Following the 7DRL phenomenon pre 7DRL challenge (6 projects), 11 developers (for now) have decided to jump into the challenge! this, is their history.

RogueTCG (or possibly RoguEMon!) by Lochok

My goal is to write the RogueTCG (Trading card game) – in which the goal will be to use your RoguEMon cards (your RoguEMen as it were) to battle your way through the foyer, sales and administration to confront the CEO to have your custom card produced.

Simple Flash Rogue by failRate

I intend to make a super-simple Rogue-like in Flash that will save game state both locallly and on a remote server, so I can play at home or away. The latest version will always be found at http://failrate.com/b/7DRL.html

Return to Sorsaria by Krice

This game is set in alternative reality where The Avatar died, sadly. The player jumps into Sosaria through moon gate and finds a world full of hostile creatures.

TrapRogue by Nate

You’ll have to get an artifact from the dungeon and evade lots of traps. I’ll let you be surprised about the rest :)

Rogue Batallion by Ed Kolis

My concept is “Rogue Battalion” – it’s a roguelike in a modern warfare setting, where “Captain @” is the commander of an army battalion. The main unique feature is that of Vehicles

Faterhood by Jeff Lait

The name of the game is “Fatherhood”

SomethingWithZombies by Mr. Red Sunshine

Don’t yet know the goal or the proper Theme. Something with Zombies, biological weapons, a mysterious corporation and an accident. Zombies don’t require much ai ;-)

chrysalis by sinoth

The general game concept is that you start as a weak insect-like creature (I invision it as a zergling (COPYRIGHT BLIZZARD)) and you must destroy the military bases of humans that have invaded your planet.

Gameplay will revolve around destroying fortified bases randomly scattered on a generated world. There will be no dungeon levels up and down, but instead one large map that you can traverse seamlessly.

Unnamed by chukGren

Basically, it will be a forced fight to the death between some number of combatants in a play area that gets smaller as time elapses. The catch is that the combatants all knew each other beforehand so some of them are reluctant to attack others… and they will only start doing so past some psychological tipping point (time, people attacking them, damage, etc).

Undisclosed by Slash

I have started coding my roguelike.
Actually, I havent… but the time is running already, isnt it? :)

Unnamed by Nick Beam

I started a couple hours ago. It’s loosely based in the Magi-Nation universe, a trading card game and game boy game from ~2001. I’m using my Tarn (http://github.com/jdp/tarn) engine to build it. I’m still not sure about the exact story or point of the game, but I’m sure it’ll come to me by the time I finish the subsystems. :<

So, get ready for it if you are participating.

Dont remember what a 7DRL is, had a potion of erase memory recently? go to roguetemple’s 7DRL shrine, which will be populated by roguelikes very soon :)

Jhon Harris, from Gamasutra, has interviewed Tarn Adams, developer of Dwarf Fortress. The interview covers details about the history of the game, and goes as far as discussing some features of its inspiring random world generator and simulated fluid physics. Check the interview

The first overall goal of the world generator is to create enough information to produce a basic biome display. A lot of initial attempts at a world generator will start with things like “I need to lay down some forests, and some mountains, and some rivers, and some deserts…” and then when you end up with a jungle next to a desert, or a desert next to a swamp in an unlikely way, it’s difficult to fix.

Yep, I know what you mean Mr. Adams; also, would be interesting to compare JADE and DF world generators :)

[...]
Jhon Harris: Right. Permadeath is generally a roguelike concept, of course.

Tarn Adams: Yeah, I’ve seen some of those 7DRL contests. It’s too bad it takes so much time to undertake a large project. Time is really the only barrier for a lot of people.
[...]

It is! We are one week away from the challenge… are we ready yet?

As the time of the 7DRL Challenge drew near,
more and more bandit 7DRLs showed up.
They were three, now they are four…
… when will this madness stop?

Crown of the Forest, by Numeron:

“Deep in the forest is a magical crown driving the usually peaceful alphabet monsters into fits of jealous rage. It is up to you to get it from them, and try to keep it. When the timer is up, if you have won the most time with the crown, the forest will be safe.”

ASCIIWar, by Samel Luchino

“You are the RAM controller. The RAM values are gone crazy. KILLTHEM ALL before the CPU crashes! If you manage to kill @ the fake RAM controller then all ascii will follow your rules
Remember to collect chips and that the ram change very often.

ARE YOU READY FOR THE GREAT WAR?”

Mines of Elderlore by Altefcat

“You are a young hero and to prove your strength, you decide to clean the mines nearby your native village. Only armed with your training sword, you enter a maze of rooms and corridors.”

Other things noteworthy:

Mr. Eyenot tried to pull his own 7DRL out, but went overboard and “failed”, for now

Deveah released Fridge, a 1DRL

And so it was that shortly before the March aftermath,
three brave (brave?) developers decided to jump in
and try their guts at developing a 7DRL.

This, is their tale…

Ido Yehieli was the first, his motivation was his unavailability for the time of the challenge; he suceeded, and shows us his work at http://code.google.com/p/cryptrover/

Then came Malorzean, who said he would attempt but was uncertain of his odds at suceeding… his fears became true one week later when despite his efforts he had nothing to show.

Agnas, from the kingdom of Venezuela (probably) jumped in too, hoping to grasp the victory of having a playable roguelike using his sources, which date back to the former century. Alas, he didn’t made it, but promised to show us something over the next days.

Three developers, a game, an experience and a promise. What other surprises will the 7DRL challenge bring us up?