With a record number of over 200 entries registered so far on the 7DRL hub, this year we’ll have lots of innovation and fun flowing out of developers all around the world.
I guess the evaluation committee will have a fun time after the challenge! ^_^
Registration is now open at http://7drl.roguetemple.com; you can now start submitting your games prior to starting working next saturday or sunday.
Contact me if you want to have a subforum for your game inside roguetemple’s forums
Everybody get ready for this year 7DRL, starting next saturday…. we have a centralized submission system to keep track more easily of the entries at http://7drl.roguetemple.com
Good luck!
You are encouraged to use http://7drl.org for blogging your game development.
Hurry up and start working in your game! Post on roguetemple forums and/or rgrd if you want to announce your start!
Dungeons of Dredmor received the second spot on the Ascii Roguelike of the Year list so I wanted to delve in and explore this fantastic title a bit more.
Dungeons of Dredmor comes from Gaslamp Games and is by far their biggest title so far. The indie developer is relatively young, but its leaders have been in the game for sometime and have contributed to titles from TimeGate Studios, Piranha Games and Destineer Studios.
These young developers have clearly spent time doing hands-on research of other popular titles (the main character’s propensity for playing a handheld gaming system when you leave him alone long enough reminds me of Commander Keen and adds a humorous touch to the otherwise sadistic game). One of my favorite things about this game is its ability to start from various save points. When this option is turned on, you don’t have to begin at the start of the map after each inevitable death. This feature will probably appeal to gamers who are not as familiar with or attracted to the roguelike format.
The procedural generation of the game means that each move you make has consequences — often dire — that can be reaped almost immediately or five moves later. Your best bet is to construct a character who has thick enough skin to last longer than a few minutes in the maze of death that lies in front of you.
The level of customization that Dungeons of Dredmor allows is only exceeded by the level of fun the game offers. You have the power to choose from 34 different character traits spread across disciplines like magic, thievery, crafting and combat. It would be nice if new skills could be picked up within the game, but I honestly had too much fun delving into the world Gaslamp created to really care too much that I was locked into my player’s skills.
Once again I have to congratulate the makers of the game on the humor they lodged (and sometimes hid) within the game. For example, one of the character types, the Killer Vegan, comes with the tagline “the power of clean living, moral superiority and gluten-magic.” For a game as fatalistic as this — and death is pretty much inevitable here — the game keeps a pretty good sense of humor about itself.
It is exactly this contrast of fun and fatality that makes Dungeons of Dredmor such a fantastic title and one of the best roguelikes to be released in 2011. It will be fun to see what the wisecracking game wizards at Gaslamp have in store for us next.
Author’s Bio: Ryan is a guest blogger who likes to write about everything from social media to gaming to how to get deals using Dell coupons for gaming computers and other accessories. He also writes for the Blog Content Guild.
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We are about 2 weeks from 2011 ARRP! You can still jump into it!
Further info at roguebasin
The Honorable Evaluation Committee, courtesy of Ataraxia Theatre
With forty-six completed 7DRLs this year,
some people wonder how they will have time to play them all!
Fortunately, that is simple…
Just play about about 1.1304347826 a week for the next year.
For those less dedicated, a team of evaluators was assembled to give all the roguelikes a once-over. We graded the roguelikes under six categories using a simple three point scale. We ensured every roguelike was graded by at least two reviewers, and aimed for most to have three reviewers.
After a long week of playing, we present our results!
Check them out here, at Roguetemple’s 7DRL Shrine! http://www.roguetemple.com/7drl/2011/
The Honorable Members of the Committee
This list is not meant to be an authoritative ranking of the games. If you dive in, you will see different reviewers often disagreed on the rankings.
Instead, it is a way for you to help select which 7DRLs are likely to have things of interest to you.
Specific comments were also written by reviewers. Note that these are criticism for the developer to better improve the game – please do not be unduly offended if they are nitpicky or consist of “I got killed by a ferret on the first screen”.
The categories are, with description of what a 3 means:
Thanks to all the members of the committee for their great efforts, we hope you enjoy it! Thanks to kaw too, for providing the tools to generate the results page.