3 - Nicely polished.

2 - Finished and polished, I wanted to give this a 3, but the little things like starting in an unwinnable state and the way that long range enemies can pillar dance you, even when you also have a long range weapon annoys me

3 - a complete game, didn't encounter any serious bugs

3 - Really pretty. Keys simple to master.

3 - Good graphics, simple controls, only improvement I would like to see is more visual feedback or quicker access to the "look" information.

3 - very nice ascii graphics with pleasing colors. Controls are very easy to understand and work perfectly.

3 - Choice of items is nice substitute for class selection. To win one has constantly to do something and thus avoid boredom.

3 - An addictive but enjoyable game.

2 - the slow moving projectiles work very nicely in this zelda-meets-roguelike. I also enjoyed the different items at my disposal.

2 - Great competitive AI.

3 - The "win" condition makes the while game feel like a game of capture the flag.

2 - I think the main innovation is in the control scheme and the slow moving ranged weapons. Pretty nice experiment in the rl basis.

3 - A lot of teritory and abilities.

3 - Low 3, but definitely more than i would expect from a 7DRL project.

2 - as far as i can tell this is a complete game & focused, and feels more polished than many non-7drls. The scope is about what I'd expect of a good 7drl.

3 - 100% roguelikeness.

3 - Another low 3, definitely has all the features of a roguelike (Procedural content, Permadeath, turn-based, inventory management) but it plays differently that most RLs I've played.

3 - as roguelike as it can be.

You and other computer controlled heroes must gain fame to be declared ruler. To gain fame kill big monsters, discover new regions and find lost artifacts. Eliminating the competition is allowed too but might take too long. Choose items you think can exploit most easily and have fun.

Definitely another competitor for best in show, from what I've seen. Try to claim the Hyrulean crown by slaughtering monsters and reclaiming artifacts, but other claimants race against you. This is one title I'll be keeping an eye on, while it is good in it's current state, it will be interesting to see how this one develops.

3 - Complete game

3 - Very polished. No problems. The post-7DRL version fixes some bugs, but they are not serious.

3 - Fully complete. Polished. Nice use of libtcod without going overboard.

2 - Nice looking and functional UI, could use better feedback for the events

3 - a classical roguelike look via libtcod. Quite simple, but tasteful. Nice animations of attacks.

2 - Pleasing to look at. Looks like a libtcod roguelike, but not over-done. Nice lighting effects on mage/priest spell attacks, and dragon-fire. Could use slightly more varied terrain, even just slightly different/varying colors for walls. I dig the re-use of archetypical nethack/rogue character codes (e.g. D, @).

3 - Fun, Challenging and gratifying

3 - Very fun to play! Most of the battles are easy, but occasionally you get attacked by many foes, and you get into trouble. I don't survive the second boss level in most of my games, I think it is too hard. While it often annoys me, this game is so fun that I don't mind.

3 - Good solid fun. Recommended to all roguelike fans. Some built-in humor playing as a 'D'ragon when the @-signs show up.

2 - Play as a monster, level up on staircase, skills tree

2 - the "be a dragon" fantasy appears to some extent in lots of other roguelikes, but this is the first where it is so well developed. I also like the healing mechanics (there is no rest-to-heal, instead you simply eat your fallen enemies, in a tough situation it might be worthwhile to stop fighting to eat something). Some of the special powers of the enemies are not that typical, and so are the powers of the dragon. However, I think something more is required for an excellent score in Innovation.

2 - Nothing crazy in terms of new roguelike gameplay elements, but excellent integration of abilities w/ cooldowns. Reversal of theme is innovative as well.

2 - Nicely targetted

3 - lots of enemy powers, lots of PC powers, animation, balance is OK.

3 - Would've given a 2 until I got to explore the entire depth of the ability tree. Very well done without being overwhelming. Shades of borderlands (in a good way).

3 - Yes, this is a roguelike

3 - Definitely.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

You are a Wyrmling and... You Wanna Be The Wyrm. Bash weaklings and eat them, become older as you pass through the levels. Have fun!

In this game you play as a dragon, watching it grow from a Wyrmling into the Great Wyrm. On later levels, this means that you fight swarms of adventurers, who are trying to kill you. This role reversal works very well, and is very fun to play. Heavily recommended! Some minor faults include the feeling of false progress (you are much powerful on Level 2 than on Level 1, but you still don't kill rats in one hit, because they also become more powerful... I think monster names should be at least slightly adjusted (e.g. "large rat", "giant rat" etc) to avoid that), starting in a tough position usually leads to losing (this usually happens on level 8), and the effect of attacks of enemies should be clearer (my firebolt spell kills bears on Level 2 in one hit, and breath does not; however, according to the ability screen, breath deals much more damage; the damage on the ability screen does not seem affected by my stats). These faults are minor, it still gets straight '3' in my review.

Play as a dragon growing from a young wyrmling to powerful Great Wyrm. Surprisingly deep abilities tree makes every new level fun and often tactically different. Corpses as a combination of health & level completeness is also a very interesting mechanic that is done very well, and should be explored further. Enemies surprisingly varied with well-animated magical attacks, class abilities (rogues will disappear and pop out to stab you), and even some humor ('the Paladin judges you'). Occasional 'arena' levels are a challenge, especially in the late game, terrain could use some more color but what do you expect from a lava chasm? Breathing fire and biting entire enemies is very satisfying and brings across the feeling of being a dragon very well.

2 - Very polished look and feel, missing enough depth of gameplay to warrant a 3.

3 - Large world, no bugs encountered.

3 - Complete with score tracking.

3 - A pleasure to look at and control. The way the screen jumps to follow the @ is amazing.

3 - Despite seven directions it is easy to navigate. Stunningly beautiful.

3 - It is so easy to get strange map technology wrong. But this doesn't. Movement is smooth. The 8-way is intuitively mapped to the local cell choices. The map scrolls *after* you move smoothly, giving smooth turn based motion.

2 - Totally fun to play and look at (even if you aren't playing), but missing enough content to make it a full replayable game.

3 - I had great fun exploring this world. Every area has something interesting to it.

2 - Problem of this space may be it is just too big. I feel my main strategy is just to run away. No particular urge to clear one area.

3 - Have rarely seen a hex map done as well as this. Parabolic world is also very innovative and worth exploration by other games.

3 - For the topology alone. There are other twists in Hyperbolic Rogue.

3 - Not just interesting geometry, but some interesting enemies such as vines and worms designed around the Rook-like movement.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7drl. A unique concept executed tightly and with decent polish.

2 - About right because it builds up on previous version.

2 - While I think there may be nothing more to add to the game, it definitely isn't a massive scoped game either. It is very much the size it should be.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - There are temporary buff instead of items. No other strays from roguelikeness.

3 - Tactical based dungeon crawler.

A unique experimental roguelike with lots of potential. Visuals are very hard to describe and definitely worth checking out! Player travels through a parabolic world on a hex map that is constantly curving away from the player in all directions. Player must avoid obstacles and destroy enemies without getting stuck -- the game has a nice 'check mate' feature that will prevent you from making ill-fated moves. Not a ton of depth but visually very impressive.

Play this thing. So awesome ... I recommend to visit the Alchemist Lab with its two color rules, Desert with sand worms and spice, raid shifting Living Caves for gold, see the Jungle and battle Ivy ... Just go anywhere and you likely will have fun.

Consider my mind blown.

3 - Polished, feature completed, balanced enough that I didn't win on my first try, but I did by the end of my lunch break.

3 - Very complete and polished. Had it freeze on me a few times, but that could be to do with my system.

3 - Fully functional with a slick UI and even a useful title screen/intro. Did have a game once where no enemies showed up for a long time.. not sure if it was a bug and either way not worth knocking this to a 2.

3 - Very nice tile graphics, controls look complicated, but all you really use are 1-8 and the f and g keys.

3 - Pretty graphics, simple controls, nice auto-equip system.

3 - Controls very intuitive. Graphics are very cool and well beyond expectations for a 7drl, well done.

3 - Running like a madman from the shadow while trying to kill enough get power spheres and power ups is quite fun. Will probably pick this one up after the 7DRL is complete and watch for updates

2 - It ends up being a bit one-dimensional with running from the darkness being a far greater focus than item use or combat with enemies. One feels very immobile, not able to tactically position yourself well, with few options available in the limited time/turns you have to act.

3 - increasing shadow mechanic adds a hectic sense of fun to the game

2 - Nothing amazingly new, but an innovative little story and the optional real-time shadow is nice. Would have been nice to see more down with the shadow mechanics.

2 - Cool way of doing the hunger clock and thematically forcing it on the player.

2 - increasing shadow mechanic is a unique twist, something that should be explored further by roguelikes

2 - A high 2, largely because the graphics are nice, but this is on the high end of what I expect from 7DRLs.

2 - Simple game done well.

3 - Mind-boggling that it was done in 7 days

3 - A low 3, it has procedural generation, permadeath and turn-based mechanics, but the moving shadow and pure-powerups are a bit un-roguelike. Still a 3 though.

3 - Permadeath, turn-based (though with the option of a real time mechanic). Random levels, but it ends up not feeling all that random as you take a linear path through quite repetitive terrain. Still has a roguelike feel though.

3 - close to a 'pure' roguelike, especially the good parts, ignores lots of the bad

A fun game where you dash to the right to escape an ever advancing shadow. The normal mode has the shadow moving each turn and the hardmode has it advance in real time. Overall an awesome coffee break RL. The gameplay is tight and well balanced, the graphics are stellar and story is decent. Only problems I encountered are a modest lack of documentation (weapons and armor, etc), a bug where monsters aren't respawned in a new game, and some of the items really aren't too useful, particularly the mine.

The night is descending upon you, run! Though there are many enemy types and items the focus of the game is entirely on running away from the descending shadow of night, with everything else becoming a brief obstacle. Though done well I found it a little too simplistic for repeated plays. The hard mode (which makes the nightfall move in real time) adds a surprisingly nice spice to the game.

Marooned on an alien planet, you must outrun the night (and its horrible shadow creatures) and find a way to repair your ship. The "night" is constantly encroaching from the side of the screen and pushes you forwards, adding a great hectic feel to the usual roguelike mechanics. Nice mix of weapons and usable items. UI was very sharp and polished, tiles equally so. Tile art was amazingly done, especially for a 7DRL.

3 It does what it sets out to do

3 - Definitely a complete room with full beginning middle and end

3 - Polished, runs perfectly for me.

2 Basic interface is good and simple, and the light effects are good. There are text narration sequences that introduce a forced delay, which gets annoying fast. The prose is a bit overwritten, but just attempting a more narrativistic game is nice. For some reason no bump-to-attack.

3 - Light plays an important role in the game and the graphics handle this well, controls are simple and concentrated.

3 - Controls are intuitive and explained well in-game. Visuals are very appealing, excellent usage of light (as is appropriate for a game using light as a mechanic)

2 It's pretty straightforward and working, there's nothing dazzling in the mechanics. Couldn't figure out how to skip the cutscene I get when dying, stopped playing when I got it the third time.

3 - This is the first game so far this 7DRL that I will be playing again after this judging is complete. It his a compiling story the pulls you in enough to keep playing

2 - Lots of fun! Light/dark mechanic makes for lots of interesting tactical decisions when trying to kill scavengers.

3 Lots of good stuff, an original theme, a less crunchy, theme appropriate combat dynamic

2 - I don't think a single feature in this RL is completely original, but the light, one-hit kill, and death mechanics are weaved together better than many long running RLs.

3 - Using light as a mechanic is brilliant. (zing!) Would love to see something like this incorporated into other games.

2 Seems around 7DRL level.

3 - Good story, good gameplay and decent balance at above and beyond in a 7DRL

2 - Solid 7DRL. Picks 1 thing and does it very well. Remaining components are solid and nothing gets in the way of exploring that 1 mechanic.

3 It's a roguelike

3 - A bit of a toss on this one, but it is procedurally generated, turn-based and has permadeath and limited inventory management

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

An atmospheric horror game that's set in a low-key abandoned basement full of unnaturally ferocious rats instead of the more usual monster-filled complex. Unskippable narrative cutscenes, for example every time you die, are a terrible UI decision, these NEED to be made skippable or the game is unplayable. Other than that, the thing shows definite promise, with the minimalist presentation showing a pretty convincing modern-day scenario.

This is probably one of the better psychological RLs I've seen in a 7DRL. The length makes it a coffee break game and it's as tight as they get. Could use some music, and maybe flickering lights or destructable lights (though the messages for when I tried knifing the lights was a nice touch). Overall, a solid title that is setting the bar high for horror themed RLs this year

A well-written (!) roguelike with a very unique light/dark mechanic. Defeating advanced enemies depends entirely on your ability to manipulate light, which is given off by flaming trash bins, dirty halogen lamps, and flickering flourescent lighting scattered throughout an otherwise pitch-black dungeon. The dark is dangerous, but also the only way to lure... well, I will let you figure it out for yourself. Mechanics alone make this a great 7DRL, the extra writing on top (oohh the first death scene) makes this one a must-play for 2012.

3 - Polished. Found one bug that killed me. Be wary of evac packs on hub level.

3 - Three complete story arcs, plenty of weapons, armor and enemies, probably the most "complete" game of this contest

3 - Seems fully complete and is very polished.

2 - Key layout takes some time to get used to. No way to get manual from game?

3 - Great tiles, only complaint about the controls is that 'g' should be pickup as well.

2 - Visually very pleasing but some controls are annoying (only supports , for pickup, no ? for help) Otherwise controls are great.

3 - Good old hack and slash all the way.

3 - I got the the second to last level of 32 levels, died and then started it up again. It that's a heck of a game to get me to pick it back up at that point.

3 - Tons of fun. Played for an hour straight without even realizing!

1 - What innovation? There is core color system but it could be relabeled to work in elemental fashion.

2 - Really wanted to give this a 3 for the story and the "hub" mechanic, both that are done very well, but nothing about the gameplay is too surprising.

2 - Nothing super-innovative, but the hub system is interesting and the different weapon styles (esp. the carbine) is innovative enough for a 2. Wasn't able to get into the 'cores' system.

3 - Three locations? A lot really. Plus it has plot.

3 - Would have given it a 4 if it were possible. excellent story, clean gameplay, tons of content.

3 - Big scope for a 7DRL. Lots of 7DRLs have deep level structures but rarely are they filled with so much "stuff". Story shows a lot of effort.

3 - Of course.

3 - All the standard features present and most of the optional ones.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

Pretty standard roguelike but this one is well done. Small selection of guns to which you need conserve ammo for. Do not go for middle mission. It is most difficult.

Definitely one of the top entries this year, comes with 3 distinct missions that you deploy to from a central hub. Each could have been a 7DRL entry in it's own right. But what really makes this game stand out is the story, not a lot of 7DRL developers put as much effort into the story as in Steel Knights. I am judging this on 3/29 and the game is an online app, so it is possible that the dev has improved it since, but high scores on the online leaderboard go back to the original release date, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

A surprisingly deep and polished game. Pure roguelikey goodness with some interesting tactical decisions coming from weapon/ammo selection. Graphically it looks great, and runs in a browser via java (+1 for browser!). Levels are varied (3 separate 'branches') and well-populated with knick knacks, scenery, NPCs, etc. Two things that took a while to figure out: 1) don't go to the middle mission first (reading the story helps!), and 2) finding ammo in the beginning is super-critical, starting with the "gunner" class helps immensely. One of my favorites from the challenge so far.

3 Very polished and feature-complete.

2 - It is well polished but getting this to run was a major pain.

3 - Yikes. Depth and polish here puts other 7DRLs to shame. I think the author has a time machine.

3 Neat phosphorus-terminal aesthetic that mostly works well with figuring out the world, though item-clutter can be confusing, and a nice positional inventory and equipment managing system.

3 - Controls for dealing with module installation are awkward but good looks and weapon animations make up for it.

2 - Why is the font so small!! Maybe I am just too old, but with so much stuff on the screen I need bigger graphics. Very "busy" at first.. the first level can be a bit overwhelming for a new player. Controls like a dream... keyboard bindings out the wazoo.

2 Nice to play, but the robot gunfights are a bit boring back-and-forth, with little feedback on how well you are taking the enemy apart.

2 - Not enough feedback in combat. I am rarely not sure whether a robot was hit and if yes did it receive damage. It is a bit hard to guess what kind of damage weapons do.

3 - Tons of fun. This game does take some time to get into, and can seem overwhelming at first, but give it time. It is well worth it. Soon you'll be swapping out cores and weapons on the fly and blowing the crap out of other robots with rocket launchers. Oh and also there are jetpacks!!

2 Quite unique setting, and mostly makes it feel like you're operating a modular robot. Pretty standard roguelike mechanics otherwise.

3 - It follows in the steps of Scrap but takes it much further. Multiple systems of one type can be effectively used.

2 - Solid use of standard roguelike mechanics, although many are stretched in great ways.

2 Looks about right for 7DRL

3 - There is great amount of modules to try swapping in and out. Design well thought out.

3 - More than what I'd expect from a 7DRL. Does the author have a time machine? (I expect it is due to the amazing engine used by X@COM)

3 It's a roguelike

3 - Fully roguelike.

3 - It's a roguelike! Combat is a bit too slow paced, but that just means you need to find bigger weapons. Inventory and resource management is deep.

A robot game where you're a robot and must take down other robots who have gone rogue. To do this, you attach various guns to yourself. If your guns get broken, you can't fight. If you run out of energy, you can't move. That pretty much fits with the whole being a robot thing, you don't get quite the same flexibility as a proper biological critter.

If you played Scrap the game will look very familiar. You are robot with ability to replace your own parts. This is very interesting mix and match. However, your modules can be destroyed and often are. A downside is battles tend to take too long because of long streaks of misses and uninterruptible animations.

One of the best 7DRLs of 2012. You are a robot fighting his way upwards out of the trash heap. To do this, you must find parts and attach them. Parts/slots mechanic is incredibly deep and complex: power cores, movement, weapons, utilities. Because parts take damage you will be constantly re-attaching new parts and upgrading when you find better weapons, treads, jetpacks, heat shields, nuclear power cores, etc, etc, etc. Visually very busy and the controls can see overwhelming at first, but put the time into it and you will be rewarded. The author has gone through painstaking effort to include a keybinding for everything, although I believe everything can be played with only the mouse as well. Combat can be a slog sometimes but go and find a rocket launcher and it will bring a smile to your face. The way enemy robots spill out all of their parts when they explode is a lovely touch. Play this one.

3 - Nicely polished. The only problem I could spot the sword would only name first item from a stack as uninteresting instead of all.

3 - Fully polished, fairly balanced, bug-free in my experience

3 - Very complete, although difficult

3 - Just beautiful.

3 - No less than I would expect from Jeff. Good colour choices, simple key layout, well laid out interface, and the blood on the sword is a cool effect.

3 - Simplistic but pleasing. About as excellent as you could ask for ASCII.

3 - This one is even replayable.

2 - The moves are interesting, but there is little one can do tactically to set them up. The strategic map element is not very compelling. There's not quite enough depth of the gameplay to keep it interesting through more than one playthrough.

3 - Tactically pleasing gameplay.

1 - Vicious Orcs engine refitted. Sword in Hand brings nothing new to the table.

2 - The moves are something new as is the map thing, but I think there's some elements missing in the implementation to really make the gameplay truly innovative. Still nice to see these touches though.

2 - Nice continuity between dungeons. Special moves are a nice touch but a little hard to manage properly (e.g. cost in blood versus blood gained)

3 - Several locations to visit and nice amount of texts. The game relies heavily on engine of Vicious Orcs which probably helped to achieve such scope. A three nonetheless.

2 - Very much the high end of 2, but in many ways this feels like a restricted version of Vicious Orcs. Perhaps Jeff sets too high an expectation... ;)

2 - The perfect length/scope for a 7DRL.

3 - Obviously, although maps are static.

3 - True and true.

3 - Definitely a roguelike

This one is actually difficult! Even single attacks cost *you* a point of health. To increase your hit points beyond the norm you have to score combos which deal more damage than they cost in blood. Player needs to do some thinking to be successful. On top of that the game carries a message. If you read quest descriptions and ponder why and what numbers are shown on the war table it becomes readily apparent. However, I seem to have gotten a different message than author may have intended.

Sword in Hand lets you play a sword, with no interest in petty items or the affairs of humans beyond an excuse to taste blood. The game involves going through a few dungeons by picking up quests, and watching the effects ripple across a large map of army interactions. I found the quest choosing system a little repetitive and uninteresting, but the flavour is very good. The basic combat is interesting in trying to profit in blood gathering from enemies, and the combat is nicely deterministic, though it doesn't quite retain its interest across multiple playthroughs.

You play as a magical sentient sword with a passion for violence. You "work" for King Viola, who is in a constant struggle with his mortal enemy, King Crimson. The quests you choose to undertake affect the outcome of their war. Quests invariably require dungeon diving, and using advanced sword techniques to crush enemies in tactically pleasing ways. Blood acts as both health and "power" to perform these advanced techniques, so there is a constant weighing of tactical options. Hate Kobolds. HATE.

3 A full playable game with complete features and mechanics

3 - Feels complete, no problems.

3 - Super-polished. Title sequence alone makes most games look like a pile of garbage.

3 Functional graphics and an efficient control scheme without extra bits. The combo interface is particularly nice.

2 - OK. A libtcod roguelike, with a checkerboard instead of the typical dot pattern. It was a bit hard for me to understand the game at first, I think the game should tell me that I need to build up wrath of 3 to use my special powers.

3 - Lots of elegantly-done blood violence is very nice to look at. Very pleasing to play, controls are not 100% what I'd expect (space to rest) but there is in-game help.

3 Much fun, the basic mechanic is interesting and graspable very quickly. Don't know how far it would go, but definitely works in a coffeebreak game scope.

2 - it's OK, but I did not find it particularly fun. I see no connection of the pre-game animation with the actual gameplay. Also the game ends abruptly, I think it could be fun to fight more dangerous enemies with all these powers. As usual with 1HP roguelikes, the puzzle element is strong, but the cost of a tiny mistake is high.

3 - Lots of fun to wail on bad guys. 1 HP mechanic makes you really consider every tiny move on a tactical level. (This is a good thing)

2 A unique single-hitpoint PC mechanic, though beyond that it's just beating up demons.

2 - Original features include: paralytic attack as a main weapon (in a 1HP roguelike), locking doors behind the PC to make it harder to return to a safe place, and "combos" activated by a single keypress.

2 - Was not able to explore the 'powers' in a lot of detail but the game does do some interesting things well in terms of forcing the player into making tactical decisions at almost every turn.

2 Spot on for 7drl.

2 - includes pre-game animation and 8 special moves. Quite a simple dungeon generator, very simple enemies. Okay, but I think that '3' requires more.

2 - A solid 7DRL.

3 It's a roguelike. With a bit squishier player character than usual.

3 - Yes, that's a 1HP roguelike.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

The gimmick here is that you need to fight a bunch of demons with some superpowers, but are a regular squishy human (or equivalent) otherwise, and can't take even a single hit without dying. Good thing the demons freeze for a bit when you punch them. So you can fight single opponents easily, but if you get surrounded, you can't freeze-juggle everyone and are dead. You can move around the arena rooms and use strike combos to get by. The combo interface is neat, you use the directional keys to choose a context-appropriate combo move.

A 1HP roguelike. In this one, enemies have more than one HP, but they are paralyzed by your attacks, so you have a chance. Includes a pre-game animation (although the interpretation is left to the player). I think it is OK, but nothing special.

A very nice-looking game that forces the player to make hard tactical decisions at almost every turn (due to the fact that you only have 1 HP). Intro sequence alone makes the game worth playing. Was not able to explore the powers... game is very difficult even in the first few fights.

3 - The only problem is monsters spawning near stairs which may cause an instakill. Otherwise very polished. Very instructive readme file.

2 - The game seems feature complete, but lacking polish. Specifically, it would be nice to seem some more visual feedback about enemies wield weapons with special properties and a tighter, less nethacky, set of controls would help too.

3 - Appears complete and polished, did not run into any serious problems.

3 - Controls are old good NetHack style. Commands using weapon slots are cleverly done. Bland looks though.

2 - The graphics are functional, but the the controls are a bit harsh. All of legacy nethack-style controls that break up the flow of play.

2 - Dark blue should be banned as a console colour. The weapon switch keys seem randomly ordered - hjkl have a left-down-up-right mapping in my mind, so overloading them for a four entry list is hard to grasp. Would have prefered asdf for two handed play. Then switching could have been made a single key press, helping encourage that essential mechanic.

3 - Clear rules make picking the dream set of weapons a tough choice. Each combat is fun puzzle of finding a weakness and exploiting it. Polymorph is neat too. Every death teaches something.

2 - I died a lot and I died quick. Some deaths were unfair (insta-killed when descending to a new level) but most were because I was rushing. I would still like to finish the game, but grinding through enemies gets frustrating.

2 - Starts off too easy with too many items - but - this is likely necessary for people to figure out the plot. I could see people quitting from boredom before hitting monsters that make you think. As you get deeper, it seems imperative to switch weapons and view monsters, so it is rather frustrating this takes so many keypresses.

3 - There are some very clever mechanics. Weapon power varies due to numerous factors. Crystal spear is most useful in tight corridors while boomerang in open spaces. There are many more.

2 - While innovative weapon schemes are a common theme in 7DRLs, using the need to balance the versatility of carrying a full load of weapons with the bonuses of having empty slots and polymorphing frequently is an interesting mix.

3 - The combat model is nice an nuanced and complex. A wide range of effects and modifiers to be balanced and examined.

3 - Nine levels, a bunch of weapons and monsters with varying qualities. Three level generation algorithms. Each promotes different weapons and requires alteration of tactics. Most surprisingly all the mess is well balanced.

2 - It seems like a fair amount of content in both monsters and items added to an existing system with a new combat system added.

2 - Excellent 7DRL scope.

3 - Roguelike all the way.

3 - The game is a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels with turn-based movement and permadeath, all the major marks of a roguelike.

3 - Meets all the points.

Sword testing is a dangerous job. The goal is to find good weapon to off an Ancient Dragon. What if you do not find such a weapon? Prepare to become the reptile's another meal. You can check what properties a given weapon has and need to decide whether you want to carry it further. Monsters have their own abilities too. If you desire one very much you can polymorph into a creature after defeating it. To be successful you should read readme file and carefully think about interaction of rules. After you get it the game becomes almost too easy.

The game's shtick is that both the player and the monsters have built in bonuses and abilities, and both can carry weapons that give them additional bonuses and abilities. While the enemy's are usually fixed at spawn, the player can adjust theirs by equipping different weapons and polymorphing into monsters. It reminds me a bit of Desktop Dungeons in the sense that every floor can be viewed as a puzzle, where killing monsters in a certain order will maximize your survival while minimizing your expenditure of resources (levels, and thrown weapons). Without diving hard, I had a hard time getting past the 3rd level and I honestly can't tell if that's because the game is just poorly balanced or I lack the skill to play it effectively.

Despite its name, you will not be just testing swords in this game! You will find a shockingly wide variety of items, with an equally wide variety of effects. But you face a wide variety of monsters with, again, a wide variety of effects. Trying to determine which items to carry, and which to wield for each round of combat, will strain your min/max abilities.

3 - No problems here.

1 - Occassional random assertion failure, locks up after death. Sight artifacts. Does not tell you 'talk to whom' has to be answered by mouse click.

2 - Stable, polish in some areas but lacking in others.

3 - Looks very nice, and easy to control. Although there are some minor flaws: friendly guards who don't see you are hardly visible; you don't remember crates; and there should be a way to target with keyboard.

2 - Keys well chosen and great looks but no help screen. I had to read the source for keybindings.

2 - Controls well and I like the stealth mechanic (esp. the crates). Visually very much a basic roguelike.. levels feel very empty most of the time.

3 - There have been several attempts at a stealth based roguelike in the past. Although this one is the simplest I think, it is also the most fun.

3 - There are three distinct playstyles and all works really well.

3 - Lots of fun. I wish it was a bit easier though so I could enjoy some of the mechanics more. Sneaking was kind of hard to figure out.. since you can't see the guards when they can't see you (but maybe that is intentional). It was never apparently obvious to me when sneaking would work and when it wouldn't.

3 - Even though the system is very simple, it works surprisingly well. I especially like the charisma-based thievery.

3 - Guards whom you have convinced of your innocence help you fast talk other guards. Similarly, hostile guards attempt to thwart you attempts at pacifyin others.

3 - Giving this game a 3 for having a useful charisma attribute. 'fast talking' guards and the resulting mechanics (friendly guards make other guards more friendly) can be incredibly deep. Would love to see more games do this kind of thing.

2 - I don't see anything that should be added to the game. But still, I think that there is not enough for a rank of 3.

2 - Could use more balancing and better user interface.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Yeah.

3 - Definitely a roguelike but lacking deep resource or inventory management.

A stealth-based roguelike, where you have a choice of using brute force, stealth, or charisma. There have been several attempts at a stealth based roguelike in the past, but I have found this one to be the most fun, even though simpler than the ones I have seen. I especially like the charisma-based way of getting past the guards. Definitely recommended.

Somewhere on a map is an item to pick up. Find it and get back to starting point. You have to deal with guards somehow By force, by stealth or by fast talking your way through. Usually a combination of all three is most successful.

Another great "coffee break" roguelike. On each level, you must find the MacGuffin and get the hell out! Guards stand in your way, though. To get around them you have 3 tactically diverse options: combat, stealth, and charisma. Combat works fine for a little bit, but is not recommended (I did not find the combat 'build' to be very rewarding). Stealth is interesting, although the levels could certainly use more stuff to hide behind. The last option is to talk to the guards, and convince them to leave you alone. This is a surprisingly deep mechanic, because once a guard is friendly, it will make it easier to convince other guards if that friendly guard is nearby, creating a chain-reaction if you can pull it off. A bit rough around the edges (no resources or inventory to speak of, no end to the game, figuring out % chance of stealth/talking actually working is hard) but definitely worth playing for the innovative non-combat tactics.

3 Complete game

3 - a complete, playable and fun little game. Didn't see any bugs or missing features.

3 - Polished, balanced, bug-free, lovely!

3 Very stylish retro-8-bit graphics and sound. Interface is very intuitive.

2 - nice low-fi aesthetics, nothing too fancy but gets the job done and stays out of the way of the great gameplay.

3 - Pretty pixel graphics add good charm to the game, on top of simple and easy controls and a clear interface. Even the level transition screens are compelling and the game over screen makes you just want to play more.

3 Lots of fun, straightforward tactical gameplay with lots of pattern learning opportunities.

3 - I really like this game. It's a super focused design but with enough content (the different items you find in the dungeon) to still make for interesting and varied situations.

3 - Inherently replayable. I don't think there's an end to the game, but it has an arcade feel of wanting to keep on replaying to see how much further you can get. Gameplay is tight, with deterministic moves and some interesting special items to spice things up. Simple yet fun.

2 Great aesthetic for a coffeebreak game, and doesn't devolve into cliches, but nothing really ground-breaking either.

2 - it's pretty standard roguelike fare only boiled down to its essence - each enemy has 2hp, you have 10hp and heal 1 everything you go to a new level. The bulk of the gameplay is in the items you find in the dungeon, each of which is a consumable that doesn't something interesting (bombs of various patterns, change the level structure, teleport, etc).

1 - Not really anything new here, just a well-down and polished game.

2 Just right for a 7DRL

2 - a complete and well rounded game. Not particularly ambitious but just the right size for a 7drl.

2 - Precisely what you want from a 7DRL. Seems wrong to score it less than the maximum for doing the perfect thing!

3 It looks unconventional, but definitely roguelike.

3 - pretty much a roguelike in every way, only reduced to its core essence.

3 - Core elements of procedural content, permadeath and turn-based.

An infinite dive game with the look and feel of a slightly surreal 8-bit game. Combat is deterministic, and the enemies have rigid movement patterns. There's an identification game combined with pattern prediction, and you're basically just trying to get through each room alive.

A simple game with charming graphics and basic but fun gameplay. You must traverse levels to get as far as you can, avoiding or killing enemies and collecting power ups / special items. There's no progression system, so simply avoiding enemies is often best, and with no FOV and small maps there is a puzzle feel to it. The procedural nature keeps it fresh though, and the straightforward challenge of reaching higher levels will keep you playing much more than most other 7DRLs.

3 works smoothly

2 - Polished and bug free. Could use a high score table. Balance needs work.

2 - Solid!

3 ascii art done well. I love the color palette

3 - Very nice looking. Switching between heros is easy and quick. Miss vi-keys, but arrow+page/home. Excellent visual indicators of party status. One complaint is that death screens are bit harsh - can't even see who killed you. Also, the enemies will move *during* the special attack animation, making it look like they walked into the whirlwind and were unhurt.

2 - Looks great. Simplified colors, great color-change effects when switching dudes. Controls do what you think but wasn't obvious that other squad members had special abilities until you switched to them. Separate keys for each guy's ability should be simplified.

2 Fails to get 3 because of difficulty

2 - Starts reasonable, but gets ridiculously easy. No ramp in enemy power (they seem to be one-shotted even at depth 22), and a big ramp in gold output means that you can easily employ your troops. It is fun to play the party, just one wishes there was a challenge to pit them against. Special powers are thus not very necessary, and since you can only control a single characters position, often not practical.

2 - Lots of fun but takes a long time to get going! Squad management gets surprisingly tactical later levels, but in general monsters so not pose a threat until level 10 or 12.

3 team of heroes, ascii art portraits

3 - An excellent attempt at a party based roguelike. I really like having the characters all on the map. Also, the gold hiring process is very clever, especially how they will rejoin your party if you get enough gold later.

3 - Excellent solution to the player-as-squad "problem". Separate abilities for each guy is great. Forcing player to accumulate gold to "pay" squad members is excellent motivation, especially in the much easier upper levels.

2 just what it needs to be a game. Begs for more content

2 - A reasonable scope for a 7drl.

2 - Solid 7DRL attempt. Perfect scope. Picks one interesting thing and does it well. Other basic mechanics (dungeons, combat, visuals, etc) are solid.

3 innovative roguelike

3 - Randomly generated, tactical combat. While you do control a party, it doesn't break the modality.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

A nice flash roguelike where you control a team of 4 heroes. Features nice ascii art portraits. AI pathfinding could be improved. I can't seem to get enough money to pay my teammate after the first day though.

The Adventurer's Guild is a party based roguelike where you have to collect gold fast enough to pay your party's salaries. If you don't make payroll, they abandon you deep in the dungeon. Hopefully you can then make enough gold to hire them back for the next pay cycle! A clean look and smooth play make this a worthwhile game to try out, even if the lack of difficulty means there is little chance for replay.

A fun browser (+1) game where you control a squad of dungeon adventurers. Instead of controlling each member individually, control is switched in-game and the other 3 guys will just follow your lead. This is a great solution to the squad "problem" in roguelikes. Aside from the "basic" 1st hero, all others have special abilities. Do yourself a favor and keep your healer alive at all costs. Game is way too easy early on, but unique "payment" clock forces you deeper and deeper. If you don't make enough gold by the next "day", you won't be able to pay your squad and some (or all) of them will leave you. Tactical usefulness of having 4 party members is somewhat limited until you get very deep in the dungeon. Definitely worth checking out.

3 Very polished

3 - a complete game with a bit of a learning curve, but I've found no serious bugs.

3 - Seems polished and bug free

3 Graphics and UI work very well. The interface is simple and takes no extra effort to learn, the game shows the necessary hints onscreen.

3 - nice pixel art & pretty good controls.

2 - Very pretty game, but the inventory controls are fiddly (why couldn't each item type be set to a certain hotkey?) and using the mouse for the loop creation is annoying when you accidentally select the wrong tile. This wouldn't be such a problem when turn-based, but it's aggravating when real-time and relying on the right move in the midst of combat.

3 The main gameplay works and the unique mechanic is great fun.

1 - maybe I just didn't get the game, but I haven't really done much except punch rabbits and trap them with me in the infinity. Didn't manage to get inside the building.

1 - I dislike the real time aspect. The infinity system is very interesting, but the rest of the game is actually aggravating. It's far too fast-paced for the style of play the loop system demands.

3 Works both with the general form of a roguelike and adds an innovative mechanic with the looping box.

3 - the concept of drawing infinity is cute and interesting, but maybe could be presented a bit more clearly

3 - Creating looping infinities is awesome. Why couldn't this be on a turn-based game?! Would have a much more thoughtful, puzzle-esque feel then.

3 A bit more polish than I'd expect from a 7DRL.

2 - a complete little game

2 - Not much variety in enemy type, but the one "gimmick" it has is done very well.

2 There is a realtime aspect which does change gameplay a bit. In particular, drawing the infinity box needs some dexterity if you need to do it in the middle of a real-time fight.

2 - real time gameplay, otherwise quite a normal roguelike with a twist.

2 - If it were turn-based I'd give it a 3. As it stands it feels too fast-paced and arcadey.

A very polished flash game with an unique mechanic where you can draw a looping portal box around your character to go around walls, ambush enemies and do other clever stuff. Also has very competent sprite graphics and an overall great interface.

In this game you must draw squares to create a repeating pattern, and this is the main way of getting through walls as you can make a loop that lets you move from above to below (er, bad description - play the game to see what I mean). This can create some awesome looking effects, as you end up seeing yourself across the loop and walking through what looks like a giant hall of mirrors, dozens of yourself marching across the screen in repeat. Such a cool concept! Alas that the devs threw in a real-time combat system that leaves you blindly bumping into enemies, trying to remember now and then the right key press for a heal item, or clicking wildly on the screen to get a loop set up in the right place. I feel like the whole game would be better simply without any enemies, where you just gather the items needed to deconstruct the infinity bits, letting you enjoy the one cool and innovative mechanic the game has.

3 Didn't see any shortcomings

3 works well

3 - Game feels complete. All the items seem to be working as intended, most everything else is procedurally generated.

3 Basic ASCII with sensible keybindings and good visuals. Slight demerit for using 't' as both trees and creatures.

2 classic roguelike look with a purple / greenish palette

1 - ASCII graphics are functional, but the controls are a tough sell. Commands are very nethacky with required use of the Shift key where it need not be used. The game could probably have been made using the keys near WASD and the numpad/vi-keys without any problems

2 Fun as it is, but rather simple

2 fun enough to waste your coffee pause on it

2 - A fun coffee RL with a variable difficulty setting. Once you've got the hang of it, it's more a matter of luck than skill. More varied environments and map features would significantly add to replayability.

3 Several novel mechanics. There's puzzling out procedurally generated creatures, and a hot/cold game for finding the beacon.

2 some interesting features like procedural enemies and having to find the radio emitter position

2 - At its heart Mutant Aliens is a FEDEX quest where you deliver explosives to point B and return to point A, however it packages the mission in a unique wrapper and adds some features that are rarely implemented well in roguelikes (e.g procedural enemies)

2 Just right for 7DRL, a small-scope game with some complex features competently implemented.

3 good amount of stuff packed in

2 - Pretty much right on target for a 7DRL. The developer definitely did a good job polishing this one. Features like destructable terrain are implemented quite well.

3 It's a roguelike

3 innovative roguelike

3 - Features procedural levels and enemies, turn-based movement and permadeath. Definitely a full fledged RL

A planet exploration game with procedurally generated aliens, where your excuse for exploring the random planet is finding a hidden radio beacon that keeps your ship from lifting off. Figuring out the aliens, running away from them, and distracting them with appropriate treats is an interesting mechanic and nicely conveys a different tone than the usual slay-everything mode.

Another sci-fi themed roguelike with some refreshing features. Worth a look.

As of this review, this is the best coffee break RL I've played in this crop of 7DRLs. The scope doesn't try to include elements that other more tradition RLs cut down to fit in the coffee break envelope. The learning curve is a bit steep, but that's what the variable difficulty setting is for. My only major complaint is the control scheme, which rates only a step behind Cataclysm as my least from control scheme so far this year. The only other complaint is for low replayability and lack of a leaderboard. Maybe rank by "time to complete" and "alien catalog" or something.

3 - The author wanted to do more, and did indeed do more after the competition ended, but nothing stands out as incomplete here

2 - there are some bugs: crashes when using an item you do not have (e.g. 'd' when you have items a-c); no starvation warning; Orbs remain after restarting the game; sometimes parts of screen are not updated; known armor values should be shown; items with a known enchantment no longer display the available actions.

2 Some help screen would make it better

3 - Controls work nicely and the visuals remind me of Castle of the Wind. Maybe not as retro as most retro looks, but it works.

2 - tiles taken from other games. I think it's OK, but not very beautiful.

2 really good looking sprite games are rare. This one avoids the total amateur look.

2 - A pleasant dungeon crawl with a lot of different environments to see

3 - Yeah, I think I can give it a 3 for Fun. But there are some annoying things here, that could be improved for a strong "3".

2 classic fun. kill stuff, grab stuff, equip stuff

1 - There's no gimmick here, just solid, standard roguelike play. (Which is rare enough in the 7DRLC)

3 - even though the concept of many-use items appears in other roguelikes, and the usages usually don't make sense in this one, I think that I can give a high score for Innovation.

1 Classic turn by turn roguelike. Nothing new here

3 - A big game! Lots of places to go, lots of items, lots of monsters. I don't feel like I've scratched the surface yet.

3 - a lot of content. Lots of items, monsters, item enchantments/flavors/inscriptions/charges, and many different types of dungeon. A strong "3" here.

3 Really extensive with weapons, armors, magic and everything

3

3 - Definitely a roguelike. Items with many uses are a distinct roguelike feature. :)

3 purebred

(I still need to play a little more and might revise my scores, but I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it.)

Many roguelikes, especially from the Hack branch, allow wielding anything. This one takes this further. Almost everything can be possibly wielded, consumed, zapped, read, and put on. It does not make much sense (how can you consume an iron warhammer?), but this gives sense to a roguelike feature which is included in lots of roguelikes, but rarely actually used. It includes lots of content, I think there are roughly 80 types of effects, lots of monsters, graphics, and items. I think this is a very strong entry, but it has some weak points. The amazing amount of content is not supported by other features. For example, it is cool that there are 80 types of effects, but, since the game is so short (as it is too hard, deep monsters require luck), this means that it is unlikely to find something that you have already identified. Picking just a few types to be available in a particular game could be helpful. There are many qualities of items, on one hand this is amazing, but on the other hand, I cannot guess which one will be better. I think that armor and attack values should be always displayed.

A nice and quite deep turn by turn graphical roguelike. Lacks some help screen.

2 - Lots of loose ends. Overall the game is fairly complete, but lacking in polish and balance. I maxed out my level about halfway through and most of the monsters repeat heavily.

2 - Great job of reutilizing the already mighty EUO engine, didn't have the time to polish some rough edges and thus make a complete transformation. Game-wise you can play a complete game here

2 - Ladders seem to not always be generated making the game unwinnable.

1 - Decent sprite graphics, but I had to use Crtl and Alt and Shift for no good reason. I understand that the MOA engine is expandable, but damn those are some whacky controls.

2 - Excellent old school look, somewhat complex old school keybindings :) Music gets annoying after a while.

3 - Nice looking tiles and animated monsters. Keys sensible for most part and good help screen.

2 - Definitely fun, but way too grindy at the moment. I more or less stumbled over the end and I'm not sure what or how the ending is in anyway connected to anything else.

3 - Classic roguelike fun, very much worth your time to play!

2 - Lots of interesting things to do but inability to win prevents me from rating it higher.

2 - A low 2, nothing that hasn't been seen before, but the game does a better job of capturing the feel of Wasteland/Fallout then most so it gets a 2

2 - Rage bar

1 - All stuff is standard.

3 - Definitely more that I expected from a 7DRL, though it is based on a pre-existing engine.

3 - A whole game reutilizing an existing engine

3 - There are so many things to do it is almost unbelieveable to be done in seven days.

3 - Definitely has all the standard RL elements, procedural generation, turn-based, perma-death and inventory management

3 - A great example of shaping a roguelike from a non-roguelike engine

3 - Yes.

Escape from the Vault is a game with promise that lack polish. You are an inter-dimensional traveler and you have been captured in a post-apocalyptic dimension. Your mission is to escape from you cell in the heart of a mountain, rescue your faithful pet raptor-dog, find the military base and slay the fiend that is guarding the portal to your home dimension. The game doesn't describe any of this, but that's pretty much what I'm calling it. Decent graphics, horrible controls and a bit longer than it has content for. Hopefully the developer will continue work on this one.

Well, you should check out EUO if you don't know it. This game was derived from the EUO engine, changed to fit the theme and the gameplay mechanics while keeping its solidity and eye candy. Protip: Use 'M' to turn off the music, it's funny but gets annoying after a time. There are 3 races and 3 classes, each one with unique features.

Standard hack and slash in modern era. There are only two types of monsters to fight but repertoire of items is very large. Overall quite fun game.

2 - Some pretty severe bugs. The distance between you and an enemy actually affects whether you hit it, because your bolt has to touch the enemy's sprite to kill it. Collision detection wreaks havoc on tactical maneuvering since you never know just what can kill you this turn. Death on level start is a common problem. ctrl/shift are detected a little unevenly.

2 - There are some bugs (sometimes the character gets killed for no reason and reload is the only solution).

2 - You can start right on a monster. It locks up the game.

3 - A gorgeous game and a great feel, interface bugs aside

3 - Aesthetics are ok, a bit Spelunky-like.

3 - Sketchy graphics look cool and very few buttons to learn.

3 - A really challenging game that's short enough not to be frustrating even when it deserves it. The tightest clock I've seen in a roguelike(like). Lots of interesting gambles and little moments of puzzle.

3 - I have to say that this game is actually very fun to play, and I can recommend it to anyone.

2 - Quite fun but lacks balance a bit. Also, this game being not a roguelike does not cater to usual RL player tastes.

3 - The turn-based platformer has been done, of course, but it's never been done in a way that proved that this is a game (and a sub-genre) you'd really want to play, and that could contain everything that roguelikes demand. There's no single element here that counts as strictly innovative, but the particular combination is like nothing I've seen before -- and it actually works.

2 - I think that we had no game like it in the past. But I still think that '3' requires more innovation.

1 - Roguelikes with side view have been done several times already.

2

2 - Although definitely fun to play, I think the game could be improved.

2 - Slightly below average in this respect.

2 - It's worth observing that while the jetpack is on, the game actually functions like a pure 4-way roguelike. It's turn-based, has perma-death (and perma-loss of lesser kinds), has resource management, has a goal (a 'monopole' macguffin), has one-hp combat but no waiting. Collisions are actually registered in real time, which is weird and counts as a bug.

3 - Claimed to be a Spelunky-like, but I don't agree with that. Spelunky is so original that we could name a genre after it, but this game would not be a part of it. Spelunky is real time and this is important. Without that we just get a roguelike with gravity.

2 - It has procedurally generated levels and is turn based but the focus on going through a level in time which decreases the tactical part of the game.

A really exciting offshoot of the roguelike genre, and one that I hope continues to bear fruit. I'm serious -- there's a lot of depth here, and a lot of potential for some really hardcore strategic and tactical action. This installment is a cute little puzzler, but it's got a strong strategic element and it's got a tight, minimalistic design that speaks well of the organizing vision.

I have to say that this game is actually very fun to play, and I can recommend it to anyone. But it is not perfect, I think it could be improved. I think it is unfairly difficult and luck dependent. If you go into the wrong place, technically you usually can save yourself, but you will lose so many resources that you could be as well dead. I think that you should be allowed to shoot monsters next to you, and to skip turns (if you don't like how you can always get the first strike advantage in a typical roguelike, it is more logical to allow monsters to skip turns too). You cannot shoot while in the air, but you can shoot while above the floor and using the grav belt, although this is confusing since the graphics suggest that the grav belt has been turned off, while it actually is not (and you waste the power if you move). The stalagmites just above the floor are very annoying, as there is often no way to go below them (if you try, you are immediately killed, and it is impossible to shoot them). I think a neat solution there would be to allow using the grav belt to move below the stalagmite without disturbing it.

A turn-based platformer with procedurally generated levels. Not a roguelike really but still fun to play for a while.

2 - A few bugs

3 no issue

1 - No victory condition, could only have properly refreshing FOV under Opera. Right clicks not captured properly.

3 - I like the faded look; coupled with the slight blur, it feels like an old game system. The dual control scheme is nice, and while it could be nicer I'd lump its flaws with Incompleteness. Sound and death splotches are satisfying.

2 looks like bright colors seen through a mist. Does not work very well.

2 - Fails to capture space which is also interpreted by browser. It should have been some other key to perform generic action.

3 - I liked it quite a lot! It would be better if it were harder (with all the fuel pickups available, it's just not much of a challenge) and if consequences of mechs coming online were worse (they're not that hard to beat), but it's a fun little game.

3 a lot of different powers to use to crush your enemies.

2 - Tougher enemies need to be handled carefully but due to overabundance of supplies it is hard to lose.

2 - Being able to redirect your power is novel; sadly, it doesn't prove to be terribly important to how the game is played

2 innovation is in the powers

1 - Everything that could be called new was in Scrap years ago.

2 - A very reasonable target

3 nice amount of content. Even has in-game hints and lore

2 - Some levels, interesting enemies.

3

3 purebred

3 - Fits nicely.

A solid little game that does a good job with ranged combat. The small dungeon levels are great for the 7DRL. It's satisfying, blasting away enemies named after roguelike developers. First person plural in the message log has an interesting feel. Not charging a turn to divert power seems like a missed opportunity.

Futuristic roguelike where you are a robot searching for the Yendor AI core. You fight other robots using gear you find on the ground. That does not sound as good as it is. Worth a try.

As a robot you may turn your power into ammunition, hit points or invisibility time. The point of Robo Captain is management of these resources.

2 - Apart from some apparent inventory management bugs, and some missing usability components, the game feels like a solid piece of software

3 - Feature complete, seems to balanced pretty well, only error I saw was the game over text overlapping

2 - Stable, but could use a bit of polish to make it a 3.

3 - Very cool monochromatic graphics, nice interaction model though could have had a directional cursor and show what an item is on mouse hover (right now you have to pick them up in order to know)

2 - The black and grey graphics are functional, though not a particularly big step up from ASCII. Controls are fairly clean, though buttons to click on to swap between character and inventory would have help. Music is a neat addition

2 - Monochromatic color scheme, but works well for the setting. Ambient background music is used very well. Could've used a better way to swap between inventory and char screen (i and c are very far apart!). Mouse-only input is handled well, although pathfinding as opposed to single-space-per-click would be an obvious improvement.

3 - Was pretty fun and challenging.

2 - Definitely a fun concept, but walking around hunting for crystals gets old eventually. Needs a bit more variety to the gameplay.

3 - It's fun! Takes a bit of time to get to the tough decisions, but once you figure out how to manage energy flow vs. energy consumption, there are some fun tactical choices multiple times per level.

2 - There have been some other "plugin-based" roguelikes in the past (power source+equiped gadgets). Though the mecanic is still innovative

1 - "Dive to collect X items" seems to be a running theme this year. The gadgets and software concept is interesting, but nothing that hasn't been done before.

2 - Power-management subgame makes this different from other roguelikes. Oxygen does not feel forced or tacked-on like some 'food clocks'. Other systems (energy, armor) handled very well.

2 - About what you'd expect for a 7DRL.

2 - High for a two, but not quite a three. Plenty of content for a coffee break game though.

2 - A strong showing for a 7DRL, fully complete game.

3 - Including inventory management

3 - Features procedural levels and enemies, turn-based movement and permadeath. Definitely a full fledged RL

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

A pretty nice mouse controlled monochromatic roguelike which plays pretty well. Reminds me a bit of that hivemind roguelike of previous years.

A clean game, decent content and a fairly intuitive control scheme. Collect the crystals, upgrade you gear and shoot your way to the next level. The inventory system reminds me of the 30X9 series of games, but the control is definitely pure RL. The tiles are unique and retro, but some objects just look like soup. Music works well enough. Overall a solid title.

Explore a strange alien landscape as you gather crystals to repair your ship (recurring theme this year?). Don't be put off by the monochromatic display, this game hides a deep power management sub-game: players must manage gadgets, software, and armor suits that all use up power. Power generators are found in the dungeon but are rare and precious. In later levels, almost every new item forces you to re-evaluate and re-optimize your build. Player needs to find oxygen to survive, but this does not feel forced. Multiple damage types add another level of complexity, especially in deeper levels.

3 It feels feature complete for what it's trying to do.

3 - Small, complete game

3 - Feels like a completed, if small, game.

2 - Was tempted to give 3 here but the game crashed on me once.

2 The graphics are simple, but work well. Pleasing colours and effective use of sound. The keys do what you expect.

2 - Nice looking and easy to play, gets really messed up when you are insane (messages get their letters scrambled), would have been nicer to show insanity in some other, less annoying way :) Also has some ambient "terror" sounds but I am inmune to that so I don't know how well it works

2 - Good ideas for how to use light and darkness. The sound effect mechanic, where a distant enemy's position is revealed by a scary noise, was well done. One problem is the use of the mouse to identify things- having to switch between keyboard and mouse for a single task is irritating,

3 - Controls are so good I found reading the before playing a waste of time.

2 A short and sweet game.

2 - There's a game here

1 - Not much to do other than get chased by monsters. The stealth element of the game seemed fairly shallow. Insanity, instead of raising the tension, is just annoying.

2 - Challenging and inviting to replay but too short to make better impression.

2 The focus of the game is the darkness mechanic which works well.

2 - Some enemies damage your insanity instead of health, being in the dark also makes you go nuts

2 - Interesting use of regular roguelike mechanics. With a bit more work this game could be something really interesting.

2 - Darkness done in a special way.

2 What you'd expect from a 7DRL

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7drl. A unique concept executed tightly and with decent polish.

2 - Fairly small scope, but it has everything it needs.

2 - Just one map but it works.

3

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Definitely a roguelike. Could maybe be retitled "Ran out of Phase Door, The Game!".

3 - Conformant.

This is a delightfully effective survival horror game where your goal is to escape a house you just woke up in. "When all candles be out, all cats be gray" proves true as the house is very dark and you need a source of light to tell its deadly inhabitants from its not so deadly inhabitants and even the tools you need to escape. This is a libtcod game that uses the colour features for good and not for evil. Few but interesting monsters and short but sweet gameplay.

A small game about you escaping a terror house without losing your mind. Nice done although a bit shallow. Has plans for extending it in the future.

Beyond the Light is an attempt to make a scary roguelike. It does succeed at creating a spooky atmosphere, but the gameplay doesn't yet live up to the haunted house premise.

One map where you need to find the key and reach the door on edge. Kill rats, spiders and snakes but flee from madman, haunt and the Grue! Manage your matches well until you can escape or get a lantern.

2 - I have once run into a crash bug (while using the reflection recipe). But other than that, the game is polished.

2 - Lacking balance but seems stable

2 - Stable, runs fine for me in python. Could use some polish on interface and in-game animation to make it a 3.

3 - A typical high quality libtcod output. One problem: some monsters and items are hard to see on lower floors (due to their colors).

2 - Some bad colour choices, and annoyingly requires mouse for seeing recipe effects, but basic controls are fine.

2 - Very nice usage of simple colors and simple glyphs. Controls work as expected, although some awkwardness switching between keyboard and mouse for a few things.

3 - The theme is cool. The first few levels are extremely easy, but the difficulty rises quickly.

2 - A bit too easy, and levels are too big, so you end up dying from holding directions too long. Game needs more incentive to use recipes more often.

3 - Lots of fun! The humor is what makes the game for me. Reading new recipe descriptions is worth playing. Inventive enemy names as well. (die, irate customer!)

1 - It has a cool theme, but I don't think it is innovative. It also has an original magic/resource management system: there are six types of components which can be used for many kinds of "magic". Other than that, the game is quite typical. Overall, I think it is not enough for a high score in Innovation, but the game is very good in other ways.

2 - The recipes as powers are great, and though the effects aren't entirely new the implementation is very interesting.

2 - Recipes + ingredients are an interesting mechanic, but not super-deep. Other gameplay is crisp standard roguelike fare (in a good way).

2 - There are many enemies, and many recipes. I think this is a strong "2".

2 - With more involved gameplay this might hit a 3, since the amount of text and attention to theme is really impressive. Everything has an interesting and oft humorous description.

2 - Exactly what I'd expect from a 7DRL, a solid effort.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Random levels, turn-based permadeath.

3 - Definitely a roguelike. Definitely.

A roguelike themed around food and chefs. This theme is very tasty, and recipes take place of "spells". They need ingredients to cast, which are a limited resource that can be obtained by defeating monsters. I think that the game is well balanced, although there are too many easy levels in the beginning (although I have not won it yet). Overall, a very good game!

In Kitchen Master you must work your way up from being a dishwasher to a master chef, starting with simple recipes and spatulas and working your way up to razor-sharp cheese graters and deadly curries. Enemies drop ingredients when killed and they can be combined to produce interesting effects. Gameplay is mostly very basic, but the coherent theme and attention to detail is really impressive.

Kitchen Master is a solid 7DRL with lots of humor. You play as a chef, forced to use spatulas and rolling pins as weapons, and must combine ingredients to create spell-like recipes. Surprising number of recipes adds some nice depth to the game and the humorous descriptions of just about everything (including level names, class names, enemy names) makes this worth checking out. Ingredients + recipe system may be worth exploration by other games, although some polish would be needed to make it work more intuitively.

3 no bug found

3 - Polished.

2 - Complete with an end condition. Mostly missing polish, such as better feedback for who you are to kill (The infernal crusader) and why sorcerers are needed, and what pray does (reset chasing monsters?) And I would love a revamped control scheme.

2 background color makes it possible to hightlight both the player and the enemies' fov. The color palette could be improved though

3 - Good controls, fine looks.

2 - Nice use of high ascii for room decorations. Good selection of colours. The double-tap to move in a direction is very disorienting, really wish I could strafe and rotate separately. The enemy vision cones drops to black which makes it hard to tell how far they actually go.

2 If you like stealth games, you'll like this one

3 - This one is actually good sneak-em-up game. Praying seems to be only for flavor.

1 - The rotate-then-move made for a very frustrating movement. Rooms are big and enemy movement unpredictable, so I can't figure out how to actually do sneak attacks. Strangely, you can *attack* in a direction you are not facing, and if that creature isn't facing you (which you can't tell cause it is a ? then) you can backstab. This became the only practical way of doing backstabs - run to a creature, pillar dance, and backstab. I think an energy based movement scheme is dangerous in this sort of roguelike as it obscures the turn choice, and with insta-kll backstabs, turn choice is very important.

2 while there are few roguelike actually implementing a full stealth gameplay, that's not something really new

1 - Sneak mechanics have been done so many times. This actually plays like more forgiving version of Gruesome.

2 - A good attempt at stealth based roguelikes. I like that you *can* fight enemies, forcing you to learn the importance of sneaking after a few failed traditional fights.

2 stealth engine and some nice AI features

2 - Just right for 7DRL.

2 - Nicely scoped for a 7drl.

3 classic roguelike with stealth. ThiefRL !

3 - Yes.

3 - Random layout with very tactical combat.

A stealth roguelike with directional fov for player and enemies and thieve-like gameplay (you can throw stones to distract guards)

Yet another sneaking rogue. It is a lie about you being significantly weaker than guards. You can waste a few soldiers reliably. The real problem in face to face combat is no hit point regeneration and healing salves give back only single one. There are some tricks to learn and backstabbing becomes reliable deal.

The first thing you will notice playing Mujahid is a sense of claustraphobia. This is intentional: it is a stealth based roguelike requiring you to carefull plan your moves with less than perfect knowledge of the positions of your foes. If you do get spotted, you are fleet of foot and can call upon divine assistance to mislead the heathen.

3 - Wrong indefinite article for picking up emacs.

2 - Lacks diagonal movement (from the RogueTemple discussion I see this is unintended). Stats max out early, making some items useless.

3 - Feature complete and unintentional bug free

3 - Looks fine but could use a few more colors here and there. Keys easy to master.

1 - A typical roguelike look. A very nice ranged attack animation, but I don't think it is enough for a bonus point.

2 - Functional ASCII graphics and decent controls. Nothing that blew me out of the water, but it works well for the game.

3 - I am biased but I found this simple hack and slash very fun because of theme.

2 - If you like the theme, then you should play it. But not very replayable.

2 - Fun enough for a coffe break. Probably one of the better made meta-RLs I've played. Also, still the developer choose to make emacs more powerful than vi, it's fun to think of the holy war he is inviting.

1 - Only the theme is unique.

2 - The game has an original theme, and a focus on a hard time limit. I think this is enough for a 2. The theme could lead to an innovative game in the future, though.

2 - Meta RLs aren't too common and I like the hard trade off mechanic (all potions increase one stat and derease another)

2 - This begs for extension.

2 - Could be developed more.

2 - Pretty much right on par for a 7DRL.

3 - No doubt.

3 - Yes.

3 - Despite the quirky subject matter, this game is pure RL. Procedural maps, permadeath, turn-based and inventory management.

What kind of programmer has the best chances to complete 7DRL Challenge? According to this game he is outrageously lazy, furiously impatient and full of hubris. Fix bugs, segmentation faults, memory leaks and take care of exceptions. Be very wary of family affairs. Oh, the idea that emacs is better editor than vi is HERESY!!! You hear me?! HERESY!

This game has a theme of writing your own roguelike, and as such, I recommend it for all programmers to try. I think this theme has much potential, given how many roguelike fans are apparently programmers. But 'The Challenge' does not use this potential. We get a fairly traditional roguelike, while its abstract theme definitely allows for more originality. You have a hard time limit, which would not work very well in a big roguelike, but here, since the game is so small, achieving the balance between finishing on time and getting points could be interesting. Sadly, in the current version, IMO there are not that many interesting things to play it again and again until you have found the perfect balance. I have answered 2 to most questions, which means that the game is solid in most aspects, although there is nothing really groundbreaking: recommended to try, but probably not very replayable.

An intresting game where you player a coder coding a 7DRL. Self referenial has been done before, TheChallenge carves out its own niche. It is a solid coffee break title that is sure to make any 7DRL developer crack a smile or shed a tear, either or.

2 The basic system is in place, but there's some serious overreaching with the multiple worlds thing, and they all end up feeling pretty half-baked.

1 - Rarely crashes with critical error. There are numerous cases when player is exposed to IDENTIFIERS_LOOKING_LIKE_THIS_ONE.

2 - Missing text in descriptors show up when you shoot various wall types. A crash due to LASER_VERT6 shows up on occasion.

2 The tiles go for a 16-bit videogame sprite look instead of the normal roguelike abstraction, but they are quite ugly for that. Still, you generally know what you're looking at.

2 - No idea why one needs to switch action assigned to Z and X. Kebindings seem to be made without reason.

2 - I liked the tileset, though it could really do with flipping actors for facing. The diverse tileset really sells the subworlds (as they are built on a few simple skins) Shooting weapons really could use an animation. The wall tiles that extend beyond their square often makes it hard to tell that you can walk between them. I don't like the harsh LOS on these big tiles, especially the cactuses is ugly.

3 Very fun innovative concept, though I had no idea what I was meant to be doing in the master world ("surviving" doesn't really cut it for a game), and the sub-worlds were often very unbalanced (though it kinda makes sense in context that they might be).

1 - Lack of a goal or a sense of progress makes playing this a dull experience.

3 - It took a while to figure out what I was trying to do in the subworlds, when I did things started to come together. The game play of the subworlds is balanced all over the place, but this actually doesn't seem odd, as you are really being clocked by the overworld which has a tight resource management.

2 The central gimmick is original, but the whole thing doesn't really come together as well as it could.

3 - Shifting between worlds is something totally new and has been nicely fleshed out.

2 - The game-within-a-game is done well, especially as you start on the within game and thus don't really know the top level to begin with. The mechanics of all the levels are pretty straight forward, however.

3 Massively beyond the 7DRL scope, each of the worlds could use a 7DRL's worth of individual attention, and there are like 20 of them.

2 - A lot of art was prepared but everything else suffered.

3 - Every time I think I've seen all the subworlds I see some more. It is an impressive job in skinning to get a lot of different feels out of the same code.

3 The theme is unusual, but the gameplay is pretty straight roguelike.

2 - Lacks many roguelike elements.

2 - I'm having troubles placing this. The subgames really are not roguelikish, more just gauntlet action games played turn based. The overmap has a lot of roguelike qualities in resource management and exploration, but as the combat is so simplistic, I'm not willing to call it a roguelike either.

Unique concept, which you'll want to learn by playing this instead of reading about it here. Unfortunately the 7DRL nature hurts the game in a couple of ways. First, the idea really demands a much larger amount of diverse attention than is possible in the 7D timespan. The other problem is that the graphics try to evoke classic 16-bit games very directly, and fall very much short in quality from those. This thing might have worked better in plain ASCII (better yet, use the tiles for the "realistic" master world and ASCII for the subworlds).

Strange game. You play several characters and switch control between them every once a while. There might be a goal or a message in the game but I did not bear the dull gameplay for long enough to get it.

Ride your motorcycle over the desolate post-apoclyptic desert, looting houses for food, water, and ammo. And then run out of fuel and die of starvation. Or, try to figure out the key...

2 - seems pretty complete except for puzzling control scheme and some UI quirks.

2 - Seems feature complete, but lacks polish and balance. For example, traps don't seem to work.

3 - Stable, no problems running python. Excellent example of polishing a small number of features.

2 - nice colors and some tiles

2 - Decent tiles, but the controls are overly complicated for their need.

2 - Controls well. Got annoyed at a separate command for 'open/close door'.. until I realized later this was definitely required! Visually very much a basic roguelike but pleasant to look at.

2 - base concept is interesting but gets old pretty quickly. If there was goal I didn't see it.

2 - Simply not enough content to play for more than 5 minutes. Not actively annoying to play, but not to do either.

3 - So much fun! Kept coming back to this one to play more and more. The open-ended nature of the game means you will always come back and try to beat your previous score. Very cool chain of tactics leading from carrot to (eventually) trapping wolves. How many wolf corpses can you pile up? Accidentally stepping into your own traps is the perfect roguelike death!

2 - tracking and luring animals was a nice touch.

2 - The theme is new, as is using corpses to attract monsters.

2 - Not doing anything amazingly new, but what it does do, the game does very well. Monsters (wolves, rabbits) do seem especially intelligent compared to most roguelikes.

2 - could be a bit bigger (not that much to do in the game) but overall nicely done.

1 - Only one map, two enemies that aren't very distinct.

2 - Perfect example of a 7DRL. One mechanic, polished. Extremely fun in short bursts.

3 - nothing unorthodox in this regard.

3 - Procedural maps, turn-based and permadeath are all present, along with inventory management.

3 - Certainly a roguelike. Plenty of permadeath and inventory management is key.

You grab a knife, carrot and tracker and go hunt some rabbits. Dead rabbits attract wolves that kill you unless you find a rifle to kill them. The game is well put together but short and a bit clunky to control. Three times as much content and it would be a decent coffee-break RL.

A great "coffee break" roguelike... your coffee will probably be cold by the time you finish. In this incredibly simple but fun game you are a hunter, and must use your limited inventory (carrots, traps, knives) to capture and kill as many wolves as possible. Animals seem surprisingly intelligent. Some tactical depth in managing your inventory when out in the field (don't forget to close the door to your hunting lodge!!) and working your way up from a carrot to a dead wolf is rewarding. Not very deep but what it does do.. is done very well.

3 It seems to be doing what it tries to do.

3 - The challenge victory post claims there are some bugs. But still, I think that the game is quite polished.

2 - Stable, runs with no problems, seems feature complete

2 The interface is pretty simple, but not really like either a roguelike or a Jagged Alliance game. The menu graphics are good, but the levels are very, very plain.

3 - The graphics are beautiful, and the controls are OK. But please add a fullscreen option, I simply cannot play roguelikes in a tiny window. (I have tried to change the Python source to achieve fullscreen, but I have lost the mouse pointer then)

2 - Graphics are great. Controls take a bit of getting used to -- could definitely use a 'wait' command, otherwise takes too many clicks to set up a useful tactical scenario (e.g. moving through a door with enemies on the other side)

2 There's a basic game there, but the controls seem a bit too simplistic. Squad game maneuvers like popping in a doorway to shoot into a room and going back into cover are hard to pull off without getting shot. The game experience feels like a very simple real-time strategy game more than a roguelike.

2 - I don't find the game very fun, but it might just mean that this game is not for me (I have not played Jagged Alliance, maybe I would understand JaggedRL better if I did). I think you should try it for yourself.

2 - Definitely fun but takes a LONG time to play on easier settings and levels are too big for as empty as they are. This is much better on medium/high difficulty levels.

2 It's trying to do squad-based, which is always interesting.

1 - I think that JaggedRL is much simpler than squad based games like X-Com (I have not played Jagged Alliance so I cannot compare). It would be innovative to mix more roguelike elements, but I don't think that this has been done: random level generation already appears in squad games (X-Com). There are also many roguelikes which have some form of team management. The implementation in JaggedRL is different, but I don't think it is that innovative.

2 - Adding tactical turn-based play is no easy feat for a roguelike. This game pulls it off rather well.

2 It goes for a bunch of stuff but mostly sticks to the straightforward single missions.

3 - Lots of features there: completing the squad, squad member abilities, choosing the mission, tutorial, graphics, save/load. Even though the gameplay itself feels quite limited, I think it is enough for a '3'.

3 - Definitely over what I would expect for a 7DRL. Includes a tutorial!!

2 Not quite there. The world model is roguelike, but the gameplay feel when you give indirect orders to multiple characters is quite different.

2 - I feel that the gameplay complexity here is quite limited: you can only move and shoot the enemies. Although the squad management brings some complexity, I feel that it is less complex than usual roguelikes. Also, UI features such as the lack of keyboard movement and lack of fullscreen mode tell me that I am not playing a roguelike.

2 - Moving towards a tactical turn-based game sacrifices some roguelike-ness.

A game based on the Jagged Alliance games, but one that doesn't really play like either a roguelike or a JA game, but instead resembles a real-time strategy game. You give the characters orders like a place to travel to, and they do their own stuff until finished, at which point you get back to giving them orders. Didn't really get a good command flow going with this, guiding the guys felt clumsy both when moving the squads around (can't rect-select multiple guys) and in close combat, where the system was too simplistic for the JA style maneuvers like going prone or doing shoot-and-run moves.

JaggedRL is an attempt to mix squad-based turn-based strategy games and roguelikes. I think it is quite well polished (beautiful graphics). However, unfortunately, I don't think the game is that fun to play: it seems to be mostly moving your squad members and firing when they see an enemy, and hoping that they win the fight. It seems hard to attack an enemy using several members of the squad, for example: the battle goes on so fast that it is often finished before the other guys arrive. There are some elements such as stamina and morale, which drop during the mission and seem to cause problems, but I don't know how to raise them (maybe I would understand it better if I played Jagged Alliance). Overall, I had less fun with this than I expected, but I think you should play for yourself and see.

A very nicely polished "roguelike" version of the excellent turn-based tactical squad game "Jagged Alliance". Player controls a squad of four commandos through a variety of missions (including escort!). Levels can feel empty on lower difficulty levels so don't be afraid to kick it up to 11. Some situations take many more clicks than they should -- could use a "wait" command for units. But overall, keeping a squad together in a tactically useful manner is fairly simple. Sacrifices some traditional roguelike-ness but will be great fun for fans of Jagged Alliance/X-COM tactical battles.

3 Competent implementation and a good set of features

2 Some errors in world generation after level 4. Depending when the error occurs, you can get an empty world (no creatures)

3 - Seems feature complete, balance is pretty good, all the enemies have unique flavor texts.

3 Looks good for the most part, though the dark-blue player avatar can be hard to distinguish at times. Nice little touches like the gray fade of the message lines. Having the single-choice option to choose "race [1] Orc" for the orc campaign was a nice touch too.

2 classic, sober but pleasing look

2 - Functional Ascii graphics, the controls are a little nethacky, but functional.

2 Good basic gameplay, but balance seems a bit off. It's very easy to die, and you don't get that much stuff to keep from dying.

2 standard roguelike fun level

2 - Fun but a bit frustrating as death happens quickly and recovery items are rare in the early game. Would be nice to see some of mid-game features pull forward a bit.

1 Warhammer is fun, but the thing is still all derivative, and the interface is standard competent modern coffeebreak RL, and the game content is just chopping up mobs.

1 Classic turn by turn roguelike. Nothing new here

1 - Nothing particularly new, using a Warhammer skin is neat though

2 Good on feature-completeness, but the campaign scenario is pretty basic.

3 pretty much everything you expect as game mechanisms. Lacks some setting and story, but hell, this is 7DRL

2 - On par for a 7DRL.

3 Very much one.

3 purebred

3 - All the standard RL features are present, procedural generation, permadeath, inventory management, allies and turn-based movement

It's a WH40K themed game where you play an orc (aren't those 'Orks' in the verse) and chop up some mobs in a swamp. Most of those seem to be other orcs instead of the space marines or space elves I figured the space orcs spent more time chopping up. It's easy to get killed, either by being swarmed or by bleeding to death. There is also an arena campaign, but that seemed a bit bugged. The orc character shows up as "space marine" in the status panel there, and one game I just got a bunch of empty levels until the game crashed when I tried going down on Arena 9. Only had a Windows binary, no source. Got it to work by running `winetricks vcrun2008` and then using Wine.

A complete turn by turn roguelike with inventory, equipment, ranged weapons and a lot of monsters. Even features an Arena mode. Quite extensive for a 7DRL. I've had world generation issues starting at level 4 with some empty levels.

This game feels a bit like a Warhammer themed brogue variant. It plays well and has a decent amount of content for a 7DRL. Combat is pretty lethal early on and managing allies can be a bit fiddling and time consuming. I'd be interesting to see this game expanded in the ally combat dimension, where you could have dozens of orks under your control.

1 - Has some critical bugs and feels unpolished (I was unable to use the remote view for example)

3 everything is here

2 - Disconnected levels sometimes, help command doesn't work (a big deal when there's no key command documentation anywhere!) Mostly stable.

2 - Standard ASCII look, commands a bit obscure

1 you can't really be hot when you're a true console game, can you?

2 - Fairly standard fair, with plain but functional looks. Key commands really need to be more thoroughly listed *somewhere* though.

1 - Baring the fact of frequent crashes, there's the premise of a mission based game, but I was unable to get to a point where interesting missions showed up.

2 like : a lot of game mechanisms. don't like : the cops !

2 - Deterministic 1 HP combat is nice, and the conveyor belts + crushers are very fun to work with. Unfortunately there's no depth to the weapon/toy crafting.

2 - Conveyor belts, remote view (though I was unable to see it working) Combining things didnt really seem to work that well (was unable to know what I was combining, always got weaponized toys no matter). Running spends your stamina which doubles as your health

2 first time I see conveyor belts in a roguelike. also first time I'm a toy

3 - Turn-based conveyor belts with crushers on the end! Really great fun, and works excellently. Can't help but also be impressed by the cross-level dual display too, though it doesn't impact a great deal on gameplay.

2 - He aimed for a nice goal.

3 a complete game

2 - Not a long game, so it doesn't outstay its welcome.

3 - Turn based, inventory, postmortem.

3 innovative roguelike

3 - Turn-based, procedural, permadeath.

Not very complete, has some interesting features (see innovation) yet not a fun game.

A pure console roguelike with advanced gameplay (objectives, devices like conveyor belts)

At its heart there's a lot of fun here. The theme is nice enough, but the real fun is in the conveyors. It's nice to see dungeon elements that aren't static, can be a threat, and can also be used in battle tactics. The whole thing feels incomplete overall - a few bugs here and there, and some features don't seem fully realised - but that doesn't stop its unique features shining through.

2 - I have found no bugs. But it is not polished: for example, the game is named "Example" when you lose, and you get T-Engine's title screen which is completely irrelevant to Phage (which I find annoying and AFAIK can be avoided in T-Engine).

3 no special issue

2 - You can stumble on some lua errors if you know where (not) to click.

1 - Phage itself provides simple ASCII characters, which are mixed with T-Engine's graphics. I don't like it due to inconsistence.

2 looks as good as an ascii T-Engine 4 game

1 - Inability to play only with keyboard is absolutely abhorrent! In result one has to switch between mouse and keyboard because walking with mouse by one tile at time is very tiring.

1 - I think the general idea of consuming enemies for new powers is very nice. But it is not yet well developed in this game. Moreover, you can win simply by standing in one place (as long as there are no enemies, but if there are, you can usually easily kill them). I would suggest waiting for a new version where it will be more developed.

3 morphing is fun !

3 - Great stuff! I wish the time limit was quadrupled so I could see what the phage could evolve into.

2 - The idea of gaining powers from the corpses of your enemies appears in other roguelikes (in major hacklikes you can eat them for intrinsics, and in Xenocide you can use the genomes to improve own body; even in equipment based roguelikes we have a form of this, since you can use the equipment of your enemies for yourself). I could still give a high Innovation score if it would be well developed, but unfortunately, I don't think it is so. I have given a "2", but it is quite weak IMO.

2 everything is a talent is a nice idea

3 - You are what you eat (in this case defeat) is common trope in roguelikes but has never been done so well.

2 - Has movement, attacking, enemies and several "talents". I think it is enough for a "2". But the winning condition is not meaningful.

2 just a 500 turn deathmatch, really

2 - User interface could use somemore work.

2 - Lack of complexity, unclear challenge.

3 innovative roguelike

3 - Lack of items somewhat harms this but not enough to make it a 2.

A T-Engine game based on the idea of consuming the bodies of your fallen enemies to gain new powers. It is playable, but it is not a challenge (you can win by simply walking around one place for 500 turns; and it seems that the talents that can be achieved from defeating other monsters are not yet interesting enough). I think that it is a good start, and it could become a very fun game in the future. But this would require lots of work...

*** WARNING, SPOILER *** You have to survive 500 turns, chased by a hord of… things. You can steal their power when you kill them. Lazy as I am, I simply waited 500 turns on starting cell and won :D But if you really play the game, it's quite fun

You are defined by your abilities which fall into three groups: offense, defense and senses. You have to defeat locals in order to absorb their talents so you can augment yourself and become a superior creature. Select the best abilities from defeated creatures to become stronger. Maintain balance of abilities for greates chances of survival.

2 Pretty good, but lacks a bit polish in vital stuff like moving the PC.

3 - Very polished, nice to look at. Excellent use of (I think?) the same tiles that I've seen in other games like Realm of the Mad God. Menu, title screen, etc, all nicely done.

3 - Complete and a lot of work went into polish of menus, etc. High score has bugged graphics for name input for me, however (Windows XP) Saving and loading seems to not actually save your level, which was a surprise to me.

3 Makes good use of the Oryx tiles, mouse interface. Look is polished. Feels a bit like a turn-based Diablo or Realm of the Mad God.

2 - Looks amazing, but controls leave much to be desired. 1) right-click to fire is not specified anywhere. 2) re-targeting an enemy each time they move is painful, as all combat is ranged I have to keep slightly moving the mouse. Walking seems to take a long time, even with shift-walk, mouse doesn't do diagonal corners well.

2 - A beautiful looking game with nice animation, sound effects, and music. So why not three? Controls. No key repeat, so a shift run, but the shift run stops for closed doors, but not open doors. Hard to tell locked doors from unlocked doors short of opening them. Using mouse for combat painful, especially as I have to keep retargeting if enemies advance.

2 The look is neat, but gameplay is a bit samey shooting of the unusually ranged-combat-capable birds and snakes.

1 - I wanted to have a lot of fun with this game. Keys unlock doors which lead to cooridors with new rooms with new keys with new unlocked doors... was hoping for some more depth. Why does every enemy have a ranged attack?? What is this dog shooting at me exactly? :) Exploration is made very tedious and combat gets repetitive in wide-open spaces.

1 - With the title locks and all the keys I hoped for some form of topological key unlock puzzle. But I never was short of keys, or even cared if doors were locked or not. Omni-direction ranged combat in open areas just becomes a clickfest. This is worsened by the combat model which is based on whiffing all the time - the constant miss, miss, miss grows frustrating and also means I can't predict at all how many shots it will take. If you need run movement and e for explore, it is a sign you should likely fix something else - like auto explore? Targeting has to feel more fluid, as does movement, and definitely the open rooms have to be broken up as ranged combat on open ground is simplistic.

1 Pretty standard dungeon crawl.

1 - Nothing really new here, except for maybe making a roguelike that actually LOOKS nice. But this is a gameplay/mechanic category.

1 - Ranged combat heavy roguelike. Unfortunately the potentially innovative bits couldn't rise to the forefront in my playing.

2 Pretty much in 7DRL scope, though effort seems more focused on visual style than novel gameplay.

3 - Amazing polish and completeness for a 7DRL.

2 - Very impressive scope in art and feel. But in terms of gameplay, very minor scope.

3 It's a roguelike

3 - Definitely a roguelike, with all-ranged combat.

3 - @ on map with ranged weapons.

A mouse-controlled graphical game, where your main attack is shooting at things. The basis looks nice, and the control gives it a Diablo-like feel. Unfortunately there's no way to do continuous walking, either by leaning on keys or by keeping the mouse button pressed. This makes moving around the large dungeon unnecessarily clumsy, and since avatar movement is a pretty big deal in roguelikes, this is currently a problem. Would be pretty easy to fix though.

A very well-polished game with music and an excellent tile set. Entirely based on ranged combat. (Right-click to shoot, took me a while to figure that out) Exploration becomes dull rather quickly and combat gets to be a chore but until that point it is a joy to see and experience. More roguelikes should look like this and have this level of accessibility.

Locks is a beautiful small tile roguelike with excellent animations, sounds, and music track. (But as I like NIN, I may be biased on the last) It is well worth playing to experience this, even if the gameplay is unlikely to hold your attention long.

2 - The crashing bug (when monsters can't path to you) makes it hard to play through. Big props on having high scores.

3 No particular issue.

3 - Game is complete, 10 levels, a handful of items and enemies

2 - Looks good enough. Nothing exceptional. j/k are reversed, which is irritating, but since it has 4-way movement the arrows are serviceable.

2 A bit sober, but uses some simple but working color palette

2 - Functional graphics and controls. Nothing fancy required, nothing of the wall delivered.

2 - It's fun to figure out optimal play, but once you settle into a routine there aren't many decisions to make.

2 As fun as a standard roguelike is. More depth would probably bring more fun.

2 - Fun as a coffee RL, but after you've beaten it, there isn't much reason to replay. It might just be my 1337 gamer skills showing, but I was never in any real danger and I think I only lost a single power in my first playthrough. I probably could have finished without the power restoring potions.

1 - Nothing new here; with a bit more work, the stamina system could qualify for a 2 or a 3, but fighting an enemy is like picking up a health pack right now.

1 Classic turn by turn roguelike. Nothing new here

1 - Nothing new here. The "regen health only on killing" mechanic has been done before. This is one of the most pure implementations that I've seen.

2 - Pretty standard 7DRL, maybe a little short of 2 but it has some nice polish that puts it over.

2 Fights, different creatures, dungeon generation,... ok deserves 2

2 - Seems little light for a 7DRL entry, but still in the range of possible.

3 - Clearly.

3 definitely purebred

3 - The game is a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels with turn-based movement, it's missing inventory management and the "power" concept could be considered cheating the permadeath concept, but it doesn't take any steps outside of the genre.

A brilliant finish for a project that was, by the author's account, doomed to failure in the middle of the week. There are many, many entries less deserving of being called 7DRL successes than this. Congrats to the author for that.

A classic turn by turn dungeon dweller where you have to find all the shards of an ancient weapon to kill the last boss. Lacks a bit of depth, but a good base to build upon for 7DRL 2013 !

Overall this is a tight little roguelike. With stamina that decreases every time you step or take a hit and the only way to recover health being rather rare potions and general slaughter, the game plays pretty fast and neat: Find the shard, find the steps, kill enough to keep stamina up, repeat. The difficulty is a bit low, though I can say if that was the intent or a balance problem and the enemy behavior is easy to game (waiting for a turn doesn't cost stamina, so entering a room and leaving to wait for the enemies to chase you down a corridor is a devastatingly effective tactic). It's a coffee break RL that is good for a play-through.

2 Great basic procedural universe, but there's not much goal for the player.

3 - Very impressive piece of software, an infinite universe in which you can zoom in an out from galaxies to planets with randomly generated landscape, all running in your web browser. Also a target based ranged combat system.

2 - No possibility to travel diagonally. Pirates can do this. Also the universe feels somewhat empty.

2 - Seemingly complete as a game, but universe feels (too) empty.

3 Excellent realization of the procedural universe, both visually and functionally. Key bindings work well, with a smooth navigation from galactic level to planetary surface.

3 - Great unicode look powered by colors, in-game help takes you along. Keyset is small and comprehensive

3 - The game is one huge win in this category.

3 - Very pleasing asthetics. +1 for browser games! UI is slick, scanning is fun. Movement could be a bit easier (shift+arrows did not seem to work for diagonals)

2 Exploring planets is visually nice, but there's not much to actually do.

1 - Not much to do apart from roaming the universe looking for things to sell and then hoping to reach a space station.

1 - Collecting stuff to convert into energy is boring. You need tons of energy to reach the center of galaxy.

1 - Not enough 'fun' gameplay. Combat is too dangerous, even after some upgrading. Mechanics have promise though, just need to remove micromanagement (esp. energy conversion).

2 Quite different for roguelikes, but doesn't do much Starflight didn't already do 25 years ago.

1 - I am sure this has been tried before (although this execution is excellent). Plus it's not very roguelike

2 - The beauty of procedurally generated world is matched only by previous Infiniverse.

2 - Universe generation and level of detail (down to planet surfaces!) is simply amazing. Would love to see it with more 'stuff'. Hard to compare to other roguelikes in these terms.

3 Implementing the entire galaxy is, well, perhaps a bit over the scope for 7DRL.

3 - He created an universe albeit a bit empty

2 - Hard to measure.

2 - Scope seems huge, but so much emptiness can also be a bad thing. Features-wise scope is very wide, with buying/selling, tons of exploration.

2 The basic feel is there, but the wild scale shifts are rather un-roguelike, and there's not that much indication yet how tactical gameplay would work into these.

1 - Not a roguelike but rather a turn based single played space trading game. Has randomly generated maps and limited tactical combat tho.

2 - Not enough combat to really be a roguelike.

2 - Lacking in combat makes it tough to compare to other roguelikes but is certainly similar in other ways (exploration)

A procedural space exploration game, with really excellent visuals and controls, but also succumbing to the perennial problem of procedural space exploration games that there's not that much to do beyond looking at the pretty simplex noise planets, and given that there's a whole galaxy to play with, it might not be that easy to come up with meaningful gameplay involving all of it either.

This one lets you have an universe in your browser, very elegant implementation and may be the basis for a great game with multiple facets apart from trading. Right now there's a game here you might want to master, but it's all about patience and luck.

Guide a spaceship to the center of a galaxy. However, to fly you need a lot of energy. Collecting stuff to convert or selling stuff to buy hydrogen cheaply is plain boring. This might evolve into a great game in future.

You are a spaceship out to acquire knowledge and wealth. It has a great game Universe but without being a great game. Amazingly detailed universe, down to the planetary terrain. Problem is things are a bit TOO spread out and exploration becomes tedious very quickly, especially when coupled with energy-conversion mechanic. Not a lot of combat, and what combat there is is very difficult. However, graphics are amazing and 100% in-browser (+1 for me) and the UI is very slick (especially scanning/targeting). A great platform/framework for a new game.

3 - Rounded and complete for what they went for

2 - Lacks polish. For example corpses encountered in caves are said to be lying on floor.

2 - Stable and polished in some areas (sound, story)

2 - Nice minimalist appearance, only wasd keys with no diagonal movements is a bit painful. Full screen option would have been great...

2 - Looks well but brass key is difficult to spot and you cannot walk with arrow keys.

3 - Atmosphere is perfect for the game. Combination of sound and visuals when corpses/stalkers appear is great, and incredibly jarring the first time (in a good way)

2 - Challenging, although not very replayable, and very unavoidable instadeaths ruin the end game. VERY HUGE levels, you have to roam almost empty giant levels looking for a key and a downstairs.

1 - AsylumRL kills you with boredom. Searching for key in three cave levels takes too long and runs the game's atmosphere.

2 - Worth playing for the atmosphere and story but otherwise there is a lack of 'fun' gameplay. The cave levels are especially difficult to explore (perhaps intentionally?) and the enemies seem to be instant death without warning.

1 - Food clock is replaced with sanity counter (although it wont reach zero but it reduces your LoS). Representing madness in a roguelike would be more than just adjusting LoS and changing the background volume though.

1 - New theme but nothing special about mechanics.

2 - No real gameplay innovation but it is an excellent use of atmosphere (sound, visual effects, darkness) that I feel other roguelikes should certainly investigate.

2 - A nice theme and story

3 - A lot of work went into this one. Considerable amount of polish in user interface and two level generation algorithms.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL

2 - Very sparse content and low replayability, no interaction with other entities. Has some tactical elements (to avoid the sparks of death)

3 - Yes.

2 - Its a roguelike but the first 2 levels are not procedural and there is no real item interaction or resource management (except for pills?)

Centered around the theme of sanity, you must escape a ghostly assylum, haunted by mirages of death. First levels are static, later levels are way too huge, there are no other actors to interact with and death is very unavoidable. Still interesting to reveal the plot slowly.

Okay, this one succeeded at scaring me at the beginning and at the end. Had to restart it two times beause I could not spot the key in caves. That was really boring and killed the game for me.

A dark game with a capitvating story that makes excellent use of sound and visual effects. Actual gameplay is somewhat shallow and death seems a bit unfair, but if you play in a dark room with headphones on (as suggested by the author) it is a surprising amount of fun the first time.

2 - It feels like it could use some polish and tightening.

3 - Fairly complete and polished.

2 - Stable, nice use of TOME4 engine. Rough in other areas.

2 - Tiled ascii with non-annoying font and colours. Ok keybindings which might make even more sense to TOME players.

2 - Message log obscures lower map area when you are near south border. Skeleton construction by 'wearing' parts sounds really silly. How do you wear a leg or an arm? Some spelling errors in descriptions.

2 - Font seems way too empty for me. (Maybe if terrain had some background color?) Sometimes I couldn't tell if a monster was diagonally adjacent to me or not. Spell effects look cool. Key bindings definitely not a problem, everything does what I'd expect.

1 - I didn't find it very fun, but your mileage might vary.

1 - Nice to try but filled with all kinds of instadeath and unbalance. After creating too good minion everything was wasted before I could react. Once I got hit for 148 points of damage. No joke.

1 - Was fun once I figured out how to summon/create my skeletons. Almost quit in frustration before that though! (Wearing arm and leg bones is not intuitive), but I have to knock a point off, from a 2. Once you figure things out and get new spells, the 'crafting' nature of summoning is fun.

2 - The focus of this game is the necromantic animation of undead compiled from the bodyparts of your slain enemies, which is pretty neat.

2 - Minion creation itself badly apes Xenocide robot construction. However, enhancing bones with gems and metal is something new.

2 - Extreme focus on summoning mechanic is interesting. Using gems and other items (metal, magical artifacts) to create better undead minions is quite innovative. everyone loves crafting!

2

2 - All right for 7DRL.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL

3

3 - Roguelike indeed.

3 - Definitely a roguelike

You play a necromancer whose goal it is to enter the nether (and then what?) with the aid of your animating abilities. I like the concept of constructing undeads from various (sometimes enhanced) body parts. The implementation is both awkward and clever in how it's tacked on the wield/equip interface of TOME. Confusing at first, but when you get it, it works. I'm not really into pouring over stats, so it wasn't obvious to me what separated the different undeads i were making, but that might just be me. I like that your character gets more powers as he progresses through dungeon levels, but the game seems to start too easy and then hit a wall of difficulty a little further into the game.

Create minions from bones lying everywhere around. Killing a creature will give you one of its bones. You can enhance bones with gems and metal. Gets old fast and is hardly balanced. You can wipe out everything by yourself in the forest but in next area two goblin warriors if lucky can waste you and party of five skeletons.

A TOME4 mod that has you summoning skeletal minions to overpower your enemies. Undead minions are quite grotesque, being made up of whatever bones you have found lying around (goblin ribcage + fox legs + human skull = ???). Figuring out the summoning mechanic was quite frustrating: you must "wear" a bone item in each slot (head/body/arms/legs) and then cast the spell. Once you figure this out it is quite fun. Later spells let you combine gems and metals and infuse your skeletons with enhanced powers. TOME4 doesn't let down in the controls department, mouse and keyboard all work exactly as I'd expect. Visually a bit sparse but spell effects are cool.

3 Looks feature-complete and polished

2 - Throwing flasks gives internal error. Having armor/weapon break or changing body armor causes "gaining resistance" debug message to be output.

2 - Compiled and ran fine, did encounter a bug throwing flasks

2 It's an old-school terminal game, quite by-the-book. Unfortunately the book includes things like dedicated keys for reading scrolls and putting on rings. Modern terminal games might also want to take advantage of terminals with more than 80 columns.

3 - Good choice of colors although items on ground could use some distinction. Keys very neat. Actions display only eligible items.

1 - Controls are what can nicely be called "classic". Lifted straight from nethack, but in a bad way: separate commands for putting on/taking off weapons, rings, and armor. Visually the old-school look is appealing, although cave-dungeons could use a bit of color perhaps. Left/Right UI layout makes it easy to follow the action.

2 Regular roguelike gameplay, but I'm not quite sure why I'm a princess and what I'm supposed to be doing. Apparently it's a score attack thing.

3 - Martin's Dungeon Bash was fun thing and so is this. However, lava walking has swung balance a little too much in player's favor.

2 - Definitely fun from a classic roguelike perspective. Lots of fiddly commands ala nethack is annoying but workable. Player is a princess but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the rest of the game? No identification or cursing (that I found) means you can get going early with tons of rings and potions. Was not able to throw flasks even though I really wanted to!

1 Bog-standard Generic Fantasy setting with the usual roguelike tropes

1 - The only rare thing to see is lava walking but it has been done too.

1 - Nothing too different from classic roguelikes (nethack).

2 A polished but not very ambitious game

1 - Cave chop was a backup plan anyway. Changes from MPRDB are minimal.

2 - Nice job for a 7DRL.

3 It's a roguelike

3 - 100% roguelikeness.

3 - Definitely 100 percent roguelike.

An old-school game where the purpose is just to dive deep and rack up score. It does its thing competently, but the thing is forgettably generic.

Essentially a mod of Martin's Dungeon Bash. New things include cave area instead of a maze of rooms, unusable flasks and some new items. If you liked MPRDB Cave Chop is fun too.

A classic dungeon diving roguelike. Manage an every-increasing variety and amount of weapons, rings, scrolls, armor, and flasks as you travel deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Monsters get powerful rather quickly so make sure to stock up before you head down. Look is a basic roguelike, and runs fine on linux. Controls unfortuntely borrow the worst of the nethack genre: separate commands to take on/take off weapons, armor, and rings (that's six commands). However, there is a lot to see and do in this game, which is actually infinite! (You WILL die, don't worry) There are tons of items and the various rings do a good job of creating tactically interesting scenarios.

1 - Not really a complete game but rather a testing place for a combat system (although playable)

3 no special issue playing the game through ssh

2 - Really lacking in features but polished.

2 - Looks ok; UI could use some help like highlighting where your "Health" is... also nice would be an in-game explanation of what the game is about (had to lookup the website)

2 effort has been made to avoid the default palette. uses standard roguelike keys

2 - Average.

2 - Fun if you want to discover the mechanics of the combat engine

2 classic dungeon dweller with attack on bump and some innovative powerup system

2 - Token system is easy to understand and actually could work work bigger game. A pity Emet is so short.

2 - Card based combat has been tried before, but implementation is well-designed

2 grabbing powerups making it possible to alter yourself. Also playing as a golem is new

2 - Token system is unique way of implementing combat but it does not change gameplay significantly.

2 - Just adding a (interesting)combat mechanic to some randomly moving @ in the map

2 good ideas but require more work

1 - Below average. There are only two tiers of upgrades meaning you need 4 Met to see everything in one path.

3 - Is got most of the points in the book

3 classic roguelike

2 - A bare bones roguelike.

Played this via SSH, this entry seeks to test a somewhat complex combat engine based on "Tokens", worth a look.

A classic roguelike you can play in a terminal. There are the bases of an interesting powerup system where alter yourself by using powerups dropped by enemies, but it's still at the very early stage

This game serves one purpose: to try out token system. It works suprisingly well. Except that Emet has little to offer.

2 - A few input errors in the character creation sequence made it very difficult to get through

3 works smoothly, but it's probably using some out-of-the-box rpg engine

3 - Works very smoothly. Looks very polished.

3 - As pretty as can be asked, with nice music to boot.

3 great pixel art similar to the early Final fantasy games

2 - Looks very nice, very JRPG-type graphics. However, -1 for combat controls, having to 'pass' each turn when you have run out of actions becomes very tedious.

2 - I enjoy the experience, but I don't get the kind of tactical thrill I want from a roguelike.

2 the kind of fun you expect with a classic 2D rpg

2 - Will not be everyone's cup of tea but has a seemingly deep combat game/RPG going on.

1 - Since it's not a roguelike, it can't be said to have extended the genre. The author has, however, added something to the typical RPG formula, since the combat is a bit more tactical than what most such games have.

1 nope

1 - Hard to tell for this game. In order to innovate, there needs to a 'base' "roguelike-ishness" to start from and innovate on, which this game does not have. (unless you count perma-death)

3 - It's impressive; even if the assets were created before the challenge, it takes time to get everything put together nicely.

3 a real complete RPG

3 - Graphics/text/polish in the title sequence(s) alone seem more than is possible for a 7DRL, well done.

1 - It's not a roguelike. The major point here is that combat and exploration are separate modes; it's too bad, too, because roguelikes need to learn to have stories.

1 it's a 2D rpg, not a roguelike

1 - Definitely not a roguelike. (Unless you count permadeath, but in which case make the characters way easier/shorter to set up please!)

Roguelike developers have a lot to learn from this entry. It isn't impossible to bootstrap this kind of polish and friendliness onto a pure roguelike -- a few small changes and Mont Asall would do it!-- and we'd get more of that strange beast roguelike developers have such trouble capturing, namely, players.

A graphical 8bits JRPG. Classic and well done. Some oddities (the fight inventory shows all item categories even if you have no items)

A very polished-looking JRPG-type game with interesting tactical combat. Not really a roguelike except for permadeath, which is not really enough to count! Will likely find plenty of fans among lovers of the genre. Certainly has enough polish to make a roguelike in the same setting/engine potentially interesting.

2 Things are in place and work.

3 - While I have not completed it, it does promise a final level. Polished and bug free.

2 - Stable, runs in unity. Lacks a bit of polish.

2 Using Unity, graphics are pretty simple but do their job. The continuous non-real-time input system is an experiment that doesn't quite work.

2 - Very well done 3d graphics that all complement each other, no mysterious mix of high res and low res objects. I really like this sort of cohesive balance. Control system is very intuitive, and I definitely felt free to switch between turn and continuous play without any mode change. Blood damage shows up in the wrong spot on occasion. I'm still not sure of the attack button - how much time it takes or what direction, as I ended up spamming it for encounters. Wins the "Most Phallic" roguelike. If you want it played with a straight face, at least use a disconnected different coloured arrow rather than a slowly engorging red shaft to show the direction. As far as I could tell I had to quit the program and restart to restart, which is a pain with the unity load time (Actually, a pain in general)

2 - With 3D it is easy for things to get obnoxious very quick but this game does a good job of presenting the dungeon and units. Controls do what you'd expect.

1 Doesn't seem to have much to do beyond slashing at the single type of enemy, and the control system doesn't allow for much crisp tactical maneuvering.

2 - The smooth gameplay made things quite enjoyable. As you build more treasures it does get easier, and you also get more interesting tactics open up. Not a huge long term interest, but keeps one interested.

2- A very interesting concept. The stop/start nature of enemy movement (game time only moves when you move) is worth exploration. Leading a pack of enemies over a series of spikes is very gratifying.

2 Both using 3D graphics and trying to mesh continuous space movement with non-real-time gameplay are worthwhile experiments.

2 - Hybrid realtime/turn based systems are very difficult. Probably the most seamless one I've played.

3 - A neat twist on the usual mechanics. Semi-real-time game click only ticks forward when the player moves or attacks. Real-time movement also allows for momentum-based attacks, which is fun.

2 Gameplay is quite minimal, but once you factor in the 3D stuff it's pretty much on the mark.

1 - In terms of gameplay it is an @ on a map.

2 - A solid 7DRL.

2 It has all the standard trappings otherwise, but losing the crisp cell-based movement makes this feel like a sluggish action RPG.

3 - Hits all the points of rogue, and the seamless pausing really ensures movement remains tactical, not action based. (Though my space bar may disagree)

2 - Semi-real-time so not a "pure" roguelike in my book but certainly a roguelike-like! (Note that this is not a bad thing, hence the increased innovation score)

A rather minimal game done in Unity, where you wander into a 3D dungeon somewhat reminiscent of Egoboo to slash up green critters. The game uses action RPG style smooth movement, though things only proceed when you press on keys. This ends up combining the inaccurate controls of action RPGs with the slow pace of turn-based games, and doesn't really work that well as it stands. There is little else to do in the game, there doesn't seem to be any items or powers that would spice up the basic hack-slash gameplay.

Smooth Rogue presents an attempt to solve the hybridization of turn based and real time movement. Usually, one mode or the other dominates in the hybrid, resulting in quantized movement or in having to spam space to pause (a la never winter nights) Smooth Rogue successfully implements a new area, where momentum is conserved but you can always pause by merely not doing anything. The result is surprisingly intuitive, at least for movement. The jury is still out for more complicated actions.

A fun little 3D dungeon-slasher done in Unity. Game runs in semi-real-time, so enemies only move when the player moves or attacks, which can lead to some interesting tactics and some tricky situations. Not a ton of depth here, game-wise, but the core mechanic is fun and worth checking out. (Also the momentum-based attacks are lots of fun)

2 Somewhat rough to play

3 - Pretty polished and stable, nice amounts of content

2 - stable and runs well, weird font bug for me replaced all 'o's with the 'delete' character code. ? menu should be instant, instead of 2-levels deep.

2 Works, and has some nice animation flourishes, but it's kinda minimal and only providing windowed mode with a 8x8 font makes my eyes hurt.

3 - Nice choice of colors and UI design. Keybindings sensible

2 - Seemed very small on my screen, could've used an option for a bigger font! (reading the intro made my eyes cross) Dungeons look nice and enemy/player colors are very intuitive. Controls do what you think they should. Ability effects via libtcod are a nice touch.

2 The tactical RPG style is interesting, but the fights are rather long and difficult. Also, you really don't want maps with single-cell-wide hallways when doing a tactics RPG. Or maps this big.

2 - Turn battles can get a bit tedious, but interesting skills spice them up. Maps are big and dull. Corridor battles are very unfun

1 - Tempted to give a 2 but I died way too often even on my first fight. Once you get a few guys and get into it, the tactical combat is rewarding.

2 A tactical RPG is certainly new for 7DRL, but this isn't really a roguelike hybrid as much as a full-blown TRPG, and those are pretty well-established too.

2 - Team tactics on a roguelike is tried from time to time. This one is item-less, with a simplified recruiting system and focuses on gaining skills.

2 - Combining the chocolate of roguelike dungeons with the peanut butter of tactical turn-based combat: mmmm, delicious.

2 From what I could see before dying, looks pretty much on scale.

2 - Went all the way for the tactics combat, neglecting a more interesting environment generation

2 - Solid effort for a 7DRL, picks one mechanic and does a decent job of showcasing it.

1 Was dithering between 2 and 1, but I'm going to go all out here. It's multimodal, has multi-action turns and forces you to manually control all party members. This is a full tactical RPG done using ASCII. It does have the mapgen and permadeath, but the core gameplay is a very different thing.

3 - Is got most of the High Valued Components plus a strong "monsters are players"

2 - Similar to other games this year that put tactical turn-based combat into roguelikes. This is a cool mechanic, but it takes away a certain roguelike-ness.

This is a tactical RPG where you try to keep a group of characters alive through a series of battles. It's not very easy to do that. At least the interface is simple, with a basic power menu for the characters. The thing uses roguelike tropes, like maps with long, thin corridors, which work poorly in TRPG gameplay, but it's certainly worth developing more. Also, 'Juga t'Dy'? Is that some pun I'm not getting?

Dungeon diving recruiting enemies on the way and fighting turn based battles ala final fantasy tactics. Pretty polished and with a decent amount of monsters and skills. Maps are a bit huge and dull.

Don't be put off by the name, this is a dungeon crawler with turn-based tactical combat. Unlike other games where you control a squad the whole time, the game only reverts to 'tactics mode' when an enemy is discovered. Unfortunately, this is invariably always immediately after opening a door, giving you no chance to prepare your squad locations. Uses libtcod, so it looks nice and has some fun abilities. Good experimental mix of turn-based tactics and roguelikes, but beware the EXTREME difficulty curve.. don't be afraid to make liberal use of the retreat 'ability'.

2 - It seems you cannot lose the game. You just lose the HP and nothing happens.

2 - This asks for bit more polish. You are not told you cannot advance more than once space into water and you get same score bonus regardless what you piddle at.

2 - Seems fairly complete with no killer bugs

2 - Looks nice. Especially the pictures of friendly animals.

3 - No option to drop the thing you are carrying. This is a minor thing though.

3 - Nicely presented with good colour choices and all-on-numpad controls. Little touches like profile pictures of NPCs are kinda cool.

2 - Nice to play once, not replayable.

2 - Woof, woof. Wooooof!! *psssss*

1 - Very boring gameplay that has no variance between games.

1 - The theme is innovative, but not enough for a higher rank.

3 - Detective roguelike done right. Being a dog and battles continuing only to the point of one party fleeing all add up to nice amount of innovation.

1 - Nothing particularly new.

2 - Okay, but not much to do here.

2 - Maps are static unfortunately. If those were procedurally generated the score would be a three.

2 - Very low. I think a lot of time was spent on imagery rather than gameplay.

2 - Lack of complexity.

3 - Combat is not as common but still frequent enough.

2 - Linear quest game with some randomisation of very samey levels. Can't die in the game!

I like the dog/cat theme, and how the game looks. But the gameplay is not interesting. It is a story rather than a game.

A roguelike where you play a dog and have to do some walking around to get into real combat. The game has unusual theme but mechanics work as expected. Sniff animals to initiate dialogue, kick some fat furballs around, eat salami and ... piddle at flowers for bonus score.

Top Dog is a very cutely presented game about a Dog looking to rescue a lost Puppy. On the way you encounter many NPCs who will give you long dialogue spiels and quest objectives. You can pick up items, drink water, and have a widdle when you feel like it. It has charm and nice presentation, but unfortunately very shallow gameplay and is horribly linear. Still, this is one game libtcod users should look at for inspiration in style. (Oh, and if you have trouble getting it running try emptying the contents of the lib folder into the main directory.)

3 Seems pretty full-featured

3 - looks like a complete game

1 - There are bugs. Sometimes the inventory disappears or becomes unusable without a reason. Once I could not find any way to the next level.

2 Visuals ok, but the interface is a bit clumsy. Healing wounds seems unnecessarily involved.

2 - nice ascii aesthetics, but nothing to write home about.

1 - The colors are ugly. Nice trap graphics, but still, it should be clear what direction they are moving. I was unable to understand the inventory at first (if you have only one wound, it is not that obvious that you should use the healing salve on it instead of simply using it, right?)

2 Didn't quite figure this out yet, the traditional RL surprise traps don't lend themselves to a very interesting gameplay, though the animated blades and such were new.

2 - nice twist with a traps-oriented design.

1 - Although the pillar and blade traps are somewhat fun, the majority of the game is not.

2 Making a game entirely around surviving traps is an interesting concept, and there are some neat turn-based animated traps that you need to synchronize with that haven't been seen much in RLs.

2 - pretty much a standard rl but with the focus on the environment rather than combat

2 - I think I can give a "2" for the wound system, which is original, I think. But there was already a game named TrapRogue in the past. The crafting system makes the game complicated rather than fun. While the pillar and blade traps are somewhat original, it does not show how they work in a roguelike (since challenges involved them are not randomly generated).

2 Just right for a 7DRL

2 - about right for a 7drl.

2 - An average amount of features.

3 It's a roguelike.

3 - roguelike on all accounts

2 - The challenges are not randomly generated.

A game set entirely around surviving a complex full of traps. An interesting concept, but I didn't quite figure out how it's supposed to work, as a lot of the traps were still of the boring staple of "Surprise! Have 2d6 points of damage!" sort, and it's not really obvious what the interesting player decisions that would lead to avoiding those are. Also seems somewhat buggy, on the first playthrough the pusher tiles in front of the complex entrance appeared in a configuration that never let me enter.

A roguelike where traps are your only enemies. But most of the traps are no fun: no way to know where they are (I think you could just remember where they are since they are not exactly random, but it is not fun either), and there is no challenge since you can simply heal all the wounds. There are two good, original traps: "blade traps" which spin around a wall, and "pillar traps" which go up and down. But the level of randomness involved in their generation seems low. And they are separated with huge boring parts.

2 - Seems reasonable complete, only lacks an ending or scoring mechanisms. Even just a leaderboard for kills or level would have made this a 3

3 - Polished.

3 - There is not much in game but what there is works well.

1 - there isn't much to do except wack jellies.

3 - Certainly pretty and functional. Never had to check my hands while playing, the game flowed rather smoothly.

3 - It is not my style, but I think it is very well done. There are some flaws, though: it makes no sense that torchlight turns light blue into dark blue, and the system of remembering seen areas is bad (I should see where the bridges are).

3 - Cute jellies.

3 - nice pixel art graphics and animations.

1 - Wonking jellies on the head with a schoolgirl wielding an oversized mallet may be cute, but it gets old pretty quick. Needs more variety to gameplay.

2 - I think that people who are not hardcore roguelike fans and would like to try something remotely roguelike would like it. For hardcore roguelike fans, though, there is not enough challenge, and not enough content.

2 - Good but it is not challenging.

1 - could be great fun if it had more substance.

1 - Pretty graphics, but nothing new under the hood.

2 - This mix of a standard roguelike, nice graphics, and real time gameplay is novel, at least I don't recall any game which would be similar enough. On the other hand, I don't think it is really that original, and I don't see it as something that could set a new trend in gaming (maybe with much more cool features?). I give a rather weak '2' in this category.

1 - The easy to use inventory has been done in other games, notably Z-Day. Otherwise its Rogue.

1 - rogue with only mellee attacks

2 - Low end of two, but making a RL that pretty is an undertaking in itself so it makes the grade for that.

2 - Has everything it needs. But it is not much.

2 - Several types of jellies to whack and items in boxes.

1 - the game is really incomplete and doesn't give us much to play with.

3 - As pure as they come, procedurally generated, turn-based, permadeath, (some) inventory management

2 - It has some roguelike aspects (level layout, items, tactical thinking), but: random generation does not matter very much; is real time; and lacks in content a bit. I would call it a weak roguelike-like.

3 - No doubts.

2 - it is a roguelike in the most atomic way but lacks interesting choices that define the genre.

This game is a good demonstration that roguelikes don't have to be ugly and have controls that cause vi user's mouths to water. Unfortunately, it is more a tech demo than anything. It'd be interesting to see this game expanded into something along the lines of the Shiren the Wanderer.

In some sense, this looks like a roguelike pushed towards the casual gamers. Turn based gameplay and ASCII graphics are replaced by beautiful, real-time animations. I think that it is a game that you could show to casual gamers, and they would enjoy it, but unfortunately, they would not learn much about our favorite genre: there is not enough content to result in complexity and emergent gameplay, and although the level layout is randomly generated, it does not really matter that much. It also seems a bit hard to run, which is a shame for a game of this kind (but maybe it's just my impressions, I could not run it on Linux natively or through Wine, but I succeeded on a real Windows machine; if it usually runs on real Windows then OK).

Definitely fun but ends too quickly. It would be useful for the jellies to mount more resistance.

2 - Stable, but lacks content to be considered complete

2 - Polished but could really use more features.

3 - Complete, polished!

3 - Nice looking, very accesible

3 - Minimal controls and nice tiles.

3 - Looks great, keys are perfect. Animation is a bit slow for my tastes but it does give you time to think about your next move.

1 - Too short and simple

2 - I crush teh buildings! RAWR!

3 - Immensely fun to play. Simple components and movement mechanics give way to deep tactical decision making.

1 - It has powers you can only use depending on your current hitpoints

2 - Okay, I do not reacall any working roguelike about being giant monster wrecking cities.

1 - Nothing overwhelmingly new, but in this case that is a good thing.

2 - Monster on the map with 3 skills and spawning enemies. Gets bonus for the graphics.

1 - Not much really.

2 - Perfect example of a 7DRL.

1 - Turn based puzzle.

1 - Lacks most of profoundly roguelike features.

2 - Roguelike inspiration is impossible to refute, but tactical depth is limited.

You are a cute monster rampaging through a set of islands, bashing their puny defenses with your might. This is a pretty short turn based puzzle game with nice graphics and limited ways of interaction.

Play a giant monster stomps on buildings. Underneath there may be a tank producing factory. As the city is approaching complete destruction more and more tanks chase you. Fun but short.

The perfect "coffee break" roguelike. Graphics are incredible: simple but effective and endearing! You are a godzilla-like monster, rampaging across randomly-generated island cities. Very simple movement and power mechanics give way to deep tactical decision-making. This one is flash so you have no excuse! Go and blow up some tanks.

2 The game is there, but it hasn't been tested. Building from source is broken on Linux, and the game seems inadequate in telling you what to do

1 - I had to fix some bugs in order to run this game. You can pick up things you already carry (which doubles the Spice). You always get the score of 0, no matter how much Spice you have. There is some black guy, killing whom causes game over for no reason.

1 - Barely compiles. Clearly lots of missing content, ie, "ranged weapon" that you pick up. Does have win capability, though.

2 The basic height-varying map mechanic works nicely. Not cluttered with unnecessary commands, but the commands there are aren't very discoverable without reading the readme.

3 - Sand dunes look very nice, especially in the night. I think the game tries to display red on red when I am moving on the rocky ground.

2 - I love the height based LOS and footprints. I wish the footprints contributed more to gameplay rather than just being nice looking (ie, if it were useful to track people!) Control scheme is cryptic - no in game instructions I found. I had to read the source to find out that 'q' means to eat corpses.

2 It does have nice bits with the survival angle (you're as likely as not to be chasing down edible critters as facing foes in combat) and the terrain. On the other hand, seems incomplete and does basically nothing to clue you in on what you should be trying to accomplish.

1 - I would give it a 2, but the technical problems are too severe.

1 - Ranged weapon means enemies pose little threat. Once you figure out how to cannibalize your foes, it is a trivial task to spam an arrow key until you win.

3 A well-implemented heightmapped terrain system that works both visually and mechanically, and an unusual, but setting-appropriate gameplay for the not that often seen SF setting. Looks promising.

2 - Using sand dunes as a terrain feature, and its consequences. This is cool, but I think fleshing it out a bit more, or adding more original features, would be required for a '3'.

2 - The footprint tracking and fancy LOS has the beginnings of an interesting hunting game.

2 The heightmapped survival game is pretty well in 7DRL scope

2 - Okay. But lacks sandworms.

2 - A good sized scope was planned for this. I wish the author had the time to flesh out the content and gameplay, however.

3 I think the map is fixed, though probably still procedurally generated, so that should be just a matter of seeding the RNG. Otherwise, turn-based single-mode single-character resource management avatar game with permadeath.

2 - I think it lacks complexity.

2 - The trouble with deserts is that there is no terrain to hide behind to make the combat tactical. The hills should have provided this, but the powerful ranged weapon just turns combat into a f smashing fest.

A game based on the Dune novels. Building from source on Linux didn't even start to work, until the cabal did some makefile doctoring and emergency bugfixing. (It's easy enough to test linux stuff with a live-CD folks.) Game itself has a nice premise. You're Duke Leto Atreides, and you need to find your way back to your house base from being stranded on Dune. Only problem with this is that there's a lot of directions the house base could be in in the wide open 2D desert, and you don't seem to have any idea which way to go. Fortunately, folk at House Atreides don't seem to balk at killing and eating other humans for the delicious hydration in their bodies. There are even some Atreides countrymen wandering around the desert, and there seems to be nothing to do with them other than kill them and eat their corpses. That's useful enough, but I would have liked some directions towards the base as well.

This game has a rather original world generation algorithm: we have sand dunes in place of dungeon walls, which block the sight (although not correctly, I think: if you are standing on top of a high dune, you should not see beyond another one). It looks very nice, and gives an impression of travelling through the giant desert (even though there are still no sandworms). There is not much to do in the current version. I had to fix some bugs in order to run this game, and apparently I have done it incorrectly at first (there were problems with LOS and I have basically disabled it, and the game loses all of its charm without the LOS).

DuneRL is a beautiful roguelike which captures the trackless (well, except for those tracks you or your foes make) wastelands of Dune. It is worth the effort of compiling to see what the game looks like, even if it the actual gameplay is still bare-bones.

2 Basic functionality is there, but there are some rough edges

2 - Stable but requires polish especially in user interface.

2 - Interface is bad, but the README is a great help. Depth of 'buddy' mechanic seems fleshed out.

1 It works, and the Gateway drop sites are rendered nicely enough, but particularly the menu UI is very rough both functionally and visually, and the text messages are ungrammatical, "you irradiated".

2 - Okay in looks and keys but interface gives little to no feedback what is going on.

1 - A bit harsh to look at. Interface leaves a lot to be desired. 'look' button doesn't seem to do anything? Keyboard controls are mostly fine.

2 There's basic gameplay there, but the interface is cruddy and there doesn't seem to be much goals to aspire to. You get money from the missions, but can you buy anything with it?

1 - Mostly boring. Wander aimlessly and pick up $ glyphs. Beware of traps. According to readme there could be monsters but never found one.

2 - Buddy mechanic was fun. Not sure how well they were following orders but the sense of exploration is definitely there. Died way too quickly and seemingly without warning. Game is hard to get into without the README

2 Points for the original theme, nothing very interesting gameplay-wise.

1 - Not seeing anything new or unusual..

2 - +1 for (apparently) intelligent buddies that are not obnoxiously in your way all the time. Wish they would be better about taking care of themselves, but dragging an unconscious friend back to the shuttle is fun. More roguelikes need ally AI like this.

2 Looks about right for 7DRL

2 - Seems fitting for a 7DRL.

2 - Grand scope, but lacking in execution in some critical areas (interface)

3 It's a roguelike

2 - No combat?

2 - Certainly a roguelike but starting off on a menu screen is a (-1). Why not have the space station be its own level and keep everything in roguelike-land?

A game based on Frederik Pohl's Gateway novels. It does capture some of the feeling of the Gateway universe, mixing the aimless lounging at the station and planning the next random jump and the tense jump site operations. Representing the alien artifacts as just "$200 loot" is a bit boring though, and misses the idea that it often takes time to figure out just what you have got. This theme really could use the identification minigame. For some reason, saw fit to inform me that my character is 'Ugly'.

After embarking on a flight to random planet from Gateway you can explore it for a bit and find loot worth money. You may want to take buddies too but thats about it. My character was beautiful but no idea what it does.

Journey to alien planets with a crew of surprisingly useful allies in search of alien artifacts and cash. Interface leaves a lot to be desired but exploring with AI buddies captures the atmosphere very well.. buddies are always walking into traps or getting hurt, leaving it up to you to lug their unconscious bodies back to the shuttle. Death seems way too easy and the initial set-up menu is a little cumbersome, but there is certainly a good roguelike burried in here somewhere! Definitely read the README file first if you are going to check this out, it explains some of the more obtuse aspects of the game.

3 - Looked and played like a finished game. I didn't encounter any major problems.

1 - very slow, not much more than a @ moving on screen

3 - Not the most content rich game, but it does seem to be feature complete as advertised.

3 - I love the pen and paper RPG look of the game. The graphics are clean and easy to follow, despite their small size.

2 - I love how the game looks like a piece of paper. But the graphics are not clear and I think the graphics could be improved. Also the slowness breaks everything.

2 - Simple graphics, simple controls, both perfect for a game like this.

2 - I enjoyed exploring the map and trying not to die. Some more content would have been nice.

1 - Nice to look at, but no fun to play.

2 - Fun for what it is, run around, kill some "k"s and dive deep.

1 - Using a CFG to add story to a roguelike is a good idea, but the implementation here doesn't get around to any storytelling.

1 - I don't see what is special about managing narrative via a context-free grammar. Decoration in dungeons is a nice touch, but it has been done before.

1 - Nothing particularly new.

1 - Had a map and monsters, but not much else. Chests were present but useless. In general, adding something like that without making it functional is a good way to frustrate players.

1 - not much here.

1 - Pretty low on content and replayablity

3 - It felt more like Rogue than many modern roguelikes.

2 - too simple.

3 - Game consists only of the bare definition of a RL and nothing more.

A fun little game. The goal of incorporating fiction into a roguelike wasn't fully realized, but it's still a decent (though simple) dungeon crawl. Much of the charm comes from graphics designed to resemble the maps in old pen and paper RPGs.

I think this game attempts to do something interesting with the narrative in roguelikes. But I don't see any interesting narrative here (maybe there is something in the engine, but we can't see it). We get a very simple roguelike with no items and just two types of enemies (bumping into enemies is the only thing you can do, and vice versa). It also runs extremely slow for me. On the bright side, the presentation is quite nice (it looks like a piece of paper, with rooms decorated with various pieces of furniture etc).

A very simple but clean roguelike. You are the @, you kill the K and ks, you get to the bottom of the dungeon and you get the treasure and escape. Nothing overly impressive, nothing particularly wrong or out-of-place.

1 - Has some bugs, for example, it seems that HP is not updated after I am attacked. Some things don't work as I would expect (e.g. I am unable to save the game, or to advance my traits after completing the dungeon [later I found out it was because I 'exited' the dungeon instead of 'abandoning' it]), I am not sure whether this is a bug in the game itself, or in the documentation.

3 smooth controls. No special issue encountered

3 - Does appear to achieve all it set out to.

2 - the graphical style is OK, but the controls are unclear.

3 great lowres pixel art

2 - I love the pixel art look and the ambient music. But the realm of user interface is very painful. Targeting is very unclear, so I'm not sure if I'm actually attacking someone or not. The combat is hearbeat based, but I don't have a good sense of heartbeat from the status messages. Pop-up menus are dangerous when one is Runaway, which doesn't have a confirmation. I kept clicking everywhere but myself to try and get going in the game. Pressing keys to proc the traits didn't give feedback, so I'd never be sure if they actually took or not.

1 - Sorry, I don't find this game fun.

2 the intuitive and quick controls compensate the lacks of depth

1 - The look and sound makes me want to like it, but I just get increasingly frustrated at my characters behaviour. I don't feel I have any control in the combat as to what it does.

1 - The mix of real-time and turn-based gameplay. I don't remember any roguelikes using this, I can't immediately find non-roguelikes either, but still, I don't find this feature really innovative. Also I am unable to see how this can be interesting (maybe it can, but the game did not show this).

2 the gameplay is classic, the controls innovative

2 - The trait based leveling system is one I like and wish I could have explored further. The hybrid turn/realtime is an innovation for roguelikes, but I didn't like it in Neverwinter Nights either.

2 - You can move and fight. The game is not balanced. There are many traits, but I was unable to see them until I have found out that the Wizard's Armor spells apparently makes you completely invincible.

1 Begs for more content

2 - The feaeture set is quite good for a 7drl.

1 - I don't feel like I am playing a roguelike here. Features which break this include real time movement, rooms as separate locations (without a choice of escape), lack of keyboard control, and to some extent graphics. It lacks in randomness, it seems that I am always entering the same dungeon (only the dimensions of the rectangular rooms are changed).

3 purebred

1 - Combat in disconnected rooms really makes it DND like (note, not D&D) While rooms are randomized, I'm not sure about the topology (which is the more interesting part) the starting ruins at least seems to always have the same topology.

A graphical game with mouse only movement and real-time combat. Each room is a separate fight, and cannot be escaped. It seems to generate the same dungeon every time I try. For these reasons I don't feel like playing a roguelike. It has character achievement (many traits), but apparently it is extremely unbalanced: I have been trying to win as a Wizard and I fell on the second battle in the second dungeon, until I have found out that the Armor spell makes you invincible, which made me finally win the game, but without any challenge. I think lots of work is required before this becomes a fun game.

A beautiful pixel art mouse driven roguelike. Lacks some depth and variety right now but could become really awesome with more work.

Ruins of Kal Raman is really an attempt to resurrect the DND genre of room-based exploration. It also brings to the table some well-balanced graphics and enjoyable music. Unfortunately, the control interface leaves the combat hard to understand.

1 - Lua errors on every corner, victory condition improperly implemented. House names disagree in few places.

2 - No glaring bugs, but lacking polish. Movement is awkward, balance seems to need some work.

1 - Got lua errors while playing. Missing polish in lots of areas, but incredibly polished in a few (level design, graphics).

2 - Picking up a weapon is a talent! Who would guess.

1 - I'm not a fan of the reflex meter, it eliminates all of the "plan and move" aspects of a roguelike. That might wore in a full real-time RL, but in a semi-RT RL it is just odd. Graphics are functional, but controls need work, but that's more of TOME's fault than this games.

1 - Very pleasant to look at but incredibly frustrating to control! Even picking up weapons.. I had to find out how to do this from the forums.

2 - Battle outcome depends much more on character skill and stats than on moves taken by player.

1 - Currently, this game is just frustrating to play. Cleaning up the controls a bit and reworking the reflex timer would help a lot.

1 - I really wanted to enjoy this game but I found it incredibly frustrating. Lua errors combined with non-obvious pathfinding combined with incomprehensible character names leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Very hard to get into, which is a shame because the level design is amazing and I love the concept of a gladiator-themed RL.

2 - Skipping a turn to increase chances of hitting temporarily is not something one sees often.

3 - Hex based, semi-real time, significant social aspects, the developer aimed high, but bit off a bit more than he could chew.

2 - The 'home base level' and diplomacy angle is certainly a fresh take on the roguelike genre but the game is too hard to get into and see how these features play out.

2 - About right for a 7DRL.

2 - Big aspirations turned into a fairly average success as far as implemented features goes.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL.

3 - One on one combat is uncommon but fully roguelike.

2 - No significant procedurally generation that I could see, but most of the other RL traits are present.

2 - Gameplay is roguelike-esque but there is no real 'exploration' and somehow the combat is reflex-based? I have no idea what that bar is!

As a gladiator you will fight two types of matches. Grudge is standard duel. Discovery is about killing your opponent or breaking jars to find a hidden gem in one of them. A jar might also contain a weapon or angry creature that will fight you. Winning several matches earns you freedom.

Probably the game that aimed highest that I've play so far this cycle. You go into the arena and get your ass handed to you unless you mash the 1/2 keys like mad and pray that your enemy is distracted. The developer introduce real time elements that reward you for acting quickly, but mostly they punish you for not button mashing. A good start for a game, with some polishing this might turn out to be a gem.

A great-looking game with a very interesting concept. Unfortunately I found it way too difficult to get into and banged my head against lua errors, incredibly frustrating pathfinding, and non-obvious controls. Visually appealing, the screenshots really make me want to run out onto the sand and spill some blood. However, the game did not seem to want me to do that! Diplomacy angle hinted at a deep game underneath the problems I had. I look forward to this game getting some more polish.

1 - Basically unplayable in its current form. The manual is unclear and combat is very lethal.

1 - By the author's own admission, key things like game sheets are missing. There are also many bugs in the rules. Often one can overcome them with enough client-side processing, but if this was code it wouldn't even get close to running. I respect the difficulty of working in the time frame, and the difficulty of content creation. So cutting out flavour text is one thing (though, what is a vore? Wikipedia leads to Vorarephilia which I don't even want to click through), but please, PLAYTEST! I am a big believer in rounding out P&P rules to make the game fun, but when the rule we have to add is that the enemies don't get to attack... well... it shows there is an issue.

2 - Manual is presented well, some silly typos. The game map as it is formed is fine. Would have been better with a character sheet.

2 - PDF layout is quite presentable. Tables are legible.

1 - Currently it takes longer to set up a game than it does to play it.

2 - While the game is laughably unbalanced, the mechanics are fun - I like drawing cards to build the dungeon. The rolling for attacks with pairs and straights is very interesting, if only the combat system had even the slightest hope of balance.

3 - This is basically a single player tabletop RPG Roguelike. Can't say I've ever played on before.

2 - A lot of neat ideas for paper games here. I can't say if they are innovative as I'm not in that scene, but they are interesting and new to me.

2 - A lot of thought an effort when into this and a lot of work was completed. Too bad it isn't quite balanced.

1 - It is the @ on a map of a DND-like. Seventeen pages of rules does not impress me - that is 750 lines of code, I have header files bigger than that. I would have been more impressed by one page of rules and sixteen pages of tables that are playtested and balanced.

2 - Has procedural content, inventory management, some turn-based aspects, but how combat arises (monster popup en masse) and how items are found is very different.

1 - A cross between DND and Quake, it fails to pick up the key component of roguelikes: tactical combat. This is somewhat frustrating as P&P is where this game style *started*! Look to Asheron's Call for a recent board-game roguelike, for example.

This is a playing card-based game with a lot of promise that suffers from lack of play testing. The game is styled after Quake and uses a deck of playing cards to procedurally generate the levels. Unfortunately, the manual isn't very clear and the developer never met a die mechanic he didn't like. This one has promise but it needs balancing and some serious focus on the die mechanics.

Dark Valhalla is a rare attempt at a non-computer mediated roguelike. Unfortunately, the rather convoluted ruleset will make you wish you had a computer to mediate it. And the lack of play balance will make you wish the author had used a computer for faster testing.

2 - Missing a great deal of polish, development continued post 7DRL

3 As polished as a small scoped game needs to be

2 - Complete with win and fail conditions

2 - Keybindings are simple and clear. Not very pleasing to the eye

2 It surely is colorful. Maybe using more subtle colors would make it smoother to the eyes

2 - Black text on white background visually vanishes, making the messages not be noticed by me. Being hit by enemies is not readily apparent, leading me to wonder for a long time why I'd die before running out of energy. Double prints output on victory. Main display is pleasant colours, and the bar graphs are an excellent feature. But some flash on hit would help immensely.

1 - Too easy once you get the hang of it, no challenge

1 I think it misses the point. The fun in a snake game comes from real time control. The challenge goes away with the turn by turn control

2 - Some what hard to judge as my laptop refused to enter any non-cursor keys (fault of java, not the game!), so I couldn't wait. But definitely a good attempt at balancing the health, energy, and also tail constraints in planning ones motion.

2 - Your body grows as you eat enemies. All enemies move according to a pattern

1 A slightly evolved snake game. Still a snake game

2 - Excellent melding of snake and roguelike gameplay. Could have used more work on the terrain and monster behaviour, however, to tighten the play. The initial room is just too big to quickly grok.

1 - Got some mobs running on a single screen and the player eating them with single hits

1 Started with a small scope snake game, but didn't bring much to it. It's close to deserve a 2, but not close enough.

2 - The right level of scope for a reasonable 7DRL

1 - More of a puzzle game

1 During 7DRL, people often take a non roguelike genre and try to bring roguelike elements to it. I would rather have a roguelike with other genre elements brought to it. This is definitely a snake game variation.

2 - Very much a roguelike-like, as it could just as easily have been a snake-like. The very shallow combat mechanics is what causese me to not call it a roguelike

You are a wyrm moving around a single screen eating all enemies before they kill you. You keep growing as you kill enemies not unlike a cellphone snake.

Take your usual snake game. Insert roguelike elements : turn by turn, moving mobs, fights. The result doesn't really works for me. Lacks some challenge and hack-and-slash-iness.

What happens when Snake is crossed with Rogue, you get Wyrm! An excellent attempt at this hybrid design.

2 - Stable, runs well with no crashes

3 - Seems feature complete and balanced

2 - Plays, no crashes. Pleanty of sharp corners, like how you start a new level with partial moves.

2 - Images are a bit "off" somehow.. don't really blend with the theme but good enough to get the concept across. Controls do what you'd expect. Having vital game info in the title bar of the window instead of on the game window itself is confusing.

2 - Controls smoothly, nice graphics, though they are a bit cut and paste-y

2 - It is a nice look with sound. But putting important UI in the title bar meant it took me a longn time to figure out how many moves I had left. Also thankfully I had been warned about hitting space before. I like how everything orbits.

2 - Once i figured out how the rotation worked (was a surprise!) it was fun. A little easy but some interesting puzzle-type decision-making

1 - The game is basically a puzzle shooter, it's not bad in its current incarnation, but it's pretty repeative. It definitely could use some variablity.

1 - Blowing stuff up is fun, but the mechanic seems way too easy.

2 - Simple but innovative components mesh well together. Crushing suns is cool, action-points-based turns is a good fit (even though for the longest time I couldn't figure out how many moves I had left!), rotating level-scape is very cool. It's not REALLY a roguelike in my opinion so hard to say it is 'innovating' along that axis, hence the 2 and not a 3.

1 - Nothing too unique about a turn based puzzle shooter. More variablity would help.

1 - Well outside of roguelike genre, so hard to say how it is innovative.

2 - Solid 7DRL entry. A couple of interesting mechanics put together with a decent amount of polish.

2 - Seems about right for a 7DRL entry

1 - The @ on map equivalent of a strategy game.

1 - Not really a roguelike to me, seems more puzzley. Tempted to give a 2 but I it lacks many of the vital "roguelike" ingredients. However, it does have some important ones such as resource management and tactical terrain usage. Maybe a 1.5!

1 - Definitely a puzzle game with random layouts

1 - The lack of exploration very much makes it a puzzle game, not a roguelike

Possibly the best-named game this year... in SUN CRUSHER you are a lone starship, fighting against hostile enemies in a hostile environment. Planets, asteroids, and stars all rotate at the end of each turn, opening and closing paths to your enemies. This is very tactically interesting, although it doesn't quite convey the roguelike-y "feel" to me. As the name implies, crushing suns is indeed part of the game, and you are required to manage these devastating resources quite carefully. Worth checking out for the cool level-rotation mechanic. Would love to see more roguelikes with moving terrain!

You move a ship around with a number of turns and take potshots at enemy ships that shoot back and consume your shields. Not a bad game in its current form, but not really a roguelike and it could definitely use some more content.

You are flying a space ship trying to destroy the evil space bases before they destroy you. Fortunately for you, you have the SUN CRUSHER!! a weapon that can obliterate stores. Unfortunately, it's blast radius is a bit big, so do be careful out there!

1 - Very basic engine setup with little playability

1 Lacks some polishing. The message log can overflow the game window. It took me a while to understand that you cannot actually move inside a room, just teleport from one room to another. Some times I get a blank screen after a move.

2 - The game functions as advertised, but there is a clear lack of polish.

2 - Looks nice. User interaction model is pretty confusing

1 huge characters with flashy and primary colors

1 - As presented, the graphics are functional, but the interface makes the game a chore to play. I understand that this is due in part to the limitations imposed by the interface, but it renders the game almost unplayable

1 - Unbalanced combat, about 5 rooms to "Explore", no character advancement

1 I've been really annoyed by the weird interface, game rules and even the creatures names (a cat-dog and a cthulu?)

1 - Too slow and too tedious to be fun in its current form, needs faster gameplay and enemies that don't take minutes to kill

1 - Room based movement has been explored. Web deployment has been done as well.

2 really tries to bring some new feats, but for me they really don't work

3 - This is a functional multiplayer in-browser roguelike. Lots of people have talked about the how to implement a multiplayer RL, and AppRogue does a good job of showing off some of the unique problems any such implementation faces.

1 - Walk on the map (room based), no procedural generation, no variety.

1 basically, there's map generation and click to attack

2 - The game function to the extent I'd expect from a 7DRL that aimed for such a lofty target as a Multiplayer RL

1 - More like a Telengard-like (at least aiming to be)

3 despite some really strange feats, it's a true roguelike

2 - AppRogue is missing the turn-based mechanics more roguelikes use, but still has permadeath and probably procedural content (kind of hard to tell as it is a chore to play through

An experiment on a room based web deployed game. Requires a lot more of development to become playable. You can give it a try online, click the exits or the enemies to attack

a very basic roguelike with an awkward interface and a strange requirement to log with a google account. Weird game mechanisms too. For example, you're tired as soon as you hit a creature once. Also the map seems non-euclidean. For example you can go from room 1 to room 2 going north. Then going west from room 2 brings you back in room 1.

This game feels like an experiment that failed to disprove the null hypothesis that Roguelikes can't be multiplayer. It is a good effort and demonstrates some of the pitfalls of simultaneous RL play. Personally, I'd like to see more titles like this during this contest, we can't have bold experiments that expand the genre with new styles of gameplay without bold experiments that fail to do so.

2 - Stable, unity runs fine, no crashes. Hard to call it polished because it is 3D and therefore held to a bit of a higher standard.

2 - No apparent bugs.

2 - Complete for a tech demo of 3d sword fighter.

2 - 3D is done surprisingly well. Models are not super-detailed but are animated nicely, and effects (flame, blood, power) are slick looking. Controls work as expected, even without any reading.

1 - Requiring mouse to play and aim is pretty awful.

1 - Played at 2560x1600, max graphics. One must balance the detail of different texture layers or things are lop-sided. Very hard to right-mouse on objects as they have a narrow active window. Mouse is very sensitive. Death screen is jarring and abrubt. I do like the look of the characters & trees, and the nice lighting of campfires.

2 - Fun for a bit, but combat seems to take too long if you don't want to die. Tactically interesting in some situations because HP and XP are tied together.

1 - I dislike games of this genre. Author should be prepared for this reasoning submitting something that is not a roguelike.

1 - Was enjoyable for a bit, but it is too grinding to complete the first quest. If there is more content, should be opened up sooner. Combat is just kiting + button mashing it seems.

1 - Nothing new here gameplay-wise, but a good use of Unity. Some more roguelikeish features might've raised this to a 2.

1 - No new roguelike elements.

2 - This is an attempt at a FPS roguelike. However, see roguelike comment.

2 - A solid 7DRL. Unity effort is very impressive.

2 - Difficult to compare to other 7DRLs.

2 - Hard to tell without a better idea what comes packaged in unity.

1 - Definitely NOT a roguelike.

1 - Are you kidding me? Nothing deserves more 1 here than this.

1 - BZ Flag isn't a roguelike. Random levels are not enough. You need tactical combat. Space is not used in combat here, instead it is mostly about timing, making it very much a FPS and not at all a roguelike.

Slice and dice dastardly rogues (hrmmm) who have stolen your gold in this Unity game. Not really a roguelike, but shows the promise of the Unity engine for making decently polished games in only 7 Days. Combat power mechanics surprisingly deep. XP as HP also leads to some tactically interesting situations and intense combat.

Game from another genre. Has nothing to do with roguelikes.

Dead Night Forest is an attempt at a first-person roguelike. You wander a dark forest punctuated by occasional campfires. Those at the campfires you slay. Unfortunately, it definitely feels like an FPS with random maps, not a roguelike viewed in the first person.

1 - If you get the 7drl release tag instead of trunk, it works fine -- but it's clearly missing loads of intended features

1 - Kinda busted, crashes on launch if you don't fix math.floor to int in the line in view.py reported in the crash. Generally aborts if you touch the keypad. Polish is kind of a moot point

2 - There's a lot of talk about doing hex in a roguelike without custom rendering, and in principle we seem to agree it's easy, but it's rarely actually done; it works pretty well and it does its job.

2 - Functional hex-based graphics are enough to get a 2 in my book, and I'll judge the controls based on how they are intended to work under the assumption the PuTTY is messing them up on me.

1 - Attacking enemies with no objective is not terribly gripping

1 - Not a lot to do, can't target enemies, mostly you run around and try not to die.

1 - The missing limb system, the missing "life path" system, or some content to take advantage of the hex layout (even some fov or interesting monsters), would separately deserve a 2 and jointly a 3, but here we have a single simple novelty with no supporting features

2 - Hex is nice, the "hell" theme isn't used too often.

1 - A bit of all-vs-all combat

1 - Kinda skimpy for a 7DRL

3 - Nothing to disqualify it; everything that's missing counts against completeness and scope

2 - Some vague procedural content, but not really. Turn-based, permadeath.

There's clearly such a large amount of planned content missing (lifepath.py? A limb display?) that it doesn't hurt to call this one a marginal success as an entrant, but nothing worth looking at until its post-7DRL release.

Currently, Hellmouth is a buggy mess. It doesn't seem to work without patching, and the control are either broken or my terminal is. The developer has plans to expand on the hex-based engine that drives this game (as can be seen in the more recent git commits) but the 7DRL entry is more of a technical success than an actual game.

3 The concept is realized quite definitively

3 it works. Had no issue with "press a key and don't release it" controls. Had a hard time to find out how to start the thing though

1 - There is nothing to it.

3 The visuals work and the single key you have does what you expect it to.

2 nice pixel art

2 - Uses Oryx tiles, so it at least looks pretty. Perhaps giving points for using someone else's art is a bit too generous of me, so I shall not be generous with the other score points.

2 It's fun for around two minutes, but those are fun two minutes.

1 as fun as some minimalist metaphysical barely interactive experiment is (yep you got it, that's not really a game)

1 - Pathetic. I don't know why anyone would spend more than a few seconds on this.

1 It's certainly a creative submission, but it doesn't really advance the state of the roguelike design art otherwise.

1 no game = no innovation

1 - To have innovative gameplay it must have some gameplay to begin with. This is to gaming as chewing gum is to cuisine.

1 I suspect this took less than a full 7 days to make.

1 content ? nope

1 - The designer set his sights low, and achieved it.

1 Not a chance.

1 nope

1 - Procedural environments? No, it has no environments. Permadeath? Nope, you can't die. Not turn-based, zero tactical decisions, no emergent complexity... oh and it's not really much of a game either.

It's a joke game where you run down critters with a car. Running down critters with a car is fun though.

DAFUQ !?

It really is beyond me why some people join the challenge to make something which clearly has not one iota of resemblance to a roguelike... In this game you hold the right key to make some sprites die. Might have its place in a 1 hour indie game jam, but to label this a seven day roguelike is pretty insulting to many of the great games that have been made.

1 - Even the author says it's incomplete; enemies barely fight back

1 - Basic engine running, missing critical features

2 - Has success and failure, but as author notes the current system renders the depth component less interesting. I'd also have liked to see some interesting ocean floor fractal rather than just the pillar like islands.

1 - Very plain and just fine for the theme; deserves a low 2 except that h/l are swapped.

2 - Nothing exciting on the display side of things, side views for x and y are nice but since they aren't adding to gameplay they are just taking over a huge chunk of screen. Keys are pretty simple and straightforward

1 - Look is stark. Props for vi-keys, but the h&l are backwards. When you are killed hitting any key but y will immediately quit the game, for example, accidentally hitting an extra movement key. Maybe only allow y/n.

1 - It's not much fun playing a game as incomplete as this, although firing torpedos isn't bad

1 - Right now there's no challenge thus no fun experience, you can run around forever shooting myriads of torpedoes and nothing will stop you

1 - The enemies don't seem to pose much threat other than my laziness. The requirement to move to change my facing feels more frustrating than an interesting tactical component.

2 - A new take on cross-sectional roguelikes, and projectiles that take time to reach their target are uncommon as a central mechanic

1 - Depth. Also, not many submarine roguelikes out there. But fails to use depth as a gameplay element so...

3 - Quite a few interesting ideas were tried at once here. There is the 3d view with the two half planes (though I worry this will prove myopic if it were actually necessary. The slow torpedos and facing requirments are also interesting to explore.

2 - A low two, but it's easy to see where the author was going with it and that the plan was reasonable (even if it wasn't reached)

2 - If only it had been more complete it would have been a standard 7DRL scope

1 - If we ignore the depth map, it becomes an @ on map level scope.

2 - If it were more complete, I could see this being pure roguelike -- inventory management (of torpedoes, say) would have clinched it.

1 - Not a roguelike, irrelevant terrain generation (if any), lack of tactical combat, no items/powerups/skills. More of a puzzle game in its current shape

2 - It is intended to be a tactical combat game, so I could see this easily moving into the 3 column, but with its level of completion it is hard to say it can overcome the fact the skin is so non-roguelike.

I like the direction it's going. This feels like it could be EmoSquid but actually playable if the author just puts a little more time into it. The timing mechanics are fun (but don't make up for the absence of a game), and there's a lot of room for interesting terrain features at various depths. I can see the vision, but it's just not reality yet.

You are a submarine deployed on the sea, you have to destroy ships by launching torpedoes at them. You can five into the sea and climb back (but it's not very useful). Ships dont seek or attack you so there's little danger. More of a tech demo right now

A very interesting take on submarine combat. It attempts to address some interesting ideas, such as proper diving (with 3d slice viewing), slow torpedos, and facing. However, it hasn't been developed far enough to really judge if these features are good things or not.

2 Even hardcore roguelike should take the player by the hand in 2012

1 - Not feature complete.

2 - Runs and is seemingly stable. No polish.

1 eye crunching monochrome

1 - No possibility to go diagonally for no apparent reason. Monsters can do this. Gothmog (a balrog) is classified as 'o' which are orcs. Black and white display.

1 - Extremely frustrating to start.. would not run without going through the entire title sequence, which slowly shows the title of the game over the course of ~90 seconds, and is (apparently?) unskippable. Colors are monochrome, which is not a negative mark. Controls seem solid and do what you'd expect, once you get to the game!

1 Got killed too quickly to enjoy anything

1 - Vast maps with barely any content. Some enemies are near impossible to hit unless you found exceptionally good weapon.

1 - I did not have any fun playing this one, sadly. (died in my first combat every time, after waiting through the entire start screen)

1 as far as I can tell, it's a classic roguelike

1 - Giant maps alone are not enough for 2.

1 - Seemingly standard hack+slash combat.

2 there seems to really be some depth, but the extreme difficulty makes it difficult to see

1 - Bare bones roguelike lacking content.

2 - Hard to judge because it is so difficult to get beyond 1 enemy, but has the benefit of the doubt due to the seeming depth of the item/weapon/equipment

3 purebred

2 - It certainly plays like a RL albeit poor one.

3 - Definitely a roguelike

A hardcore black and white roguelike. Got killed at first encounter in every game I played. Definitely lacks some help screen as there seems to be some depth in it. Keep it for bearded coders who were already enjoying that type of games back in the days.

Turambar put you into ten giant levels. Pick up items that have greatest sum of numbers. Boring and unbalanced. Some monsters are very difficult to hit.

A hard core (read: impossible) monochromatic hack and slash roguelike. Extremely difficult so hard to judge how deep the gameplay gets. Intro screen takes way way way way too long and is apparently unskippable. Lack of any in-game or out-of-game help.

1 Doesn't even appear to work.

1 - Misses many critical features, enemies don't move and are not removed from the map when they die. They also die mysteriously.

1 - Bugs are too numerous to list.

1 Interface is broken

2 - Nice looking, keybindings take a little to get used to but are ok.

1 - Menu based interface is broken in almost all respects. Three keystrokes to make an attack? Forget it.

1 Couldn't get fighting to work

1 - Not yet, enemies just stand there and you've got nothing to do but roam the empty forest.

1 - This is a tech demo. Nothing playable.

1 A knight fights goblins.

1 - Nothing new

1 - What innovation?

1 Not done

2 - Instead of going for an enjoyable game, the dev went for the foundations of an engine.

1 - Declaring this a success is just wrong.

2 I *think* it is, if it worked properly I could verify that. Proper roguelikes don't make you make 50 stat allocation decisions before you can start the game though.

3 - I guess enemies where supposed to chase you around. It's got random terrain and an inventory system among some other roguelike elements

3 - Okay, have to admit it fits.

It starts by making me allocate 50 points, one by one, to stats. Don't do this, people. Nobody cares if the stat is 50 or 51, so don't make the player make the decision. The game itself is a buggy mess, couldn't make sense of combat or the actions.

Not much of a game currently, the dev seems to have made the foundations for a roguelike engine during those 7 days. Enemies don't move and there are no cool features. Good luck to the dev with future developments.

Not playable. Monsters are there but they die at random times and getting them to attack you or even move is really difficult. Essentially a failed 7DRL.

1 - Looks nice, but there is no game here.

1 - While it does play and run on my Alcatel One 980 (Android 2.2) with QVGA screen, little things like buttons not working yet and enemies not fighting really mean it is incomplete.

1 - More of a tech demo (or 'toy' in the author's words) than a game

3 - I really like the graphical style.

1 - The art work is nice and well balanced. I actually disagree with the author - the different colour green for the doors was a feature for me (though I suspect it is sRGB problems causing the gamma shift). The low mark is because, as nicely done as the buttons are, on screen arrow keys for a phone roguelike? You are designing from the ground up with no excuse of previous hardware to hold you down. Something as trivial as tap to move is less effort to implement and way more intuitive. (Not to mention said arrow keys are right over the capacitance hardware buttons for my phone so just causing problems)

2- Hand-drawn art is a nice look. Always moving the targeting reticle is annoying.. defaulting to the nearest enemy would be an easy fix.

1 - Look at the screenshots, but the game itself is not interesting.

1 - @ on a map does not hold ones attention for long. I find it curious there is no enemy combat - pathfinding seems to have been done *before* the combat, I'd have done it the other way. If you run out of time with stupid enemies, it is better than running out of time with broken enemies.

1 - Good to see something on Android but not really a game.

1 - Nothing special.

1 - I do like the level generation into sort of out door and indoor regions.

1 - Not really enough gameplay content to judge this category. +0.5 for being on Android, but this counts as technical innovation and not gameplay innovation.

1 - Just a @ moving on the screen.

2 - While gameplay there is @ on a map, there is an interesting level design, and interesting art.

1 - Excellent effort for a new platform, but not enough here to justify a 2. Would love to see more. Android seems to have an obvious roguelike hole to fill.

2 - as roguelike as a non-game can get.

1 - Without an actual game component this cannot be judged

2 - Would give this a 3 but not enough gameplay to truely determine roguelikeness. However, what is there is clearly a roguelike, so far.

This is just a toy. You cannot win, you cannot lose, you cannot do anything else than shooting some guys without any reason. On the other hand, I really like the graphical style. I recommend looking at the screenshots, but don't expect any game beyond that.

2149RL is, as the author admits, a questionable success in this challenge. That said, I like the author's art work and wish that a rudimentary game had been prioritized above artwork or features like path finding or los.

Android has an obvious roguelike hole to fill, but this game is not ready to fill it yet. An excellent proof of concept that such games can (and SHOULD) be made, though! The hand-drawn look is very unique and especially easy on the eyes. But in the authors own words, this was more of a toy than a game. More please!

1 - Seems like a really rushed "success", there's not enough meat here to make a playable, fun and accessible experience

2 screen redraws everytime you press a key : NOPE ! Also death = exit to desktop. Rude !

2 - Feels shaky and no obvious bugs, but not many features to compare to

1 - Really rough, with full screen refreshes, black and white and unintuitive inventory management.

1 bluish monochrome. At least it's not black and white

1 - graphics are monochromatic black and white ASCII but for a roguelike that's not immediately a bad thing. screen refreshes every turn makes the game feel shaky (bad). Controls are mostly intuitive but hitting an incorrect key STILL ends your turn which is bad. Death comes as a surprise and immediately quits the game (also bad).

1 - It's a survival game with one hit deaths, so the only fun you'll get is trying to survive long enough without losing your patience or running into a dead-end

1 I failed to understand the gameplay

1 - Not much to have fun with. I like the concept of bashing stuff with a crowbar in a swamp, but only 1 level and no real tactics other than waiting to die.

1 - Nothing new here, survive against infinite waves of enemies with your single bump attack and no weapons or skill for as long as I tried

1 Classic turn by turn roguelike. Nothing new here

1 - basic roguelike bashing things

1 - A very basic running world

1 couldn't do anything past a few turns.

1 - A step up above '@ on a screen' but not enough to make it a 2 on par with the other 7DRLs this year.

1 - A survival game with some tactical combat situations, very slight procedural generation (a bit irrelevant because you are stuck in the middle of a swamp and cant move much). No variety at all in enemies and items or interactions. Sorry :)

3 purebred

3 - technically meets the basic definition of roguelike

Survive waves of evil monsters while you stand in the middle of a swamp. Both the monsters and you die with a single hit so be careful. Not a finished game nor anywhere near. I find very little to rescue here.

A true console roguelike. I didn't understand it. You are stuck on a tiny island surrounded by unpassable water. Until a creature comes and kill you. The screen blinking everytime you press a key (on windows) is tedious. Also, immediate exit to desktop at death is a bit rude.

Swamp Monster has a great name and a cool theme, (who doesn't love bashing things with crowbars) but needs much more polish to make it an enjoyable game. Basic roguelike features are here (walk around, bash into things, monochrome ASCII graphics) but that's about it.

1 - Spelling errors, the lack of content and balance. It exits without a message when I starve. I am unable to get myself killed (it seems that the rats cause no damage at all). Sometimes I get an unconnected level.

1 - Randomly moves may take several seconds to execute. Has hardly any features. Does not come with binary and requires certain degree of expertise to compile.

1 - I think that the graphics are acceptable. But the control scheme is not (only VI movement).

1 - I am a fan of vi keys but not supporting numpad, arrows or even number row is simply evil. Moreover the about file omits the key to pick up items. Game overuses color. Map display looks like angry fruit salad.

1 - I don't see any reason to recommend this game. Food/drink requirement is annoying rather than fun. I think that some of the names are items and monsters are fun, but that's not enough.

1 - A waste of time. First time I was unable to hit rats at all. Another character was killing them all in one hit.

1 - I don't see anything innovative here.

1 - Nothing.

1 - @ moving on screen, line-of-sight (without remembering seen locations), three classes of items (food/drink/healing), bump into monsters.

1 - Less than bare bones roguelike.

2 - Lacks in complexity.

1 - Lack of essential RL features.

I don't see much reason to play this game. You could like how it looks (or not), and you could like some names of monsters and items, but other than that, there is no balance and no interesting features. I would not call it a success.

This entry should not have been called a success.