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The 2024 7DRL Challenge Evaluation Process Click a table header to sort. 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2021 - 2022 - 2023 |
The 20th 7DRL Challenge ran from March 2nd to March 10th, 2024. Developers were challenged to create a complete roguelike game in 7 days.
Right after the submissions finished, a team of volunteer reviewers was assembled to evaluate 111 Completed entries. This page is the result of their work.
Note that, by design, there is no winner of the 7DRL challenge. As such, this list is not meant to be an authoritative ranking of the games but instead a tool to help players find which 7DRLs are likely to have things of interest, and to provide developers with feedback on their work.
| Name | Author | Runs on | Completeness | Aesthetics | Fun | Innovation | Scope | Roguelikeness | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Organ | gridbugs |   
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.89 |
| Coop Catacombs: Async Multiplayer Roguelike | AikonCWD |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.83 |
| Space Ghosts Can't Kill You | xk |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.72 |
| Rogue Vampire | Numeron | 
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| Seven Stone Sentinels | rentonl |
| 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| Skiftgardr | leftsharkbyte |
| 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| Flatline Hikyaku | croooooow |
| 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.61 |
| Pictomancer (7DRL 2024) | Drestin |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.61 |
| Piss and Vinegar | Brain in a Bowl |
| 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.56 |
| Roguerice | underww |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.56 |
| runner | Drew Harry |
| 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.56 |
| CvRL2: The Lady of Berkeley | Slashie |
| 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 |
| Pick & Poke | Christophe Coyard |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 2.50 |
| BOOM BOOm bOOM Boom Boom BooM bOOm boom... Boom! | Sundler |
| 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.44 |
| Beguiler | chreeshendolo |
| 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| Rogue Potioneer | tapio |
| 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| The Sea of Lava 7DRL | JauneGame |
| 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.44 |
| MRL | ahne |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.42 |
| MineRL | mrhthepie |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.42 |
| Par for the Corpse | TheShaggyDev |
| 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 2.42 |
| Abandoned Amulet Factory Looting Simulator | rubybliels |
| 2.67 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.39 |
| Craftsman of Sevendral | randrews |
| 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| Defocus | jmlait |
| 3.00 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| The Quest | Chao | 
| 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| trichromat | sunil. |
| 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.39 |
| Abaddon | memmakerx |
| 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| Byte Thief | sportzer |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.33 |
| Midnight Xpressway | devonsoft |
| 2.33 | 3.00 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 |
| Monster Tamer 7DRL | jtolmar |
| 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 |
| Rogue ALIEN | PlayMedusa |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| Roguesonne | VSalnikov |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.33 |
| Salvage Scramble - 7DRL | TechnicalFowl |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| TRASH-80 ROGUE | Lone Spelunker |
| 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| Wall Crawl | gruebite |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.33 |
| Rogue Absorb | Arciae |
| 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 |
| Dundledorf's Castle | Geoff |
| 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.28 |
| Outlast | Binary-Ninja |
| 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.28 |
| Seafarer's Spirit | Duckonaut |
| 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.28 |
| A Witch Comes to Town | Arto Koistinen |
| 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.28 |
| Battlemage | hellochar |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.25 |
| Intraplanetary | eclips_e |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.25 |
| Prim Reaper | Andrew Kay |
| 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.25 |
| The Call of Judgement | redxaxder |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.25 |
| Wizard Tower | r0ckems0ckem |
| 3.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.25 |
| Land of the Fallen Magi | bamfoodle |
| 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.22 |
| Orbworld: The Orb of Destiny | woodmanan |
| 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.22 |
| Rogue Strokes: Minigolf Dungeons (7DRL 2024) | Keep Flying Games |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.22 |
| Tempest Voyager | Evgenii Petrov |
| 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.22 |
| Boarding Actions | BrineShrimp |
| 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.17 |
| HELLTH | gavrilovmiroslav |
| 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.17 |
| Mead & Might | Nauti |
| 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.00 | 2.17 |
| The Desert Guntrain | Oroshibu |
| 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.17 |
| Z.E.A.L.O.T.S. | hazure |
| 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.17 |
| BuddyRL | Lerg Bwo |
| 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.11 |
| Songs Of The Pond | StabAlarash |
| 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 1.33 | 2.11 |
| Xenocide | Trev3lyan |
| 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 1.33 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.11 |
| You And What Army? | aerial301 |
| 2.67 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 3.00 | 2.11 |
| [7drl - 2024] - A Snake on a Plane | ceccopierangiolieugenio |
| 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 3.00 | 2.11 |
| DEIPHAGE | Caelyn Sandel |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 2.08 |
| Endless Rogue Elude | seamless |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 2.08 |
| Mars 2112 | lisyarus |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.08 |
| Rogue Zombies | ondras |
| 3.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 2.08 |
| The Forgotten Jade | yopox |
| 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.08 |
| You Bet Your Life 2024 7DRL | blockerz |
| 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.08 |
| Dungeon Duty | Baldtaria |
| 3.00 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 2.06 |
| Penyu | objectstothinkwith |
| 2.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.33 | 2.06 |
| Chase through Blytheware | dotti |
| 1.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 |
| Errant Mech | theq629 |
| 3.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| Flask Cannon | kylep |
| 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| Ric-Rac-Rogue | katerberg |
| 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 1.33 | 1.33 | 2.00 |
| Temple of Ruins | bones-ai |
| 2.33 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 |
| Wind of Runes | Feishiko |
| 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 |
| Arcanist's Heritage | Aviv |
| 2.00 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 3.00 | 1.94 |
| EverythingRL | Spferical |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 1.92 |
| Past Shadows | vidarn |
| 2.50 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.92 |
| RogueHot | cornfab |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.92 |
| DVNGEN | grammarxcore |
| 2.33 | 2.33 | 1.33 | 1.00 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 1.89 |
| A Roguelike for Roguelike fans | 1iuh |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.83 |
| Derelict-7DRL | NorthStateGames |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 1.83 |
| Dice and Dragons | IndustriousSkeletons |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.83 |
| GladiatorRL | jzhang113 |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.83 |
| NEKRON::24 | SUPER HUNT |
| 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.83 |
| Robo Dungeon | loudngaming |
| 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.83 |
| The Razing of Plum Parish | Geoff Blair |
| 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.83 |
| King of Mist | ScribbleInTheDark |
| 1.67 | 1.67 | 2.00 | 1.33 | 1.67 | 2.67 | 1.83 |
| Halfway Mouse and the Random Number | st33d |
| 2.67 | 2.67 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.78 |
| Slime Game | Nickaro |
| 2.33 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.78 |
| DieHorde | DocLiv |
| 2.50 | 3.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.75 |
| HoloDeck | Valerio Santinelli |
| 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.75 |
| JammingDice | Victor Sikkim |
| 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.75 |
| Legends of the Hidden Cheese | dchump |
| 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.75 |
| Card Counter | Teascade |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.67 |
| Numera Root | kigu |
| 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.67 |
| Scicuer | Darchiv |
| 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 3.00 | 1.67 |
| Sir Bumpsalot, Alpaca Legionnaire | thrig |
| 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 1.67 |
| venti vento morto | p8 |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 3.00 | 1.67 |
| 7DRL 2024 | roguewombat |
| 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.58 |
| Sangris | Sown |
| 2.50 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.58 |
| Shadows Over Arda | eraoul |
| 2.00 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.58 |
| Civilized Rogues | Morph |
| 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 |
| Emerald of Endjora | Robert Peterson |
| 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.50 | 1.50 |
| False Ghost | interfect |
| 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 |
| Shadow Dungeon | UthelGames |
| 2.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 |
| Weather is in Your Hands -7DRL Edition- | morimori |
| 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.50 |
| ifman's 2024 7DRL | ifman1 |
| 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 2.50 | 1.50 |
| AzHex | Lounge256 |
| 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.42 |
| Dolorous Coronach of the Baleful Abyss (Taylor's Version) | Jaldhar |
| 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.42 |
| Reality is an illusion | marcibarat |
| 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 1.33 |
| Bullet Bob | Bruh-no |
| 2.00 | 1.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| CALL-1 | 6amebreaker |
| 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Protect The Princess | ubermc |
| 1.50 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
Reviews
Electric Organ
Completeness
3 Haven't run into any bugs yet. Looks gorgeous, lots of fancy polish on it, etc. I'm not as certain on the balance, but it's definitely very complete.
3 Feels like a complete, polished product, from the intro animation, to the sound effects and music, the number of variables and traits that everything has.
3 Didn't seem to have any issues, also had instructions that were easy to refer too
Aesthetics
3 Absolutely gorgeous. The UI is clean and readable, and the instructions are pretty clear on how everything works. I have a few minor quibbles with the UI, but nothing that would dock you a full point in this category. The procedural music is a bit odd at times but adds to the generally beautiful user experience.
3 Electric Organ understands that it needs to be over the top with stimuli, so much so that effects like smoke are seemingly free from the turn-based nature of the rest of the game, appearing to spread menacingly towards the player. The world never feels safe, it feels weird and just right enough for Cronenbergian ideas. The minimalist approach to UI helps in making it not feel like a game immitating Videodrome, but rather Videodrome being a game. Great work!
3 It was different, but overall it worked
Fun
3 This is the first game I've reviewed so far this year that made me laugh out loud multiple times. That alone gets you a 3 in Fun from me. Even though I had read in the documentation all about how you needed a Heart to survive, the first time I ran across an Organ Bank I couldn't resist selling off my Heart for a cool 40 CCz-- with the obvious result-- and it was glorious. Generating hilarious moments like that are the kind of thing fun is made of. And even setting that aside, the gameplay is solid and there's a lot of interesting enemies and items with cool features to discover.
3 This game was very fun! It's fun in a way that you don't expect from a 7DRL entry. It's witty, funny, and deep without actually compromising on gameplay.
3 I was engrossed with the ideas presented here
Innovation
2 These are all mechanics that have been done before. But this is pretty close to a 3 for me. The particular mixture of these mechanics feels pretty unique; the different resources to manage and keeping an eye on your constantly-failing organs creates a kind of Simslike bar-filling subgame that you have to incorporate as a subset of your larger strategic decisions.
2 Mechanically, it doesn't go too wild - a thematic renaming of things to fit the narrative here and there, a cool use of corpses, but nothing too far from the usual.
3 I think this was pretty innovative
Scope
3 There's a lot of polish on this that I don't really expect to see in an average 7DRL. If anything, I worry that the balance is a bit off, but that could just be me being bad at roguelikes.
3 Electric Organ feels scoped well, professionally so: it has the main mechanics, it has the fluff, it has the UI, the sounds and music, the animations - everything fit into those seven days.
3 Felt like there was more then enough here to give full points
Roguelikeness
3 No question about it, this is a classic roguelike in every sense of the word.
3 It's a traditional roguelike in all senses of the word.
3 About as traditional as you can get!
This game is amazing. I just love the theme overall, and you've utterly nailed the cyberpunk genre in particular. So many fun moments from playing this game, and I fully expect to come back and play it some more after judging. It made me laugh, and instantly turned around and brutalized me whenever I failed to pay attention to what I was doing. And what could be more roguelike than that?
I love this game! If I had a shelf of Cronenberg memorabilia, it would be up there. I really hope to see something more come from it, larger, even weirder...
Having the ability to hit a key to close a door is usually something I like to have on hand, and the inventory felt a bit clunky, but otherwise I was thoroughly enjoying this game while playing it.
Coop Catacombs: Async Multiplayer Roguelike
Completeness
3 I don't think I noticed anything glaring and I was able to play the game just fine
3 Feels like it is a fleshed out game. Only made it a half dozen levels down, but nothing stood out as unfinished
3 Stable, bug-free, polished.
Aesthetics
3 Didn't immediately understand what the message tiles were but everything else was fine
3 I was amazed by how pretty and clean the tile set was. Even the animations are so small and beautiful
3 Controls were good. As someone who despises sprites, I have to say that these were pretty good and clutter-free.
Fun
3 It was fun seeing the messages other players leave.
3 I think this is the most engaging 7drl I've seen and I've been playing these since 2018.
2 Hack n' slash, but seeing other fallen players gives me sadistic pleasure.
Innovation
3 Roguelikes with asynchronous gameplay haven't been explored anywhere near what this 7DRL has touched on
2 Such a cool singular mechanic. Most of the game is pretty straight-forward, but the additional messages and replayable dungeon makes the game feel completely novel
3 Never seen this kind of multiplayer on a roguelike before.
Scope
3 I think this was pretty ambitious
3 Multiplayer is hard in general, and this was a fantastic way to get async multiplayer working in a computationally easy but mechanically interesting way
3 I was pleasantly surprised by how well the multiplayer stuff worked.
Roguelikeness
2 I'm tempted to give full marks here, but honestly the shared dungeon is the main showcase, and it runs afoul of playing a unique dungeon
3 Solidly in the genre.
3 Still a roguelike IMO.
Roguelikes have communities behind them; but this one has the community within it! Such a novel idea, although obviously it is getting a bit outside the definitions regarding procedural generation. But, this is definitely a stand out.
I really didn't think this would be super interesting, but playing it felt SUPER interesting and made me feel like it would be possible to beat anything. I am curious if it gets repetitive as the dungeons get super hard because the replayability might be impacted by the fact that the dungeon isn't new each time, but the one I played felt super cool even though the layout didn't change for the first three runs.
I'm surprised by how smoothly the multiplayer/asynchronous stuff was integrated into a regular roguelike game. The ability for players to write notes, in particular, seems like something interesting that other roguelike could perhaps copy (only if the notes are in a prefabricated area that might repeat across games, of course). My only complaint is that the networking is a bit fragile; a single connection failure means that it hangs forever. Other than that, good job.
Space Ghosts Can't Kill You
Completeness
3 This is a very complete game, both in features, effects, audio, polish, quality of life, tutorialization - incredible that this was only done in 7 days.
3 I did not run into any major bugs while playing. The only thing I really noticed was the wrong text being shown when a choice of cards appears. It initially shows the text for the right card for both and I had to move the cursor off of both cards and then onto one to get the correct text to show.
3 Instructions were a bit hard to follow because they would come and disapear. Outside of that though, everything looked good
Aesthetics
3 Beautiful and alive, has it's own waky lovable atmosphere, with embelishments at every corner.
3 Visually, this game looks very nice. The design of all of the cards/enemies/objects I saw fit together quite well. The controls are explained well through explicit text instructions as well as ui elements.
3 I sort of feel that the 'close' button shouldn't be near the end turn button, but that seems minor
Fun
3 A really enjoyable game - so much to explore, and challenging enough to keep you coming back for more.
3 I had a lot of fun playing this game. I'm very happy to have had it in one of my review slots.
2 I feel like I was a bigger threat to the other spacemen then the other enemies!
Innovation
3 The most innovative part to me is the deck building mashed up with the 90s adventure game. Basically you use cards for all your interactions, but you can use them on NPCs and environmental stuff as well.
2
2 I feel like we haven't gone too far of the beaten path, but we aren't on it anymore
Scope
3 I'm amazed there is so much in this game, and that it was only made in 7 days. A must play indeed.
3
3 Looks like there was a lot of content!
Roguelikeness
2 The dynamic room layout really made this feel the most "roguelike" to me. It was a vehicle for the random encounters to take place and delight me each run. That being said, this is a cousin of rogue more than it is a brother.
3
2 I don't feel this was too far away from roguelikes
I'm very impressed by this game. It's a very polished and cohesive game for something made in seven days.
Was able to play the game pretty well, despite any minor disagreements I might have had with it. Well done.
Rogue Vampire
Completeness
3 The game has enough mechanics to feel complete, without any bugs or glitches that I encountered.
3 So much polish and work was done around the user experience. You can change your keybindings, mouse is supported, it's gameplay is fluid and well thought out, the world is well populated, not a single bug that I've seen anyway, an incredible entry and inspiring in every way.
3 Instructions in the game, along with no bugs really found!
Aesthetics
3 Looks great! I think that the visuals work very well and provide a generally clear understanding of what is going on. I did wish for was a way to see the view cone of the enemies, maybe a mode you can enter that shows what they can see. The other issue that I had was that the protected ground marker was a little hard to see sometimes. I felt that it could have been significantly brighter. Other than these few small things.
3 Multiple tracks of music, effects, characters, doodads, wall types, terrain, decor abound - the aesthetics of this game really make the game feel like a living breathing world. Not to mention the visibility mechanic for sensing the "blood" in humans makes this feel exactly like you are a vampire hunting prey.
3 I kind of feel like Peek was too easy to cancel, but otherwise I can't fault having the ability to turn on and off music and sound
Fun
3 The game is great fun! I have a special place in my heart for stealth roguelikes, and they are not easy to find. This one has some great mechanics. I did find it a little stifling as things went on, but that might be a skill issue.
3 This is the only category I could see someone being on the fence, because it's so darn subjective. This game revolves around stealth mechanics, and does so intentionally. The creator of this game pulled this off beautifully - however, I generally enjoy stealth mechanics in games, so your milage may very. That being said, something to note is one of the power ups let you be super strong for a short while, so I could see someone who's not as into stealth employing that play style.
2 I found myself being really bored by the skills; also it felt like grinding might be important, which is something I don't praise. I did stay engaged though
Innovation
2 As I mentioned, stealth roguelikes as rare and I think that this one displays some good stealth mechanics. I don’t think there is any completely new, but it is an interesting and unusual mix of mechanics.
2 The game is definitely more innovative than not - however, it's hard to compare. Like this game does things that other games have done, but combines those things in a way I haven't played before, and a really beautiful and cohesive way. I could see someone else giving this a 3, but a 2 felt more fitting.
1 Honestly, not really. There have been a lot of thief style games, assassin style games, and what not. This just didn't do anything new, or even better...
Scope
2 Everything is here for a complete experience, and it is put together nicely. In order to get a 3 in this category the game would have needed some kind of way to change the character over time, or some other major change beyond dungeon generation.
3 I mean the game is full of rich content both mechanically and aesthetically. The game is incredibly polished and has so many QoL things I can hardly believe it. If I guaged the scope of the game purely by its gameplay and not as a whole product I would have rated this a 2, but in light of so many other elements, I think it deserves a 3.
3 Phenomenal amount of work here
Roguelikeness
3 This game checks all of the boxes to be a traditional roguelike.
3 Roguelike++ absolutely. Personally I enjoy sprite based roguelikes, but this game could easily be stripped down to ASCII and it'd retain so much of its own personality and charm, while being evocative of all the things I personally love about Roguelikes.
3 It is indeed a roguelike
Awesome! This is one of the rare 7DRL games that I plan on playing after I am done reviewing it. Getting a crit on an enemy feels great. The environments are nice, and I like that it changes over time. I like the mechanic of the player sliding passed walls, like if you press 9 with a wall above you, you will move to the right. However, I didn’t like the fact that failing to use the dash skill, when you attempt to dash into a wall for example, causes the dash to fail but also uses a turn. I also wish you could skip the intro after the first game. Minor gripes in the end for a game that is very well put together. Overall I had great fun with this one. Its one of those 7DRL games that feels like it could be fleshed out to a full game.
I mean I can't imagine a better entry. Apparently this person has been doing 7drl for many years, and has won a few times as well. They are a master of their craft, and a personal inspriration to me.
I kind of feel like there could have been a lot done here to make the stealth better. Maybe sight ranges for enemies could have been adjusted based on lighting around you or the target, smoke didn't really seem that useful sometimes, and perhaps blood could have been a resource that diminishes over time. That said, excellent work for having a stable game.
Seven Stone Sentinels
Completeness
3 This pretty much is about as complete as it gets!
3 I encountered nothing that seemed like a bug. Looks good and reasonably polished, no major problems I see.
3 Stable and bug-free.
Aesthetics
3 Awesome, lovely, spectacular!
2 The aesthetic is solid and readable, it's always clear what everything is and why, so there's no issues there. Nothing mind-blowing but it's a good solid interface.
3 Music was excellent, controls were good. My only complaint is the lack of vim bindings, which isn't really much of a valid complaint anymore...
Fun
3 I went over the 40 minute limit I'm suppose to adhere too as a judge. Whoops.
3 Seems fun to me. I keep getting killed at the sixth level, but it's a fun frustrating roguey sort of death rather than an un-fun frustrating death. It reminds me (in a good way) of Hoplite, which I imagine you are probably aware of and would cite as an influence here. This is hoplite with an entirely different set of verbs/game mechanics to use, and that makes it interesting and fun.
3 Fun fun fun.
Innovation
2 Puzzling your way through enemies is nothing new, but this was intriguing nonetheless
2 Nothing super innovative here (again, reminds me very strongly of Hoplite), but you've got some interesting mechanics here that are worth exploring.
2 No extremely unique ideas, but the nice packaging and cohesive experience earns this a 2.
Scope
2 Maybe there could have been a some items to interact with outside of the chest, or items that you could use.
2 Pretty much what's expected from a roguelike, good tight scope and it feels like you probably spent most of your time balancing it, which is far too uncommon. I suspect it's ended up in a pretty balanced place, seeing as how I can't just blow my way through easily, but I still feel like I can probably win if I grind out a few more games to get the right timings for things down.
3 The nice array of items, music, and polish earns this a 3.
Roguelikeness
3 Eh, it's a weak 3, but it is close enough
3 This is a pretty archetypical roguelike; an endurance challenge against a bunch of threats that compound gradually as you go through the levels and combine to make your life difficult.
3 Roguelike.
Outstanding work. I maybe might have liked to have the ability to see what enemies could do as I played, but that might be asking for a bit too much. With enough memorization I could likely know what things would be happening to me.
I like this a lot. It's a pretty solid game. As I mentioned elsewhere, you've basically taken the base game loop of Hoplite and put it in an entirely different context, via different enemies and a different set of powers for the player to use. That completely changes the game and makes it its own thing, which is fun to explore and play around with.
Excellent coffeebreak roguelike. Although nothing was terribly unique, the level of polish and effort put into making this entry feel amazing is incredible. Every year, I keep an eye out for 7drl games I'd probably play after the event, and I think I've found my pick for this year. Some things could be improved: it's not immediately apparent how many levels are needed to complete the game; it would be nice to hover over enemies to get a description; it might possibly be wiser to allow players only a few (6-8?) artifacts per run, as it gets difficult to keep track of exactly what upgrades one has. I wouldn't hold any of those complaints against the game, though, as it's all stuff that wouldn't be reasonably uncovered/implemented in a week.
Skiftgardr
Completeness
2 Kill Jörmungandr's body and you get your bifrost to leave. Not sure if that wins the game for you, didn't test it. Could have used a bit more instruction and information in regards to the different forms and items. Enemy pathing could have been better.
2 The game is playable, winnable, reasonably balanced, and has a lot of features that make it fun. There are some bugs and quality of life features missing though: shooting animation has a bug that sometimes requires a keypress to unlock the game; instructions say P picks up items, but it's actually G; there is no indication of which weapons/armor are good against which enemies, and no indication of progression through shapeshifting abilities; units sometimes "disappear": I can see the enemy in the "You see" log, I can hit it, but its sprite is replaced with something else; when you die, the last enemy action does not trigger an animation or generate a message log (very noticeable when someone shoots you as a last hit); unclear what everyone's speed is.
Aesthetics
3 Maybe a little bit of a hiccup when a rock giant throws a boulder at you, but nothing too terrible
3 Great colors differentiating each world; great sprites for all the enemies.
Fun
3 I played it for an hour so it kept me engaged. Seeing all the Norse figures was interesting too - made me think back to when I use to play Castle of the Winds
3 As a big fan of Norse mythology, I was always going to enjoy this - but even theme aside, the game is a great play!
Innovation
2 Shapeshifting has been done before, but not that much, and not in this sort of manner
2
Scope
3 Definitely felt like a lot of effort went into this one
3 There is so much content and mechanics here! 5 worlds different in presentation and enemy types; melee and ranged attacks; 4 shapeshifting forms; allied units; serpent tail mechanics; I was even blinded by some enemy once!
Roguelikeness
3 Fully within the realm of the genre
3
I got a little lost when I initially played the game as I couldn't find the exit in time before the time ran out. Second run I figured out that the Raven was useful for scouting - eventually also for flying over things. However, it did seem like a bit of a chore running through the realms after a while. Nilfheim and Muspulheim also might have issues - Nilfheim not really spawning a lot of enemies and Muspulheim spawning a lot of them all around the exit.
I loved this game - the theme, the visuals, the shapeshifting mechanics, all combine into a fun experience. It could you some polish, but it's an impressive effort. Called out a bunch of issues in Completness section, but in addition - due to the scarcity of healing, it seems like you never want to be in your human form, so the variety of items feels useless; the maps are large enough to get lost, so some kind of overworld map would help (I definitely ran afoul of doomsday clock a couple times because I got lost).
Flatline Hikyaku
Completeness
2 Torn between a 2 and a 3 in this category, but the more content a game has, the harder it is to polish all the features, and this game suffers because of it. It's sometimes hard to see how to use (or why you can't use) upgrades you find and want to install, how things interact, etc. In most cases, interactions happen on bump, but containers (shops, boxes, the exit door) have to be clicked.
3 Seems to be a fully complete game. I found no bugs and everything seems to be present and functional.
3 It looked like it worked and operated as it should, with explanations in a tutorial to boot
Aesthetics
3 I love the style of this game! The colors used are very brave and signal cyberpunk very well.
3 Great aesthetics for the cyberpunk genre, I don't generally like using the mouse in a roguelike interface, but I like it here-- you need the mouse anyway for some of the mechanics to be nice and usable. So I like having it more ubiquitous so that my hand is always on the mouse, rather than having to reach for it periodically. All the controls and mechanics are nice and intuitive and there's some tutorial content to help you pick up the basics. I did take a couple of games to figure out that the icons for the grid items were not purely decorative, but indicated the ways in which they connect to one another, and that wasn't called out by the tutorial; but this isn't a big enough complaint for me to dock you a point here.
3 It looked alright, I could tell what everything looked like. Except for the 8's and 0's; those tended to look alike
Fun
3 Playing Flatline Hikyaku was definitely fun! Installing different off-the-shelf hardware, stimming yourself to make the run, stealing from the Evil Corp, getting attacked by dogs, then punkers, then drones and turrets - everything is quite as it should be! Many of the smaller interactions (hacking, installing hardware, etc.) are minigames and fun ones at that!
2 I like this. It's a nice little dungeon-crawly roguelike with a cool theme and some interesting mechanics surrounding assembling the character upgrades. I'm not sure how much I'll come back and play it post-judging, but I did truly enjoy the time I spent with it, and what more can one ask for the fun category?
2 I was intrigued by the neural inventory idea, but the gameplay outside of that was a little barebones
Innovation
2 Hack, slash, upgrade, survive, nothing too far fetched but still a very good Cogmind-like!
3 The character progression grid is the innovation here, really-- the rest of the game is pretty standard stuff. But that doesn't mean it is bad; I rather like games like this that take an interesting mechanic and put it in an easily understood context so that your focus is directed to that mechanic. The grid mechanics are really interesting though-- trying to find a combination of parts that maximizes your capabilities is a fun little puzzle.
2 Neural inventory idea was novel, everything else was a theme switch to cybyerpunk
Scope
3 There's a lot of game in this game! Not only planned, but executed. It's also quite well-balanced, giving lots of different options and the ability to change builds on the fly.
2 This is pretty much the standard for a 7drl: a very basic and clear-cut roguelike, but with a cool idea or mechanic driving it and making it unique and fun.
2 It had a lot of inventory content, as well as things to interact with in the player environment, but I feel the gameplay was very bland to give out full marks
Roguelikeness
3 Satisfies all the criteria of being a roguelike. I both liked and disliked how inputs (especially movements) meld into one another. I'd love for that to stop whenever something hits the player or even approaches the player, as there's a small lack of feedback on hit leading to situations where other things (the targeting grid, for example) obscure the flying bullets, and you end up losing a lot of HP on nothing but a slow finger.
3 This is a solid roguelike in every meaningful respect, not much more to say besides that.
3 Very bland, but a traditional game nonetheless
It's really great to see old school cyberpunk games in roguelike form. This one plays fast and rough, and you need to focus to not lose your way, which I think is exactly how it should be.
This is a nice game with lots of great aesthetics and a neat little player equipment/progression mechanic at its core. It could use maybe some added variety of components/weapons/etc; I haven't gotten too far in any one game, admittedly, but so far, I've only seen a few unique components that aren't just upgraded-stats versions of the components you start the game with. And none of them were new weapons for me to try out. But that being said, there's honestly just not a whole lot missing here, beyond a few minor polish things. (e.g. I would love for the tutorial to explain the component linkage mechanics to you, because it took me three games before I figured out why I couldn't put things in some spots on the grid-- but that's partly just me being an idiot.) Bottom line, this game has a lot to recommend it.
I got a little bored around the seventh or eighth level. Your neural inventory idea was intriguing, but outside of this you just had a normal traditonal roguelike - that felt a little bland gameplay wise. Smaller levels or more tactical gameplay might have worked well here.
Pictomancer (7DRL 2024)
Completeness
3 Clear instructions, features fully implemented, nice delightful animations. Really well done!
3 Didn't encounter any issues
3 I sort of saw Kyzrati play this so I sort of knew how to play from it, but I think this is well explained to how to go about what to do here. No bugs or other issues noted either.
Aesthetics
3 I was able to understand what everything was and what it did clearly. Just needed some sounds to complete the feel
3 Interface is clean and informative, ascii-evocative graphics are ascii-evocative
3 Looked nice with everything being easily distinguishable
Fun
3 Really fun and really quick, I can recommend this to anyone
3 Pretty fun. Lots of emergent things to play with, like the ability to cross oceans by taking pictures of yourself, or the potential of a square of water as a weapon.
2 Kinda fun making Fire Elementals get obliterated
Innovation
2 Some uncommon gameplay mechanics like indirect combat and world manipulation is interesting and combined in a fun way but not fundamentally new
3 I haven't seen anything like the picture-taking mechanic before
3 I think this is strongly innovative compared to a lot of other entries
Scope
2 A clear goal executed flawlessly for a 7drl
2 What's there is great, but it's not super broad. You walk around an island chain solving roguelike-puzzles with the picture mechanic. There's potential for more to be added, but this is exactly the kind of scope I'd expect for one week
1 This was a bit of a weak area for this entry
Roguelikeness
3 Interesting take on combat through indirect means. Not every roguelike needs hordes of items.
3 Random maps, permadeath, grid movement, ascii-ish graphics, it's a quintessential puzzle-roguelike.
2 When you start to jump into the realm of gods, you start to jump out of the realm of roguelikes.
I had a lot of fun. A quick game to play. I followed the instructions and didn’t read the mechanics details until after I had beat the game the first time and the only discovery I missed was the ability to teleport yourself! Went back and gave it a few more runs. For a quick game to beat I had fun trying different approaches to getting the bell home.
One of the best games I've played in this year's competition. The picture mechanic is clever and fun, the interface is clean and simple, this is exactly what I think a 7DRL game should be.
Awesome little game, but perhaps a bit lacking in content. Wraiths weren't really a threat since they moved so slow, and Fire Elementals were easily extinguishable too; I also made a pair of slippers out of the bunnies I killed. Having some more enemies to deal with might have been a good idea, or other intersting elements to explore.
Piss and Vinegar
Completeness
3 The interface is only a bit awkward sometimes. Can't choose which item to throw, can't drop items either.
3 I don't know if some of the weird UI things I encountered were bugs or just me misunderstanding things, but either way they didn't get in the way of playing the game and that's what is important to me. The fact that there's no "game over" after the final boss is a bit disappointing, but I'm not going to dock you a point just for that. This is a nicely finished and complete game with a lot of meat on its bones.
2 Bugs were encountered during play, but otherwise it worked just fine and instructions did their job
Aesthetics
3 Looks great! Obviously very programmery but it looks good.
3 Really looks lovely, I like the fact that every character has a little ascii art portrait. The controls took some getting used to and could probably use some tinkering IMO, but overall this game plays really nicely and feels very polished aesthetically with all the special effects and things.
2 Bit too tiny, the last level was a bit seizurific, but otherwise the game controlled fine.
Fun
2 This is fun, I just wish it were more difficult. Little too easy to just stunlock enemies.
3 Very fun little roguelike. Not a super challenging one-- I was able to get to and defeat the final boss on my third run-- but it has a nice little game loop that feels very satisfying, and it really delivers on the promised feel of a tavern-brawling rogue where you're tossing people around and kicking things and wielding improvised weapons all over the place.
3 I actually had a tonne of fun interacting with the indepth actions
Innovation
2 The action bar in "piss" is cool and the different combat moves make for some dynamic combat.
2 There's not a lot that's strictly new here, but you've done a good job combining simple mechanics to create something new and fun. The innovation here, such as it is, is essentially just in the way you're encouraging the player to adopt a certain playstyle in order to succeed, which is cleverly done.
2 This was really innovative in terms of character actions
Scope
2 Solid scope. There's even a special boss level.
3 The extent to which this is polished is really quite impressive. You've got plenty of good mechanics going on, you've obviously done your balancing work to make the game good and playable, and you've got a lot of polish in the gameplay and aesthetics in, as well as adding a lot of extra content you probably could have gotten away without.
2 Decent scope that fits somewhere in between demonstrating the idea and going well beyond what is expected
Roguelikeness
3 Absolutely a roguelike.
3 This is pretty much the quintessential roguelike, just with an emphasis on dynamic combat with motion and other tricks. (I notice your dungeon generation looks suspiciously like Rogue's, too.)
3 You betcha!
This is pretty good! My main complaint is that I beat the game on the first try. Keeping enemies in stun with kicks felt a little too easy. The presentation is great, even including some character with bits like "rushing" up stairs, and the bumpin' party floor as a final level.
This is probably the best game I've played from the 2024 batch. Took me some time to get into but it's really fun to play, delivers solidly on the theme it advertises, and you've kept it simple enough that you were able to balance and tune it into a really good game in the alloted time. Kudos.
My chief takeaway from this game is that the environment didn't really fit the presented gameplay. If this had been inside a 'bar' style environment with a chaotic assortment of furniture and debris everywhre then it might have been really fun. Outside of that, having an option to zoom in or out the map would be nice, or just being zoomed in more if that can't be helped. That and fixing the bugs of course, I had a hard fail on the final level.
Roguerice
Completeness
3 I couldn’t get much deeper than depth 6. But what I saw looks very much look a complete roguelike game. Each level introduces some new enemy types, so it doesn’t get boring so quickly. I experienced no bugs and gameplay was fluid. UI is minimal an easy to use.
3 I haven't seen any bugs, hasn't crashed, has a nice tutorial that sells more than just the basic mechanics (has a locked door that's attractive! has a trap that you can evade on the second run to see how traps work!), seems really well polished
3 Seemed to operate fine
Aesthetics
3 Nice choice of colours. I especially like the enemies and how the corpses are greyed out versions of their chars.
3 The fontface is beautiful, the colors really well-picked, the interface is clear, and the log easy to see. Monsters get described as you see them, unknown things are marked unknown. Very clear, very practical.
3 I could tell where everything was and what it all did
Fun
2 I did enjoy the hunt for the animals quite a bit, until I was failing way too often.
3 I love cooking in roguelikes, so this was a joy to play. Every recipe I found was a wonderful experience and made me want to hunt down those exact things even more. Getting surprise food (griffin wings, whaaaat!) made this even better. I exploited the option to go up to the previous levels to find a safe cooking zone, and the choice to wait with cooking something immediately or waiting to find a recipe that needs it made sitting by the fire feel really good.
2 The idea perked my interest a little
Innovation
2 It is a nice spin on known mechanics, I’d say.
2 There wasn't anything too innovative here, just a lot of very well-executed mechanics presented beautifully.
2 Reminds me heavily of last years 'food' themed roguelike, except now we are in the dungeon fully.
Scope
2 This is pretty much what I would expect, scope wise.
2 It's not that this game isn't scoped well, but it doesn't go outside the norm either. I'd love to see more fluff, for example, to make the world feel more unified around why you're going into the dungeons of deliciousness.
2 The idea was presented and explored quite well
Roguelikeness
3 It ticks all the boxes for me.
3 If someone showed me this and the original Rogue, I'd say that these are the same picture. Different focus, but very clearly roguelike.
3 Yep, it's a roguelike
It’s hard to for me get really far into this game, although I really want to. I like the idea of putting the cooking mechanic at the core. Also each enemy has a distinct feel to it and its own behaviour, well done. The recipes put another spin on the formula, I managed to cook two of the special recipes and it seems like they are essential to the character progression. Nice touch.
I realized playing this that I want more cooking roguelikes! I really wanted this game to have more innovation with cooking, but even without that - this felt really great. I loved it from the get-go, it's rare to get such a good tutorial, obviously well scripted, but also skippable if you've already passed it. I've felt the need to take my notebook out and scribble about what monsters give what things, and what benefits those give after cooking - that's always a good sign!
I like the idea of putting all the cooking shenanigans 'in' the dungeon; but the Un-IDed effect was kind of not needed, and bringing prepared food to the altar, instead of eating it, did discourage me from finding out from the 2nd tier recipe did. Maybe the altar could be like a special campfire that you learn new recipes from; with a choice of what recipe you get, and permanent bonuses affixed to some of them?
runner
Completeness
3
3 Didn't notice any issues and the game was well explained
2 Stable and bug-free. Lacking some polish (mostly to do with aesthetics and UI).
Aesthetics
2
3 Easy to determine what was happening nad play
2 Controls were fine. I'm impressed that you managed to make the movement patterns intuitive to use; I struggled with a similar problem in the past to no avail. Sprites? what sprites?
Fun
3
2 A fancy little racing game, though perhaps a bit short
3 Very fun.
Innovation
3
2 Technically somewhat novel, but not entirely unique
3 Very unique gameplay. Almost like a combination of porklike and traditional FOV-dodging stealth games.
Scope
2
2 It felt like there was enough to demonstrate the idea but that's it
2 Enough scope to make good use of the mechanic.
Roguelikeness
3
3 Enough mechanics here to give full marks
3 Roguelike as any.
This is an incredible take on stealth game by creating a stealth roguelike with a group of moves that affect movement and escape. I think some of these moves could have been combined and have less variety and more easy to remember different abilities. The idea of having the hunter is amazing and better than hunger. It would have been great if there is invisibility or stun to stop the hunter as it is almost impossible to do anything when the hunter is around. Another solution to make the hunter slower as i can do more than one move in the same amount of time for him to do one move. Overall, I think that game is an impressive roguelike but it is hard to play due to complexity of different moves where the difference between them is mostly initial condition but the output is just the same. Finally, the game is super hard and complex and require a lot of work to pass the first dungeon.
I enjoy a nice escape game, though for how short the gameplay is, it felt like there a bit of a lack of demonstration of the idea. More enemies would have helped out.
Lovely little game, with a concise and compelling mechanic, good difficulty curve, and challenging obstacles. It's nice to see how multiple different systems combine to add increasing challenge across levels, what with the maze-like terrain, cooldowns, other bots, sentinels, and so on. It would be neat to see this polished into a more complete (and slightly longer) game. I very nearly came to beating the third level... ah well...
CvRL2: The Lady of Berkeley
Completeness
2 It has some minor bugs e.g. enemy pathfinding. Also balance seems off. At caves there are too many heal potions. And ambushes are too frequent in my opinion.
2 I've never played any Castlevania games and that might have lend me to not understanding where to go and what to do. I do realize there was a YouTube video on the itch page, but it wasn't like I was directed to it. Otherwise, everything seemed to work as intended
Aesthetics
3 Very satisfying attack sounds, good use of symbols.
3 Looked and played fine
Fun
2 It is fun to explore the world and solve riddles. Combat feels very satisfying with sounds and animations. But the game obviously needs some polish and work on the balance. Also it will be great to see a random generation in all of the levels and maybe in the global map.
1 Because of the lack of understanding what to do, I never progressed anywhere
Innovation
2 Well implemented combination of some other games. But it doesn't do anything really unique.
3 This is a fully fleshed out recreation of another video game in roguelike form, with a massive amount of inspiration drawn from various bits and pieces
Scope
3 This game is huge. Impressive results for only 7 days.
3 So much was here, it is surprising there wasn't any really bugs to find!
Roguelikeness
3 It's a roguelike.
3 Eventually yes. Obviously there is a huge amount of content that is not procedurally generated, but that's probably needed here
The scale of this game is amazing. But probably because of that it needs a lot more work and polish to be really great. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun with combat and solving riddles. I especially want to note the work with sound. There's something about the attack sounds that makes combat very satisfying.
This might be a classic example of 'hold my hand please' game mechanics actually being a bit desirable. Even just having random hints to 'guide' the player around the map so they can make progress would be a good idea. Else, great implementation.
Pick & Poke
Completeness
3 I think I noticed one spelling error - that's pretty amazing considering how much spelling there was!
3 Seems polished and remarkably well balanced for 7 days.
Aesthetics
3 Phenomenal
3 Definitely a good looking game, especially for the time frame. All information is clear as well, with nice mouseover tips.
Fun
3 I did two runs when I likely only needed to do one.
3 Enjoyable game which works well and feels satisfying to finish.
Innovation
2 Not exactly jumping into new ideas here, but not exactly run of the mill either
2 It feels similar to other games where you have encounters on a map of nodes, but the use of tokens is unusual and feels relatively fresh.
Scope
3 This is a lot of content for a 7DRL, well done
3 What's really impressive is how well balanced it is, and how well realised the system for choosing actions is, considering the time frame.
Roguelikeness
1 This felt a little too close to being a board game then a roguelike
1 Not even slightly a roguelike.
Excellent work! Though this is getting a little far and away from being a roguelike. Drawing on board games is fine but this is delving too deep into that genre.
A dungeon crawl where you explore a map of nodes, resolving random encounters. That aspect has been seen before, but this game feels almost like a board game. You need to manage your limited pool of different tokens to resolve encounters, with different possible actions requiring specific combinations of tokens. It's pretty fun, but not a roguelike in any sense.
BOOM BOOm bOOM Boom Boom BooM bOOm boom... Boom!
Completeness
3 The game feels pretty complete with almost no bugs
3 I didn't find any bugs and feels feature complete
2 Might have been a bug related to health, but overall it functioned and played well
Aesthetics
3 The choice of color palette and using kenny assets make this game look very relaxing
3 I like the art style, the music, and the sound effects.
3 Autmatic full points here - I LOVE HAVING FUNCTIONING SLIDERS FOR MUSIC AND SOUND IN MY GAMES!
Fun
3
2 It starts off fun and challenging, but by the third or fourth level, you start to feel like you're just repeating yourself.
2 Not my cup of tea but it had a lot of challenging elements that kept me engaged for a few runs.
Innovation
2 converting bomberman to be a roguelike is a fun idea but it might need more than just giving random abilities and normal bombs to be more fun
2 It's more bomberman than rogue, which isn't bad and putting them together is interesting, but not incredibly unique.
2 I mean, this is 'sort' of just Bomberman in a roguelike format, nothing too innovtive outside of that
Scope
2
2 Simple, but I think keeping it simple did a lot for the design of this one.
3 I think there was enough here to warrant a bit of praise - unique enemies that did differnt things, lots of skills, a few QoL features.
Roguelikeness
3
3 I mean, yes. It feels like bomberman more than it feels like a roguelike, but it's hard to argue for or against either.
1 Its Bomberman, albeit with a turn based formula and some roguelite upgrades between levels. Not much more then that
Overall, this game looks great and feel and plays great. the idea of converting bomberman to roguelike is pretty amazing but it needs more work around it maybe specific type of bombs that are not timed, abilities than manupilate ur bombs and other enemy bombs like kicking bombs. overall there is a potential in the idea but the developer need to think deeper than just copying bomberman as they need to make each action more puzzley and tactical similar to michael brough games (due to the size of the level).
Fun, interesting, and short. Almost the perfect coffee break roguelike.
Outstanding entry! With a bit more polish, I could see this being a game that someone might want to kill a little time with on their phone or during small breaks. Great Work.
Beguiler
Completeness
3 Pretty polished. I don't notice any bugs. The main complaint is the lack of level end/game end messaging, but that's not enough for me to dock it a full point on Completeness-- it's far closer to a 3 than a 2. Balance seems fine to me, although at review time I see that there's already a balance-patch version of the game available, which I did not play.
3 Very polished and complete, it has music, animation, sound effects, all the things.
3 I didn't notice any issues and was able to figure out how to play just fine
Aesthetics
2 Few, if any, real complaints here. The controls are displayed on the screen at all times, so it's pretty easy to see what you're doing. The graphics are clear and message the game state well, with one minor exception: Since facing direction matters in this game, IMO you really should have the player sprite show which direction you're facing-- right now you have "looking left" and "looking right" but not "looking north" or "looking south", so not all of that facing information is visible on the board.
3 I like the art style, it's simple and effective, but the music is what really shines for me. It creates a whimsical yet ominous feeling. The UI is also fantastic and keeps you well informed of what's going on without getting in the way.
3 Controlled well and I could easily tell what everyhing was; although I was a bit annoyed with 'ready' spells being used for the numbers instead of each spell having a specifically assigned number
Fun
2 It's cute enough to make me play a bit. Weirdly enough, I think some of the fun of this game gets hurt by very ephemeral things that could pretty easily be waved away with a small update-- for example, the fact that the graphics are highly uniform and the levels are samey makes it feel a little Sisyphean. The same is true of the fact that dying simply sends you back to the start of the game, and there's nothing in between levels either. So a little messaging and graphics could bump up the "Fun" level dramatically-- If you throw a few extra tileset recolors in there, and make sure that the next level always has a different tileset from the one you just left, and insert a couple of "you died, here's your score, click here to restart" or "good job beating level 3, HP up, you unlocked this new rune" type screens between levels/runs, I think that would go a long way towards helping you feel like you're actually progressing in the game, and not just running the same levels over and over again with slight variations and increased challenge. Also, since it's an endless game, consider providing more stats for the player than just "how many levels you've cleared"; that endgame screen could list things like levels cleared, monsters killed, spells cast, spellcasting efficiency, and so on. Maybe track the player's personal-bests for all those stats, too, and go out of the way to congratulate them whenever they beat their PB so far in some category.
3 I had a blast with this. I need it to have an ending though.
1 I found that this idea was sort of annoying to play with
Innovation
2 This isn't the first game to do the "movement as a resource to fuel your spells" mechanic, but it's a neat implementation. The movement-spells like this often feel restrictive, so I like that the "mana" bar is a supply that you can draw from, rather than a queue determining your actions. It's a nice innovation on the mechanic. Aside from that, pretty standard roguelike stuff.
2 I'm sure I've seen something similar to this before, but definitely a nice little twist for a 7DRL
2 Movement based roguelikes are nothing new, but this has a different idea to it
Scope
2 Pretty much what one expects from a 7drl: A very barebones, but nicely polished and complete game. There's a lot of obvious things you can add/update in the post-jam version of the game going forward, which to me says that you spent your time wisely on making what's in here work well.
2 I went back and forth on 2 or 3 with this. A 2.5 should be in order. Any one or 2 features makes this a full and fun roguelike, but there's a lot of extra polish and creativity thrown in.
2 More then a tech demo, but nothing special past that
Roguelikeness
3 Full marks for roguelikeyness here-- As it should be in any traditional roguelike, tactical positioning and movement planning is the core skill of this game.
3 Yes indeed. I would like to see an endgame and an ascension mechanic (which might be in there, but I suck at the game....????), otherwise it checks all my boxes.
3 Certainly fits perfectly in the realm of roguelikes
Very barebones, but the tactical play is good here and the game is nicely polished. Could use a few user experience and graphical tweaks to maximize the enjoyment, as I mentioned in the Fun section of this review, but what's here is a solid game that is worth playing.
This is a fun little step away from the ultra traditional roguelikes without out wandering too far from the core ideas. It's fun and just innovative enough to keep me coming back.
An interesting concept, but kind of annoying since you are 'forced' to move a certain way to get your desired spells. While I didn't find the game necessarily fun, I did enjoy exploring the idea and the project was well executed.
Rogue Potioneer
Completeness
3 Very complete.
3 Super complete - the game was built on top of previous entries and wow it was polished, and full featured - even had 2d and 3d options :D
3 Looked to work as intended and was adequately explained
Aesthetics
3 Solid graphics.
2 Beautiful graphics - however I personally value audio, and although the sfx were there they were minimal, and there was no music
3 Outstanding controls!
Fun
2 Tossing potions is pretty fun, but some of them feel a little lackluster.
2 I liked the concept of throwing potions, but I never felt compelled by the variations of the mechanic. The systems didn't ever make me think "I should use this potion over that potion" just more like "throw potions till the thing dies"
2 Throwing the potions was fun, but it slowly got stale.
Innovation
2 Potions as your entire means is neat but not mindblowing.
2 An interesting concept for sure - but potions are really like scrolls here, and wizards who are weak melee combatants but can cast spells has been done before.
1 Not really doing all that much new
Scope
2 Decently sized.
3 I mean there was so much packed into this game from a UI perspective it feels super full. It's hard to dock it a point, but I'd say there was a decent amount explored, but it's hard to say what was the new ground for this developer.
2 There was enough to showcase the idea, but not really show what could be done with it
Roguelikeness
3 Definitely a roguelike.
3 Roguelike for sure :)
3 Fully within the genre boundaries
It looks good, plays well. My main gripes are in the potions themselves. Some of them just feel a little weak or awkward. With the health potion, I suppose it's intentional to make you retreat before using one, but having to dance around to get the health is a little odd. The smoke potion is just sad, and I think it could have been much larger and longer-lasting to actually give you a chance to escape, because otherwise escaping feels impossible. Still, an enjoyable and polished roguelike!
I feel like I should have enjoyed this more. Like there was nothing wrong with it, but I feel like the core interaction of the potion throwing never felt like a puzzle, or that I was rewarded for doing something smart - actually that's the thing, it all felt like there wasn't much to think about, but maybe I'm just dumb 😅
I was excited to play this game, but felt that the gameplay really let me down. Poison potions didn't really do that much damage, and the roster of potions didn't do anything really interesting overall. I did like the options of how I could play the game, and this was one of the finest roguelikes I have played in terms of controls - minus not having any automatic 'stop character' reaction when you are attacked. Well done.
The Sea of Lava 7DRL
Completeness
2 Mostly servicable and clear. There are some bugs that stop this entry from being fully complete: for starters, the inputs get consumed together often, meaning that the ship doesn't go where you want it to go. Given that the move economy is important, this is a large problem when going into dangerous situations. Additionally, the UI falls apart in several places - the shop was very unclear, showing several "Buy" buttons overlaid one over the other. Once the Beast is beaten, the very large font that displays the victory celebration is too large and remains on the screen at all times, becoming a real problem in readability of everything else underneath it.
3 Plays well, no crashes.
3 No issues encountered apart from spelling and grammar, instructions were fine.
Aesthetics
2 Visually speaking, the game is great! It has all it needs and understands what the gameplay sees as important or not. The little people seeing you from other ships, the excalamation points above their heads, the sense of urgency implied by the motions are all very well placed. The UI somewhat complements this - the inventory is quite fine, and the action menu and end of day button are wonderful! However, any time there's multiple interfaces overlaid, something seemed to be at least slightly wrong.
3 Great use of free assets and nice sounds and music.
3 Looked excellent and controlled excellent
Fun
3 I had fun with this - more than I thought I would. Destroying other ships, finding dragons and slaying them slowly, being very careful to not drift (I'm pretty sure that this is not intented but the effect is there), and slowly learning how to do most with the moves I have. Late game became a bit hard, mostly because of the large UI overlay covering a quarter of the screen, as well as a lack of things to do after beating the Beast.
3 Very fun. I actually was sorry I beat it because I wanted to play some more.
1 Felt like I was just going through the motions to be honest
Innovation
2 It isn't threading new grounds in terms of mechanics, but using different action points for different actions introduces some new opportunities that can potentially be better utilized.
1 Not a whole lot new here. Interesting setting is about it.
2 More innovative then not
Scope
3 The game was well-scoped, and well executed. Multiple enemies that behave in different ways, multiple resources, a really large end game, weapon upgrades, etc.
2 It's a nice distraction.
2 I don't feel there was enough here to show off how this idea makes for fun gameplay, but I won't deny a lot of work was put in for sure
Roguelikeness
3 It's a wonderfully traditional roguelike put into the guise of a fishing/ship combat game.
3 Stripped down to the purest, simplest type of roguelike.
3 Yes it was
Really nice game, and I hope development continues. This game actually has aspects that I loved about games such as Sunless Sea and Dredge, but is also about dwarves and a roguelike. It uses a nice tileset, and some small UI issues notwithstanding, it plays wonderfully!
I really enjoyed this game. The music and graphics just made it a nice, enjoyable ittle distraction. Unfortunately it's not very long and there's not a whole lot of reason to revisit, but it's definitely worth a play.
This is likely a good example where a hunger clock is a good idea. Maybe the Great Wyrm could send forth its ravenous babies to attack you or anything else that is around, etc. Other then that this was well done. Good Work.
MRL
Completeness
3 Looks pretty polished, I didn't run into anything that looked like a bug.
3 A complicated game that had a lot happening in it that could have been better explained, but functioned well enough
Aesthetics
2 Good textures and reminds me strongly of classic computer strategy stuff. Some of the controls are a little confusing at first but it's well documented enough to overcome that.
2 I think the UI could be better in some area, but overall it was good
Fun
2 I enjoyed playing it for a few rounds. Once I got familiar with the enemy AI it feels pretty winnable yet challenging.
2 Biggest issue I had was how powerful weapons with longer range felt, in comparison to shorter ranged ones
Innovation
2 Not a lot of innovation here, but there's enough uniqueness that I'm not giving it a 1. Took a while to understand the shield/energy mechanics, which are pretty interesting.
2 The mechanics feel like they were inspired by BattleTech, but having them in a 7DRL format is new
Scope
2 About what I'd expect scope-wise from a 7DRL. You mention cutting a lot of planned features, and I have to say-- you made the right choice cutting, because what's here is nice and tight and I'd rather have that polish than extra features in an unpolished game.
3 I was well impressed with what was here
Roguelikeness
3 This falls pretty solidly in the traditional roguelike camp. Turn-based, balancing strategic and tactical decisions, and permadeath.
3 I'm fine calling this a roguelike
This is a pretty solid base for a roguelike. You could expand this out into a much larger game and it'd be totally playable, almost as-is-- maybe just a bit of interface tinkering here and there. I haven't been able to beat more than 30% of the enemies in the level before getting overwhelmed yet, so I don't know if there's anything beyond "defeat all your foes" here, but it's weirdly compelling as a little strategic exercise.
Well done. I think your biggest issue might be balancing for weapons and managing energy, but outside of that I had a blast playing the entry.
MineRL
Completeness
3 You might need a scroll bar on the instruction window but that is pretty much all I noticed
2 Felt complete as there were no bugs - however it could have used sound music more polish etc.
Aesthetics
3 I could clearly tell what everything looked like and didn't have to squint at hard to see colors, also could play entirely with a mouse which is nice
2 I actually liked the overall presentation of the game, but yeah, no music or sound, and lacking in polish
Fun
2 I was entertained enough by it, but felt I got to experience what there was with just a half hour of game time
2 It was fun, but the charm wore away shortly after starting to play - but it feels like it has potential to be more fun for longer.
Innovation
3 Not my first mining 7DRL, but there isn't that many and this broke enough ground
2 I like the focus on collection. It didn't blow me away, but it was enough of a twist that made it feel like a very different experience, e.g. I was actively avoiding enemies because I wanted to meet my quota, which in any other game I'm actively looking for a fight, and don't care about much else.
Scope
2 There was enough here for a solid 7DRL experience, but it feels like a lot more could be built in as well
2 Seemed to have a good amount of effort put into the UI, and the upgrade system. There was definitely meat on this bone, but it wasn't a whole cow.
Roguelikeness
3 It ticks enough boxes for me
3 Roguelike as far as I'm concerned - but it's hard to guage this specifically, as I've definitely played more roguelike-y titles.
It would have been nice if I could see the amount of money I had collected from the getgo. More enemies to fight or things to do is definetely desirable. Outside of this I had a good experience with this entry.
For what it is, I enjoyed it. The push to reach your quota, varied upgrades initially make the game quite fun - however the lack of variety, and ironically some of the upgrades actually remove some of the mechanical interest, but are almost necessary to progress in the game. All that paired with the simple aesthetics, it's a solid entry, but not a must play IMO.
Par for the Corpse
Completeness
3 Phenomenal work! I perhaps griped a bit about lacking a wait button - but that might be absent by design so I'll let it slide
2 Complete for a 7DRL. Only major complaint is that the targeting can be very very slow sometimes.
Aesthetics
3 Everything was clearly identifiable and worked well enough
3 While the color scheme and sprites could be improved, overall the aesthetics were good. Controls were okay.
Fun
2 I wish there was substantially more here: powerups, item use, more then one enemy, different terrain, etc; but ultimately it was a nice idea to explore
2 The early levels were tedious and boring. Even towards the end, while there was a bit more challenge, it still felt trivial.
Innovation
3 Really interesting sort of mash up of a traditional dungeon crawler with physics, don't think we've seen it before
3 The idea of shooting a bouncing projectile towards a goal, while using it to kill enemies is fairly unique.
Scope
1 While everything that was in the game was highly polished; there honestly wasn't that much in the game too polish
2 Good demonstration of idea. Would prefer a few different kinds of challenges rather than increased enemy count however.
Roguelikeness
2 Sort of the middle ground between being a roguelike and not being a roguelike; chiefly you are hurt here by how simple the game is
3 I don't care that the ball wasn't limited to a grid. It's still a roguelike.
Definitely feels like we got a stand out with this one. Perhaps this idea could be fleshed out thoroughly to have a more in it!
The core idea is an innovative one, which can be described as "use a reusable projectile to kill dangerous enemies from a distance while using said projectile to advance in the game." The challenge will be to increase the game's scope without adding tedium. As-is the early levels are terribly same-ey, and even the later ones are very easy to complete. I completed until level 16 until I died (of boredom). Still, for a 7DRL, it's pretty good, and I can't really fault the author for not investing more time into additional mechanics and gameplay. Good work on this.
Abandoned Amulet Factory Looting Simulator
Completeness
3 This game has a central concept which is fully implemented, along with different enemies and abilities. It runs without bugs or crashes.
2 The game runs fine. I wasn't always sure what was going on, but there were no crashes.
3 Looked to be complete and had a manual available to learn the game with
Aesthetics
2 The game is very visually clear and makes use of unusual symbols. The unusual symbols give it character but also I don’t feel that they added enough to the game to justify them . The color choices are largely consistent and give it a unique feel.
1 Almost everything about this game confused me. There's a lot going on and you get thrown right into the deep end. The first playthrough I couldn't even figure out where I was.
2 It was interesting how the lower/uppercase letters and numbers were used to demonstrate health, but I was really confused with the abiliteis. Also felt that jump was too limited, or a wall grab might have been nice
Fun
2 Interacting with the game was frustrating at first-- I didn't know what I was looking at or which symbol was my character, since the game doesn’t use the traditional @. You really have to read the manual and constantly check it in order to interact with this game. That being said, the powerups are interesting. The mirroring one especially is such a cool idea. Just that one idea would have made this an interesting game, but there is so much else going on here. It has a freeform feel to it, and you can seemingly get yourself soft locked by using abilities incorrectly. I would have liked the ability to heal more-- as it was the experience was a little stifling.
1 Beyond the challenge of figuring out what is going on, it's really frustrating and not particularly fun. I can see a lot of what the developer was trying to do and where the fun would be, but the game is too brutal and obtuse.
1 I felt more are a loss of what I was doing playing this game then not
Innovation
3 The world needs more vertical roguelikes! It reminded me of Lone Splunker, which I think is great. Top marks from me for making a traditional roguelike that is actually innovative.
3 The developer is trying a lot of new things here. I think that hinders this one as much as helps.
3 Quite a few ideas that are worth checking out!
Scope
3 The addition of fluid movement, different terrain types, and basic gravity pushes this game to a 3 in scope in my mind; it is more than just a basic roguelike.
3 There is a lot of new ideas that were implemented competently. I don't know if they work for me, but the developer definitely set out to tackle a lot of new ideas and generallly succeeded.
3 I felt that this went a bit beyond the norm
Roguelikeness
3 Turn-based, ASCII, on a grid, bump combat. Although the gameplay has some unusual aspects to it, this is absolutely a traditional roguelike.
3 It's definitely a roguelike, just turned on it's side. There's a feeling of discovery on each playthrough and the brutal difficulty make it feel like a classic roguelike, even if the controls and point of view do not.
2 Far too deep into puzzles to be called a roguelike I think
There is a lot of really cool stuff going on here. The vertical climbing, different terrain types, fluid interactions, interesting abilities—it is impressively innovative. I had a hard time progressing too far; but I think it could be a really cool experience with some playtesting and small changes. If you haven’t played Lone Splunker I would recommend it—maybe some of the ideas related to climbing and using ropes would be interesting to think about. Overall—well done!
While I didn't particularly enjoy this experience, I applaud the developer for trying a lot of new things and implementing a lot of interesting mechanics. Very ambitious and executed well on a technical level. It could use some work on easing the player in so you don't have to constantly be referencing the manual just to understand what's going on, what abilities you can use, and what is currently killing you.
How high up can one go! That said, it isn't really easy to figure out what you can do to get up, and in many ways it feels like the character was a bit too limited in their abilities to go up. Maybe making the game easier might be worth looking into.
Craftsman of Sevendral
Completeness
2
3 All the functionality seems to work. Kinda weird that you can equip many gem sensors, but oh well.
2 Perhaps the game might have been fairly easy to understand, but even simple instructions on what keys moved your character would have been nice. I also wonder if the diagonal movement of enemies is intended, seeing as how the player can't seem to do that
Aesthetics
2
3 My only issue is with dead bodies masking the exit.
2 Automatic pickup please, especially when you aren't really choosing what you need to pick up. Wasn't really a fan of having to memorize the caverns of the map after they disapeared and don't think it made much sense to have it not pop up.
Fun
2
2 Slighlty grindy, but pretty fun nonetheless.
2 I never really felt forced to go forward, which meant my character just kept getting progressively stronger from level 1. I did notice that more enemies seemed to be spawning in as I played further, but that sort of just made it annoying to play.
Innovation
2
2
3 A lot of interseting ideas are being shown off, well done
Scope
2
2 Scope is on the lower side, but doesn't feel too small.
3 Quite a bit was being done here
Roguelikeness
3
3 Re-entering the levels is kinda off genre, but overall the games plays rather roguelike.
3 This felt like it was really pushingthe boundaries, but, close enough
Fun! I didn't try going very deep: just got the mithril and scrammed since I was getting swarmed by enemies. Died a couple times before I figured out how to handle the Elites: they're very scary at first. Felt a little grindy but maybe that's just how I played it, and it ended before it got too tedious (and the enemy spawns especially on the third level made it dangerous to grind too long). Nice work.
Lots of good feels about this game - easy to understand, nice colors, self-contained, forgiving but still can kill you. The crafting reminded me of idle clickers (in a good way). Would be nice to have some anti-grinding measures (e.g. only sell next level upgrades when you descend one more level).
I actually hope that someone might be interested in making another game like this, but perhaps with more traditional style enemies. This was a really fun entry to explore and the type of game I could see myself killing a lot of time with. Alternatively, pursuing this sort of style of game might work better within a broughlike context.
Defocus
Completeness
3 Just the right amount of polish for a traditional roguelike. Everything feels full, descriptions, enemies, items, a real joy to play.
3 I never managed to win, but up to depth 17 everything seemed great. On Wine emulator, the game seemingly crashed a couple times, but thankfully autosave brought me right back. One thing that I do think is a bug is the summoning scroll - it says the creature will fight FOR me, but the summonee fights against me :(
3 I didn't notice any real issues and the instructions to play were fine
Aesthetics
2 For a traditional roguelike I really appreciate the extra popout texts, and colored parts - a real joy to play.
3 The game does an incredible job of relaying the massive amount of information in a digestible way.
2 Looked fine and the controls worked, but there really isn't any need to have 'this' much elaboration for each specific action the character can do in a roguelike anymore
Fun
2 As enjoyable as any other roguelike out there :D
2
1 I can't say I understood why the idea presented here mattered, so it is just your bog standard traditional roguelike after that
Innovation
2 There is _some_ innovation, however the main quantum reality shifting mechanic didn't really feel significant. I kept trying to utilize it, but it never seemed like a viable solution to any problem.
2 The only innovation here seems to be the quantum mechanic, which, to be honest, I neither fully grasped nor used much.
2 Not really outstandingly innovative
Scope
2 It has everything you'd want in a roguelike, but doesn't feel like it goes much further beyond that.
3 It's not clear to me whether the entire game is written from scratch or it uses existing NetHack-like engine, but looking at the source files, it seems closer to the former, which is an incredible feat for a 7drl.
2 You have your basic setup for a traditional roguelike, but perhaps the dungeon design might have favored 'caverns' over 'labyrinth'; though perhaps I mistood the idea being presented here.
Roguelikeness
3 This is a roguelike to a T - even the main mechanical twist still adheres to the roguelike formula, and keeps the game centered in the genre.
3 If this isn't a textbook roguelike, then what even is?
3 You can't really get that much closer then this game
The game is a traditional roguelike, with a "skip ahead" mechanic. I enjoyed my time with this game, however mostly due to it being very much a traditional roguelike. It's innovative part didn't grab me, or I didn't fully grok its value. All in all the game was complete, polished, and felt like a true roguelike!
Not having played much NetHack, I find it hard to determine whether Defocus is just a NetHack clone with a quantum twist, or significantly different from it. I did probably a dozen runs before (hopefully) understanding all of the controls and reaching depth 17. My highlight was polymorphing some uninspiring enemy into a Purple Worm, getting swallowed by it, madly googling how to get out of a digestive state in NetHack, and realizing I am neither carrying a wand of digging nor a ring of slow digestion.
I really wanted to enjoy the concept here but I didn't really see any point of it, nor do I perhaps see it as being desirable. Part of the allure of roguelikes is the journey from A-B; it might have helped if there was some feedback of 'what' your character did when you zoned back in. Ultimately I didn't enjoy this entry, nor did I think that the idea was necessarily well shown off either.
The Quest
Completeness
3 No showstopper bugs, but a few minor annoyances; the mouse is technically required to play, since you can't pick up items without using it. (the keybinding for it is double-bound.) Also, the game will neither quit nor restart when you get a game over, instead requiring you to force-kill it-- stuff like that. Aside from that sort of thing, there's a lot of polish on display here with descriptions, items, monsters, and so on. So I'm not really willing to dock this a full point on Completeness just because of a few minor issues that will require very little tweaking to fix.
2 It only crashed for me at the end (when I died), forcing me to close the application and restart. Otherwise it ran fine.
2 Couldn't seem to escape after dying, can't drop from inventory, instructions for stagecraft could have used work
Aesthetics
2 The UI is servicable and documented enough, pretty much what I expect from a 7drl. Not super pretty, but nice and functional. If there were a little more visual polish brought to bear here, it would probably rate a 3, especially if you had more visually exciting feedback for the stagecraft effects, besides a letter overlaid on the monster. The use of screen real estate could also be improved quite a bit IMO; a lot of space is taken up by the status bar and combat log and a separate belief bar that you could probably consolidate into a more organized setup.
2 Very nice graphics and mouse controls.
2 Can't 'g' if you have the key assigned to something else
Fun
2 Fun concept that's interesting to play around with a bit. The stagecraft effects are fun, though I felt a little overwhelmed having all of them to work with right from the start; that said, I gather the "learning curve" of this game is largely around what enemies you should be spending which stagecraft abilities on, so this seems appropriate too.
2 I can't say I understood the entire thing with the "reenactment" and "stagecraft", but it was interesting.
2 It was moderately fun
Innovation
3 This is a good solid basic roguelike template with a cute innovation stacked on top that's interesting to play with, which is basically exactly what I love to see from a 7DRL.
3 The whole reenactment of the original Rogue is something I've never seen before, and using stagecraft is an interesting twist on the original.
3 This is sort of like mixing god abilities with a roguelike game, so neat
Scope
2 Good solid 7drl scope. I haven't gotten very far but there's at least a few different types of enemies with different powers and the usual collection of equippable gear &c; it's a good mix of classic easily understood roguelike features that provides a baseline for the stagecraft effects to act on.
2 feels like a 7DRL
2 Quite a bit of variation for enemies, lots of details for them too
Roguelikeness
3 Definitely a roguelike in every sense of the word. I don't really have anything more to say than that here.
3 Yep, I mean it's a reenactment of Rogue. That's about as Roguelike as you can get.
3 Certainly was one
I like this a lot. I didn't really touch much on the game's theme in my category-specific comments, but it's a really clever one and I think it's not only a great concept to build a roguelike off of (I love that every individual rat and skeleton &c in the entire dungeon is played by a unique actor), but it also informs a solid mechanical basis for bringing a unique play experience to that roguelike. I want to see you lean into that theme even more, especially visually. Find a way to connect Belief to the audience more strongly, maybe even include the audience heckling you or cheering as a combat log message when belief is particularly low or high; that sort of thing. I hope you'll do a little more polish work on it after the 7DRL, since this is the larval form of a pretty fun roguelike to play.
Interesting idea here. I wish I understood the effects of the abilities better. I'd really like to dig further into this one and I can't tell if the reenactment idea is actually more fun than just a traditional roguelike.
I kind of feel the biggest letdown here is the lack of 'theatrics' to go along with the theme. Maybe this could be potions and scrolls that or enemies breaking out into song and dance. Outside of this, the instructions and key bindings are an issue to address.
trichromat
Completeness
3 Really perfect from a completeness avenue. The visuals are tight, the game play is satisfying, and there is strategic depth
3 This is a fully formed, tight little puzzler. I can't imagine what I'd add that wouldn't detract from the experience.
2 Instructions would have been nice, though it seemed to work fine
Aesthetics
3 Just love these kinds of really simple beautiful visuals. The hit animations and cute atmosphere really brings this up to a perfect score
3 Very nice graphics and user interface with an easily understandable set of glyphs to help you discover the gameplay mechanics. Loved that it played great on mobile!
2 While I eventually understood that there were lowercase and uppercase letters, this wasn't immediate
Fun
3 Broughlikes are not my favorite since I'm bad at them, but this one was simple enough that it kept me drawn in
3 Oof. So addicting. I had to force myself to stop after well over an hour of play time. I still found myself coming back to it on the phone after dinner while waiting on the kids to get ready for bed. I can see myself playing this for some weeks to come, at least until I can break into the high score list.
2 I don't find it fun to blunder around trying to figure out peoples games, but outside of that it had an interesting idea
Innovation
1 One aspect where this one misses I think. There's some interesting 3-in-a-row aspects, but nothing here really hit me as groundbreaking
1 You're more or less towing bad guys into position and offing them to complete patterns of "trichroma" blood pools to advance the game. Pattern matching where you "kill" the mobs is interesting, but it's not particularly innovating within the RL genre. That said, the puzzle and scoring mechanics work well enough that I don't think it needed to bring much new to the table to be fun.
3 Certainly felt like we were breaking new ground
Scope
2 Nothing mindblowing, but the game is complete enough to fit in the scope of a 7drl
3 Again, if nothing is particularly novel in this game, everything that is there is quite fully formed - and there's a lot! I liked the scoring mechanic (multiplying factors based on the number of each pattern you've completed), the strategy involved in stockpiling shields or blocking mobs off the board, the frantic nature of the game as the board fills up with your own inky blood. Adding a competitive global high score list also ensures you keep coming back for more to see if you can figure out what everyone else has to break into the list. (I never did. 😅)
2 This project felt very small in terms of ideas being explored, but did a bit more then simply demonstrate an idea
Roguelikeness
3 Brough fits.
2 Broughlikes to me play more like tight little puzzlers where you're really trying to reverse engineer the design moreso than try your hand against the RNG. (It feels like there's a right way to play, not varying paths to victory based on the seed, for example.) There's certainly significantly overlap in the two genres, but the limited "inventory" management, lack of character progression, and extreme focus on economy of movement make it feel more like a roguelite puzzle game. Still, I think everyone sampling the best of this year's jam should at least give it a try!
2 Far more of a puzzle game then a roguelike game
Really gorgeous game with fun tight gameplay that falls firmly in the Broughlike space. The upgrades and other aspects could have been a bit more clear (or maybe I'm just so bad that it was hard for me to find them to discover how they worked), but the game was so aesthetically pleasing to play that I didn't mind the parts I didn't understand
I've played a few such "Broughlikes" in the past, though I confess I'm not very good at them. My absence from the high score list despite dozens of runs and over an hour of gameplay proves that point. That said, my dozens of runs and playtime also make it clear I enjoy the challenge. (It helped that this plays great on mobile, too ... I'm sure I'll be playing for weeks to come.) In the genre, I was probably best at Arcane Tower, which offers a bit more complexity in terms of enemy types and inventory management but also has a definite end per run vs. a variable high score list. While simpler perhaps, this game is just as addicting and great fun! It plays like a highly polished puzzle game where your goal is to splash the gameboard with the "trichromatic" blood of your enemies, creating patterns that activate buffs, increase your score, and progress you through the game. A couple plays are enough to learn the basics, and you'll soon be blocking enemies off the board and stockpiling shields like a champ. I really only reached a midgame state with scores in the low hundreds, but the high score list demonstrates it's possible to run into the thousands. When you figure out what it takes, please let me know. 😝
Post instructions. I think that was the biggest problem to be addressed here. Outside of this, the breadth of the project might have been a bit too smal; albeit, perhaps I didn't get in far enough to explore more mechanics.
Abaddon
Completeness
2 Fairly stable, did crash a couple times. Weird that you have to start it in a terminal just so you can enter your name (which is never used?): I thought the game was broken at first. Could be more polished but generally very solid for a 7DRL.
2 Looked to be complete and instructions clarified how to play enough; might be an issue of pathing through enemies, and really odd how you start up the game
Aesthetics
2 Mostly sensible; the red damage numbers disappear against some tiles (especially blood, if you're fighting in the same place), key for wait (period) wasn't in the in-game help, I would have liked 2-5 lines of log on screen.
3 Could easily make out a lot of the different tiles, lighting was interesting
Fun
2 For me, ultimately a little too long for how much was here. Two of the five runs I played were just unfair at the beginning, but there's some fun hack-n-slash here.
2 This was a very traditional roguelike, though there was a lot to wrap my head around
Innovation
2 I'm torn about innovative: there are some nice twists here but you're kind of incentivised to just bash away with the wimpy sword to make it effective only on the boss.
2 Mounting the horse in a traditional roguelike and using it for stuff was interesting
Scope
2
3 An extremely expansive project this entry is!
Roguelikeness
3
3 Yes
There were a bunch of interesting things here but overall it felt like I was incentivised to do the boring thing? Maybe if it were a little shorter? Do you use your wimpy sword (worse than your fists?!) to make it stronger only against the final boss? And also that's the only way to get money? Needing to drop the boss all the way back down to the start was a neat twist, but what if you didn't look at the hints: then ugh, you have to start over, and hopefully you didn't spend all your money or you're out of luck. Maneuvering your horse to also attack, or using the mounted attacks and using the horse's HP instead of your own, etc. There were a bunch of neat looking enemies on the last couple levels... but then I just bashed away at them as usual. And it felt like you might *want* to use bridges a lot but more often than not it was just a dead end and a waste of the very limited money. And not quite enough items: I only found another weapon on one of my four or five runs, I think? My winning run I didn't even find any potions or scrolls, just a couple pieces of armor. Didn't feel like it was worth the health loss to search the whole place to maybe find things so I just skipped past. So neat stuff but it felt like the design worked against actually engaging with the neat stuff.
I liked a lot of what was here, but at the same time, it wasn't very easy to grasp all the complexity. Trying to navigate the levels was also sometimes difficult, as sometimes you had areas you had to levitate across very early on. For the most part though, it was a really good effort for 7 days. Well done.
Byte Thief
Completeness
3 Felt Complete and explanations on how to play were decent
2 There are only four pickup types on most levels, yet one of them literally lacks any implemented functionality, and this has a clear effect on difficulty. Out-and-out bugs appear absent, but the game is prone to generate clearly unfair level types.
Aesthetics
3 Looked fine and I could clearly see what was happening
2 The graphics look nice and represent the mainframe theme well (though some past entries have done it better.) Controls could be improved - Enter should probably be reassigned from restart to level descent, and restart should be available at any time. Music/SFX would be really helpful here.
Fun
3 Just one more run....
2 The gameplay is reasonably interesting, but it is dragged down by a core Broughlike feature (pickup abilities, called Tokens here) not working, and the high dependence on starting level layout. Some arrangements of walls and defender daemons are basically impossible to clear without a massive increase in Trace (alertness meter.)
Innovation
2 One of the better broughlikes I played, but nothing too fancy
2 While neither the theme nor the style are truly new for 7DRLs, it is still unusual, and the daemon behaviours are not seen often.
Scope
2 Certainly felt like there was enough here to say it wasn't a demo
2 Fairly typical 7DRL scope was clearly intended, even if it was not fully implemented.
Roguelikeness
2 Far too restricted by its ruleset, this really felt too close to being a puzzle as a result
3 A Broughlike, and one which includes direct combat as well. Thus, a subgenre of true roguelikes.
Might have benefited from having a wait command for this one. I realize broughlikes don't commonly have them but adhering to that formality probably hurt the game more then it helped. Outside of this, I felt it was perhaps a little too easy to build up trace sometimes, unless you got really lucky.
A promising entry, but which could be so much better if it had actually implemented abilities, refined floor generation and had added music/SFX. As it is, there are better hacker-themed 7DRL entries from the recent years.
Midnight Xpressway
Completeness
2 The main mechanic is implemented. I’m giving a 2 here because there is no option to reset and if you lose you have to reload the page or die.
3 It feels like the project is complete, I encountered no bugs. It is nice to have both keyboard and touch controls.
2 I'm not sure this was explained well enough as I was at a loss while playing the game
Aesthetics
3 I think that the stark ascii aesthetic fits this game perfectly and is well done. It is clear and effective.
3 The game uses simple ASCII aesthetics with just enough color, it feels clean. Everything is easy to understand.
3 I could tell where the racers were on the racetrack easily enough
Fun
2 The idea is super cool here, and I had some fun trying to balance out speed and distance and guess how fast I could go. The lack of heal means that the game is a grind towards death, which of course is understandable for a 7DRL. I wish there was more reason to change lanes, like going to fast around a curve could force you to move to the outer lanes as you drift or something.
2 It was fun winning the game! But once you get the grasp of it, the game is a bit repetitive. Definitely worth playing!
1 It might have been fun if I knew what I was doing
Innovation
3 I’ve seen driving roguelikes in 7DRL before, but its very very rare and such a cool idea, and I’ve never seen it implemented like this before. I love when people bring the traditional roguelike gameplay to a completely new experience. Top marks for innovation!
3 I certainly didn't expect a racing game! Good job on adapting it to the roguelike formula.
1 Accelerating based roguelikes aren't really all that new and I don't really think this was being innotive enough
Scope
2 I am giving a 2 here because although the main loop is complete, there are no heal items, no powerups, and no interesting reason to be in one lane compared to another. The game is about pushing your luck, trying to balance speed and risk—I would love to see some additional mechanic that does some risk vs reward for lane changes.
2 I liked the circuit generation very much, from a simple shape to a loop with many short turns. The addition of other cars spices things up after the first level. It is fast to encounter all the elements of the game however.
2 Decent enough scrope
Roguelikeness
3 Game is turn-based, on a grid, uses ASCII. Although the gameplay is innovative, it is 100% a roguelike in my mind.
2 Many strong markers of the roguelike genre are here. However there is no "character" progression: we have all possible options from the beginning and make similar choices every run.
3 Fufills what it needs to in order to be a roguelike
As mentioned, I love seeing this kind of innovation. The game has a super cool feel, reminiscent of some racing board games I’ve heard of. I think just adding a few more mechanics would make this a very fun experience.
I really liked playing Midnight Xpressway, the circuit generation is neat and there is definitely some complexity to it. Getting better at the game and beating the four levels is really satisfying. It would be nice to add some mechanics to increase the replay value to the game!
I never really figured out how damage was inflicted on my car during turns or what the idea was to best get around them. Even beating the game, I never fully understood it. Likely if this was addressed, I would have had a better time with this entry.
Monster Tamer 7DRL
Completeness
2 A solid entry, but also one that I feel could go wider and more involved with what it does. As it stands now, it has the fighting down, and I found most other things I'd want to do missing. Could use instructions on whether the things you get are auto-applied. The log seems buggy, showing lines with no text.
3 No bugs that I found, aside from the game server being temporarily down.
3 No real issues seemed to be present and things were pretty simple to follow
Aesthetics
2 I could work out the elements after a while, but the very beginning is very confusing as the main avatar isn't _introduced_ before the game starts. The character we choose to start with is the main monster, and it always reads as if you spawn next to a monster who is VERY good at following you and not attacking at all. The taming mechanics could be presented with some UI element, as screens become hard to read, especially later on.
2 Aesthetics are nice and classic. The UI is pretty okay; no particularly serious complaints here, though I have a number of minor concerns. I would maybe like a little more information about my monster's stats to be available somewhere. I also find it a bit jarring whenever I die, because it jumps straight to the blank "you died" screen-- When something kills me, I don't get to see what happened on the last turn before the game ends, which is unfortunate because how exactly I died is probably very important information if I want to refine my strategy and get better at the game.
3 Controlled easily enough
Fun
1 It wasn't very fun for me, mostly because most of the deaths seemed not to teach me much. They were often one-hit kills and in some instances felt more like bugs than deaths. Deaths, and waiting around to heal the party.
3 There's something weirdly fun about this, and I'm not sure why I like it so much. It reminds me of just letting your pet do most of the work in the early turns of a Nethack game, and I'm using that as a complement. The shared-world gimmick contributes to this somehow but I'm not really sure I can articulate how. I just like it a lot.
2 A lot more interesting then I expected this sort of game to be
Innovation
2 There's a lot to be said about the "let's craft the dungeon out of the previous party's lair" mechanic that this game uses, and I love all of it. Monster taming in itself could be more interesting.
3 This is pretty much standard fantasy rpg mechanics with the attack/ defense, damage/hp, special effects so on. But you do get a lot of innovation points from me for the shared world gimmick. On the other hand, offline mode is a good include.
3 This blends a lot of new and interesting elements together
Scope
2 It's an idea that has a lot of scope, and it's great for a 7drl. Feels a bit rough around the edges, in some ways it's tech demo-like, but I think it passes that bar.
2 Pretty simple scopewise at its core; you can tell most of the work went into the game server that provides the shared world experience. There's quite a decent amount of content here though, what with all the different monsters you can choose from, each of which seems to have its own skill trees, so you still get good marks here.
2 Quite a bit here to show off the idea
Roguelikeness
2 The character-centric nature of a roguelike is interestingly not strongly present in this one. Generating the dungeon from previous lairs and keeping the previous parties as enemies is fun as an idea, but it means that after a while I was expecting everything but the layout, and it started feeling very samey.
3 I'm comparing it to Nethack elsewhere in this review so it should be no surprise that this feels roguelikey to me. It's got everything I'd expect from a roguelike, but has an interesting and unique implementation of those roguelike mechanics.
2 Due to the multiplayer aspect of the game, I can't say this is totally within the boundaries of what it needs to be
Not my cup of tea, but it could become my cup of tea. I think the monster taming needs to step up (maybe some other method of taming except bludgeoning?), and the innovative dungeon generation is maybe too much on the nose as-is. I think it would be great to reshape it into boss lairs, but otherwise generate a standard dungeon around, for the difference to really hit home.
I love this weird little game. It has a neat gimmick at its core, and it surrounds that mechanic with enough meat to make it interesting to try and explore further. I find myself wondering if the dungeon keeps growing forever. After writing this review, I still felt compelled to go back and keep playing until I'd been able to escape at least once, just to leave my insignificant little mark on this game. And I guess that's what it comes down to-- if you're making me want to keep playing your game, you're definitely doing something right.
Enjoyable! It might be nice if you could issue orders to your party in order for them not to do stupid things. I also found that just sticking to a single minion was ideal - since you don't level up, nor do your captured minions. Otherwise, good job.
Rogue ALIEN
Completeness
3 Complete and coherent. Game works. UX did let me down in a few places -- I didn't really get what "strength" did or understand that my leap distance went up over time.
3 The game, as it is now, is fully playable and feature complete. There's a sense that there might be missing features, but it's not that anything is actively felt as missing during gameplay.
3 I encountered nothing that seemed like a bug, but you openly admit that it's only "NOT QUITE FINISHED". I gather there was a lot more mechanical complexity planned for this, but it seems complete enough to me. Sometimes having a game that's complete is better than having a game that has more features to it.
Aesthetics
2 Simple, but it works.
2 Rogue ALIEN presents nicely, but there's a bit of cognitive dissonance between what you are (an alien of profound cunning and aggression) and how you present (with eased-in moving animations exactly the same as the slow prey you hunt). Hunting through the vents is presented amazingly.
2 Very nice aesthetics, controls are explained well enough. I would like to maybe see a little more explanation of how stamina interacts with the player's turns &c-- it took me a while to figure out how it worked. I'd also like a dedicated "wait" button to lure people into my clutches when they're just out of range-- I eventually discovered "use the leap ability to leap to the square you're on" as a workaround, but it would be nice to have a dedicated control for skipping a turn.
Fun
2 I really like everything that's here, but it's a bit too thin and the balance is too out of whack to make this a 3 for me. Your power scales EXTREMELY hard. At the start you are quite fragile and one wrong move is death. By the end, you move 5(?) times per enemy turn, can leap across the map in one of those moves, essentially teleport through the vents. So it starts hard and gets easy, which just feels wrong to me. The pieces are all here though; adjusted balance could make this a really nice little sneak+kill puzzle where skillful play feels really good. My suggestion -- ditch the "speed" improvement mechanic entirely. Peg it at 3-4 moves per turn. And
2 There's a lot to love about being the top hunter in a game. I love the feeling of hiding in the vents and planning my actions. This directly leads to the biggest problem for me, and that's a lack of an option to spend an action waiting. It's distressing to have to move from a hideout when the perfect ambush requires waiting. Other than that, the game is just too much fun to be so short.
2 There's not a lot here, but what is here is entertaining enough. Once you get the hang of the system it's basically easy to just do a leap combo to take out a whole room of foes and then retreat to the air vents, but making you feel powerful feels like it's kind of the point of letting you play the alien.
Innovation
2 There's not a ton that's new here, but the vents are so cool. Especially loved the way vision works around exiting the vents. And I do like how early on you really need the vents to get kills, but later on you're just rampaging above decks. Cool flavor.
2 I want to underline the hiding in the vent as a mechanic that could be used more, in one way or another: In a general sense, making roguelike levels that have multiple exits and planned shortcuts or safe passages by descending to a separate layer that might be disconnected to the rest might be a cool thing to consider.
2 Nothing super exciting here, but the stamina mechanic for timing and the air vents are fun to play around with.
Scope
2 It's on the small side. Only 5(?) levels I think, and only two enemy types. Quite basic level generation. Enough to make it a complete game, and I appreciated it has a real beginning and end to it in a short session. Plus there's nothing "extra" to the design that doesn't matter, or is too complex.
2 There seems to be much more planned and I can't wait for more!
2 This is just above the level of a tech demo-- I'm not giving you a 1 here mainly because the level of polish and everything around what little you have is very nicely done and I really appreciate a 7DRL that takes the time to get the basics right before throwing the kitchen sink in.
Roguelikeness
3 Checks the boxes.
3 Quite traditional, maybe a bit too limited for how the genre operates, but a nice roguelike package.
3 No qualms about calling this a roguelike.
I'll take away two core experiences from this: (1) vents are sweet, and (2) being a rampaging super powerful alien is really fun. The combination of those is a memorable (if small) experience that I appreciated. It evokes its source material effectively and it does really feel like playing an alien. However the balance is too far off and the game is maybe one more idea / one more cool enemy away from having a really compelling gameplay loop. It needs one more ingredient. Maybe it's an enemy that moves as "fast" as you (perhaps those auto-gun marines that lock on and then shoot every turn you move if they've locked on?) or maybe it's some more novel room designs that let you sneak up on people. Maybe enemies all move to where you got your last kill so they're less isolated over the course of a level. Maybe your leap goes on cooldown and you need to duck into the vents to get it back. Something extra would really bring this all together, I suspect. (Also, I really wanted a "wait" button given how much it matters that you be at the "start" of your stamina window versus being at the end when you make an attack.)
Rogue ALIEN is a concept that's been explored several times, even only this year alone. This entry is of a small scope but quite tight and engaging. I like the flow of the game, especially once the mechanics of jumping onto targets and moving through vents go into muscle memory. It would be nice if the game was a bit longer, so that that muscle memory could lead to a payoff.
This is a solid base for a roguelike that could potentially get much larger and more involved-- As it stands, it's a little minimal, but I really like how you got all the basics of your game down first and made sure those were very nice-looking and fun to play first. Too many other 7DRL devs (myself included) tend to overload the game with stuff and then not have time to properly nail down the core gameplay loop before the 7DRL period is over. You, on the other hand, have absolutely nailed the basics of your alien-simulator gameplay and made it fun, so now if you want to continue working on it you could easily start throwing in some more game mechanics, or bigger/more complex level designs, or smarter enemies, etc. to spice it up some more.
Roguesonne
Completeness
3 I have noticed nothing missing; if there IS something lacking, it's so minor that I forgot it along the way.
2 No game breaking bugs, though very basic combat and lacking more life to the world you explore. Some sound effects for item usage or at least visual indication of bomb usage would be helpful.
Aesthetics
3 From a very nice relaxed tileset, lovely music that sounds perfect in context, as well as a growing map that is lovely to look at, Roguesonne seems like a jewel.
2 The tiles are charming, the UI is serviceable. In exploration mode, would be nice to have hot keys for item usage. Numeric HP would help gauge the strength of enemy attacks.
Fun
3 I started playing it knowing full well how much I suck at Carcasonne, and how bad my visual thinking is. I snapped out of it an hour and a half later when I was, for the first time, completely happy with what I had on the map and ready to go explore away. The only gripe that I had is that I don't know if there exists a dungeon with more than one chest inside, but I wanted it badly. My reasoning was that having N tiles of dungeon connect should give me N-1 chests, but it ends up not working like that.
2 I enjoyed playing this for a solid 40 minutes and can only assume there were tiles yet for me to see. Combat was lacking, but the level building was novel and fun!
Innovation
2 While not innovative in its own right, I think it puts things together well enough for that very game mechanics glue to take the prize: having not only create the world and score it, but then explore, be ambushed in the woods, go visit the locals for resources, etc. just felt really fresh.
3 The tile laying concept applied to roguelike level gen is a great idea, would love to see this go even further.
Scope
2 This would be very well placed for a truly amazing 7drl project. I think it was scoped and executed with precision. I am only hoping for more content to come.
2 Great demonstration of what blending the concepts of RL dungeon exploration and tile laying world building could be. I can think of myriad ways this could be developed to great effect.
Roguelikeness
2 Part of this game is a roguelike, but in the other part, you're the procedural generator, so I guess that can work as well. I wish that battles were more varied; all dungeons felt the same, and that made it the bleakest part of every rebuild, although I did look forward to that changing with the size of the dungeon.
2 Not the most roguelikest of roguelikes, as this majored on the level building concept, but still features basic turn based combat and inventory management. Would love to see a goal and / or character progression, more variety of monsters, some emergent behavior based on tile combinations, etc.
Roguesonne is one of the best seven day roguelikes I've played so far, and I like it immensely. I'm decidedly not the target audience for games like this, having a form of aphantasia that makes tiled map-making hard and laborious. I spent time being disappointed with my maps but an hour in, they started clicking and I started looking at them as future-exploration spaces instead of simply fitting tiles, making it easier to reason about. I kinda wish for a tile swapping mechanic...
Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers was the first Eurogame I ever bought, and my family has loved the various versions of the game ever since. I've thought about the tile laying concept with respect to videogame level building in the past but never explored it, so it was great to see this in my review set. There are two modes to this game: level building by laying tiles and exploration, where you get to visit the buildings and dive the dungeons you've constructed. You have to use some modest strategy to place your tiles appropriately and decide how large of a dungeon you feel like exploring. Ultimately, dungeon size doesn't seem to matter, and there is no progression resulting from killing more monsters. The game is more than just a tech demo, worth checking out, but without a goal and greater variety, it doesn't commend itself to repeat play. I can see myriad directions for this to go, though, so I hope the developer sticks with it! I'd love to see more emergent level characteristics based on tile positions, greater interaction with NPCs or encounters on the roads (bring on the highwaymen!), and of course more strategic combat with a greater variety of mobs. Great start for what could become a great game!
Salvage Scramble - 7DRL
Completeness
2 Lotta crashing playing this game, not exactly easy to understand what one has to do
2 I only encountered one bug, where I was able to walk outside my ship and into the void, essentially going out of bounds.
Aesthetics
2 I like having all the customization of controls, but certainly movement and firing on things was lacking
2 Some nice ascii style animations here, ship controls surprisingly good. Needs some tweaking for the player inside the ship though.
Fun
2 I was frustrated by the game, but nonetheless somewhat interested in the idea
2 This was actually a fun little experience. Still cannot get over how tedious walking is though :P
Innovation
3 This is a really interesting mixture of ideas that we haven't really seen before
2 Something along the lines certainly exists but the execution is unique enough.
Scope
3 Excellent amount of scope
2 A nice little package suitable for a game jam.
Roguelikeness
3 Roguelike goes pew pew in space!
3 It does feel like a roguelike to me.
Not exactly sure what good the wandering around on the ship does for you; unless there is a point other then just having it, you might have been better off just making this about piloting a ship around. Maybe a HUD on enemies might have worked good so we could see their health (and maybe their ammo). Since you do have the inner ship mechanics though, might be an idea to add in some sort of combat inside ships, have bordering ships, away missions, or what not; be a thing.
I like the core concept here. I just wish the win condition was tied a bit more to the core mechanics. I also have a few minor nitpicks: The ship is too big and movement is too tedious inside the ship. Could be fixed by shrinking the ship or providing run commands or at least allow keeping the move button pressed. Also an arrow pointing towards the red zone would be cool.
TRASH-80 ROGUE
Completeness
3
3 Very complete feeling. I didn't notice any bugs. I had to F11 to full screen in my browser to see the entire game, otherwise it ran perfectly.
Aesthetics
3
2 It feels like a game you'd play on that classic TRS-80 or an old terminal, so it does what the developer was going for.
Fun
2
2 I don't know that the stylistic choices added anything to it, but I like roguelikes and it plays like a super, simple roguelike.
Innovation
2 love the simplicty of the system and simple commands to execute everything reminded me with cardinal quest way of tackling simplicity by removing inventory and automate a lot of the tasks and only leave decision making to the player
1 not innovative, in fact, it's the opposite of innovative, but I think that was the point.
Scope
2
2 It's hard to say with this one. The CRT effect is especially nice, but in the end, it's just a terminal style roguelike.
Roguelikeness
3
3 Yes it is. It forgoes a lot of the more complicated aspects of roguelikes for a simple, retro feel, which kind of makes it more like Rogue in a weird way.
This game is pretty good and easy to pick up and play and explore, one of my main issue is the big map with vision. I think it is part of the charm but because the camera moves whenever there is loop in the map, sometimes I get lost easily. I think a good solution is to darken previous visited area so I know if I visited this area before or not. Another simpler solution is to fix the camera so I can utilize the visual location not just the number in the upper left corner to know if I visited that area or not
Interesting premise and design choice. It's fun to play and it would feel right at home as an app on my phone when I felt like killing 10 or 20 minutes.
Wall Crawl
Completeness
3 Looked complete enough, didn't have any issues playing with it
3 While the game is unwinnable, that is completely intentional. Otherwise, it is seemingly lacking in bugs, the core concept works well and it can potentially provide hours of playtime to someone in the right mindset.
Aesthetics
2 I could clearly see where they might be, but using runes to knock them out was a bit tricky
2 Very clean and aesthetically pleasing ASCII in shades of blue. However, the way crawlers are represented could do with an improvement - it is not immediately apparent that those blue dots would kill the character on contact. Likewise, a better way to signify the importance of rune mode (particularly the ability to fast travel across effectively entire map) would be great. The game already has a good selection of SFX, but it would really benefit from 2+ musical themes - one for the normal gameplay and one for rune mode (perhaps a shifted version of the first.
Fun
1 Can't say I found it interesting
3 It's really fun to try and outsmart the crawlers when your means of dealing with them are so limited! Running out of energy to activate runes sets you back just enough to make you want to come back ahead. Could have really good longevity.
Innovation
2 Seemed like a fancy idea
3 While top-down "miner" games have been around for a while, it's still unusual to see something like this in a 7DRL format, working well.
Scope
2 A bit more then a tech demo, but not much more
2 While there are not that many gameplay elements altogether, this is also not the type of game which needs them. Considering the time required for testing, it seems commensurate with a typical 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
2 Felt like this one was really veering too far away from a roguelike into some puzzle game or antoher
3 A puzzle-style "Broughlike", which I consider part of the true roguelike family.
Seemed like a fun time waster but also one that wasn't really scartching the roguelike itch. Maybe some more elements could be added into it to give the player something to do; besides just killing the wall crawlers.
A great ASCII puzzler! Unwinnable 7DRLs often seem to be that way because the creator ran out of time for a proper ending, but this actually works well as a "score attack" game. Only fairly minor improvements are needed.
Rogue Absorb
Completeness
3 I didn't find any bugs, it isn't all that deep but it seems to be finished
3 Everything ran as expected, I didn't quite make it to the end, but there were no bugs and no issues.
3 Not sure there was any real issues here, and how to play was explained well enough
Aesthetics
2 It's rot.js, seems normal enough. Not ugly but also not anything above and beyond
2 There is a bit of clown vomit going on here and the screen feels very cluttered with the instructions stacked around it.
3 Can easily determine what color enemies are, what value they have, and where they are
Fun
2 Pretty fun to play for a couple levels but I don't know that it would reward putting hours into it
3 Reading the description, I thought I wouldn't enjoy it, but the strategy involved is great and makes you want to try over and over again.
2 The game length was perhaps a bit too long, and I could backtrack down levels in order to get values I needed, but otherwise I enjoyed this entry
Innovation
2 An interesting twist, very puzzle-like, but imho needs something beyond just the basic (you+them)%10 combat. Feels like half of a clever idea, like it needed a few more days to come into its own
2 The absorbing and math mechanics add a level of strategy to the standard roguelike model.
2 Using math in roguelikes has been done before, but not frequently
Scope
1 The author said he wrote it in 3 days and, well, it seems like it. I wish he had used the whole week because it seems like there's potential here!
2 Doesn't stray too far from the standard.
2 This was extremely simple, but not so basic that you lose all marks here
Roguelikeness
3 Feels pretty roguelike to me
3 Yup, this is a roguelike. It has that tense, tactical, exploration with the hint of death around every corner.
2 A little too puzzle based for me to call it a roguelike
There's some good potential here but it needs to be fleshed out some more. I love puzzle-roguelikes and this is one; the author seems to have had an idea for a clever puzzly combat system and wrapped rot.js around it. Which is a valid 7drl! Bt the combat system needs a bit more there to truly shine imho.
Very fun. I didn't finish this one, but totally intend to.
I'd suggest shortening this game as the premise is demostrated long before you even get halfway down. It might have also been an idea to remove the staircase as it was too easy to just go up a level to get what values you need and come back down. Maybe some more concepts could have been added in here too.
Dundledorf's Castle
Completeness
3
3 Everything was polished, and bug free!
2 Noticed a couple of bugs, one relating to inventory, another with entering levels and getting immediately hit by enemies; otherwise it played fine
Aesthetics
2
2 Everything was enjoyable to see and hear, however nothing was exceptional in this area.
2 It might have been an idea to make dropped items disapear, as managing them was really clunky
Fun
2
2 The game was fun for sure - but wasn't a "must play".
3 Simple fun. Definitely something that would be good on mobile phone.
Innovation
1
2 Not much innovation in terms of the genre, or games in general - however, the game was refined to a point that felt like a nice subset of mechanics (I believe having a depleating light source was the intended innovation of the game).
3 A roguelike with broughlike mechanics; oddly not seen by me before!
Scope
2
2 Seemed like just the right amount to make the game feel complete, but no part of it seemed particularly ambitious.
2 Demonstrated quite well the idea, but I feel more could be added somehow
Roguelikeness
3
2 It had all the trappings of a roguelike - however I feel like a 3 would have had more of the complex discovery of a traditional roguelike.
3 Oddly, yes, this WAS a roguelike; despite being a broughlike
Not bad! Lightweight, but a cute little 7DRL. Good job stopping and polishing instead of overreaching.
This was a nice combination of minimal roguelike mechanics, visuals, and music. I really enjoyed my time with the game, but it suffered from a small amount of content paired with an endless dungeon climb.
Usually a dock a point for broughlikes as they are far more puzzle based then adventurer based. Your game however was a refreshing change from this I am happy to say. This was an excellent entry.
Outlast
Completeness
2 Good job tying up loose ends to make it fully functional, but the lack of balance makes the game feel like it doesn't really have a point other than waiting.
3 This is a very complete game. Great work!
2 No real issues with bugs, although I didn't look like Iron Ore Bar served a purpose - or the game lacked advanced instructions
Aesthetics
3 Could definitely improve with more touches (like mouse control), but has a solid foundation and nothing was too hard to track.
2 The tiles and palette are pleasing enough, but I found the controls hard to remember even after 30 minutes+ playtime. The developer was aiming for minimalist input, but I would've appreciated some differentiation between "select / use" and "cycle through inventory." Emerald Woods, a very similar game, benefits from having just a few additional inputs.
1 Controls felt really clunky here. I also had trouble really determining the difference between zombies and skeletons. You might have had stamina costs too high too which likely should be reflected in the score here.
Fun
1 While it's a fine start, the core of the game is waiting 5 turns for stamina to build up. The enemies are very easy to learn and there's not a lot of play to it after you learn the first move. It's very possible to win on the first run.
2 It's a crafting game, and a pretty solid one at that. If that's not your thing, perhaps it's worth skipping, but if you'd like to see a pretty impressive take on the genre given the constraints of a 7DRL, I recommend checking it out. It would have been nice to see more contextual clues regarding how to progress - i.e., what's my motivation? Something to interest me in and orient me toward the goal of the game.
2 A rather leisurely style of game. Not really my thing but enjoyable enough.
Innovation
2 Cool idea to pull in minecraft into a roguelike, but the time constraint really felt like it prevented the coolness from showing up how it would with more time
2 While not particularly new for the roguelike genre (cf. Emerald Woods again), this is still a solid implementation of a fairly uncommon twist. I suspect, based on the description (nukes?!?), there are more interesting items later in the game, but after an accidental death at night, I haven't played again to try to unlock them.
2 I'm guessing Minecraft is a big inspiration here, but I didn't see much else breaking new ground
Scope
2 Solid mash-up concept, but the size of the board is pretty constricting and the few types of enemies, tiles, etc made it hard to give this full marks
3 Honestly, this is much more than I would've expected out of a 7DRL. Every time I thought, "Ok, I'm probably nearing the end of the content here," I found new things to explore and experiment with. Very impressive!
3 This was ambitious, for sure.
Roguelikeness
3 Very solidly in the genre.
3 Solidly in the genre, even if the more traditional roguelike elements of the game take a backseat to progressing through crafting recipes.
3 I would consider it a roguelike
It's a really solid foundation of a game. The idea of smashing together a minecraft/harvesting game with a more traditional 2D rogue is a good one. The concept kind of got eaten by the time constraints and it doesn't feel like the enemies were fleshed out enough to fulfill the promise of strategic combat. The crafting system also suffers as a result because all of the reasons to craft should be driven by the monsters, but there's just no need to go for the pay-off. Overall, it feels a little lacking but has the feel of a good first start
Outlast is a very solid crafting roguelike with progression oriented around finding new ingredients to craft increasingly capable and complex recipes. It's deceptive, too, in that I expected to run out of things to craft and really never did. The developer did a great job in a week cramming a lot of content into this! If you aren't particularly enamored with crafting games as a concept, there may not be much in it for you, but I think it's worth checking out. Ultimately, the game is a bit grindy (like I find most crafting games) and lacked sufficient personalization features to interest me in creating a unique homebase. More contextual or narrative reasons to advance through the game's content might help give purpose to the playthrough, and a few more inputs would keep me from feeling like I never quite know what to expect when I press C. Congratulations on such a great entry - will definitely be happy to revisit in the future!
A really intriguing idea. Likely the biggest thing to improve on though is the controls. Usually I praise streamlined controls, but this might be the odd case where the tradition of 'alphabet soup' might be a good thing to consider; I don't know how many times I accidentally made a workbench. Outside of the controls, having different colors for enemies might help in determining what is a zombie and what isn't. Impressive entry.
Seafarer's Spirit
Completeness
2 It's a complete game but the polish is lacking - the camera is behaving a bit weird - choppy and jiggly, inputs are sometimes blocking or being consumed without any effect, and at one point the music just stops and never returns.
3 Seems pretty complete, I didn't see anything obviously broken or buggy.
2 Nice looking game, seems complete, but it doesn't seem to have an ending, and I discovered that the map can have one-way passages in it that leave you stuck in a place you can't get out of. There's a lot of minor polish stuff missing, like the fact that the music eventually ends and doesn't loop.
Aesthetics
2 The game has quite a nice style for the ships and marine mobs, but takes a weirdly basic approach for the ground. The animation of the cannon balls refilling is wonderful, and the health bar is quite "alive", it pulls the eye nicely.
3 Really pretty for a 7DRL: screen shake effects, nice art, there was even music
2 Looks very pretty, and the controls are reasonably straightforward, but there's not enough information being given by the UI. The extent to which wind matters is extremely subtle, which makes it hard to pick up, and there's absolutely no information given about what the upgrade I picked up from an enemy ship does.
Fun
2 The game was fun but I wouldn't say it has a lot of replayability - it felt quite equal difficulty on all levels, and more like a puzzle than anything else. There was one moment that was pretty cool, where two ships blocked me off so I couldn't turn, but the only thing I could do at that point is shoot and move, and they couldn't hit me, reducing the heat of the situation greatly!
2 It's not bad. I wish there were a bit more information about what's going on, like what the wind actually does, what the different kinds of cannon do, etc. I figured out some of it through playg
2 This is a cute little roguey shoot-em-up but it is missing a lot more complexity before it'll be really enjoyable.
Innovation
2 It's a cool game with potential innovation being that the player slowly becomes a larger ship, having more trouble navigating the world in an easy way.
2 The movement is neat in that you're a ship, you take up more than one space, only fire broadsides, and have a turning radius. But other than that, you kill enemies and get powerups, kinda like every video game ever.
2 I like sailing mechanics in almost any game, and this is a nice one. The enemy ships are interesting to fight since they pretty much always vastly outclass you so you're forced to be a little more clever-- I missed having more than a few of them to fight.
Scope
2 Feels like a 7DRL game, has a beginning and an end - very nice progression between those, but nothing too crazy. More systems would be welcome. Good work!
2 A good scope for a 7DRL
2 Pretty much what I'd expect from a 7DRL-- you've got a basic game here that seems more or less playable and winnable, but you're missing a lot of polish work.
Roguelikeness
3 Has all the standard roguelike features, including tight resource management and your only weapon basically having charges that regenerate via movement. Would be nice to have more complexity.
3 Random maps, permadeath, grid movement, it's a roguelike in a different setting
3 This is a fine little base roguelike.
Good game! I think it's main strength is its cute presentation and tight design, but it leaves something to be desired. I feel like I could have rushed all the levels up to the main boss without any problems which might not be a design goal. I think it's interesting to handle larger ships and have the minigame of taking tight turns suddenly become the main issue you're dealing with. The wind telling you where to go is great. There are things I was missing, but they didn't seem to affect the playthrough - I don't know if the crew has any effect on the game, for example. At any rate, cool entry!
Not a bad little game, fits the roguelike definition, plays sort of arcade-like or puzzle-like. Very good presentation for a 7DRL.
I love the concept here, and the sailing mechanics are nice, but I want them to feel like they matter more. Aside from that, most of what your game is missing is just polish work-- aesthetics, more enemy ships, balancing, providing more information to the player in the UI, and having an ending to the game after you've defeated all the enemies.
A Witch Comes to Town
Completeness
2 A couple bugs related to world generation and not being able to enter buildings.
2 Very nice presentation, would be a 3, but occasionally the text goes offscreen and I thought I had a hard freeze at one point, but just couldn't see the prompt to continue.
2 I assume this is mostly complete. Although I did suffer a complete crash when I equipped a torch.
Aesthetics
2 Solid traditional graphics. Animations and lighting are nice. More sound effects would have been appreciated!
3 The game looks very nice. Occasionally things get hard to see, but I think that's intentional, especially at night.
2 BEAUTIFUL. One point docked for having Blue text on a black background.
Fun
2
3 It's fun in a weird, Animal Crossing sort of way. If you could die in Animal Crossing.
1 It sort of lacked any real action
Innovation
2
2 Nothing amazingly innovative, but everything is implemented very well and cozy Roguelike is something that's still underserved.
2 This did seem innovative,
Scope
2 There might be more here than I managed to experience.
3 There's a lot going on here. A lot of different mechanics and a full quest system.
3 Looks to be a very complete gameworld to explore.
Roguelikeness
2 It plays like a traditional roguelike, but it's not very random.
3 It's a roguelike, but it's cozy. That feels weird typing that.
3 Not your usual mix of gameplay for a roguelike, but I think I can call it one
First, I do love the idea. Reminds me of "Strange Horticulture". Helping the villagers and wandering around to find plants and ingredients is a compelling scenario. However, it left me a bit frustrated. First couple tasks, collect some fruit, great, done. Then somebody needs a dragonberry, easy. Next, someone complains about their feet being wooden, which I assumed was "barkskin", treated with a dryad's tear, but that didn't work. I also got messed up by zombies, but wasn't able to use its cure of a "life potion" on myself and died. If there's something to find in that zombie dungeon, I don't know how you're meant to make your way through it. If the game were expanded I can see it being quite compelling.
I'm guessing the idea here is that this is a research game where you try to help people with their problems by brewing potiosn for their needs. I never really got to brewing, or maybe I didn't understand it. Probably my biggest gripe though is how 'empty' the world feels to run around in.
Battlemage
Completeness
2 I only encountered some minor bugs, but one was an item getting lost entirely.
3 Might be a bit of a graphical issue with one of the items, but testing the item seems to produce the desired result
Aesthetics
2 Some minor flaws with clicks not being registered or the UI elements taking too long to get active. Also sizing of some elements seems weird.
3 I can easily determine how everything functioned
Fun
3 This was actually very fun to play. A bit on the easy side, I won at my very first attempt, but still enjoyable.
2 Got me through a run
Innovation
2 There are some twists on the most well-known formula, but I am a bit torn about how innovative the concept as a whole is.
2 Reminds me heavily of Backpack hero, but certainly distinct from it. However, I felt that there was more room to play around here.
Scope
2 Made good use of the time and delivered something I’d expect.
2 Seemed like a terrific array of items was present, though enemies, attack types, and other such mechanics seemed light
Roguelikeness
2 It’s a turn-based combat puzzle game that’s played on a grid. I miss the randomly generated grid-based environments, the dungeons, the exploration aspect.
2 Starting to get off the beaten path here, but not so forgone from it
This was actually very enjoyable to play. It feels like a complete little package, with some nice items and mechanics. It reminds me of the popular auto-battler games. As such, this isn’t a roguelike for me, but it is still focused on turn-based combat and very fun at that.
So I've guessing Backpack Hero must have been a reference to this; I would be surprised if it wasn't. The synergy interaction was neat, although I think having some items take up more grid space might be something to look into; maybe have enemeis mess up your grid. Having enemies do more then attack and shield would certainly be a worthy investment in time too.
Intraplanetary
Completeness
3 Seem complete to me. I didnt notice any bugs. The game has a lot features and can be completed.
3 Instructions seemed to work well enough, and it played fine
Aesthetics
3 I like the use of ASCII graphics, especially enemies FOV and visual effects from using grenades
1 Coloring the symbols could have been a little better, menu browsing was a bit clunky
Fun
2 I like survival and exploration elements of the game, but it got pretty repetitive for me very quick. Maybe because of the spawn rates of items being too low. Inventory managment sometimes can be really annoying. Though It has a a good atmosphere with visuals and writing.
1 The pacing felt too slow
Innovation
2 It looks like a regular classic roguelike but it has a survival horror atmosphere in it which is pretty original to me.
2 Exploring derelicts isn't necessarily new, but this is an intersting take
Scope
2
2 Demonstrated the idea, but I wasn't 'wowed' by it
Roguelikeness
3 It has all a decent roguelike needs.
3 I'm fine with calling it a roguelike
I really like survival and exploration elements of Intraplanetary and it has good aestetics for an ASCII game. It has a good variety in items but sometimes it's hard to figure out the use of some of them. And inventory management can be tedious. Though with some new gameplay mechanics it can be an interesting full game.
This had an interesting concept, but it looks like there is too much emphasis on collecting stuff initially before moving on; instead of throwing the player in a dangerous situation immediately. It was also sort of hard to perse where everything was as the colors blurred a bit too easily together. Possibly with more playtime I may have found more, but nothing was really compelling me to want to really invest time in doing so; plus we are judging these entries within a 20-40 minute range.
Prim Reaper
Completeness
3 Functioned as I would expect a complete game too
3 Feels like it is a full game and no bugs to be found
Aesthetics
3 Controlled and looked adequate for a 7DRL
3 Really pretty and gives me solid throwbacks to Commodore 64 games. The music and sound effects help a ton too
Fun
2 I think I missed the 'stealth and dagger' portion of what I was doing here. But I had fun 'stabbing and running'!
2 Interesting after a couple of plays and it feels like it's potentially very deep with lots of different ways to assassinate.
Innovation
2 A nice little twist on stealth style roguelikes
2 Not really wildly different than other stealth games, but I give this a bump because of how much the pathing and number of enemies complicates things
Scope
2 Maybe there could have been more opportunities for kiling people, but there was at least a couple ways!
1 The lack of progression and difference between levels made it feel like this didn't really go super broad in scope
Roguelikeness
3 Yep, I think I can say this is a roguelike game
1 It has proc-gen and permadeath, but beyond that, there's no much overlap here. Items don't carry forward, and levels don't feel like they have any connection.
I think the biggest problem here was understanding the risks of kniving people, along with sight lines of actors. Outside of that though it was a good little venture.
Each scenario here is pretty interesting and the game is definitely hard, so it rewards skill. The sheer volume of NPCs makes it really hard to get off a hitman-style assassination, but there are other ways that make it feel like there is a lot of explore. The fact that there's no progression and levels feel like they are completely divorced from one another makes me think this isn't a roguelike, but each level is interesting, even if they feel pretty same-same after you play a couple.
The Call of Judgement
Completeness
3 Feels complete, no bugs or real issues.
2 I'd call the game almost fully complete, but the balance is off - either it's too easy or too hard and the game doesn't seem to care either way.
Aesthetics
2 Looks okay.
3 Simple, minimal, readable, I almost thought that the icons of the items you collect are too complex.
Fun
2 Equal parts addicting and frustrating.
2 I was surprised by how much fun I had with this one! It was unexpected, but offered quite a nice deconstruction of mechanical knowledge - quite similar to someone choosing to do this with a chess game. I think the game would work even better if the health was more minimal or discrete (eg. 5 lives instead of 50hp) and if there was little to no randomness involved with the actual execution of the battle.
Innovation
2 A cute take on an auto-battler roguelike.
2 I haven't seen too many idle battlers fully be roguelikes, so that's quite new to me!
Scope
2 Decently sized, maybe not enough variance to warrant 100 levels. Could have done with a couple more reward items.
2 There's more content here than obvious at first! I'd like to see more, but what's there is quite successfully scoped and executed.
Roguelikeness
2 Mostly a roguelike.
3 It's very interesting: it's a frame around a roguelike game, allowing for all the knowledge one would use in a roguelike to be used passively and bring success or fail in this one. I won't dwell, but it's quite a fun concept to think about.
Oddly addicting, but there's a touch of frustration on every death. They all ended more or less the same way--by getting obliterated; there are no slow spirals of death here. Health potions become more or less useless as you go, since you seem to either crush the level or die rapidly. There's not really a "close call" that makes you spend your health potions. Still, the skill trees are cool (are the sprites AI generated?) and the base game is compelling.
The Call of Judgement should be grown from here - I think there's a very good idea behind this if the framed roguelike grows more tight, both more predictable in every step and more capable of emergent gameplay. The balancing should also be fixed to allow for even more different ways to say "skip". Otherwise, it's pretty cool!
Wizard Tower
Completeness
3 I didn't notice any outstanding issues
3 Seemed stable and bug free. Some lack of polish.
Aesthetics
3 Looked and played just fine
2 Sprites were okay for a 7drl, though not ideal. Music was fine.
Fun
1 I was really bored playing this game
2 Pretty fun, though the lack of difficulty/challenge added some tedium.
Innovation
1 Nothing new or interesting to really note here
2 No extremely unique ideas, but the nice packaging and cohesive experience earns this a 2.
Scope
2 Lots of different enemies and spells, but they weren't fleshed out
2 Decent scope and effort.
Roguelikeness
3 I feel confident calling it a roguelike
3 If this isn't a roguelike then I don't know what is.
I liked what I saw here but I felt that the enemies could have been a bit more then grunts that walked up to you. Giving them different abilities or a ranged attack like the corrupted wizards might have helped. The corrupted wizards could have maybe used more then a progressively strong Magic Missile - have them cast spells at me that I have to figure out how to dodge or handle; the attacks they used would have been better on an elite enemy type that could commonly spawn. Magic Missile was quite strong, to the point that it might have carried me through most of the game (outside of corrupted wizards of course).
Very nice coffeebreak roguelike. I like the fact that the lack of MP/mana to manage meant that you were managing the spaces between enemies instead. The fact that you could only wait by bumping into a wall (whether bug or deliberate) was interesting, though it probably undermined that mechanic somewhat. The only issue was the relative lack of challenge -- nearly every spell could defeat a monster in a few hits, meaning there was no pressure except for when there was a group of enemies, which was when the game really shined. Groups of enemies were rare and fairly easy to avoid, however. The lack of a clock was also an issue for this kind of game, perhaps if a wizard showed up about 20 turns in and chased the player.... In any case, with some polish, refining, and new/interesting types and groups of enemies this could be a neat spellcaster version of Porklike.
Land of the Fallen Magi
Completeness
2 The Linux build was broken out of the box (had to rename Enemies.json to be lowercase) and at one point my mana was decreasing into the negatives every turn for no reason. But it's playable!
3 This is a complete game. It even saves your progress between sessions. If the dataset included in the game is any indication, it is dense with content.
2 Fairly self explanatory play, though did a little instruction is always nice. I noticed that the spell for the warrior wasn't working right, and the rnagers MP came back far too quick
Aesthetics
2 Color choices made it a little hard to read things but it looks all right overall
2 It looks like a traditional roguelike with colors without being garish
2 I'm not sure why Fire Elementals were all showing up as an F. Maybe could have had lowercase F to denote medium ones while uppercase F was for large; having lowercase E for small ones of any type. The ranged combat was overpowered too.
Fun
2 Not bad! A perfectly serviceable roguelike, with everything you'd expect.
3 If you like roguelikes, you will like this one. Simple enough to pick up and play, but rich enough in content to keep you coming back.
2 I had a little fun here for sure, although the tankiness of enemies the farther in you got, but lack of the enemies using any real skills sort of made it a bit samey
Innovation
1 It didn't seem to have a lot of new ideas, just a standard dungeon crawl. The abilities didn't seem to add that much to the game imho.
1 It's a roguelike.
2 It was a very vanilla flavored roguelike, but the theme for it was revolutionary enough
Scope
3 Pretty great for a week! Lots of variety of weapons and enemies, different dungeon levels are generated differently and look different on screen, there's a ranged combat system, not just bump-to-attack, it's more than a usual 7drl has
3 Multiple dungeons and HUGE datasets. Very impressive amount of content.
1 Perhaps a bit more could have been done then the traditional experience.
Roguelikeness
3 Couldn't be more rogue-y if it tried.
3 I can't think of any other way to describe this one, it is a roguelike.
3 As generic as the gameplay was, it was a roguelike through and through
If I didn't know this had been done in a week, I would think it's a normal roguelike game, it's very well done. That is both its best and worst quality: it's a good roguelike game, but usually these challenges are a place to try out new and weird ideas and there's not one here that I can tell. It's just a good roguelike, done in a week.
It doesn't do much to expand the genre or to innovate on gameplay, but the developer created a dense, content heavy roguelike that is fun to play.
Congratultions on publishing your game. The bugs obviously need to be ironed out a bit for skills, and the game balance could use some work, but otherwise this was a good little entry to explore.
Orbworld: The Orb of Destiny
Completeness
2 I was not able to go to the next depth but all the features works well
3 Seems quite complete, pretty nice to play.
3 Everything was adequately explained and I didn't notice any problems while playing
Aesthetics
2 The game have its own appeal but there is some inconsistency between UI and in game elements
2 Seems pretty nice, there's quite a cool orb-related... well... everything! I liked how the levels shift to be more orbish as you go deeper, enemies go from humanoid to spherical, etc. but while that effect is cool, it makes all the spheres a bit hard to read.
2 Probably would have been better off making this a cardinal roguelike so you wouldn't have the awkward diagonal keys. Also a bity clunky to read scrolls
Fun
2
2 Pretty fun! I still don't know what some of the items do and why I sometimes suddenly die (for example, right after using teleportation with full health), but most of it was clear, cool, and quite nice to play. Going down to the lower levels is exciting, but the switch in strength sometimes felt a bit too much.
2 Traditional roguelikes are always interesting enough to play, especially when they have a bit of depth to them
Innovation
1 It is a basic roguelike with items and there is nothing new
2 Seems very standard, all things considered, except for the fluffy parts focusing on the orbs.
1 The theme of roundness could have perhaps been better explored
Scope
2
2 Nice options, lots of scrolls, weapons, etc. There's an end game, the game becomes more difficult, there's variety in almost everything.
3 Quite a bit of content to run through!
Roguelikeness
3
3 Roguelike in all the important aspects.
3 Yep
The game just provide cardinal direction roguelike with items and bump fighting mechanic like most of the roguelike games. It adds auto-explore and auto stairs goer. These features are great and were introduced by rogue fable. This game tries to be rogue fable in a small amount of time. The developer managed to achieve some of the features but because of that the UI and moving between levels feels complicated. Although some of the buttons are roguelike buttons, it would be better if it adapts some new ideas from cardinal quest to produce more of fast paced type of roguelike that fits with auto-explore
Orbworld was quite a nice ride. It's straight-forward, sometimes I felt like I'd like it to be a bit less striaght-forward. It's a nice surprise to see in what way the word "orb" can be put into other words. Mechanically, Orbworld is quite the standard run, with good orb-related fun, but ultimately (at least in my experience) not too much more depth in that regard. Still, pretty cool for a 7DRL!
The idea of having rounded stats was interesting, but I think it would have been a good idea to have the roundness explored in different ways. Past level 1, I never had 'rounded' stats, due to all the equipment and stat increases. Maybe some forgiveness in stat differences, or having them all round to 5, or what not. Else, those controls need work. Numpad keys, preventing diagonal movement, whatever!
Rogue Strokes: Minigolf Dungeons (7DRL 2024)
Completeness
2 Complete game but could use more polish - camera doesn't necessarily start on your character, doesn't keep up if you go really fast so you can't necessarily see what's happening. Camera keeps moving even after it's your turn so if you're in a hurry it can mess up your next shot: you have to sit there and wait for it. I would have liked "par" to have been explained; that took me a bit to figure out.
2 It feels like a complete game, no game breaking bugs, but could use a touch of polish, especially on the camera.
2 Adequately described. Physics didn't seem to always work as expected.
Aesthetics
2 Pretty readable, controls make sense.
2 I liked t he look of this. I think cartoony sprites and a character that looks like a golf ball might have been better, but that's just personal opinion. The screen occasionally felt a little cluttered and some better camera work would do a lot to improve this.
2 Everything was pretty easy to make out, though the physics move mechanic was kind of awkward to use, and the hazards were really hard to avoid
Fun
2 Fun physics/billiards roguelike
3 It was very fun, especially after playing a ton of roguelikes, this one was a nice breath of fresh air. I don't think the physics will be everyone's cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it.
3 This was highly fun
Innovation
2 Nicely done physics roguelike: ghosts make you "confused" and you wobble around crazily, "shattered" levels where the walls can be bonked around were a nice touch.
2 If I hadn't recently played Par For the Dungeon, I'd think this was way more innovative. The breaking out of the level and some of the effects from monsters are a nice touch.
3 This is one of the better blendings of pool/roguelike mechanics that I have seen before
Scope
2 Toward the upper end of what I expect from a 7drl, maybe?
2 Definitely feels like a very feature rich 7DRL.
3 Quite a bit was here
Roguelikeness
2 Physics/billiards roguelike: the player and NPC take turns making a real-time shot.
2 On paper it seems to meet most of the requirements of a roguelike (as the developer points out on his entry page) but it feels very arcady.
2 I sort of feel there could have been more leeway to 'explore' the pool dungeon, collecting items and such; though it was closer to a roguelike then I would have expected
Nice game! The shattered levels made me chuckle but then were... maybe more annoying than interesting? I love the ghosts. I'd like to see the camera tied directly to the player, or at least move fast enough to keep up with you when you make a hard shot. Also the way it slowly pans to the player even after it's your turn again is annoying because you can start to shoot and then it messes up your shot. Plus it doesn't necessarily put the character on-screen when you move to a new hole. And it took me a little while to figure out what "par" did. But camera aside, I had fun with this one!
This was fun and with a little polish it could be a full game (though it is very similar to an existing game).
Really intriguing pool game that could still have a lot more built on it. I'd tone down the hazards a bit as the controls to avoid them weren't they greatest. Outside of this, the food clock could have been upped a bit so there was more inclination to go after items and such that appeared. A mulligan and/or tap in option might have been nice too.
Tempest Voyager
Completeness
3 Nothing seems broken, although balance seems very hard
2 Could use a little polish and really needs some sort of sound. I had a softlock after using a wormhole (teleport) to a disconnected part of the map.
2 Really needed instructions for the various structures you could build, and how to build them; not to mention you had a food clock. Starlines were technically not linked either so it was possible you could get screwed over by not having anywhere to go.
Aesthetics
3 Has a really nice DOS-EGA-like graphical style
3 The game has a look that fits the gameplay perfectly
2 The imagery worked to depict everything, but sometimes I missed where starlines were or weren't
Fun
1 You move from space to space along a grid and each space gives you something to find or interact with. But you also have a constantly (and rapidly) draining energy counter that discourages exploring the map, and makes the slightest misstep fatal because you die before getting back.
2 Interesting and enjoyable little puzzle game
2 It was fun, but I didn't enjoy having to figure out the mechanics
Innovation
2 Novel setting (space instead of a dungeon) and the mechanics fit the setting (visit systems to encounter stuff). Kind of like Rogue meets Star Control
1 I can't say there's too much innovation going on in the mechanics, the story and setting aren't your typical roguelike fare.
3 Very innovative gameplay, I don't see a lot of roguelikes in this sort of style
Scope
2 There's a decent variety in stuff you can encounter and find, and the interface is pretty well done, not mad at all for a 7drl scope
2 I applaud the small scale of this. For what it is, it's dense with ideas.
3 Seemed quite ambitious
Roguelikeness
3 Random maps, permadeath, has a lot of roguelike elements, just set in space
2 On paper, with all the bulletpoints, it checks all the blocks of a roguelike, but it feels as much like a roguelike as Minesweeper. It's almost a puzzle game.
2 More of a Strategy/Puzzle game then a roguelike
I think this game has some potential but it needs to have the balance tweaked, maybe get rid of the energy counter or make it more forgiving. The game feels pretty random: walk around to different planets, hope I find what I need (I can't see what's there until I'm next to it), and if I go down a blind alley I run out of energy before I get back. But with the balance shifted more toward strategy than luck, and a few more encounter types, this could be really cool. The theme and graphics are great.
This game is fun. If I hadn't played it as a 7DRL, I would not have thought it was a roguelike. The Windows 95 style presentation is pretty great.
I think the biggest problem here was the instructions, or lack there of. Quite literally, a basic chart of what the reserach tree was like and what everything did would have helped immensely. But, this said, well done nonetheless!
Boarding Actions
Completeness
3 It sells itself really well as a space extraction roguelike and does come through. I feel like although some minor UI gripes do exist, the explanations that follow along with the game in the readme, as well as the in-game hints are quite enough for a very complete experience.
3 Feels very complete
2 Visual instructions were nice, though I was getting shot through walls, could sometimes see through closed doors, and the enemy could move in eight directions while I couldn't.
Aesthetics
2 The font used in the game is very hard to read, and the scrolling/appearing text is very slow. Other than that, the interface is snappy, and the presentation satisfying. I like the empty feeling of the ships, and the design of the different ships, with their layouts learnable but still personalized to the ship in question. The sounds and music, while existing, suddenly disappear and feel a bit underdone, but add to the overall feel when present.
2 The graphics are nice but a little hard to grok occasionally. The text is a little hard to read.
2 I could clearly tell what everything was, music was nice, but the items didn't have descriptions which was sorely missed here
Fun
3 It was a lot of fun! For the first while, I didn't even realize there was ranged combat, and even that was really cool. I like games about breaching ships, so this felt good. I'd even go so far to say that I would have preferred a quicker way to go between the different missions.
2 I enjoyed this. I think a little more of a goal would be nice. It feels like an endless exercise loop.
1 I wish the ships were more procedurally constucted then handcrafted, and that there was more to do as you raided enemy ships
Innovation
1 Hacks, slashes, but does everything right. I didn't see too many twists to call it.
1 It's rogue, in space. The ship console become the MacGuffin.
2 I've seen a fair share of roguelite games doing this already, but not really sure about roguelikes
Scope
3 I think this is the most ambitious I've seen a project for 7DRL so far. It's clearly planned, is working quite well, the procgen is doing a fine job, there's stuff to do that comes natural, and a home base to return to, scan around etc.
2 A very nice 7DRL, but nothing above and beyond.
2 Demonstrated the idea but nothing more
Roguelikeness
3 It's pretty much by definition, not much to add here
3 Very roguelike. In space.
2 Due to the lack of procedural generation to construct the raided ships, I can't fully call this a roguelike
I loved this entry. I hope to see more. There's different ships, with different crews, and just as I was ready to say "well, I've seen five now, it's all going to be the same", a new type appeared and the name implied that the computer itself didn't really know what it was except that it was industrial, and this sparked it back to life. A job well done!
It gets a little repetitive after the third or fourth ship. Otherwise it's a nice little roguelike and if you could save your progress, I could see this being a fun little coffee break roguelike (let me raid a ship real quick before I get back to work).
A fine sort of idea, but the execution here felt a little boring. Maybe have procedurally genereated hulks, if not ships that are randomly constructed from different modules. Outside of this, refining out the bugs, making diagnol movement a thing, and adding more to interact with woudl be nice.
HELLTH
Completeness
2 While it seemed to work and play fine, I was somewhat at a loss for understanding what I was doing
Aesthetics
3 Able to distinguish everything clearly
Fun
1 Too confused to have any fun here
Innovation
2 Stat related roguelikes aren't exactly new, but usually they don't have an RPG theme going with them
Scope
2 Nothing outstanding, but perhaps a bit more then a simple tech demo
Roguelikeness
3 Yep
I can't say I can give advice when I am not fully grasphing the concept. That is probably the main thing to work on. What is the core idea being explored here and how does the gameplay revolve around it?
Mead & Might
Completeness
3 This is a complete and polished game.
2 It feels fine and could be even better with a bit more polish. However the camera controls are really hard to use and need some refinement.
3 Instructions included within, didn't seem to have any bugs, and played just fine
Aesthetics
3 Visuals, Sounds, and Controls all work well to make this a cohesive game. It's a little dark in some areas and hard to grok what units are there, but still visually stunning.
2 Some nice effects and background music really helped to set the mood.
2 I would have liked to be able to see the opponents pieces, since that is important for planning
Fun
2 You must read the manual before playing, or you're not going to have any idea what's going on, and even then a lot of things feel random and detract from the experience, but generally enjoyable.
2 This can be a fun little game, once all the rules and implications are understood
2 Certainly kept me thinking about what would be the best move to make next, and the AI wasn't too foolish
Innovation
2 It's almost like a deckbuilder, but not.
2 Nothing to crazy here, but a solid execution of nice a little game.
3 Not a gameplay style I commonly see and this seems quite unique.
Scope
3 There's a lot in here, VERY impressive for 7 days.
2 Pretty much what I would expect to come from the time frame.
3 This seems to go beyond what is usually done for 7DRLs
Roguelikeness
1 Nope. This is more like a playing Magic or the holographic chess from Star Wars. It looks nice, and it sounds nice, but calling this a roguelike is a huge stretch.
1 It’s a board game.
1 Not really a roguelike, this is firmly more in a strategic wargame sort of genre
This is a fun little game. It's a bit confusing at times and is in no way what I would call a roguelike, but it's very well made and generally enjoyable experience.
Ok, here we have a nice little table top board game. I had to struggle a bit to understand all the rules, maybe some kind of tutorial would help here? Also the camera controls really need some refinement, it was hard to keep track of the action. Maybe my eyes are getting old, but the black pieces on the dark tiles are hard to see sometimes, some colour could help here.
This was fun, though I kind of feel that this falls quite a ways outside the roguelike genre. In terms of improving it, I'd maybe have it so that your pieces and the opponents are always displayed; maybe have it so that you are on the same side of the table? You could also reduce the amount of tokens that could be put out to be closer to a small party then a huge army, maybe reusing tokens that get placed.
The Desert Guntrain
Completeness
3 This entry looks and feels amazing. Lots of really good sign and feedback work!
2 Stable and runs fine on my windows machine.
2 I didn't really notice any real issues here and everything was pretty straightforward. A little instruction would have been nice though.
Aesthetics
3 Very well crafted style, familiar, yet welcome, with a clear grid and interface. The completely locked-in mouse cursor is a bit annoying, but it serves its purpose well and doesn't detract from the experience.
2 The presentation is really good. Nice looking animations all over the place. However, the controls are very flaky. I was not able to place a straight line of tiles consistently because of the automatic mouse-scroll. Also some of the fluff gets in the way of the actual gameplay, the smoke above the train was obscuring map details I wanted to see more than once.
3 Colors, sounds, and everything else was very nice. Controls looked to work as they were suppose too.
Fun
2 The first level was fun, the second was about figuring out the wagons, but the inability to really plan around enemy movement made it hard to count on a lot of them. Having the compass was a bit OP and finishing the game became easy, after which I felt like I've exhausted replayability. Also, the number of times my route got messed up because of camera pan was annoying.
2 I could see this being a nice diversion if the control scheme was fixed.
1 I sort of felt that it was just random luck more then doing anything else.
Innovation
2 A roguelike that uses the snake movement rule and isn't trivializing it is novel. The moves are a bit limiting, but the idea itself is fresh.
2 It is pretty innovative but also a bit confusing, I was never completely sure what would happen on the next move creating a kind of chaotic gameplay experience.
2 Train based games like this have been done, but not a lot
Scope
3 Seems to have been scoped perfectly and executed in a similar way. There's not much to say than to agree everything is in its place!
2 This looks very complete for the time given.
3 Did a bit more then demonstrate its idea
Roguelikeness
3 It feels like a traditional roguelike with a nice new coat of paint and some really nice detailwork!
1 Not a roguelike game. It’s a game about placing rails for a train.
1 I never really felt in control fo the train and this is a puzzle base game first and foremost
I loved Desert Guntrain! It's a lot of fun and even though using the mouse for a game like this isn't my go to style, I could lay back and relax. I appreciate the pause mechanic and it's pretty nice to lay down a lot of steps ahead and watch them inevitably fall apart. The game has a set length and doesn't outstay its welcome. A personal nitpick: I expected the blue station to be positioned in a way that would be congruent with the progression map, and I don't think it was -- that would have been great for easy tracking if you pay attention.
I do like the core concept and just wish the execution was less flaky, especially regarding the mouse controls. I am not sure about the design decision to not have a “move time forward” command (or at least I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere?). This leads to the player having to place and erase meaningless railroad pieces all over the place, just to get the train moving.
Quite an interesting take that reminds me of last years winner. Unfortunately, I think the biggest issues this game has is that the game feel far to luck based. I never really felt like there was any rhyme or reason to how I should build the track, which hampers this entry significantly.
Z.E.A.L.O.T.S.
Completeness
2
2 The game can be won, and I didn't encounter any game-breaking bugs. The only (seemingly) bug is that every time I start a new level and make the first move, it changes to a different level. Doesn't break anything, just confusing. Beyond that, the game could benefit from some measure of progress (like a depth indicator or score).
3 Instructions were clear enough to describe what was going on
Aesthetics
2 It throws a *lot* at you up front and even after playing for a while I was still often not sure why I died or what happened.
2 The game's minimalism is charming in its own way: it has a single board, with no additional logs&legends. However, I found myself often double-checking the rules to decipher certain characters (especially to distinguish between a stairs and a trapdoor).
2 Probably could have had the trapdoor icon be a different symbol
Fun
2
1 It's not un-fun to play, but it doesn't provide enough variety or challenge to keep playing for a long time. An indicator of progress (like depth or score) or new features on higher levels would add some flavor.
2 Compelling!
Innovation
2
3 I'm sure that the mechanic of moving the whole dungeon isn't completely new, but I haven't played a game like this. On top of that, there are many rules that work reasonably well together.
3 A sliding broughlike where you merge letters seems quite unique
Scope
2
1 It feels like implementing this game is relatively little work once you have the concept and the rules defined - more like a Ludum Dare game than a 7drl.
3 This could have been a lot simpler, but it went the extra mile
Roguelikeness
3
2
2 Broughlikes are already stepping a bit outside the genre, being a puzzle game makes it moreso
This was a little too random for me. It's very puzzly but new enemies and items spawn so often that it feels like you can't plan very effectively. And it throws a *lot* at the player right up front: the letters in the game and level titles are spread out enough that I thought they were just a level at first, and couldn't figure out why I teleported to a new level as soon as I moved: that was especially confusing because there are two of them at first. And it's a lot of mechanics to figure out and there's no progression of items: I think they're all available right from the start? Also it wasn't clear at first that the enemies make the same moves that you do: I thought "the whole world will move in synchrony" just meant that it was turn-based. But I had fun tinkering with it and I like the concept.
ZEALOTS takes a bit of time to figure out what's happening, but it doesn't feel daunting. The rules are novel and interesting to play around with, but ultimately the game isn't very challenging - after a certain point, I learned to ascend consistently (whenever I don't misread the board characters, ahah). Definitely could have a bit more features for challenge and replayability - e.g., score (fewest moves? highest level? most units controlled? etc.).
Really interesting sort of design, I wonder though if it would have been better with proper tiles. I felt I was getting a bit confused with the ASCII here, especially having to verifiy which dash was the trapdoor or not. Otherwise it looked solid overall.
BuddyRL
Completeness
2 Quite nice, but a big undertaking with an obvious lack in polish -- almost expected, given what the game tries to achieve.
2 No major difficulties it does feel a bit unpolished but still fine for a 7drl.
3 Instructions were clear enough and the game played just fine
Aesthetics
2 I think the game should point out the two different perspective it uses more, as it's quite easy to get lost with the representations and make mistakes.
2 Presentation is good enough.
2 I think a wait key might have been nice for the traditional roguelike character
Fun
2 This is a very strained 2. It's not that the game can't be fun, just that it wasn't fun for me. The concept of being slow and careful in the top-down roguelike game, and then careful but quick in the platformer feels very stressful and stops me from enjoying the game.
1 I found the switching between characters to be really tedious. And the gameplay experience created here is just not my cup of tea. Maybe it would be better not to limit the switching between characters by a condition?
2 When I wasn't getting blasted by the enemies, sure, it was fun; but it is far too difficult as it is now
Innovation
3 There's innovation here, combining two genres like this hasn't been done much. The most similar I can imagine is going from a 3D Mario game into a wall-crawling 2D platformer. Innovation like this probably requires more time and more resources to be done in a way that feels satisfactory to play.
2 I am not sure I have seen this exact concept before.
3 This was a very innovative path to take, and one that could open up a lot of possibilities
Scope
2 There's a lot of scope here, and a lot of features implemented. It's not lacking, but it does feel a bit overwhelming to go through them with the switch between the two halves.
2 This looks very complete for the time given.
2 It adequately demonstrates the idea, but not much more
Roguelikeness
2 It certainly is a roguelike, at least with half of its genetics. The other half is a platformer with a completely different feel to it.
2 Well, one of the two characters controls like a roguelike character.
2 Sort of delving a little bit outside the genre, but for the innovation, this is necessary
BuddyRL is two games in one: a traditional roguelike with abilities and interesting attacks, and a platformer that uses the roguelike level in its favor. I'd love for the separation to be better marked, to be more obvious, for the current mode to be more obvious.
This is a weird one :) It tries to combine stuff that doesn't fit together, in my humble opinion. A bit of a peanut butter jelly case. Maybe this is exactly what you are looking for, so here it goes: You control two characters and can switch between them via button press, but only if you have killed an enemy in between. One of the characters controls like a tradition top-down roguelike character while the other has the ability to traverse the same world in a jump’n’run manner in real-time. When this character is active time effectively stops for the other actors. So it does play a lot like an environmental puzzle game.
How further might this idea be explored? Perhaps the sidescroller character will pull the rogueliker into his genre, or maybe the sidescroller might be made use of somehow to block enemy shots, or maybe take a nod from Wizard-Thief-Fighter and have the two games interwoven with each other?
Songs Of The Pond
Completeness
3 It has no noticeable bugs and plays very smoothly
2 Didn't notice any bugs. Unfortunately couldn't beat the boss, so don't know about the ending, but the game seems a bit light on content - very few types of encounters, not enough card combinations, etc.
2 Probably could have used some more instruction on how the player character could attack or defend. Otherwise, it playd fine
Aesthetics
3 Great and very cute artwork.
3 Ridiculously polished for a 7drl!
2 Wasn't really a fan of having to micromanage so much
Fun
2 It plays and feels good but really lacks depth and content that a good deck building game needs.
2 I'm generally not a fan of real-time aspect, which is crucial in this game once you have a lot of minions. Still, the game is fun to play, and will definitely appeal to a more RTS-minded player.
2 To some extent this was fun, some quality of life improveements would have made it more fun
Innovation
1 It is a pretty standart deck building game with no innovations
2 None of the individual elements here seem innovative (Slay the Spire core, Gwent-like battle positioning, action energy meter reminiscent of real time strategies), but they come together in an interesting pond-themed way.
2 This style of card roguelike has technically been done, but it was distinct enough
Scope
2 It is what I expect for a decent 7DRL but lack content for a fun deck building game
3 I am flabbergasted this was accomplished in 7 days. Might be that the engine does most of the heavy lifting, but still, this is a highly polished, playable, challenging product.
3 An awesome amount is here for sure
Roguelikeness
1 It is a deck building game and not roguelike. It has some elements of the genre like random map and random card loot, but I think thats not enough.
1 Went back and forth on the score for this. Normally, I'd rate an encounter-based deck-building roguelite a 2, because it has some overlap with the roguelike genre. However, this game adds a real-time aspect, and the deck-building doesn't feel as tactical as it could be, so it really doesn't play as a rogulike.
2 Sort of felt like I was managing a company of troops, but it it features more roguelikeness then the usual roguelite
It is a well made game with really good artwork and atmosphere. But for a deck building game it lacks content and some fun card combinations. Also I wish it has more connection to the roguelike genre.
Songs of the Pond is an encounter-based roguelite with a real-time aspect and astounding production values for a 7drl. As far as card-based games go, the rules here are simple, but the balancing is off (I felt like I had no chance against the boss, in spite of having an easy time prior to it). Would love to see this game with more content. And I loved the harmonica-playing frog at the rest sites!
Might want to check out other time based games that will stop the action on the next actor; ie, help the player out with not having to worry about getting their attack off in time or not. Having ones minions auto-fight might also be an idea to look into. Overall it was a nice game though.
Xenocide
Completeness
3 Smooth and polished, only a couple bugs.
3 I did find one small bug, the game keeps accepting input and playing after you beat it. But it's not game-breaking
2 Every action was clearly labeled, although enemies could move diagonal while the player can't.
Aesthetics
2 It's a clean tileset, and the UI's not bad.
3 Looks good, interface is pretty simple and functional
2 Some issues with moving, depending on how many enemies are present
Fun
2 It's alright, but the prevalence of consumables kind of renders the whole thing trivial.
2 It was all right. Somewhat easy, I beat it in the first run. "Teleport to exit" is probably an overpowered item
1 Not balanced for fun
Innovation
2 Nothing too crazy.
1 I didn't really see anything that new or different, it's a dungeon crawl with melee and ranged combat, in a sci fi setting
1 Not meant to be obviously
Scope
2
2 Good scope, several kinds of enemies, a working inventory screen, there's a complete game here.
2 Pretty decent effort
Roguelikeness
3
3 Permadeath, random maps, grid movement, turn-based, items and inventory, every bit a roguelike.
2 Can't really call games with a save/load function a proper roguelike
A perfectly good and functional little game. Looks like it accomplishes exactly what the author set out to do. My only real complaints are that it could be harder (I never felt like anything had a change of beating me; there was unlimited ammo and more pickups than I would ever need) and that it doesn't bring anything new to the table, it's just a standard roguelike game.
Great job making this entry! Some rough ends that need to be ironed out, but most of the very basic gameplay elements were present for a playable game. Outside of that, adding in more stuff like ammo, item durability, some sort of randomized potion-like item, and whatever else; are all ways that this project could be furthered.
You And What Army?
Completeness
3 Between a 2 and 3. It was functional and had no bugs, but felt pretty empty and the mechanics were incredibly simple. Lack of instructions really hurt the first time too
3 Pretty complete. I didn't encounter any bugs. Looks like it needs some balance work, aside from that it's pretty well done.
2 Instructions Please. Else, I think everything worked as intended; can't really tell, I wasn't told how stuff was suppose to work.
Aesthetics
2 The art style was fun, and the little sprites were cute. The cards really were lacking and the general dungeons felt very samey.
2 A lot of this feels like developer art, and the title screen lists the game's title as "GAME TITLE", so I'm guessing there was a lot of polish that fell by the wayside. The controls are all fine, except you probably should message how mana works a little more-- Despite the tooltip on the inventory screen, it took me dying twice before I figured out that discarding a card was the only way to get mana in the game. Overall, the aesthetics and controls are fine here, they just need a little more polish across the board probably.
3 Controls seemed to function well, and I could tell the enemies apart
Fun
1 Unsure what I was supposed to be doing, but given that the enemies all felt the same, my strategy of "add a couple of allies, then just press wait until they're within range and one-hit them" worked the entire game without any thinking whatsoever
2 Pretty fun. Once I figured out how to get mana and cast spells, it was a little too easy to really feel like I was getting the maximum fun-- it was only one or two levels of dungeon before I was able to assemble an army that does 268 damage to everything I encounter and heals both me and itself to full HP every time I attack-- which made the rest of the game pretty trivial. The void dungeon is a cute little twist, but I actually want it to feel more like an endgame dungeon with lots of dangerous unique threats. maybe make some void-only creatures etc.
1 Wasn't balanced properly for entertainment purposes
Innovation
1 The cards being your mana and abilities was a nice idea, but the allies largely felt identical, as did the enemies
2 I'll give you credit for the innovation of having a little party of monsters that work with you and can be defeated individually, but it's not that different from other card-based roguelikes. A lot of numbers balance and perhaps some more card mechanics might help here. The one-off spells are nice, and I'd like to see more of those.
2 The idea of having cards collected from enemies, and using them for your own purposes is something I've seen before, but not in roguelike form
Scope
2 Borderline 2. Not a lot here, but it was a complete game and had a completed vision
2 This is pretty much the scope expected of a 7DRL-- your game is winnable, simple, and has a decent amount of content in it. Obviously the UI polish and balancing got away from you, but I've had the same problem.
1 Didn't really feel like there was enough here to do more then show the idea; it certainly didn't feel like it was properly demonstrated
Roguelikeness
3 Yeah, certainly checks the boxes
3 Pretty solidly roguelike.
3 It probably lies close enough within the genre
Really simple roguelike that allowed me to explore big caverns. The allies were a cool way of thinking about equipment and I wish that there were more opportunity to leverage them in interesting ways. Because enemies were nearly all one-shot kill and melee only, it meant that my strategy of just waiting for them to walk up and I bonk them on the head was a winning one which was kind of disappointing. It's a good start to a game, but there's a lot of empty space in terms of monster-design, strategy, and terrain which left it hard to really sink into.
I like the premise behind this, but I want to see a little more UI polish, including instructions on how to play and so on. More importantly, I also want to see what happens when you tinker with the numbers a little bit more, for balance purposes. In the first two games I played, I didn't understand how to get mana to play cards, and died quickly. In the third game, I figured out how the card mechanics were supposed to work and then it was barely a hundred turns before I had an unbeatable invincible army at my back that was never threatened by anything else I saw for the rest of the entire game. So I won on what was essentially my first "real" game-- that suggests you're being a little too generous to your players, I think.
I appreciate that the keys for everything was labeled in the game, but that didn't really explain what I was doing int the game. I could somewhat figure out that effects were happening when I killed enemies or the like, but I couldn't really conclude what exactly everything did. I took me a moment to realize there was a card to try and escape too. Outside of the lack of instructions, the game could certainly use some balancing, as I quickly overpowered everything I came across fairly soon enough.
[7drl - 2024] - A Snake on a Plane
Completeness
2 The game runs without any major bugs, has all necessary features and can be completed. Though it has some bugs with tile placement where some tiles can overlap with neighbours and this can be confusing.
2 There were some ui bugs and one gameplay bug that spoiled some of the fun. I resized the inventory and log windows to see better and after moving back to the original positions between levels, the log window closed. It seemed like the counters on the items were for ammo, but they didn't go down as I used them.
2 I think it was working as intended, although the first two levels seemed to always be the same and you didn't use ammo when shooting
Aesthetics
3 It looks really nice and I like the usage of emojis. Though it has a lot of different symbols, all of them are easy readable. UI looks nice and understandable. It has no sounds but I wouldn't remove point for that.
2 I liked the design of the ui and the scrolling buildings in the background. However, because it used characters rather than tiles, it was dependant on the user's font and I had graphical issues with the web and terminal clients. When I played in the browser, most things had recognizable symbols, but a few were still missing and the outside of the plane had gaps around all of the angled symbols. I have the FiraCode nerd font from the most recent release my distro (NixOS) has in the release channel (3.0.1) and there are still missing characters. When I played in the terminal, in addition to the web issues, the player and imp icons were outlined faces with my font and were nearly invisible on the darker color of the checkerboard floor.
2 Reminded me of playing games in the 90s with those small tiles
Fun
3 Very enjoyable game with a good variety in enemies and weapons. Maps are interesting to explore. Also this game has a good humor it it.
2 I enjoyed the first few levels, but there wasn't really any challenge so it got old fast. This is likely due to the ammo counters not decreasing. For example, even in situation where I opened a room to find three enemies a tile away and then had around ten ghosts appear in the room I was in over a few turns, I wasn't in much danger because of the infinite ammo.
1 Hardly was
Innovation
1 Haven't noticed anything new or innovative.
2
2 I've never seen a procedural dungeon on an aircraft before so that was neat
Scope
2 It has everything a good 7DRL needs but doesn't do anything outstanding
2
1 I'm not sure there was an idea to demonstrate here
Roguelikeness
3 It is a well executed classical roguelike.
3
3 It was one
It is a really well made and fun roguelike with a funny jokes and plot. Though it doesn't add something new to the genre, it has a lot of different weapons and enemies and a nice map generator. I wish it has sounds and maybe more gameplay mechanics. But still it is a very enjoyable game!
Playing this was a bit rough. Because I didn't need to worry about ammo, I just fired my best weapons and flattened my way through. Not really much to say with improving this one but: Bigger tiles, makes weapon ammo matter, and add more stuff.
DEIPHAGE
Completeness
2 I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing, so it's hard to judge how complete it is, but it feels stable and well put together
2 Bug where everything attacks you wasn't great, instructions took a moment to understand, and it wasn't exactly clear what I was suppose to be doing
Aesthetics
2 Visually stunning but hard to wrap your brain around the depth affect. Also, enemies seem to just disappear, but it looks so nice.
2 Ultimately not really a fan of the Z levels and how the player interacts with them
Fun
1 Maybe it's me, but I couldn't figure out what to do. It was enjoyable to just "swim" around and watch the affects of swimming into and out of the screen, but that wore off pretty quickly.
1 It was painful playing this game
Innovation
3 The feature of swimming into the abyss and back out is an interesting new take on traditonal descending and ascending
3 7DRLs with Z levels aren't commonly played around with
Scope
2 A lot to take in and very innovative for a 7DRL, it could use a little in the way of explaining what is going on and streamlining the gameplay.
1 This entry felt too lacking to give much points for scope
Roguelikeness
3 Most of the elements of a traditional roguelike are here. It's an interesting evolution of the genre that also maintains all the things that make roguelikes unique.
3 Questionably I would say it is enough of one, but it really lacked content
This game is doing a lot of interesting things and toys with some great themes. There's enough of a hook with the movement and graphics to really make this into something great with more time and development.
I think the keyboard was fine for showing off where keys were, but I still got confused understanding them. Maybe some colors could have been added; ie, all wait buttons are colored red, and surface and dive keys in purple. Might have also been nice to have a bit more instruction on what were suppose to be aiming to do, as I felt I was just 'aimlessly' playing without any sort of goal to pursue. In regards to Z levels, it felt like an overwhelming amount of information to sift through for them.
Endless Rogue Elude
Completeness
3 It seems to be very solid, with a very nice presentation, simpler in idea than most other roguelikes ever attempt to be, with servicable (although very short and non-perfectly looping) music that becomes old very quickly. Points I'd like worked on a tiny bit more include adding some other keybindings (arrows + YUBN is a choice), and a very pronounced kill count for the goblinoids.
3 Possibly this 'had' bugs, but it is possible those bugs were features
Aesthetics
2 This game is nice - the tileset is cool, the lovely main character is endlessly cute. The one major pain point for me is the repetitive, very colorful floor (orange) that makes large levels very hard to look at. Additionally, the levels are large, and they consist out of rectangular rooms and one-tile wide corridors, which becomes monotonous after a while.
2 Not a fan of tileset, sound was good, awesome control rebinding
Fun
2 Once it started to get good, it felt really good. Moving around monsters that could snap other monsters in half feels really good, and landing in between two feels properly terrifying. There's two problems with the design that makes it less fun: corridors are 50% of the map content and a sure way to die before acquiring powerful items that can clear a blockade on one side of the player if the other side gets blocked, and it's endless without a strong on-screen presence of how far we got. The reward slips from the mind easily.
1 Need more to play around with
Innovation
2 It's pretty cool to not count on melee combat at all as a design pillar. It's something I haven't seen often, and even rarely did I enjoy it. It feels refreshing, but does little with it after the initial contact. I'd love to see more creature types, mobs with different appetites, some kind of micromanagement there - maybe different attack patterns that you need to make happen...
2 Certainly looks to be somewhat unique in the realm of roguelike games
Scope
2 It's about as ambitious as I'd expect a 7drl to be, albeit I would expect it to have a bit more content in it if I'm being honest. It felt good to see goblins, orcs and trolls in the game but they behave the same and feel the same, which is a shame for a game all about positioning and escaping narrow twists.
1 The idea here is demonstrated but not nearly fleshed out enough
Roguelikeness
3 As simple as it is, it works quite well as a traditional roguelike sans melee combat. The spells are cool, and even have targeting for some - some status effects are even animated - and help bring the thing together.
2 Run around and don't get caught; that doesn't strike me as having enough depth to be called a roguelike
After a while, once I got used to playing this game without worrying, my mind raced at the thought of some imagined end where you go down and pick up the Amulet of Yendor, and have an angry necromancer chasing you, raising zombies everywhere where you've left bones behind. This seemed like such a cool concept for an ascension! Endless Rogue Elude has a lot of power in a few well-placed choices, and is really good as a flowy game where you don't want to stop and think about the next *new* situation. If it's good, you've got it under control, and the game takes care of itself. The music could be a bit longer or more seamless, and the keybindings are a bit weird but the game proper is solid!
Some abilities for the player, or perhaps more prevalent use of items to alter how monsters act might have been nice. Give a bit more too play around this idea with and this could be a much more notably 7DRL as a result.
Mars 2112
Completeness
2 Feels complete, but I did get softlocked by a button in front of a door.
2 Some intructions would be nice, possibly enemies were also moving prior to the player as opposed to after (though that may be intentional)
Aesthetics
2 Sprites and sounds do their job. The explosions and damage numbers are appreciated.
2 I think the inventory might have been displayed better
Fun
2 It's fun once reaching the "factory".
1 I felt the levels were too long and arduous to run through
Innovation
2
2 An exploratory game with a robot is actually something we had last year; still, we don't get that many.
Scope
2 There's an alright amount of stuff here!
2 More then a tech demo, but very light in gameplay to make it special
Roguelikeness
3 It's a roguelike.
3 Despite mistyping it as rougelike on the itch page, it is one
This is pretty good, but so close to being a lot more fun. The floors are way too large, making the first several minutes wandering without threat, and the vast majority of chests being empty just seems unfair. The controls are a little too touchy, causing a lot of accidental bumps. Once you're in the factory bit, things start to heat up. Scrounging for weapons and resources is good fun. The travel time on projectiles makes opening a door, throwing a grenade in, and then popping back out a fun and efficient move. The copper wires are cute, but I do wonder if they can lead to softlocks. I suspect there's another segment after the factory, but after getting blocked by a button in front of a door and running out of wires, I didn't have the heart to keep trying.
This could have been a nice idea to enjoy, but getting 'too' that enjoyment was a bit of a hassle with how big the levels were. Finding the exit was not very fun either. I did like that I can interact with a lot of things, but at the same time I have to wonder if there was a point in pulling back the bedsheets or flipping chairs around? Good effort nonetheless.
Rogue Zombies
Completeness
3 I liked that there was a tutorial in game and it felt like it was mostly free of issues
3 No bugs. Seems fully complete to me, and indeed fully polished. Not much more to be said here.
Aesthetics
2 While I can see the 'Z's easy enough, I sort of feel it got a little repetitive
3 This is a really beautiful ascii aesthetic-- great use of colors, symbols, and motion to liven up an otherwise plain ascii view of a simple screen while still keeping it easily readable. The controls are all completely understandable, plus there's in-game help, hotkeys are shown on the screen, and there's even a full guided tutorial.
Fun
1 Wasn't nearly enough depth here to be able to have a fun time
2 This sort of survivalist game isn't generally my bag, but if you do like this kind of game it's definitely worth playing. It was fun and held my interest long enough to get me to play through the tutorial, some Regular games and win Hope mode, and I played around a bit in sandbox mode to get a feel for some of the mechanics.
Innovation
1 I'm not sure if roguelikes tend to do this sort of gameplay much; but there is a deluge of it in every other game approaching survival
2 Pretty ordinary mechanics. I never really did get a feel for the real use of some of the items since I landed on a pretty universal strategy and stuck with that throughout most of my play. But they seem interesting enough to me.
Scope
1 It could have been made more interesting 'just' by having your explosions cause self harm/insta game over. Increasing the content or having more then a shambling mass of zombies could be something to look into.
2 This is a pretty basic 7DRL level of scope, but you definitely get a lot of points from me for the ambition involved in not only implementing all of this cool stuff, but bringing it to such a high level of polish in seven days. I keep debating whether to bump this up to a 3 or not.
Roguelikeness
3 I believe this is close enough to being a roguelike to give full marks here
2 I almost give this full marks for roguelikeness; it's essentially a score attack game, and a lot of the game comes down to how well you position yourself in the setup phase before the battle starts-- I didn't really find it practical to go on the run, so a game largely consists of building some kind of little fort to maximize the amount of time you can survive. Ultimately, the thing I'm kind of missing here for full roguelike points is the procgen-- there's a little bit of procgen in placing the building, trees, road and river, but aside from their solidity and how much damage they can take from zombies before falling down, this doesn't have a huge impact on the gameplay in my experience. So it's missing a little bit of that.
I was ready for a grand old time of zombie bashing, but ultimately I felt like I didn't really care. There was no risk of putting a mine down next to you, having a zombie walk on it, and coming out unscathed from the detonation. I sort of wonder if having a 'wave' style system where you kill a wave, plant defenses down, and do the next wave might have ben better. This came off as a bit of a miss for me.
Really fun little survive-as-long-as-you-can score-attack game, well worth playing. That said, I feel like the score-attack gamemode shouldn't be designated the "Regular" mode. The explicit "survive this long" goal of the "Hope" gamemode is a more interesting gametype to me. There probably should be something other than a simple "game over" to reward you for completing it-- just a more satisfying ending text would be fine, but maybe this could go into some kind of extended endgame where, having survived the onslaught of zombies, you now have to break out of your little zombie fort and fight your way to a designated evacuation point, Left 4 Dead style.
The Forgotten Jade
Completeness
2 Could use a little bit of basic instructions on what you are doing and how everything works
3 This game has all the pieces in place for a game of this genre. The only thing that it is missing is an endgame, which is understandable for a 7DRL. The only major bug that I saw was that monsters sometimes doesn’t attack you when you attack them if there are too far away.
Aesthetics
3 It worked well enough that I could tell where projectiles were and when things were going boom
3 I love the aesthetic here. I’m always a big fan of soft, desaturated colors used in an ascii context. Very nice feeling and has a distinctive feel.
Fun
1 Can't say I found much enjoyment here; reminds me of tedious grinding in MMORPG's of old
3 I thought this was pretty fun to play. As you get stronger the interest curve dips a little low, and the game loses its challenge. I enjoyed using the dash and dodging shots and moving around the map.
Innovation
1 We aren't treading new ground with this one
2 The twin-stick shooter genre is popular, but this is the first ascii one I’ve seen. The leveling system is unusual and cool. I like the mechanic that the monsters only attack when you attack as well.
Scope
2 You got the basic elements in for a twin stick shooter in along with several enemy types. Having a few different classes too.
2 I am giving a 2 for scope, but its close to a 3. Some sort of later-game changes would have pushed it over the edge, like monsters that show up when you reach a later level.
Roguelikeness
1 The lack of complexity really leaves this too close to being like an arcade game
2 I am giving the game a 2 because it has random maps and permadeath, but it isn’t really very roguelike. Its squarely in the twin-stick shooter genre.
Not my cup of tea. Certainly didn't feel like it was doing anything really novel and perhaps too much effort was put into making the different classes and enemies pop. Some more focus here should be given to perhaps finding and using items, exploration, etc.
I liked this game. The visuals are nice, it feels pretty polished, has good sound. I really like the leveling mechanic—not many games do it that way, and I always thought it was an interesting part of DCSS. I would love to see more terrain interactions—more walls, tall grass blocking LOS or slowing you down, lakes and ponds, that sort of thing. Things that change your attack would be nice. I found that the archer was significantly better than the other two, especially than the warrior. Having the different attacks is a good idea though, and just a little more damage on the warrior or more speed would balance things out. I’ve not an expert in the genre but there seems to be enough in the game to make it stand out that it could be an interesting game if it is continued.
You Bet Your Life 2024 7DRL
Completeness
3 I didn't notice any bugs and it looked and played as I expected it too
2 Seemed fairly stable and complete. Lacking some polish but that's alright.
Aesthetics
2 Kind of clunky moving around
2 Sprites and music was alright. Microbe-sized graphics was not.
Fun
1 A little tedious as it was just move, shoot, repeat
1 Sadly not very enjoyable.
Innovation
2 Game show style of roguelikes aren't new, but the bullet hell experience was novel enough
2 Idea has a lot of potential, and seems to be a nice twist on the "telegraphed attacks" previous 7drls have experimented with.
Scope
2 I really wished the enemy projectiles to be worked on a bit more; need to do more then just 'hit harder'
2 Decent scope and effort.
Roguelikeness
3 Certainly ticks enough boxes for one
3 I'd say this is still a roguelike.
I liked the idea but ultimately I was just running around in circles while firing a gun. The enemies that shoot need to do a bit more or the projectiles they shoot need to act differently. Outside of this you might make the environment feature more then just a basic floor trap
Overall a good idea, but with problematic execution. I think the main issue is that bullet hell just doesn't work very well in a turn-based environment that values tactics and careful thinking over reflexes and adrenaline. However the idea could certainly work, just with some increased complexity from additional mechanics, terrain, items, etc that expands the game to more than just "shoot while continuously moving." Also an aside: the gameplay loop is very clunky-feeling, mainly because you need to wait a split-second for all the projectiles to be drawn. Fixing this would go some ways to making the game "feel" smoother.
Dungeon Duty
Completeness
3 The game contains all of the elements needed to implement the main concept of the gameplay, and runs without bugs.
3 I didn't notice any bugs to speak of. Seems to be working as designed with no obvious problems.
3 Explained well enough to play, didn't look to have issues, played well enough
Aesthetics
2 The visuals are nice and clear, and I like them quite a bit. The only issue that I had was that the attacks of the heroes were not at all clear. Some sort of visual showing their attack happening would have made the game mechanics more clear.
2 Controls are intuitive and the graphics are fine, but the provided instructions aren't super helpful; the cutesy description obscures how the game actually works, which is kind of the opposite of what I want in a roguelike usually. I like the predefined map with routes to take as a nice roguelikey element, but thematically it's weird-- we're managing a dungeon, so the fact that we're also travellling across a map with shops and treasures and battles to choose from, with a boss at the end of it, makes me wonder if my dungeon is somehow moving through the countryside seeking out heroes to fight.
3 Interesting Heroes we be fighting these days in roguelikes
Fun
2 I thought that the organizing, tetris-like gamplay was quite cool. Every time I played I got about 2/3rds of the way up the map and then died. It felt like the game needed just one more mechanic or one more unit type. Just a little more complexity of some kind. A lot of great potential in the idea!
1 I didn't really get a good sense for the importants of what I was doing and why it was important until well into playing the game-- Once I understood that it's basically a box-packing simulator where you're trying to get as much into the dungeon as possible without filling it, I felt a little better about it, but it's still just missing enough substance to really feel fun IMO.
2 Kind of wish I could 'slot' the pieces in as they fell down, but not that sort of tetris game I suppose. Also, the final boss was kinda tanky
Innovation
2 I’ve seen games where you manage a dungeon of monsters against heroes, but never with tetris mechanics. Although it is not completely unique, it is a cool twist on existing game mechanics.
2 The underlying "what if tetris was a roguelike" idea isn't a bad one, but I've seen other interpretations of the same concept, and some were better executed. I do give you some marks for innovation anyway, because I think this mechanic does have good potential behind it-- it just wants a lot more polish and meat on these bones.
2 I feel like more could have been done here, but it was unique
Scope
2 I felt that the scope was good for the amount of time in this event.
2 Pretty much what you'd expect from a 7DRL. It's a little on the tech-demo side of things since there's only two-and-a-half monster types to work with and I didn't see a lot of variety in the heroes, but it's a complete game that has some classic progression mechanics and everything is nicely put together.
1 I didn't really feel like there was enough tile types. Certainly didn't have any items or skill or anything either.
Roguelikeness
2 I have to give a 2 on Roguelike-ness. It takes place on a grid an has perma-death, and relates to dungeon-crawling in the concept. The map is randomly generated. I would that it is definitely roguelite, and squarely in the same area as Slay the Spire.
2 I seriously debated giving this a 1, but I reserve that for truly unroguelikey games, and this has enough of the roguelike sauce to qualify-- barely. I think it's very much at the outside edges of what I'd consider roguelike, though I think this is totally "fixable"-- see my overview comments for more on that.
1 It is a tetris-like, but a roguelike, not really
This is a great idea! As mentioned elsewhere, it really felt that just one or two more monsters or mechanics would make this idea really sing. As it was, I didn’t feel that I could make that many decisions before dying around the same spot every time. I understand the time constraints of course, and with this consideration I think it’s an impressively clean and well made experience.
While what's here is nicely polished and playable, it still feels like half a game. It's a tetris-like rogue-like, which is of course a noble pursuit, and the core concepts are there, but I think it just needs more mechanics and more interactivity to make the strategic/tactical roguelike feel really emerge. Right now it's just "drop monsters into your dungeon and try to keep it organized." So while my scores are a little on the low side, I think you could shift them much higher just by adding more content to the game. Add some more monster types, hero types, and most importantly some more interactivity between your monsters and the heroes-- give each hero type its own attack pattern, say, so that you have to plan your dungeon around what's attacking it. Maybe some of those new monster types could have their own play options, like the ability to delay the battle clock or move around after being placed, etc. You want to give the player a range of options.
There needed to be more added to this one. Maybe have potions, skills, abilities, or what not; something to help the player to manage things. The enemy doing more then attacking might be another idea to consider.
Penyu
Completeness
3 Game seems very nice! I didn't encounter any problems except for my own lack of skill playing it, which is always a good one!
2 Haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs, but there are visual bugs: animations happen simultaneously (e.g., it looks like you're walking through opponents when using macros), macros are often highlighted as disabled when you can actually use them (unless I misunderstood some mechanics?)
3 It seemed to work as intended and I didn't have any issues playing it.
Aesthetics
2 Clear design, colors are soothing, the graphics are sometimes a bit confusing (I think they spawn on top of one another). More contrast for the player and the goal would be appreciated.
2 Nothing too pretty, but neat in its own minimalistic way.
2 Not really a fan of the melee attack button looking like the wait button
Fun
3 There's a particular kind of fun found in minimalist games that have limited actions. Figuring out how to complete a level is a challenge, but the game itself is clear and specific about the actions one can do at any moment. Perfect for planners!
1 The game isn't unfun, but I was blatantly bad at adapting to hexagonal map, and lost a lot of runs due to miscalculating my turn direction. I think adding an "Undo" button for the last action could make the game more forgiving and I'd enjoy it more.
1 Not really enough here to have fun with
Innovation
2 A combination of a standard hex crawler and turtle graphics programming! Wonderful ideas from the 80s, not much innovation except to mix them, but lovely either way!
2 I'd call this more "technical" than "innovative": neither hexagonal maps nor power-ups in the form of combined moves are particularly unique, but the way these components are put together makes the game not feel like a clone of something.
2 Hoplite style gameplay with tank controls is a little bit innovative.
Scope
2 An expected, clear, well-executed game scoped well for a 7DRL challenge! Well done!
2
1 Incredibly lacking in all areas
Roguelikeness
3 Hex-crawl roguelikes aren't as traditional, but they give a bit more tactical freedom - so good! There's a lot of complexity from a small number of elements.
2
2 Too puzzle based to be a roguelike
I think Penyu is a very nice game! I like TURTLE graphics, so this made me think it's a really cool idea! It was cool to get a cool A-HA! moment when I figured out that I can move backwards for strategic gain. Getting more complex moves over time is great. I think this game could be a bit more tight/balanced, but a great entry for 7DRL!
I did a couple dozen Penyu runs, but most of them were wildly unsuccessful; my best result was only Level 8. I found the challenge of calculating turn direction on the hexagonal grid a bit overwhelming, and made mistakes often - an "Undo last move" button would certainly make the game more forgiving. I also think the game lacks a little "something" to be addictive. The current focus is purely on getting a higher level (which maybe is enough for some players) - ine potential suggestion is to diversify the power-ups so that the player wants to check out all of them (i.e., add discoverable content).
I didn't think much initially looking at this game, but got at least a little intrigued when I started playing it. Then I realized there wasn't that much content here to play around with. Maybe more enemies, have some items or terrain effects to play with? It just didn't feel like it was doing enough.
Chase through Blytheware
Completeness
2 It is playable, I was eventually able to get to the boss and win but I first had five runs that ended due to bugs. It seems like there were a lot of ideas with the abilities and story elements that just needs more content to fill out their usefulness.
1 I tried three runs, each ended from a bug after a few hexes' travel. Attacks of opportunity seem to totally break the game, as do people joining your party.
2 Various spelling mistakes, lack of instructions, and I'm not sure the game has a proper ending. Played well outside of this though
Aesthetics
2 Classic roguelike forest feels and iconography but I was lost at first with information hidden behind tooltips or mechanics left unexplained by the images
2 Totally passable graphics. Could do with some more information in the interface, some things are in tooltips that could be captions or something. On a large window the layout is weird.
2 Would be nice to know how each action works and under what constraints
Fun
3 Even with the broken runs I kept retrying to see the alternate paths to the scenario beats. With quick 10 - 15 minute runs it's a fun game to play through. With some more content it could be more replayable
2 There's some potential here, I wasn't bored playing it, I just got frustrated with the crashes
2 Had a little fun
Innovation
2 Blending three other genres together works and has potential if you continue to improve the game but the elements used from the genres are well established
1 Plays like a fairly normal RPG: you journey through an overworld, have encounters (some combat, some skill checks) and tactical combat. Reminds me a lot of the early Ultima games
1 Not really doing anything too unique or different here
Scope
2 Well put together for the 7drl, the three modes are complete if lacking some content depth
2 Good 7DRL level of game
3 A wealth of stuff is here
Roguelikeness
2 A good mix of overworld hex crawl, tactical party combat, and visual novel mechanics, but together doesn’t hit the depth of flexibility I look for in a roguelike
3 100% a roguelike.
2 While there was a lot here, it felt like the depth of the game was really shallow, and the gameplay felt a bit outside the roguelike genre
I had fun with this, it’s an interesting exploration of a combination of genres and is well put together for a 7drl. A help screen, background story, or something to help with the initial first steps of new players would have been good. I attempted to find strategies in the little content that was available. With more content this could be very fun. It took multiple runs to see the branching story paths in the hanging man scenario so I can see how more content would improve the replayability. Also don’t hide details behind tooltips, theres lots of room on screen
I played the "7DRL Version" linked on the page. It's got some potential, and reminding me of an early Ultima game isn't a bad thing. It's marred by general bugginess though.
I like what was here, making it feel like I was playing a D&D game. Unfortunately however, it didn't much feel like I was playing a roguelike as a result. I'd like to have a little more control with encounters, maybe choosing how I might engage in them, rather then just being plopped down each time. Might be nice if one solid aspect was more fleshed out to play with.
Errant Mech
Completeness
3
3 Looked complete and I was able to grasp the mechanics easily
Aesthetics
1 the color palette is making the ascii art hard to read. The size of everything is tiny which makes it harder to understand and read the text and what is happening in the log
3 Enemy Red, I'm blue, everything else is just in the way
Fun
1
1 Very tedious firing weapons
Innovation
1 looks and sounds like a basic roguelike game with not much new
1 Not exactly a new idea to 7DRLs
Scope
2
2 Shows enough to be a bit more then a simple demonstration of an idea
Roguelikeness
3
3 Certainly is one
My main issue with that entry is it is hard to read and play due to depending on classic roguelike shortcuts which makes it less accessible to new comers and not appealing
Well executed, though I feel there could have been a bit more steamlining of button presses and more fast paced interaction with enemy mechs. Having a enemy display might be good too, since you can blast off parts from enemies.
Flask Cannon
Completeness
1 It shows some rough edges being a proof of concept of the author's tech stack which doesn't seem very apt for this kind of games. Was only able to play it with buggy controls via a JS emulator, and also had to rely a lot on the off-game instructions to understand what was going on, and the game wouldn't reset properly after death.
Aesthetics
2 I'm asumming there was something buggy in the emulator I used which caused double input for the commands; other than that seems like the design was sensible and I liked the appearance.
Fun
2 There's some excitement when you've got a run where things are working, but sadly the lack of polish makes it very hard to enjoy.
Innovation
2 Nice idea to make a game centered completely on potion identification; some runs are going to be super random.
Scope
2 It's a pretty good gameplay experiment.
Roguelikeness
3 Yeah
I was only able to play this thru a JS Emulator (Varvara), I understand this is made for a "fantasy" computer and I appreciate the minimalism. It's an interesting gameplay experiment which suffers a lot from unfriendliness toward players but I see the potential of the idea.
Ric-Rac-Rogue
Completeness
2 It feels complete, however with just 10 levels, the game feels more like a prototype than a completed game. The balance and pacing don't really engage me beyond just getting it done, however the game checks all the boxes in terms of what a "video game" should have.
2 The game is winnable, and often offers some challenge, but the balancing still feels off. Specifically, 2-streak boards are trivial, Flip Tile is OP, 10 levels don't really allow me to unleash my full power upon the unsuspecting AI (and level 10 always has the same mechanics). That aside, (at least on my computer) the page hangs for several seconds before loading a new level, and once I encountered some weird bug where I picked "Copy Column", which ended the current level, and then carried over the indication to make a move to the next level.
3 Didn't notice any problems and how to do everything was pretty self-explanatory
Aesthetics
3 I really liked the aesthetics, and they were probably the strongest part of this entry - however, I almost gave this a 2, as the game had no sound effects, and it was impactful enough to make it feel a little empty - whereas I didn't feel this way about playing more traditional roguelikes.
2 I like the look of this game, and it offers reasonable controls for all the functionality. One thing that was missing is some kind of visual flair for preparation for certain moves (e.g., if I select "Copy Row", I might expect a row to highlight when I hover over it).
3 I could tell what was going on pretty well
Fun
2 It was neat for sure - however, I never really felt grabbed by the mechanic, even though initially I was intrigued. I feel like there's some missed potential here, but definitely more fun than a 1, but not a "must play" by any means.
2 This was a surprisinigly fun twist on the most boring board game in universe.
1 Not really my idea of fun
Innovation
3 Definitely innovative! It's tic tac toe with "roguelike" elements :D
3 I found the idea and rules utterly unique.
2 Building on Tic-Tac-Toe with random upgrades and playing fields
Scope
2 Seemed modest in scope - as tic tac toe itself is a fairly simple game; however the aesthetics were nice enough to bring the game up a level.
1 The scope felt a bit too little. Aside from graphics, there core game mechanics are relatively simple.
1 It didn't really feel like there was a lot overall being added
Roguelikeness
1 I understand how the game relates to roguelikes, but that being said, it was just too distant for me to really feel like it was a roguelike.
2 In many ways, this doesn't play like a rogulike (I mean, it's a board game!), but carefully choosing powers to balance cooldowns and energy consumptions felt roguelite-y enough.
1 Not one at all
This was tic tac toe with powerups, and rule changes. The game hit me in a kind of weird way - it seemed to have a lot of potential, I enjoyed the aesthetics, and the idea, but the overall experience felt flat.
Ric-Rac-Rogue is a surprisingly fun twist on the most boring board game in the universe. I actually wish there was more content (more levels, maybe more dilution in power-ups) to play with. While the game is generally easy, I've definitely lost multiple times due to foolish miscalculations, and it was easy to jump back again. You definitely got something catchy there, hope you expand it further!
It is kind of hard to make Tic-Tac-Toe into a roguelike, though I assume this wasn't what was aimed for here. However, it really felt like there was a lack of ideas being implemented here; at least nothing really all that imaginative. Honestly though, the problem might have been the base game, being as limited as it was.
Temple of Ruins
Completeness
2 Very solid!
2 Looks nice, runs nice, doesn't have an ending (according to the description) so it feels a bit pointless
3 Didn't seem to have any issues, decent instructions
Aesthetics
3
2 Very nice retro style to the game.
3 Controlled and looked fine
Fun
2 Gameplay loop is a bit too simple for my tastes, but the really cohesive visual design helps offset that and takes this to a "2" for me.
2 It's just an endless dungeon crawl with not a whole lot to do. A leaderboard or highscore might help provide incentive to go again.
1 Not really enough elements to have fun with
Innovation
1
1 Some interesting mechanics (wall breaking and using the enemies to kill other enemies), but nothing very innovative.
1 Really didn't see a whole lot new
Scope
2
2 Successful 7DRL (maybe a cop out on the lack of ending... but whatever)
2 There was a game here, and it had a bit of substance to it
Roguelikeness
3
2 The lack of a quest takes a lot away from the "feeling" of a traditional roguelike. Otherwise, right there.
2 Delved too deep into puzzles
This is a really cohesive and cute game! The design direction is really consistent, clear, and simple. The game makes total sense, quickly. The UI is legible. I like how the different enemies behave, from pure drunken wandering to actually chasing me. However it's not that mechanically deep; I didn't feel like I had a lot of personal expression in how I solved problems. For the most part I'm trying to accumulate resources as efficiently as I can. I'm torn on how simple combat is. On the one hand, I like to not manage weapons and stats and complex tradeoffs. But this might be a tad TOO simple, to the point where I don't feel like my experience or knowledge helps me play better. I'm not sureee what I would recommend about that. If potions are the main "abilities" of this game, it may be something to unpack in that area. Maybe some AOE potions that interact with the map more? That might help make the "break down walls" thing make sense. Manipulating the environment and enemy positions to make your potions use efficient? (Also, I wish shops were more reliable! I had a ton of money one run and couldn't spend it because I had a lot of levels in a row without a shop. Felt frustrating to have that stored progression and lose.)
Technically this is a very sound and stable game, but it just feels like it's missing something. Everything works and looks decent, but there's nothing pulling me back in to play again... or even for very long.
The game felt a bit too simple for what was here. Maybe add more enemies, give them some diverse abilities, or make it feel like one is in more peril while playing.
Wind of Runes
Completeness
2 Maybe its intended but instead of the player taking their turn followed by the enemies, everyone simultaneously takes their turn
Aesthetics
3 Little clunky managing inventory but nothing horrible
Fun
1 I've played traditional roguelikes before - got to do something a substantially special to make your gameplay stand out
Innovation
2 I guess the experience gaining mechanic is new
Scope
1 I kind of feel that not enough work was done to show off how the experience mechanic with runes could be made fun
Roguelikeness
3 Traditional roguelike this is
Getting your experience based off what enemies you kill might be interesting, but unless you can pick and choose what enemies to fight it is likely kind of meaningless. If you just kill everything coming at you then you might as well assign values to enemies as they come to engage your character. Otherwise, nothing really to see with this project.
Arcanist's Heritage
Completeness
2 Very nice entry, good instructions, focused on the main mechanics. Seems unbalanced due to a lack of close-quarter combat of any sort from the player's side (might be a bug? recognizes any monster as a wall when bumping)
2 Adequate on the completeness scale - not buggy per se, but there isn't sound or music, and just about everything in the game is minimal. Also, the map gen sometimes leaves items inaccessible by having the exit blocking the path.
2 Instructions are nice, both in game and out! Having enemies hit you through walls was not.
Aesthetics
2 Supports multiple control schemes, but I couldn't find the "wait" key and it is sorely lacking. Looks quite cute. I was missing some sort of long-range identification of monsters many times.
1 As minimal as it gets. No music, sound, the UI is very light, no transitions, just everything is bare bones.
2 It looked fine, though the words could have been presented better; both in presentation and using them
Fun
2 Really nice time with this game, but every run is very limited and in many, I simply felt unlucky to have spawned in the level with those enemies. Got me to take my notebook and start scribbling, though!
3 Honestly, in spite of everything, I really enjoyed the mechanic. Something about the way the spell words were made - super short and always sounded like a "real" word. I still remember the incantations and it's been days since I played.
1 Wasn't really
Innovation
1 The spellcasting is cool: a way to quickly jot down the parts of the passed-on knowledge players gain over time, but it's very limited. I feel that there have been roguelikes and non-roguelikes that have done similar things in a wider scope.
2 I think this was fairly innovative. I mean word based spell casting has definitely been done before in a myriad of ways, but this felt very good.
1 Nothing here was actually all that new
Scope
1 Almost all the base elements are there, but some (bumping, waiting) are gone. I couldn't figure out what to do with the food, so maybe that was left half-way? Solid ten minutes of gameplay fun in this. I think it's close to being solid.
2 Small game, fun mechanic, bare bones aesthetics/UI.
2 A little bit was here at least
Roguelikeness
3 It's procedural (and lovely), it's player-centric, turn-based, very clear runs with immediate payoff in terms of knowledge passed in the next game (if you continue without restarting). Definitely fits!
3 Yes this was a roguelike through and through, with a great implementation of a new spell casting mechanic.
3 Full marks, despite the spells words not being randomized
Consistent, focused on its main premise, lacks in player agency outside of the main mechanics however. I would have loved a sort of explanation for why some things happen (like the mages who cast fireball disappearing suddenly), as well as more differentiation between elements (water and air feel the same mostly). I'd definitely say it was fun for a while, but replayability hurts even more than with traditional roguelikes where you don't tie yourself that hard to identification. I had nouns from one game become verbs in another, and all the good feels from having to relearn the basics really hurt in this regard.
I really enjoyed the game. Its core spell casting mechanic was so fun, I don't know exactly why I liked it so much, but it did exactly what it was supposed to. There was a moment in the game where I was on fire, and I was like "I can put myself out with 'az zy gy' or whatever, then I did. I had many moments throughout the game where I felt like I discovered something new, even though I know I didn't. It wasn't a roaring flame of a game, but it was a spark, and if they take it further I'd enjoy playing a more full featured experience.
Decent attempt at a spellcasting game, although it feels like it missed he mark slightly. I likely would have prefered not having to type out the spell words each time, maybe having symbols might have been better? (think Magicka) Another idea might be to have preset combinations of spells too to make it easier to cast them.
EverythingRL
Completeness
2 It's playable but by its nature, it's not very balanced and doesn't have much engagement beyond the very opening creation
2 In many ways, this game is complete, but some things are lacking. Most importantly, the balance needs more love (even after I learned crafting properly, I still died on Level 1 a couple times after having previously won the game; the endgame boss was very weak when I got to it). Would be nice to elaborate further on what each of the types of equipment does (one seems like armor, not sure about the second one, AI-generated descriptions seem clearly false). The type interaction wasn't always clear (e.g. does differently colored terrain mean different vulnerability? What does a Psychic food do? etc.) Encountered a minor bug (combining lvl1 Wine + lvl1 Wine yielded another lvl1 Wine - was reroducible on that level, but never after a restart).
Aesthetics
2 The gameplay itself was clear, but the AI-generated nature made it very unclear what my goal was, even with very different prompts. I was hoping for some kind of guidance beyond just the very basic idea of "combining items and moving around"
2 I could tell what's going on, but the dungeon could have been prettier. Unclear what the differently colored cells mean in the dungeon. Considering that crafting is arguably the most important mechanic (at least I did it soooo often), it was somewhat annoying to combine the items - wonder if there is a way to reduce the number of clicks there.
Fun
1 There is a seed of fun in the "what can combine!?" until you realize that everything is effectively the same and just has silly names. Couldn't really make myself get into it despite really trying to engage
2 I greatly enjoyed the first hour of playing this - both "Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood" and "Ancient Mesopotamia" yielded rather interesting worlds. Was interesting to figure out what is procgen and what is set in stone across levels. However, once I figured that out, the game loses a lot of appeal, the flow is mostly the same and it's not fun to replay anymore.
Innovation
1 The idea of pulling in AI seems solid, but this has near zero else.
2 Wouldn't call this innovative, but I enjoyed the world procgen and thought it was a nice twist.
Scope
1 The depths is pretty minimal. I could see it being a 2 to someone else, but the AI generated nature makes it hard to know what isn't polished vs it just being very small
2
Roguelikeness
3 Definitely a roguelike.
3
The idea of integrating AI into a roguelike is a cool one, but this game offers very little else. The super-effective type-system is fun to think about, but actually very hard to use because of a tight inventory limit that encourages combining things in unpredictable ways. I can imagine a game that tries to be less AI-focused but still uses AI to supplement a baseline fun game. This one sacrifices the focus on fun for the focus on AI.
Overall, I spent a fun hour+ on this. I played the game ~6 times, out of which I won once, died on spawn twice, and died on level 1-2 the other couple times. Found the game very fun until I figured out what are the permanent mechanics, the game definitely lost its allure after that. The worldbuilding is somewhat of a hit and miss; I found "Ancient Mesopotamia" quite enjoyable, but in "Mass Effect" I couldn't tell the equipment apart due to half the items being N7-something. Would love to see AI worldbuilding affect the dungeon beyond just reskinning items and enemies, but sounds like a big ask for a 7drl.
Past Shadows
Completeness
3 Didn't notice any bugs when I played it
2 The game is stable and winnable. Some of the pushable blocks seem to be consistently generated in the inaccessible corners, but never the ones you need to actually win the run. It is far too easy and brief, but that has more to do with its scope.
Aesthetics
3 Looked fantastic, sounded nice
3 The tile art is very good (even with some animations), especially when considering the contest's limitations. It has one background theme, and it's pretty good as well. Even the fonts & the menu animation clearly show effort. It would be nice if the ravens audibly cawed/flapped their wings, but that's about the only negative comment to make.
Fun
1 Just a series of puzzles
1 The game is far, far too brief and too easy. There's really only the flame jets and the metal bars to manage, and the pause mechanic is only needed in about half the instances they show up. For a combat-free puzzle, it's really obvious what to do, and the game feels like busywork.
Innovation
2 Having puzzles in roguelikes isn't new, but ones revolving around time are a little bit novel
1 Replacing combat with very standard timed trap tiles and sliding blocks is not innovation. Nothing interesting is done with the ability to pause/rewind time either.
Scope
2 I feel there was enough to demonstrate the idea
1 Basically a demo. Only a handful of gameplay-relevant entities in total, can be completed very quickly, and very little changes between the runs. The difficulty setting only seems to really affect the number of lives, and it's not meaningful when the game is already so easy.
Roguelikeness
2 Maybe lacked a little too much content here; it was just running through puzzles but nothing more notable then that
2 It is simultaneous turn-based and technically has permadeath, though it's not meaningful with such brief length. Likewise, procedural generation changes too little to be meaningful. This makes the game feel less than a true roguelike a lot more than the lack of combat/enemies does.
I liked the idea here but felt more had to be done with it. Maybe there could have been more enemies to deal with or more hazards to work around. The game was also extremely short and perhaps too easy too.
Starts promisingly, yet clearly prioritizes aesthetics over gameplay. I would have liked it a lot more if it was able to integrate at least a couple more additional puzzle types and lengthen the levels several times to make them count, and to help the player feel why what they are doing is actually important.
RogueHot
Completeness
2 Very nice! It's understandable and well presented. It doesn't go out of its way to embellish, but definitely feels like more than just a tech demo. Definitely a bit buggy, especially after a while: the party members seem to not correctly present their healths, enemy healths are left behind and stay floating in the rooms.
2 Might have been a bug where my warrior hire took 3 damage all at once, certainly an issue with moving against objects and time continuing to progress
Aesthetics
2 I love the choice of style and the UI. It could do with a bit less mouse movement - if the abilities were numbered, for example, I feel it would be much easier to play.
2 I don't think this was the right control scheme for the game. Something more akin to FTL or Unexplored with pause and go might have worked better
Fun
2 Pretty fun: having the characters plan and then execute movement is fun to play with, but becomes monotonous after a while. No level requires you to go out of your way - if the initial configuration doesn't hurt your party, move them around so that they don't get hurt and then shoot. Melee fighter was mostly underused. Once the level is clear, it's quite slow to get to new rooms.
1 It had a lot of ideas but they didn't meld into anything fun
Innovation
2 The mechanic at the heart of this game is pretty new: there are games that explore it, but not many and not many of them roguelikes. I like it, but I think it needs to be brought further. At this point, it's basically saying "we don't need a grid" and "turns can be synchronous" without understanding why we had those in the first place when talking of tactics and strategy.
2 It was a unique take on SuperHot style mechanics in roguelikes
Scope
1 Given how little content is churned around the mechanics we have, I have to say that I expected more to fit within 7 days, especially given that it eschews many of the things that makes roguelikes hard to make (including turn order, positioning on a grid, sight, etc.)
2 Felt like enough was done here
Roguelikeness
2 Roguelike-like, and a sparse one at that, but definitely worth having around to see it push the boundaries!
3 Close enough
I like RogueHot. It wears its inspiration on the sleeve, as it should. It should have pushed a bit further, in my opinion. I think that it could have worked with a single character, and exploring the same design space as SuperHot does, but... roguelike-y. It's cute and I hope the developer stays invested!
So many ideas, but were they all good to have? Did you need allies for a game like this, maybe the enemies could have been more threatening, ran through first level and didn't encounter like 'any' enemies, etc. I think some ideas need to be thrown out (maybe focus on just one character), others need to be adopted for ones that might work better (I don't think how shots or the character moved jived well for example), and maybe the hero character could do more then just attack and move.
DVNGEN
Completeness
2 Solid implementation, looks clean, but the UI is very small and doesn't have any additional details - I'm not sure if we're collecting stuff just to collect it, or if there's any differences between different items of the same sort. The log contains debug strings (like item_names), but this is minor. The game feels a little like a less over-the-top, turn-based version of the Gauntlet, which is okay.
2 Feels complete, could use a little polish and there are a couple weird interface things that might be bugs...? It froze on me as I was leaving level 12.
3 Did as it was suppose to, didn't have any issues playing
Aesthetics
2 Functional, nice, controls are a bit weird (it uses two directions - one for moving, one for attacks, and then mouse for drinking potions). The selection screen, intro screen, mortal kombat style voice overlays are a bit rough around the edges but welcome for style points. Color consistency is totally off: the green character avatar has yellow items, the gold/blue character wears gray and pink items, and the red mage has only blue clothes in the inventory.
3 The graphics and sounds are good, but the screen layout is phenomenal! Extremely well designed and works super well for roguelikes.
2 Um? I didn't really like the separate move and attack controls, even though I realize they make sense. The equipment though was sort of pointless since I couldn't see stats on things and it was too easy to destroy it be accident with a wrong mouse click.
Fun
1 There is only one type of attack (per weapon), there's enough health for that not to be a problem, and there doesn't seem to be a goal to play towards or ending. Every level is designed in the same way: rooms connected via very long corridors. The corridors are empty, and enemies spawn within the rooms but don't leave until the player enters. Once inside, the best option is to stand in the corridor and wait for the enemies to all come to you, dealing with them promptly. Picking up items is automatic and there are no details on what the items are or do. Weapons seem to do the same damage and have the same speed. One level down, it's all the same, so not fun for me.
2 This is a fun little roguelike. Nothing super but fun for what it is.
1 What concept was being explored here?
Innovation
1 Straightforward, could have played around with the two-directions for movement and attacks more, but didn't.
1 doesn't introduce much new
1 I see a lot of features that could make for an awesome game, but you need some sort of idea to build your game around first
Scope
2 Pretty basic: movement, attacks, pickup. Whatever is here, works. The sounds add a flare, but I'm not sure I'm a big fan of it - the sounds are sped up seemingly randomly to create variations.
2 does the roguelike thing
1 Nothing notable here
Roguelikeness
3 It's a roguelike! A lot less fun but definitely in the same lane as the original Pixel Dungeon. I could grow to like the simplicity, but it needs some polish.
3 nailed it. The exploration is a little hindered by having a full map at the beginning, but it still plays like a roguelike.
2 Not enough depth to call this a roguelike
DVNGEN generates very large levels that are only fun only in some places, and even then - only barely. I couldn't distinguish between the different enemies, they behaved the same, and it felt like a bit of a chore. I think that squeezing this design would do wonders to this game: reduce the health to something small. Make smaller dungeons. Make more variation.
I love the UI layout of this game. Otherwise it's a pretty standard roguelike. Possibly a little on the easy side, but that's hard to complain about.
Perhaps a cool game could be made out of this, but you need something interesting and compelling to draw on. If you want a labyrinth style dungeon, have enemies spawn both in and out of rooms; else I'd likely limit the scope of the game to something more akin to Binding of Issac, where you go room to room.
A Roguelike for Roguelike fans
Completeness
2 Does what it promises. All the features work in reasonably predictable ways. Though, I'm not sure whats intended when going to deeper levels. It says "You win!" if I descend once, and sends me back to the main screen. I think the implication is that the progression comes from characters you meet who will change aspects of the world.
2 It does what it says it does, but it still feels a bit techdemo-y. There's an obvious lack of polish in the textual part of the game, making some options hard to understand.
Aesthetics
2 It's generic but functional.
2 Adequate, it's clear and doesn't waste time on detaails. The scale of the sprites is somehow strange in comparison to the rest, but it works.
Fun
1 Not much novel here. There's something going on with talking to these characters that update the world, but it's too thin for me.
1 This was an interesting experience, but it wasn't fun. Interesting, in that the feature of metaprogression is done so very intensely that it can be opaque and not clearly metaprogression. This game has one level at the beginning, and then can grow larger. It has some level of hardship installed, and then can become more or less hard. Items can be more sparse, monsters more plentiful, but only in the next run. Progression within each run was minimal - even though items had a lot of stats, and there were a lot of items, it didn't really cause lots of trouble choosing one variant or another - the levels stayed pretty easy and the combat was monotonous. I had the luck of the draw and all the options in the first seven short runs I had were to make monsters more rare or weaker, so I had an empty dungeon for a while. This isn't something roguelike fans like, I think. Once I spent time on around twenty runs, the dungeons returned to normal, I made it a bit harder and had several levels within a run, and the only thing I could think at the end is that I'm just setting up the next run by playing this one. There is no fun in setup if there is no payoff. This game feels to me like a make-your-own-roguelike kit with a minimal set of tools, and in that it fails me as a game.
Innovation
1 Pretty straightforward, nothing that novel.
3 I haven't seen too many games that try to give almost complete freedom to the player, but there's probably a reason for that. I think it's an interesting premise, but also its own contradiction. Players want to be surprised, they want to learn, not control by design.
Scope
1 Movement, spells, items, etc. It's here but it's very basic versions of everything.
2 I wouldn't say this game goes beyond some normal scope for a 7DRL with a strange premise.
Roguelikeness
3
2 It's really weird. Yes, this is a roguelike in every screenshot you can get of it. Explaining the mechanics step by step still sounds like a roguelike, and yet the feeling of a complete adventure is gone. I think that it's the character-centric nature of traditional roguelikes that gets lost, but not even lost as much as it is in similar experiences, such as Darkest Dungeon, where companies change and leave and die and get replaced, but rather the player character becomes inconsequential - an obvious vessel for the bonuses the player bestows them. Playing this felt much more like some sort of barebones simulation of a roguelike.
It's no accident it says "roguelike" twice in the title. This game is a straightforward implementation of classic roguelike mechanics. 8-way movement, FOV, chambers connected with tunnels, monsters, equipment, and so on. Everything works (with the exception perhaps of descending levels; I'm not totally sure if what happens is what's intended) which is a big credit to the dev!
I am going to keep thinking about this one for a long time. My review might sound negative, but I think this is exactly what I hope to get from 7DRL every year - not my next favorite roguelike, but rather someone pushing the boundaries and teaching me new things about what this genre is even about. This is a genre deconstruction, and one that works like a case study of what it is people think roguelikes are, but not as a roguelike - at least not for me.
Derelict-7DRL
Completeness
2 I ran into a couple bugs, but they don't prevent the game from being played.
2 There were a few bugs I ran into, two of which affected gameplay. Text overlapping the map/other text. I think I saw a dropped item disappear when a scroll was used to vanish an enemy in the same tile.
Aesthetics
2 It looks like a roguelike. The maps are really nice, though not very islandy, and the line of site feature is well implemented. The sand is sand colored. The water is water colored.
2 The graphics and controls are simple and intuitive.
Fun
2 It's fun enough and short enough that it doesn't wear on you. I think if it were longer it would need more.
1 I unfortunately didn't have fun with this one. After about a dozen quick deaths on the first or second level (if I got lucky and found the boat before more than one enemy), I realized that advancing was really just up to rng of the drops. After that, I managed to get further every few runs when I'd get a lucky string of potion drops, but there wasn't really any strategy or engaging gameplay involved with that.
Innovation
1 It does the roguelike thing. Changing stairs out for a boat doesn't change that.
1 It's a basic "bump attack" roguelike with a couple of items and enemies.
Scope
2 It has some nice flourishes but pretty much is a nice, simple little roguelike. Great foundation to build on.
1
Roguelikeness
3 This plays like a traditional roguelike, stripped to it's bare bones.
3
It's very short and minimal. If the enemy drops don't go your way it's excessively hard and there are a couple bugs, but otherwise it's quite enjoyable.
Making a game in seven days is very difficult. That there's something playable at all is an achievement and something to be proud of. I saw in a comment that this was your first game and you're planning on doing more with it. I think that's great and I want to encourage you to keep at it!
Dice and Dragons
Completeness
2 Game does what it says, though I couldn't seem to restart a game successfully without rebooting. I suspect there are seeds that are unwinnable; if you don't get sufficiently powerful + easy-to-cast spells, the hunger clock will simply grind you into dust.
2 What was there worked fine, became unresponsive after restarting the game. It took me three attempts to understand how to beat it.
Aesthetics
2 It makes sense, and the game is introducd well. Though there are some UX issues -- what your spells do is not made particularly visible. Your spells have very high range and are not constrained by LOS, which surprised me. Overall art direction is not particularly exciting, and I'm not totally sure what I'm fighting other than the goblins and the dragon.
2 I could play it well, but it is not always clear what is happening.
Fun
1 Dice abilities are a really cool design space, and I enjoyed seeing it here. It has potential. But this system is a bit too simple and the power of the abilities compared with rarity of meeting the requirements seems totally out of whack. When I won, it felt like it was purely because I got a 75 damage spell that was >3>4, which would be availabe about a third of the time.
2 I think the idea could work well, but there is just not enough variety. It was exciting to get a particularly high damage spell and start blasting.
Innovation
1 There's something in this mechanic, but the game didn't push it far enough for me to really "click." Maybe if the die colors were related to the kinds of abilities? Or if you could weight the die rolls systematically? I'm thinking like red is physical, blue is magic. And youg et abilities that make those dies have different odds. Or more die of each color that you can pick from. This might all be in Dicey Dungeons, I forget the exact design there. But anyway there's something to build on here that is intersting. However this version doesn't go far enough IMO.
2 It tries to be innovative.
Scope
1 A bit too basic; just movement + abilities + potions.
1 This is a very basic entry, missed a lotmore variety of effects.
Roguelikeness
3 It hits all the basic criteria, yes.
3 This definitley works as a roguelike. Needs ust more variety.
I'm intrigued by the concept -- we've seen dice before in Dicey Dungeons and it was great. I can imagine a more traditional roguelike take that uses dice in a clever way. This is a foundation for that, but this version doesn't do it for me yet. The balance is pretty far off. Some runs I get spells that do 10-20 damage and have tricky requirements like one die =6. And in my winning run, I got a spell that did 75 damage and required >3>4 which is relatively common. There wasn't much nuance in which spell to use; the flow was "roll dice, see what spells are available, use best spell on an enemy in sight that won't overkill it too much." Then repeat that loop. If you get powerful enough spells with easy-enough requirements, you win. The potions are a nice touch, and I did enjoy manipulating the dice. But in terms of overall balance they're relatively marginal. If you have great spells, they don't matter much. If you don't get great spells, they will keep you alive a little longer. But skillful use of them is not going to really change the trajectory.
GladiatorRL
Completeness
2 The lack of instructions is a major problem here, but that's about it
2 Core game play is very complete, but there are parts that feel like they could have used a day or two more, particularly the exposure of the time system and an ending for the game.
Aesthetics
2 Blue '~' for deep water on black background, sometimes walls being the same color as the floor; squinting isn't fun
2 Pretty standard rogue aesthetics. It's visually pleasing but not trying to do a ton of novel aesthetics.
Fun
1 I might have more fun if the idea is fleshed out more but currently I'm not having any here
2 Glad I played it, but this is very much a tactical fighting game bordering on an action game. Very tight game play and learning about enemies is interesting, but the lack of progression and ending made it less fun for me.
Innovation
2 Having the Wind Up for attacks is not commonly seen in roguelikes
2 Nice twist on the grid-based bump combat that really allows more play-room. It feels like it's a good test bed for a game rather than a complete concept for a game.
Scope
2 It felt like there was enough here to consider this more then a tech demo
1 Seems to be a starting point for a game rather than a game given that the levels, enemies, and plot don't really have a thematic connection
Roguelikeness
3 Definitely felt like there was enough here to give full marks
1 No progression or ending makes this hard to justify because every run is the same, but it does have permadeath and proc-gen, so it ticks some of the boxes. 1.5 for me.
I was intrigued by the idea presented here, but I don't think it was perhaps executed well or maybe I just didn't understand it and ultimately it just comes down to making the instructions more clear. It may be that you need a JRPG style timeline for these type of game mechanics too, that would help with showing where your character is in regards to stuff acting perhaps.
Really cool to allow more than just boring bump-combat, but it feels like these are all abilities that one could unlock as you play a roguelike rather than a game in and of itself. I plan to steal from this game in the future, so I really like it as a game-designer, but it does not feel like a cohesively complete game in and of itself.
NEKRON::24
Completeness
3 What is there is serviceable.
3 Very polished and stylized. I only had 1 crash in about 50 games (most games lasted 15 seconds).
Aesthetics
2 This will be subjective, on the technical side, it’s a solid 3d fps implementation, movement feels smooth and precise.
3 The graphics and sounds are a stylistic choice. It's like a Doom fever dream.
Fun
1 Not my cup of tea.
3 Very fun and really different from most other roguelikes.
Innovation
1 No real innovation to see here.
1 I mean, it's Quake with a 12 second time limit and 1 health.
Scope
1 I feel like it could explore its core gameplay loop a bit more. Currently it feels very repetitive.
2 It's nice, but pretty simple.
Roguelikeness
1 It’s a first person shooter.
1 I mean, this is Quake with random levels. Sure, there's permadeath, but you were probably only alive for 13 seconds, so who cares.
This feels nothing like a roguelike. It’s a fast paced action shooter in the first person perspective. Well, your goal is to actually to run through a green portal, as the one sentence tutorial will tell you. It’s still a weird entry. I cannot rate it as a roguelike, because it is so far removed from what I think a roguelike game is. So let’s pretend this is an entry to 7d-fps. Difficulty is on the harder side, almost everything you touch is an insta-death, of course with perma-death, since there is no save feature. You have a gun to kill the moving obstacles which are roughly person shaped. The colours are very psychedelic and you begin on a timer of 8 seconds. So it is a very hectic affair, because if the timer runs out, you guessed it, insta-death. All in all, it’s a nice little tech-demo or proof concept for a weird FPS game concept.
This was a fun little diversion from the regular roguelikes. I think the developer just reused a lot of his previous assets to make a quick shooter with random levels. I wouldn't label this as a roguelike, but I would label it as challenging and fun.
Robo Dungeon
Completeness
2 Complete and never had any crashes.
1 Fairly buggy - lots of systems lacked proper feedback, and I was confused most of my playthrough.
Aesthetics
2 It took a minute to grok what was happening, but feels good once you understand what's happening.
2 Not particularly impressive - seemed like a matchup between 2d and 3d, but not in a super compelling way. sfx were limited, no msuic.
Fun
2 It's fun figuring out the systems and different ways to complete each level. It is a bit frustrating when there are no moves to make that make any sense for the situation you're in.
1 I think due to the completness issues, I was just confused most of the time. I still "beat" the game, but did so without fully understanding what I was doing.
Innovation
2 The features seem familiar, but different enough to feel innovative.
2 Seemed like there were some interesting ideas here - enough of a twist being dice based actions, but I've seen lots of variations on this in the past.
Scope
2 There is a lot of implied aspects to this game, but great for a constrained time period.
2 The scope wasn't too bad - I just wish they spent more time on making the game clear, poslished, and bug free instead of adding so many dice faces.
Roguelikeness
2 This has a lot of the hallmarks of a traditional roguelike, but it's defining features, the dice mechanics and the small puzzle dungeons, separates it from that more "traditional" crowd.
2 Roguelike, but in the ways that it diverged weren't particularly elevating.
This is a fun and potentially innovative game. I think this type of mechanic has been done before, but there is enough of a twist on it here to make it something interesting, especially with a 7 day scope.
This was hard for me. I've already formally reviewed 10 games, and have played less interesting entries, but the level of bugs and lack of polish really made this difficult to work through.
The Razing of Plum Parish
Completeness
2 Has some quirks, that prevent me from giving it three points. Especially the handling of followers.
2 Noticed a summoning bug where enemies would step into your summons, but otherwise it worked fine
Aesthetics
2 It’s functional and clean, the movement sound wasn’t for me though, so I turned the sound off.
3 Looked good and sounded quite nice
Fun
2 The initial default fun that I have when playing a necromancer that raises skeletons quickly wears off, especially given that the goal is unclear.
1 Clunkily bonking skeletons or kiting enemies to advance gets a little boring
Innovation
1 It didn’t present anything out of the ordinary, or I wasn’t able to get there. Not enough context is provided to know.
1 Not the first Necromancer styled 7DRL and this is not distinct enough from them
Scope
1 I was to acquire three skills, and that matches the itch.io page, it feels a bit like a tech-demo, indeed.
1 Had a few enemies and a few spells, but ultimately more could have been done here perhaps
Roguelikeness
3 Well, it is a tech-demo of a more or less traditional (sans ascii) roguelike, in my opinion.
3 Full marks granted here at least.
I was missing a bit of context, even if it was just one line of text saying: “Get the amulet from the 10th floor” or sth. So I wasn’t even sure about my goal, and just assumed it was to ascend the tower in the game.I tried about an hour to get up, but couldn’t get above floor 6. At that point the gameplay started to feel a bit repetitive, with no real variation in combat. The follower movement can be irritating, because they block your way. I wish they would just swap places with the player character. I also encountered a bug, where my skeleton army would stop moving completely for a while, until an enemy got near. For a short time, it’s fun. However, not knowing how long the ascension will be makes long-time motivation harder. More context would be cool. I was also quite confused about what’s in the game and what is not. The itch.io page says there are keybindings for up to nine skills, but then goes on to list only three.
The idea of a necromancer style game is always intriguing, but there is nothing really to appeciate here. You bump into your skeletons when they get in the way, your very limited in fighting enemies, and you are primarily having your minions do all the fighting which is kind of boring. I'm not sure the limited resources are really needed here either.
King of Mist
Completeness
2 No crashes or major bugs, but some things feel unfinished, like the mapping and the inventory
2 Game felt "complete" in that there were no notable bugs, and I was able to play through the entire thing knowing well what I was doing.
1 No instructions, couldn't seem to access equipped items, and I think I dupicated an item
Aesthetics
2 pretty easy to understand, the inventory page takes a minute to get used to and I never understood the mini-map(?) at the bottom right
2 This was very minimal, but I appreciate the effort here. Aesthetically it felt bare, however it had lots of nice touches like color changes, UI highlights, and other niceties that made it feel decent.
1 Tiles were maybe too small to look at, controls were very clunky
Fun
3 If you like traditional roguelikes, you'll enjoy this one. I only found one boss, but the allure of finding them all kept me playing for way too long.
2 For what it was I enjoyed myself quite a bit.
1 Bit too hard to really enjoy this
Innovation
1 It doesn't do anything new or exciting
1 No significant innovation that I could point to.
2 Having extra lives isn't really common, nor was the idea of how to change levels
Scope
2 Fun coffee break roguelike.
2 Scope seemed decent, many different items, with some enchantments that gave you abilities, decent enemy variety, a good scope for 7 days.
1 Not really enough was done here
Roguelikeness
2 The "permadeath" is questionable. I thought I died several times but just got sent back to the start.
3 Very much a roguelike :)
3 I think it is close enough to the genre
I really enjoyed this for the fun simplicity of it. It really needs a save feature and a more readable mini map.
I liked this! It was small, and wasn't very polished, but it felts solid and well executed.
Should still give some basic instructions for playing, even if you label every key you can use. Maybe zoom in a bit, or give the player the ability to adjust how far they can zoom in. Perhaps tone down the starting difficulty, enemies were easily able to stomp me right from the getgo.
Halfway Mouse and the Random Number
Completeness
3 For whats there, it’s all there and well put together and polished
3
2 What's here seemed to be complete, but the game lacked instructions and purpose
Aesthetics
3 Perfect 1 bit aesthetics and the dialog and environments are spot on
3 The various dungeons are great! My one issue is that the randons are not centered to the tile, but rather occupy one of its corners, so I sometimes mistakenly walked into them because I thought it was on the adjacent tile.
2 Mice? More like worms.
Fun
2 A fun little world to explore, interesting puzzles to try and solve
2 At its core, this is a simple puzzle game, but the player also has to figure out the mechanics as they go. After that, the multitude of dungeons triggered the achievement collector in me, and I explored the content for quite a while. However, I started getting frustarted towards the end when I never encountered Game Jam and Chaos dungeons, and constantly restarting to try a new pattern of randons wasn't much fun.
1 No
Innovation
1 Move around and solve some puzzles with interaction
2
2 The idea of having multiple different genres in the same game hasn't been explored a lot.
Scope
1 A pleasant walking simulator done in a roguelike style, but not deep in complexity or scope
1 In spite of variety of content, the game mechanics are very limited.
1 This doesn't even qualify as a tech demo!
Roguelikeness
1 Seem more like a 1 bit retro styled puzzle game or walking simulator, not bad things but not a full roguelike. dungeons are hard coded, which dungeon is selected is random but random is not procedural
1 We both know it wasn't intended as a roguelike :)
1 No
Fun to run through on multiple tries to try and solve the puzzles of each dungeon but shallow and once a dungeon puzzle is solved there isn’t any reason to go back
Halfway Mouse is a game of many layers. Initially I didn't even notice the little dots on the tiles, wondered what were randons and PRNG, and just enjoyed the writing and dungeon visuals. Then I thought Old Man Rando makes some sense. Then I started collecting trophies. Then I thought Old Man Rando makes no sense. Then I started figuring out patterns to get a specific dungeon. Then I thought Old Man Rando makes some sense. Then I kept wondering if H.M. distribution refers to something meaningful. Then I thought Old Man Rando makes no sense again. Overall, I enjoyed the time I spent here, but would suggest to either make dungeon routing rules more evident, or randomize it so the player can experience them all.
I recommend marking a project like this unsuccesful. This clearly shouldn't have been brought forward to judge as it didn't even have any roguelike qualities present, assuming they were intended.
Slime Game
Completeness
2 I got a key spawned in a wall, which soft-locked me (magnets don't seem to pull them?)
3 No huge bugs.
2 Seemed to work as it should, though enemies failed to attack properly. Nice tutorial
Aesthetics
2
2
1 Couldn't hold mouse button to contiually fire, enemies flinching couldn't be hit, really slow movement and experience gathering
Fun
2 I didn't play to the end because it was a *big* branchy map and there wasn't enough variation to hold me that long, but it was fun at first.
2 Surprisingly addictive with the upgrades but a little one-note.
1 Not really
Innovation
1 I liked the "divide yourself" powerup though
2
2 Not exactly doing anything really new
Scope
2
2
1 Lacking a bit too much in content
Roguelikeness
2
2 It's real time.
1 Not really enough depth for it to really be one
That was fun! It went on a little too long, the hitboxes were a little wonky, when I restarted after getting a key stuck in the wall, I started off facing one of the key minibosses with only one upgrade and that was terrifying. Otherwise a little too easy, but I'm glad I played it.
The base stats for the lone slime was a bit lacking; I found myself dashing to move which is probably not intended. Some quality of life improves for playing are heavily desired, also enemies that are a bit more capable. The slime also feels like it gets overpowered after some upgrades.
DieHorde
Completeness
3 Feels like a full game, seems aimed at mobile and has a light loop that is very forgiving.
2 The game mostly feels complete (at least the 5 levels that are there). Some things that are lacking to put a 3: it's annoying that you have to end your turn to get to the next level if you defeated the opponent on your turn; level's Victory screen and end turn don't interact well (you have to mouse-click, but not Enter); it's hard to distinguish allies and opponents on the first playthrough; the attack and defense numbers of units don't make much sense (or rather, seem to be more general than this game uses).
Aesthetics
3 Love these kind of simple sprites and the smooth animations really do add a touch
3 I like the aesthetics of this game, and although the dungeon itself looks bland, that's not the main point of the game.
Fun
2 It was more frustrating than fun at first, but then once I started getting the hang of it, it let me feel smart which I enjoyed, but ended up feeling like I needed a piece of paper to write down "X beats Y" for all the rock-paper-scissors at by Act 4.
1 I'm biased here because I prefer games with more meta stuff going on, whereas DieHorde is a purposefully minimalistic tactical (almost puzzle) game, but what can we do, I just didn't enjoy it.
Innovation
1 As a concept puzzle game, it has a lot of merit, but after seeing Hellwards, it's clear that this is just further development on the same game, and there are very few innovations from that.
2 The vulnerability triangle and tactical team combat aren't necessarily innovations, but this is more than a straightforward hack&slash.
Scope
1 Because this is essentially the same game as Hellwards, I don't think this really tried to add much, unless it appears very late in the game.
1 I played its predecessor (Hellwards) a bit, and it looks like the entire engine and battle mechanics are taken from there (maybe ranged weapons are new); as such, seems like a pretty short scope for a 7drl.
Roguelikeness
1 There's no progression? It has puzzle elements and hack/slash, but there is nothing to carry forward from level to level.
1 While the game has turn-based combat and some procgen, it doesn't play like a roguelike.
I like tight-corner dungeons and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game for sure, but since there are no carry-forward mechanics, it was hard to enjoy this as a roguelike rather than just a fun little puzzle game. The aesthetics are top notch (the music is killer), but it was kind of disappointing to see it as a near clone of Hellwards instead of being its own thing. Additionally, it was strange to have my character just change part way through the run. I get that it makes a more tightly controlled experience, but the joy of roguelikes is that you can break them and sometimes they are just bad RNG!
DieHorde plays more like a puzzle than a roguelike. 5 levels feel too short, I thought that they are a tutorial for a larger war to come, but the game just suddenly ended. Then again, I'm not sure how much more you could squeeze out of the 4x4 map format. Aesthetically, the game is pleasing; some features seem slightly off (see Completeness). Many thanks for the undo button; I misclicked on stuff many times. The metal soundtrack is cool, but gets repetitive as you play more. Tbh, I enjoyed Hellwards more; DieHorde is an interesting experiment, but I think it ultimately didn't work out.
HoloDeck
Completeness
1 The fact that death is escapable at any moment by just disconnecting and getting to the next level in combination with the apparent lack of final ending makes it hard to consider this a "done" game. Some of the controls are just not listed (like "g" and "i" so I had to try button mashing until I found them) in the help as well.
1 The game is very far from complete: no ending, only 3 enemy types, instructions are missing the crucial "g" and "i" buttons, very slight difficulty increase on higher levels (although you can always just disconnect, so is there really any difficulty?), minor bugs (level-up happens on xp threshold+1; after dying, you need to restart the browser, otherwise you return to where you died; I got deadlocked once after disconnecting). The game just feels too hollow; need more content and challenge.
Aesthetics
2 Sticks with the baseline of the genre, has a nice cyberpunk overlay for it.
2 A lot of things look good, but the dungeon is a bit too repetitive.
Fun
1 It has potential. The alarm turrets have some fun play to them and definitely give a Metal Gear Solid alarm feel to them when you spot them, but overall the game feels pretty empty and exploration doesn't lead very far
1 It's not fun in the current state because it's repetitive and easy. Would actually be fun with more content and better balancing.
Innovation
1 It's a first time 7DRL, so I wouldn't expect a ton of innovation, but this doesn't stray much outside of the formula of Rogue
2 Not necessarily innovative, but +1 point for various hardware/software gear.
Scope
2 Not as complete as I like, but this falls into the expected range of a 7DRL for me.
2 Might be on the lower end of reasonable 7drl scope, but there are enough mechanics here to justify 2.
Roguelikeness
3 Yeah, this hits it even though it doesn't have a clear ending.
3
Netrunner style rogues are some of my favorites and this is a nice start to one. It has the encouragement to stealth around and the turrets are particularly fun in combination with the alarm system. The fact that death is only possible via the drones and I'm unclear on the final goal of the game made getting XP one at a time a bit of a grind, but this feels like a solid first time exposure to 7DRL.
HoloDeck has potential, but needs way, way more content and challenge to be fun. Not mentioning "g" and "i" in the instructions is simply criminal. The dungeon maps are too dense; try to add more space between the corridors.
JammingDice
Completeness
1 The game has no end - which doesn't mean it can't compete as a high score game, but it doesn't feel like there's enough progression to be engaging beyond the first level or so. It does not feel particularly polished or full featured.
2 Fairly explantory on how to play, though some additional instructions on how to kill things or use items would have been nice
Aesthetics
1 Very minimal - just enough to convey what's going on.
3 The dice controlled easily enough, the items activated as desired
Fun
1 It has potential to be fun. I believe this was an interesting idea, but wasn't executed very strongly, and so felt more frusterating than fun.
1 It wasn't
Innovation
3 I do believe this was innovative. The idea of dice faces unlocking doors, and "holding" items, was intreguing for sure - however, the execution fell a bit flat for me.
3 This was a highly innovative sort of idea, I just wish more was done with it!
Scope
1 This was just barely enough to prove the concept.
1 This is less then a tech demo
Roguelikeness
2 It's core interaction rooted the game as a roguelike IMO - however it was so barebones I almost gave it a 1.
2 Really needs a lot more depth to be fully considered a roguelike here
This game was a dice face movement mechanic, with an endless climb high score goal system. This seemed to have a lot of potential as well - however, the exectuation was very minimal.
The concept here is good, but more needs to be done with it to make it great! Maybe the dice face could interact with enemies somehow, or you can't advance levels until you knock out a certain amount of blocks, or maybe a broughlike format would work well. So many roads this could be taken if more time was put into it.
Legends of the Hidden Cheese
Completeness
2 Straightforward and complete. Items, weapons, armor.
2 The game runs fine. As far as balance is concerned, I'm not sure that this is in any way a final state, as it seems too harsh and unrewarding.
Aesthetics
1
2 The art style is acceptable, although the color choices are a bit too bright for me on some levels. The enemies show as black against everything else showing in much brighter colors (items are white, which is very hard to see).
Fun
1
1 The enemies in this game are punishing and ruthless. As far as I've observed, they all behave in the same way (bumping to attack until one of the two is dead), and it's hard to escape them if you ever need to take a turn. Diagonal movement isn't something the player can do, so there's the odd moment where to turn, you need to accept some damage. I kept dying faster in this game than almost any of the other entries, and I die a lot generally! From my limited time with this game, the hidden cheese is either too well-hidden, or a legend after all.
Innovation
1
1 It's a generic game with little in terms of innovation, seemingly.
Scope
2 There are some hints of more ambition in the scope here. Procedural named items, biomes with different appearanecs and enemies.
2 This entry is very basic, but has the seeds of a larger experience inside. I think the scope is fine, but the balancing needs more time.
Roguelikeness
3
3 As traditional as it gets, the only part by which Legends of the Hidden Cheese is not a roguelike is that you're not on a quest to get the Cheese of Yendor.
This is a 100% straightforward roguelike, without a lot of extra spice. You move around, bump monsters, pick up items, level up, and explore areas with increasingly high level enemies. I didn't sense much "push back" in the form of a hunger system, which means I was rewarded for just grinding lower level areas until they're clean. That also meant I was accumulating lots of very similar items without much differentiation. I couldn't tell whether or how enemies varied in their stats, and so I couldn't work out much strategy around approaching them other than "grind until I'm at or above their level."
Legends of the Hidden Cheese is, in my opinion, unbalanced, and that's the biggest issue. If I could learn what I'm doing wrong, it would be more fun.
Card Counter
Completeness
2 Looked to be complete and didn't seem to feature any bugs; missing an action point counter though
2 Mostly runs okay but I did encounter issues where I couldn't select a card, and balance isn't great.
Aesthetics
2 I could play the game well enough but feedback on hits would be nice
2 I like the boardgame-like choice of player piece, and the mouse interface generally works well enough.
Fun
1 Doing nothing would likely be more fun
1 There's not much to this game. The deckbuilding idea isn't really used - you mostly have the same card over and over, and don't get new ones very often. I never found a way to hit an enemy without also taking a hit, so it's only a matter of time until you get killed from sheer attrition.
Innovation
1 I sort of feel this isn't anything new as of yet
2 There are a lot of deckbuilders out there now, but it's still not something I see used with an otherwise traditional roguelike very often.
Scope
1 Not nearly enough here
2 Reasonable for a 7DRL.
Roguelikeness
1 Roguelikes are known for the depth of their gameplay; which obviously is lacking here
3 I'd consider it to be a roguelike.
I approach enemy, I hit them with the sword, I hit them again. Go to next room. Repeat. Find a boss? Same strategy works just as well. Really needed a lot more here as the concept of cards + roguelike has been done before. What makes your game different from the rest? What new ideas can you show with your game?
Using deckbuilding for your attacks is a decent idea, but not executed very well here. You start off with a deck entirely made up of one type of card, and although you do receive more, they come very slowly. This make the gameplay very monotonous. I also never found a way to avoid taking damage, other than a ranged attack card which you need to first acquire and then draw from your deck every time. There's promise here, but it's not there yet.
Numera Root
Completeness
3 I found no bugs, it does what it's made to do, the only complaint I would have here is the weird aspect ratio (taller than wider) that suggests it's made for a phone. Other than that, it's perfectly presentable
2 It works, it looks nice, it sounds nice. It didn't fit on my screen and the numpad didn't work as described.
Aesthetics
2 While the game doesn't look bad, the transitions are snappy, the music is repeating, loud, and a bit overbearing. The "battles" or levels, I guess, are repetitive and samey, and could have been designed better (to maximize on repeating inputs, so that the players would feel like they can finish in fewer steps, for example). The biggest offender is the progression screen, which isn't clear at all and I've spend clicks just trying things out to see whether they work. It clicked after a while, but it's non-intuitive.
2 The artwork is beautiful. The music seemed a little too upbeat and better suited for a rave themed roguelike. Also, the game didn't fit on my screen and resizing my browzer didn't work because the on screen numpad didn't scale the same as the rest of the game, so I was forced to keep scrolling up and down to see the problems and type the answers.
Fun
1 This is a game that makes the user do math to fight golems, and even though by itself that isn't the worst thing that could happen, it quickly becomes old. The stats the player has are basically just there to exist, as you can take all the time in the world to do the "test". There is little to no design visible in the encounters except to say that you need to solve a smaller or larger number of simple arithmetical equations to beat it. It doesn't work for me, not in this shape.
2 This is hard to say it's fun, because it's a math quiz and I don't like math, but it is a nice little time waster and I'm glad I tried it.
Innovation
1 For a roguelike, this could be taken as very innovative, as no one has done it before, but it may land there had any of them been used in a way that makes the game better. Would I enjoy this over anything without these elements? I think not, sadly.
1 It's a math quiz.
Scope
2 It seems that what was planned was done exactly to the letter, but that was only servicable.
2 Nice graphics, music, and 3 difficulty levels. Definitely more than a tech demo, but nothing super grand or ambitious here.
Roguelikeness
1 I would be hard pressed to call a game with such mechanics a roguelike, and would have to stoop and think about how to approach why. Let's take only some angles here: it isn't playercentric, the player exists only so far as the game needs someone to play it; the procedural generation amounts to creating a certain number of enemies, and then a number of simple equations, ad nauseam. There is no connective tissue between the pure math and the game - I would not mind having things like these within some mechanic, but laying it bare doesn't work very well
1 no, to risk sounding like a broken record, it's a math quiz. Just a straight up math quiz.
It's a bit of a stretch to consider Numera Root a roguelike - it's a math test with the aesthetics of a JRPG battler where the enemies attack only if you don't respond correctly to any of their math problems. The aspect ratio seems to indicate that it should be a phone game, and is a bit hard to fit onto a PC screen. Other than that, technically, it sounds okay and plays well in the fashion the authors imagined.
It's a very pretty math quiz with some really intense music. It's better than answering a bunch of math questions on a sheet of paper, just just barely.
Scicuer
Completeness
2 No bugs that I found, seems complete. Balance is poor though.
2 The game is winnable and seemingly lacks game-breaking bugs, but is unbalanced to the point the dev felt the need to include an infinite HP mode.
Aesthetics
2 Controls are simple and work fine. The look does its job and the addition of gunfire sounds to let you know you're shooting shows thought for the player experience.
1 The tiles selected work well visually, but some creature corpses are difficult to tell apart from live enemies (particularly slimes). Gun sounds are present, but nothing else. Movement, shooting and inventory control with arrows + Ctrl/Shift/Enter yet picking up with P and dropping with O is not a good control scheme.
Fun
1 I feel bad scoring this a 1. It's not that the game is bad, it just doesn't do anything interesting and the poor balance means your runs end by random chance more often than poor play. Excusable for a 7 day game! But not one to go out of your way to play.
1 Surviving first floor is largely luck-based as the player is outmatched by most enemies and can encounter too many before finding any healing. Once guns are found on the second floor, it devolves into shooting at everything from a safe instance, with only random stairway ambushes representing a threat.
Innovation
1 Functionally completely fine, but all very standard stuff.
1 It is generic sci-fi rather than generic fantasy and three creature types are weak to different weapons. That is the closest it comes to innovation.
Scope
2 Reasonable for a 7DRL.
1 Length is closer to a typical 7DRL, but it's fairly bare mechanically. There are a handful of weapons and creature types, but all guns and all enemies are functionally the same outside of damage numbers, and there isn't even a final boss.
Roguelikeness
3 Definitely a roguelike.
3 Very traditional roguelike. Only deviation is the optional "sandbox" mode (i.e. god mode.)
A solid, functional entry which makes an effort to have some graphical presentation and makes thoughtful use of the little sound that it deploys. Its poor balance is perfectly forgivable in a jam game, but ultimately what holds it back is its lack of anything interesting. Gameplay is roguelike by-the-numbers, and the fact that it appears to only have three types of consumable (heal, poison, speed) means it gets very samey very quickly. A decent effort, it just doesn't stand out.
Little more than a practice attempt at making a roguelike. Sadly, it is boring, very poorly balanced, and offers nothing not seen in better entries to this contest.
Sir Bumpsalot, Alpaca Legionnaire
Completeness
1 Borderline on 1 or 2. It has the bones of a roguelike but doesn't have enough going on to really count as done and the bugs push it over the top.
Aesthetics
2 Sticks to the formula, but the walls collapsing is a nice touch.
Fun
1 Didn't have a lot going on for me, largely because the combat and even exploration felt so random.
Innovation
1 Didn't stretch much beyond the silly concept, which I like a lot but wish it added more of a spin.
Scope
2 Not sure what they were going for, but the bones of it seem like a standard 7drl
Roguelikeness
3 It qualifies even though it's not really done
Fun idea with lots of really cute humor (e.g. "you forgot your saddlebags") that missed the mark for me because the combat felt so random, with things bouncing all over and me being largely unsure of what the point of fighting was, or what I was supposed to be aiming for.
venti vento morto
Completeness
2 More instruction might have been needed on what you are doing here.
2 Seems fairly stable. I did encounter a crash when attempting to use Remains of Orc however.
Aesthetics
2 Sounded nice, but not a fan of the tileset
2 The default floor sprite was very noisy. Other than that it wasn't bad.
Fun
1 Cluelessly blundering around trying to determine how things work is not my idea of fun
1 Unfortunately there wasn't really an interesting mechanic or challenge to make this interesting.
Innovation
1 Its a tradition dungeon crawl, likely with some gimmick that I completely missed
1 The premise is interesting but confusing. Are you just collecting bones for the heck of it, or to gain some future in-game benefit? If the former, then incrementing a score would be better than putting it into inventory and both confusing players and cluttering the screen. If the latter, it needs to be explained in-game or on the Itch page.
Scope
1 There might be more here but I can't say I saw much from what I played
1 There doesn't appear to be much here.
Roguelikeness
3 Full marks here for nailing what a roguelike is
3 Roguelike by definition.
Maybe a missed the goal here. Does carrying bones provide you with any benefit or do they just kill your inventory space. For the I didn't feel there was anything really compelling to look at and I'm not sure what the idea being aimed for in this 7DRL was.
This seems to be more of a tech demo than an actual game. The story/premise does seem interesting though, and if something fun could be found to use bones for it might spice up the gameplay. The core problem is that the game is just a hack and slash, and worse yet, doesn't even have the usual challenges of one. A typical hack 'n' slash will force the player to manage health, XP points, or mana while engaging tactically interesting foes; this game has the trappings of those mechanics without including the actual need for decisionmaking. Still, as a template to base a future 7DRL off of, it's not bad.
7DRL 2024
Completeness
2 Couple very minor display bugs in the emulator, nothing that seemed to affect gameplay
2 I believe it's complete for what it is - it doesn't have much breadth or depth, but it does everything it's supposed to do, and doesn't seem particularly buggy or anyting.
Aesthetics
3 I'll give it a 3 for the screen shake effect, there's some polish. :)
2 Minimal, but adequate.
Fun
1 It's pretty repetitive and the maps are the same each time, you just walk around, try to get the first (only) shot on random-walking mobs, and pick up chests
1 It was very minimal, and so felt lacking in terms of fun for me.
Innovation
1 Other than being on the Playdate I don't think it's that innovative
1 There was nothing here particularly new.
Scope
2 I will give it an extra point here for scope because of being written on a new and different platform, that's a decent technical challenge to approach in a week
1 There were very few mechanics, no random map gen, maybe enemy placement was proc gen, but all in the game wasn't broad nor deep.
Roguelikeness
1 ...Eh. You're an @ symbol and you move on a grid. But the maps are all the same, other than random enemy placement there doesn't seem to be anything procedurally-generated in the game
2 Due to it's core mechanics and interactions the game was felt roguelike-y enough to warrent a 2.
To begin with, I don't have a Playdate, so I reviewed this using the Playdate simulator. Maybe it's more fun on an actual system, or the simulator is broken in some way. The game seems pretty shallow though, there's not much strategy to it, you just walk around hoping to get a good shot on the enemies (who move randomly, so there's no strategy there) and then wait out the portal opening and on to the next (single-screen) map. It's more like a turn-based arcade game than anything.
This game was a minimal play date roguelike. It was ammeture, but had a lot of love and heart visible via the creators youtube video.
Sangris
Completeness
3 It worked well enough that I didn't notice too many glaring issues
2 Some bugs: the upgrades that are supposed to heal don't heal (neither +5 max hp, +5 hp, nor +10% attack speed, +8hp); Slime head doesn't seem to have a sprite (I look headless on the map). The text on upgrades is cut off to the left when they are in your inventory, making it impossible to see my upgrades (at least on my screen). The Torso target area is too small, for a while I didn't understand how to wear new items because I couldn't target Torso.
Aesthetics
2 I think I caught the wall sometimes and got stuck which is not good for this sort of game
3
Fun
1 I don't think this was really the goal of the game so that's okay
1 Not generally a fan of real-time games, so this was never going to be my cup of tea - but I found the 1s cooldown especially annoying.
Innovation
2 Not exactly demonstrating anything new, but presentation was unique I feel
1
Scope
1 Definitely needed far more here then a couple enemy types and 4 combat rooms
1 Hard to judge the scope because the game is quite out of genre, but just the roguelike features are very thin (2 enemy types, 3-4 room fabs, and I've only encountered maybe 7 items).
Roguelikeness
1 Not really adhering to what this genre is about
1 The post-room upgrades are the main roguelike feature here, which doesn't quite feel enough to be a roguelike.
I liked the concept but feel far more could have been added to really show it off. I didn't notice any boss fight either - which sort of makes it hard to test what all the upgrades measure up too.
Real-time top-down shooters aren't exactly my cup of tea, but the promise of content kept me going for a dozen runs. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be that much - I only encountered maybe 7 different items. That said, I laughed hard when I incinerated my feet and couldn't walk anymore. It doesn't seem "right" from game design perspective (do you really want your player to softlock?), but I know the flavor text explicitly said legs are for walking, so what did I expect!? I would suggest reducing the shooting lag below 1s (you can rebalance by e.g. giving enemies more hp); 1s is too long and makes it annoying for the player.
Shadows Over Arda
Completeness
2 The main problem right now is balance: some characters (Ulmo, Varda) are way more viable than others. Aside from that, there can be softlocks (Varda can't swim, but level 8 spawned me next to water and void, so I couldn't move anywhere). Some quality of life features are missing (e.g. message log doesn't have a turn counter).
2 Felt like I was blundering around quite a bit trying to figure out how to play
Aesthetics
2 I quite like the minimalistic representation here, the map is nice to look at. However, the terminal reloading gets annoying sometimes (specifically on Varda it can take many seconds to refresh in full).
3 I was able to determine what everything was
Fun
1 I had some fun with this, but it feels like the game only has 2 states: player's terribly struggling, or it's a piece of cake. E.g., I had a run with Ulmo where I got to char level 31 on game level 17, and stopped playing because I mistakenly assumed the game was endless and I was pretty much on autoplay by then. Also, the game is minimally interactive (I think Melkor added some corruption after like turn 400, but by then you're usually done).
1 Not really
Innovation
2
1 I kind of feel like this sort of gimmick has been explored in a fair few ways
Scope
1 The biggest feature here was probably generating landscapes, and they work pretty well (especially noticeable with Ulmo's floods). However, without any interactive enemies, the scope seems lower than would could be achieved in full 7DRL.
1 While there were several classes to choose, the corruption always seemed to be the same, and you deal with it the same
Roguelikeness
2 It doesn't play like a rogulike (more like a puzzle/SimCity almost), but has enough intersection with the genre.
1 This sort of felt like a god game where you reshape the lands, not really a roguelike
The challenge of the game is to master your ability and balance your two resources (hp and harmony) against the geography. There is practically no time clock or enemy interaction (well okay, Melkor can add corruption every X hundred turns, but I encountered it, like, twice). I found this challenge interesting, but the curve was very abrupt (hard at the start, easy after some point), and not enough to keep my attention for 20 levels (I only played until level 17, only read about 20 levels on your devlog later). The balancing of characters seems very off (at least I found an easy way to play Ulmo and Varda, but not the others).
Not really sure what suggestion I could give for this one. Maybe you could have moving enemies as corruption that you have to deal with?
Civilized Rogues
Completeness
1 Feels like quite a few bugs are going on. Moving units seems inconsistent, zooming in/out moves things around the grid, allowing you to see things that are out of sight and preventing you from understanding where you are (I had to zoom out to be able to close windows). Little / no feedback for any actions. I think you bit off more than you could chew here.
2 Seems intact and working, but desperately in need of polish work.
Aesthetics
2 It's mostly emojis and letters. Doesn't hurt the eyes.
1 These controls are an atrocity. Not being able to move with anything except onscreen buttons makes this pretty close to unplayable, even before you consider the fact that you're forced to choose which unit you want to move before every single turn. And there's no "leader" button so if you accidentally hit "Explorer" when you wanted to move your leader, you're just out of luck completely. This is UI getting in the way of playing a game.
Fun
1 Since the "flags" for your units are only placed immediately next to you, inching forward around the map with your explorer is arduous. It also seems impossible to take down enemy warriors, since your warriors get deleted if they walk into range.
1 I tried to play this game despite the user interface, but I just died suddenly one turn for no knowable reason. "Congratulations, you died" is the death message and yes, it does feel like an accomplishment to be free of playing this game.
Innovation
2 It's a cute idea, moving units around in a 4X / Civilization way.
2 "What if Civilization had a really horrible user interface and you could only take one action every turn?" is perhaps innovative, but not in a good way.
Scope
2 Hard for me to really to really say.
1 I'm not really sure what to give this for scope. It might have a lot of content in it, but I can't see it at the beginning of the few games I've played and I don't care to play long enough to find any further content.
Roguelikeness
2 It is pretty completely a roguelike, but there is not really variety in the level.
1 Not really a roguelike in any meaningful way-- just a terrible interface laid over a 4x style game vaguely reminescent of Civilization..
So, this one is a little awkward. A 4X Civilization-like roguelike is neat, but might have been too much for a 7DRL.
I came really close to giving this 1s across the board. Not having any sort of keyboard controls feels like an almost-unforgivable sin already, and when you add the other complaints I have about the gameplay on top of it, this is pretty close to unplayable.
Emerald of Endjora
Completeness
1 Items are sometimes drawn over the enemies. The dungeon layout makes transitions to the next screen sometimes hard to see, making navigation more painful than need to be.
2 The game plays just fine as is. Pleasing graphics, no audio, no game impacting bugs.
Aesthetics
2 There isn’t much to see, but what is there is solid. The animations are very nice and fluid. The controls feel a bit stiff though.
2 There's not much to it, to be honest. Using shift for diagonal movement did require me to keep referencing the instructions to make sure I didn't miss a key movement or attack.
Fun
1 It felt very random and without any real choices on how to approach the dungeon. I wish there were some more items that really impact the available actions.
1 I played to completion, but I didn't feel compelled to play again. There's not much depth with a single character type and little more than the RNG determining the outcome of the game. (It still possesses the RL kernel, though, of strategic planning with regard to healing opportunities, either from leveling up or grabbing potions.)
Innovation
1 It felt very basic to me.
1 Nothing new here but a good start!
Scope
1 I feel like this entry is lacking a bit. There is only one enemy type I ever saw, one attack and not many exciting items.
1 Single enemy type, single dungeon, and lack of inventory (beyond picking things up for stat buffs or using the floor as your "inventory" to save potions for later) keep this at a 1 for me.
Roguelikeness
3 It feels like a very bare bones roguelike at the moment.
2 If I could give this a 2.5, I would. There's nothing particularly contradictory about the game as far as my understanding of the genre is concerned, but the noted limits of the scope leave it feeling a bit incomplete.
Overall this feels like a good first step towards a game, but not something that is outright enjoyable right now. I do like the fluid animations though.
While the game can be completed as is, it still feels like the beginning of something. With only a single enemy type leading up to a boss who is more or les the same but with a little more HP, there is little strategy at play. Roll the dice against the RNG when your HP is getting low and manage your health potions (on the floor, as the player has no inventory), and you'll survive just fine. It seems like monsters drop the same distribution of items across each play, so there's never any doubt that you'll end up at the boss with everything you need to defeat him. I'd certainly revisit this with expanded or more varied content.
False Ghost
Completeness
2 While the game works - 'Getting' the game to work was a horrible chore
Aesthetics
2 I can tell what the walls and floors are easily enough; can't say the same for anything else obviously
Fun
1 If I could put a zero here I would; 'waiting' is not fun
Innovation
2 Having everything be made is different from the norm
Scope
1 Despite how long it takes to get going, everything honestly feels like a let down when you do
Roguelikeness
1 I believe roguelikes are a bit more then an '@' symbol running around in the dungeon.
This isn't a game that I would want to subject anyone too, due to how it takes to get to the game itself. It is a good project to investigate for a developer looking to make any sort of game where it will design things up for the player, but it really shows that to do so you really need to put some constraints on it; else players won't even attempt to play it, likely even if you ask them too.
Shadow Dungeon
Completeness
2 What's there works well, no bugs or issues
3 Seemed to work as intended without any bugs or issues
Aesthetics
2 If you are going for dark, it’s very very dark for me. Same color floors and walls throughout the level, nothing to help with navigation
2 The game look phenomenal; albeit, you can't see the beauty...
Fun
1 Same level generation for each floor, same monster each floor, level after level is the same thing to do, hug the walls
1 Hug that wall! Sums up the gameplay.
Innovation
1 Run and stab in the dark : )
1 Nothing jumps out here as being particularly novel or intersting
Scope
1 Same dungeon gen every level, random weapon stats, single enemy. Very minimal scope
1 I can't say I feel enough was done here
Roguelikeness
1 From what I can tell it seemed like a procgen dungeon, but it was the same rooms and deadends every level. There are ways to add some roguelikeness to a first person camera, random dungeon and random item stats is not enough tho.
2 Due to the darkness of the game, it felt more like I was running around in a maze
It was so dark I could only see what was at my feet and the wall directly in front of me. The whole 11 levels I played all I could do was hug the wall and turn left. If there were any loops in the dungeon generation I would have been screwed :). I’m sure it could be improved to add more gameplay depth. You could add more variety of enemies and a mini map and this could open up to become something like a first person Diablo 1, or maybe light up a direct path to the exit but make it a more dangerous option than exploring the darkness to add some risk vs reward
Can't say I really see the idea being promoted here. For what purpose was there to make the game so dark? Likely more elements and themes need to be added here to make this game pop.
Weather is in Your Hands -7DRL Edition-
Completeness
2 I think this game has almost all of its features in working state, but not in a particularly polished state. The game also ends very abruptly, without giving me time to realize what's happening or learn a lesson.
2 It seemed to be complete and didn't have any bugs. Simple enough to understand, but still took a moment to do so.
Aesthetics
1 The colors are complicated to understand, it's confusing to understand the relation between the setup (rain falling) and the enemies that suddenly appear and attack, and what to do with both. Using the control that should start the radar scan (D) does nothing obvious, and shifting through scan modes shows a lot of implemented different views, but sadly, none of them are clear.
2 Not really sure about how things were displayed and was slightly clueless to some of the UI
Fun
1 I think that I could get into a game like this if there was a slower slope to climb. As-is, the game isn't very fun because I couldn't get into it without really quickly dying out of nowhere, with no clear agency.
1 Not exactly sure where the fun is here
Innovation
1 It seems like there could be a lot of stuff to talk about here, but I don't feel quite up to the challenge of starting to talk about them, given that I couldn't really get into it. It seems like there could be innovation in the different views we have, but I don't know.
2 Odd sort of idea, not sure I've seen it before
Scope
1 Seems like a tech demo with not much polish.
1 It demonstrates the idea but not much else
Roguelikeness
3 This is definitely a roguelike! Now we need to bring it to also being more understandable, so that we could get into the depths of it.
1 This feels too close to a puzzle game for it to be considered a roguelike
I think that there is something lovely in the presentation, but I couldn't get into the game because I couldn't understand what to do. The presentation of this game is too complex and aggressive for the first level. I could imagine such complexity for some later time, but I could barely understand what to do and have been trying for an hour. I wish to get a slower ramp into this game, I'd play it!
Took me a moment to wrap around the concept presented here, but eventually I got it and won a run. Not sure about the randomly spawning enemies; maybe they should be spawning out of sight range? I think the biggest problem is that there isn't too much to this game though so more could definetely be added.
ifman's 2024 7DRL
Completeness
1 I had a *lot* of trouble avoiding the bug where you and an enemy walk into a cell at the same time. Also it feels like you can only press a key at certain times in the animation cycle?
1 Painfully slow to move, and not much going on in the dungeon.
Aesthetics
2 I felt like there was too much difference between the camera zoom levels: 1 was too far in to be any good, 2 was closer than I really liked (and the camera angle kept getting lower and lower the longer I played (?), while 3 was farther out than was helpful. And the walls popping in as they became visible *could* have been nice, but with the way the closer walls didn't appear until you got right up to them, in practice it just meant that you had to walk over every square to find out if it was a wall or a hallway, which was really annoying coupled with the slow movement...
2 The assets are fine and the lighting is a little evocative.
Fun
1
1 The slow movement really makes it a chore to play.
Innovation
1
1 Nothing new from what I saw.
Scope
2
1 It's the start of a roguelike.
Roguelikeness
3
2
For me one of the main points of a turn-based game is that you can play as slowly *or* as quickly as you want: waiting for the animations was just too painful for me to play very far in this. I spent most of an hour with it, died or got bugged out four times (even once I thought I mostly understood the bug), and didn't make it off the first level. And most of the map seemed to be completely empty so there felt like there was no point to having a huge dungeon? I did like the aesthetic in theory, but in practice it just wasn't fun for me, sorry...
The movement is just too slow to play much of this. There are endless hallways that take minutes to traverse, with nothing at the end of them. Could be the start of something.
AzHex
Completeness
1 Looked reasonably complete, but after level 1 the game crashes when I try to pray so I can't do anything except play the first level. This is mentioned in the description as a problem with the web version of the game, but I was playing the downloaded version, so I think it's just a general issue.
1 Consistently crashed on me. I was unable to get more than 2 screens into the game.
Aesthetics
2 Graphics are nice, controls are reasonably intuitive despite the lack of documentation. I'm assuming if I could get past level 1 I would see what the revolving chambers of the gun are good for.
2 What I saw of it fit nicely and was easy to understand
Fun
1 It looks like it'd be an okay little puzzler but I cannot prove this since it crashes after the first level.
1 Until the bug is fixed, I can't recommend this.
Innovation
1 Again, I suspect this has some fun mechanics behind it, worthy of at least a 2, but I can't verify it.
2 The grappling hook isn't something you see in roguelikes very often. I would think it would limit the procedural levels, but again, I wasn't able to get far enough to see how well it is implemented further into the game.
Scope
2 Seems about the right level of ambition for a 7drl.
1 Would be better if it didn't crash on me
Roguelikeness
2 Seems reasonably roguelike, though after a couple of attempts to run the game I notice that the sole accessible level, while randomly rearranged, seems to have the same basic structure every time.
1 It seems more like a sokoban type of puzzler, but again, I was only able to play a screen each time.
The fact that this crashes on the first between-levels screen is really unfortunate because it seems like it's doing a lot of cool stuff that could turn out to be a nice little roguelike-puzzler type game. I hope there's a bugfix version of this coming down the line, because I am pretty curious what the revolving gun chambers actually do, and how the prayer mechanics play into it, and I am intrigued enough that I would really like to try this game for real when it's working.
The game is buggy and crashes. It seemed like it would be pretty good, but impossible to tell as is.
Dolorous Coronach of the Baleful Abyss (Taylor's Version)
Completeness
1
2 The game runs very well and movement works as expected. There is a bug where the map disappears if you move far enough down the screen.
Aesthetics
1
2 plain ascii roguelike graphics
Fun
1
2 This is challenging and worth playing, but gets old pretty quickly.
Innovation
1
1 Not really any innovation, in fact, it seems like it strips the genre down to barely more than the old Nokia Snake game.
Scope
1
1 Bare minimum of a game
Roguelikeness
3
1 It looks like a roguelike and including the h,j,k,l movement is a nice touch, but that's about where the roguelikeyness stops.
This is really just the start of a roguelike. Keep at it!
This is an interesting little exercise and makes you appreciate the "wait" ability in most roguelikes. Mathing out how to position you and your enemies is fun for a few minutes.
Reality is an illusion
Completeness
1 It runs and has no major bugs but needs a lot of polish in visuals and gameplay. Though it has Level Up system, it seems that enemy spawn chanse and rate are not affected by it. It is poorly balanced, it is very difficult to level up even to the second level
1 The idea this game was built around didn't properly execute and it felt unfinished
Aesthetics
1 Very confusing art style and annoying sounds. Sometimes text is not readable because of scaling and colors.
1 No delay between movement caused unneeded extra movement, while moving into walls was possible
Fun
1 The game is too hard to make any progress in it. Thre aren't enough motivation to use spells. The main idea with the features of movement is more annoying than enjoyable.
1 I can't say I had fun
Innovation
2 The main idea is interesting, though implementation of it is pretty shallow.
2 Movement styled roguelikes have been done before, this was was in interesting take on it
Scope
1 It lacks of variety and some more interesting progression system maybe
1 The idea for the game wasn't even adequately demonstrated, let alone anything else
Roguelikeness
2 It has a lot of RL elements but plays more like survivor-like game or smth.
2 The lack of depth in the gameplay really prevents me from awarding full points here
Though the main idea is pretty original, this game need a lot more thought and work to be fun to play. It feels too hard to make any progress. There are no motivation to use spells, as it seems that they don’t do much damage. Sometimes visuals can be very confusing.
Honestly this felt more like an unsuccessful entry then anything else. Main suggestion is to submit a completed game, or to mark your entry as unsuccessful if unable too.
Bullet Bob
Completeness
3 Felt complete and seemed to work as intended
1 It's the start of a fun physics game concept, but not much to commend it beyond playing with the mechanic a bit.
Aesthetics
2 Sufficient, if somewhat basic
1 Not much to it, though I was never quite sure what the black bar above my health was or why I'd sometimes shoot slow regardless of my drag length.
Fun
1 I can't say I found much here to enjoy; specifically in regards to a lack of content
1 I did enjoy the chaos of the bullet bouncing around the screen, dishing out damage, but in its current state it's hard to recommend it.
Innovation
1 We've seen a lot of physics based 7DRLs before, the only novelty here is that it was in real time
1 I do think the combat mechanic is novel and could be put to good use, either as a physics based action game or even a turn-based game where movement is paused while you target and all mobs then step through movement together while your momentum lasts.
Scope
1 The idea for the game was there and not much more
1 Interesting tech demo!
Roguelikeness
1 Even if this had a turn based component to it, I don't think it would be enough to justify calling it a roguelike; this is a bit far outside the genre
1 While levels are randomized, this plays like a physics based action game at present. I can see it becoming more roguelite-like in the future, but gotta be fair with the 1 in absence of more meat on the bone.
I hope to see my effort perhaps. Sell your idea, make me think this is a worthwhile concept to look into. Show me how this idea can be played around with.
Bullet Bob looks like the beginning of a physics based action game where Osmos meets Binding of Isaac. It features a bullet bouncing around the screen dishing out damage, directed by a click and drag generated vector. It's not clear the developer intends to advance this post-jam, but one interesting direction to take the game that would be both more playable and more "roguelike" would be to allow the player to pause the game for the sake of generating new vectors, including pausing automatically when the player comes to a natural stop. This would retain the effect of all actors moving together in real-time, which is fine, but give the player greater control and precision over their movement, which is hard to achieve amidst the current chaos.
CALL-1
Completeness
2 Game works well, except that it sometimes eats inputs randomly, most of all firing inputs. The controls are listed but not really explained, so I have no idea what Shift and Q should be doing, but they seem to be doing nothing either on their own or with other controls pressed.
3 Well it worked fine and the concept was bog simple
Aesthetics
1 Even though it has more graphics than most entries, the style it is going for is very generic, anime-tropey, and the audio is sometimes multiplied, turning into a cacophony. The game looks unpolished, the controls feel slow, and the already mentioned input consumption doesn't help. Controls are somewhat expected (ASDW+mouse) but the additional keys (Q, Shift, Right Mouse) aren't explained and don't seem to be doing anything.
1 The lack of movement, floaty attack, and everything else wasn't great
Fun
1 I didn't enjoy playing this game at all. The fun in similar titles (the game talks about Vampire Survivors) is about the simplicity of controls, the stacking of a powerful build, and the overwhelming clarity of what the enemies are doing. This game has none of that, so I would call it a design failure.
1 This would be a zero if I could put zero here
Innovation
1 No innovative bone in this body. Some of the upgrades seem like they might pull into a larger emergent complexity space, but they fizzle out quickly.
1 Nope
Scope
1 The level is bare-bones, the enemies are the same, there's upgrades but they're quite unsatisfying. The shooting part doesn't always work, so I wouldn't call this really scoped or executed correctly.
1 There really wasn't any depth to this
Roguelikeness
1 This is a roguelike only in the most far-out meaning of the word: some Slay the Spire mechanics glued onto a shooter with no rhyme or reason.
1 Far and away from the roguelike concept for sure
I didn't enjoy CALL-1. It doesn't do much for me. I'd like it to be more focused, to have a clear design (for example, automate attacks like in Vampire Survivors) or better execution so that some element might be fun enough to actually grip me.
Well. I guess this was a joke entry, so effort wasn't really required. Still, you might have made enemies spawn randomly around, perhaps made the dodge and jump more pronouced, upped the speed of the character.
Protect The Princess
Completeness
2 There's not much here, but it's not broken.
1 The game is playable, but lacks a lot of quality of life features: some sounds override others; enemies don't have an attack animation, so it's not clear how often they attack; besides my ammo, there are no indicators of how bonuses stacked. All the content is available from level 1; there is no progression of content and items.
Aesthetics
2
2
Fun
1
1 Real-time shooters aren't really my thing, but this one lacks basic features to be fun to play continuously.
Innovation
1
1
Scope
1
1 Scope seems low: same level, 5-6 character sprites, and relatively simple upgrade mechanics.
Roguelikeness
1 Duck-Hunt style escort mission? Shoot the enemies that spawn randomly so they don't spend too much time too close to the princess (who moves randomly). Buy power-ups between waves.
1 Besides randomized upgrades, there really isn't anything remotely resembling a roguelike here.
This feels like a first game: not bad for that, but pretty light for a 7DRL. Almost not a roguelike, more of a random shooter. But I had fun with it until I got bored because my money and upgrades were far outstripping the enemy progression. Well done for completing an actual playable game though!
The game is off genre for this jam, but oh well. There are a lot of things that can be improved to make it potentially fun to play: the obvious visual enhancements (e.g. attack animation) and sound fixes; more content and progression (instead of having everything available from the start); the princess could have a semblance of self-preservation instinct; enemies could have variety beyond just their speed and HP. If the game is intended as endless, there should be some other goal (e.g. highest score).