marshall |
| Play | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Brave Soul Aliana | Jerry Verhoeven |
| Play | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.22 |
| roqtp2t | Tsutsukakushi |
| Play | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.17 |
| soulmancerRL | QiZD |
| Play | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.17 |
| Cold Contact:Clear Sky | Sidearm Entertainment |
| Play | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
Reviews
Myst
Completeness
3 -
3 - Polished, balanced, no bugs. One very minor gripe only: the fight animations shows your characted attacking towards the left or right side but never top or bottom. This is a bit confusing.
3 -
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - Excellent look, clean interface
3 -
Fun
3 -
3 - You have to try this game, no excuses as it works on Windows, Android, Web, and even on Mac !
3 -
Innovation
3 -
3 - It's the first time I see a game which changes the terrain when in the fog of war. Even if you have visited this terrain before. Definitely innovative and interesting !
3 -
Scope
2 -
2 - Perfect scope and feature implementation for a 7DRL.
2 -
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - Procedural dungeon: yes. Turn based: yes. Permadeath: yes. Strategic: Yes. A true roguelike.
3 -
Fantastic minimal roguelite. Really quick to pickup, but has nice depth. Deceptively simple at first glance.\ Amazing synergy in theme and mechanics. The map re-generates where the mist covers it. You are constantly lost in the mist, and new situations are always just a few moves away.\ The game does something that i usually hate, that is it doesn't have a pass turn button. In this game though, the enemies do not get a free shot at you when you are forced to move next to them. So it retains the strategy that the forced move design aims to create, without the feeling of unfairness.\ The strict hunger clock is balanced and serves its purpose well. That enemies recover your meter when defeated is an elegant risk v. reward.\ I love that enemies have visible weak/strong states that shift each turn.\
Excellent 7DRL by Watabou, the developper of Pixel Dungeon (perhaps the greatest RL on Android right now). Myst brings an interesting idea: you only knows about your very close surroundings. Every feature hidden by the fog (ennemies, map, collectibles) is changing as you move. So you have to try to keep the treaures in your field of view, while running away from monsters. A very clever idea !
Myst has gorgeous art and sounds. The gameplay is fluid and fun. The concept of ever-changing dungeon with passages shifting as soon as they are out of sight feels novel and unique. About the only gripe I have with it is that chances on success are a bit too random. I got to level 3 on my second time and that became my best result. However, Myst is not about results or getting better through learning - it's about the atmosphere of wandering through the ever-encroaching hostile mist. And it's got that perfectly.
Sleeping Beauty
Completeness
3 - Polished, well balanced, a full game.
2 - If seems complete. But there are few issues about level generation. Also, it's too easy to win, it's problem about balance, I'd say. Also, I don't like way how game handles zooming in and out - it's a bit clunky (resizing font in first case, and black background in second case) and looks like bug.
3 - No bugs and the game just feels done. There is a nice polished shine to how the game plays
Aesthetics
3 - Excellent look, even improved by some effects like the zoom in on your litteral characters during combat, and nice transitions between screens.
3 - Classic roguelike look, with decent font, and great ASCII art. in main menu. Control scheme is a bit unusual, but game teaches player how to interact things in very natural way.
3 - The controls make sense and even with needing to hold a modifier key to interact with things feels right with how the game is structured. Also the graphical aesthetics are amazing and the minigame based combat flows well.
Fun
3 - Just play it !
3 - Fun! Definitely! Huge amount of content, really good balance, and truly (for roguelikes, at least) innovative and well-done combat mechanics. Plus nice sense of humour.
3 - This game is another must play from this 7drl challenge. Well worth my time and something I would recommend to anyone that wants a quick but polished roguelike to play.
Innovation
3 - Using a matching game for combat (à la Puzzel Quest) is not new, but as far as I know it was never used in roguelikes before. And it's cleverly done as for instance the gear you collect will affect the gems powers in the matching game.
2 - The combat system is... Bejeweled mini-game. Some combinations causes player's attack, other monster's attack. Player is the only one who play it, so sometimes you need to hurt yourself to get the right combination of jewels.
2 - Having a connect 3 style minigame for the combat system is an interesting twist but not fundamentally new.
Scope
2 - The right scope and amount of features for a 7DRL.
3 - More than reasonable for 7DRL.
2 - Not only does this fit in what I expect from 7 days but it fits in it perfectly. Other games I have reviewed manage to fit in 7 days but you can tell a few more days in the oven would do them good. This game however feels perfect as it is. The game isn't beyond what I expect to be done in 7 days but it doesn't need more either.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedurally generated: yes. Turn-based: yes. Permadeath: yes. Strategic: yes.
3 - 100% roguelike
3 - This, even with the minigame combat system, is very much a roguelike.
A new game by Ondřej Žára, creator of the fantastic ROT.js library, used by many 7DRL roguelikes every year. Sleeping Beauty brings a new twist to the typical roguelike fights. You defeat your ennemies through a match game in which linking gems of the same color will either damage enemies, or yourself. A must try !
Sleeping Beauty is game about kissing things. Exactly. \ \ Nice roguelike that features bejeweled-based combat mechanics, and it is surprisingly fun! However, game is too easy for me (maybe due high hp regeneration when ascending?), and I feel that interaction system could be better used. There is usually three way to interact with characters other than player, but currently only talking to fellow adventurers and attacking enemies have any sense. Kissing in not very effective...\ \ But there are only details. In overwall, Sleeping Beauty is great 7DRL, and it's good game even without context of contest. It's much more mature than most 7DRLs.
Very much worth my time and if you like roguelikes it is worth your time as well to check it out. The combat system being a minigame based on connect 3 flows well and doesn't detract from the this. You can watch a recording of my time with the game here:\ https://youtu.be/Jaf9DQ1JsT0
Cyan Security
Completeness
3 -
3 - I did play the bug fix version but only because the change log didn't sound like it was fixing anything critical but rather changing some little niggles.
2 - The game works fine, looks complete, but unfortunately crashes time to time :(
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - My goodness. This game looks and feels amazing. The Scifi and later aesthetics are shockingly good.
3 - The game looks and controls great.
Fun
2 -
3 - Everyone needs to play this one. End of story.
2 - Winning once is moderately fun. But replayability is very weak. You can find different cards, but they do not affect gameplay too much.
Innovation
3 -
2 - Using your health for everything is an interesting twist.
2 - I can't say that there were no roguelikes with enemies of different sizes and ability to transform. HP that is also source of power for abilities also was already implemented. Together? Probably not. In general it feels somewhat refreshing, but not as something totally new.
Scope
3 -
3 - This goes beyond what I expect from a 7drl in all the good ways.
2 - Given that majority of assets and the engine was reused from previous 7drls by the same author, and the fact that the game is really short, I'd say it's just enough for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 -
3 - This is true to the roguelike genre and all the changes it makes fall in line with it.
3 - A little bit on minimalistic side, but still real roguelike.
Well done combat.\ Multi-tiled enemy (and your power suit) works great and is dramatic!\ Beautiful sprite work.\ Why are there so many violent drunks trying to ruin my night?!\ Packs a lot of item variety. Having the right ones seemed to make a big impact.\ Challenging gameplay, but there always seems to be a goal just within grasp of the next run.\ Speaking of running, its often the best answer.
Everyone needs to play this one. This is a roguelike that goes beyond what I expect from a 7drl in all the good ways and stays true to what I expect from a roguelike. I did a video of me playing it and you can find that here:\ https://youtu.be/Aotj_qG-NLM
Futuristic roguelike with couple interesting twists: 1. your energy is your hp. use device and loose some energy by doing so, or do not use, but loose some energy in combat. 2. temporary 'huge' mode to fight huge enemies. A little bit simplistic, but quite interesting. Look and feel is very typical for 7drls by Numeron :)
The Abyss of Souls
Completeness
3 - Its the variety of content on offer, the animated pixellated world and the combination combat mechanics all deliver a very polished game indeed
2 - The save crashes it for some reason after death. Otherwise works perfectly fine.
3 - Feels highly polished. Game is perhaps on the easy side, but that's usually the best way to err in 7DRLs.
Aesthetics
3 - I can't fault the pixel art style, and the lighting effects, and reactive worlds full of moving, biting, living creatures. With watery environments where you fight waist-deep, or are carried along in the current to iced plateaus that dissolve when it rains, the details and interactions are incredible! The UI is well documented and after an initial acclimatisation with the NSD combat keys, it feels like a smooth experience
3 - My goodness this has great aesthetics. Full score
3 - Beautiful game with lots of little aesthetic touches that make it a pleasure to play. Controls are simple and fluid. Switching to the controls/moves screen is a bit inelegant though - an on-screen display would have been preferred.
Fun
3 - Definitely one to give a go, it positively shines with atmosphere and craftsmanship. The mysteries of the afterlife await you, even the final death sequence is eerie and visually impressive
3 - Very much one of the must play games I have reviewed for this 7drl. The combo combat system is nice and the game just has such flavor and looks to it.
2 - Wandering around the scintillating environments is very nice. I was a little disappointed that the combat wasn't more engaging though. The moves system is cool, but it's hard to really take advantage of it in the tactical challenges presented, and in general the game is easy enough to ignore the system for the most part. The game is fun, but doesn't meet its full potential without a more engaging challenge.
Innovation
2 - The detailed and reactive landscapes, the different behaviours and sheer variety on offer put a twist on the expected, but add to this a stamina based combination mechanic to the combat you have a cherry on the top of the cake there. Takes the usual offerings up a notch.
2 - Adding a combo based combat system to a roguelike. Decently implemented though not fundamentally new.
2 - Combat system has some cool twists with order of attacks triggering special attacks. I really liked the simple, fast-recharging stamina system - it works very effectively.
Scope
3 - I think the effort is clear to see in the environments, monsters, lighting and cool interactions of a living, breathing, afterlife. This is a title that gave a lot, and with some more effort could easily become a feature rich commercial title in its own right
2 - It looks amazing and if those graphics were all made during the 7 days then it almost reaches a 3. In general though it is solid and on the top end of what I expect from a 7drl
3 - It feels like a big, big game with a lot of effort pumped in. Very impressive!
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely a roguelike, with an open world feel to it, and a unique layer by layered quest to rid yourself of the sins, by slaying. I think you have a number of lives/attempts before your ultimate demise, so perhaps not strictly permadeath on a single try.
3 - While some might feel the combo system detracts from it being a roguelike everything just has that roguelike feel to it.
3 - Classic roguelike.
An interesting game of progression through cleansing of sins, on different levels of the Abyss. The combat mechanic involves a stamina limited combination system, where you can perform Normal(N), Special(S) or Defensive(D) moves by holding a key down and then pressing the cardinal direction you want the attack to be made. Each new weapon found affords you different preferred combinations of the three attack types. The game presents a Dante's Inferno series of layered challenges to the player, along with varied enemies and environments, different level transitions, all beautifully realised in full animated pixel glory. The quasi-mysticism of the afterlife, along with the judgemental NPC's along the way really set the scene. Worth playing just to explore and identify the cool environmental effects and interactions. It's a well defined (after)world that is interesting to play in. Cast your sins aside and have at it!
A great game that was well worth my time playing. You can actually see me play it in the following video:\ https://youtu.be/c81IEoDapsA
A beautiful and atmospheric game. Kinda puts us other developers to shame! The Abyss of Souls has you wandering through the underworld, exploring vast and enchanting environments. The combat system has some neat twists around building attack combos with special effects. Each weapon has its own patterns, so you learn new tricks as you advance. For atmosphere alone this is one of the highlights of the year, with beautifully animated sprites and an entrancingly serene feel to the game.
MinotaurRL
Completeness
3 -
3 - Extremely well presented, with logo, custom themed icons
3 - Seems to be relatively polished and bug-free.
3 - Complete game, balanced and mostly bug-free; there are little amount of display quirks, but it's not enough to score it down.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - Minimal large monochromatic icons with hints of colour to enhance significance, claustrophobic FOV in the labyrinth
3 - Nice clean tile art, clear controls, nice music.
3 - Simple but very atmospheric tiles, also pretty nice music is present. I love that Ariadne's Thread is unwound when Theseus explores labyrinth. Controls are very smooth.
Fun
3 -
3 - Short burst, tense atmosphere, trying to build up glory, whilst remaining healthy enough to take on the Minotaur!
2 - Quite good fun for a while, with a few interesting decisions to be made largely around the ghost mechanics. You can be a little at the mercy of the procedural generations, with some maps leading you straight to the minotaur before you have a chance to prepare.
3 - Probably most entertaining 7DRL2017 game. Gameplay is balanced, mechanics is interesting and pretty unique, and there is pretty large amount of replayability.
Innovation
3 -
2 - String trail, bone pile ghosts and equipment, stealing health from the Minotaur to adjust difficulty all new twists
2 - Fairly standard roguelike, but with a few nice touches. The golden thread is a neat and thematic alternative to map memory.
2 - Glory mechanics is great, and I think it's unique.
Scope
2 -
2 - Compact, single level, with a few well themed mechanics interacting to form a bitesize measure of dungeoning
3 - An appropriate scope for a 7DRL but doesn't really push the boat out.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
Roguelikeness
2 -
2 - Streamlined mechanics, auto-pickup inventory, health stealing, spider farming, ghost herding and twine trailing, give it a satisfying roguelite puzzley quality
3 - Check.
3 - Definitely roguelike
Very fun roguelike.\ Love that score (glory) can be traded for healing + damaging the boss, but only when you are hurt and not enough to win.\ Balancing your health and final score is just so cool I have written two sentences about it!\ Secondly its very interesting choice to make treasure guarded by the owner's ghost. I definitely feel like at the beginning i need some gear, but its gonna come at a cost!\ Controls are OK. I'm a little confused why the Steal Health is on shift+S. Most of the keyboard is unused.\ ReadMe states can only move and attack in cardinal directions, however enemies have no trouble meleeing on diagonals. Also if you hit two directions at the same time you can indeed move diagonally :)\ Has a messaging bug which might lead unobservant players astray: steal only removes 10 health, while the text claims 50. So be careful!\ The magic string is a wonderful innovation!\ I like the way the Minotaur starts relentlessly chasing you once found. This makes the game divide into 2 phases: 1) Find decent weapons and ammo without alerting the Minotaur, and then 2) fight the Minotaur and hopefully don't get cornered!\ Once the Minotaur is alerted he becomes a form of hunger clock, which is really neat.\ \
Polished Coffeebreak game, with a fixed objective, single level, limited health, and uniquely themed monster mechanics. The well designed interface, logo, music, icons all work together to present the Greek Mythology theme very well indeed. Unique mechanics work with each other to change your progress and alter you behaviour, in an almost puzzle like way. With a cloying field of view that leaves no after-sight, means you'll be trying to lay a string trail down to find your way back to the entrance. However, if you step over your trail you break it, and negate its worth, so your path becomes very dependent upon how you 'lay the twine'. Spiders are passive and only attack if you attack them first, they become the primary way to gain glory points when you slay them. Bone piles contain the ghosts of the fallen and usually some of their equipment. These piles have an age, and the fresher they are, the better the equipment, but the more nastier the ghost is. However, liberated Ghosts will attack the Minotaur if it is neat, so it makes releasing and herding the ghosts a priority if you want help taking down the raging bull. Once the Minotaur sees you he will chase you down. So you have to race back to the entrance, using ghosts to help you attack him, and trying not to follow a path to a dead end. Very tense and enjoyable action in a bitesize session. You can ease the difficulty on the fly, by stealing some health off the Minotaur directly, but you will lose glory in doing so. Overall the game is an interesting balancing puzzle between all the mechanics and living to get back to the exit of the Labyrinth. An excellent first effort for a 7DRL!
A solid 7DRL adapting the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. Has a number of interesting and thematically strong features, in particular the ghost mechanics. Disturbing bones will reward you with new equipment but also raises the ghosts of their previous owners to attack you. Fortunately their grudge against the minotaur who killed them is greater than that against a random grave robber and you can induce them to fight on your side. This leads to some interesting tactics, being able to kite the minotaur back through graves to weaken him.
MinotaurRL is really great game. And and and... I could just end here, writing 'try it yourself, you won't be disappointed'. But, ok, I know it's not enough. MinotaurRL is game about well known greece myth - Theseus is trapped in labyrinth until he defeat Minotaur; Ariadne gave him magical Thread. Here is first surprise - I didn't expect that Ariadne's Thread will be present in game. But it is, and - together with simple, but really atmospheric tiles - makes game very immersive. Rather grim colour palette enchances impresses. But - would be better if tiles have matching sprite as background instead of just black colour. Due the theme of this game, it's very good that labyrinth is not selfmapping when exploring, but FOV algorithm could be better - there are gaps in wall lightning present. Btw, there are even false / illusion walls in Minotaur's maze! It's nice twist. But not that nice like the core mechanics - glory points. Glory points are your score, and simultaneously there are resource you can spend to make game easier. Using healing powers, or grave robbing make glory fall, and defeating enemies makes glory rise. It's really nice mechanics, it works like choose-own-difficulty-but-don't-expect-high-score-if-you-choose-easy-way. Long word-monster, but - it's how glory works. It's something really innovative, and it's really polished element of mechanics. In general, game is well-balanced, altough ghosts could be more dangerous, because currently you can just look for best equipment from start, without much risk. Default settings are... unhandy. Game runs fullscreen (with rigid resolution), and there are issues about alt-tabbing. In general, MinotaurRL is great 7DRL, and seems be good roguelike just now, even without contest context. It has potential to be really good coffebreak - it just need a bit more content and diversity in gameplay. Maybe some challenge mode? I'd be very glad if author will continue developing MinotaurRL into full-fledged game.
Everything is Fodder
Completeness
3 - The complete package, smooth to play, easy to get into, feature rich
3 - No technical issues and felt like a finished game.
3 - It crashed once, but I wasn't able to reproduce it, and it is pretty complete in other aspects - there is even saving!\
Aesthetics
3 - Traditional roguelike look and feel, a draw for those ascii fans
2 - Straight forward ASCII. Nothing wrong with that. There appeared to be some weird thing with the fov and explored tiles... I felt I could see tiles I haven't explored were shown as explored, and tiles I had explored didn't stay that way. Not sure if intentional or not, but led to some confusion and unnecessary backtracking a couple times.
2 - Looks pretty nice, UI is polished, there are macrokeys for spells and sliding on walls. Oh, and seamless diving with eventual disappearing of old locations looks pretty nice. The only problem that makes playing not so funny is cumbersome inventory ui - no sorting and it closes after every action, so it is a pain to do even simple operations, like dropping a broken weapon and wearing best of available.\
Fun
3 - Simpy enjoyed breaking stuff down to power spell exploration
2 - I was becoming extremely frustrated my first run... Level 20?!?! Are you kidding me??! How big are these floors anyway!? Then after I died.. I realized it didn't work that way :) Game kept me engaged the whole time, and made me want to go back to it to try again. Experimenting with the combinations was fun, but once you had them figured out and hotkeyed once, that sort of disappeared.
2 - The game idea is nice, but memorizing of spells require excel and first levels become boring soon (as monsters are pretty weak so early game consists mostly from inventory management). But when you go deeper it's very funny to see how victorian smth smth tables and Damasque steel sabres become 'gold source of gold' and 'pointy silver'.\
Innovation
3 - Items & Furniture fuelling an experimental spell casting mechanism really enjoyable, interesting that melee weaponry takes a back seat
2 - Sitting back and thinking about the transmute and zap mechanics, there are a lot of ways that could have gone wrong. The one you chose allowed for discovery and experimentation, while not adding a lot of frustration by making the player reinvent the wheel every run. The down side was that after a few good runs, you've got everything figured out and hotkeyed, and the experimentation disappears, and it's just regular spells and mana. With all the bad ways it could have gone, I think you picked one of the better ones.
3 - There are plenty of interesting things, some of them were present in previous 7drls, but I still like them. Basic idea of spells as a binary numbers is nice too. Plus flavour texts and artistic idea about them. It deserves 3 imho.\
Scope
3 - Simple concept, but with alchemy style spell experimentation affecting all aspects of gameplay in subtle and nuanced ways, custom defined spell casting keys
2 - About right for a 7DRL
2 - Nice roguelike, built on a solid engine, with an interesting idea and balanced implementation.\
Roguelikeness
3 - Traditional ascii, permadeath, procedurally generated dungeon, items, spell crafting, depth is measured in same level traversal rather than layered dungeon levels.
3 - It's a roguelike
3 - Totally roguelike.\
Everything is fodder, delivers a traditional ascii roguelike, but with a unique setting where items and environmental furniture are broken down into their constituents (extracted as elemental coins) and are then used to fuel an alchemy style spell mechanic, experimenting with the elements and combining them you can craft uncover new spells to use in your quest to conquer the demon and bring back his heart to seal it into the Abyss. The familiar tactical dungeon crawl is supplemented with a unique resource collecting and deconstructing decision process to power your magicks. Layered dungeon levels have been supplanted with a depth measure based on how far you have explored. Lots of fun to be had collecting materials and mixing them to see what new spell effects can be conjured. Identify potions by throwing them at enemies. The hook is so rewarding, I can see myself coming back to this game over and over again. It's a coffeebreak spellcrafter. Well worth the effort.
Everything is Fodder is a game where.. well... everything is fodder. It's a more traditional roguelike where you transmute weapons and furniture into coins of different elements, which can be combined to cast spells that you must learn through experimentation. Definitely worth playing, even though after a few playthroughs, the mystery of this new magic goes away.
In this game player takes tables, chairs and everything else in rooms and convert to elements, then use elements to cast spells. When you dive deeper and deeper you stops to consider an items as chairs and tables, you see only sources of more elemental coins, i think it is somehow linked with the nature of the final boss. The game also features interesting dungeon layout - there are no stairs, just third-dimensional map of passages that looks like two dimensional until you spot that you are now deeper then before. There are several types of monsters with different abilities, variety of pretty same weapons and about 2^n spells. I haven't won, but have seen the final boss twice and will definitely try to won it later as there are several different endings promised.
Rogue, Fighter, Mage: in the Goblin Caves
Completeness
3 -
3 - Had one crash where the program just closed, but that was over a few hours of gameplay and there was quite a bit going on in the one file. Everything else feels complete with no spelling errors.
3 - Experienced no technical issues or bugs. Game's systems were varied and complex, and complete.
Aesthetics
2 -
3 - Coloured ASCII that works and looks great. Controls and everything else are what you'd expect from a roguelike.
2 - Game looked good. All glyphs were clear. Controls felt clunky, and it felt clunky tabbing between the characters. The Mouse aiming wasn't clear to me, and almost gave up on casting and ranged until I stumbled upon it (didn't see it documented anywhere). Otherwise, everything else was very well documented. Would have liked a bit more of a visual indicator in the priority state, the green bar at the bottom was easy to miss when your focus is elsewhere.
Fun
2 -
3 - Each playthrough was very enjoyable. The turn-based combat is entertaining and it's neat to pick different skills for your starting three characters.\
2 - I don't think I have run across a party based roguelike that plays particularly well. The action/priority system was an interesting take on it, however i felt it got in the way of the game. These systems work in tactical games, where most of the time is spent fighting. However in tight spaces where most turns are spent exploring, they are cumbersome. I found myself wishing it was something I could take out of my pocket during combat, rather than it being enforced full time. That being said, I did play a lot of it.
Innovation
3 -
2 - The turn-based combat and party-based are new, but everything else seems like standard roguelike mechanics. This is not a bad thing, though.
2 - The action and priority systems and mage's spellbook are the mechanics that stand out in this regard. While both are rare in the genre, they are variations of things I've seen before.
Scope
3 -
3 - Has a lot of content and depth for a 7DRL.
3 - A lot of systems and character attributes in place here, and all are implemented. So I have to say the scope was beyond what is expected.
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - Looks like a roguelike. Feels like a roguelike.
2 - The movement and combat systems took away from that roguelike feel.
Multi-character dungeon crawl is a nice, but can become unwieldy.\ I found myself wanting to only have one character to control.\ The priority system used for resolving actions is very innovative and is my favorite part.\ The mage's spell book implementation is also a neat innovation.
This is a very enjoyable game that feels quite like a roguelike but with one mechanic that makes the game flow quite differently. You control a rogue, a fighter, and a mage, taking turns with the enemies and trying to make it through the caves to kill the Goblin King. It's really fun to play and feels complete for a 7DRL. Would recommend anyone to check this one.
Rogue, Fighter, Mage: in the Goblin Caves is a party based roguelike with an action and priority system similar to what you'd see in a turn based tactical game. While very complete, with a lot of complex systems in play, it doesn't quite overcome the awkwardness that tends to follow party based roguelikes.
Chomp!
Completeness
2 - Overall I feel it's pretty complete, but it could have done with more variation in the town. All the cities look the same, and nothing really happens after you defeat the town, I don't feel like it has much replay value.
2 - I'd like to score 3 here (due large amount of features, and general *spirit of complete game*), but there are these small things... Mistake in description energy perk, tiny issues in balance.
3 - Feels incredibly polished. Lots of nice details like flavour text descriptions of all scenery and creatures.
Aesthetics
3 - Chomp really shines in it's sound, visuals and feel. I really got the sense that I was a monster attacking a city.
3 - Graphics is nice and clear, controls are intuitive and responsive. Also, good font.
3 - Beautiful game. I love the colour scheme and the clean ANSI style. And I looove the city generation animation at the start!
Fun
2 - It's fun and novel, looks beautiful, but as I said in other parts of this review, wish there was more replay value.
3 - Huge amount of fun! Didn't imagine how awesome is being Godzilla, or huge robot, and destroy whole city! Amazing gameplay, short sessions, and these small details like possibility to name own city makes it even cooler. Altought, I need to say that balance could be better.
3 - Very fun, very replayable. High score makes you want to keep coming back for more, upgrade paths make you want to experiment with new builds and abilities. Base gameplay is simple but satisfying.
Innovation
3 - Great idea! Almost like a Roguelike version of Richard Garfield's King of Tokyo. I like stuff like this, where the tables are turned around.
2 - Theme of Chomp! is rather unusual for roguelike genre, and fully destructible environment also is rare feature.
2 - Nothing ground-breaking here, but some neat twists with the ability to pick up and eat or throw enemies.
Scope
2 - The assets and detail are really ambitious and fully thought through. Scope could have been improved with some longer-gameplay ideas, like variation in the cities, or more repercussions for your decisions. Maybe other Big Monsters come and attack you? Like Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974) or something? Defo. enough for 7drl, but it's not going beyond that.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL.
2 - Only one map, with not a lot of variety to it between generations. Enough enemies types to keep things interesting.
Roguelikeness
2 - ASCII: check. Permadeath: check. Experience/stats/complexity: check. I'm only not feeling total Roguelikeness because of the theme and scope. Like, the objective (destroy hospital, police station, etc) feels more arcade-ish than roguelikey, so overall it's getting a 2.
3 - Definitely roguelike. Maybe not in the most classic form, but still true roguelike.
3 - Classic roguelike in style.
You're a monster attacking a city. You can be a Big Lizard, a Big Ape, a Big Insect, a Big Blob or a Big Robot (no Big Turtle, sorry Gamera). You get to choose the city you want to attack. Angst points for entering your hometown, and rage points for entering the town you've now moved to.\ \ Beautiful animations and gameflow. Nice 8-bit music and sounds. Lots of depth with the special abilities, but still simple enough to play in a single sitting.\ \ Great game.
Really good small game about Huge Monsters That Used To Destroy Cities. Did you know how felt Godzilla destroying Tokyo? I played Chomp!, and I know already. It's really great feeling.
One of my absolute favourites of this year, 'Chomp!' is a fantastic roguelike where you're a giant monster attacking a city. It lets you do all the things you want to do as a giant monster - knock down buildings, eat civilians to restore energy, breath fire, zap people with death rays and pick up and throw tanks at crowds of national guardsmen. There are many ability upgrades to get, and several starting options (though there's not a huge difference between the options). Fun and replayable, and with online high scores that I couldn't resist replaying until I was king ;)
Hero Trap
Completeness
2 - Stable and complete, but missing some polish around the edges. Could be optimized a bit more for difficulty - I expect to die a lot in roguelikes but you also want to give the player a bit of time to make mistakes in the beginning.
2 - Enemies seemed very well done, but it didn't seem like there was a lot of variety in equipment. I may just not have gotten far enough though.
3 - Impressively polished and complete. I didn't encounter any bugs and it seems pretty well balanced.\
Aesthetics
2 - I love rot.js, this game uses the library very well. Not sure why the text characters need to be so huge, feels like there is too much spacing here, but I do love the ASCII and thought put into extra characters like gravestones, weapons, etc.
2 - I'll say 2 because the graphics work, it's understandable, but it's not flashy or fancy.
3 - Looks good, plays great! The controls are straightforward and well explained. No diagonal movement. You can return to previous levels. Look command explains any monster or terrain's notable features. 'Quail: More dangerous than a surface quail, but then most things are.'\
Fun
2 - Main tactic seems to be avoiding getting killed by the big bad monsters. The scrolls/potions/wands seem almost too random to be useful. Definitely some interesting level design (love trapping things in fungus) but feels a bit repetitive without strong character advancement or differentiation among monsters -- avoiding is fun but if you are always avoiding in the same way it's less interesting.\
3 - Oh yeah. This game kind of goes after the same thin I wanted to do with mine: make a Roguelike where you're not just bumping into enemies until one of you dies. I liked this one a lot.
3 - I laughed out loud at the text that went with some of my random potion experiments. 'Your mouth is on fire! Also everything else.' Followed by running around screaming setting everything on fire.\ \ The monsters are all really cool, and they're organized in a way that provides more first-level variety than I'm used to seeing. You'll run into a wide variety of the monsters within your first few plays. Per the dev diary: capital-letter monsters hit hard but are fairly avoidable, while lower-case monsters are more maneuverable but easier to defeat. They all have interesting mechanics: buzzsaws move back and forth on a track; hieroglyphs are confined to the walls; ghosts move through the walls; facelesses only detect you when you move.\
Innovation
2 - Solid roguelikey action. Interesting random effects, interesting biome/level design.
2 - I, at least, have not seen a RL like this, where it's not as focused on hack-and-slash.
3 - I am not a huge Roguelike player so I don't necessarily know the whole field, but the monster designs all seemed interesting to me. The arrangement of the order in which you encounter things and the subset you'll see in any given game is well thought out.\
Scope
2 - About what I'd expect from a 7drl. Nice to see more rot.js usage.
2 - I'll say 2 because it doesn't have a huge scope, you're basically just going through a dungeon, but what it does it does well.
3 - This is really a 4 game in scope. It's big!\
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely a roguelike!
3 - Totally a roguelike.
3 - Very Roguelike.
Nice little web-based dungeon diver. Levels show a lot of activity and interesting biomes. Gameplay is relatively straightforward for a roguelike, with less of an emphasis on straight-up combat - lots of things can kill you but can also be avoided with some thought. Definitely some brogue influence going on here and that's not a bad thing. Wand/potion/scroll effects are very surprising.
I liked this one! Some clever types of monsters, after dying a bunch of times I still wanted to play again
Wow! Everyone should try Hero Trap. One of the best I've encountered. It's a browser-based, fairly traditional Roguelike that has been honed to a shine. The monsters all have novel mechanics. Flavor text is entertaining. Area effects like spreading fire or poison gas add interest. It does not have a fixed schedule for what monsters will appear on each level; instead it builds packages of easy and hard monsters. This greatly increases the early-level variety, which I appreciate because dying means I get to see and try new stuff.\
Frostlike
Completeness
3 -
3 -
3 - The game runs fine, no bugs found and feels quite complete. It's not rock hard 3, probably a little bit more polish wouldn't hurt, but in general, it's good and balanced.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 -
2 - Looks nice, ASCII and good use of Unicode symbols. But the choice of keys is really weird, if not awkward. '/' in firefox invokes the search. Space scrolls the page.
Fun
2 -
2 -
2 - It's definitely worth to win the game at least once.
Innovation
2 -
1 -
1 - Overworld from ADOM and freezing theme from Frozen Depth. Nothing new.
Scope
3 -
3 -
2 - I'm really tempted to give 3 for the scope. If monsters had some (noticeable) unique traits, weapons have something distinct aside from DPS...
Roguelikeness
3 - not a lot of interesting item interactions, but close enough
3 -
3 - True roguelike.
A more traditional RL with a chilling twist.\ Not many RLs that require you to bundle up to avoid freezing, I like that this one does. Also camping.\ Impressive scope, with over-world and a few different dungeons to visit.\ The core gameplay seemed to be combat, which unfortunately is just bump to attack.\ Defeating enemies only serves to keep them from attacking you further, would be nice to have some ways to slow them down or otherwise escape them.\ Overall an enjoyable quick play, exploration and attempting to fight as few battles as possible can provide enough interest for the 15-30 minutes or so it takes to play.\ I managed to die a lot before finally winning a game.
Frostlike is so easy on the eyes! Traversing it's overworld map really felt like exploring some far away frozen lands. Loved multiple dungeons, although didn't stay long in any except for goblin cave and wizard's lair - too afraid to run out of health. Managed to save 7drl. Freezing mechanic felt more like flavor, for there was always enough wood and liquid fire to warm myself up.
Nice little game. I don't know if it was inspired by Frozen Death or not, but the premise is very close. One little detail could make it much more interesting, though. Some kind of sprint ability that will really allow avoiding combat. The fact that all but final caves are optional, is a nice touch. Basically, you fight as much as you need equipment and consumables. Better variety of weapons and armors definitely wouldn't hurt, but it's ok for a 7drl.\
Jellymancer
Completeness
3 - I know that splitting myself up means a loss of the disconnected part of my jelly but I can't help but feel, when I'm large, that I occasionally lose bits and pieces randomly anyway. That said, that's not enough to reduce this down from 3 - the game seems otherwise bug free and provides a complete game-play experience.
2 - Complete and stable until the final enemy appears. Then the audio loops horribly.\ \
2 - Feels feature-complete, but not very polished.
Aesthetics
3 - Big clean clear tiles and neat unobtrusive animations. Simple single-click interface. Controlling the jelly effectively can take a little getting used to should be picked up quickly.
2 - No feedback for attacking enemies, very hard to tell what constitutes surrounding.\ \ Painful delay when hitting start game. Should show a depressed button or immediately start.\ \ Cool look for jelly, nice attempt at voice overs for thematic effect.\ \ Lack of a keyboard control scheme is usually a negative, but the interesting indirect approach used for movement here I think justifies forcing mouse only.\ \ The health bar isn't very readable - since most of your health is represented on-map with your jelly, it is odd to have a separate sigil to track it. I'd integrate it into your actual tile.
2 - It's fairly ugly, and I'm not a fan of the iconography. Mouse-only control is painful - keyboard control for movement would be been much preferred.
Fun
2 - A cool unique experience. Controlling the jelly has a few nuances that you learn over a game or two but once you have the hang of it you can see that the game not only retains but expands upon the classic staple of tactical bump-combat - and it works very well.
2 - The indirect movement system could make for some interesting puzzles. It is especially cool how one has to be careful about cutting off parts of oneself. The problem is the game at present it too simple, enemies pose no real threat. Ideally one would expect a war of attrition but instead one can happily discard large chunks knowing there is plenty of food...\ \ Still, if one has to unbalance a 7drl, this is the direction to do it in.
3 - Very fun! Wrapping around enemies to kill them and grow has a lovely novel feel. The challenge is fairly low once you get used to it, but for a quick play it's great fun.
Innovation
3 - Playing as a multi-tile jelly is definitely new to me! You can grow and shrink in size as you consume and take damage, squish through corridors and expand out into rooms, pushing terrified rats and adventurers into the corners before attacking from all angles. Very unique and new, I might even look into implementing something like this for myself!
3 - I always like blob-based 7drls that expand the concept of the single @. This is a particularly impressive example of the genre as the organic movement of the jelly isn't some rigid response to your commands, but feels more like you are just encouraging it in a direction. A must-try for those thinking of this genre.\
2 - The absorption mechanic is a very cool twist, though I feel it could have been taken further, with terrain effects or more interesting enemies. End boss was a bit disappointing - I was expecting something special.
Scope
2 - The game has a big unique feature, several enemies with slightly different behavior, and even music and sound effects! It's so close to a 3, but it would be good to see some special abilities (of the player or enemies) or something else to spice things up, or a bit more level variety with increasing difficulty the further on you travel. As it is the game is unfortunately rather samey from start to end and even the final boss wasn't very different to what can be found elsewhere in the dungeon.
2 - Proper 7DLR size.
2 - A small game with a single large level and little gameplay variety.
Roguelikeness
3 - While the game play is very obviously different to the classic, I'm having trouble finding any reason to reduce this down from a 3. Despite the unique protagonist size, shape, method of travel and attack, it manages to retain not only the individual features the community considers necessary for a game to be called a roguelike, but somehow retains the 'feel'.
3 - Being a jelly, this is all about positional combat, so coupled with perma-death and procedural level generation, this is trivially a roguelike.
3 - Classic roguelike in style, though with cool gelatinous twists.
In Jellymancer, you play a magical ring in control of a multi-tile gelatinous creeping jelly. There are a couple of levels of control you have to manage with just the one mouse-click, one for the core of the jelly - it dictates the center of mass, but needs to be protected as only 4 direct hits will be the end of you. The other is the jelly itself which you can move and extend beyond the core by carefully picking your click location. It provides a refreshing and unique tactical experience, as you direct your goo about the dungeon cornering and consuming everything in your path. The game play can be a bit samey and unexpanded beyond that, but it's such a great idea - definitely one to pick up and check out!
In Jellymancer you play the role of a Ring of Wisdom that is attempting to rule the world through the jelly that consumed you. The game uses a grow & surround mechanic for combat; but has a very interesting indirect control.\
You play as a multi-tiles blob of jelly, wobbling around the dungeon floor and gobbling up all before you. It's weird and cool and fun! Wrapping yourself in an enveloping hug of consuming death around enemies feels both natural and entertaining. Overall not a big game, but it's definitely worth checking out for its unique mechanics.
Settler
Completeness
2 - Mostly. There's a clearly labeled 'unimplemented' teleporter, but everything else seemed to be there. I ran into a few bugs like the tile hovering being on the wrong tile (this later went away though).
2 - Stable. Controls are straightforward and graphics/UI is way better than expected. The little icons for different resources are a great touch.
2 - There's enough implemented for this to be an enjoyable game (and that's quite a lot!). However, a couple of features are missing (teleporters, replacing improvements), and the game needs a lot of balancing work (The barbarians are too strong, and money is too useful and too easy to acquire). There are ten levels, but they don't seem to bring anything new to the table.
Aesthetics
3 - The pixel art is nice. It's cool see all the biomes flow together. Controls are pretty good, though it seems a small mistake to reopen the building menu after selecting a building.
3 - Love the tile art and the simplistic aesthetic throughout. Also enjoy watching the sphere of influence around a city grow. The world generator spits out some great civ-feeling worlds.
3 - Nice graphics and music. Everything can be distinguished by sight, but more importantly the game provides tooltips when mousing over anything. Controls use numpad by default, but the Windows executable allows keys to be rebound. Documentation is very complete.
Fun
2 - Right off the bat I enjoyed the exploration aspect and seeing all the different biomes and islands. This is clearly Civ with a few twists and I kept mentally comparing it to Civ, which is a pretty high bar to reach. On the one hand, it's nice to be able to go wherever you want, but actually not being able to do so immediately in Civ is what *motivates* you to build and explore. My big gripe here is the way the islands work. You can use remote islands to generate cash but that seems to be the only link to any other place. But generating gold is so easy! There doesn't seem to be a hunger clock that keeps you on you toes and so I would often just hold down the wait key until I was rich. Then winning a level simply requires going to barbarian lands and building cities just outside of the FOV of the enemies. If you're too close, they'll crush you right away. If the island was too small, this task seemed impossible. Ships would be nice (maybe that was the idea behind the teleporter?). It's cool to be able to fight alongside your units, but you really only can take a finite number of hits before that option is closed off permanently.
2 - It's fun but could use some smoothing. Beginning is way to easy to amass fortunes of gold, but by the time you are down to fighting barbarian cities, you are easily overwhelmed and can't build fast enough to gain a foothold. Since your guys can't cross oceans it feels a bit lopsided (if you try to fight yourself you will die) or stuck in perpetual stalemate (if you never risk yourself you will never win).
2 - If you like 4X games and roguelikes, this is worth your time. The enemies are very challenging because they quickly develop a strong military. It takes some thought to find a winning strategy, but once it's found the game becomes less interesting. Worth playing until you can win a level.
Innovation
2 - It has a few interesting tweaks to the Civ formula. Since gold is so easy to come by, I never found trading worthwhile.
2 - I was skeptical of the civ-roguelike mashup but it works rather well. Nicely done blend of design and seems like a lot of thought went into it beforehand.
2 - Combining 4X with roguelike and RPG mechanics is not unheard of, but it's still very unusual.
Scope
3 - With all the biomes, resources, building options, enemy units, and trading this seems slightly outside a 7drl scope.
2 - A very solid 7DRL.
3 - There's a huge amount here. A wide selection of terrains, resources, city improvements, and military units, with a simulation tying them all together. And on top of that a transparent and informative interface.
Roguelikeness
3 - The joke is that Civ itself has most of the hallmarks of a roguelike. Adding your own character to the mix is enough for me, though regeneration and more interesting options (maybe equipment or experience) would make that part more compelling.
3 - Feels fast paced but still remains turn-based. Tile position is critical. Definitely a roguelike.
3 - Procedural maps, permadeath, turn-based.
Settler is basically Civilization, but with a playable character. The game could use a few balancing tweaks and maybe a hunger clock to make every turn count, but overall it's impressive. The humor of the game is a little all over the place (e.g. cities named Microsoft), which some will appreciate and others might wince. And I think I finally figured out why you play as a snake. Anyway, I've not see any 7drl try something like this, so you should check it out.
Surprisingly robust civilization-style game with permadeath and other roguelike elements. There is lots in here about gathering resources and gold and other such things. The main strategy seems to be where to 'plonk' down your first city so that it can grow. Fighting barbarians by yourself is very risky - if you die, your whole empire ends. Better to create a barracks and let your little guys run around and smash stuff. This is harder than it looks though, since the enemy is usually pretty built up by the time you get there.
An unusual and enjoyable mix of mechanics from roguelikes and 4X games (in particular Civilization). The focus is on building cities which can field an army capable of defeating a barbarian fortress. The gameplay is fun and the interface very polished, but there are a few missing features and balancing issues.
Turbotron
Completeness
3 - Nothing broke and it all felt like it was wrapped up and complete
2 - Works fine, never crashed, only one visual bug was encountered, but the game feels a little barebone. One fixed control scheme, no high scores table.
3 - No bugs found, lightsaber seems OP a bit, but maybe I just didn't find right tactic for other weapons.
Aesthetics
3 - An amazing aesthetic and even the controls for the hex based movement worked well.
2 - The game looks quite nice, but absence of mouse controls and as a result absence of current weapon area of effect is kind of throwback.
2 - Looks nice, gameover screen is especially funny. Controls seems difficult at first (12 keys! and hint about them disappear after first level), but after few plays they are very natural. Mouse controls could be useful too.
Fun
3 - Another must play. A great example of what you can do if you go beyond the square tiles
3 - Looks quite simple, but is somewhat addictive. I can't say it's a game that I would play for hours, even if it will have more content, but as a quick coffee break game - why not.
3 - More of a puzzle then a roguelike, but really really fun one. I've spent pretty much time to it, didn't get farther then level 12 though.
Innovation
2 - While using a hex based grid has been done it hasn't been done enough not to count as a twist (it only because all the tools we have are made for square tiles)
2 - Interesting concept. Not really super innovative, but nice twist on traditional mechanics.
2 - Puzzle-roguelike hybrids aren't unique among 7drls, mechanics aren't very original too, but they are combined in a right way.
Scope
2 - This fits into the high end of what I expect from a 7drl but still within it
2 - Looks just about right for a 7drl.
2 - Scope is fine for 7drl - all parts are in their places: good idea, nice polish, balanced gameplay, several monsters, items and weapons.
Roguelikeness
3 - Some may debate whether this counts but the game has that roguelike feel to it that you don't really see in any other genre
3 - Well... Very weak 3. It's so minimalistic that feels more like a puzzle than a roguelike. And yet there is some vibe ...
2 - It is pretty far from any RL definition, but gameplay is like a distilled roguelike battles - very tactical and very fun.
Nice to see a really good hex based roguelike coming out of this. Well worth the play, and speaking of playing you can watch me as I do so as I recorded my time with it:\ https://youtu.be/U_-BUH7Zuts
Roguelike-ish reimagination of a classic game from 1982(?) . Almost as addictive as original.
In this game player must kill all robots on increasingly difficult levels. Level consist of hex board with several monsters, rescuable humans and loot. It is inspired by old unix game where you run from the robots… well, I don't remember it's name. But this game is much funnier - there are more mechanics and game-changing weapons - lightsaber is my favorite. You get two actions per robots turn, so at first game seems casual, but then there are more and more enemies and battles become very tactical - you must cleverly use scattered bonuses, care to don't get cornered and also consider rescuing people. The game doesn't plays like chess, you aren't forced to plan for many turns ahead, and with 3hp's you have a right to make a few mistakes, like in a normal roguelike.\
Manicule of Fury
Completeness
3 - Game ran well, and ran into no game breaking technical issues. A few times I ran across map gen rooms that were not accessible, but it didn't seem to affect gameplay.
3 - The game just feels complete. I can't really point out any place that felt like it need more to it and no bugs happened to me while playing.
3 - No bugs encountered, the game maybe isn't very balanced, but mechanics are complete and well linked together\
Aesthetics
2 - Clear ascii. Nice bobbing and aura effects that added some flair. In hindsight, UI and controls are functional, but at first I was a little lost.
3 - Selecting the technique I was going to use was a little confusing but once I figured it out everything was smooth sailing. Also the visual design is amazing for an ASCII base roguelike with each creatures character working quite well for them.
2 - Controls are ok, graphics is nice. There aren't enough information about enemy actions though, maybe the sequencial showing of what hit they did would be useful.\
Fun
2 - The action/focus based system, along with the varied enemy movements make this game feel really nice sometimes. There are situations where positioning and planning are a high focus and really brings out the martial arts feel. However, it doesn't give this feel often. Some improved enemy ai would really go a long way. The abilities you can gain are interesting, however most the time I was just using the positioning along with the basic attacks.
3 - The interesting combat system which is meshed into that good ol roguelike game play makes this another must play from my point of view.
1 - Killing of monsters become easy after you understand mechanics. Only bosses provides some challenge and still have not enough action points to make killing them difficult.\
Innovation
2 - The combat system is the highlight here, and is a neat take on the typical combat systems
2 - The combat system is quite the interesting twist on the normal roguelike combat and well worth a look.
2 - Isn't absolutely original, there some other 7drls with similar mechanics, but I haven't seen a lot of 'big' martial arts roguelikes.\
Scope
2 - A very high value of 2. A lot of interesting mechanics and complex systems, but the base of the game didn't feel built to highlight them.
2 - While at the high end this is what I expect from a 7drl
2 - Good scope for 7drl - interesting mechanics, relatively polished implementation - intro screen and all such things.\
Roguelikeness
3 - Roguelike enough for me.
3 - Even though the combat system isn't what most people think of when it comes to a roguelike it still feels like one anyway and my opinion is that this game is a true roguelike.
3 - There are some elements taken from fighting game, but it is still a roguelike.\
Definitely worth a play, Manicule of Fury is a martial arts roguelike that can really *feel* like a martial arts based roguelike. A lot of really interesting and complex mechanics and systems are in play, however the simple implementation really doesn't highlight those systems.
An excellent game with an interesting combat system and progression mechanic. Well worth a play. Also I recorded my time with the game and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/e5yb66mH2bI
In this martial-themed roguelike player complete several levels that end with a boss, then kill a final boss. Each previous boss guards some character upgrade so you can plan your character choosing a levels. Combat system is somewhat unusual - each time you have several action points and can move, hit and use a special attacks, then enemies do several actions too. This idea could make a nice game, but implementation is far from ideal - monsters have pretty obvious patterns, so killing them is repetitive and involves not much tactic. Only bosses pose some treat and should require understanding of what all this blocks, focus damage and other things mean, but won without full understanding of mechanics, just using random skills, so i think even bosses are still not challenging enough. \
Rogue River: Obol of Charon
Completeness
3 -
2 - Complete, but unpolished.
3 - Bug-free, feels polished.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - I have mixed feelings about Rogue River's aesthetics. On the one hand, terrain looks great, and gradient is nice, but on the other hand, object font looks much more rough. Same for controls - controling raft is nice and fun, but [f]iring enemies is annoying due necessity to use mouse for aim.
2 - Functional, but not pretty. Sometimes hard to tell where the river bank starts. Biggest problem is the firing controls, which involve a lot of clicking. And auto-shoot at nearest target key would be handy.
Fun
3 -
2 - It's really entertaining, but it quickly gets old. The idea of core gameplay, and interesting theme of game, invokes *wow* effect. Unfortunately, after some time, player is about to notice some major flaws in game design and execution.
3 - Shooting skeletons as you float along out of their reach is very fun :) There's not a huge amount of depth to the game, but what is there is very enjoyable.
Innovation
3 -
2 - Rafting game in ancient Greece, roguelike inspired by River Raid - it's definitely something unusual!
2 - The sailing mechanics are a great twist. End boss is nice too.
Scope
2 -
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Fairly small game.
Roguelikeness
2 -
2 - It's turn based and permadeath, but game's mechanics is far away from classic roguelike.
3 - Classic roguelike in style, though it deviates heavily from traditional dungeon crawler mechanics.
Rollin'... Rollin' down the river! This game is a blast.\ The river rafting is fun and innovative.\ There's times when you gotta let the river take you while you fire at enemies because you cant steer and fire at the same time. It feels great when you find the right current that will lead you past the rocks while allowing you to fire at those pesky fast monsters creepin' on your 6!\ Try to grab a sweet upgrade on the river banks leads to yet a new phase in the game, it feels scary and risky when there's monsters closing in\ Would be nice to have a heal. Some unlucky shots from chimera took me down on my best run :(
The game balances on the extremes: 1) very good-looking terrain, *but* very rough symbols of objects (especially one-tile sized raft, with player tile that almost completely covers raft tile); 2) nice rafting controls, *but* flawed combat handling; 3) good-catched feeling of obstacles avoiding, *but* enemies exists almost for nothing. Summarizing 4) very good idea, *but* average execution
Finally, an Ancient Greek rafting roguelike! This game has you sailing down on a raft whilst enemies chase you along the banks (and a few pestering ones can fly and shoot). You can shoot at them as you sail along, and there are items upgrades to find. There are some fluid dynamics happening across the river that affect your course (you are always moving!) and there are rocks to avoid as you steer your way. It's a short and light game, but the base gameplay is very enjoyable and the theming is brilliant.
Undeath and Taxis
Completeness
3 - Polished, no bugs, well done.
3 - No serious bugs detected. In general seems quite polished.
3 - Complete, bug free, polished game.
Aesthetics
3 - Great job on the UI, clear and intuitive.
2 - The main gimmick of the game is its control scheme, which works quite well even if it takes a little getting used to. The graphics are nice but too small on the screen - I had to squint to work out what everything was.
3 - Nice tiles and very smooth animation-like handling. I don't like relative nature of controls, but it's not enough to lower score...
Fun
2 - Fun to play, although steering your car can be tricky. Feels like zombies are dodging far too easily, which makes the games a bit tedious at time.
2 - Driving around and mowing down zombies is pretty entertaining, though going backwards and forwards to the base gets pretty repetitive after a while. Could do with some more variety.
2 - Very enjoyable game, but a bit too shallow. And these relative controls...
Innovation
2 - Reminds me a lot of C:DDA, but with its own twist.
3 - The game has strong shades of Cataclysm, but provides one of the best vehicle control systems I've seen in a turn-based game and the style of level generation is not something I've seen before either.
1 - Nothing new here.
Scope
2 - What I expect from a 7DRL
2 - Technically impressive, but could do with some extra features (usable items, upgrades, more enemy types) to increase the variety.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedurally generated: yes. Turn-based: yes. Permadeath: yes. Strategic: yes.
3 - Not a very taditional one, but has most of the key ingredients.
2 - Definitely not pure roguelike, but it uses some roguelike-specific features.
Neat idea. Feels like a full game developped around the post-apocalyptic driving of Cataclysm:DDA. With less building and repairing of your vehicle. Fun !
An interesting and novel vehicular rougelike with a great title, which tasks you with repopulating a post-apocalyptic wasteland by shuttling soldiers between a base camp and desolate farmsteads. The core feature is its driving mechanic, which provides one of the best methods I've seen for integrating acceleration and turning into a turn-based game. Unfortunately it can still prove a little unintuitive at times and ultimately the constant backtracking to the home base gets a bit boring. There is a lot of potential here, however, should more variety be introduced. The ability to home in on hidden underground repair kits is cool and could do with expansion.
Nice small game. The idea is really simple - just drive your vehicle, crash some not-so-friendly humanoids, explore post-apo landscape, and so on. It is a bit shallow, still very enjoyable, probably due very smooth movement.
Woozoolike
Completeness
3 - Fully complete. Well-integrated UI and graphics put this over the top.
2 - Overall, this game seemed quite complete. No obvious bugs, and all the material was there for a roguelike. There were some grammatical mistakes in the text, but I saw on Twitch that the author doesn't consider himself to be completely fluent in English. There's a Korean version too, which I ran even though I don't know Korean. It looked really good with the Korean characters, and I imagine the writing is fine there. 'The bandit cuts off you.' Cuts off my what?
2 - Definitely complete game, in terms of gameplay and features implemented. Altought I encounteres several issues - line-of-fire display is misleading sometimes, and early game needs more balance. It's a bit sad that it seems that landing on planets is impossible.
Aesthetics
3 - Looks great. Plays great.
2 - The sprites look great, and the modifications to the sprites when you pick up and wield items are smooth. One thing I found tho was that the bullets were really laggy: some enemies shoot 3 bullets at a time, and it takes maybe 5 seconds between your single keypresses if they're firing at you from the other side of a room in a spaceship (not sure if this was just on my computer).
3 - Graphics tiles are amazing (pretty generic, I'm sure that I saw these tiles in some other games - but still, developer used them in great way), UI is really good, and controls are very smooth.
Fun
3 - Loads of fun. Some interesting tactical decision making mostly around which weapons to use. Some enemies feel overpowered, but that usually means you wasted your assault rifle and rocket shots on the wrong folks. The sheer vastness of empty space is rather daunting at first, but after many plays, I think it's part of the charm.
2 - I really liked the feel of Woozoolike. It really captures the isolation of space. You start floating in space in your space suit, with nothing around. It can be tough to even find the next spaceship or planet before running out of oxygen as you tumble around the vast void of space. It creates a feel of urgency and despair, reminisent of other space RLs like FTL for example.
2 - It can deliver loads of fun, altought you need to beat (very) early game's balance issues. The first room(s) of the first ship you'd enter can be too easy or just lethal, depends on enemies placement. But when you manage to obtain some weapons and not die in very room due sniper / assault combo when you have only weak pistol, combat starts to be tactical.
Innovation
2 - A fairly straight up roguelike, includes all of the most important elements. The 'ships as levels' mechanic is nicely done and something more games should explore.
2 - Reasonable innovation. Like FTL but more fast paced. Marukrap streamed the dev of Woozoolike on twitch.tv. I didn't see the stream during the week, but I think that's a cool idea.
1 - Nothing new, unfortunately. Woozoolike captures the atmosphere of loneliness in vast space very well. But it's not about innovation, thought.
Scope
3 - Super solid 7DRL attempt. Would normally say 2, given the gameplay, but the combination of UI, menus, controls, graphics, mesh so well that it pushes it over the top. Very obvious amount of polish went into this.
2 - Scope was good, enough for a 7DRL.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely a roguelike. Thumbs up!
3 - Really felt like a roguelike, with perma-death and lots of items. Could have benefited from save/load functionality.
3 - Definitely roguelike.
A great proper roguelike with a sci-fi setting. A great feature lets you take over ships (after you kill all of the enemies inside) and zoom around to other ships and land on other planets. The weapons seem fairly straightforward at first, but once you start amassing a collection it provides for a lot of interesting tactical decisions. You may be tempted to take everything out with a sniper rifle or assault rifle, but you'll soon fine you are better served by dispatching enemies with your pistol when you can, or even find a laser cutlass & shield for extra damage absorption. Armor mechanics are simple and straightforward. The UI is perfect. Controls are minimalist (which is good) and obvious. The vastness of the universe is a bit mind boggling, but you'll find pieces of your macguffin are more prevalent than you might otherwise expect. So far my favorite 7drl of the batch.
Woozoolike is a space-travel based RL, where you move between planets and spaceships in your spacesuit. You battle space pirates and aliens, while preserving oxygen as a precious resource. Graphically, and thematically I found it to be quite complete. When you pick up and wield items, you see them added to your sprite. And the controls are very intuitive and easy to master.
In general, Woozoolike is really good 7DRL. Looks and plays great. It captures the feeling (not that I know it, but still...) of loneliness in vast space greatly. Mechanically, it's rather generic hack'n'slash - or, in that case, hack'n'shoot, but the quality of game is really good. ...altought early game balance issues are a-bit-more-than-a-bit annoying.
PureSpace
Completeness
2 - An undulating with an almost mesmeric quality, the game presents a kind of madness, a desperation of escape - it seems fairly complete, but my plans to find an exit are always thwarted within a few moves when reality comes apart, spinning away my time units and my health. Upon death, have to close and restart game, doesn't have a key/menu try again feature
2 - Seems complete in meaning of planned features, but definitely lacks of polish
3 - Feels complete and well-balanced. Could use some interface polish, but otherwise excellent.
Aesthetics
2 - Colours are grim, but suit the odd plane of existence you're dropped into. Traditional text, on an organic snaking background, with coloured enemies. Love engine was fixed size, had to lower resolution to see the game better
2 - Hard to say. Controls pretty generic, but sometimes things get clunky. Display - with all these floating floors - looks pretty interesting at the first glance, but it starts to tire eyes quickly.
2 - Interface is functional, but not great. The dungeon distortion effects are cool but not very practical for play. Overall the game doesn't look great, especially with the garish colours.
Fun
2 - I enjoyed the spectacle of the playing field challenges, but the time unit health mechanism seemed woefully inadequate to navigate the purespace and make any progress - especially if you had to build blocks across developing chasms.
2 - Maybe I'm missing something... PureSpace seems very unbalanced. Didn't manage to win, and I have no idea what should I do to improve! Altought mechanics of creating new lands is really interesting, it is more about making own way rather than using godly powers to create new area.
3 - Brilliant bit of fun. Observing and overcoming the enemy patterns makes for great tactical play, and the items all have interesting effects. Not a huge amount of replayability, but what's there is great. The level of challenge also feels very appropriate.
Innovation
3 - I enjoy the premise of the game, and mind boggling motion of the environment and it's connections. I'm fascinated by how the constantly shifting /disappearing world affects your movement decisions - it's like crossing a stream using stepping stones, where the stones keep shifting in and out, melding with one another, and start spinning above the water!
2 - PureSpace features some innovative twists, both in gameplay and display sides.
2 - Basic mechanics involve just bump to kill, but the enemy effects and items all have interesting twists.
Scope
2 - The game achieved an interesting dynamic premise for a roguelike, and with a little more explanatory information on top of the atmosphere coupled with difficulty balance could go on much further to extend the scope of it's 7DRL inception.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Fairly normal scope for a 7DRL. Good range of enemies, but low number of levels and little level variety.
Roguelikeness
3 - It is definitely a roguelike, but with a 'twist' that is literally happening before your very eyes! Traditional ASCII presentation, procedural map with constantly shifting footprint, monsters that not only attack but also deform the landscape further, items and inventory system.
3 - 100% roguelikeness in roguelike
3 - Classic roguelike at its core.
Weird environmental shifting mind bending illusion of a roguelike, where the mere walls and corridors ebb in and out of reality. Enemies patrol these nebula connections and can break up and isolate you, or spin the world into its component around their presence, on whirling spindles, disrupting everything near, and if you get trapped in this vortex of uncertainty, you will quickly sap away your finite amount of allotted time, which serves as your health in this realm. You can attempt to conjur environment into existence, but it costs you dearly in terms of time. The phantasmagoria of the pure space is impressive, the character movement through it is achievement, the monster descriptions were more atmospheric than tactically helpful and I feel the balance of the time unit loss with landscape reclamation needs some work. Overall the game brings something very interesting to the table, if it could explain itself a little more, ease up on the difficulty a little, perhaps allow more extensive building for less time cost, just to prevent a no-win isolated situation I think it could become something worth spending a lot more time with.
PureSpace have everything for being very good game. And it is. But why, the hell, is playing less enjoyable than it should? The gameplay is really nice, making own way by creating new tiles is exciting, especially if paired with displaying floating floors, and dark, grim palette of colours. Unfortunately, PureSpace quickly gets old - shaking display is eye-tiring, creating new lands is not so helpful, and the whole game starts to seem much less rewarding.
A delightful strange roguelike where you must transcend dimensions and defeat strange enemies. On the surface it looks like a standard dungeon crawler, but the weird enemy behaviours and items make for a surreal and fun experience. A simple game well-made, and highly worth playing with.
They Look Strange And Have To Die
Completeness
2 - Seems very complete and bug free, but need much better balance
2 - Wavered a bit on this one, but decided on the lower due to the pickup balance. There were runs where I really couldn't get far because I could not find ammo for the only weapon I could find. Other times, I'd hit a level with syringes, fruit and weapons laying all over the place. Game ran extremely well, and ran across no bugs or technical issues.\
3 - Feels polished. There's a little bug in line of sight symmetry (sometimes enemies you can't see shoot you around corners) but nothing game breaking. Balance is quite nice.
Aesthetics
3 - Pretty neat 3D graphics, smooth controls, and nice audio present. It's impressive for 7DRL.
3 - Game looks and plays great. Turn based 3d movement was implemented very well... very intuitive and not at all encumbering. Audio is very rare in these entries for reasons, so bonus points for including background music tracks.
2 - It's ugly but charming. Controls are simple enough, but the constant turning around needed is annoying.
Fun
2 - Definitely enjoyable game, and I'd glad to score it 3 here, but these balance issues are hard to ignore
3 - Despite the drop balance issues, I had a really good time playing this game. I know this because I accidentally quit a game on a particularly good run and felt sadness and regret. The turn based movement gave ample time to get your bearings. Whether it was there or not, it felt like I was developing a movement strategy, carefully hopping around. Items and weapons were interesting, even if their placement didn't always lead to an optimal, or playable scenario.
2 - It's a fairly basic roguelike. Enjoyable to play for a while, but ultimately lacks replayability.
Innovation
2 - Nothing really new here - but I must admit that 3D roguelike that use turn based system is something unusual.
2 - Granted I've not played a lot of 3D, turn based roguelikes, but those I've played just plain didn't work, or just revert to realtime, taking away that roguelike feel. While there's nothing particularly new as far as standard roguelike mechanics go, the movement and environment was novel to me.
1 - Turn-based FPS roguelikes have been done before, and in some cases done better. The mechanics in use are nothing new.
Scope
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Feels about right for a 7DRL
2 - A solid size for a 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Yup, roguelike.
3 - It's a roguelike.
3 - Traditional in all but presentation.
Really good 3D turnbased (!) roguelike. Technically, very polished, but vary unbalanced - it's pretty annoying. I have high hopes for post-7DRL release. If balance issues will be resolved, 'They Look Strange And Have To Die' will become one of best 7DRL 2017 entries.
They Look Strange And Have To Die is a turn based 3d roguelike that actually feels and plays like a roguelike. Crash landed on an alien planet, you must try to survive by blasting the aliens because... well.. they look strange and have to die. Slightly unbalanced in the drops you can get per run, but the good runs are a pretty fun time.
The Look Strange is a strange-looking game, where you assault enemies from a first person perspective in a colourful setting. This is no FPS though - the environment is grid-based and all actions are turn-based. Essentially a traditional roguelike with a different perspective.\ \ There are upgrades and items and a range of enemies to kill, and some basic mechanics to play with. Not a huge amount of depth, but entertaining to play.
Arkham after Midnight
Completeness
2 - Most everything seems to be working, but a few areas are lacking polish. I noticed a few spelling mistakes and there seems to be debug output in the message log. I was a bit confused by the tombstones listing 800 year lifespans. The game crashed once on my first playthrough, but I never saw that issue again. Crucially, I couldn't find a way to beat the game despite clearing all areas and repeatedly trying out what I thought was the game ending spell.
2 - I managed to get it to crash and achieved a state that I seemed to be stuck without ability to proceed which may or may not be a bug. Otherwise it runs smoothly and works perfectly fine.
2 - This game is complete, and - mostly - bug-free, but it lacks a bit of polish. FOV algorithm doesn't work well, and fighting is quite unbalanced - some enemies are mostly harmless, other are very deadly; lack of diagonal movement doesn't help, but it's not disadvantage sensu stricto.
Aesthetics
3 - The pixel art is minimalistic, but very nice. The title screen is superb! Menus are smooth. I love the red overlay whenever interacting with a person.
3 - My goodness this just oozes aesthetics. The setting and graphics are well done. As for the controls it feels right. Even having to go into the inventory to reload the revolver feels right considering the gun type.
2 - On the graphical side, Arkham After Midnight is gorgeous. Nice and readable font, stylish tiles / sprites. Also display effects are smooth. Unfortunately, controls scheme is flawed. Confirming (by Enter key) every shot (by 'F') is unhandy. Same as lack of shortcut to reload your revolver - you need to open 'I'nventory screen, then use bullets. A bit annoying.
Fun
2 - Pretty good. I enjoyed the handcrafted locations and reading the text. I would recommend checking it out. There's not enough content or depth of either story or combat to last very long though. A few monsters feel way unbalanced.
3 - I would have very much missed out if I didn't play this game. Well worth a try though I will admit it may not be for everyone.
2 - Extremaly enjoyable gameplay - at start. Due rather small amount of mystery variations, and due to static levels, AAM get olds quickly. The main idea is amazing, and I hope that Lone Spelunker will develop his game further after 7DRL - it just needs (much) more ploxels.
Innovation
2 - The game is clearly trying to do something interesting with procedurally generated stories, but different playthroughs didn't feel too distinct.
2 - The way you have to go into your inventory to reload your revolver is a nice twist and feels right.
2 - The idea of procedurally generated plot is maybe not new, but definitely not explored well, especially by roguelikes.
Scope
2 - About average. Maybe a little on the high end considering the art. There are items, monsters, and spells but a fairly low number of each. It would need more plot points and locations to score higher.
3 - Just taking everything in the game as whole it feels like something I would not expect to be created in 7 days
2 - Just what I'd expect from 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Combat is not too complicated and levels are mostly handcrafted, but everything else is roguelike. I always like seeing different takes on 'discovery' mechanics.
3 - While the combat may feel a bit different it is roguelike all the way down
2 - Looks like roguelike, plays like roguelike, but it is not working like a roguelike.
Arkham After Midnight is, as the name suggests, steeped in Lovecraftian flavor. It does a great job of providing that aesthetic in roguelike form. The game features a handful of interesting handcrafted locations, which you jump between as you try to solve Arkham's mystery. Combat is simple, but works well enough. The 'big idea' here is supposed to be a procedurally generated mystery, though it seems more content and interesting choices need to be offered to make that really compelling. Overall, worth checking out.
A great game that just oozes a nice mild Lovecraft feel while still being a roguelike. Well worth my time to play. You can watch me do so as I recorded my time with the game and you can find that here:\ https://youtu.be/rnKTgUFp9_Y
Arkham After Midnight is unusual game. It is roguelike, but definitely not in pure form. Instead of procedurally generated levels, it focuses on creating procedural mysteries. This mechanics relies on already written parts of plot, called 'ploxels'. It seems that there are, say, buckets of ploxels for every part of mystery, and game creates whole plot by getting elemenst from specific buckets. And it works very well.\ \ Graphics is very stylish, I'd glad to know if these tiles are external asset, or it's work of developer. Controls scheme is a bit unhandy.\ \ I'd really like to score Arkham After Midnight better. It's great game, and the main idea is amazing. But I just can't do that due some flaws. However, let me write it, these flaws looks like easy to fix. So, I'm looking forward to post-7DRL releases. Not only about fixes - I'd like to see much more ploxels, and more locations, because that game have potential to become something much bigger and better than just-game-jam-entry.
Black Jack is still at large
Completeness
2 -
2 - Ran into a few times where the game seemed to felt like it was missing a bit of polish. Especially in the UI as the targeting and reload systems didn't always refresh.
2 - Feels solid, but lacks a bit of polish here and there. Reloading is a little bugged, and enemies moving diagonally whilst you can't feels like cheating.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - Nice ascii and good palette. Flavor text, and scrolling text was nice. UI refresh issues as mentioned before were a disappointment. Also, not a fan of restricted 4 way movement when enemies have 8 way. Even though it really wasn't too much of a hindrance in this game, I always point it out.
3 - Simple ANSI aesthetics, nicely done. Controls are easy. The card display is small and hard to really notice though.
Fun
3 -
2 - Combat at first, seemed novel, but after a while it felt kind of meh. Draw cards until you're over the defense of your target. Perhaps a couple more mechanics of blackjack put in would have made it a bit more interesting, plus a bigger penalty for busting, which just seemed to skip a turn. Also difficulty ramped up quite a bit... I found my self surrounded on a few levels in no win situations, with nothing to do but restart the into levels again.
2 - The gameplay is fun at first but becomes a little monotonous after a while. Plus there's really not that much depth to the blackjack mechanics - your choice is purely down to whether to draw more cards are not, and usually that's fairly obvious.
Innovation
3 -
2 - Blackjack mechanics were interesting, but their use was minimal.
2 - Blackjack mechanic is a nice twist.
Scope
2 -
2 - About right for a 7drl
2 - Normal scope for a 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - Felt roguelike enough for me.
3 - Classic style of roguelike.
Fun little old western theme.\ Color scheme works for the theme.\ Playing blackjack hands for combat resolution is nice and sets up some interesting decisions.\ You can draw cards and 'press your luck' to try to ensure a good shot.\ Awesome tension: You don't know the target's hand until you fire at them the first time. Should i draw for a high hand or just take a potshot to test the waters?\ Enemies will flee when injured enough, this is nice because in my own narrative I felt like I didn't really want to kill the natives, so I was pleased to be able to force them to flee. Unfortunately sometimes a lucky shot ends up killing them. Don't play with guns, kids!\ Great flavor text in between levels.\ Sometimes the game hangs when generating the next level.
A western themed roguelike with a combat system inspired by the card game. Your enemies play the roll of the 'dealer' with their defensive and you have the option to draw more cards for your attack, trying to get over their hand without going over 21. A really cool idea, but some issues pop up from time to time that prevented the game from becoming what it could have been.
A cowboy-themed roguelike with blackjack mechanics integrated into the combat. Each time you shoot at an enemy you compared your current attack hand with their defence hand. You can draw extra cards to hopefully get a better hand, but just how far will you push your luck..? It's a cool idea, but the frequency of combat means you end up not paying too much attention to your own defence. Plus it starts with several long easy levels that are a chore to replay once you hit the harder levels. Would have been better off with much shortened initial levels.
Abyss
Completeness
3 - No bugs (that I found), clear goal, and a full game start to end.
3 - Ran into no bugs or major technical issues.
2 - The movement and update feels buggy. Sometimes you bump fish as opposed to attack with no clear idea what the difference is. Sometimes you end up on the same square as alpha fish.
Aesthetics
2 - Clean and clear. Kind of annoying that I only have four way control though.
2 - It is ascii art, but it's good ascii art. The colors were nice, and the turn based animations were really great, and added a positive sense of atmosphere.
3 - Awesome look. Good use of ascii, awesome waves at the top, beautiful bubbles. Menus work smoothly.
Fun
2 - Cool and enjoyable. Would have been nice to spice things up by exploring some cave systems or something though rather than a singular enormous open space.
2 - I really liked the game, but there were a few things that made me not want to play more. The player having 4 way movement while the mobs had 8 caused a lot of frustration, mainly chasing around the little fishies, and getting surrounded by sharks. After a bit, it \ seemed most my money was just going to fix shark damage, and didn't see a way out of it.\ \ I like the overall idea. The side scrolling was nice and liked the go back for air mechanics. Just a tad bit more balancing, and I think you'd have a really great game!
1 - Maybe there is a way to attack sharks sideways? But losing 3 hp per shark means you lose $10 per shark. This you reclaim chasing\ annoying alpha fish. This is definitely a case where erring on the side of too-easy would have been better. I really wanted to explore deeper and discover more, but the amount of bottom-feeding (but I guess top-feeding in this case) required was too daunting.\
Innovation
3 - I've seen a few roguelikes on their side in the past, but having the setting in water puts it on top of that already neat twist. It's a great solution to the otherwise often annoying 'always falling downwards' issue those other games can face.
2 - A lot of little twists on the traditional roguelike put in a nice package (side-scrolling, returning to base...) but nothing I haven't seen before.
2 - Side scrolling done right for a roguelike! I liked the details of having crushing depths and O2 meters. And how O2 consumption increases with depth.
Scope
2 - Yeah this is about right for a 7drl.
2 - What I would expect from a 7DRL
2 - Proper 7DRL size
Roguelikeness
3 - Despite being on its side, the method of movement is identical thanks to the water. Thus, it's game-play style is otherwise more or less completely true to a classic roguelike bump'n'explore game.
3 - Its a roguelike
2 - Very close to a roguelike, but combat in an infinite plain makes it just a you-hit/I-hit snooze fest, avoiding the interesting subtleties that makes roguelikes roguelike.
Explore the depths of the ocean abyss! How? Sideways! Abyss is a roguelike flipped on its side - allowing side to side and up down movement instead of your regular compass directions from above. Collect fish, earn money and upgrade your sub to go ever deeper in search of the elusive fish of yendor. Striking ahead too quickly will get you chomped by sharks and literally out of your depth - so sit back and take your time exploring the wide open ocean and collecting fish. If that's your thing, then this is the game for you!
Abyss is a pretty side scrolling roguelike where you collect aquatic life and upgrade your sub to get ever deeper into the abyss, searching for the fish of yendor. \ Some frustrations here and there, but definitely worth a look.
In Abyss you are a researcher diving the ocean deeps searching for fame and fortune. The traditional roguelike grid is turned on its side, the same 4-way movement is now moving up/down and left/right as you send your submersible after fish. But beware the sharks!\
Schwarzwald Slaughter
Completeness
2 -
3 - Complete, feature-full and polished. Didn't encounter bugs.
2 - The game works fine (after manually installing missing dependencies), but do not look like a complete game. More like a prototype to test combat mechanics.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - Lovely text (but not true ASCII) graphics, smooth controls; combat system is really intuitive, yet pretty complex.
2 - More or less standard libtcod ASCII view, with a nice touch with letters rotated by 90 degrees for fallen enemies. Controls are ok. But escape that closes the game without confirmation is extremely annoying.
Fun
2 -
2 - Nice game, with very enjoyable combat mechanics - there is lots of possible moves, and every type of enemy have own strengths and weaknesses. Altought, avoiding combat is better decision than fighting enemies, and running to next level (then running to next level, and so on) is boring, a bit. It would score 3 if killing would be more beneficial, or outrunning would be more interesting.
2 - It's very weak 2. Almost 1. Positioning based combat is interesting, but what really kills the fun is the way weapon pickup works. 1. You don't see parameters of a new weapon. 2. Your old weapon is destroyed on pickup. 3. If you decline pickup of the new weapon, it is destroyed too. And the same for codpieces. I don't really want to memorize weird German words and parameters of all weapons. Also, perfecting battles against some enemies requires waiting for matching position, but enemies easily can forget about you if you are trying to maneuver around trees. Which makes combat quite boring.
Innovation
3 -
2 - The concept of this game is not truly innovative, but there is too little roguelikes with melee other than classic bump-to-attack, so - Schwarzwald Slaughter is still in some sort of niche.
1 - Actually, there were attempts to make combat highly dependent on positioning. And I think these attempts were more successful. This one is really confusing.
Scope
2 -
2 - Reasonable scope for 7DRL.
2 - More or less OK for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 -
3 - Definitely roguelike.
2 - I felt that I'm playing some strange variation of chess, not a roguelike.
I've died so many times in Schwarzwald Slaughter it truly deserves its name. Took me a while to realize that fighting enemies is often more advantageous then making a beeline for the exit. But after I looted my first codpiece and estoc, things became very different. \ + clean, easy to understand UI\ + unlike some other games where randomness prevails, here it's possible for the player to get better and survive against almost any odds\ + innovative for me because I haven't played Hoplite? Anyway - innovative!\ - a tad rough around the edges here and there\ - I suck at tactical roguelikes
Really nice fencing-focused roguelike. Intuitive yet - sort of - complex combat system is really enjoyable. Altought making outrunning enemies more safe / beneficial than fighting them seems bad decision. However, Schwarzwald Slaughter is still really good, well done roguelike. Polished, aesthetic, with nice twist in mechanics.
The game is all about combat based on a mutual positioning of opponents. In theory, it looks interesting. In practice, it's too confusing, and to some extent too boring, if you are trying to make a perfect match with enemies that have flaws. Also, a design decision to NOT show parameters of a new weapon/codpiece is highly doubtful.\ \
Paladin Dive
Completeness
2 - Feels complete. Plays well. Would love less mouse fiddling, but that's just me.
3 - No bugs found, works fine, fells ... I wouldn't say 'complete'. It's technically probably feature complete, but somewhat lacks in 'level gen variety' department. It affects mostly feel of the game.
Aesthetics
2 - Looks great. UI definitely had some thought put into it. Controls are explained well.
2 - Acceptable pixel art, but controls definitely can be more robust. You have to select card with mouse. There are no keyboard shortcuts for this. And than you, once again, have to select target with mouse. Pressing direction for some reason cancels card usage... This makes combat very slow.
Fun
2 - It's definitely fun, although I would prefer if it were a bit quicker paced - the levels feel way too large and combat can take a long time, so often enemies come to feel like a chore, but avoiding them is not immediately possible.
2 - At first the game felt unbalanced. But than I understood it better and found ways to exploit it. IMO huge levels definitely fun killer there.
Innovation
3 - Card mechanic is cool, and the trade offs between burning and keeping show obvious signs of good design.
1 - There were crossbreeds of CCG and roguelikes before, and I'd say more interesting ones.
Scope
2 - Solid 7drl attempt.
2 - Solid 7drl entry.
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely a roguelike.
3 - On a lower side of 3. Closer to 2. With growing deck's size each new choice becomes less and less important. And since the deck of cards is the only way to 'develop' your character, this quasi-development soon enough slows down a lot...
Cool traditional-ish roguelike with a very interesting card/deck mechanic. Takes some getting used to, but actions like 'attack' and 'defend' will appear as cards in your deck and get built up over time. Deciding which cards to keep or burn has consequences, but you'll have to make decisions or you will end up with a pretty useless deck and never be able to attack anyone. The controls were a bit awkward for me in terms of having to use the mouse for every attack/action. Lots of clicking, but it is a nicely done mechanic.
I'd like to say 'nice little game', but unfortunately it's not little. And that makes it not so nice. Levels are huge, and together with very slow combat this makes exploration quite tiresome. Add to this that rooms are very very samey. Both visually and functionally. Cards mechanics is more or less okay, but is easy to abuse.
CubeRL
Completeness
3 - Sometimes I think lasers will kill me while I stand in a doorway and other times not. Other than that I haven't encountered any bugs, and everything that's in appears to work as intended and is correctly tuned. I like how I have exactly the right number of turns required to get to a door diagonally across a room while avoiding the laser.
3 - Web based, pure ASCII, with enough information available to get going and reveal the purpose and functionality of your plight. Deceptively simple and minimal rooms used to great effect to make each transition a desperately frantic assessment of utility and survivability
3 - Seems complete
Aesthetics
2 - Simple and straight forward.
2 - ASCII aesthetics convey a stark and minimal scenario of being trapped in a box, with the promise of the exit just beyond the hatch (|) and floor (v)/ceiling(^) exits. Life preserving equipment is given a full colour treatment that brings a ray of hope when found in a room. Controls are functional like a traditional roguelike)
2 - Good controls, nice 'animations' of traps, altought display is very simple in overwall
Fun
1 - I love the idea behind this game, but with the shuffling of rooms it can make a frustrating grind. The lower scope plays into that as well as the next room along is going to be one of only several types, and the enemies are all the same. Sometimes I could find the exit quickly, others not for a very long time. I couldn't determine any method to get there smarter/faster, or track where you are inside the cube, though there may be some way - To me it was just random wandering with a random chance its the next one along and very little sense of progress.
3 - The initial impression is one of a dull square dungeon to mooch about, with all exits in the same position. But after a few minutes of moving around the cube, you begin to appreciate the life threatening struggle presented in such a claustrophobic place. The odds are stacked against you. Every transition is a danger. This is indeed a race against a ticking clock, surviving every room by utilising the limited equipment available to you, or by killing the others to get their equipment. Truly the Hunger Games in a box. I couldn't believe how much gameplay you can get out of a simple cube]
2 - Nice idea and good implementation, very enjoyable gameplay, but rooms shuffling can be a bit annoing at times.
Innovation
2 - The core idea here is a dungeon taken room by room - each with its own unique puzzle-like twist in traps - simple yet great! Even though this game only has a couple of trap types and not much more in the way of interaction I think there's simply buckets of potential here. I'd love to see the game continued and worked on with not just an extended library of traps, and items that help the player detect and/or defeat them or other encounters as they move from room to room, but also an expansion of NPCs beyond the other (hostile) test subjects and the mysterious old man.
2 - The cube idea limits the action to such an intense degree that it intensifies every step and every transition. The dungeon and it's levels is not your enemy, having enough resources to survive the search of up to 27 rooms needed leads to an escalation of tension. Blocked exits can be lethal! A nice twist on traditional roguelike mechanics
2 - Nice use of traps
Scope
1 - Unfortunately, this is the one core place CubeRL falls a little short. All the basic parts are in place, and indeed I've given completeness a 3 since what's there is solid - but game does lack variety in room types, enemy types (just the one) and is a bit shallow of gameplay being limited to bump-only combat.
2 - The scope fits exactly the 7DRL premise of a minimal roguelike with a novel twist in direction. The game fleshes out all the parts of the moving puzzle as you take each doorway to the next box.
1 - Acceptable for 7DRL, but I'd expect something somewhat bigger in scope, to be honest
Roguelikeness
3 - Sure. Its a classic turn-based biff-em up dungeon exploring game.
3 - A traditional roguelike, with a limited but none-the-less exciting set of rooms to move between in a 3d cube space. ASCII. Random room configuration. Enemy 'experiments' and others to fight off. Item Inventory mechanism key to surviving your exploration for the exit.
3 - Yup, roguelike, with nice twists.
Trapped in the titular 'cube', a 3x3x3 arrangement of rooms, the player must escape by finding their way to the exit room while avoiding traps and hostile other test subjects. To confuse things, there is also a common shuffling in the arrangement of rooms - much like the movie 'cube', upon which this game is presumably based. There is a lot of mystery behind the environment, especially with the old man NPC who I can't help but feel gives out genuine clues I don't know how to even begin deciphering. Unfortunately though, as a room-by-room dungeon crawler the game falls a little behind - there is only the one enemy type and no depth to combat beyond bumping. That said, the game is solid and complete and if continued upon by the developer I look forward to to checking it out again - an improvement in scope will definitely make this one to watch.
Simple premise, in a 3x3x3 cube, you can freely move about, but the cubes rooms change configuration randomly.. each room has 4 hatchs and an up and down exit, but depending upon which room you are in some exits are blocked off. It's a frantic dash through all the rooms, to ascertain which exits are dead ends and to pick up all the equipment you can to keep yourself alive, things like armour (kevlar t-shirts, bulletproof vests), weapons (knives and clubs) and medkits to heal up. You are Experiment 42, there are other 'experiments' in the cubic maze that are also desperate to get out and will attempt to take you out and steal your kit. Some rooms are filled with hazards such as traps and laser walls sweeping the room of all life, so you need to be on your guard each time you transition. Survive, find the exit, wait till it opens and escape the Cube! A captivatingly simple roguelike with limited real estate to explore, but with an impending sense of doom with each new transition into a new cubic room.
(Too) small roguelike based on Cube movie. Player is supposed to explore shifting rooms and avoid traps that are implemented in very interesting way. Altought rooms reshuffling makes perfect sense in terms of lore, but it is (very) annoying sometimes. It's pity that combat mechanics is very shallow and I did encounter only one type of enemy. In overwall, it's decent 7DRL game.
Brazen Berry Bonanza
Completeness
3 - Well put together game, can leave player in no possible move situation, relies on enemy progress to end game
3 - This game felt balanced and I couldn't think of anything it needed. Combined with not finding any bugs during my play time I can happily give it a 3
2 - Works fine, no crashes etc. Controls are done very badly - player makes a step like after two or three keypresses, both in web and windows version. Really painful\
Aesthetics
2 - Solid colour blocks, with pixel fruit, and the all important @ make it minimally satisfying and easy to see terrain assets and incoming dangers, needs a hint of more personality
2 - The controls were easy enough to understand but they felt unresponsive. Normally this wouldn't be as much of a problem for a roguelike as they tend to be turn based but this is a real time game and the game suffers somewhat for it.
2 - Minimalistic graphics, but it's clear enough to play.\
Fun
2 - Enjoyed the exploration of interactions between mechanisms, limited grow/seed resources makes for an interesting and emergent puzzle
2 - This game was interesting and quite worth my time. Not going to be everyone's cup of tea mind you but still quite good.
2 - It's difficult to believe, but it's fun to play even with sluggish control.\
Innovation
3 - Environmental growth (organically builds map) & seeding, to harvest resources to gain points and push back/hinder the enemies
3 - The idea of growing plants which form the ground you have to walk on combined with your walking on the plant removing it goes beyond a twist and into the realm of something that feels fundamentally new to me.
3 - Mechanics are very funny. Gardening roguelike done right, with interesting twists.
Scope
2 - Bite sized terrain acquisition/defense puzzle, there is a seed to an interesting mobile title here if developed further
2 - This is on the top end of what I expect from a 7drl though still within the realm of 7 days
2 - There is nice gameplay idea, tutorial and start menu. There are not much types of plants, but what is here is balanced and playable. Nice scope for a 7drl
Roguelikeness
2 - @ symbol, procedural terrain generated by grow/seed mechanics, seed ripening competition, real time expansion, more a mechanics puzzle terrain/resource acquisition/defense game
1 - While a good game and you are an @ symbol it isn't really a roguelike. Just making the character an @ and the map based on tiles does not a roguelike make
2 - Isn't close to roguelike definition, but has a roguelikish spirit - it's grid based, random and hard.
BBB is a puzzle game with roguelite tendencies, it centers around land expansion and berry growth, both affecting where the player can go, and how important an area is to protect from the encroaching enemies. You harvest the berries for points, and the seeds for resources to use to continue growth, or to destroy the enemy infiltration and their berries. if the enemy ripens 5 of their berries you lose. So there is a competing balance between protection of you crops and sabotage of the enemy harvest.\ It provides for interesting placement decisions and emergent offensive/defensive play.
An enjoyable game which while not something I would call a roguelike is something I think others should give a shot as it has some interesting mechanics to it I haven't seen before. I recorded my playtime and you can watch it here:\ https://youtu.be/ungdHFfzEdo
All 7DRL about gardening I've seen before was something totally incomplete and unplayable, but this one is a wonderful exception. In this game player has three types of seeds and must use them to protect his territory, gather berries, get more seeds and destroy 'evil' plants. Game mechanics are pretty interesting, you can't go into darkness from planted area, and when walking over planted area you destroy plants, seeds can't be choosen but instead should be used in order, all of this leads to interesting desicions and a very dynamic game. The only thing that ruined fun from the game are buggy inresponive controls - without this problem this game would my favorite, seriously, i really hope author will fix it.\
DOGUE
Completeness
3 -
2 - Feels complete. Although there doesn't seem to be much going on in here, what is in here is done well.
3 - Polished and runs great, even on the actual PICO-8 itself. Balance feels right.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - Nice UI and graphics. Music is way too repetitive, although I do appreciate it as a low-fi aesthetic choice.
3 - Cute, clean graphics that work well in the PICO-8 environment. Controls are about as easy as they get.
Fun
2 -
2 - Not much too it but it plays quickly and makes for some interesting choices.
2 - Quite simple but the charm keeps you playing for awhile to see how far you can go. It's a nice little challenge.
Innovation
2 -
1 - Fairly straightforward, not always a bad thing as a core game but this one needs a bit more meat on the bones.
1 - Nothing new besides you playing as a dog.
Scope
2 -
2 - Shows lots of polish. Solid 7drl attempt.
2 - Standard 7DRL content.
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - Definitely a roguelike in terms of punishing nature and food clock. Not much in terms of item interaction or other things like that, but there are some elements of tactical decision making, given the limited options and requirement to keep moving, so I will say a 3.
2 - Lots of similar elements going on here, although definitely more of a puzzle/roguelike feel to it than pure roguelike.
Very strict hunger clock and low food availability makes this a quick to play score attack RL.\ There seems not a lot of content, but whats there is worth the few minutes it takes to play.\ Like that the mechanics are very simple to understand and are clearly shown in ui.\
Low-fi minimalist roguelike. Punishing food clock makes every move count.
Very straightforward, clean game with a charming dog wandering through dungeons slaying skeletons and eating meat to stay alive. Feels like a tight coffeebreak puzzle/roguelike game with a heavy focus on every move. It's simple and there's not much else to it but it's all done within the confines of PICO-8 so it really adds to the charm and is definitely worth checking out.
Gob!
Completeness
3 - Complete, no bugs. Works well in the browser (Unity).
2 - Felt quite complete. Could have had a bit more work on the mechanics. It's a one-HP roguelike, but I couldn't always figure out if I'd die the next turn due to a certain action, which was sort of related to the direction you and the enemies are facing. I mean, I'm sure there was a logic to it but it could have been more apparent.
3 - Complete game, mostly bug-free.
Aesthetics
3 - Clear UI, nice graphical tiles with an interesting art style.
2 - Nice 8-bit graphics and sound. Looked good. Firing animations could have been a bit smoother tho, I was sometimes unsure where all the bullets were as I think some of them were drawn on top of each other or something.
3 - Nice graphics, smooth animation, and intuitive controls.
Fun
2 - This game will not keep you playing forever, but definitely fun for a while.
3 - Lots of fun!
2 - Fun little game, for a short time. In some cases it can be pretty challenging. Altough, there is no replayability at all, level generator is too chaotic, and Gob! lacks sense of progress.
Innovation
1 - Hack and slash.
3 - Loved the spell mechanics.
1 - 1HP-search-key-then-descend-game. Nothing new.
Scope
2 - A bit light on fetaures, but when you have only 7 days to program a game...
2 - Reasonable scope.
1 - For me - scope is too small, and game is too simple.
Roguelikeness
2 - It's a classic hack-and-slash. Is this a roguelike. Well, it has permadeath, procedural arena, turn-based, and strategy, you decide !
3 - Felt a bit more arcade-like than roguelike, but there was the grid, items, permadeath etc.
2 - OK, no need to be harsh here... Gob! features grid movement, permadeath, and procedurally generated levels.
From the author: 'Gob! is a turn-based arena shoot-em-up'. Is it a roguelike ? Who cares, it's fun ! Definitely less features than in other 7DRLs but a fun little game, which does exactly what it said it would.
You're a big happy mouth and you're fighting the dentines. You can shoot in one direction and move in another (like llamatron), and you can attach spells to your shots. There's a lot of variety in the items, spells and enemies. You can also get into these epic dragonball-Z-ish fights where you and the enemy are firing at each other and the shots are cancelling out. Very arcade-like feel, and lots of fun!
Gob! is small 1HP roguelite game. Technically, it's finished, complete, and polished. Unfortunately, Gob! lacks of any depth, and has some design flaws - like meaningless procedural generation of levels. It's is enjoyable game, but only for short amount of time.
Serpentarius
Completeness
3 -
2 - Complete, finished and, as far as I can say, bug-free game. Altought it needs some polish. Dungeons of fire and water are much more dangerous than air or earth. Game window is really small in hd resolution, and there is no way to resize it or change font size.
2 - The game is more or less complete, yet very short, but it crashed couple times while I was playing.
Aesthetics
2 -
2 - Everything is clear, Serpentarius features nice use of zodiac signs, controls are OK.
2 - Two words - too small! In the age of HD and 4k monitors, this smallish window with no ability to resize/scale is damn too small. Other than that it's Unicode zodiac symbols. Looks nice. Walls can be more like walls, not just white squares...
Fun
2 -
3 - OK, this game is unbalanced, but it's also incredibly enjoyable. It get's old rather quick, but it's not that bad, because Serpentarius is designed for short sessionss - and as coffebreak it works really great.
2 - It's definitely worth to win it once or twice with a different set of abilities. But, unfortunately, there are not too many viable combinations.
Innovation
3 -
1 - Nothing new here
2 - Nice take on 1 hit mechanics. Not that it's super unique, but feels kind of fresh.
Scope
2 -
2 - Usually, creating good 7DRL needs to managing tradeoffs. Serpentarius features interesting ability system with lot's of skills. The cost is lack of any complexity and small amount of other-than-signs-content. It was good deal.
2 - Just about right for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 -
3 - Definitely roguelike
2 - More like a tactical puzzle than a roguelike.
Really cool idea that actually works. Takes time to remember what other aspects can do, though (there is no way to check that in game, as far as I understood). After that - really neat puzzle-type roguelike. The screen is a bit small on 1920x1080 monitor. Serpentarius is dead.
Serpentarius is great example of small 7DRL done right. It's simple, it's small, it's polished, and it's entertaining due interesting twist / idea. So: High Sodium Games created small roguelike about zodiac signs. Player is playing a humble hero who need to defeat - Serpentarius, the 13th zodiac. Your character is blessed by possibility to obtain zodiac-based abilities - one at the start game, and 3 another after finishing dungeons. At last, you'd need to fight Seprentarius. That game works really good as coffebreak (it's possible to win in 5-10 min). Unfortunately, due to ease and lack of large amount of content, game gets olds quick. At the end, I'd like to correct another review of that game: in general, there is no need to remember all aspecs or signs - due game mechanics, you'd always end with one sign of every aspect, and, when you are choosing which sign you should choose at the bottom of the dungeon, you can back to the game by [ESC] key. Also, changing abilities don't spend turn, so you can familiar yourself with skills description in-game without risk.
Interesting little game. You can build a character with 4 abilities before you try to beat the final boss. Unfortunately, some abilities are so superior to other that there is no much sense in picking later.
@lchemist
Completeness
2 - Solidly built, but the game freezes when you attempt to throw a potion, limiting tactical options. Other than that, pretty good stuff. Level generation also feels pretty solid, with only one item I could see as being technically impossible to get.
2 - I didn't encounter any bugs or anything. A little bit of instruction would have been nice but I figured out some stuff on my own.
2 - It seems reasonably complete but a bit buggy. I got a hang after applying some kind of phase potion to my blade and then attacking a snake. Also not sure if quaffing a bloody brew is supposed to exit the application without any message. That seems to be the consistent effect, anyway.
Aesthetics
2 - Standard fare. Very usable. For a game like this I might have preferred either a mouse or numerical selection to the a-z style. Also, the standard snake enemies are a little hard to see compared to everything else.
2 - Graphics were simple but worked. Controls were nothing fancy, text menus, but that's totally fine.
2 - Serviceable. The text is very small and somewhat low-contrast in some cases (snakes are very close in color to the ground).\
Fun
3 - YES! I'm a big loser when it comes to RLs, and so a key for me is whether the game can make losing fun enough for me to try again. This one succeeds on that score.
2 - I liked the alchemy stuff! Figuring out how to make healing potions, and then what the other potions did.
1 - I found it somewhat intriguing to see what the different kinds of potions did. Ultimately the recipe system felt undirected though, in terms of what kinds of decisions I would make. I guess the main decision is how much of your resources to devote to experimentation, versus using them to aid you.\
Innovation
2 - This isn't the most innovative RL I've ever played, but it does some fun things that were, at least, pretty new for me, and the simplified mechanic of item-mixing was nice.
2 - I thought it was pretty neat having a game focused on crafting, it's usually in Roguelikes but not the focus.
2 - The alchemy system is an interesting idea. Being randomized, though, I'm not sure there is a lot of rhyme or reason to it, which means it's just some random recipes to discover and file away.\
Scope
2 - It's about what I expect of a 7DRL. Not WOW, but definitely looks like more than a day or two of work went into it.
2 - Decent scope for a 7DRL game.
2 - The game has random levels, a suite of monsters, and a minimal character stat system. Most of the effort has gone into the potion system. You can drink them, apply them to your weapon, throw them, or mix them with other ingredients to make further potions.\
Roguelikeness
3 - This one pushes all the buttons as far as standard roguelike aesthetics of play (by which I mean end-product, though it also fits a lot of the It's challenging, procedurally generated fun.
3 - Definitely a roguelike
3 - Seems fairly Roguelike.\
@lchemist is a game about mixing items together to create potions. It generates a new set of potential combinations for you to experiment with each game, and it's generally nonthreatening to at least experiment a few times and see where the game goes, because you don't have to take a potion to find out what it does. Though it suffers from a few bugs, @lchemist remains a solidly built and fun experience.
I liked this one! I enjoyed experimenting with different ingredients and crafting potions.
@lchemist is about discovering potion crafting recipes. There are a dozen potion types in the game (you're given the list up front), but the recipes for how they are constructed from collectible ingredients change from game to game. Potions can be drunk, applied to weapons, or thrown at monsters.\
Apocalypse Post
Completeness
2 - Had to scale down resolution settings in config file upon first run. Had one crash in a couple of hours of playtime. The game felt quite balanced but is severely missing a scoring mechanic of sorts or some way to determine how far you've gotten. The simple menu was also a nice addition.
2 - Game runs well, without bugs or crashes. I realize it just may be me, but I couldn't figure out how to use engine repair kits or spare tires. Not sure if unimplemented, or just unclear. Also game initial scaling was off for 1080p monitor... but was a quick fix in the config file.
Aesthetics
3 - Simple and colourful pixel graphics that look like what they should. Cars look like cars and zombies look like zombies. Easy, configurable controls that make sense and allow for speedy playthroughs if wanted.
2 - Simple but fully functional interface. Tileset is basic, but it works. Important information is clear, and presented well.
Fun
2 - Really fun to play. Combat works well. Very replayable to see how far you can get, but needs some form of scoring or something for it to remain fun.
2 - I had fun with it. Some runs definitely felt way more unbalanced than others. Surrounded by shotgun cars on the first level, with no good repair options at the first stop, as an example. But several runs did feel good.
Innovation
3 - The idea of a mail courier in a post apocalyptic setting is definitely a new one and the way the controls handle, as well as fixing your car on the fly are all really neat. Lots of fresh ideas.
2 - Thought the speed/turn thing was a little odd at first, but quickly adjusted to it and felt that it worked for the game. The structure and theme I've seen before, but this game sort of packaged it in a way that seemed to make it it's own, at least for me.
Scope
2 - Simple and clean, just what you'd expect from a 7DRL. Would like to see the idea fleshed out a little more in a new game, with some additional weapons, areas, or unique loot.
2 - About what I'd expect for a 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 - Not the standard feel but the roguelite qualities are definitely there.
2 - There were a lot of roguelike boxes checked off, but the overall feel of the game didn't quite say roguelike for me.
Really good looking, unique, and enjoyable game. It's quite simple and really nails that coffeebreak roguelike feel. Delivering mail in a post apocalyptic world is certainly quite fresh as well and will grab anyone's attention. However, the game is lacking a scoring mechanic to encourage further playthroughs. Each run would feel more satisfying if there was some high score to them after dying or some way to determine how far you've gotten.
Apocalypse post is a game about delivering mail between settlements in post apocalyptic times. You arm your delivery van with guns and armor and plow through mobs of bandits and zombies. Though some of the runs can be a little unbalanced, I had some fun with it. \
Book of Rogue
Completeness
2 -
2 - Complete game, but a bit unpolished - maps are too big in regard of possible features. It's the only one design flaw, but it's pretty serious.
Aesthetics
2 -
3 - Really nice style. Left side of game window is reserved for descriptions (true, narrative texts!), and right is for map. It is a bit unhandy to switch attention between these two 'layers' of gameplay, but it's minor flaw. Tiles are really nice, and I like consistency of style - colour palette, fonts, etc.
Fun
2 -
2 - Playing Book of Rogue was very entertaining experience. I like narrative approach of that game, and consisten art style does have big impact for fun of BoR, but I have to lower score due map design.
Innovation
2 -
2 - Roguelike and interactive fiction crossovers are nothing new, but I didn't encounter so much narrative approach until Book of Rogue! I truly love it!
Scope
2 -
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - I had some doubts, but regarding to 7DRL standards, Book of Rogue definitely is roguelike enough to score 3 here.
Attempts to bring a more narrative feel, succeeds in some aspects, such as room descriptions. However I found myself ignoring the feature for some reason, my guess is because it is located on the opposite side of the screen from the map.\ Liked that exploration is used as a resource for healing HP, which we don't see too often.\ Impressed with fairly large game world, with lots of monsters to fight and tougher champion types strewn in to make things interesting.\ Some keybinds were unexplained, such as pg-up, pg-dn to climb up/down. I was expecting < and >
Book of Rogue is roguelike / interactive fiction crossover... but wait, it's *not* yet-another-generic-rl-if-crossover. The quality of execution is really good, and developer's approach is much more narrative that usual for that kind of game. Not sure how much replayable Book of Rogue is, but at the first (45min) glance it's interesting enough to plan replay after reviewing process...
Cavern Collapse
Completeness
2 - Most features seem to be working as intended. Some bugs in control (illegal moves consume a turn), one item displayed but unimplemented, some glitches (?) with monsters and terrains overlapping the player. Items could be documented better.
2 - Game seems complete and finished. I didn't encounter serious bugs, but game could be more polished and balanced.
2 - The game is complete and winnable, no crashes. What is missing - some kind of score/gold that adds value to replayability.
Aesthetics
2 - Nice graphical tiles. The normal font looks good, but the hollow title font is scarcely readable. Controls are OK, although . to rest with arrow keys to move is quite uncomfortable on my keyboard. Mouse to select items would have been nice.
3 - Controls are OK, graphics is really nice (colour palette reminds me Spelunky). Starting screet could use more readable font. Overwall - very good.
2 - Nice tiles. Nice controls. But the game somewhat fails to convince me that I'm moving up. It feels that you are standing at one place and suddenly - hooray, you won.
Fun
2 - I experienced a lot of YASDs from falling rocks, all my fault. Both short-term and long-term strategies grow from that primary danger, although my long-term strategy may not have been intended by the developer.
2 - It's really hard to survive early game, I have died very often - but these death were not wrongful, it was just my distraction. Unfortunately, late game is much, much calmer. Due simple rules, high-but-not-unfair difficulty level, Cavern Collapse is very addictive game.
2 - It's fun to learn the mechanics. At first, you die A LOT. Then you start to understand how things work. And finally, it becomes almost too easy.
Innovation
3 - Tunnelling games with gravity aren't new, but tunnelling in such a violently dynamic environment, with such limited movement options, is very unusual for a roguelike.
2 - It's hard to evaluate how much innovative Cavern Collapse is. Altought dig-gravity games are nothing new (huh, the idea is really old, actually), but there *is* something new in roguelike world. In the other hand, it's not true roguelike...
2 - There aren't many side view roguelikes out there. Especially with gravity. I wouldn't say it's totally unique, but it's interesting implementation.
Scope
2 - A few different interlocking game mechanics. At least two of the monsters and two of the items have noticeably different mechanics.
2 - A few items, a few monsters, interesting mechanics. Scope is rather small, but still reasonable for 7DRL.
2 - Very solid 7drl entry.
Roguelikeness
3 - Random maps, permadeath, turn-based.
2 - It features permadeath, turn-based gameplay and some sort of procedural generation. It doesn't look like roguelike, but definitely use roguelike mechanics.
2 - This game is more puzzle than a roguelike. There are definitely elements of a roguelike, but I can't really say it's a true roguelike.
Survive for a (large) number of turns while biological and geological hazards try to kill you. You have a few tools available to counter the threats and enhance mobility in a rapidly changing map. Very easy to die in the early game, but the action starts to settle down in the last quarter.
Pretty simple, but definitely not easy roguelike / roguelite platformer (to be clear: it's gravity-dig game). Despite instructions at first screen, it took me some time to figure out what is the main goal of the game - just survive for specific amount of turns. I'd like to make it more obvious, because text 'survive until you *reach* surface' is a bit misleading. Cavern Collapse is very addictive small game - mostly due high-but-not-unfair difficulty level. Our character need to deal with hazardous environment - falling blocks, forming shafts, rats, scorpions, dangerous plants... Unfortunately, if player manage to survive early game, everything starts to be much calmer and easier.
Very nice little game! The very dynamic environment where you have to look around every turn and plan a few turns ahead.
Dungeon Scoundrel
Completeness
2 - On the one hand, it's very polished game... But it is really RAM-hungry. Probably due serious memory leaks?
3 - It all works and doesn't feel like it is missing anything.
2 - Complete and playable, but eats memory, after ~40 minutes of play it takes ~3Gb, so you should hurry to win fast).\
Aesthetics
2 - Nice text's font, not-so-nice in-game symbols, and responsive controls. I was encountering some annoying UI behaviours in the original version of game, but it seems fixed now.
2 - The controls are responsive and the naming of items works well.
2 - Font is nice, controls are intuitive. Inventory could have more polish (e.g. it is impossible to neither drop a wielded weapon nor choose which one to enchant) but is usable. \
Fun
2 - It's hard to evaluate for me. At first it's really enjoyable due mechanics learning and exploiting (your's) strenghts and (enemies') weaknesses. It's really funny thing, but it's not good for replayability.
3 - I must be lucky because reviewing this brightened my day. A must play if you are into roguelikes and want to see what you can get out of 7 days of work.
2 - Only four levels deep, but each level will require learning a lot about mechanics. At some point, levels grinding becomes boring, but the fun part is that in fact it's not required, knowing monster weaknesses and item effects is more important for winning then collecting of tokens and items.\
Innovation
1 - Rather not innovative.
2 - Having advancement be connected to a capsule machine mechanic instead of something like your level or what have you is an interesting twist.
1 - Not much innovative here - slot machine as a random alternative to levelling and maybe marking unseend objects of interest to make exploring less boring. The rest of game is well done combination of well known mechanics - shooting, consumables, resists, status effects.\
Scope
2 - 4 levels - it's not the big amount, but there is plenty of items and monsters, so - scope is adequate to 7DRL standards.
2 - This is on the high end of what I expect from a 7drl
2 - Plenty of items and monsters, most monsters has unique abilities. Nothing very original, but still very good for a seven day game\
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely roguelike
3 - This is a roguelike, pure and simple
3 - Closer to moria then to rogue, but still definitely a roguelike.\
Nice small browser-based roguelike. It features simple gameplay, with some nice twists - for example, the desing of whole level is known from the start, but all item's symbols are replaced by question marks. I like that there's focus on using consumables and exploiting enemies' weaknesses.\ \ I was playing post 7DRL release.
A great roguelike which represents the potential of the 7drl challenge to not only give us weird stuff but the classic roguelike feel all over again. I recorded a video of my playtime and you can find that here:\ https://youtu.be/vWq5csZLhOU
Browser based roguelike, player starts in a town and must kill a devil at 4th level of dungeon. Dungeon levels are generated each time you enter, general layout is visible at start, but all items and stairs are replaced with '?' so you immediately go where are many items and where are few, but don't know what exactly they are until get close enough. There are plenty of consumables and there are monsters that require specific consumable to deal with, e.g. ghosts are immune to damage without certain effect and pudding hits cause necrosis. If you start and just go deeper any monster on a second floor will kill you, so to win you have to gring some items, and more importantly - learn about monster abilities and weaknesses. Unlike many roguelikes killing monsters doesn't give XP or items, instead all character progression is from the found items. While not very original or complex, the game require tactics, strategy, has learning curve and also relatively well balanced.\
Gelassenheit RL
Completeness
2 - With Gelassenheit, it would be hard to tell bug from design. But overall its' logic was sound, and it did everything it aimed to do.
3 - Huh. It's hard. Tought. I can't say how much bug-free GelassenheitRL is, due game design. But everything makes (again, in some strange meaning) sense, so...
Aesthetics
1 - Gelassenheit aims for the anti-aesthetic. Your eyes and ears are assulted with contrast, abruptness and discord.
2 - Controls... ouh, they are. Definitely. Graphics is harsh and eye-tiring, but it's intentional, I think. Nice using of unicode characters, didn't expect norse runes!
Fun
1 - You could say that the author of Gelassenheit had failed if someone puts a score other than zero here, but 1 is the lowest score allowed. An hour of playing Gelassenheit is enough to prepare you for a model theory qual, and its' just as fun.
2 - It CAN be extremely frustrating. Especially if you are stubborn person, that is just more motivated by failed attempts. But it's also interesting idea sensu stricto, and due the game design, I find it very rewarding.
Innovation
3 - Great idea and great execution.
3 - In the terms of roguelikes, the controls-id is very innovative mechanics. And this twist is exploited to the extremum.
Scope
3 - It's hard to imagine that you could go further than Gelassenheit in this direction.
2 - Rather small, but still reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 - It's hard to judge Gelassenheit on roguelikeness. More than a game, it is a comment on the roguelike genre itself, so it's unfair to say it's not roguelikey. Remember how much it sucked to learn the keys in nethack? How you had to keep the manual open? How you had to throw rings down sinks, or throw scrolls and record what happened? Gelassenheit is the logical conclusion of all of that, and now that it's done you can look at it, and see it for all that it is, and be both compelled and repulsed by whatever you see.
2 - Sort of. Rather puzzle-like, but it still features some roguelike, well, features.
Gelassenheit means serenity or tranquility in German. But Gelassenheit RL is ironically named: instead of those peaceful emotions you will experience frustration, agony and incredulity as your screen randomly flips, as the roguelike symbols rotate (or all change to the same symbol) and as random bursts of noise assult your ears. This is like if the esoteric programing language Malbolge were a roguelike (in Malbolge the registers change meaning after each instruction). Malbolge is the 8th circle of Hell in Dante's inferno and it's not known if it is Turing complete. Gelassenheit is what would happen if the Japanese noise rock band 'the Boredoms' decided to make a roguelike.\ \ In Gelassenheit, you have to figure out which symbol represents your character, and you have to figure out what keys make you move in which direction. When I say you 'have to figure it out' I don't mean you have to look in the manual. Everything key, spell and symbol is randomized between games and has to be figured out anew each run using a process of deduction. This game is absurd, and fully explores to its' absurd end, the idea of identification in roguelikes.
On the welcome screen author stated that 'The game will be extremely confusing if you don't read manual'. Well, I read the manual, and the game was still very confusing. Maybe it's the point - just *very*, not *extremely*... GelassenheitRL is game about... say, exploration. You need to explore what are the keybindings - key for every action is randomized. It rise the idea of indentification mechanics in roguelikes to the whole new level! It is frustating, annoying, tedious... And it's great, because the whole gameplay is about trying to posses control. In the meantime, game screen will rotate, icons will change, and colours will shift. I like it. In some strange, masochistic sense, I like it. Didn't manage to beat that game yet, but I'm going to try again and again and again...
Rogue Artillery (Finished)
Completeness
3 -
2 - The big problem for me is it's endless and without a goal. Not even a score that I could tell. The problem is compounded by impossible levels: either you or the goal sometimes spawns underground and without the right weapon you can't destroy terrain.
2 - Definitely shows signs of polish in the interface (love the seed generator) and art, but doesn't appear to have an ending and I did get permanently stuck in some game-ending bugs.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - The best part of this game is easily the terrain generation. From screenshots, I'd say it's beautiful. Reminds me of games like Ridiculous Fishing. Zoomed in, however, the grey characters and bland sky kind of bring down the look. And there are a few problems with vertical lines in the terrain. Controls are a bit frustrating. It seems like a perfect mouse game, but no option for shooting with either mouse click. The cardinal sin of 7DRL control is making Escape quit the game and that feature is present here; it might not be a problem if the in-game help menu wasn't controlled by only F1 (not a fun key to press on many keyboards).
3 - Love the art and procedurally generated levels.
Fun
3 -
2 - It's kind of fun jumping around and trying to blow stuff up. Personally, I usually find the game frustrating. Getting stuck happens a lot and there doesn't seem to much point to most weapons. The turns take a while to finish animating.
2 - Worth playing but be prepared to be off-put in the beginning. Some of the later levels have some really cool challenges in terms of physics - never seemed to be too threatened by the enemy AI.
Innovation
2 -
2 - I would guess there is not much here that can't be found in games like Worms, but I don't have enough experience with those games to say nothing here is original. The movement between turns might be unique.
2 - Definitely unique. Starts from an interesting concept but not much in the way of roguelike-ish tactics or decision making.
Scope
2 -
2 - Seems reasonable for a 7DRL.
2 - About what I expect from a unity 7drl these days. Feels like a solid attempt aside from a few rough edges.
Roguelikeness
1 -
2 - It's got permadeath and procedural levels. The seed on the menu screen is appreciated too. Otherwise, it's not very roguelike.
2 - Definitely not a roguelike. But it does have cool procedurally generated mountains so I will give an extra point for that!
Artillery (or worms/scorched earth/gorilla.bas) style gameplay with a good variety of weapons. The twist is that you get to move around pretty freely and must head for a level exit as opposed to destroying all the enemies.\ Due to the randomness in level generation and available weapons I had some runs where it was too easy and somewhere it was impossible (spawned in a cave with no way to dig out to the goal).\ It's an interesting mechanic to try to bring into the roguelike context however i didn't get that roguelike feel That said, its still a very good game!\ while playing I thought about additions, balance changes, other ideas that could be made. It sparked my imagination and that's always a good sign.\ \
Rogue Artillery is an endless, quasi-turn based game in the vein of Worms. Some of the design choices make the game frustrating and it's easy to get stuck. On the plus side it's got great looking terrain generation, destructible terrain, seedable levels, and cool explosion effects.
A unique combination of scorched earth and randomness. Single player and turned based, with random levels and (as far as I can tell) random-ish weapons. The game looks really nice and starts with a cool concept but there is not much roguelike-ish-ness to it.
The RoguePuzzleGame - Remastered
Completeness
3 -
2 - No bugs and feels somewhat polished. However, there are several mechanics that are simply not explained. For instance, it's never explained to the player how often and how much damage they take every turn. An additional help menu with 2 or 3 sentences would go a long way towards correcting this. As is, you'll struggle to decipher what the hell is going. Additionally, the game needs some balancing to allow play to continue longer... at least I couldn't get past about 60 points.
1 - About half my games ended with the game hanging rather than me dying (Windows chrome). It also seems to need some balancing work. Tiles highlighted to be damaged do not account for wall tiles or the nondeterministic attacks of blademasters.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - I love the 'try to hand draw the same thing twice' animation style. The music, though repetitive, is cute as is the booing on game over. I'm perfectly happy with the mouse controls.
2 - Controls are about as obvious as possible, and the music and sound effects are nice. The graphics have a lot of personality, but the animations are very difficult to look at and distracted me from playing the game. The only way to stop the animations is to switch to a different application, but that often causes the game to hang.
Fun
2 -
3 - Despite struggling to figure out the rules, I had a lot of fun. Check out this game.
3 - Making chain reactions in falling blocks puzzle games is always fun, and this game lets you plan them in detail. However, the health mechanic and the balance of enemy generation combine to make each game grind to a halt in the second half.
Innovation
2 -
2 - I've not seen so much detail on tiles before outside Imbroglio and this game is practically nothing like it. The combination of resource management plus puzzle is pretty cool.
2 - It's firmly within the falling-blocks puzzle genre, but it has some innovative mechanics within that space.
Scope
2 -
2 - A small game, but a decent number of tiles that have interesting interactions.
2 - One type of action for the player to take, nontrivial player state (health + shield), enemy abilities which interact with each other and the player in enough different ways to produce some complex tactical decisions.
Roguelikeness
1 -
2 - Amusingly, by being a puzzle game it actually hits a lot of Berlin Interpretation checkboxes. The part that makes it roguelike, however, is the danger that develops over time as you screw yourself. Filling the screen with walls, using up too much low hanging fruit, etc. It's got tactics *and* strategy.
2 - Random content (doesn't seem to be procedural), not really permadeath (apart from score, the content lost on dying could also be lost just by clearing the screen). Turn-based.
Nice little puzzle game.\ Takes a little time to learn, but it's such a quick play that this isn't a problem.\ Very nice audio and visual presentation.\ I can see some inspiration from roguelikes, but it feels much more like a puzzler to me.\ Kudos for being a puzzler that isn't based on match-3 :)
The RoguePuzzleGame - Remastered is a 4x4 puzzle game with lots of moving pieces (literally). At first, the game seemed barely roguelike at all, but there's a good bit of complexity here. Much like Imbroglio, it's a 4x4 puzzly game with tons of detail jammed into every tile. Each tile has its own attack, health, and type. The way you get cornered and run out of resources (health, shield, good tiles) over time has some roguelike charm to it.
A falling-blocks puzzle game with a roguelike theme. Click to remove an enemy, take damage from its attack, and activate its ability. This may damage or otherwise interact with other enemies, potentially causing a chain reaction. The enemies have a variety of abilities, either damaging other enemies, healing the player, boosting other enemies, or blocking attacks.\ The main interest here is resource management; you have to make combos to maintain your health and shield while trying to keep the population of walls, defenders, and high-health enemies under control. The game encourages long chain reactions in its description and the way it animates them, but mechanically they are a mixed blessing; they provide no bonus score, and they may destroy healers that you need to save for later. It doesn't take long for the balance of enemies to make all moves unprofitable, and once that happens the game's momentum is lost.
Zurvivors
Completeness
2 - Most of the mechanics seem to be working, but they need either balancing or documentation and the interface needs more polish.
3 - Playing it on Chrome as suggested works perfectly fine. I saw no bugs.
2 - It works, there a few minor bugs, but it looks like a lot more was planned than actually implemented.
Aesthetics
2 - Generally a good look. There are graphical glitches at road intersections, and on forest borders in performance mode. Movement controls are OK, but managing character equipment is a real hassle.
2 - Almost perfect. If it wasn't for the fact that with items it doesn't tell you anything at all about them nor does it have some sort of info panel on your various options (how much wood scrap does fortification take? is it always the same?) I would give it a 3.
3 - It looks quite nice. There are some minor problems with road tiles alignment, but not too bad.
Fun
1 - There's a lot to play with here, but the hidden numbers and mechanics make the player's decisions uninformed and sometimes irrelevant. The game feels aimless until the first time you find a radio.
3 - A must play game for this 7drl challenge. While it is somewhat more on the rpg side of things rather than roguelike it was well worth my time.
2 - It's fun at first, but IMO balance is quite off. And (sub)optimal play is quite boring. But there is definitely potential in the game.
Innovation
1 - There are plenty of games around, including roguelikes, with mechanics like this. Only the combination might be original.
2 - The way the theme is done while not really twist in general media is new enough in this use of it to be interesting.
1 - Bluntly speaking it looks quite generic (for a zombie apocalypse survival). Was it done in roguelike before? I don't know... But the question is - how well this kind of gameplay suite genre...
Scope
3 - This is a very ambitious game for a 7DRL. There's resource management, 3D graphics, relationships, automated combat, utility items, variations on each equipment type, character attributes, and status effects.
2 - This fits within what I expect from a 7drl though on the very edge of breaking through into being more than that.
3 - All this perks, relationship simulation, terrain. There is definitely more than you would expect from a typical 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedural content, permadeath, turn based.
2 - It is more like an rpg but enough things are similar and since they have the same root it still is close to what I call a roguelike.
2 - IMO absence of tactical combat and random encounters wash away feeling of roguelikeness. There are definitely elements of... But I can't call it true roguelike.
A party-based zombie apocalypse survival roguelike. Your job is to ensure your child reaches a safe haven; you and the rest of the party are expendable. Obstacles to this objective are health and nutrition, zombies, hostile gangs, and intra-party conflict. The game has enough interacting mechanics to support some complex and interesting decisions, but so many details are hidden from the player (especially in relationships and combat) that taking these decisions is too often a matter of guesswork.
One of the games that validates having the 7drl challenge so open to things that aren't quite roguelike. I recorded my play time with the game and you can watch it here:\ https://youtu.be/j48UDFlGbFI
Strategic zombie survival game. Manage your team and try to survive. Party members have various traits, positive and negative as well as relationship with each other...
@'S DIE
Completeness
3 - Looks and feels like a completed game. Runs smooth and the game feels quite balanced.
3 - Works perfectly fine for me on Chrome. Didn't try any other browsers mind you so I can only vouch for that.
2 - The game works, I encountered only minor visual bug, but doesn't feels feature complete.
Aesthetics
3 - Nice clean look and minimal colours along with simple controls. Everything works fluidly. The instructions and overall look of the itch site are also well designed and look good.
3 - The game has a very nice aesthetic. Controls are straight forward with it simply being wasd and clicking on enemies and hover over stuff to view info on them works as it should. Also the damage animation has a nice solid feel to it.
2 - Nice minimalistic design, but nothing too exciting.
Fun
2 - Nothing thrilling but not boring either. Enough variety in the enemies to hold your attention for awhile. Would be more fun if there were abilities or items to use.
2 - If you like strategy based on tactical movement this is the game for you. Really boils it all down to the basics and lets you enjoy it. There are however some bit which were a bit of a black box were I was taking damage and didn't quite understand why so I can't give it a full score here. If however you really want a strategy game consider it a 3.
2 - It's a bit fun while you get accustomed to the game mechanics, than several attempts to beat overly unfair level 7 and that's all.
Innovation
2 - Pretty neat and new idea to move as a die. Not much else new, though.
1 - From my perspective this game is mildly innovative. I have seen these elements before (dice isn't exactly the rarest thing to use) but the actual use of them was somewhat fresh. In the end though there isn't really any twist or turn as it all boils down to having the higher number on your die.
1 - There were 7drls centered around dices. Including more interesting.
Scope
2 - Minimal level variety with lots of the same 'rooms.' However, the enemies are quite varied with different modifiers and stats.
2 - This is what I expect to see in a roguelike. It fits in the palm of my figurative hand just fine.
2 - Solid 7drl entry.
Roguelikeness
2 - Doesn't stray too far from the genre but can't be fully defined as a roguelike.
2 - In the end I would rather call it a roguelike rather than something else but it is still far enough away that I can't justify calling it a true roguelike. It has a lot of elements that fit but in the end some of the ways it works doesn't.
2 - With a little bit of character development or at least some consumable items it could be called roguelike.
Dice in any RPG game are nothing new, but playing as the actual die itself is a pretty fun concept. Variety is in the form of enemies with different types of modifiers as well as the usual random map generation. There isn't much to the strategy besides move away to try and get a larger number to attack with and then bump into enemies when your die number is higher. It would be nice if the game had a bit more depth by including some items or abilities. The map generation also seems a bit stale, especially after repeated playthroughs when you start seeing the same features over and over again. However, this doesn't really detract from the fun and the game is still worth checking out.
I enjoyed this game. The game play I experienced was highly focused on strategy and movement so if that is your thing you need to play this game. But you don't have to just take my word for it. Here is the video of me playing the game:\ https://youtu.be/AeICI3SkpK4
Strange game. There is definitely some effort was put into design of abilities of enemies, but the lack of ANY abilities on your character is kind makes abilities of enemies meaningless. There is no regeneration even between levels. You want to avoid getting hit at any cost. So abilities, except for speed, do not matter at all. And enemies with speed 2 are basically game over.
The Oracle of Ithrakizar
Completeness
2 - UI issues with the mouse in windowed mode. Able to glitch into the boundaries of the map and travel anywhere. Lose all map progress when switching from windowed to fullscreen. World generation messes up and sometimes doesn't provide a path to certain areas you need to go. Sub-menu when clicking on items gets cut off on the far right. Game felt too easy, especially mid to late game with a stockpile of healing items. Besides these issues which are easy to ignore, this game ran smooth with no crashes. Would have maybe liked a save option too as runs can become kind of long.
2 - At the first glance, everything is OK - game is complete, full-of-features, polished. But while playing, I was slowly discovering a large amount of small bugs.
Aesthetics
2 - Easy to read text and understandable characters. Nothing too impressive but it does the job.
2 - Nice graphics and very easy controls. Waiting for long-press could be a bit longer - sometimes I moved twice when I wanted to do one step.
Fun
2 - A bit too generic and easy to fully enjoy. The issue with the world generator not providing clear paths was preventing some games from being finished.
2 - The core of the gameplay is great. Simple combat system, with nice twist about leveling weapons. But world map is just too big, and after a while it's starting to be annoying - it's very likely to spend long time to just explore map. World generator works pretty well, so at the beginning it is pretty nice experience.
Innovation
1 - Generic RPG monsters like a slime, wolf, skeleton. Typical bump-style combat. Pretty much all of what you'd expect.
2 - It is pretty generic roguelike, but it features really nice (yet simple) mechanics of leveling items - every received item will buff already equipped item of the same type.
Scope
2 - Nothing ambitious here but at least there's a little diversity in the monsters and weapons/armor. Would have liked to see more weapons and armor instead of just a couple types. Regardless, it's nice the weapons and armor are upgradeable. Some more variety in dungeon types would also have been a great addition.
2 - The map is really big, but otherwise - it's just what I'd expect from 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Most definitely feels and plays like a roguelike. Ordinary monsters, weapons, armor, and dungeons with inventory to manage and use.
3 - Definitely roguelike
This game is a bit too easy, but it's a fun little romp to play through. There are quite a few UI quirks and issues but nothing to make the game too broken. One of the big glaring issues is the world generator not providing a clear path to dungeons or other areas. The game provides tools such as axes and pickaxes to get through these forests and mountains that block the way, but sometimes you're not able to find them, making you give up and restart. At least there's an option to actually do this and use these tools, though. It can be pretty enjoyable to play at times, but it gets too easy too fast and will feel fairly bland after repeated playthroughs. It doesn't take much to feel invincible and win every run, so more of a challenge would have been preferred and would make the game a perfect quick-style roguelike if it was much harder with a bit more variety.
I love that game. Truly. It's good, especially for 7 day deadline. But... It's full of small issues - it's possible to go out of the map, objects collisions are sometimes weird, and performence is problem - I encountered fall of FPS often, with 3,5 ghz cpu, 8 gb ram, and 4 gb vram. It's really strange for that sort of game. Also, map is too big in regard to player task - I had good time by 20 minutes, I was lucky to find dungeons early, but after half of hour I had about 1/5 of map explored, and one more dungeon to find...
Undertiled
Completeness
3 -
2 - Feels complete.
2 - It's complete, stable, bug free game, altought it lacks of polish.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - Looks good. Graphics all mesh pretty well together with the gameplay. Sound effects are a nice touch.
2 - Squares and numbers, just it. Clear enough.
Fun
2 -
2 - Once you figure out what's going on, it's fun. I feel like there could be a bit more to it though - often I get to my last few turns and still feel like I'm totally guessing, even though I tried to play rather strategically. Maybe more colors or a more straightforward way to find stars, such as, they can't pass blank tiles? Or more tiles that tell you how close you are to the ladder, ala minesweeper.
3 - Really enjoyable puzzle game. It's like Minesweeper with some twists. Simple, yet addictive. Or addictive because of simplicity.
Innovation
2 -
2 - Pretty unique puzzely gameplay, but not a roguelike. I guess for a puzzle game it is innovative but I don't play a lot of straight up puzzle games.
2 - On the one hand - it looks like yet-another-puzzle-game, nothing exciting. On the other hand, I didn't encounter that collection of features at once.
Scope
2 -
2 - On the smaller side for a 7drl, considering it is done in unity.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 -
1 - Definitely not a roguelike. But it's still fun!
1 - Definitely not roguelike. It features some mechanics inspired by roguelikes, but it's not enough.
I'm glad I've played Undertiled. It's an all-around pleasant, meditative experience that rewards deliberation (and basic arithmetic!). Undertiles is also kind to new players by being easy for the first couple of levels (got to #5 on my second try). Opening sequence for each level deserves a separate mention.
A good little puzzle game with some interesting mechanics. Presented well. Once you figure out the methods, figuring out how to wisely spend your limited turns to find the next ladder is fun. Shades of minesweeper (in a good way), but I don't think it's a roguelike!
Really good, addictive game, but definitely not roguelike. It should not be submitted to 7DRL. Altough, if it's here already - play it; I really enjoyed playing Undertiled.
Catoblepas
Completeness
2 -
3 -
2 - There is ... something. Not sure if it is a game. It crashes way too often. But still... there is something.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 -
2 - Typical ASCII. Nothing fancy.
Fun
3 -
2 -
1 - May be it's fun. But it crashes way too often to figure it out.
Innovation
2 -
2 -
1 - Don't think so. Even if it's a joke, there were absurd roguelikes before (that even worked!).
Scope
1 -
2 -
2 - Hard to tell. There is more than nothing.Probably enough for an average 7drl.
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 -
2 - It looks like a roguelike, but plays more like a wacky adventure, or some sort of weird puzzle.
This is a silly, slightly surreal little roguelike which takes only a few minutes to play.\ Silly as in funny silly! You can wear an avocado on your head, for example. I really like how strange the item interactions are.\ The gameplay is very rudimentary but given time a classic roguelike could definitely be built from this framework.\ Small in scope, but I still felt entertained for the short amount of game there is.\ I couldn't figure out what to do about the magical fire, but I did manage to get the orb of victory.\ I really like the keyboard command help at the bottom right, very well done.\ While all the classic roguelikes have some comedy in them, this entry pushes it to a new level.
Bizarre and fun little roguelike. Couldn't figure out the way to victory. Avocado liches are pure gold.
I'm not sure if it's a game or a joke. You can pick kill a cow, and wear it as a hat. You can pick up ... a king? And wear him as a hat??? He will release bursts of steam time to time and call for guards, who never come to help... Lich avocado that can create elements? All my attempts to play this ended wither with crash or game over because stairs down can lead you to fire. In general fire is one touch death, and there are plants that yield fire. Since bursts of steam from king is the same symbol as fire, it's easy to miss one.
Caverns of Sevendral
Completeness
2 - Runs well, no obvious bugs but also not a ton of varied content (which is fine for a 7drl). Dungeons seem well put together. Enemy placement can be a bit rough when starting out.
2 - The game was quite complete. I only found two bugs: the mouse support was a bit buggy. When you used the mouse to move towards a line of enemies, it created some weird results that didn't correspond to using the numpad in the same sequence of moves. Also, sometimes the spell menus were clipped a bit by the top of the browser (but they were still readable, and this could have to do with the browser resolution). I tested Caverns of Sevendral in up-to-date versions of Safari, Firefox and Chrome and it worked fine in all three browsers. In terms of gameplay, the main idea was fully there.\ \ The mechanics create a tactical dynamic wherein positioning and defence are essential. I found myself learning and taking advantage of patterns of enemy positions that would allow me to plow through them unscathed (or at least, not taking more damage than I could recover using healing spells). I also found that advancing too quickly into enemy positions resulted in disasterous conditions: if you have a train of enemies following you, then you'll have a lot of grinding to do to survive.
3 - Encountered no bugs and nothing to indicate its not feature complete. Menus / tilesets all displayed cleanly. Was able to win, but was balanced enough that victory was not guaranteed.
Aesthetics
2 - Uses rot.js and the oryx tiles very nicely. Swapping the tiles based on if they are 'above' or 'below' is a nice touch and an obvious sign of well-thought out design.
2 - Varied graphics throughout the levels & cohesive feel.
2 - Tileset changes as you descend. UI is clean, but unremarkable.
Fun
2 - The combat mechanics make for very fun choices. Perfect for a grid-based game.
1 - The spell system really played into the combat mechanics. I was always yearning to get the fire spell: it sends a fireball down the line, so it's a good counter to the situation in which you have a train of enemies behind you. But without a lot of detail it was a study in tactics and an exploration of the main bump/deflection idea, so it wasn't super fun (that's alright).
2 - Almost a 3, but that's probably due to personal taste. I really enjoy games that focus on position / movement for combat, and this game nails the basics. I replayed this game until I beat it, then a couple of rounds further. The AI is a little too predictable to provide a challenge. At first large groups of enemies where troublesome, but once you learn to exploit the fact that they don't move when outside your vision cone, it becomes trivial to manage. I enjoyed spending a couple experimenting with the spells and vision exploit to take out larger and larger groups of enemies, but their not enough complexity / variety to entertain me for much longer.
Innovation
2 - To use one of my favorite quotes: a neat twist on the usual mechanics. Done perfectly.
2 - The bump/deflection dynamic is sort of new. There are some roguelikes with it, but not as a main thing. The 'lunge' is already a main theme of Hoplite. The spells really play into the mechanic, so overall innovation gets a 2.
2 - Wavered between 1 and 2 here. It doesn't really add anything I haven't seen before, but its definitely not a cookie-cutter roguelike. Went with 2 due to interesting, if not novel, way MP works. It hits a nice balance of being able to use spells often, but only if you manage your MP well.
Scope
2 - Solid 7drl attempt.
1 - Not much variation in spells, enemies, levels. layout or loadout.
2 - PROS: Several levels with different tilesets. Winable. A handful of different spells, with a variety of effects. \ CONS: only one enemy type. only one map type. no items beyond spells.
Roguelikeness
3 - A perfectly respectable roguelike. Hooray!
2 - Roguelike: tiles, movement, attacks, spells, theme. Not-roguelike: worldbuilding, items, complex interaction between elements.
3 - Randomized dungeon, permadeath, limited inventory, bump-to-fight, vision cone, and win by finding an item on the final floor. It may not be a 100% rogue clone, but you wouldn't mistake it for any other genre.
A fairly straightforward dungeon crawling roguelike with well thought-out combat mechanics. Once you figure out how things work (either by dying a lot, or reading the instructions, whatever is more fun for you) it really makes you think about positioning and enemy placement. For example, it will matter if you are an odd or even number of tiles away from an enemy. And the usual tactic of stacking everyone in a corridor will backfire on you horribly. The spell system is fun, spells are fairly straightforward but also useful, and the mechanic of only allowing 3 makes for interesting choices - letting you swap a new scroll for more mana is an excellent design touch.
Caverns of Sevendral is a face paced browser-based Roguelike, with advanced tactics and spells. It explores a variation on the bump attack: if you're right next to an enemy, then a bump will push them one space back. If you're one space away, then moving towards them will kill them. On the other hand, enemies can bump attack you normally, and all attacks are guaranteed to hit, so if there's more than one enemy next to you, you'll take a damage that turn for sure (see Hoplite).
A fun, but limited, game focused on movement and combat
Dead Horizons 7DRL
Completeness
2 - It's a fully working game, but there are some minor bits where the UI and game could do with some visual polish - The list of actions taken during the game kept distracting me out the corner of my eye and throwing me off. Melee weapons like the knife and whip may be better done as an animation rather than what looks like the item being thrown at the enemy?
3 - No bugs I could find.
2 - While the game lacks any obvious bugs, the experience feels half done. Thus the high score for scope and low score here.
Aesthetics
2 - Solid art style - the title screen is very nice. Sometimes the colours don't contrast enough to make it easy for me to tell where the player is - the orange desert screens in particular, with a yellow player character I often lose him in the scene. The tiles and style are consistent with what I'd expect of a Wild West setting. The controls I initially fouind confusing, but I don't play many roguelikes that use the numpad. Once I got used to it I was fine. The music was very fitting - I enjoyed it enough that I left the game idle for a while just to listen.
2 - While it doesn't necessarily blow you out of the water, the tileset with the music produce a desert like atmosphere.
1 - Atrocious colour palette. Neon green on pinkish brown? In the days of CGA we had some excuse, but this is 2017.\ \ The message window scrolls the wrong way. Using -- between messages does not make it clear what is new and what is old.\ \ I love VI keys, and appreciate number pad. But why not arrow keys as well?\ \ Firing works well. But is hard to understand/take advantage of the coverage. Coverage needs to be asymmetrical to be useful,\ but it is hard to know what yours is. Likewise, hard to interpret if you are being hit or not. I found myself just in straight shoot-outs relying on my grit to outlast my foes.\ \ Inventory management is very confusing. Lots of references to wrapping things, etc, but then no in game correspondence.
Fun
2 - I enjoyed the game, it's a challenge. Nothing felt unfair beyond usual roguelike proportions, and the cover system works well.
2 - There were a few times where I found myself spawning in to unwinnable situations, but those were very few. It's easy to pick up and play. Items are varied and useful. Wanted to beat this one, but my best run got me 4 miles away :(
2 - I really enjoy the slow unfolding of the world and the setting of the sense of place through short messages and dropped tomes. But\ the combat is quite unreadable, making the game a chore one endures to reveal these interesting things...
Innovation
1 - It didn't feel like it brought anything new to the genre, nothing I hadn't seen elsewhere before.
1 - Nothing really new here. Cover and destructible terrain offer some interesting situations, but nothing I haven't seen before.
1 - There are a few interesting things: thirst clock; two health bars; and the cover system. But the cover system does not provide enough legibility to serve as a case study for those investigating it.
Scope
2 - It's about the level I'd expect of a completed 7DRL, but there is that feeling that it needs more content.
2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL
3 - This is an ambitious project with many pieces that haven't come together in this game. I was unsurprised to read that it is a test-project for a larger game.
Roguelikeness
3 - It's defintely a roguelike. There's no strange mechanics that push beyond what I consider a roguelike.
3 - It's a roguelike
3 - Tactical combat in a procedural world.
Generally, a solid roguelike. I'm not usually one for roguelikes that involve shooting, but I did enjoy the cover shooting mechanics on this game.\ \ The world is very solid in feel - I particularly enjoyed the little notes you could pick up from the bandits, it was a lovely humanizing touch.\ \ As someone who gets frustrated by roguelikes with no clear goal, I found it extremely helpful to have that goal of 25 screens in mind - it helped with appropriate planning of my resources and to know that I was incredibly far off finishing the game. \ \ Stumbled into a group of three bandits and died very quickly. Would still play again.
Dead Horizon is a roguelike that takes you walking through the desert, fighting an array of wildlife, bandits, and of course killer robots. A simple retro tileset, background music and test provide for a really cool atmosphere.
In Dead Horizons you are struggling to the east, trying to trek 25 miles to let people know of what happened to your town. Nice writing rewards your travel; but the combat and art-style do not.
Jimmy in the Realm of the Dead
Completeness
2 - Complete and rather bug-free experience, but it needs a bit more polish
3 - No crashes or technical issues.
2 - The game works and complete, but some polish definitely wouldn't hurt it.
Aesthetics
2 - Interesting (but not very good) tileset, controls also are pretty good (altough it's a bit strange that most of interactions are mapped to keys, BUT few choices that need use of mouse)
2 - Nice looking tileset, and lots of information and descriptive text on the interface..
2 - While sprites in the game are not the most beautiful pixel art I've seen, but they are doing their job. I never had any confusion. Controls are fluid and well explained.
Fun
2 - Definitely enjoyable tactical roguelike with puzzle influence. Seems it's impossible to simple pass turn - don't know if it's intended, but it interferes with tacticity in wrong way, for me at least.
2 - I had fun. The item selections and enemies were interesting, however seemed a bit too dependent on the RNG for progress. For example, if you made it to level 3, and started encountering the bat things... if you haven't found a better weapon or armor, you were done. That happened to me several times.
2 - The game is more of tactical puzzle that traditional roguelike, but definitely worth trying and winning couple times.
Innovation
1 - Nothing new or innovative. HP / shield as different 'resources' would be nice twist, but unfortunately it's rather meaningless.
1 - The ideas were well presented, but nothing I haven't seen before.
1 - Quickly regenerating shield and HP that can only recovered using some special means - that was in my own 7drl Tetrogue, and in several other 7drls. While it's not often used, it's not really innovative. Other than that it's kind of standard minimalistic roguelike.
Scope
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Seems about right for a 7DRL.
2 - Very solid 7drl entry.
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely roguelike
3 - It's a roguelike.
3 - While on a lower side of 3, due to smallish levels that you do not really explore, but still have quite some roguelikeish feeling.
Tactical (but straightforward) roguelike with puzzle influences. Pretty good, but unpolished. Pixel art is decent, but personally I don't like this comical style.
Jimmy in the Realm of the Undead tells the story of Jimmy, in the Realm of the Undead. Due to a botched voodoo ritual, he finds himself in this land, trying to escape. It's a pretty straight forward combat oriented roguelike, with varied items and enemy types, though it seems just a tad bit unbalanced.
Nice little very tactical roguelike. Shield/health separation while not unique, definitely is not often use mechanic.
Riders of Rhea
Completeness
2 - Nothing crashed and it all worked quite fine. Though some sort of terrain would have added some variety.
3 - Lacking any sort of in-game menu, although it's not really needed. Game runs very smoothly and is balanced. Being real-time, it's nice there's an option to pause as well.
2 - The core of the gameplay is finished, but there's lack of end goal, and some problems with balance - there is not enough of fuel drop to play longer sessions.
Aesthetics
2 - The controls worked okay. The water cooling could have been moved away from the driving controls and over to were the shooting control is as I found it hard to drive and toggle it. As for the looks and feel of it the game really shines.
3 - Controls work great, but it would be nice to have the option to play with the arrow keys too or to have the controls configurable. Mapping the keyboard keys to a controller and playing is also really fun. The look of the game and colours are pleasant but minimal. This works in the game's favour though as the action can get pretty fast and hectic at times so the simplicity helps. You're on a moon too, so there isn't much to look at in the first place. Sound and music are a nice addition.
3 - Controls are pretty good and intuitive. Graphics is very oldschool - I like the palette, it reminds mi old games.
Fun
2 - I enjoyed my time but it isn't really my genre of game. Some people will very much love this game though.
3 - Extremely fun to play and the burnout mechanic makes for some neat skill shots. Has an arcade game feel where you try to achieve the highest level. Very replayable and satisfying to play and get good at.
2 - Funny little game. I really like system of bike progression - player is scraping mechanical parts, and every part has own strengths and weaknesses.
Innovation
2 - It is always hard to judge a game which is so far away from anything roguelike. For this one though I can point out the use of water for engine cooling while at the same time needing it for drinking.
3 - Really neat concept of a lonely person on a desolate moon just trying to survive. Lots of new ideas here.
1 - Shoot 'em up on the bikes.
Scope
2 - Another thing that is hard for me to judge when the game isn't really a roguelike. Seeing it used Unity though I feel safe putting this under what I expect from 7 days.
2 - Not too complex or deep, but with the arcade feel to the game it's not a downside at all. Different enemy motorcycles and convoy vehicles, including different groups of each help with variety.
2 - Barely, but still reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
1 - This isn't a roguelike. It is a motorcycle combat game.
1 - Random upgrades through enemy drops but no control over what they do or how to identify them. Doesn't feel like a roguelike at all, especially being real-time.
1 - Shoot 'em up with randomly placed enemies on flat black level.
This isn't a roguelike but rather a motorcycle combat game with some survival aspects thrown into the mix. It is however fun and if you want something like that this will very much be something you need to play. If you aren't sure I recorded my time with the game and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/Pi0uSccLMuo
The game is a blast to play and one to keep coming back to and see how far of a level you can upgrade your character to. The real-time action of driving a motorcycle feels fluid and fast. It's like a fun arcade-like game and even though it's not really much of a roguelike, it's still got random upgrades and is one that shouldn't be missed because of how entertaining it is to play. Highly recommended to map the keyboard keys to a controller and play.
Riders of Rhea is nice shoot 'em up. On the bikes, not in the cosmos. Enjoyable game, especially due nice theme, and system of character (or rather bike, in that case) progression. It's impossible to play longer sessions due lack of fuel drop. But is it unfortunate? In the current state of the game, I'd say it's a good thing - Riders of Rhea lacks of end goal, and whole world / level is just flat area, without obstacles at all. I like the idea of this game, the core of gameplay is enjoyable, but - in the meaning of features - it feels incomplete.
Scavenger of Broken Dreams
Completeness
2 - Finished, almost feature complete. In game help is needed, but it's OK to play with the readme open in another window.
2 - Completed and polished just enough to score 2, but some things (performance, FOV algorithm) could be much more polished; also - lack of high scores table in that kind of game is aberration.
2 - The game is very basic but winnable (and looseable, obviously). But it seriously lacks polish. There is no high scores table! Which is not good for a high score game.
Aesthetics
2 - UI mostly intuitive but not always. On my screen, it's kind of difficult to see if an item is selected or not, or distinguish between cyan and white (diamonds and rocks).
2 - Very nice font integration and dungeon generation, but other things are pretty basic and generic
2 - Good use of ASCII and colors. Good controls. But nothing outstanding.
Fun
2 - I enjoyed it, even if I died all the time. 'Losing is fun'.
2 - Gameplay is entertaining, but balance issues and lack of high scores table lowers 'fun score' of this game
1 - Way too basic and random to be fun. If you don't find a sword early enough, you are likely to die (or escape with very few diamonds).
Innovation
3 - The game plays with your greed, I died not because I could not escape, but because I wanted one more diamond. Interesting mechanic.
2 - Pretty standard roguelike with small (and not really unique, but still unusual) greed vs safety mechanics twist
1 - Nothing new or innovative here.
Scope
2 - Definitely the kind of game I expect from a 7DRL
2 - Scope is reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Barely enough for a 7drl. So it's a weak 2.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedurally generated: yes. Turn-based: yes. Permadeath: yes. Strategic: yes.
3 - Definitely roguelike
2 - Too simple and too few choices to be called true roguelike.
Nice idea. You are in an arena, trying to collect diamonds. You can escape at any time (within 30 turns after activating a scroll of recall) so the goal is to see how greedy you are. The game definitely brings this feeling of 'just one more try...'. The UI could be more polished but it works. Game seems a bit unbalanced, or I 'm just really bad at it. WIll definitely play again !
Scavenger of Broken Dreams is small high-score centric roguelike. It reminds me HyperRogue a bit - player is spawned in dungeon and need to collect gems, just it. The game seems not have real ending - you will die (so: lose) or use scroll of recall (so: win, and high score will be granted). It introduces interesting greed vs safety dilemma. I like dungeon flavours, like different types of floor. Altough, it's really strange that kind of game doesn't feature high score table - it makes me feel that SoBD is less complete than it seems on the first glance. Also, FOV algorithm is flawed and perfomence is strangely low - simple terminal-based roguelike but it works sluggish at times. Despite all drawbacks I really enjoyed playing Scavenger of Broken Dreams. I was playing release for Windows and it's possible that this is the reason of some performance flaws: it seems that this game was created for native Linux terminal, then simple ported by PDCurses for Windows.
Basic high score roguelike. Greed vs survival. Scroll of return kicks in after 20-30 turns, so it could be too late to read it in real danger.
Stir Mercury
Completeness
2 -
3 - Game is polished and balanced. Didn't run into a single bug and runs smooth.
2 - No bugs and doesn't feel like it is missing anything
Aesthetics
2 -
1 - Looks alright but the way the character is controlled is terrible. The floaty pentagonal shape and 5 sided movement doesn't work out too well when trying to use WASD-style letters on the keyboard for moving around. Combine that with the way the shape is never oriented straight up and down and your movement keys are easily getting jumbled and reversed. There is a dot on the shape that helps with this but you're still constantly moving the shape around. It would be beneficial if it automatically snapped back to the proper orientation or if pressing a key would do so.
1 - The controls frustrated me. First and easy enough to solve is that 's' is wait. That needs moving because when thinking of going 'down' I think that (wasd is ingrained in a lot of peoples muscle memory). Next there needs to be a key that centers the view on the player with the orientation mark at the top. While a pentagon based grid is interesting not being able to tell what key I need pressing isn't. Finally while being able to freely rotate the die is fun having to do so to get a look at what I want is frustrating. Have the rotation be more course would improve the situation.
Fun
2 -
2 - Would be more enjoyable if the way you control your character was better. It severely hampers the experience since you're spending a lot of effort figuring out which key to press and where it moves you on the shape.
1 - I wanted to have fun with this game. However the controls made me not be able to enjoy it.
Innovation
3 -
3 - The idea of moving around on a polygonal shape with that being your only playfield is quite unique. Also quite neat how certain enemies can only be killed on certain tiles where previous enemies were slain, adding to the depth.
2 - Using pentagon based grid on a floating 3d shape is interesting. I haven't seen anything but squares and hexagons.
Scope
2 -
2 - Pretty standard 7DRL content.
2 - this fits within what I expect from a 7drl
Roguelikeness
2 -
2 - Usual roguelike feel to it besides the aesthetics, although not quite the complete definition of a roguelike.
3 - This game for some reason feels like a roguelike to me. I almost find it odd really but it passes for me.
Very interesting game!\ Combat mechanic is something I've never seen before, very cool!\ The controls make the game harder to play than necessary. Room for improvement here.\ Enemies which spawn next to you also get a free hit on you, feels a bit unfair.\ Still not sure what 'stirring' is supposed to do.
Cool idea of playing on a small pentagonal shape, but the movement issues are a major flaw to the game. See 'Aesthetics' section for more details. There is a lot of added strategy with the way certain monsters can only be slain on certain tiles. The three provided abilities are unique as well and fun to juggle in a run. If it wasn't for the bad control method, it would be a lot more fun to play but at this state, it feels like a slog to play as you're focusing more on which way to move. Has a lot of potential though.
An interesting concept held back by the controls. I recorded my time with it and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/8qBff6qJJu0
nullpointer
Completeness
2 -
2 - Feature complete.
2 - 'It's hard to tell what is bug and what is feature in that game'. In general, I'd say it's complete game and rather bug-free, but need some polish (textures, inability to exit from game to menu)
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - Has a great look, the exploding polygons and mini-0/1s instead of blood are a nice touch. The distortion effects on your screen when damaged are also great.
2 - In general, graphics is nice - I like the retro feeling and glitches effects. But textures (?) looks very rough. Controls are just good, nothing special here, but mouse sensitive is too small for such a dynamic game.
Fun
3 -
3 - It's definitely fun. Easy to pick up and run with.
2 - Very enjoyable gameplay. But - again, 'It's hard to tell what is bug and what is feature in that game'. You need to play fast, but also think and look for best route, because you need to kill all enemies on level, and if you'd fall to the bottom without clearing upper floors, you will just stuck - it's impossible to go back.
Innovation
2 -
1 - Not very innovative and also not a roguelike, but I'm not counting the later against it for this particular Innovation score.
2 - Nothing particular, but it *feels* innovative - still don't know it's bug or feature, but you can run (and even stop!) on walls that is very helpful sometimes.
Scope
2 -
2 - Solid attempt, solid output. About what I would expect from a unity game, plus a bit of polish.
2 - Small, but still reasonable for 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 -
1 - Definitely not a roguelike but I can't give it a zero. Sorry.
2 - Permadeath and randomly generated levels. That '2' is weak, but I played much less roguelike-ish 7DRL entries.
Yep, this is right up my valley: glitchy aesthetics, catchy soundtrack and enemies bleeding binary code is what I dig. Made it to level 5 after propelling through the level walls and into the void at high velocity several times (especially corners). Sometimes I would miss enemies while jumping down and end up stuck at the bottom of the level. Save for those small issues, a great 7drl entry all around.
It's a fun shooter with a cool polygon/hacking aesthetic. But, it's definitely not a roguelike! Still, it is surprisingly easy to play and the difficulty level ramps up pretty smoothly. Just when you think you are getting good you start getting into trouble, which is exactly how things should be.
Nullpointer is strange game. First of all I need to say that it's hard to tell what is bug and what is feature in that game... Roguelite FPS with (slight) puzzle influence. I really like that retro-hack feeling, including displaying glitches when player takes damage. There are some flaws in design (details in specific sections), but overwall, it's really enjoyable 7DRL entry.
7DKoboldicide
Completeness
2 - Only crashed once, was able to die and able to complete the quest of killing the dragon. Sounds like some more advanced features didn't make the game and it could have done with better enemy AI, more items or enemy variety. Also it felt a bit easy so could be balanced more.
2 - There's some slight buggy behaviour at times, but no crashes. Game seems to lack balance and polish.
Aesthetics
2 - Nice ASCII graphics and ok UI. Text behaved oddly sometimes when one text was overwriting another the old text wasn't cleared fully away. Most UI frustration came from trying to pickup spears from tiles where there was something else like an armour on already and my own inventory was already too full otherwise.\
2 - Controls are easy enough, but the inventory system is awkward and there's no labeling on a lot of things. Colours are nice.
Fun
2 - Thanks to having spears and sticks to throw and the boss fight I did ultimately have enough fun with this game :) The basic enemies and dungeons started feeling like drudgery after a while.
2 - Engaging, and fun at first, but there's a lack of challenge in the game to keep it interesting. End boss can be beaten quite easily.
Innovation
1 - Nothing new here.
1 - There are some small twists here, but nothing that really changes gameplay. I liked the dragon, mind.
Scope
2 - Rather nice scope for a 7drl, just about what I'd expect.
2 - Was clearly trying for a lot, with a big overworld, many dungeons types and lots of items. Ultimately though it lacks large scope in interactions. Enemies are all killed in the game hack-n-back way.
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely roguelik.
3 - Solid roguelike.
I blazed through 106 kobolds to defeat the great dragon and skewer the princess, good times. A nice enough effort for a 7drl hopefully forming the basis for a bigger, more complicated and balanced game. All the basics were working and the game only crashed once when I was entering a dungeon. I was able to slaughter all the townspeople too, which is always a bonus. Not enough enemy variety or challenge but that's acceptable given that it looks like a good amount of time will have gone into getting the libtcod system up and running.
A roguelike with 4-directional movement and a facing system based on where you last moved. You can only attack in the direction you're facing, which leads to some interesting puzzley gameplay of manoeuvring yourself into the right position to attack
Fremde Brut
Completeness
2 -
2 - Main features, and whole core of the game, seem complete. Altought controls feel weird, and there is no manual or instruction.
Aesthetics
3 -
2 - Good enough. Graphics is pretty nice, there are decent sounds and music. However, it *feel* a bit awk and crude.
Fun
2 -
1 - I had, say, decent joy from playing. But game works slowly, animations are long, keys responsiveness is low.
Innovation
2 -
1 - Generic game
Scope
2 -
2 - Scope is adequate to 7DRL - no more, no less.
Roguelikeness
3 -
2 - It *feel* like roguelike that trying to imitate roguelite.
Love the premise - just collect the dog tags and get the hell out, even if it is the result of 'half content is missing' phenomena. Unique and interesting blocky looks. Haunting BGM had me on my toes the whole time while I was being torn to shreds by alien scum. Managed to win once.
I have problem with this game. It is pretty solid in most areas. But it also have major flaws. Fremde Brut, with some post-competition work and fixes, could become good game. But currently it's... rather mediocre.
Isorogue
Completeness
2 - As a short burst puzzle, with some small refinements I could see the game in the mobile arena, isometric viewpoint works well, background music a little repetitive. You can find yourself in a position with a single AI, where a stand off situation arises, because either party moving toward each other is an unfavourable move - so to proceed, the player usually has to take the hit
2 - I managed to get it to crash but otherwise solid.
Aesthetics
3 - Distinct animated cartoon art-style (cute animals/monsters), with the isometric look providing an overlapping pseudo 3d effect. Terrain has surprising variety (meadows, crypts, frozen lands)
3 - Looks amazing and while the controls might take a little getting used to because of the viewing angle it is all fine.
Fun
2 - I enjoyed the initial claustrophobic tactical puzzle, and collecting monster parts, but the novelty wore of in later levels because the decision process seemed to be similar regardless of monsters, terrain or level - the 'catch them all' draw didn't seem to hold much sway with me. Perhaps expand the play area (multi-rooms?), and add another layer of objective to the mix?
2 - A nice little puzzley thing. While I would advise everyone to play I do advise every to have a look at it.
Innovation
2 - Isometric movement/turn attack puzzle, with monster 'parts' collection being telegraphed to the player visually, to influence their movement decision adding a novel layer to the game
1 - Its a puzzle game and doesn't really innovate on it from what I can tell.
Scope
2 - The limited play area, sets the scope, as a more bite-sized repeated playthrough puzzler
2 - The game is simple but the graphics are stunning. Taken together this is what I expect from a really good 7drl though not yet to the point of being beyond a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
2 - Exploration of the movement, bump to attack cycle in a very confined area delivers a concise tactical puzzle that is very roguelike, health loss and gain as you clear each level seems very puzzle orientated. Limited procedural generation of terrain content, could be a good place to develop further
1 - Its a puzzle game. Not a roguelike but still a great game.
A claustrophobic move and bump-to-attack tactical puzzle game, with a distinctive cute crayon drawn art-style from an isometric viewpoint. Layered on top of the tactical movement is a mechanism by which the game indicates what monsters are going to drop parts to be collected, adding a 'desirable' pressure to each turns decision. You regain a point of health for clearing a level, so you can trade unfavourable positions where you take some damage, for monster parts and a top up of health once the level is cleared. I enjoyed exploring the initial tactical situations, and going for the 'collectors' choice over the safe movement choice, but as I played the game over and over, the decision process seemed to be the same regardless of monster or terrain and the parts collection mechanic whilst novel, didn't seem to hold much draw for me over time. I can see the game being refined into a quick-play mobile game, but it would be interesting to see if the limited playspace could be expanded on, and perhaps another layer of objectives be woven into the current mix.
Overall nice little game. Worth a look. Anyway here is a video of me playing it:\ https://youtu.be/gCKzGh5A3pU
King of Nothing
Completeness
3 - Runs stable, without crashes. In aesthetics terms, King of Nothing looks very polished.
2 - Ran into a few out of memory crashes when the game ran for a long time. Sometimes re-spawning enemies would spawn in a place that would result in instant game over.
2 - I had the game run out of memory on Chrome once and if I had been in a high scoring game that would have been quite disappointing. Otherwise it is quite solid. I can't really think of anything more the game needs except maybe the option for a bigger playing field, either as a difficulty thing or as the game progresses
Aesthetics
3 - Graphics tiles are amazing, and controls are good.
3 - What a great looking game. Color palette is spot on, and the sprites and animations are fabulous.
3 - The controls are simple and easy to use. As for the graphical side of it this game really has a wonderful art direction to it.
Fun
1 - The model of gameplay is not enjoyable at all. Too shallow, too easy.
2 - I did enjoy it quite a bit at first, but quickly got old. Instant re-spawning enemies kind of killed any sense of relief or progression, and they would sometimes spawn in unfortunate spots that would case instant death.
3 - While I would label this as more of a puzzle than a roguelike everyone should give it a try. The games are quick enough and it is fun enough that you shouldn't be held back even if you are a hardliner on a 7drl needing to be a roguelike.
Innovation
1 - Puzzle roguelike. Without rogue. So... puzzle-like.
2 - Mechanics that I've seen before, but put together in a way that seemed new and interesting.
2 - The fact that you only control your movement and everything else happens automatically is an interesting idea. A nice twist that makes the game interesting
Scope
1 - Tiny
2 - Rather complete and polished, but not really pushing any bounds. About what I would expect.\
2 - Because of how polished it is and the fact I can't really even think of anything to add this fits well within what I expect from a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
1 - Not roguelike at all.
1 - Although it displays some roguelike characteristics, they are more in the presentation than in the gameplay.
2 - This isn't a pure roguelike. It follows in the steps of other games of this sort were it has distilled a number of roguelike mechanics down so much it has become more of a puzzle. If I had to give it a genre it would be 'roguelike puzzler'
King of Nothing is puzzle game, not roguelike. Levels are simple square of tiles. Every tile has own properties, and entity on that tile receives this property. Swords are about attacking adjacent tile, crossbows have range attack, and shields blocks damage. Every entity on the level (so, player character, enemies, even golden ancorn - you need to collect it to unlock downstairs) moves in the same, specified by player, direction - like in Threes or 2048.\ \ While playing King of Nothing, I didn't encounter any probles. It looks nice, works fine, but it's too bland non-roguelike to be enjoyable - especially as 7DRL entry.
King of Nothing is a puzzle game, reminiscent of threes, that is worth a look. While not what I would consider a true roguelike, there are some definite influences and mechanics that give it the feel.
An excellent game which I would categorize as a 'roguelike puzzler'. Everyone should give it a try. If my words alone aren't enough to give it a go you can watch my playtime with it here:\ https://youtu.be/-COjsycW5DM
MedicalRL
Completeness
2 - The blood sugar book seemed to be missing from my download, which caused a crash when you tried to read that flyer... which turns out to be really important if you're in the habit of randomly eating stuff.
2 - The game starts and works, but definitely lacks polish and have several bugs.
3 - No severe problems encountered. Game is playable and balanced, although short. There is a minor bug with fatique going to extreme values after sleep, but that doesn't affect gameplay.\
Aesthetics
2 - Game looked great.. nice fonts and glyph selection made everything clear. I would of liked a lot more information, especially on the food items as it appears they play a role in blood sugar. Also, the log was heavily polluted with symptoms... a little more color coding on the messages would go a long way in making it more readable. (It's hard to locate what it is you're looking at, among the lines and lines of symptom text.)
2 - Typical python+libtcod look. And that is quickly becoming a problem on modern monitors with high res... There is no option to scale this up. And with default scale it so tiny...
2 - Minimal UI, basic TCoD font, controls are intuitive. Nothing very good, but isn't bad too.\
Fun
1 - Kind of a neat concept to base a roguelike on, but the implementation was not a lot of fun. In the end, it's find the flier that matches your symptoms, find the treatment, take it, win. The levels are really small, so the added eating and sleep mechanics are not really necessary.
1 - I won on first try. And on second... And on third... Simply drinking/injecting/inhaling every drug I could find. There are very view interactions with environment, and even fewer meaningful.
2 - In most games, if you are coughing that’s either a flu or an alien parasite in chest. That's not a case - in this this game you have to exactly identify why you are coughing. It is a very fun experience\
Innovation
2 - I really like the concept, and I think this is a really good base for a game to be built upon, but the overall implementation kind of fell flat. Adding in some additional diseases, tests and treatments could really make this non-mob-enemy concept interesting and fun.
2 - Well... I can't recall completely non-violent (not counting violent coughing) roguelike game centered around fighting disease... On the other hand there are roguelikes with diseases in general...
3 - Nice application of real life medical information in a roguelike. I think the idea deserves 3 of 3, even while implementation is pretty basic.\
Scope
2 - Wavered a bit on this one... In the presentation, this is a very simple game, but there are a lot of somewhat complex systems in the background if your game lasts that long. I think the intention was about right for a 7DRL, even if the implementation didn't hit it.
1 - IMO not enough content for a solid roguelike. Too simple, too few content.
2 - Pretty short, not much diseases, but great idea and fun to play several times, so for a 7drl it's good.\
Roguelikeness
3 - Wavered a bit on this one as well, but in the end enough boxes were checked off for me to consider this a roguelike.
2 - Very weak 2. It looks like roguelike, but gameplay-wise not so much.
2 - Well, no combat here, but athmosphere is close to games like CataclysmDDA, so I think it has enough roguelike feel.\
MedicalRL is a game where you wake up with an unknown daisease, and have to wander the halls searching for a way to cure yourself. It's a really neat idea, with the potential for some real depth... but in it's current state it's rather simple and not challenging.
Interesting in theory idea of fighting your disease in practice is quite boring.
Player wakes up in a hospital and see that all personnel and patients gone, and that he has some horrible sympthoms. He must find flyers about different disease to diagnose himself and use right cure. Eating random pills isn't going to help. There is also need to eat a food left in lockers and sleep on beds. The game is very athmospheric, scary sympthom manifestations forces you to hurry up while winning requires exactly opposite - cold head and careful examination. There are only several possible diseases though, so the game is very short, but the first few plays are very funny.\
The Darkest Deeps
Completeness
3 - Complete and bug free.
2 - No noticeable bugs. Lacks polish
Aesthetics
2 - I've resolved myself to not everyone implementing vi-keys. Or skipping arrow-keys in favour of numpad only. But to abandon all standard keysets for WASD? This is only made worse because 'h' is an undocumented key to quit immediately to menu, further punishing vi-users.\ \ Nice consistent look. The scrolling works well even when you move fast. Excellent music. However, it is very hard to tell when *you* are hit as it merely is a decreasing number. Which is a problem as recognizing that enemies only attack when you attack is critical.\ \ Very cute collection of 'weapons' for the combat triangle.
2 - Artwork is nice, but the controls are a bit awkward. The HP display above the player looks weird (though is useful).
Fun
2 - Pulled me in to keep playing deeper. Probably should be half the depth to avoid it getting monotonous - long enough to prove the player has figured out the weapon triangle & how combat works, but not much longer. When you stop having anything new is a good time to stop the game.
1 - Gameplay is very basic, with little to no tactics involved. The best strategy seems to be to involve enemies altogether. There is a rock-paper-scissors mechanic that makes some enemies stronger or weaker than you, but since the vast majority of enemies are a standard type outside this spectrum it has almost no impact on gameplay.
Innovation
1 - That enemies only attack when you attack is something of interest. The combat triangle actually has little innovation as it is just a static arrangement of power. Would have been more innovative if you were able change your weapon, or cause enemies to combat...
1 - Nothing really new here.
Scope
2 - Proper size for a 7drl.
2 - A small 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
3 - Permadeath combat in a tactical dungeon? Yep.
3 - Classic roguelike in style.
You find yourself condemned to a cavern seeking the relic that will grant your freedom. Fortunately there are many chests of prizes. Unfortunately there are many enemies...
A small and simple roguelike where you explore levels and fight simple enemies. There is a rock, paper, scissors mechanic that affects combat a little, but overall is a fairly basic dungeon crawler.
The Librarian
Completeness
2 - Everything works just fine and I can't really feel anything missing from it
3 - Ran into no bugs or major technical issues.
Aesthetics
2 - The controls are easy enough. Along with that how it is displayed feels right
2 - Bright yellow on blue color scheme made it really hard to see what was going in my real eyes... Even though I'm aware that's one of the major themes of the game. Turning to the white W made it even worse. The log flavor text was fantastic, but the layout was really\ hard to follow, even though I think I see where you were going with it.
Fun
2 - A decent game that was worth my time
1 - Playable and winnable, but individual plays tend to be either a cakewalk, or you spawn in a room with 6-8 interlopers and can do nothing but watch your impending doom. Last level is just moving around randomly until you hit the boss you can't see. While true to the theme, not very enjoyable.
Innovation
2 - Having a reducing vision range every level along with a random power is an interesting twist
1 - Nothing really new here.
Scope
2 - This fits right in the middle of what I expect from a 7drl
1 - It feels like the bare bones of a rogulike project.
Roguelikeness
3 - This is very much a roguelike. Not much else to say about it really.
3 - Its a roguelike.
An interesting game with a neat progression mechanic. I enjoyed my time with it and you can watch me do so here:\ https://youtu.be/SUxbFR34oDI
Librarian is a game about finding books and fighting interlopers in a library while your sight is failing. While complete and winnable, it's a very simple,basic roguelike with not a lot of interesting mechanics.
Top Men
Completeness
3 -
2 - Sometimes would launch into black tiles. Pause button would be beneficial. Balance seems fairly consistent but the level generation can feel off at times. Game runs smooth. It's nice you're able to undo moves or skip the level by taking a time penalty.
2 - Fairly complete. It could use a bit more polish, Mostly bug-free.
Aesthetics
3 -
3 - Smooth crisp graphics and easy tap controls for quick gameplay.
3 - Nice graphics and smooth controls.
Fun
2 -
2 - Enjoyable if you like sokoban style games. Quite a challenge as the game is timed, making you play as fast as possible to get as far as you can. Some of the levels take some time to figure out and the generation can get a bit wonky, though.
2 - If you like sokoban - it's game for you! Basically, endless sokoban experience with procedurally generated levels. But time limits and lack of pause button or *timeless* game mode lowers the score...
Innovation
2 -
1 - Nothing new besides adding procedurally generated levels to a sokoban game.
2 - It's always hard to evaluate the level of innovation for non-roguelike games. But, overwall, procedurally generated sokoban levels is something new, isn't it?
Scope
2 -
2 - Standard 7DRL content.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
Roguelikeness
1 -
1 - This is a sokoban game with procedurally generated screens. Not a roguelike.
1 - Not a roguelike.
Very nice little puzzle game. Endless sokoban with a nice minimal aesthetic\ Polish this up, implement ads/iap, and make some money!\ Wouldn't mind an untimed, 'casual' mode. My old feeble brain can't keep up.\ Doesn't feel like a roguelike yet though. Still fun, and easy to consume in bite sized pieces.
This is a sokoban style game where you go through procedurally generated levels. It's quite a simple game but not the easiest to get far. It would be better if the timer didn't tick down as fast, but the challenge makes for quick pick up and plays. Being on Android, the game is very suitable for phones and tablets. There isn't much depth but if you like sokoban or puzzle games, this one is worth having a go.
Magma Fortress - author(s) of well known (and really good) Hoplite. I expected something interesting from Top Men, and oh boy, they delivered. Simple but not easy... sokoban game. Sokoban with procedural generated levels. It's great game, but it's nothing to do with 7DRL. It's a pity, but otherwise it's really interesting and replayable game. Don't like time limit, but - maybe post 7DRL release?
Diecognizant
Completeness
3 - It does what it sets out to do and nothing else. No bugs. It feels *very* polished to me because of the dice effect, sounds, and screen shake. I like the title screen too.
2 - There are no bugs nor crashes but it feels like it is missing the polish
2 - The game works, can be won, but looks more like a prototype than a complete game.
Aesthetics
3 - The art style is drab, matching the premise of the game. But importantly, it's consistent. I liked it a lot. No problems with the controls.
2 - The controls are easy enough though besides the little bit of story the games feel is a bit flat
2 - While somewhat stylish, I find the art to be somewhat out of place.
Fun
3 - It's not a long game, not at all. But if I'm evaluating what's there, I had a lot of fun. It just has a nice 'game feel'. It's kind of funny too.
2 - The game has some interesting elements yet I didn't in the end find it all that compelling
1 - Too easy. Too simple. No replayability value.
Innovation
2 - The premise of knowing the outcome is pretty different. We've had dice manipulation before though.
2 - Having combat be based on dice which you already know the results of and the powers being things to manipulate that predetermined line up of results is an interesting twist.
1 - There were roguelikes with time manipulation and prediction. Not sure if there were roguelikes about dice rolling outcome prediction, but I can't say that in this game prediction is part of some clever and interesting mechanic. It's too simple and straightforward.
Scope
2 - Seems like a good scope, maybe even a bit below average, but there are at least several interesting power ups.
2 - This is almost at the level of being a tech demo. It isn't though and manages to squeak in under what I expect from a 7drl.
2 - Very weak 2. There is barely any game.
Roguelikeness
1 - I'll give a 2 to anything with permadeath and procedural generation. But despite this game meeting a lot of other roguelike criteria (turn based, grid based), there's no permadeath! A win or loss lasts the same number of days.
2 - This isn't a roguelike and that feels weird. It has a lot of the trappings of one yet they are implemented in ways that just don't make me think roguelike
2 - I don't mind roguelikes without (lethal) combat. But in this game 'combat' is so trivial that it doesn't count... Also maps seems to be predesigned, not randomly generated.
In Diecognizant, you can predict the outcome of dice rolls. You use this ability to win money. Diecognizant is very compact, but well designed, nicely polished, and enjoyable, much like the developer's entry last year. This game reminded me of the time I abused my knowledge of an online gambling game to win lots of money.
The game has an interesting twist with it's combat and how it is predetermined but it wasn't that compelling for me. I did record my playtime and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/DZxgPbHm--k
Simple game where you can see outcome of dice rolls and use this to ... basically rob people :)
Your Past, My Future
Completeness
3 - Polished, balanced, bug free
2 - It is complete game, without doubts. But it's also definitely unpolished and ubalanced.
2 - The game starts and works, but is so simple and empty, that it is hard to call it complete game.
Aesthetics
2 - Nothing fancy, but UI is very clean and intuitive, controls work well, no bugs.
2 - Classic ASCII look, very clear, altought I don't like colour palette, it's a bit eye-tiring. Control scheme has own flaws. HP regens over time, but it's impossible to skip turns or rest (...at least not by KP5 or dot - you can keep bumping walls, it's working). Also, the neccessity to confirm some abilities (that are binded to F, S keys) by pressing Enter is a bit annoying.
2 - Standard ASCII, controls could be much better. There is no skip turn button, there is no rest button, there is no 'run in direction' button, and you have to tap direction key to pass thru quite lengthy corridors.
Fun
2 - Fun for a while, you should try !
2 - Playing Your past, my future is really nice experience - but I think due different features than developer wanted to. For example: monsters are very dumb, so it's really easy to outrun them; using abilities is not triggering enemy turn. It makes YPMF great for speedruns... but I'd say these features are bugs.
1 - Too simple, too empty. Skills have no much meaning. You can easily win without using any. There are only two types of aggressive monsters and they are dumb enough to no follow you around the corner.
Innovation
2 - The concept is not fundamentalyy new, but well implemented nonetheless.
1 - Nothing new here. Hack and slash, with minor twist about receiving powerful ability if you are playing different class than before.
1 - Nothing interesting or new. Inheritance idea was already implemented number of times and in a much more interesting and meaningful way.
Scope
2 - Exactly what you expect from a 7DRL
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
2 - Very weak 2. Just barely 2. Almost 1. Not enough content.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedurally generated: yes. Turn-based: yes. Permadeath: yes. Strategic: yes => Roguelike
3 - Definitely roguelike
2 - Technically it's a roguelike. But it's so simple and easy that it's hard to call it 'true roguelike'.
Nice concept. There are only a few floors in the dungeon but they are vey deadly. The trick is each time you restart you may choose from a different class of hero, which inherits some of the best stats from your previous adventurer. so if you don't make it, one of your kind will succeed. Same concept as Rogue Legacy, for instance,
Your past, my feature is classic-looking roguelike. Your only goal is to descend, and descending is the only way to buff player character. Altough the main twist is about combat system, game doesn't encourage fighting - rather outrunning enemies (and it isn't hard, because their pathfinding is really bad). Despite weak AI and some controls flaws, YPMF is really enjoyable roguelike, and very good choice for speedrunning.
Very simplistic game with premise that could be interesting in theory, but in this specific case have no sense. It is possible to win the game without fighting. So all the skills are useless.
Borderline
Completeness
2 - Tested PC and Android versions and both ran smooth. Some minor spelling/text errors. Lacking a bit of general polish to both gameplay and UI. Scout ships aren't implemented. Balance feels fine although can be difficult to actually expand and colonize everything before it turns to 'goo'.
2 - No crashes or game breaking bugs. Some small UI glitches that would cause the screen to blank out, but could easily be worked around and were more of an annoyance than a game breaker. As documented, some features (scouts) were not implemented.
Aesthetics
2 - Would be nice to see the dates in the logbook as well as maybe a brief turn summary popping up at the bottom so you don't have to keep pressing log to see what happened. Visuals work fine but it would be neat if there was some more flashy design work to them.
2 - Functional UI, but very basic. Main command window took up real estate that would sometimes block neighboring systems you could jump to. You could move the map around and still get to them, but a small annoyance. All fleet and research information presented and accessible. Management and research screens intuitive and easy to use.
Fun
3 - A lot of fun to be had especially if you're a fan of 4X space/strategy games. Juggling between production, research, and defensive minefields add to the depth of the game, though it's quite streamlined. The combat can also be interesting to follow.
2 - As a strategy gamer, this one engaged me for a bit, as I tried to develop the strategy that worked. I never quite mastered it, but made good progress each run, which was a sign that the game was somewhat balanced and fair. Usually, I messed up somewhere. That being said, and more colonies were under control, management and visiting were tedious and kind of a chore. I was reminded of spore, and spice collection, and that is not a good thing.
Innovation
1 - Feels like a 4x space game but stripped down and streamlined. Nothing really new.
1 - A simple space strategy game. Had the basics of the genre.
Scope
3 - Quite ambitious for a 7DRL and has a lot of content and things to follow.
3 - Not quite a simple, skeleton of a project. There are alot of mechanics, and they do appear to be implemented in a way that works. About right for a 7DRL
Roguelikeness
1 - Far from a roguelike.
1 - Definitely more of a strategy game than a roguelike. While turnbased with procedural maps, there is nothing about it that makes it feel roguelike.
Borderline is a strategy game set in space with you trying to survive and expand while aliens try and prevent that from happening. It's quite entertaining to see how many stars you can colonize before either giving up to the brute strength of the growing aliens or having all your colonies turned into goo due to not having enough defenses. There are some bits of micromanagement and it feels like there are a lot of layers at work here, but they all work and mesh quite well. The UI and overall look are quite simple and can feel a bit lacking at times, however, they do the job just fine. Even though this game isn't really a roguelike, it's still very much worth having a look at.
In Borderline, you build and command a fleet of starships and set out to conquer and colonize the galaxy in an offense is the best defense strategy. Definitely more of a strategy game than a roguelike, but is a good start to a space strategy game.
Introvertia
Completeness
3 -
2 - Polished and bug-free but the levels felt empty and it is not challenging enough, so it is not balanced.
Aesthetics
2 -
2 - Pleasant art style, though there is not much of it. The UI is ok. The writing is swell.
Fun
2 -
1 - Too easy to be fun. I was able to go to the side of a level and just keep going northwards in a straight line, and for each enemy I encountered I only used the first battle/dialogue option and that got me to the end. If the gameplay was a bit more challenging I'd give this a two because currently the most fun I got was from the general, unusual but pleasant setting of the 7DRL and some of the fun dialogue and options. The levels themselves just need more challenge for this to turn into fun.
Innovation
2 -
1 - Apart from the pleasant, non-violent setting this was not an innovative game in terms of mechanics.
Scope
2 -
2 - A game with dialogue, a basic combat system, multiple levels, inventory and stats is a reasonable scope and achievement for a 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 -
2 - Turn-based, moving a single unit, trying to be stealthy, procedural... Kind of roguelikey! :) I would need a bit more depth in the mechanics and meaning to my actions as a player to give a 3.
I like the fun premise, and that it uses dialogue as an alternative to combat.\ It's a fun, quick play. Not terribly difficult to win.\ Warning: Flirt is amazingly over powered :)\ For game flow reasons, I wonder if there would be a way to do the dialogue without a popup window.
A pleasant little surprise of a game mostly due to the fun and gentle setting true to the game's name where you play an introvert trying to avoid people as you go buy some food for your pregnant wife. I'm fond of games where you don't have to kill anyone to win so that's a big thumbs up from me. The game has a finished core loop so I can win and lose the game but it took some effort to actually lose - overall it felt too easy and also like there's not enough stuff on each level. I'd like to see at least one of the following to be drawn back into this to play some more: 1) More varied and interesting opponent movement behaviour 2) Much more varied level design, because now it's just random objects and obstacles scattered here and there. A nice effort for a 7drl that could grow into a nice little game with another 7d put into it.
Loot'N'Run
Completeness
3 - Few strange AI occurrences with enemies not moving. Some minor spelling/text errors. Game feels balanced and quite polished b
2 - Although simple, and I encountered no bugs or crashes. Restarting a run without restarting the game would be nice, and a little more balance work could go a long way.
Aesthetics
3 - Cute and simple look that's similar to Pixel Dungeon. The variation of enemies is quite nice too. Controlling using the numpad is preferred for diagonal movement and works fine.
2 - Simple tileset and all information is presented. The lack of contrast between the walls and floors was hard on the eyes, and made it difficult to make out the actual map.
Fun
2 - Overall map generation is done well. Combat and dancing around enemies can be entertaining at times, but the action feels too dragged out. Lots of attacks will hit for 0 HP resulting in unnecessary key presses. It would be more fun if the action was more damaging and quick.
1 - Found out quickly this was not a combat roguelike. Was much more effective just to run past everything. It was very easy to lock yourself into the ample dead ends. If combat is a focus, a little work on the combat balance could really help. If the run past the baddies is the mechanic you are going for, I'd suggest implementing some features to prevent the mob of death in the dead ends. Perhaps varied enemy speeds, or escape mechanics.
Innovation
1 - The delayed combat is kind of a new idea for roguelikes but everything else is all familiar. Even the idea of a thief and collecting gold has all been done before, although not in the same theme.
1 - A really simple, basic roguelike.
Scope
2 - Different enemy types and varied methods they attack are quite nice. Not much variety to the dungeon, though. Feels a little bland and could use some colour. Also has no items.
1 - Feels like a bare bones project.
Roguelikeness
2 - Missing a few features like inventory and weapons/armor, though still shares a lot of similarities with the genre.
3 - Although simple, it feels roguelike, and checks enough boxes for me.
Fairly fun game for short bursts of play that's based on how much gold you can collect before proceeding to the next level with the leftover adding to your overall score. It should be more clear though that you need 1000 gold to go to the next level, as it's not documented and can be confusing at first. The scoring mechanic works well and the delayed-style of combat is enjoyable. The game feels complete and looks quite good, but it's easy to get burnt out after a few playthroughs due to the slightly slow combat.
Loot'N'Run is a simple roguelike where you run through the levels of the dungeon collecting loot. It's a bare-bones game that could use some more balancing and content.
PokemonRL
Completeness
2 - The game runs perfectly fine but it feels a little rough.
2 - Lots of functionality here but I encountered a couple of bugs: one time my HP went to 0 and I got a message that I died but I was still able to continue playing. Another time I encountered a big bug in a boss fight at a gym where I was aiming to swap my pokemon but once I'd withdrawn my bird I was not able to deploy any pokemon any more. This persisted once I'd left the gym and tried again.
Aesthetics
2 - The controls are fine except there isn't anyway that I could find for waiting a turn and you can't pass through your Pokemon.
2 - Completely fine ASCII graphics and a decent UI with nothing special. The action log could be clearer and occasionally blocked a big part of the screen.
Fun
1 - While interesting the way you control the game and various niggles make me not able to really recommend this game.
2 - Less fun than I anticipated. I don't understand why I can't move diagonally especially as I get attacked diagonally and because I need to position myself to heal my pokemon with potions or capture others with pokeballs. I didn't really feel that having the pokemon fight on a tactical roguelike map was that interesting or more fun compared to the simplified interface of the original pokemon games. I can imagine there's scope for the battlemap to make more difference but now it was more frustrating than fun. Often enough my weakling pokemons just perished unceremoniously whilst I was trying to place myself to help them. Just throwing out and withdrawing various pokemon is not very fun. I had most success by camping near a town, going out into the nearest area to do one fight and then retreating back to have everyone healed. The boss fight was buggy for me because once I had recalled my pokemon once I was never able to deploy any pokemon again in the gym because it kept saying the it was a one on one battle. This sapped some fun too. But this definitely has potential and I could see a neat, balanced, challenging game emerging as long as the actual pokebattles are made more interesting and worth having on a map.
Innovation
1 - This is Pokemon, in a roguelike. We have enough '[game] the roguelike!' at this point that purely making one isn't innovative at this point. Along with the fact that there is the Mystery Dungeon series of Pokemon games makes this even less so.
1 - Felt quite traditional - the spin is of course doing it poke-style but it didn't add that much fundamentally new to my mind. I suppose capturing and summoning animals and getting them to level up is unusual.
Scope
2 - From what I saw (which wasn't really that much or could have been all of it, who knows) this is what I expect from a 7drl.
3 - An ambitious and grand project for a 7DRL so full points for that. There's lots going on: the capturing, leveling up and control of pokemon who each have multiple attacks potentially available to them. Maps split into section with terrain and lines of sight and varied monsters. Towns with shops, healers and items. Boss fights in Gyms. Lots going on for a 7DRL!
Roguelikeness
2 - Its a 'Roguelike'. Close but not close enough for me to really say yes when someone asks.
3 - Very roguelikey in my mind. Permadeath, items, monsters, tactics, the aesthetic... Felt like there's no hunger clock but that didn't bother me.
It is amazing what having to put an actual number to something can do. In my video I am a bit more positive on the game than the scores tell you. Check my video out here:\ https://youtu.be/a4Gp7bTAD5M
Whilst the trendy phenomenon of capturing and slaughtering animals and little kids just passed me by when I was growing up, I was happy to see that finally someone had turned Pokemon into a roguelike and am glad to have played this entry. This is an ambitious project replicating what seems like a lot of what other Pokemon games are based on in terms of capturing and developing monsters and pitting them against each other. Whilst there's a lot of good content here, an element of fun is still lacking and I'm not yet convinced that expanding away from the simpler and purer presentations I've seen in the original Pokemon games into a roguelike style is adding enough fun. This is nonetheless a solid start which would be worth developing further. Maybe it would have been better to reduce the scope slightly and spend more time balancing, then expand later? (I say that but am guilty myself of the opposite often enough) Please add diagonal movement (maybe that's been done already, haven't played the post-7DRL versions yet) :)
Tower of Magi
Completeness
2 - There wasn't anything glitchy that I could see.
2 - No serious bugs encountered. The enemy can hide under the flame sprite sometimes, but that is minor.\
Aesthetics
2 - The controls for casting the spells are a bit annoying. Otherwise the looks and style are nice and interesting.
2 - Tiles aren't too great (hats instead of magi, huh) and UI could be better (casting spells requires several keypresses and you will repeat it many many times). But the problems are minor and overall look is fine.\
Fun
2 - It wasn't a waste of time but it wasn't mind blowing. Just a nice mellow experience.
1 - Dull levels, stupid monsters, no final message (according to source there should be one, but there is 'break' before it).
Innovation
2 - The floors burning is an interesting twist
1 - There are some interesting elements, but they aren't unique and they aren't combined into a complete game.\
Scope
2 - This is just about what I expect in a roguelike made during a 7drl
1 - The finished game could be very good, but it's like one half of it.\
Roguelikeness
3 - This is very much a roguelike
3 - All elements of a roguelike included\
It was an alright game. Neither the best nor the worst. Just a good medium level of competences. I recorded my play time so you can watch it here:\ https://youtu.be/liBhB3ee4E0
Player starts at the bottom of magic tower and ascends through levels killing everybody on the way. The game features some interesting mechanics - there are three elements of magic with different attack pattern and effects, when he gathers bonus to one of them he gets less proficient in others. There are also nice list of additional abilies that can be choosen after ascending to appropriate floor. Sadly, lack of balance and nonexistant AI ruined playability of the game. Monsters can't use spells right, and there are only one or two in each room, so killing them is repetitive and boring - step in position where they cannot hit you, cast ice until killed, repeat. Levels are too big and requirement to kill every enemy before getting to next floor isn't fun too. At the end of game you get to the roof, that is just a small room without exit or anything. Abilities, and story text are nice though, could be a nice tactical game if there will be MORE MORE monsters and AI that can actually hunt player. And some balance.\
Furthest Shore
Completeness
2 - The survival/crafting mechanics seem to limited to chopping wood and building a few basic structures. Not much impact on the exploration and combat side of the game, which seems to be qhere the victory condition is. Some bugs when marking the same tile for construction and harvest.
1 - So much uncomplete that it's barely playable. OK, there core of gameplay is present. But it's very modest and limited. Also, there are lots of visual issues, and some design choices feel just not tested.
Aesthetics
2 - Nice graphical display and UI elements. Controls are unintuitive, though. WAXD and S to rest causes some mistakes, and the menus for controlling characters/harvesting/building are quite fiddly. Items should be equipped when the game starts. I can't see any way to direct both survivors' movement.
2 - I have very mixed feeling about game's aesthetics. Music is present, and it's pretty nice - but it's MIDI and gets annoying fast. Tiles are very good, but the use of them is just bugged. UI also is rather good, but marking harvesting area by clicking every single wood separately is very tedious.
Fun
2 - There's definitely a game here, but it's not as fun as it could be. Combat is a real grind when all participants have armour. A majority of attacks do no damage. Stealth seems to be an alternative playstyle, but it's too easy to step next to an undetected monster while exploring.
1 - There is almost nothing to do in that game. It's supposed to be survival-dwarf_fortress-something crossover, but gameplay seem limited to harvest some resources and building basic structures.
Innovation
1 - I don't see anything new here. Roguelikes have had survival mechanics, resource harvesting, building, combat, and randomised damage reduction before.
1 - Nothing innovative in Furthest Shore.
Scope
3 - I didn't see much content because I'm bad at the game (or it's difficult), but the creator asserts that there are a lot of biomes and creatures inhabiting them, and the screenshots support that. Together with the partial implementation of base building, quite an impressive scope. Creature AI seems to be from Sproggiwood?
2 - It's really hard to evaluate scope of this game. It started big, waaay to big for 7DRL, and it ends like something... huh, maybe not really small, but shallow and bland.
Roguelikeness
3 - Procedural map, permadeath (of two characters), turn based.
2 - Yup, probably it's roguelike. In the same way as, for example, Dwarf Fortess is roguelike.
A roguelike with some survival mechanics mixed in. The game start provides few options and little guidance, but content appearing later in the game might produce a fun experience. If you can reach it.
Furthest Shore is ambitious project. It started way to big for 7DRL, and author - Brian Bucklew - seems aware of this. As he write, 'I'm gonna remix Dwarf Fortress, Sproggiwood and Dungeon Town. In 7 days. Or at least get started.' And it is a point. Furthest Shore is nice, cute, but still techdemo. Or something like proof-of-concept. It's unpolished, shallow, and just not enjoyable. I don't know, maybe this game provides more content than it seems, but in the current state I even don't want to check it. I'm sorry, Brian.
Legionnaire
Completeness
1 -
Aesthetics
2 -
Fun
2 -
Innovation
2 -
Scope
2 -
Roguelikeness
2 -
This was a pretty fun challenging combat focused dungeon dive.\ Controls take some getting used to. Every ability requires 3 button presses, which can feel a bit fiddly.\ Its interesting that you can be in a situation with no ability available. The game does not have bump to attack, so you just have to run around until a cooldown finishes and hope you don't run yourself into a corner.\ Sadly the game frequently hangs on 'Building Level...'
Oh Fuck, Zombies!
Completeness
2 - There are enough mechanics implemented to form a coherent game. No bugs detected. The animation system needs a lot of polish.
2 - Everything seems to be there for the idea. Could do with zombification. Main idea of post-apocalypse Zombies is that they turn others into Zombies. I didn't see that, so maybe add NPCs or animals that are turned? Aside from that, array of items was nice to see, wouldn't think of adding anything else based on the idea dev was going for. Only change I would make would be speeding up the animations by 1,000x or 10,000x, no exaggeration.
Aesthetics
2 - Nice graphical tiles and lighting. Controls are as simple as they get (click to move or attack, hover for player stats). Text font and colour was chosen poorly.
3 - Loved the cartoony feel. The dance was also great.
Fun
1 - After each turn, the player and all zombies (even offscreen zombies) animate for half a second each, in sequence. Levels can contain a lot of zombies, and it's a chore to wait for them all before every single move. Once that's fixed, this might be a fun game.
1 - 'Please Wait ...' was unbearable.
Innovation
2 - The player moves in 8 directions and the zombies move in 4. Not a unique mechanic, but rarely seen and appropriate for the setting. Map generation method is innovative.
1 - Wish I could give a higher mark for innovation, maybe I could if I managed to explore more of the game. But like, post-apocalypse RL is not done to death so there's room here. But there isn't much here besides the cartoony and peared down feel. For that I'd rather play http://www.kongregate.com/games/duerig/shattered-colony-the-survivors which while not a 7drl, could just as well been one.
Scope
2 - Plenty of well-implemented features in UI, gameplay, and content generation.
1 - I didn't see anything specific to the theme coming out in the mechanics. I did see some range in items in enemy attacks, but it wasn't enough to give it a replay value.
Roguelikeness
3 - Permadeath, procedural content, turn-based.
2 - Giving this a 2 because there is permadeath and advancing abilities, & inventory management.
Fight, sneak, or dodge past hordes of zombies to very slowly escape a city. Could be worth playing, once animations are skippable.
If OFZ can be summarised in one phrase, it is 'Please Wait ...'. You're a boy or girl in a green t-shirt and you're trying to survive the Zombie apocalypse. Awesome! You grab your baseball bat and set off. But hold on: you're really excited about getting that bat. You've got to dance for a few minutes. And then each zombie's got to move too, so the dev is kind enough to flash 'Please Wait ...' until all that is done.\ \ You've probably got about ~20 actions per minute (all on the mouse). If you had this kind of APM in Starcraft, your opponent would have Ultralisks in your base before you finished your first Zealot. And I'm pretty sure it's not browser specific: tried in Firefox & Safari on maxOS Sierra, also Firefox on Windows 7.\ \ Overall, the idea is really good. The aesthetics are right there and the sprites are all cartoony and nice. I love the idea. Nice name. A cartoon, funny and peared down version of Cataclysm. There's some range of items and enemy attacks. You eat hamburgers to regain health: what could be better. It's just that, sorry; I can't wait. I played for 0.5h and I feel like I only got 100 meters in.
Pirates of Rogue Basin
Completeness
2 - After a few crashes, it seemed to run fine. Features are present, at least I think. I couldn't fight things yet, but I never got around to trying because I never felt I had money to spend on arms.
2 - Slight bit of a bug happens when I started a new game, otherwise solid
2 - Game feels fairly complete. Internet-based leaderboard is a big plus, however, the scoring itself seems a little flawed so the overall balance feels a bit off. Your days at sea should contribute more to your score instead of it relying mostly on gold count. Would like the ability to name your characters too. A save function would be preferred as some runs can drag out.
Aesthetics
2 - The font and menus took some getting used to. I think the game might have benefited from a more traditional roguelike aesthetic.
2 - Movement is a bit slow and even if it is just the starter ship being slow it needs to be faster. Also using the mouse for combat feels awkward.
2 - Square pirate-style font can be difficult to read at times. No active message log when playing and it can be difficult to know what is happening at times and what is damaging your ship. Might be beneficial if able to see what price items were initially purchased at. Odd UI issues with some screens not loading or getting stuck in the background. Controls work fluidly. The addition of sound is executed well and adds to the game.
Fun
2 - Wind dynamics are frustrating. The game mechanics in general are solid. I might recommend an easier opening game or (if this progresses beyond 7DRL territory) an easy mode with more forgiving wind/pricing.
2 - This is not my type of game. Still is was pleasant enough.
2 - There isn't anything you can do when you run out of money besides float around until game over. Combat could be more involving and fun. Some events or more activities would make it more enjoyable to play as well instead of mostly trading.
Innovation
2 - It's not terribly innovative as far as nothing that hasn't been done, but it does the sailing dynamics well, wind dynamics notwithstanding.
1 - For a roguelike it would be innovative. It isn't and as a trading game that might feature pirate ship combat it is mostly similar to others of its type.
1 - Feels a bit too much like Sid Meier's Pirates with nothing that really feels new or different from it.
Scope
2 - Pretty complete/ambitious as far as even what it does, for 7 days. Defintely more than a 1DRL as far as I'm concerned, but maybe not a month's worth.
2 - On the edge of what I think can be done in 7 days. Still within it though
3 - A lot of content for a 7DRL. Nice additions include a menu, sound, and a pirate themed graphical tileset. Besides the aesthetics, the game itself can feel pretty complex at times by juggling certain resources and crew needs.
Roguelikeness
2 - Not super-rogue-like in terms of overall aesthetic of play--kind of felt more like Uncharted Waters as a roguelike. But certainly had enough elements.
1 - This isn't a roguelike, it is a trading game that may have ship on ship combat
1 - Not much for roguelike elements besides permadeath and procedurally generated maps. Core game feels too different to be classified a roguelike.
This is a pretty complete and solid game insofar as it goes. That isn't very far right now, as far as I can see, but the game has lots of potential.
An interesting ship based trading game that might have ship on ship combat against pirates. I recorded my time with it and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/89dTr337kOg
This game feels like a version of Sid Meier's Pirates but in roguelike form. There's a nice element of trading involved that is the main focus of the game and makes it quite fun to play, especially if you like high/low trading types of games. The combat feels a little bland and sometimes doesn't make much sense. The addition of an internet based leaderboard really adds to the replayability as well, but there are some scoring issues with things not being factored in as much as they should.
Rubaiyat
Completeness
2 - Move/event mechanic hinders the feeling of progression
3 - Game seemed complete, with no bugs I could detect. I'm assuming it's winnable, and can assure you it's losable.
2 - The game works fine, but lacks polish and definitely lacks balancing.
Aesthetics
2 - Text on coloured hex looks good, @ should contrast better
2 - Very nice looking hex based maps. Tiles and symbols are clear. \ Modal dialogs are extremely annoying, and could be better served in a log to the side. Especially when you know it's going to take 3-10 attempts to move one tile, you essentially double that (or more) when you have to cancel out the modal dialog telling you that your move was unsuccessful.
2 - The game looks quite nice. Good use of ASCII in hex grid. But nothing mind blowing. And general travel cycle is somewhat cumbersome.
Fun
2 - Movement & RNG disappoinment felt frustrating, but combined arms combat situations felt they could be interesting
1 - This one looked really promising to me, but I just couldn't get into the game because of the movement mechanics. Pressing left 3-10 times to move one tile to the left, watching your resources tick down, is not fun. Most games I would get maybe 25 tiles discovered before starving, other times less. \ \ One suggestion would be to limit the events (Encountering enemies, fig trees, hunts, etc) to the explore option, and not movement. Or at least limit the events to one per tile, if not exploring.
1 - Current balance is irritating. It kills fun. Not being able to leave a tile for 10-15 turns is plain stupid.
Innovation
2 - More strategy level resource hungry exploration game with events and textual combat
1 - Nothing I haven't already seen before.
1 - Theme aside it feels quite generic. Have I seen roguelikes like this? Probably not. But mostly because this kind of gameplay is not really roguelikeish.
Scope
2 - Exploratory adventure across terrain that had a primary and secondary objectives
2 - I would say it was rather ambitious for a 7DRL, but unfortunately I couldn't get too deep into it to determine if that was in fact the case.
2 - Looks like a solid 7drl entry.
Roguelikeness
2 - @ symbol, resource management/hunger clock, procedurally generated hex environment
2 - I'd say this falls more in line with a strategy game with roguelike elements, than a traditional roguelike.
2 - There is very little, if none, tactics and mostly strategic decisions. The gameplay is random, but random in a bad way. You have no idea what's going to happen. Character development replaced with army development. But combat is not tactical, which, again, is not what you would expect from a roguelike.
Rubaiyat is an hex based over-world, resource hungry exploration game, where you are trying to move toward an objective, whilst balancing food/water expenditure, build and army and destroy enemies or fend off dangers. You traverse different terrain types, involving varied costs, and you can explore to gather resources, pray for help in desperate times, or attempt to move on. Each action can throw up events and costs or rewards, and you must pick your way through. The combined arms combat seemed interesting, with options to flank with horsemen, or skirmish, or charge head on. Overall, the enforced RNG resource drain was punishing, and games were often over before a viable sustainable army was assembled.
Rubaiyat is a hex based rogulike with a promising premise... go out to the wilds and raise an army to avenge your father's death and retake the city. However, gameplay is frustrating, and you are very likely to fail in your mission before
You are a son of sultan who was betrayed and killed by evil vizier. You managed to escape and now have 1 year to gather an army to retake the city. That could be nice game if not for very weird balance. Basically when you move from tile to tile the movement is not guaranteed. You can get lost, encounter some enemies (that are much stronger than your starting troops) and have several other random events. And that's where it can become ridiculous. I literally lost couple games because I couldn't leave some tile!!! And there is very low max food limit, so you can't really be prepared.
Unlichtwesen
Completeness
2 -
1 - Great idea, great theme and I loved the text. Even if it was broken (not sure if this was intentional, but it really played into the total feel). But I really needed more to the game, or at least an easier way to engage with the tactics.
Aesthetics
2 -
2 - I loved the descriptions of the demons.
Fun
1 -
1 - Quite random and hard, and no real advancement.
Innovation
3 -
2 - I liked the variation in the weapon attacks, I felt like they were really thought through well, but too random.
Scope
2 -
1 - Needed more tactics.
Roguelikeness
3 -
2 - Tempted to give a 1 for Roguelikeness: it's just ascii with a fantasy theme, but really more like an old DOS arcade game. Not enough for roguelikeness. But then the demon is an &, so that's enough for me :)
Procedurally generated demons are a nice touch, perfect for flexing one's imagination. Figuring out their various attacks turned out a tad frustrating for me personally (and so was figuring out my own weapons) - explanation would have helped greatly. Defeated one demon, the next on the list was like a regenerating ton of bricks with an iron fist. Buffered input spelled my doom a few times too.
You are Ringo (@) and you're dueling a demon (&). This game has a lot of character. Your demon is procedurally generated, but he feels so real 'You see: eyes of eagle. an amorphous mass for body. ... an iron fist. legs of bull. and 22 horns.' An iron fist? Then, you get 'Llikeji raises fist' as a message. The English is a bit broken 'Llikeji picks with beak' (is he pecking? why is he pecking if he is across the map? maybe he's pecking at the ground but he's doing it every turn ... I guess he's a hungry demon).\ \ Great idea, but the tactics were not really there: you get two weapons, and they have a variety of attacks, which are often combined with movement. But there seems to be no obvious way to control which attack you'll deliver. (Will my strong spear attack also make me charge at the demon, leaving me vulnerable to melee? Or does that only happen every other attack? Or what? Will I sweep right or left with my sword?) So, overall the combat felt quite random and hard to control or develop a strategy for. Also, I couldn't really figure out if the map elements had any effect on anything.
Doge Rogue
Completeness
3 - Runs smoothly, sometimes ignores input randomly but nothing game-breaking.
Aesthetics
2 - Meh. You're a doge and you fight a bunch of memes. Also, how did they miss the chance to call it Doge Roge I will never know.
Fun
1 - It's way too short and way too easy.
Innovation
1 - Not really innovative, the setting is new but that's about it.
Scope
1 - It's tiny, you can finish it in ten minutes, there are no mechanics to speak of.
Roguelikeness
2 - Well, it's turn based and grid based and you can find powerups and the enemies are kinda random, so I guess the bare minimum is there.
It's very small, and barely reaches the minimum to be called a roguelike, but good enough for a first ever project.
RGBlike
Completeness
2 - Encountered a few crashes. Mainly, there's no range checking on your attack strength, and you can roll it over as you increment it more, which in turn crashes it.
Aesthetics
1 - The coloring of the characters is a cool way to give a visual cue to the status, but not nearly enough information to tell you how well you are doing, or what you should be doing. Attack interface felt tedious... too many keystrokes. Perhaps separate keys for different colors, and remembering the last target/power would help.
Fun
1 - The lack of information, or at least understanding of the game mechanics is what killed it for me. I gathered that once I got a color below 0, I died, but couldn't translate that information over to killing the enemies. I killed several, with what I felt was an 'overload' of a color, but that tactic didn't necessarily work for all.
Innovation
2 - Color mechanics are kind of cool, and with a little more feedback and direction I think this idea could turn out to be a really neat concept.
Scope
1 - Rather simple, and feels incomplete.
Roguelikeness
3 - It is a roguelike.
RGBLike is a small, simple game where the attacks are based on RGB values. A neat concept, that is encumbered by lack of information and some game ending bugs.
Werewolf
Completeness
2 - Game froze several times and once I encountered an invisible enemy ( I guess this could be intentional, but it didn't feel like it. ) The game is playable, but I was never able to play long before I was instakilled, so I can't speak to how much content there is.
2 - Basic exploration and combat mechanics are implemented, but they don't really produce a game with interesting decisions. Buggy: animals get stuck on walls, unrecognised keys skip a turn, no documentation.
2 - There was an invisible enemy at one point but otherwise seems complete
Aesthetics
1 - I don't care for the tileset. The black behind the trees make it look unfinished, and the repeated ground tile is a little hard on the eyes. The menus, are clear though but the text and the menu space is a bit large. I don't like being force to use the numpad for navigation, and there is some lag to the input. Additionally, if you hold down a key, it queues it up a bunch of times and sends you an indeterminate number of grid spaces in that direction.
2 - The tiles look fine, and animal descriptions display when the mouse hovers over them. However, k e r n i n g is broken, and this makes all the text difficult to read. Key controls are not documented, but the only option for movement is the numpad (which many keyboards lack).
2 - The controls have a lag to them, more so the bigger the map is. Along with that they save up you keypresses so if you hold the key for a little your in for the long haul. The graphics are decent enough though
Fun
1 - It implies that there are some interesting mechanics related to being a werewolf, but I wasn't able to experience any of them before being instakilled. There's no sort of instruction within the game, so maybe I'm missing something?
1 - Waiting half a second between each turn does not make for a fun experience, especially on such a large and sparsely populated map. There's also not much game. Everything has 1 HP and attack success is randomised.
1 - With enemies that instakill you that you can't out run nor out maneuver I did not have much fun with the game.
Innovation
1 - Again, it seems to indicate that there are some werewolf related systems, but I was not able to interact with them. Otherwise, it seems like a system grid based dungeon crawler where you either instakill enemies, or get instakilled by them.
1 - The werewolf transformation mechanic is unusual in roguelikes, but not really original. Exact effects of werewolf abilities may be innovative, but are not well enough explained to rate
1 - Mostly a standard roguelike from what I can tell
Scope
2 - Feels like it aimed to build a standard 7DRL with an interesting mechanic, but missed building and balancing some features.
1 - A few game mechanics are implemented, and a few animals with different stats. But there's not enough content here to fill even the smallest map option.
2 - This fits within what I expect to come out of 7 days of work
Roguelikeness
2 - Definitely has a lot of roguelike characteristics, but is missing enough I don't give this a 3. No items, no FOV,
3 - Random map, permadeath, turn-based.
3 - This is a roguelike
This game suggests some interesting werewolf mechanics, but enemies instakill you too quick to get a feel for them.
Go on a rampage, eat all the animals in the forest with your sharp werewolf teeth. Potentially appealing idea, but the implementation lacks the polish and features to be a worthwhile game.
A roguelike but the enemies I faced couldn't be beat and they instakilled me. Not the most fun I ever had though if you want to see me experience it I recorded my time with the game and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/p7xorOTxXO0
CivilRL
Completeness
2 - Proof of concetp, no real game yet
3 - I saw no bugs and everything worked how it seemed to be supposed to work.
2 - Works fine, no crashes and bugs. No gameplay too, so I can't say anything about balance\
Aesthetics
2 - Representing time on a 2D grid works very well here. Very intuitive controls and display.
2 - eh, interesting and the controls worked
2 - Controls are smooth, graphics is minimalistic but cards are well distinguishable.\
Fun
1 - Not fun yet as it seems just going forward makes you win all the time.
1 - Once again, eh. Not really something I would advise to others though that might just be my not understanding it much.
1 - No game no fun. Well, you can pick some nice nation name and go eat others, but It's not enough as they don't respond\
Innovation
2 - New to me, you don't explore a dungeon, but time itself. There is a lot of potential here !
1 - I don't really see much that is innovating about it. Maybe there is something under the hood but I can only look at the paint job.
1 - The game could be innovative, but sadly it is wasn't complete - all the stats remains just a numbers.\
Scope
2 - Not balanced yet, and not fully a game, but the concept is very interesting and just a bit more work could make it great.
2 - Fits within what I expect from a 7drl though maybe on the low side.
1 - Sadly, no game here. Inventions list is nice though.\
Roguelikeness
1 - Death is permanent, but you cannot lose... No strategy (yet). I wouldn't call this a roguelike now, but it could become a very good one.
1 - This isn't a roguelike. I don't know what it is but I know it isn't a roguelike.
2 - Could be considered a roguelite if there would be an actual game\
In this game you control a full civilization. You moce on a 2D grid representing time. Going up advances time, going sideways let you pick some new technologies within the current epoch. You cannot go back in time. Once in a while you encounter areas of the map covered with 'cataclysm' or 'dark age' which may set you back. Over all a neat idea, although there is no game yet. It seems you cannot lose and the only goal is to get as many points as you can. It could become a very interesting game once polished, and when there is some interaction with other civilizations.
Interesting game though not in a way that makes me want to play it. See a video of me playing it here:\ https://youtu.be/BN38t13qlMA
In this game player move a civilization through a board that contains different inventions, dark ages and cataclysms. There are also other civilizations that are trying to do the same. The problem is there is no game here - you can't lose, you have no aim. You can go slowly taking all possible cards, can move forward as fast you can, can try to eat more civilizations, but there is no challenge at all. So this game could be interesting, but in current state it's just a techdemo.\
Tyran Jaager
Completeness
2 -
1 - Limited enemies, weapons and attacks - some crashes - odd missile pathing
1 - Seems like I would encounter a crash every time I got around floor 6-8, so I couldn't complete the game. I'm guessing this is related to the enemy projectile bug you mentioned in the readme. Also it appeared as if the left click attack didn't work? Only the keyboard?
Aesthetics
2 -
2 - Oryx pixel graphics used well, WASD controls and mouse support
2 - Simple but good looking tileset. Everything was clear.
Fun
2 -
1 - A bit too bare bones to get a lot of enjoyment from play
1 - Rather simple basic roguelike.
Innovation
1 -
1 - The staged payload of ranged spell attack piqued the timing interest of landing a fireball on a countering moving enemy
1 - Nothing new here. This is a simple, bare-bones roguelike.
Scope
2 -
1 - Over reached in the time alloted, but potential if work continues on project
1 - From the description, it seems there was little time to spent on making this game.
Roguelikeness
2 -
3 - Clearly attempting a traditional, if limited but accessible graphical roguelike
3 - It's a roguelike
A basic combat focused dungeon crawl.\ Dodging projectiles is fun.\ Your character's own projectiles seem rather ineffective.\ Controls are OK, but the click to move is not dependable. It also won't trigger melee with adjacent enemies, you must use the keyboard to bump attack.\ There are two item types: health packs and ammo.\ You can descend further and further and there are tile set changes and some new enemies appear, but they all sort of act the same.
Tyran Jaager is obviously an attempt at making a good looking traditional pixel roguelike, it falls short in a few areas, but the procedurally generated levels are good, movement works, the right click ranged spell attack is interesting in the way that you lay down a fireball and it takes subsequent turns for the fireball to reach it's target. So there's a timing involved in landing a fireball, and the enemy can counter with an iceball, or move out of the way during the spell payload traversal. The extensive Read.Me clearly labels a number of known issues and intermittent crashing bugs. It also details the many features that had to be cut in its development. For the 28 hours spent, there is a decent framework for the development of an interesting graphical roguelike there. A good effort.
Tyran Jaager is a simple roguelike with some varied enemies and turn based projectiles. Unfortunately, some game crashing bugs make play-ability low.
ROOM
Completeness
1 - Not complete - not in the term of roguelikes. I mean, 7DRL entry without procedural generation at all? It's lack of feature, not the feature itself. Also, lack of balance, dev made this game way to easy.
2 - Works perfectly fine and does what it say it will though the screen flicker is annoying
Aesthetics
2 - ASCII looks clear, and there is nice welcome screen. Options for rock-paper-scissor doesn not redraw after other messages, and it is a bit cunfusing at first after draw. Area of game is really small, and terminal is not resizing when game starts - it looks weird.
1 - Ehhhh, not the worst. The slow controls and flickering screen are a result of what it is built on. Still though
Fun
1 - Too easy, too random, too short, too everything.
2 - It wasn't a waste of my time even if that is partly from not taking much of it in the first place
Innovation
1 - Nope
2 - Using rock paper scissor as the combat mechanic is a nifty twist
Scope
1 - Barely tech demo.
1 - This was made not only for the 7drl but also a 4 hour game jam. For a game made in 4 hours this is well within scope. Sadly for a 7drl not so much
Roguelikeness
2 - Classic ASCII graphics in true terminal, and permadeath. It's pity that levels are fixed.
3 - Very much just a roguelike but with rock paper scissors as the combat mechanic
ROOM is simple terminal-based pseudo-roguelike about playing rock-paper-scissors. It features two fixed levels. There is even almost no need to fight. Enemies are not starting duels, and in the whole game, you need to fight only four static enemies (the rest of red E letters are just wandering on the map) - to enter stairs, and - only on the second level - to take key, and to open doors. Developer is so kind that he provides enough of potions of luck (you are not gonna die if you lose rock-paper-scissors round) to drink one before every necessary fight. In general, I don't like to be harsh, but playing this game is just waste of time.
Interesting idea and seeing as it was also crossmade for a 4 hour game jam decent. For a 7drl though a bit underwhelming. Anyway I recorded my playing it and you can watch that here:\ https://youtu.be/qaxuumk0D-Q
House of Nothing
Completeness
1 - Quite buggy. Can glitch through enemies when moving on the same tile. Enemies also seemed to walk through the walls at times. Able to survive at 0 HP but die at -1 HP. Lots of weird text errors with random symbols that weren't making much sense. Kept telling me monsters were attacking me when they weren't even close. Didn't really feel balanced as it was just as easy to die as it was to move around dodging enemies due to glitching through them, allowing you to pick up every item and run away.
2 - 'Q' and '?' didn't work. Also you can walk onto the same tile as another creature (though I don't know if that is a bug or not). Otherwise it works I think
2 - It runs, but there are a some serious bugs. Often you end up in the same time as monster and combat look broken.
Aesthetics
2 - Liked how there was light around the character with the darker parts of the dungeon being darker colours. Very simple and standard for a roguelike.
2 - In one word 'trippy'. Some controls don't work and I don't know what I was doing but it looked good and the controls were smooth.
1 - I don't like how the game looks. No effort was spent on making it look like a game. Some default panel with text scattered around and a square with a game in it. Controls are wonky. Even shift skips turn! Suggested ? for help doesn't work.
Fun
1 - Nothing felt substantial or satisfying. There also isn't much to encourage you to keep playing over and over again if you keep seeing the same maps. The game's premise is confusing and doesn't really immerse you at all. The combat is beyond boring as well, with some encounters taking over fifty key presses just to kill the enemy, eventually having you resort to just holding down the key.
1 - This game just isn't for me. It left me confused.
1 - It's intriguing. But broken combat just make is totally not fun. You have to press and hold and arrow for 20-30 second to kill your first enemy!
Innovation
1 - Meh. Bump and kill monsters.
2 - I have no clue about most of it but the ability to walk off one side of the map and end up on the other is a nice twist on the usual way of things
1 - In order to understand if it is innovative or not I need to see more of the game. But in it's current state it is impossible.
Scope
1 - Not much content at all. The maps aren't random besides some of the items placed in them, but they all seemed predetermined anyway, including room entrances and exits. More of a demo feel to it.
2 - I think it is what I expect from a 7drl
2 - Hard to tell. Some effort was definitely put into this game... Probably around average 7drl.
Roguelikeness
2 - Definitely has elements of a roguelike but lacking some core features like procedurally generated maps.
2 - It has a decent number of roguelike elements but leaves me too confused to call it a full roguelike
2 - I'm not sure if levels are random. At least couple levels after first looks exactly the same each time. In general it doesn't feel like a true roguelike.
Not much here.. the title of this 7DRL is definitely correct. There are a lot of bugs and broken mechanics to recommend this game in its current state. The story to it all doesn't make much sense and isn't attention-grabbing either. There is no real point to anything with no scoring or objective it seems. The combat is extremely boring and you basically have to hold down the key just to get through the text quickly because the action is so dull and slow. The maps are all the same and there's not much at all for variety. It doesn't feel like a complete game.
I don't even really know what to say about it. Check the video I made of me playing instead to hear my reactions:\ https://youtu.be/xMlTR_37D7o
Strange and obscure game which completely fails to explain what to do... Most of the time I find myself stuck in some corridor unable to kill a monster and unable to die too. I was holding an arrow key for a few minutes... Judging from the log we were hitting each other.. But no damage was done. Weird.
Space Station Plunder
Completeness
2 - I'll say 2. It hasn't crashed or anything, but there are a couple things like merchant ships selling minerals for less than they're willing to buy them for, which gives you infinite money
2 - SSP is stable and performs well but it doesn't seem balanced or complete from a gameplay perspective.
2 - Well. It runs. There is very little to do.
Aesthetics
2 - I really like the graphics, but it's a bit hard to tell the ship types apart, it would be nice to have some indication you're attacking things like an animation or something, etc.
3 - Looks great and plays easily. I like the original-Zelda-style screen scroll transition.
1 - The game looks very generic. Some pixel art that do not have distinctive style. And the fact that you can make on move every 0.5 second is incredibly irritating.
Fun
1 - There just seems to not be a lot there. You zap asteroids, you sell minerals to merchants, you can also zap other ships and get merchants to heal you if they fight back, that's about it.
1 - Not much game yet. You can choose to bump things in a friendly way or a hostile way. Friendly bumps seem only to be useful for trading posts, while hostile bumps are the way you kill things to get resources.\ \ Once combat starts enemies will tend to stay in place until their health is low at which point they may move to the edge of the screen. Otherwise you just bump each other until someone falls over. Moving to an adjacent screen and returning resets everything.\
1 - No game, no fun. Well, you can mine asteroids, sell minerals and kill satellites. But there is nothing to spend earned kreds for.
Innovation
1 - Again, it seems like not a lot is in there. I can see how some neat mechanics may be built on top of this but not much seems to be there yet.
1 - Not much game yet.
1 - Can't say there are many space roguelikes, but they exist.
Scope
1 - Gotta say 1 here also. What's there works but there's not much there.
1 - Seems like the beginning of a potentially interesting game.
1 - Too little content for an average 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 - It's a roguelike: the levels are randomly-generated, the combat is very rogue-y, definitely feels like a Roguelike.
2 - It's turn-based but there is no sense of discovery or progress in the game.
2 - It's turn based, it's top down, combat could be in theory called tactical, map is random (but meaningless). But there is not much of a game to call it 'true rogulike'.
This seems pretty incomplete... What's there works, but there's not a lot of game finished: you can wander around space, gather minerals from asteroids, blow up other ships, trade with merchant ships, that seems to be about it. I didn't find any use for some resources (fuel tanks?) and there didn't seem to be anything besides asteroids and other ships (who occasionally fight back but only occasionally).
Space Station Plunder plays well but isn't much of a game yet. I could see an interesting game growing out of it though.\
Unfortunately there is no game. Just some prototype without much sense.
Going Ham
Completeness
2 - Got it to crash once and you phase through the walls into the void a little too much. Still it runs just fine and while you do go through walls a bit much nothing else is really wrong with it.
Aesthetics
1 - I don't mind the old school fake 3d look but the lines that constantly shrink and grow are ugh on my eyes. Also the controls do not feel good at all.
Fun
2 - Even though it isn't a roguelike I feel it deserves a play. On the other hand the controls and the amount of times I fell through the walls means I can't give it a 3.
Innovation
1 - Its an fps
Scope
2 - This fits within what I expect from a 7drl
Roguelikeness
1 - It isn't a roguelike. It is a fps
I really enjoyed playing it but the controls and the tendency to fall through the walls detract from it a little. Anyway I recorded myself playing it and you can see that here:\ https://youtu.be/MIub5N-T29Q
Ligis
Completeness
2 - Needed more enemies and more interesting gameplay. Also; some problem with the macOS .app bundle. I had to manually chmod +x the executable. Also, some typos (blasphamy).
Aesthetics
1 - You're a skeleton which is cool. Also, all the enemies have their own names which makes it more personal.
Fun
1 - The basic strat is just, get all the scrolls. That reveals the path 100%, so there's not much variation once you work out this strat. Also, you gain so much HP each level that in the end the only way I was dying was hitting the wrong movement key while following the path.
Innovation
2 - I liked the path but it needed more development.
Scope
1 - Not a huge scope.
Roguelikeness
2 - Reasonable roguelikeness.
You're travelling up a tower, which is ruled by an unknown god. Main mechanic is that you have to read scrolls to reveal a path that leads to the stairs to the next level. If you step off the path, you die of blasphamy [sic]. Some of the enemy attacks cause you to get kicked back, and so that plays well into the path mechanic, because even if you've revealed the whole path, you'll have trouble following it if you don't watch out.\ \ Balance wasn't great, not much variety in enemies. Overall, the mechanic was good and it was easy to learn and play, but definitely needed work in the gameplay.
Nanorogue
Completeness
2 - Somewhat complete. Like, say, advanced tech demo. But it's stable and runs smooth.
2 - It works, doesn't crash... It cannot really be called 'a game'. So I can't call it 'complete'.
Aesthetics
1 - So, classic-looking roguelike game. In ASCII. Controllable by mouse. Without keyboard support. Without even long walk support. In terms of controls, it's just annoying to play it. Navigating through maze is true madness.
1 - It's noted as a game for 'mobile' web. It's horrible! It's even worse than on PC! In order to move in cardinal direction you must tap exactly on the same row/column where character is. A little to the left/right and it will move diagonally. Half of taps seems to not register. On iPhone tapping too quickly toggles zoom in/out. For a game with no content I would expect at least controls to be fleshed out.
Fun
1 - Too easy and too simple, too shallow.
1 - It's quite boring on it's own, but controls are totally killing it.
Innovation
1 - Classic hack and slash.
1 - Nothing new.
Scope
2 - Scope seems reasonable enough for 7DRL.
1 - Too little even for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
3 - Definitely roguelike.
2 - Not enough for a true roguelike.
Maybe Nanorogue is not that bad game. But it's just tiring, and annoying to play it, mostly due no keyboard support, too simple mouse integration, and bad player's pathfinding. Maybe it would be much more enjoyable if I could just play instead of fighting interface. it have potential to be nice, small coffebreak. Unfortunately, in current state, Nanorogue is barely playable.
Unfortunately 'nano' is not about nanotechnologies, it's about amount of content in the game. 2 items and 2 enemies. It more of a technodemo than a game.
Pepe the Frog vs. Dat Boi in the search of the lost Shadilay
Completeness
2 - I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say 2. Everything worked except the cards, which easily could have been my fault.
Aesthetics
1 - The graphics worked. They're a little sketchy but that's the aesthetic he was going for I think. Where I have to take off a point is the controls: keyboard controls would have made this SO much better; the minor bit of lag and having to click the d-pad, and how the other two buttons seemed to do nothing... Argh, a little annoying
Fun
1 - Between the difficult controls, the kind of thin game (all you do is wander around and kill Wojaks until you die), I gotta say 1
Innovation
1 - This could easily be my fault. There could be some innovative thing with the cards... But I couldn't figure out how to make the card it gave me do anything, after a good-faith effort.
Scope
1 - Basically just one enemy type, random hallways and rooms, and no items.
Roguelikeness
3 - Pretty basic RL, random levels and staircases and bumping into enemies to kill them and so on.
I'm not sure I was playing the entire thing, I couldn't get the cards to do anything... It only ever gave me one card, and nothing I tried got the card to do anything.
Derelict
Completeness
2 - While no obvious bugs, the game felt somewhat incomplete. There was no real choice that I came across, so it felt that the game was already won or lost whenever you pressed start. An option to restart the game once you lost is one missing feature, as it seems the only way to restart it would be to close your browser and reopen it? (Something I just cannot do with all my judging tabs open) I eventually found I could load the game in an incognito tab for multiple replays.
1 - Lots of spelling and grammar errors. When dead, you're not able to restart the game either. Had to close the browser and wait a few minutes just to start a new game.
2 - On the technical side, Derelict is well done and pretty polished. Unfortunately, it lacks of features - don't know if it's due design goals, or gameplay is not complete, but definitely it's something wrong about that.
Aesthetics
2 - Nice color scheme, and hand drawn art.
2 - The hand drawn black and white images are nice as it sets a mood.. however, that's all there is about this game that is pretty. The spelling errors were too frequent and noticeable in the text, which took up a large part of the gameplay. Had to mute the browser as it plays very short loops for music that get annoying quickly.
2 - In general it looks well, but I encountered some aesthetics-specify bugs, or design flaws. For example, [Attack] buton remains even if combat ends, and writing statistics looks weird.
Fun
1 - The story is very linear, even though the room orders appear to be generated procedurally and even if you solve all puzzles correctly on the first try. All you can do is enter the next room. Sometimes you get attacked, but there's no tactical choice in this, you are completely at the mercy of the RNG.
1 - Click, click, click. Lots of clicking with not many options or variance. Even in combat, all you can do is attack. There's no defending. Game includes a few puzzles, although they're extremely simple and take elementary logic to figure out. The answers for them don't change either.
1 - It's almost nothing to do in Derelict. For interactive fiction form, lack of large amount of choices is strong 'no-no' for me. In this game, usually player have only 1 option. Go to next room -> back to corridor -> go to next room, and so on.
Innovation
1 - Nothing I would consider as innovative
1 - Nothing new here.
2 - Altought roguelike / if fusions are not so rare, I didn't encounter that kind of game created in Twine engine. The final effect is not so well, but there is something innovative here...
Scope
1 - While I can see some work went into this, I have a hard time assigning it a 2 (What I'd expect from a 7DRL), as it's really not. If there was an option to withdraw from combat, or an option to select which room I went into, or an option to choose anything really, I could have given it that.
1 - There isn't much explanation to anything or depth to the game. Feels very shallow.
2 - Reasonable for 7DRL
Roguelikeness
1 - While there are some subtle references to some roguelike mechanics, it does not play like a roguelike at all.
1 - Not a roguelike at all. It's a choose your own adventure game with 20 similar rooms that are picked at random.
2 - OK, there is something like Rogue in that game.
Derelict is a twine linear twine game where you are exploring an abandoned ship. While there appears to be some procedural generation in what rooms you visit in what order, there is really nothing to do but press continue.
Not fun and doesn't add up to anything. The idea is kind of neat, with you exploring a derelict ship in space. However, the game is extremely bland with you going through the same set of 20 rooms picked at random and it won't hold much attention for long. The answers to puzzles are all the same and there isn't really any variety to them at all. 'You have succumbed to the dangers of reclaiming the derelict ship.' will be the last words you see when you die and there's no way to restart the game. There isn't much incentive to anyway. It feels far too rushed in this current state to recommend even the slightest.
I have very mixed feeling about Derelict. It is roguelike and choose-your-own-adventure crossover. Much more like text adventure than roguelike. Unfortunately, Derelict is not good even as text adventure. The amount of choices, and number of possible interactions, is very limited. Altought, technically, it runs smooth, and looks good.
Corpse Stacker
Completeness
2 - Sometimes I wasn't able to walk in a direction. I could go the other way across two tiles but not back. It was weird and likely a bug. Otherwise the game ran just fine.
2 - Well, it works, but too simple to be called 'complete game'.
Aesthetics
2 - Having a number and creature share the same tile isn't the worst idea but something to make telling the tiles apart would have been nice.
1 - The game seriously lacks colors. Very quickly game field turns into a mess that is hard to comprehend. The way high is displayed makes it even harder to understand what is where.
Fun
1 - Not worth playing as there isn't any real challenge but rather fake difficulty from everything being random.
1 - For the most part it's a waiting game. You need a corpse here? Wait and hope that a zombie will wander there...
Innovation
2 - The idea is interesting. I liked the goal of stacking corpses.
1 - There was 7drl with very very similar premise. Something about giant snails and stacking of shells.
Scope
1 - Less than I expect even from a light 7drl. The zombies need more than completely random wander at the least.
1 - Not enough for 7drl.
Roguelikeness
1 - This isn't a roguelike, it is a puzzle
2 - Too simple to be called 'true roguelike'.
Not much to say here. I did a video of my review that should say everything I have a hard time putting into words like this.\ https://youtu.be/CHlpAfy1NpM
Simple game of stacking corpses of mindless zombies.
Dungeon Penetrator #pico8
Completeness
1 - Lots of pickups laying around, and a locked door/key mechanic, but no enemies or ways to die really make this game incomplete.
1 - It is clearly missing features such as death and combat.
Aesthetics
2 - Really nice looking tileset and great interface layout. Just no way to use said layout..
2 - The controls worked and the look was nice.
Fun
1 - Game is incomplete. Can only move around and gather items.
1 - Yeah, not complete enough to make me advise others to try it.
Innovation
1 - Game is incomplete. Can only move around and gather items.
1 - Not really
Scope
1 - Game is incomplete. It's a pretty good achievement for the 8-12 hours the developer claimed, however I have to rate it based on the 7 days available.
2 - The goal of this game was at the level I expect from a 7drl
Roguelikeness
2 - Feels like the start of a roguelike, but without enemies it's hard to have that feel.
2 - Because it is missing so much it isn't really a roguelike
Really nice looking pico-8 roguelike game. Unfortunately as the developer stated, the game is incomplete... no monsters, procedural generation, or ways to die...
A shame it wasn't finished. I did a video of my play through here:\ https://youtu.be/NlTtnFiKwF0
Exterminate
Completeness
2 - Limited features but runs well and I did nto encounter any bug
2 - Very basic, but no noticable bugs. Appears to be no win condition - you kill all enemies and then just wander around an empty map.
Aesthetics
2 - Uses the tiles from the 'Westnoth' game under GPL conditions. Interface easy to read. Some issues seeing the HP level (red bar) when the character is standing on grass tiles, but I am colorblind so the problem is not with the game ;)
2 - Controls simple and easy to understand, but can be fiddly and irritating as frequently clicking to attack an enemy that dies results in then moving into that tile. Graphics, pinched from Wesnoth, look good.
Fun
1 - Not too much fun for me. I enjoy rogulikes for their chess-like approach, in which you haev to think carefully your every move. This game is too fast paced for my taste.
1 - Very tedious with nearly zero depth. The tactics consist solely of attacking and then backing off to wait for your stamina and health to recharge. Rinse and repeat.
Innovation
1 - I'ts a traditional hack and slash.
1 - Nothing new. The supposed innovation of a 'real-time and turn-based fusion' in reality just means very jerky real-time.
Scope
1 - This is more of a tech demo than a real game, although it has some potential. If I would be allowed decimal scores I would give it 1.5.
1 - Super-basic. All you can do is move and attack. No items, no progression, no procedural generation and while there are multiple enemy types they all act the same.
Roguelikeness
2 - Not very rogueish, because it mixes turn based and real time action. It has procedural terrain, and permadeath, though.
1 - The only real roguelike quality it has is being grid-based.
As stated by the author, this hardly more than a tech demo, developped in <20h. As a 1DRL, it has potential :) It feels more like a hack-and-slash game than a traditional roguelike, but this is a matter of definition. With more developping time it could be a nice coffee-break roguelike on a mobile device.
A very simple prototype of a real-time but still grid-based game. You have two resources - energy and health which recharge slowly over time. The entirety of the game is simply moving into enemies to attack them and standing still and waiting for your gauges to recharge. I'm not convinced that the real-time aspect has any real benefit to it, but the game could perhaps be made interesting if it took more from Wesnoth than just the graphics and made the different terrain types have interesting effects.
BuildTowers
Completeness
2 - The game feels complete in the meaning supposed end-effect, but there is lack of polish and lack of content.
Aesthetics
1 - White sheet and black ASCII characters. Not fancy.
Fun
1 - Boooooring! Due lack of content, lack of depth, unclear movement patterns, too fast pace, and unlimited-free-walls.
Innovation
2 - I don't know other tower defense / roguelike crossovers (despite Orb of Zot in DCSS), so...
Scope
1 - What's scope?
Roguelikeness
1 - ASCII graphics is not enough to call game even roguelike-like
Small, web based game, roguelikelikelike(...)like / tower defense crossover. It's too simple, too unclear, and too easy to be enjoyable.
The Forest
Completeness
2 - It runs, winnable, but way too simple.
Aesthetics
1 - It's called 'The forest' but doesn't look like at all.
Fun
1 - It's not fun at all to traverse huge empty terrain in search of rare (but useless) upgrades to sling and protectors that should be killed.
Innovation
1 - Nothing new or interesting.
Scope
1 - This is basically @ running around technodemo.
Roguelikeness
2 - There is barely any game to judge. I don't mind realtime roguelikes(likes), but when realtime have actual meaning. In this game even if something was planned, it wasn't implemented. And in this case realtime is kind of step back from being roguelike.
Very basic and easy game. For some reason it's realtime. I don't think that realtimeness adds any value to the game, there are no mechanics that take advantage of it being realtime,
A Roguelike Where You Plan Your Moves
Completeness
1 - Initially looks complex and feature rich, but is a couple of mechanics that don't quite gel together, oddities with scanning range needs extra move to initiate Examine action, crashed a couple of times on exit
1 - It's so barebone, that it's hard to call it event closely complete.
Aesthetics
1 - Traditional ASCII, with distinct attack and scan ranges surrounding patrolling enemy cops, plus panelled screen with map, examine information, message log and focus command stack, offers plenty of information. However, on-screen instructions quite complex and vague detailing the plan modes, and switching on and off modes and in what order was a bit of a confused mess.
1 - Fireframe 3d, with some weird animations on walls and floors isn't exactly eye friendly.
Fun
2 - It was worth giving it a look-see, to glimpse the potential here, a stealth roguelike with a scanning and planning action commands could be very interesting, but the game as it stands needs some work on clarifying the mechanics, and blending them together into a seamless, easy to execute flow
1 - Too short, too simple. Not fun at all.
Innovation
2 - The focus plan, where you lay down actions in sequence ahead of the following movement turns, is a novel feature I'd like to see fleshed out more and made smoother and relevant to all modes
1 - Nothing new or interesting here.
Scope
1 - At the moment the game is but a sketched idea that has moving awkward parts, that don't work in unison to present a stealthy action planned experience
1 - Not enough for a solid 7drl.
Roguelikeness
2 - The game has roguelike aspirations, procedural (single) level, patrolling enemies with different kit and behaviours, ASCII, @, body parts can be targetted, but the complexities of the action modes clouds how to proceed
1 - First person realtime 3d shooter with static level have nothing common with roguelikes.
ARWYPYM is an attempt at a stealth action planning roguelike, you are a Cyborg Ninja in a complex, and you have to take out the patrolling enemy robot rent-a-cops. Initially you are cloaked, and you can move around undetected, watching the patrol routes, and dipping into their scanning range (a thin perimeter surrounding the attack range of their cybernetics. So getting close enough to enter the Examine mode, to basically evaluate the enemy's equipment and behaviours, is risky because you could easily step into their attack range and they will disrupt your cloaking device and alert all four enemies of your presence. Your ninja has a melee weapon, so you have to get close to do any damage, and you plan attacks, in a direction, and then select the body part you are aiming at. The attack mode, can be initiated in normal turn time, or inside of the Focus planning mode - where you plan out your actions, movements or attacks, step wise and then can execute the commands one by one. The overly complex meshing of focus mode planning of movements, and adding the attacks to the command list, whilst being aware of the action points available, and trying to match the patrol patterns of the enemy failed mostly. I think there is a seed of a good idea embedded in a hearty attempt at trying to make these mechanics work together in a cohesive game, sadly with only 7 days on the development clock, it didn't have enough refinement to germinate into something enjoyable.
This is barely a game even less so a roguelike game. First person shooter with single short static level.
Cowboy Rogue
Completeness
2 - There were no game-breaking bugs but I couldn't find a way to win the game and there was no way to open the crates that were dotted in the caves.
1 - Crates don't work. Doesn't seem to be any goal to the game. No noticeable bugs but the game feels very incomplete.
Aesthetics
2 - Basic and functional. Ok graphics, nice snake animations. The line of sight was jittery above ground.
2 - Pretty sprites and animations. Controls are a little awkward.
Fun
1 - Combat needs to be much more enticing and there needs to be more purpose in the game. A cowboy theme is quite promising though and it might be nice to see it developed further.
1 - Not enough depth to sustain play beyond a couple of minutes.
Innovation
1 - Nothing new here.
1 - Nothing new here.
Scope
1 - Overground and underground areas exist but neither very complete. You can move and shoot and enter and exit caverns. It's also possible to knife the snakes. I would have expected slightly more from a 7drl.
1 - Very little to the game.
Roguelikeness
1 - Real-time action game, not really a roguelike to me.
1 - Real time shoot/slash game with vaguely random levels. If there's permadeath it's not noticeable as the game isn't particularly difficult.
Real-time cowboy shooter where you try and rid the desert from an infestation of snakes as far as I could tell. When I ran out of bullets my rapid knife hand was able to dispatch all the snakes I came across but that was about all I could experience in this game.
A fairly basic game of cowboys vs snakes. Graphics are cute, but the gameplay is mostly absent and the game feels incomplete. Not very roguelike either.
Brave Soul Aliana
Completeness
2 - I'm not sure, it looks like finished, complete game, but it works like tech demo. But game itself seems rather complete, in the development terms at least.
1 - It feels very much incomplete and like it is missing a lot of things.
2 - I'm not sure if the lack of player character is intended, but other then this no bugs found.
Aesthetics
2 - I like the style of shadowing, and tile style. Also music is present, pretty decent. Controls are almost not present here.
2 - At least the controls work fine
1 - Empty grid with light spot at center looks more like techdemo. Other then this - controls are intuitive, graphics is acceptable, there not enough information about items, but it doesn't matter anyway as they are used automatically.\
Fun
1 - No.
1 - There isn't a game here to play because you can't see anything when I played it
1 - Something like idle game, but pretty boring
Innovation
1 - I'd say that idle gameplay is not well explored for roguelikes, so it's sort of nice twist. But Brave Soul Aliana is not roguelike at all, so... As a game out of roguelike scope, idle mechanics is nothing new.
1 - I couldn't see anything innovative
1 - Too incomplete to call it innovative.
Scope
1 - Tiny.
1 - What I played felt like a tech demo
1 - Some mechanics are here, potions, weapons, combat and diving deeper. But sadly the game lacks gameplay, so scope is not enough. Maybe with some more work it could become a game
Roguelikeness
1 - Not roguelike at all. OK, that game features procedural generation, and probably permadeath as well (don't know, didn't die yet). But... just no, not in that form.
1 - This doesn't really feel like a roguelike.
1 - It's not a roguelike. If only there was at least some choices in game, but there aren't.
Brave Soul Aliana is poor relative of Progress Quest (an idle RPG). There is only one player's activity in that game - choose direction of move. But it's meaningless, because there are no information to use for decide where to go, and every level, every place looks same - 'X' made of tiles. So, player can go left, up, right, down, by clicking specified tile. In that moment, game decides if PC will receive loot, use downstairs, or encounter monster. In each case, player has no choice, can't affect events. Every item is taken automatically (so, you can't stick to your halberd - if you'd encounter battle axe, you'll take battle axe), combat is resolving automatically - you can only read messages. Huh, reading messages also is tiring sometimes - it takes time to write it letter by letter, also there is moment of pause when message is complete - and it's quite annoying while you want to just make one move.
This very much seems incomplete. I did do a video of me playing which can be found here:\ https://youtu.be/MagltBYpSP4
In the game, player travels on something that at first like an infinite grid in a search of princess. The problem is that player isn't making any decisions - combat is automatic, all items are used automatically, weapons are always replaced on pickup. Even directions of motion doesn't matter - you can choose alternating dirs or go in one direction and still get the same results - monsters, chests, diving deeper. So it plays like a clicker or idle game.\
roqtp2t
Completeness
1 - The game is distributed in source form and has serious problems: it crashes in terminal emulator (works in a real console). I wasn't able to find any weapons.
Aesthetics
1 - Well, ncurses and custom font are nice, but controls are vi-style only, and ui is pretty rough
Fun
1 - According to source there are weapons and even arrows, but I wasn't able to find any, so game consist of just going to cave and travelling few levels until dogs or other monsters eat you. All levels are fixed, so there is no even hope to discover something new after several tries.
Innovation
1 - Well, there is weapon switching. Not that is was very original, but still is more then just roguelike tutorial.
Scope
1 - Basic parts are here - moving @, walls, monsters, los and (according to source) items. But as a game it isn't impressive.
Roguelikeness
2 - The only thing preventing me from declaring it a roguelike are fixed levels. But they takes away replayability, so that is not minor.
Player is supposed to go through some fixed maps, gather a treasure then return back. There are different monsters on each level, but they differs only in picture and damage. There is also funny looking FoV. Without weapons I wasn't able to win.
soulmancerRL
Completeness
1 - Incomplete
Aesthetics
1 - Can't see anything except for main character and couple monsters.
Fun
1 - No game, no fun.
Innovation
1 - No game, no innovations. Absence of game is worst innovation attempt.
Scope
1 - Not enough for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
2 - Well... It's definitely turn based. Top down view. Permadeath... Probably it could be a true roguelike if it was working.
Can't really tell anything about the game because it is either broken or very incomplete.
Cold Contact:Clear Sky
Completeness
1 - Techno-demo level of completeness.
Aesthetics
1 - The game have retro look in a bad meaning of retro.
Fun
1 - Too fast, too chaotic.
Innovation
1 - There were 7drls about 3rd person view flight.
Scope
1 - One fixed plane, one enemy. Not enough even for a low-end 7drl.
Roguelikeness
1 - Not a roguelike at all, at least in current state.
Third person view arcade flight 'simulator'? Seriously?