3 - Really polished, feels very feature complete. Even has a save system, in-game readme, monsterpedia and goes to main menu on death - little details that make all the difference.

2 - Runs without error and seems well polished all around, but having some sort of music or sound effects would make it immaculate

2 - Some monsters and effects take two characters (on Linux), that looks a bit weird... Other than that, I do not see any bugs, but I do not think it is polished, either.

3 - Excellent controls and clear visuals. ASCII but *done right*. Good colour choices and the whole game feels responsive. Primarily keyboard control, with optional mouse support (feels a bit better to use mouse for targetting).

3 - Provided easy to understand controls and was very easy to get the hang of controls and what was going on

2 - Typical roguelike

3 - Wow, so compelling! The difficulty is on the hard side of perfect, which is quite frankly perfect. The variety of monsters throughout the levels makes it really engaging on every playthrough. Intrinsically fun game and one of the best by far this year.

3 - Taking over other bodies and trying out new skills is a lot more engaging than I expected. Every enemy provides a variety of actions, and there is a lot of variety.

2 - Okay, but nothing special.

3 - There a number of innovations here, but the central possession mechanic really stands out and has been implemented with flair. Having different abilities from all enemies is great, and the corpse explosions and other details all add to the experience.

3 - It adds a level of play, taking over enemies, that I never would have expected. The level of existence as different enemies makes the otherwise drole roguelike play very interesting in a way that I haven't seen before

2 - I do not see any major innovation here, but it is not just like some other game I know either.

3 - There are a *lot* of different enemies in the game, and most of them do really feel different and special. On top of that each one has a unique and well-written description. So much depth of detail here, and alongside the great interface and good balancing it's really amazing that this was done in just 7 days - bravo!

3 - This game has a lot of variety of enemies, as well as maps and skills. Many mechanics were well thought-out and implemented smoothly, making the overall experience that much better. There is a lot of flavoring as well, such as blood and bodies

2 - many types of monsters, with special abilities. A strong "2".

3 - Turn-based procedural permadeath game that emphasises thoughtful moves and tactical combat. Quintessentially roguelike.

3 - Everything about this game is roguelike, as far as the core mechanics go.

3 - Yes, I think it is a roguelike.

I've never rated a game all 3s before, but this is a truly deserving title! I had to tear myself away from the game to write this review... Possession puts you in the role of a ghost that must possess enemies and use their abilities to progress. With many enemy types and many abilities to harness this becomes very interesting indeed. The game is hard, but in a good way, and it rewards careful play and thoughtful learning of its systems. On top of being a great game it's also polished to a high shine and very nicely balanced. This is really a joy to play on all levels.

This game is a very well-done Roguelike, and I look forward to playing it even more after reviewing it. The amount of variety, as well as the novelty of the idea itself, make the game fun to play and something I would recommend to anyone that wants to play a fun 7DRL creation.

As the name suggests, this game is based on possession.You start as a "ghost" who can possess monster bodies, and you get other powers if you do possess one. I have reached depth 2 (which is 80% of the game as far as I understand).

3 - No bugs

3 - How is this even possible? Numeron delivers again.

3 - I unfortunately could not exit from the help screen. The program would freeze. I normally would not give a game a 3 if this occurred, but the rest of the game is so finely crafted and complete that even with this strange bug I cannot but give this game a perfect score. One funny 'bug' is that this game is spelled wrong on the 7DRL download site, so is being reviewed under a mispelled name. Note I was definitely playing the final bug fix version.

3 - great pixel art, intuitive, customizable controls

3 - Looks great. Graphics are retro without actually being "retro". Nice to look at. Lots of nice little touches like animated status effects and TVs that change images.

3 - Some of the best aesthetics in the competition. Beautiful pixel art and a constantly visible inventory. A moderate amount of key commands is forgivable.

2 - a complete fallout-like game. Would get a 3 if it wasn't so hard.

2 - Lots of fun but for me it was way too hard. Especially the start of the game before you have any decent equipment. Frustrating, but rewarding once you build up a bunch of resources. Would be nicer to start with at least a medpack or grenade or some other kind of 'emergency' item. Constant approach of the unstoppable alien monster is a great touch. Would be awesome if the different 'color' enemies hated each other, would make the early game easier by being able to (for example) lead a bunch of cyan robots into a gang of punks and/or yellow mutants.

2 - What keeps this game from being nearly perfect is the difficulty curve. I've played it many times and have not been able to get past the early game. This may be a reflection more on me than anything to do with the author, but after 20+ runs you'd think I'd luck out at some point and find some great gear. Waiting for a lucky run is not a fun thing. Difficulty is not a bad thing, but feeling like you cannot progress becomes frustrating.

2 - the core gameplay is a classic turn by turn tactical rpg. There are some innovative "spells"/effects though.

2 - Nothing crazy here but the elements that are here are polished to an absolute shine. The constant approach of the unstoppable alien monster is not something I have seen before, feels like a very roguelike-y way to drive the player forward.

2 - This is a chase and collection game, not incredibly innovative but definitely well done.

3 - hardly believable for a 7DRL. It's obviously using a very polished game engine.

3 - Very ambitious, beyond what I would expect for a 7DRL.

3 - The different enemy types, gear and enemy powers is far above average.

3 - turn by turn, procedural generation, instadeath

3 - Don't let the amazing art fool you, this is definitely a roguelike. Twist on the 'hunger' clock is very roguelikey and fun. Maybe a BIT too difficult in the early game, but that is hardly an un-roguelikey thing.

3 - Procedural content, permadeath, inventory managment, tile/grid based play, turn based...it hits all the major roguelike qualities.

A feature-full, good looking, 8bits tactical rpg. Think XCom meets Fallout. Inventory, quick skill slots, cinematics, objectives with a map, it has everything. The only downside is the insanely high difficulty. As soon as a group of punks sees you, you're as good as dead. I didn't find a way to get enough equipment to be able to survive more than 5 minutes.

Amazingly detailed and graphically polished, but brutal early game can be off-putting. Rogue City Scavenger really captures the feel of a post-apocalyptic city, with burning cars, and punks, and grafitti and burned out buildings everywhere. Very pleasing to look at. Easy and intuituve to play. Pro-tip: don't fight anything except punks until you have tons of ammo and a decent melee weapon. Stay away from red and yellow buildings until you can easily clear out a cyan one.

This is a very complete and complex roguelike by Numeron, a veteran of the 7DRL challenge. This game has everything you'd want from a good 7DRL, fast pace, lots of variety and even neat little graphics. The game is pressed ever forward by the presence of a super tough lizard man slowly stalking you. You can heal up each turn, but you cannot just hang out and heal since the lizard man will find and kill you eventually. It all comes together well and is a highly recommended game, the only issue is that it's just hard as heck.

2 - There are a few issues such as high lag on the main server and minor bugs related to parties entering the dungeons. Overall the the game runs quite well as was stable.

1 - Some pretty obvious bugs and some oddities if you don't read the documentation. For example one of the basic items you pick up is just called "magic" which seemed like a name bug until I read the docs.

2 - There were some bugs when we first go going on dungeons, it seemed like turns piled up and then went off all at once. Perhaps that was just our own fault as we didn't account for the lag correctly.

3 - Runs pretty great right out of the box.

3 - I happen to prefer ascii so I thought that the look and feel was just fine. The controls are well documented and easy to get.

2 - Except for some overloaded symbols things mostly made sense. Nice color choices.

3 - Everything seemed well explained. I was tempted to give this a 2 as there is not anything truly exceptional about the control and feedback. But for this being the first MMO roguelike I've every played it was trivial to figure out and get into, and that very much is something exceptional.

2 - Solid classic terminal ASCII. I wish there was a way to see who was on once you log on other than calling out in chat (like the tab function in Minecraft), Controls can be a bit buggy - I can use numpad to move but in 'Z look mode' I need to use arrow keys on Windows 7. Chat has an invisible hard character limit, which is also less than helpful in some situations.

3 - There is quite a bit to do with the crafting/skill mechanic. I imagine in the long run if you run out of content it might get old, but I didn't hit that point in my play through. The ability to create custom towns is kinda cool too.

1 - Currently too buggy to be much fun. Also slow mode for multiplayer is frustrating and fast mode is basically insta-death.

3 - Super fun, lots to do. The MMO genre is great because it allows you to dink around on the web with your friends. I really like that. This also allows an interesting crafting game for solo play, which is great.

3 - Lots to explore and do, including an infinite resource gathering area and multiple deep and interesting dungeons. I'm sure it could get even more fun with the right group working together.

3 - While multiplayer roguelikes have been done before (mangband comes to mind) turn-based mutiplayer has not been extensively experimented with. I am not sure if the mechanic would become annoying in the long run (waiting for party messages could be irritating), but it worked in the short play through I did. The crafting/skill system is also quite cool.

3 - Not the first multiplayer roguelike but has some nice features such as a safe resource gathering area and player unique building spaces.

3 - This would be a 3 for the solo game. Add the MMO aspect leaves you wishing you could give a score of 4.

3 - While multiplayer RLs have been tried before (my very first roguelike experience was ToMENet, actually), this still brings some interesting innovations to multiplayer play, like the keyed towns/storage, plus some neat crafting/skill mechanics.

3 - Between the multiplayer, persistent towns, new crafting/skill system, and overall polish, this was beyond what you'd see in a typical 7drl.

3 - Most of the problems with completeness and fun come from the scope being so large in this game. There's a couple of different core mechanics that are nice ideas but don't match up very well, such as the "crafting" and combat.

3 - An above average amount of gameplay content. It's not the strongest '3' in the competition, there are games with more elements, but this one has enough to easily earn the top rating.

3 - Fully functional multiplayer roguelike with an innovative skill mechanic!

3 - Permadeath, random dungeon gen, grid-based, turn-based (even with multiplayer), this game is clearly a roguelike.

3 - Very roguelike, ASCII with turn based gameplay as well as permadeath.

3 - Classic procedural, turn based, permadeath, resource management, single character strategy game. With all the ancillary tropes of ASCII presentation, dungeon diving, fantasy theme, bump interactions etc, etc...

3 - Permadeath, tactically lots to do, randomly generated dungeons, and manages to be both multiplayer and turn based.

This game is definatly worth checking out. Be sure to get a buddy on the server at the same time so you can toy around with the turn-based multiplayer. While in a non-safe zone (one with monsters), all player get to make a move, then the monsters. This means that the party can take its time and chat about the best next moves, but quickly move through dungeon when needed. The crafting/skill system is also quite nice. You do not level up as with most roguelikes, but instead you spend experience on helpful skills.

This game has a lot of nice ideas and potential but overreached its scope and fails to be much fun in practice. The addition of player customizable spaces is a really nice idea but doesn't add to the core gameplay. If you're planning on making a multiplayer roguelike then mmoRL is worth checking out to see what's done well and what could be improved upon.

This game is my 'holy cow' moment of this 7DRL competition. It's not the funnest game, the most in depth or the most polished this year, but all around this is the best game. It succeeds where so many have failed, it executes that rare holy grail of game design, the massively multiplayer roguelike game. Sure there are some bugs and rough spots here and there, and I hope the developer sees the positive feeback and smooths out some things, but this game does succeed in its goal. This game makes me wish my friends were into roguelikes, but they just aren't. So sad.

This is a really impressive and surprising game. Still minorly buggy - working in multiplayer was harder than it looked, and I had some control issues - but there's a lot of great potential here, and that crafting mechanic is strangely captivating. Grab some friends and check it out!

3 - The game is simple but complete. Combat and movement is fluid, as is item management. Not lacking anything, plus has a tutorial and credits screen. Quite polished for a simple game.

3 - Very polished, balanced and bug-free.

2. Nice and polished, and generally fairly stable however I did experience one game-wrecking bug where I couldn't pick up my spear again after having thrown it. Since it won't let you leave the level without your spear I ultimately had to restart from the beginning.

2 - Uniform style, everything fits together well. The screen layout is well done and the animated magma is a nice touch.

3 - Really clean visuals. Controls work very well on Android tablet.

3 - Nice minimalist pixel graphics, with some subtle animation effects that add a lot. Controls work well and the built-in tutorial is good at getting you up to speed very quickly. It would be nice if you could travel more than one tile at a time especially after all enemies have been defeated, since it becomes a bit irritating to have to tap lots of times to move over to the altar/exit, but that's only a minor quibble.

2 - This game is simple but fun. You can jump straight it and start stabbing with your trusty spear, nothing stops the flow of the game.

3 - Hex! Unconventional melee! Tight mechanics! Deterministic! This really ticks every box I like. It also works perfectly for mobile, which is exceedingly rare for roguelikes.

3 - Really good. The interesting movement-based combat mechanics and the nicely differentiated abilities of the different enemy types give it a real chess-like feel where you must choose your every move with utmost care. I have a feeling I'm going to be coming back to this game for quite a while to come.

3 - Temples and upgrades are a great touch, as is the unique combat on a hex grid where tactics are essential to every move.

3 - Very nice twist on the melee combat mechanics. Enemies are all unique, and the ability to manipulate them to kill each other leads to some really interesting and original gameplay.

3 - The combat system is not only novel but well-designed to boot, and brings a totally new tactical element to roguelike combat.

2 - Probably hit the nail on the head for a simple pick-me-up game and just scrapes home on the replayability side of things.

2 - Pretty good, but not overwhelming scope. Single 18 floor dungeon, with each floor the size of a very large room. Tight combat makes it seem denser though.

2 - Very well put together and with a well thought-out set of character progression options. I would have liked to see a little more complexity in the ganeration of the 'dungeon'/board and a few more different enemy types appearing in the late game would have been nice however I may just be being greedy there.

1 - Not a roguelike for me - has tatical turn-based elements but that is it.

3 - Turn-based, permadeath, tactical combat. Has some procedural elements to the levels but these don't impact hugely on play.

3 - Although very different to most roguelikes in implementation, for me it still captures the fundamental feel of the genre.

The game starts out with a tutorial and then drops you straight into the action. This is no searching here; the game screen shows everything, monsters, temples and the exit. The screen is simple and effective and magma placement allows slight tactic changes between levels. Each monster has different abilities and needs to be dealt with differently, highlighted by the hexagonal grid. The temples are a novel and very necessary part of the game, rewarding you with upgraded abilities or restoration. However the choice of upgrade is up to the player, making it interesting when you are tossing up between a new ability or badly needed restoration. The subtleties of the combat system become more apparent as you play through the levels, particularly the difference between a stab and lunge. I found it to be a fun, fast paced turn-based game, the only thing this game is missing is sound and music. Finished it after a few goes, quite rewarding experience.

Android roguelike with tight combat mechanics. You can't bump to attack - you must either lunge from a distance, move along the side of an enemy to swipe it, or take clever advantage of their attack patterns to make them kill each other. It's initially quite approachable but quickly the challenge ramps up against multiple enemies of different abilities. Very satisfying and engaging and perfect for mobile play. One of the highlights of this year, and indeed one of the very best mobile roguelikes around right now.

A real hidden gem, in fact I think this may be my personal favourite 7DRL of 2013 from those I have played so far. The combat system is highly tactical with a lot of things to think about and a good deal of depth. The greek mythology theme is well realised and suits the game well (with the possible exceptions of green slimes and the bomb-throwing guys) and basing the rewards around different gods is a great idea. My only real complaint is that it could use a little more variety, perhaps achieved though a greater range of different tile types and enemies.

2 - A few display bugs, but nothing serious. The balancing is incredibly well-done: short-term goals are difficult but not impossible. (The version I got was released with a balance fix after the contest.) The author admits that the game doesn't do much to teach you, but the included help file is concise and helpful. After a quick read-through I was good to go.

3 - No bugs

3 - Asteroids and missiles sometimes slip over into the hud, and in the zoomed out map if you accidentally press any key that isnt movement you will consume fuel. Nothing serious though, and otherwise neatly rounded out.

3 - Looks great, especially the multi-tile characters. The aesthetics work so well that it looks like the author chose to use ASCII rather than being restricted to it. Controls are dead simple.

1 - primary colors on black background.

2 - The interface is clean and simple, but there are a lot of glyphs to learn. Fortunately this is aided by the comprehensive in game help.

3 - Extremely compelling. I could not stop playing the game to write my review. Huge replay value.

3 - great, challenging game with really innovative mechanisms

2 - Once I got over the brief learning curve I had fun jumping about and setting myself challenges like a pacifist run. Good replay value, but too often star systems are simply refuel at the gas giant and hightail it out, rarely needing to interact with other ships or bases. It definately gets more interesting once you get the Genesis Device which kills your cloak, but thats half the game in.

2 - At bottom, it's a resource-management game. Your resources are hull, fuel, and ammo, and most of the object interactions either raise one or exchange one for the other. The exchange rates are such as require difficult decision-making and strategy. It's not a new concept, but it's extremely well-done. The cloaking mechanic is great too, and by the time you can get to the Genesis Device you've learned to rely on it. Then, just as you're getting the hang of the game, you get the Device and it disables your cloak! Brilliant twist.

3 - Great game design that manage to mix standard roguelike gameplay (overmap, potions, melee fighting) with a totally unfitting star trek setting. In the end, you get a totally refreshing roguelike

3 - A cool combination of exploration, resource management, stealth, and presents both tactical and stategic thinking with its two scale map.

2 - Reasonable scope. There's not a huge amount of features, and that's actually a good thing. There's just enough complexity to make the game hard and interesting.

3 - a complete game with balanced gameplay and in-game help

2 - This is a high 2, given the addition of a couple of simple but polished features rounding out this otherwise tightly packed game.

3 - Tactical resource management on a randomly-generated map. Start at your base, go grab an object, scamper back home, win by the skin of your teeth. While it doesn't have a lot of typical roguelike features, the panic and joy I felt were exactly what I want in an RL game.

3 - despite some very innovative mechanisms, it's still definitely a roguelike

3 - All the basics are there

This is the best game I've played in a while. I can't think of anything bad to say about it. There are a few rough spots: sometimes the map display leaked into the right panel, and the help file could be better integrated with the interface. But with the help file open in another window, the game was not nearly as hard to learn as the author seemed to think it would be. An individual game takes a few minutes at most, which makes the learning curve more tolerable: when you learn by doing not to attack a tanker in a system full of merchants and starbases, you don't actually lose much when you have to start over. That's another feature that I haven't seen much: rather than gathering resources to reach your goal, you actually start out in KRL with as many resources as you'll ever have, and you have to replenish them along the way. It doesn't sound that different, but it gives the game a very distinctive feel.

Not a 7DRL entry, but a real, complete, challenging little game. Its strength is its game design, its weakest part, the visuals. All in all, it's really worth a try.

Sneak your way out into Federation space, steal their Genesis Device and get on back with the Federation on your tail! This is a well designed stealth and resource management game, with FTL overtones and an awesomely hectic second act. Many actions you take will drop you out of stealth alerting the local dangers and merchants, and giving them a brief window in which to react to your presence. This means approaching resources at good angles and having an escape route ready. Combat is very simple, you are weak defensively but strong in attack, so if you have the ammo you can take on the world, but it is severely limited and often better used to trade for repairs so usually its best to bail. This is a well balanced game with good replayability, so make sure you check it out.

3 - The game is complete, no bugs found.

2 - Stable. Feels complete. Could use with a little more explanation in-game. Instant-death on accidentally switching to sniper mode is kind of a bummer!

2 - Mostly complete though, according to the author, lacking a few features.

3 - Looks good, for an ascii game. All important information is immediately available, without player having to make unnecessary keypresses. Controls are just fine.

2 - Under the limitations of terminal colors, excellent aesthetics. I like the usage of background highlight to indicate alert level, nice touch.

2 - Classic ASCII roguelike look. Nice UI.

2 - The game grasps the atmosphere of a city with important military facility very well. It's fun to fool the police, hide in houses, eat from some people's fridge. But the game somewhat lacks variety. There is no choice of starting equipment and only two types of missions.

3 - A bit frustrating at first, but carefully reading all of the help files will let you go far in this game. Completing the first mission after many failures was very satisfying. Switching between battle/sniper modes is a nice touch and adds some strategy. ALMOST took off a point for the annoying radar... it will almost always say NE or SE if the target is even 1 coordinate north or south of you, which can send you on a wild goose chase around the map until you realize. But, this is a MINOR nitpick.

2 - Fun once you get the hang of things. Lots of enemies around who you generally want to avoid. Sometimes just not so fun running away or trying to avoid enemies. There isn't really a stealth mechanic, which might improve the fun of this type of game.

3 - It's really something fresh. It's not your typical stealth game, as you walk on streets in open, and it's not your typical hack&slash, as you kill people only if absolutely necessary.

3 - Complex mission structures are rather rare in roguelikes. The interity of the alertness/crime system is very innovative as well. Well worth playing and checking out, even if you are only going to steal the ideas!

3 - An interesting take on roguelikes and strategy games. Lots of depth here and even a story behind it (inspired by sci-fi novels).

2 - Just enough for 7 days. The core idea was implemented, but there wasn't enough time to grow more meat around it. Couple more missions and probably some equipment variety, and it could be 3.

2 - Solid scope for a 7DRL. Definitely on the HIGH side, could be a 3 for someone else.

3 - A lot of depth and strategy. Pretty impressive for 7 days. More development time could really deepen the gameplay.

3 - It's closer to roguelike then roguelike-like. There is great random city generator, it is turn based, there is permadeath and combat.

3 - Definitely a roguelike!

3 - 100% roguelike

There is one thing in a game, that is hard to notice, but it is there. All citizens aren't just for show. They have their own AI, they are sleeping, eating and walking to work. It doesn't affect gameplay. But it's still nice thing to know. It adds something to atmosphere. Police do not cheat with information sharing. If policeman havn't seen that you commited the crime, he might be alerted, but won't shoot at you right away. As long as noone alive remembered your face, you can get away with your crimes. You can walk thru police that is rushing toward crime scene, turn around the corner and hide in the nearby house. The game is a little unbalanced, as game difficulty can vary from very easy to instadeath, depending on position of police stations relative to starting and/or target points.

The game is very TENSE... it is a rare quality in a roguelike. You will find yourself murdering civilians that have seen your face, for the greater good of course! Interesting alert/crime systems force you to make interesting strategic decisions. Mission structure is well done and relatively clear. The radar is a bit buggy, but a tip: move one step in both directions (e.g. NE, move N then E) it says and re-check radar. Basic terminal colors are used very well, recommend playing on the lower resolution you can stand, so you don't miss any details.

Very solid entry in this year's competition. A sci-fi roguelike in which you play a sabateuor trying to sneak around a heavily patrolled city and plant bombs. Some Star Wars elements and themes, interesting technology stuff that helps it stand apart from the usual D&D roguelikes.

3 - Graphically very polished. Balance seems good enough to make the highscore table worthwhile.

3 - Super complete. Super polished. Professionally polished by professional roguelike game polishers.

3 - Works really well. Very polished.

3 - Looks great, simple controls.

3 - Looks great, Plays great. Writes the damn keys on the floor just like binding of isaac. flipping brilliant. Music is top notch and an amazing touch.

3 - Awesome graphics and controls. I would like to give a 4.

2 - Worth playing. You'll end up playing for longer than you might expect.

3 - FUN FUNFUN. Once I got over my hatred of all things real-time and falling off the edge of the map this game was nothing but fun.

3 - Lots of fun, and replayable. Just try it.

1 - The mechanics here will be familiar to almost everyone.

2 - Solid implementation of a realtime roguelike, very much in the binding of isaac style. A great innovative feature is the borderlands-style weapon stats on the screen, you can easily see what is worth picking up and why.

3 - I don't remember playing a similar real-time roguelike hybrid. A bonus for chasms in place of walls (touching the boundary is instadeath, but you need to be careless to do this). The game uses vector graphics, and later enemies are larger versions of the earlier ones, which also works surprisingly well.

2 - Average.

3 - Way huge for a 7DRL, if you told me this was made in seven days I would call you a big fat liar but apparently it was!

3 - This game was made by a team of three, and each part was executed excellently.

2 - A realtime action game with a roguelike feel.

2 - let's call it a roguelike-like because it is real time.

2 - this game is real-time, which reduces its roguelikeness.

A very polished game that'll be easy for almost anyone to pick up and play. Weapons get bigger, enemies get bigger, and your skill numbers get bigger. The wacky humor definitely improves the experience.

Yes, a quadropus is exactly what you thought it was: an octopus with only four tentacles! This is a brutally fun real time roguelike (-like) that draws a lot of inspiration from the Binding of Isaac. This game seriously has professional-level polish. Great music, super sharp original graphics, tight controls. Great implementation of roguelike systems into a realtime game. (Just be careful not to fall off the map!) Definitely play this game.

Unless you hate real-time games, I really recommend you to try this one. Excellent character design, beautiful and clear graphics, lots of fun, and replayable. I have reached Level 66 (I think the game never ends).

2 - Seemed very polished and bug-free but I had to manually find the task and kill it in order to end the game

3 - Very complete and finished. No bugs found.

3 - Seems quite polished.

3 - Clear controls and, for the most part, intuitive

2 - Classic ASCII with nice use of color and animation.

3 - Classic ASCII done well (with libtcod)

2 - Interesting, but nothing extraordinarily fun. Definitely worth playing though.

3 - Terrific game. Very strategic. Combines all the best core elements of a good roguelike into an enjoyable game.

3 - I did not like it on the first try that much, but when I understood a bit more, it was very good.

2 - Includes the idea of stealth, which is well implemented and innovative. Nothing exceptionally unknown to roguelikes but still interesting

3 - Not your typical "kill the monsters" roguelike. Very strategic with various ways of avoiding combat (if you want) and various ways of killing enemies. Each level adds new obstacles and ways of overcoming them.

2 - There were stealth-based games. Things considered innovative: having extra lives, as well as an option to "abort" a mission (which allows one to regenerate impossible missions without wasting lives).

2- Nothing extremely out of reach but well-diversified

3 - Pretty amazing what got squeezed into the game in 7 days. Very complete with lots of weapons, utility devices, enemy types.

2 - many types of enemies, many types of equipment. A strong "2".

3 - A little debatable, but the roguelikeness of this game is, in my opinion, complete.

2 - Turn-based, strategic, resource management. All the good stuff you'd expect in a roguelike. However, you get multiple lives.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

A sci-fi roguelike that is relatively interesting. Worth a shot if you have the time and the description sounds interesting.

Possibly the best I've played so far in this year's competition. Looks great. Great use of ASCII and colors. Every level offers an increasing amount of challenge and complexity. You're given numerous ways of dealing with enemies and completing your objective. It's sci-fi futuristic, always a plus. Not just "let's see what I can throw together in a week" but a complete, slick, challenging and fun game.

A sci-fi stealth roguelike, with ranged attacks. Many types of enemies to avoid or fight. If the description sounds interesting, definitely try it. I have won, but there are still secondary missions...

2 - Aside from the weird timing that may or may not be intentional, this game feels quite complete.

3 - There are a few complaints about sometimes slightly flickering graphics I could make, but they don't detract from the fact that this is one very solidly implemented package.

2 - The turn timer seems to be a bit off: Enemies move when you choose a spell but not when you shoot it, and your vision doesn't update when you teleport until the turn after. One time after I died, pressing enter didn't actually restart the game like it usually does. I got trapped in another dimension once after using Ice Blink.

3 - A lot of great choices here. Keys are displayed on screen and game elements are explained. Check out the subtle markings on the floors of the mystical rooms.

3 - It's so attractive, it even comes with an attract mode! The spell effects are nice, especially the magic missile. The UI is pick-up-and-play clean, tested by complete roguelike newbies too. However, the play window is rather small, and looks terrible when scaled up, making it difficult to actually see what you're doing (monsters in burning doors are particularly difficult to see)

3 - Very nice ASCII graphics and colored tiles/symbols. The rooms each have their own style - antimagic rooms have runes on the floor, a guard barracks has a faint "g" on the floor, etc. Clearly a lot of thought and effort was put into the look and feel of the game.

3 - Yes, it's very fun. I started again after beating it because I wanted to experiment more with the spells.

3 - Very challenging and beautifully balanced. The starting spells can get you to places, but not sustainably so, so you're pushed to gather and figure out how to best use new spells before the castle wears you down.

2 - The choices you have in each encounter make the game pretty compelling, although the bugs can be frustrating. A little bit of bugfixing and polish would easily bump this up to a 3.

2 - Trap rooms, monster spawning rooms, and spells instead of combat. Good stuff.

2 - Some quite interesting and inventive spell effects, as well as traps that aren't boring. The spellcasting system itself is refreshingly simple for a roguelike - there's no limits and no resources, you just press a number to cast a spell (and input a direction or location if called for) and that's it.

3 - Combat is entirely spellbased, and each spell has an associated tradeoff. A healing spell might accidentally heal your opponent, or a fire spell might light the room on fire and trap you. This adds a lot of depth to the decisions you make as you play.

2 - A solid 2 for sure. Everything fits into the game nicely.

3 - It mightn't be a Vicious Orcs-type sprawling mass of content, but after several hours of play I'm pretty sure I still haven't plumbed its depths fully. I only just saw my first enemy wizard.

2 - The author clearly chose a single focus - the spells - and developed entirely around that. There are only a few kinds of enemies, no leveling system, and no loot besides new spell scrolls. However, there's definitely variety in the spells and the rooms you encounter.

3 - Yes.

3 - No resource management (beyond managing your HP, and your invisible HP maximum) and a very simple append-only inventory, but otherwise very roguelikey. Deserves particular props for forcing the player to move fast in a very natural way simply by pressuring them with respawns and having no heal-over-time (besides healing methods that don't instantly heal you fully, there is at least one such spell)

2 - There's only one level, and no experience or equipment, but it still has a very roguelike feel.

This game is great! The timing system takes some getting used to, so you'll take a few extra attacks at first. The process of figuring out how the spells and traps work was quite enjoyable. Recommended.

Cream of this year's 7DRL crop, this is a game where very soon after you start every move begins to count. Pugnacious Wizards has you attack a castle filled with guards, archers, and many different sorts of traps (from your basic exploding tiles on the floor to spinning arrow-throwing towers and walls that fill whole rooms with arrows). At your side are your spells, of which you get three guaranteed ones at the start, and can randomly find more inside the castle. Each spell can be cast with no limit besides being castable once per turn. It seems like the starting Fire Jump should make you incredibly powerful, but the castle turns out to be more dangerous than you might expect. As enemies both respawn inside barracks rooms, and rise from the dead as skeletons, you're constantly pushed onward as fast as you can muster. I've managed to loot myself two of the three amulet pieces and have to sleep, but I know I will be coming back to this game. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. How long? Who knows...

Definitely one of the more interesting 7DRLs this year. Pugnacious Wizards is focused entirely on spellcasting. The goal of the game is to get through a fortress filled with traps, guards, and archers. Spells can be cast freely and without needing any kind of "mana" resource, but each spell has a potential cost. Magic missiles bounce unpredictably and can hit you accidentally, healing spells reduce your stats permanently or heal enemies around you, freezing spells often freeze you as well, etc. These tradeoffs make choosing which spell to use in which situation a very compelling decision. The game's main weaknesses are a few very frustrating bugs, most notably that the screen doesn't update after you take an action, but only after you begin your next action (I assume this is a bug and not by design?). This is especially frustrating when you teleport to a new position, only to find that your line of sight doesn't redraw until your next action. Maybe I'm missing something and this is intentional, but I doubt it. Overall, however, Pugnacious Wizards is a lot of fun and definitely worth trying out. (One additional note: The game plays a demo screen before you begin, so if you go to the author's blog and scroll through his 7DRL posts you can see the evolution of the game play out before your eyes - very cool to watch!)

3 - A well polished, and fully realized game.

2 - the developers says that it is not complete - as it stands, it feels like a very good demo, so I'm inclined to agree. It feels rather well done, didn't come across any bugs.

3 - No bugs encountered. No obvious omissions, very polished.

3 - Wierd but thematic look, and really cool sound effects. Controls are simple enough, though I wish I could inspect things with the keyboard.

3 - It declares itself a cyberpunk hacking game and it fits the general look. The colours are done well and the interface is fairly clear. The enemies have a distinct, kind of cute style, and the information popups are clear. The style is consistant and endering.

2 - Graphics are a little garish and busy for my tastes but they suit the theme well so it's hard to hold it against it. Almost a 3, but the controls and the meanings of many of the symbols and numbers embedded in the graphics are unclear and take a lot of trial and error to figure out. 'Use the mouse and keyboard' is not particularly helpful!

3 - The learning curve is steep, but it doesnt take too long to surmount. Compared to the other thinking and planning games on show, this one seems different in that you can line yourself up against whatever challenge you think you can handle. Since abilities and points are all up for grabs should you choose to pay the price, the risk analysis goes far deeper than just figuring out the safest path to the end of the level.

2 - I had to alt-tab to the game instructions a couple of times during my first play, but after I understood what I was supposed to be doing, I did rather enjoy my playtime. It's a simple and fun game.

3 - Could do with a bit more explanation to begin with, but once the complexities become apparent it is a very fun game with a lot of depth. It is occasionally frustrating when despite your best efforts a bunch of fast enemies teleport in nearby and quickly beat you to a bloody (well, bitty) pulp, though it does usually feel like your own fault for not investing in an ability to deal with such situations.

3 - All the mechanics on offer from movement and combat to resource management to abilities, fit together amazingly into one well oiled puzzle game.

2 - As it is, the main parts of gameplay have some elements of originality, but it feels like more can be added. I'm looking forward to the proposed full game coming out this month.

3 - I've never played anything like this before.

3 - This game is so well polished, and everything fits together so perfectly with a finely tuned interactability - that no small amount of effort could have produced such a thing.

2 - a number of enemies, different effects from draining cells, there is a lot there already and there is a lot that can be added - again, I'm looking forward to the full version.

2 - Very high level of polish, nice sounds and animation effects. Plenty of different abilities on offer and it seems like a high level of testing has been done. However there seems to be little variation in levels besides an increase in the number of enemies spawning.

2 - There is turn-based movement and combat, abilities to apply, and a randomised environment however all of these elements are just one step slightly removed from the regular roguelike counterparts, and combine to make what I would define more as a puzzle game.

2 - Has permadeath and random level generation, definatly the earmarks of a roguelike, but doesn't feel entirely like a roguelike, due to the slightly different concepts.

2 - Turn-based, procedural levels and permadeath, however despite this it doesn't really have a 'roguelike' feel to the gameplay, being much more of a strategy game. I do feel bad having to mark it down for that, but I didn't invent this scoring system!

This amazing puzzle game will see you traversing an abstract cyber environment, clearing a board of various viruses and combatant programs, then ciphoning out resources and new abilities. Good abilities are tantalisingly on display even from the first level, but choosing to pick one up will generate a number enemies relative to the strength of the ability, so its important to maintain self control and power up only if you can handle the consequences. Adding spice to the combat, waiting a turn is one of the abilities to aquire, so careful planning is nessecary to effectively deal with all aspects of your actions. Don't let the initial hurdles get in your way because this game is definately up there with the best this year.

I really enjoyed this, despite it being at about demo-level. It's well excecuted, good visuals, and good gameplay. It has so much potential, and I'm really looking forward to the update.

Neuromancer: the roguelike. A very innovative, very interesting, very fun, very polished game. The theme is a good match to the abstract gameplay and the highly positional combat and resource-gathering mechanics complement each other well and give the game a great deal of strategic depth. The only real issue with the game is that the mechanics are not very obvious and take a long time to figure out - it could be improved greatly by the inclusion of more explanation and instruction.

2 - Seems mostly complete and polished. There were a few item descriptions as "TODO" Didn't manage to make it through to the end-game content though.... perhaps the difficulty needs a bit more balancing.

3 - Whoa. So many abilities! Graphics! Definitely complete and polished. It was begging for some cute sound effects but I am not going to knock off points for that.

2 - The game appears to be really polished, but it is not. Sometimes a key is displayed, but it does not seem to work (which includes important things such as (u)sing weapons...), and items described as "TODO".

2 - Graphics are effective. Has quite a retro "8 bit" feel that I like. Loys of nice touches, e.g. you character's graphics change depending on what you re wearing / wielding.

3 - Very sharp graphics. Little touches really make this game shine, alerts and little tiny animation effects.

3 - The graphics and controls are REALLY excellent.

2 - Quite an enjoyable roguelike experience. I enjoyed the dungeon exploration and feeling of exploring a lot temple that was heightended by the interesting monsters and traps.

3 - Had a lot of fun playing this game. Could be a little clearer on why I need breath and traps were a bit annoying with no way (that I could find) to 's'earch for them?

2 - I know that lots of effort has been put into this game, but the result is a bit dull. Unfortunately, this sometimes happens.

2 - Fairly classic roguelike style. Nothing too innovative, but lots of nice little touches and what is there is well executed.

2 - Fairly standard in terms of game systems, but all done very solidly. +1 for a crazy-deep abilities system that is not obnoxious to use.

1 - as far as I have played, it is not very innovative, unfortunately.

3 - Pretty impressive scope. Lots of features to explore, e.g. a comprehensive skill list

3 - Really a step beyond what I consider possible for a 7DRL. Nice job.

3 - The skill selection screen only makes it a strong candidate for a 3. Later, you find out that there are lots of monsters in the dungeon. Also contains character advancement. Excellent scope, overall.

3 - Definitely a genuine roguelike. Lots of dungeon exploration, character advancement, interestic items, varied turn-based combat action.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Definitely roguelike.

I liked this game a lot: the dungeons are interesting to explore and there is a lot of depth in all the features. The graphics are effective and there is good gameplay to be had. My main complaint is that the difficulty seems a bit too high - I found it very hard to get past the first 2/3 levels. Perhaps could do with a more balanced post-7DRL release!

Kali's ladder is well worth checking out. Sharp graphics and polished animation make this game really stand. Gameplay wise most of the usual roguelike systems are here. The abilities system is extensive and does a good job of offering lots of choice without overwhelming the player.

I think that lots of effort has been put into this roguelike. It looks really great, and has lots of features. But it also has misfeatures: I am unable to use weapons, some features do not work or are not finished, it seems unbalanced (but maybe this is just me - I die about Level 2). I think it could become a much better game with some more effort.

2 - Feels fairly complete but the controls section lists controls that don't work, including hypothetical joystick controls.

3 - No bugs found, seems fairly polished

3 - Complete and apparently bug free. No missing features.

3 - The enemies combine traditional ASCII characters with different sized bases to give a comfortable feeling of ASCII with a non-grid world.

3 - Nice evolution of ASCII. Cool lighting effects. Controls fairly simple and work well.

3 - Some large ASCII blobs, some small ones, nice particle effects, nice arrow showing your direction. Your score is displayed on the screen always counting up. Simple controls. All very functional and efficient.

3 - Had lots of fun! Doesn't seem to be more than one level but the strategies involved keep it interesting.

2 - Interesting and fun gameplay. Successfully dodging a hail of missiles feels great. Would be a 3, except the absolute friction makes it irritatingly easy to get stuck on walls.

2 - The run, dodge and trick strategies are pretty fun.

3 - The game clock is continuous but only progress while you move. That plus the strategy of using monsters' spells against other monsters makes this quite special.

2 - The basic idea has been done before, for example by last year's Smooth Rogue, but this is a pretty neat implementation.

3 - One of the more innovative timing and movement systems we've seen.

2 - A nice set of monsters, but no inventory system or complex multi-level dungeon.

2 - A large variety of different enemies, but otherwise fairly simple.

2 - There's not a ton of depth here, there are several monster types that chase and shoot but their behavior is all that different.

3 - Combining the ASCII characters on the tiles and making the game clock only progress while you move feels very roguelike, even if other features like an inventory / equipment system are missing entirely.

2 - Would be a 3 if random level generation has been implemented.

2 - I'm tempted to give this a 3, but the procedural generation is not so robust, there's no real strategic use of resources either.

Worth playing! The basic movement and time passing mechanic works very well and the strategy elements are novel and fun. A variation on the Triangle Wizard theme except time only passes when you move and you can choose how quickly you move.

A neat implemention of a 'gridless' roguelike, where time only passes when you're moving. The base mechanics are pretty fun, and dodging missiles is great, especially when you can direct them into other enemies. However there are minor irritations; it is easy to get stuck on walls and the melee mechanics do not feel very clean. The game also needs a little more to it in order to be more than a temporary distraction.

This is a game about running away from bad guys, trying to get them to shoot each other, and sometimes bumping them to death. The real interesting thing here is the timing mechanic. It's not an 'I go, you go' system but rather a simultaneous real time system. So if you are moving, the baddies are as well. It's a fun game with an arcade like feel, plays pretty quick too. Definitely recommended.

3 - I didn't find any bugs.

3 - Only a couple minor interface bugs, such as the icons indicating sleep not going away when they should.

3 - Feels feature complete. All items seem to have a function, multiple endings exist, several possible encounters

3 - Graphics look like what they are. A lot of clicking but the keys for Explore and Rest make it quicker.

3 - Very nice graphical tiles and weather effects.

2 - Graphics are functional in general and exceptional in parts, but the map is fairly static aside from the day/night cycle and encounters have little visible indication

2 - But it's so hard that it seems winning is a matter of mostly luck. Most games only took 3 or 4 minutes until I died with little or no warning anyway. Still, it's different and challanging and quick enough that I kept comming back.

2 - Reasonably fun. Only part that's not so fun is the randomness of getting items and not knowing the results of things. A lot like FTL in that respect. Gets a 2 rather than a 3 primarily because it's fairly repetitive and strategivally simple. Also the web version is painfully slow, but the download version runs fine.

2 - Decent enough for a playthrough or two, not enough variablity to warrant more. Game becomes a bit easy once the player understands some of the mechanics.

2 - A very different interface, conversation trees, small levels that rely on your lack of light rather than walls.

3 - A bit of a mystery going on and a hero who's not just bashing heads.

2 - Story is innovative, the mechanics aren't anything new.

2 - Some items, encounters, and a random island with different things. Each game was very short though.

2 - A nice randomly generated island with some fun events. It's not too hard to finish but it's a good amount of content for a 7dRL.

2 - Standard 7DRL fare in breadth and depth

3 - It has graphics and the encounters are handled differently, but I think the base mechanics and overall feel are very roguelike. Very hard survivor roguelike.

3 - Random map, random items, turn and grid based.

2 - Turn-based with permadeath and PG levels, but encounters are more random and not shown on the map. Displaying the encounters, even without type, would have made this a 3.

This is why so few rogulikes are about kids on an island - it's hard. Quite fun and different - but hard. Die from starvation. Die from lack of sleep. Die from a cold because you were in the rain too long. Die from scrapes from walking through bushes. Die from stubling around in the dark. Die from kids cutting your throat. I'm not even sure how I died sometimes. Trying to find out why your father hasn't returned from this island is very tough. There's a few items that can help you, but you can't expect to win with your starting supplies. If you like survivor-like games with strong themes, or want to try something a little different, this is easily worth trying.

Borstal has a nice little story and the gamplay and atmosphere to support it. Doesn't take too long to figure out and beat, so it's well worth time time it takes to do so. It keeps a record of wins and losses, but after winning once I didn't feel like playing again (I'd lost several times previously, including at the final encounter). The only part that's frustrating is that getting the equipment you need is rather random and you get sick in the rain easily while the game chastises you for being in the rain you can't avoid. Do get the download version though as the web version is painfully slow.

Borstal is a survival horror roguelike where you have to manage your rest, food, and light while avoiding injury and illness on a eerie island in an effort to save your father. As you wander the single, but procedurally-generated, level you encounter some of the island's residents and caches of supplies as you draw closer to the juvenile correctional facility where your father works. The game is an interesting experiment, you can explore to find food, but eating food or resting have rather unpredictable results. The game is frustrating at first, but once you understand the mechanics, you should be able to bring it to a quick somewhat satisfying conclusion.

3 - No bugs found (except the ones that are supposed to be there!). The balance could be adjusted to make the game a bit easier. The AI is a bit dumb, but that actually adds to the realism.

2 - The game worked out of the box on my linux machine and feels very complete with lovely intro and death screens, help, toggling between tiles and ascii, etc. However, there are a few bugs. The most notable is a crash which happens if the player happens to be inside the acid ball attack (just add self.name='You' to the Player init and it is fixed).

3 - The game is complete and bugfree.

2 - The tiles look great. Controls are not always obvious: there aren't always prompts to indicate which key to press, and often a key I expect to work does not. E.g., the comma, period, and both enter keys should all be usable to select something.

2 - Normally I prefer ascii to tiles, but in this game the ascii was pretty ugly. The tiles looked okay though. The controls were intuitive. Given that the game works with vi-keys, num-pad, and mouse, pretty much everyone will find the controls fairly intuitive. There were a few exceptions though: only one enter worked, which will be annoying to num-pad users. The game uses 'c' for help...or controls I guess.

3 - There are tiles and ascii displays. Both look good. Controls are fine. There are nice start, death and victory ascii images.

2 - Definitely worth the time. Winning will take many replays.

3 - The game will take you a few play throughs to get the hang of. The AI for allies is brain dead stupid. Once I realized they were smelling anthills through walls I could use the stink ability to guide them a bit better. It also takes a while to figure out how to effectively use the acid abilities to avoid taking too much damage. In the end, the game is pretty fun and will keep you occupied longer than most 7DRLs.

2 - It's somewhat tedious to dig thru level in search for food pieces.

3 - Really cool new concept. The mechanics aren't new, but the overall goal is great

2 - While there is nothing revolutionary here, the idea of guiding other bugs to food is a neat.

2 - After I played it I was going to set 3. But when I tried to write what is innovative here I understood that it is an insects setting wrapped around pretty much standard gameplay ideas. You need to find items to progress to next level. You have to deal with dumb AI controlled allies. That was done before. You can change ants trying to find food with rebel army agent trying to steal nuclear warheads from imperial storehouse. Just replace workants with cargo drones, ant holes with sewers hatches, mana with energy, acid spit with plasma blast, etc.

2 - Scope is reasonable. I couldn't get past level 3, so I don't know how much there actually is.

2 - The game is about what I would expect from a 7DRL, but isn't an earth shattering scope (particularly given the number of people who worked on the game)

2 - There is level generator that generates very lookalike levels, a few usable items, several enemies and a few abilities to use. Tiles are nice, but as far as I can tell there were 3 people working on this, so I guess it's ok for 7 days.

3 - All the features you'd expect.

3 - The game is clearly a roguelike, in spite of the bugs.

3 - Definitely roguelike.

Pretty great overall. Having to defend your ants while leading them back to the hole is challenging but not impossible. As I mentioned, I didn't get past level 3: the main way to regain HP is to eat other bugs (awesome) and very rare fruit items, but you inevitably lose HP in combat, so I always found myself with no way to avoid dying. Some way to heal, perhaps an MP-intensive ability, would very much help playability.

You should definatly check out this game. The basic idea is that you are an ant, leading other ants in your colony to food. You are assailed by other assorted bugs and you must protect yourself and your allies from them using various abilities such as spitting acid. The game is somewhat challenging and will take a few play throughs to get the hang of, so there is some limited replay value.

I'm a little disappointed with this one. Description said something about smell and how ants are searching for food. But the only ability related to smell is ability that blocks path for workers with stench, which is used extremely rarely. I used it only once when worker ant started to bump into the wall trying to reach ant hole on the other side.

3 - Very polished

3 - Quite complete. Spent about an hour playing and got 40% down into the dungeon, so it's big.

3 - Seems very complete, no apparent bugs in gameplay. The leaderboard seemed to be empty, but that did not affect game play.

3 - Excellent look

2 - ASCII and curses but displayed in a sort of pseduo-graphics style. Most B&W but enough color to add variety.

2 - Pretty neat look of large Ascii liked tiles. The menus were a bit incongruent with the art style and the blocks seemed to be randomly assigned a sprite. This was neat but gave a bit of a haphazard look at times. The controls were pretty solid and it was clear at all times what was going on.

3 - Played for over an hour and didn't realize the time had passed

3 - Fun game in the roguelike tradition. Actually quite similar to the classic arcade game Venture. Real-time.

2 - This is a real time shooter game with enough depth to keep one interested, but one has to enjoy the core shooter gameplay. I did not enjoy the action shooter combat, though it is very well done.

2 - Traditional shooting mechanics, but done very well

2 - A classic roguelike mixed with classic arcade style real-time combat.

2 - There are quite a few shooter RLs out there, but this one has enough style and gameflow innovation for a solid 2.

3 - Surprising depth of skill expansion with leveling balanced quite well for random placement of maps and enemies

2 - Fairly big and deep dungeon. A decent leveling system and upgrades that can be purchased at shops. A fair variety of monster types to keep things interesting as you venture deeper.

3 - This game is not immense, but the variety of power ups, enemies and interactions make it well above average for a 7DRL.

2 - Different genre

2 - It's real-time. Other than that, fairly classic roguelike, including the ASCII graphics.

2 - For me it does not fit in with the roguelike genre much at all. I look for a strategic game with a large variety of challenges and situations. I did not find that here. Still, it has procedural generation and permadeath. Also the classic ASCII vibe, so a 2 is warranted.

The depth is hidden well as the leveling, varied enemy AI, and even game bonuses only appear only with extended play to reach the later levels. The random placement within maps works quite well with its aesthetic choices of ASCII characters as part of the wall and background tiles.

A solid entry in this year's competition. Fun, though perhaps not that innovative or original. Very similar to many classic arcade-style dungeon crawls from the past but with some roguelike elements thrown in. Browser-based, too, making it easy to fire up and jump right into.

This game is a fine example of a roguelike shooter. If you are into action based play, shooting, exploration, dodging, grinding up xp and loot and upgrading your tank/character then this is the game for you. It has quite a few levels, is challenging and there is significant depth in how you can upgrade your character.

3 - No bugs, complete game.

3 - No bugs detected

2 - At first appears well polished but there are at least three bugs. If one of your characters dies but then is healed he can fight again but face remains as X_X. On purchase screen keypresses are registered multiple times. In places where three planes join monsters can be hit for free by side-stepping. This upsets game balance badly.

3 - Awesome graphics, awesome world. Controls very simple and intuitive.

3 - The controls are straight forward, nothing complicated. As for the aesthetics, the game uses nice graphics, but then I guess Unity offers quite a few options.

3 - Sensible keys and pleasant graphics. Seeing walls next to character was sometimes diffucult but otherwise everything is smooth.

3 - Fun cubed! Get it?? Ha? Ha? Fine whatever then.

2 - The game is interesting to play, once you figure out the point. Unfortunately there wasn't much explanation of the items, or that you needed to collect them to buy upgrades or to heal your characters.

2 - I found this game to be very fun and engaging until maps became larger more complex. Navigating the level with small viewport is difficult for me because my spatial memory is weak. Having the map rotate 90 degrees depending on order of plane traversal makes the problem worse.

3 - Very innovative. I have played "cubed" games like this before but the dual persona was quite cool which of course leads to the coin like movement and enemies.

3 - The 3D worlds are quite innovative, reminiscent of Mario Galaxy, and I am eager to see if more games use this approach in future.

2 - Double Rogue could be compared to party roguelike where leading character switches every turn partitioning the map into sort of checkerboard. A great new mechanic. However, to have characters "switch colors" one can make use of 3D properties of levels making the whole premise hardly relevant.

2 - Different monsters, pickups, tiles, gave the game some depth.

2 - Having never used Unity before, I am not sure what it provides. Though for what I observed, this game appears to be on the high end of two.

2 - Some creatures with different behavior modes, several powerups and map generator.

1 - I dont see a roguelike in here.

2 - While this game does have roguelike elements, it feels more like a puzzle game than a roguelike game.

3 - The map is clearly grid based so having third dimension is fine. Lacks items of any kind but has powerups.

This game is based on cubes in three dimensional space, up/down left/right is all relative. Navigation was a bit tricky, even if you got your head around which way you are going, not enough of the map was visible at a time. However this can be part of the fun, but leads to some claustrophobic unavoidable encounters in later levels. I found myself getting swamped by enemies especially if I was unlucky enough not to get many attack upgrades. Luckily the fast paced gameplay lets me get back into the action as soon as I die. The two sides of the coin was a nice concept combined with the coloured enemies, allowing positional tactics to come into play. Unfortunately there is no real difference between the wizard and barbarian, other than colour, some other tactical choices would of been good here, especially against the non-coloured enemies. I found the game really frustrating before I learnt how to change characters for a given square (to allow selective pickup), this skill is vital. This game was quite fun, and challenging, definitely worth a play.

The game is aesthetically pleasing, but the essence of the game is to kill all the enemies on a given level before you can proceed. However the game appears more of a puzzle game than a roguelike, but it is still a fun little game.

Double Rogue presents a brilliant concept: your character is actually a fuse of two! Every step you make switches between them. Sadly, this is where the ingenuity ends. Since the game is 3D you can assure every bonus goes to only one of characters by traversing planes in certain way and it is optimal way to play. This works against the game because it minimizes the double-character aspect.

3 - Ran well, never found any bugs and there was a variety of items.

3 - No bugs found, worked fine. All features are there.

3 - No bugs found, didn't seem to be any missing features. A nice complete game.

3 - Really nicely done. Uses some features of Excel to good effect, such as separate sheets for inventory.

2 - It looks surprisingly well. Controls are somewhat inconvenient, but can be dealt with. There is no visual difference between field of view and explored territory.

2 - Black and white text, nice and clear, standard roguelike control set. Solid.

3 - Has a great sense of humor and a nice level of challenge.

2 - There are hilarious items with humorous descriptions. As well as very strange set of monsters. But other then that it is pretty standard roguelike experience.

2 - There's some very good game player here, with good variety with the character classes. A straight up old fashioned roguelike game.

3 - Using Excel to make a game isn't entirely new, but this complete of a roguelike is great to see. Excel is used well as a UI rather than seeming like an awkward presentation base.

1 - Not taking development platform into account there is nothing really new here.

2 - If this weren't in EXCEL, I would rate this game a 1 for innovation. That's not a bad thing. This game is as straight a roguelike as there is. It being in excel is very intriguing, so I give it a 2.

2 - Nice coffee break sized roguelike.

2 - Noticeable amount of items and monsters, some spells. Just enough for a solid 7drl.

2 - A solid effort with a good amount of content.

3 - Straight out roguelike style in pretty much all classic ways.

3 - Random dungeon, turn based, items management, permadeath. It's roguelike in excel!

3 - This is as straight a roguelike as roguelikes come.

A really interesting and fun game that uses Excel's features to add playability to the game. I particularly like that a stone and a rock are functionally different items.

I was very sceptical while I was downloading it. A roguelike game in excel? Is this some kind of joke? Well. There are jokes, but mostly in the description of items. It takes some time to get used to features of controls, but it really works and it is really a roguelike! And I must say it's hard one.

And now for something completely new. A fully featured Roguelike done in EXCEL! You'd expect a game like this to have all kinds of wonky work arounds, all kinds of strange 'programmery' type things but it doesn't. You can occasionally click the wrong field and accidently start typing over data, but simply hit escape and the problem is solved. This game has quite a bit of fun packed in, 3 character classes, weapons, fruit, enemies with a variety of behavior. It's also hard as nails. I played mostly on 'easy' with the 4 extra stat points and was still getting splattered all over the spreadsheet. Well done boys. This one is a definite standout.

3 - Seems to be complete so far, no obvious bugs or anything.

3 - Game appears complete, and bug free.

3 - Seems very complete. I would've loved a little squooshing sound but I'm not going to fault a 7drl for not having sound!

3 - Great pixel graphics, clear and well-understandable interface.

3 - Simple and elegant graphics, controls are straight forward.

3 - Love the graphics. Cute adventurerers make even cuter skeletons when I squoosh them. Controls are super intuitive and the whole game is explained graphically.

3 - It's hilarious to lie in wait as the unwitting adventurers stumble into your gelatinous traps. The only flaw is that it's too darn short. :)

2 - The game is more a puzzle game than a roguelike, but still fun to play. One complaint is the movement/time bar depletes even when the player chooses not to move for a turn, this could be considered a flaw by some, though it certainly adds to the challenge.

2 - Definitely worth the time to play. I found the time limit a little punishing but that's to be expected for a roguelike. Some slightly varying terrain would've helped, but this was a great bit of coffeebreak style rogulikey fun.

2 - The gelatinous gameplay is innovative, but not really fundamentally different from established mechanics.

2 - Certainly innovative for a roguelike, but then it doesn't play like a roguelike. As already mentioned, this game more properly belongs in the puzzle game category, not the roguelike category.

2 - Very neat twist on the usual roguelike formula. There have been games where you play as a monster but never in so nuanced a capacity.

2 - The typical 7DRL scope, solid.

2 - Appears to be what one could accomplish in 7 days. The entity AI is basic, but it accomplishes its goal. The levels are small so the variety of designs are limitied, but not to the point that there is excessive repeatition.

2 - A solid 7drl attempt.

2 - A tough decision. It stays true to most roguelike definitions, but it just doesn't play like one. Even though mechanically it's 100% roguelike, it's spiritually different IMO.

2 - While this game has roguelike elements, I found it felt more like a puzzle game than anything else.

3 - Definitely a roguelike, albiet but not a very deep one. Systems are simple but permadeath, procedural levels and enemies are all there.

Hilariously slimy. Playing as the monster is always fun, and the Gelatinous Cube is no exception. Unfortunately you run out of jelly way too fast to complete more than one level, and that waiting consumes your resource doesn't help that. Yeah, short games are great because they don't consume a lot of your time, but still. I think this one's a little bit too short. Especially seeing as there is multiple levels, yet I never completed more than one due to running out. Nevertheless, this is a great game design-wise, and has the cutest pixel art of Gelatinous Cubes I have seen so far. As short as it might be, it's 100% pure fun. Go, Gelatinous! Make the world a little more jelly, step by step!

The game is quite polished with simple and clean graphics, and it was quite enjoyable to play. Two complaints are the movement/time bar depleting even when not moving, and the repeat delay is a little long. It does not appear to fit into the roguelike genre, but still a fun little game.

This little flash game is definitely worth a coffee break or two (or three). You play as a gelatinous cube, and you are tasked with ridding the dungeon of pesky adventurers. Adventurers have great abilities like the wizard who throws fireballs and the cleric who (obnoxiously) revives your dead victims. Time limit continuously pushes you to take risks... sitting around the corner and mashing space will not get you very far. Graphics are polished to a shine and the controls are super intuitive. Great job.

2 - A little more polish gameplay-wise wouldn't hurt.

3 - I didn't run into any bugs, and it felt like the concept described in the game rules was clearly present in the game itself.

3 - Mostly bug-free and polished, with the exception of invalid keypresses consuming a turn. This is bad in such a time-critical game.

3 - Solid ASCII, very clean interface. Scalable thanks to the wonders of JS!

2 - The interface is simple and effective. The colonists' names drawing from a library of notable podcasters was a nice touch. The game won't fit in a resolution of 1360x768, so I had to scroll my browser around a bit in order to see everything. Also, moving one square at a time with the arrow keys got painful quickly given the amount of back-and-forth movement the game requires.

3 - neat, clear ASCII. Pods are apparently supposed to be identified before being picked up, but this accomplished with different shades of grey rather than clear text.

2 - It's definitely tricky and very enjoyable.

2 - The concept - save colonists with a variety of occupations, origins and genders in order to save the colony mission - starts out seeming like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the gameplay gets extremely repetitive very quickly. Once you figure out the optimal way to play the game, there's really no room for decision making or for the game to surprise you.

2 - Running time-limited errands while zapping zombies. Unfortunately, even with good strategy the challenge level is inconsistent, depending too strongly on the positioning of the drop-off points.

2 - It challenges RL conventions in a nice way. Yeah, there's your typical running around the dungeon and fighting monsters, but the whole system with the pods and such gives it a unique spin and changes your gameplay goal.

3 - The concept for the game is very original, and I was excited when I first read it. I think the concept of rescuing colonists with different abilities and backgrounds is an excellent idea and could be the basis for a much deeper game.

2 - Delivery quests strongly linked to resource management and combat.

2 - Yeah, typical 7DRL scope.

2 - The game doesn't stray far beyond very basic gameplay. It would have been nice to see a bit more variety. However, what's there is well polished, and the game includes interesting level generation, lighting, and a random name generator.

2 - Content on different levels differs only in numbers and map layout. Levels apparently continue until you rescue your quota of humans.

3 - Even with all the innovative mechanics, this is still a roguelike at its heart, and it shows.

3 - The gameplay feels very much roguelike, even if there is no real player advancement and the combat takes a back seat to collecting colonists.

3 - Permanent death and procedural content on a discrete grid. Deep enough gameplay that making progress requires planning.

Overall, a really solid 7DRL. The aspect of saving/trashing pods is really a fascinating mechanic, and hilariousness ensues if you spot a familiar name among the people in pods. The different tasks combined with the sometimes awesomely complicated architecture of levels leads to a large number of interesting scenarios during the game. My only real gripe with it is that gameplaywise, it doesn't quite seem to adhere to what I perceive as design intentions. As it is, picking up pods while still exploring the level can be suicidal, especially because you apparently can't look into pods before picking them up. Nasty if you're running around with a creeped pod and the spacevent nowhere to be seen. But all in all, IMO really one of the better games of this year's challenge.

Starship Rex is a light roguelike that has an interesting premise, but is unfortunately hampered by repetitive gameplay. You must explore the ship, collecting stasis pods that hopefully contain live colonists. Each colonist has a gender, an origin and an occupation, and you need a diverse set of survivors in order to win the game. However, some stasis pods contain dead colonists that need to be recycled at the Mortisserie (whatever that is - I like to think it's a cross between a morgue and a buffet), and some contain "creeped" colonists (the story is very light on details) that will suck your life and eventually hatch into enemies unless you shoot them out the nearest airlock. Unfortunately, once you understand these basic elements, there aren't really any decisions to make or surprises to uncover. The dominant strategy seems to be: Explore the level and find the airlock, medbay and Mortisserie, clear out all the enemies, and then take pods one by one to their respective destinations until the level is empty. There's no real reason to go to the next level until there's nothing left in the current one, so you end up going back and forth across the level twenty-some times, which isn't much fun at all. Maybe this could be improved by having the level slowly fall apart, so that there's some strategy in deciding what to take and what to leave behind? In the end, I think that while Starship Rex has a good idea at its core and feels very polished, it could seriously benefit from some more work on adding depth to the gameplay.

Run around a spaceship delivering pods to one of three locations depending on whether they're alive, dead, or zombies. Zombies eventually break out and try to kill you. The same resource is used for combat and preservation of pods, making them gradually transform from shields to liabilities. Currently the game's unbalanced because of the gigantic maps and widely-varying distances between drop-off points. With a more consistent challenge, some more varied enemies, and perhaps an active role for rescuees, this could become an excellent coffeebreak roguelike.

3 - The game runs just fine, with nothing missing from the gameplay.

3 - No bugs detected, no gaps.

3 - Fulfills its minimal scope very well. Combat and resources seem balanced, maps feel in the proper scale.

2 - The ascii is simple but effective. The controls were easy and documented right on the screen. The only complaint I have is that the pirate speech is difficult to figure out sometimes. I think it added nice flavor, but was perhaps too overdone.

2 - The controls and display are adequate, but a bit lacking in color and variety. The language used can be confusing, but gives it a certain charm.

2 - Color choices appropriate, HUD/UI layout well done.

2 - While the breath/sword mechanic had a lot of potential, in practice the tactics were pretty limited. Once you figure out the mechanic (which doesn't take long), the game loses some of its appeal.

2 - This game is pretty fun, with all kinds of tactical positioning and what not. It just seems to get a tad repetitive. Numerous back and forth seas saw battles, maybe fire your pistol off.

3 - Found myself furiously tapping in one-on-one sword fights, forcing my opponent back against a wall. Heart rate picked up when I was caught in the open by more than one opponent. Mad dashes for the exit if I was overwhelmed. Fun.

2 - I really love the idea of the breath/sword mechanic. It is an awesome twist on the typical bump-attack mechanic. What would have made this game a 3 in both innovation and fun is combine the sword mechanic with special move sequeces and tactical positioning which effects how you attack and parry. This would lead to much more interesting, and much deeper game play.

3 - This game is awesomely innovative in that you stick your little sword out to stab guys. I love it.

3 - I've never seen sword fights like this before in a RL, but I'm admittedly not a veteran player. I liked the dynamics of "catching ones breath" by falling back, and the extra touch of a dead enemy taking a couple of turns to stumble to the ground after being felled.

2 - The game was right on par with what I expect out of a 7drl.

2 - A bit on the low end, but this game isn't about tons of elements, it's that sword stabby and stamina gimmick that carries it.

2 - Solid delivery on a minimal scope. I can see a lot of room for expansion here -- better AI, varied weapons, varied enemies (rabid parrots!).

3 - This game is clearly a roguelike.

3 - Procedural. Turn based. Some resource management if no inventory. Classic ASCII presentation. Definitely a solid example of the genre.

2 - It fits the bill for me.

This game has a really nifty mechanic in the sword fighting and breath requirements. Rather than assume that the weapons are contained withint the '@' symbol, you have to wield your sword in front of you to attack. As you fight you and your opponent run out of breath, which leads to a missed parry and a stabbing through the heart. You have more breath so you can easily dispatch single opponents but fighting multiple opponents requires an interesting ebb and flow between attacking and recovering breath. There isn't a lot of replay value here, but the mechanic is definatly worth checking out.

This is definitely one of the stands out of this year's competition. It revolves around a very well implimented gimmick of sword fighting and stamina recharing. Positioning and rest are crucial to success, or you can just fire off your pistols. What's better your pistols seem to make a smoke screen to aid your escape. Very nice game, I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

The pirate theme was well-executed and appealed to me. Was hoping for more variety in weapons or combat, but I enjoyed it from start to finish and may even play some more to see how far I can get beyond the 3-treasure win condition.

2 - Complete and bug free game, though the mechanics could do with more explanation, and it's super hard.

3 - Had no problem playing it, seemed complete. No bug issues.

2 - Nearly all there, the game worked fine, but really needed more help with the game. There was many undocumented keys that give it a unfinished feel. Took a while to understand how to play the game. No major bugs and at least had some information in a readme file.

2 - I really like the style of graphics and smooth interface movements, but it lacks a bit of polish. You will find that a considerable amount of your FOV will be offscreen before the map moves, and the dark gray tetris blocks are too similar a color to the ground/construction boards to be easily distinguished. When constructing something it would be good to have a clear button, as its epsecially tedious to fail at levelling up (this has been fixed in a post 7drl version by being able to remove pieces once placed). Love the floors.

3 - Perfect. Great controls, mouse if you want, a wonderful and cohesive tetris motif throughout. Just awesome.

2 - Clever use of the tetris feel was used extensively through the game, e.g the floor tiles where tetris blocks. The game world was minimalistic but worked, however I did not like the tile graphics with ascii monsters, but I understand the 7 day time frame is a factor here. Some groovy tetris music would of been ace. A messge log might of been nice.

2 - You will often die at the whim of the RNG, since if you will come across enemies that are effectively immune to your attacks, or you might pop around a corner too close to a strong enemy, and and such events are common. However, I did like this one, and spent good some time figuring out the mechanics. Some good balancing ideas might be for the health potions to heal you completely, and a wider range of maneuverability spells that allow you to put some distance between you and your foe or better pick your fights.

2 - I really liked this game, but the more I played it became just a tad repetitive. Nearly a 3.

2 - The longer I played the game the more it grew on me. The combat system takes a little bit to get into, as does the crafting system, which I guess is what this game is about. A roguelike crossed between Tetris and minecraft. Crafting was interesting, once I figured out how to craft things, however most of the time I crafted with the "cheap" blocks I just lost my blocks with no visible gain.

3 - Even though its difficult being at the mercy of a number of random factors, the combat system is unique and very cool. Careful planning and dancing is required to take many monsters on. Building stuff with the tetris parts you pick up is great, but can get tedious with the large boards of levelling up. The negatives of the features don't outweigh the positives enough to warrant cutting this score down. A well deserved 3.

3 - One of the more striking gimick games this year, took the tetris idea and just ran with it. Great.

3 - Yep innovative it is. A tetris/mincraft crafting system is unique in the roguelike world and it actually worked. The combat is also unique for me (though I assume it comes from a game that developer has worked on in the past). I also like the tetris inspired theme and floor tiles.

2 - A decently sized game, with a range of abilities and a unique central mechanic.

2 - Quite a bit of content. Solid.

2 - There is a crafting system, and upgradable stats (weapons/armour). Each level does feel the same though. Nearly a 3 but about spot on for a 7drl.

3 - Absolutely.

3 - Perfectly roguelike. One of the few games with tons of innovation AND solidly within the genre.

3 - Although not as pure as some roguelikes reviewed it pretty much covers all bases.

In the world of tetrogue, your only items are tetris peices which can be combined into shapes to buff your armor, weapon, or heal you. From the second level onward you will find elemental pieces which can be used to give your armor or weapon an elemental flavour, and with the three elements working in a rock-paper-scissors like pattern, you will have a distinct advantage over some creatures and disadvantage over others. So much so that if an enemy has a fire armor and you have a plain or nature weapon you cannot kill that enemy with bump attacks unless you have a really high attack. Early game this is rarely the case. Two of the classes have abilities that can help here, but they can only be used a limited number of times before resting to recharge, meaning that under duress you will likely be overcome. Its incredibly hard because you will often come into the situation where there is nothing you can do or could have done to save yourself when the enemy you are against is effectively indestructible, or can simply deal more damage or restore more armor over time than you can. With balance though this is definately a game to watch for the future.

This is one of the most striking games of the competition. Totally innovative and fun. If I were to recommend 5 games from this competition this would be one of them. The tetris idea of interlocking pieces is taken to the illogical extreme, and it totally works. Walk around, fight, collect pieces, build stuff to power up your character. Just great man, I cannot recommend it enough. There's a post 7DRL release as well, so check that out.

An unique blend of tetris and minecraft crafting systems squashed into the body of a roguelike. You start the game as one of three characters each with their own stats and skills. You wander around the dungeon searching for enemies and tertis (crafting) peices, enemies drop crafting peices as well. Once you have enough of a set you can craft better armour, weapons, health or energy. You use energy for your skills, therefore energy is in limited supply so skills are better saved until really needed. There is also a rock/paper/scissors mechanic of "elemental' attack/defence that I really did not fully explore but seemed an extra element to give the game more depth. Not a bad effort by any means, I believe the devloper made good use of previous code but which needed to be hidden a bit to give this game a finished feel; undocumented keys were in abundance. These things considered and better help would could make this a real gem.

2 - Took a bit to run (openAL didn't work for all reviewers, required XP mode and "run as admin" on Win7), but fairly complete otherwise. No save function or high score list, though.

3 - Seems feature complete. Music is very fitting.. rare for a 7DRL.

3 - I had to resize my screen to see it all, but that seems typical these days. Bug free as far as I can tell.

2 - The difference between changing orientation and strafing is a fascinating touch. Readme included didn't mention , to pick up items. Wish there was better inventory management and perhaps some color coding between food/scrolls/potions/weapons/armor. Fantastic music, but can be repetitive. ASCII color scheme well put together and fits the mood, though not all monsters in the tower did (kittens?!) Font generally fit the mood, but is hard on the eyes after a while.

2 - A little BROWN for my tastes but the way the graphics are painted -- especially when the view rotates around is very cool. I would love more variety and color in the levels though. Also I found the inventory menu frustrating to use, and I have to count usability in this category!

3 - Great presentation, interesting font, simple and functional control scheme.

2 - Large levels with the orientation changes is easily disorienting. Not many monsters to slay, and once decent armor is had (which isn't hard) it's not challenging....at first. It gets way more interesting later, but the early game doesn't do it many favors.

2 - Rotational field of view is a very cool way to explore a dungeon. The dungeons seemed a little sparse to me though, especially in the early game. And I hate smashing into entry level monsters multiple times. I know the character only starts with a club but just let me kill goblins really easily please! When you go toe to toe with the first monster you see and it lasts 6 or 7 rounds it doesn't quite make you feel very heroic! I found exploration much more fun than the combat. Was also sometimes difficult to tell how much health i had and which the better set of equipment was.

2 - I was originally a bit put off by how basic it seemed, with difficulty spikes that sort of ruined the fun. Then I realized you can rotate, that facing mattered. Very cool. Very fun. Confusing, but I've never had so much fun getting totally turned around in a dungeon/tower before. If not for the difficulty spikes unbalancing the game this would be a solid 3.

3 - A move away from numbers-based combat, and extensive use of conic field of view make this immediately feel different from most roguelikes, even if the basic concepts are identical.

3 - Rotational field of view must have been very difficult to implement, but Tower of Despair executes it flawlessly. So much so that I didn't even notice at first -- of course that's what the game should do! Hopefully more roguelikes tinker with this concept, it adds a lot of interesting exploration bits to otherwise typical dungeons.

2 - Giving this a 2, but it's a high 2. Rotation of the screen is innovative.

2 - An attempt to redefine how field of view in roguelikes works, while stying atmospheric and elegant. Lots of equipment types, interesting potions (self-polymorphing!), and the like.

2 - Solid scope for a 7DRL. A bit on the high end.. but would've loved to see a bit more polish in the menu system.

2 - A good amount of features with the ability to alter many of the features as you see fit. Nice.

3 - Random levels, turn based dungeon crawling, a little bit of item management in the cursed items: roguelike through and through.

3 - Definitely a roguelike! Actually the field of view is even better than the traditional top-down 360-view in many ways. Way more atmospheric.

3 - A straight up procedural, turn based dungeon crawl with permadeath.

A fascinating, atmospheric take with some neat ideas on field of view and combat. There's a lot of potential here if the bugs are worked out. Plus, the music's great.

A great-looking solid 7DRL. In Tower of Despair you are limited to seeing only what is in front of you, which makes for some confusing navigation at first (the screen will rotate around you, and you can "strafe-step" ala most First Person Shooters) but some fun exploration and great atmosphere once you get used to it. Menus are a bit clunky and there wasn't a HUD that I could figure out.. had to sort of guess how good equipment was. Great music that really sets the tone for the game... very tower-y.

This is a very solid entry for 2013. It looks good, plays good, the music changes with the situation. The design choice to not display your health or the affect of equiping items is questionable. I often wanted to know what my best gear load out would be, and how much health I had. I respect the choice but I think it reduced my ability to make informed decisions. Having the screen darken as you became injured helped quite a bit, as did the music cues. I had an issue with frustrating difficulty spikes, but as you get better at the game you learn how to mitigate the seemingly cheap deaths. This is my highest rated game thus far. LATER: I've come back to this game to see if I had perhaps overrated it, that's when I realized all the items, enemies and keybinds can be altered, expanded and enhanced by anyone with a text editor and even the most basic understanding of code...that's awesome. My high marks stand.

2 - "Any key" means enter is either a test I failed or a bug. I am unconvinced the awkward grammar is an intentional message and not a result of procedural setence generation failing.

2 - The game works fine. But I can't really say it's polished.

3 - Everything works, it comes across as a finished product.

2 - With an ironic game like this, I always fear I'm just not getting the joke. So should I complain that there is a bad interface of starting the character naked? Or chuckle at the sly jab on roguelike tropes? The opening screen fills one with dread over a bad roguelike, but then the game uses very clever extended ascii symbols in novel ways? There's a very cool inventory system with a fast wield mechanism - which seems almost designed to leave you accidentally flailing at enemies, like any good nethack player with a pickaxe. Plenty of unnecessary keys are used to activate, again, mistake or plan?

2 - It's ascii with unusual choice for empty space - underscore symbol. Ingame help is missing one very important key - p, which stands for pray. Without praying for items it is (almost?) impossible to win this game.

1 - It's kind of ugly - the tileset/layout could be better, and the keybindings could have done with some more work. It's sightly inconsistent that you wield your armour but you can't wield your weapon - instead attacking with whatever is selected in your inventory. A few improvements in usability could have helped.

3 - While the actual balance of the prayer and donation is unclear and could use more clarity, one can pick up enough to start having an excellent time. The very clever messages from the god at spice to a game that would have been as fun without!

2 - Figuring out how to deal with different types of monsters was fun. And there are some non-trivial monsters.

2 - There are some ineresting and challenging enemies - including some that hurt you when you kill them, or leaves permanent trap tiles behind when they do. While it's interesting it also proves to be somewhat frustrating.

3 - The titular mechanic isn't particularly novel, but the monsters that you find within make up for it.

2 - On a larger scope there is nothing really new there. But there are some interesting monstes.

3 - Interesting praying mechanics, you can wish for items to survive or for magic weapons to defend yourself. Luck plays a large role (which you can influence with the right items) and the enemies are varied and interesting.

3 - Almost expect to run into the kitchen sink. Properly done procedural weapons/armour. Interesting and varied magic items. Time-based enemies, glass window panes that add an entire new tactic to combat! The whole god system almost pales in comparison.

2 - Just fine for a 7drl.

2 - It feels like it's the right scope for a 7 day roguelike.

3 - yep!

3 - It's a roguelike.

3 - Pure roguelike. Lots of nethackesque jokes and stuff.

Appeasing the God leads you into yet another dungeon crawl, Its ironic take on the matter has you performing literal windshield kills as you fight past speed bump monsters. All too often this sort of thing is done as a re-naming of your traditonal orc and goblins. Not this time - the monsters truly match the theme!

The game was a little frustrating at first, but once I figured how things work, I found it interesting. It's a hard game and you must rely on luck a lot, but at the same time it is short, and with some experience you can go deeper and deeper even without lucky prayers.

A 7 level maze that is full of roadbumps, loaded dice and stacked decks. You'll have to take control of your luck to make it through this game. A bit of twisted humor and some devious and challenging enemies, what seems like a simple concept provides much challenge. Worth playing.

3 - Appears complete. Manual has bad line feeds for Notepad.

3 - The engine is solid, I didn't come across any bugs. A good variety of items to pick up, and good descriptive information about the enemies. Mac and Windows binaries are included, and apparently it can be made to run on Linux, although this takes additional work.

2 - Unfortunately, there are some bugs. I have tried to run the Love file directly, but it did not work (maybe the sources are not complete?). The game crashes when trying to use another armor module while already using one. Other than that, I think that the game is complete.

1 - A true roguelike in its use of keys! The rotate/forward/back command set actually means this is a time that WASD would be appropriate, but arrow keys are cool. But then when targeting the arrow keys switch to north/south/east/west? And targeting doesn't auto select a target? And I hit 1 to fire my gun, but have to hit space to confirm, not hit 1 again? Picking up a full gun to swap out doesn't work, I have to first drop my old slot, then pick up into the slot. The graphics are respectable and balanced, but the trees were a dangerous choice. It is very unclear where you can move because you can move under the tops of the trees. When sight is so important, it is important the rules of sight for the player match those of the top down - shifting the trees to that perspective makes two conflicting rules.

3 - A fully graphical tileset makes this very accessable, and it's always pretty clear what's going on. There isn't a huge variety in tile types, but what there is feels consistent.

3 - No problems. However, IMO it makes no sense to have player's facing direction if we can change this direction immediately at no cost. It would be better to let the player look in all directions.

2 - A nice stealth game - it was fun sneaking up to the robots. It is well done in that the robots aren't too smart either.

2 - The unique mechanic makes learning to play this interesting in itself, and the high difficulty and good variety of inventory items you can get keeps me coming back, despite the fairly samey combat and lack of variety in enemies.

3 - I would like to play it more... so 3 is deserved.

3 - Pure stealth roguelikes are always good. This follows most of the standard tropes, but must gain credit for following them well. The graphics are used well to add facing to the enemies in addition to their LOS to help you judge their turning directions. Overlays when they alert also help a lot.

3 - Doesn't play like any other roguelike at all, and the mechanic is enjoyable rather than just gimmicky.

2 - I think this stealth-grid-turn-based game has been done in an innovative way. A strong 2.

2 - A very nice set of things made it into this game! Lots of interesting items, contributing to the stealth gameplay. make for a lot of variety from game to game.

2 - Not massively ambitious - the map consists of randomly placed trees on a snowy landscape, and there aren't very many enemies - but most of the attention has been paid to polishing the features that are present, so this can be forgiven in a 7DRL.

2 - Several types of enemies, weapons, and other items.

3 - With the random equipment pickups, the random maps, and the single-mode of gameplay, this easily is a roguelike.

1 - Aside from the fact it's top-down and turnbased, it's quite far from a traditional roguelike. Movement is handled in an unusual way - you rotate your player, and walk forwards (or backwards). There's no maze or levels to descend as such - you just have to get a certain distance from the start in a landscape of random trees.

3 - I think it is roguelike enough for a 3.

In ColdRL you must battle against both heat and blood loss as you try to escape. Winning is a mere matter of travelling 600 meteres outwards from your start, but you won't make it without taking out a few of these robots first. And they *will* take you out in a fair fight. So I guess you aren't going to be fighting fairly then, are you? ColdRL does a nice implementation of a stealth roguelike to make for some interesting gameplay.

A game focusing on stealth and planning - you move and turn independently, and have a limited field of view, as do the enemies. Arrows give you hints about what they're about to do. Your goal is to get a certain distance from the start, in any direction, but this becomes increasingly difficult. You cannot easily survive a conflict with more than one enemy at once, and you must pick your battles carefully - however, you can't just avoid all the enemies either, because you need the heat packs some of them carry in order to survive long enough to make the goal. The cold mechanic is obviously there just to put this pressure on you to fight or flee, but it's a formula that works, giving you a sense of urgency. The game is hard, and you're forced to develop a strategy, which makes it surprisingly replayable for such a simple concept, without feeling like you're having to grind your way through. However, you often find yourself in combat situations you simply cannot win, or are killed by enemies you didn't even see - running away is not an option, as most enemies seem able to keep up with you and shoot - so trying to play for an extended time can end up quite frustrating.

A roguelike with an innovative stealth system. Your purpose is to escape from some robots hunting you. You can escape in any direction you want. You can use weapons, and some helpful items. I have escaped roughly 300 of 600 meters, and I think I will be playing more.

3 - Game ran just fine. Clearly a lot of work went into polish.

3 - Complete and reliable. Played through to completion in an hour or so. A couple of impossibly positioned ladders, apart from that no flaws seen.

3 - 100% complete by virtually any measure I can think of.

3 - While simple, the sprites were very nice looking and fit perfectly with the theme.

2 - Tile graphics are simple but effective. Also of note is the writing: lots of descriptive passages chiseled into rocks and in the description of books add flavour to the game.

2 - Functional graphics, no sound, the typing mechanism works well, but the hotkey dance near the end strains the UI

3 - Overall the game is great. I could see some folks being bored by the puzzles, but for me personally it was a lot of fun (thus the 3). My one complaint was in the portculius area. By the last puzzle in this area I was sick of them.

2 - Quite a fun game: I enjoyed solving the puzzles and discovering the magic spell words. Some of the mazes / retracing steps got a bit tedious after a while though

2 - Overall a very weel made game, but a bit too long, both in some puzzles and in the number of puzzles. More than one spinner puzzle, two teleport puzzles, more mazes than I could shake a stick at. Each was fun by itself, but overall too much.

3 - Procedurally generated puzzles are not standard roguelike material.

2 - I liked the magic spells - a nice mechanic if you're a purist and don't mind writing a few notes down during a game. Importantly, you can bind spell phrases to function keys to avoid typing them out every time!

2 - An interesting puzzle mechanic, like taking all the puzzle in a full length RL and stuffing them in a gauntlet. Use of yelling spells is also interesting, while as old as RPGs themselves, I haven't seen the mechanic lately.

2 - The game scope was on par with what I would expect from a 7DRL

2 - A pretty decent scope for a 7DRL. No items and not much combat, but a nicely designed world with quite a few different puzzles to solve.

3 - Lots of puzzles, decent enveloping story, interesting lore. More than your average 7DRL.

2 - Lack of inventory, combat, death, etc makes this less of a roguelike, but the game is definatly roguelike inspired. I would love to see elements from this game put into other roguelikes.

2 - Mostly roguelike, though feels a bit more like a puzzle solving game. No hitpoints, stats, items or permadeath (though lack of permadeath is probably a good choice in this game - it's easy to make a mistake and die!)

2 - More of a puzzler than a roguelike, felt like a throwback to the Adventures of Lolo and Chip at times. Puzzles have PG elements to them and I think the overall layout of puzzles is PG as well, so enough for a 2 at least.

The game consists of a series of intra-related puzzles. After solving each puzzle you learn rune words which allow you to teleport to other puzzles, and learn spells which help solve some of those puzzles. The puzzles are procedurally generated using your name, so each time you play under the same name, the world is the same. The effect is that you need to get out paper and pencil (or a textfile and vim in my case) and write down the rune words as you discover them. Most of the puzzles are pretty fun to solve, and overall the game is really fun. My biggest complaint is that the nature of the puzzles makes this game less replayable than some. Still, of all the 7DRLs I've played, this is one of the better ones.

This is a good little game: halfway between a puzzle game and a roguelike with some nice descriptive touches. The key gameplay feature is learning the words to different spells in order to solve a variety of different challenges and gain access to different areas.

Malachite Dreams is a hybrid Roguelike/Puzzle game where you solve a series of 2-5 minute puzzles to learn spells to unlock more puzzles in an enough to solve a riddle. The puzzles are fun and finding tricks to solve them is engaging, but there are more puzzles than content and the makes the game drag towards the end. It's a bit long for a coffee break, probably close to an hour in length, but if you like positional puzzlers, it is worth a try. Also, try to guess the final riddle early, it is worth the effort.

2 - Pretty polished graphics and sound. I suffered some occasional slowdowns. Doesn't seem to be any end / objective other than to enjoy the experience.

3 - Complete, no bugs. Dynamic music shows surprising amount of polish.

2 - Mostly polished, but a few bugs with enemy behaviour and player abilities. Balance needs some work.

2 - It's a pretty game. I love the combination of colours and music.

3 - Love the look of the tiles. Also great that I can't really tell it's the T-engine. Controls are obvious where they need to be and mysteriously vague where they should be. (There is a spoilers menu however, which is nice) Starfield!

3 - WASD or arrow keys. Some move combos don't activate when you expect them to. Very nice look. Music varies from tense to cacophonous depending on map state and listener, could use a wider variety of pitches.

2 - Good fun, mostly for the tactile feel and the very interactive graphics and sound. I found some of the gameplay a bit frustrating:enemies are immortal at the edge of the map, so you can spend a lot of time waiting for them to move to positions where you can defeat them.

2 - Lots of frantic fun. I could never find much in the way of strategy though, it always felt like I was just rushing to finish off monsters. Definitely worth a play, even if just for the music.

3 - Dash around a grid with a paint palette, and choke miscreants to death using the most colourful noose ever!

3 - Very Innovative game, with a pretty unique feel thanks to the musical effects linked to the map state and the "boxing in" tactics.

2 - Not a lot of roguelike systems but having music and patterns be so involved in a roguelike is quite innovative.

3 - Very dynamic environment heavily intertwined with gameplay. Borrows a mechanic from Go. Both very rare or unseen in roguelikes.

1 - Pretty simple. Not too much depth. But the content that is there is good!

2 - About the size/scope I expect from a 7DRL.

3 - Deep gameplay, varied enemies. More levels than enemies - could be compressed into fewer levels. Most enemies can be beaten with the same kind of strategy, but I haven't seen them all yet.

2 - It is semi-roguelike. It involves turn based tactics, works off a grid and the enemies are letters. No items, character advancement etc.

2 - I wouldn't call it a roguelike but there are definitely roguelike elements. Turn based, procedural enemies. Not any real item/resource management sub-systems though.

3 - Procedural maps generated by player, permanent death. Selection of enemies seems more random than procedural.

It's fun to play - I particularly loved the way that the sound is genetated by the map. As a game I felt it was a bit lacking in depth and variety but it makes up for that with all the pretty colours and noises - congrats to the author for making a colourful musical toy in Roguelike style!

This game sounds great. The dynamic music generated sounds like something straight out of a film score. While attempting to fill the entire screen with a beautifully colored mosaic, you are thwarted by enemies. You can box these enemies in qix-style to destroy them, which makes for some tactical, if somewhat frantic, gameplay. Visually it looks amazing and I keep leaving the music on in the background. Definitely not a hardcore roguelike, but definitely worth a play.

So far this is the 2013 7DRL that I've spent most time on, because it's a fun pretty roguelike with totally new mechanics. It's currently marred by imbalance, bugs which artificially increase the difficulty, and monotonous music. Strategy for most levels is the same - keep going around the edge of the map until the enemies forget to make a hole in the circle you're tracing. Once a critical mass of enemies is reached, all other strategies become ineffective. With the bugs fixed and other strategies made more practical, this would easily become a regular play.

3 - Very complete! Seems stable, several different weapons and kinds of enemies.

3 - Seems pretty complete and polished. No bugs encountered.

3 - No bugs detected

3 - Looks great, the keys are a little strange but it's well-documented. Just takes some getting used to

2 - While ASCII, the graphics here are aesthetically very pleasing. Controls are explained in detail, but are a bit needlessly convoluted. Your health is not displayed anywhere on-screen and having to switch to another status screen just to check it is annoying (though this does appear to have already been fixed in the post-7DRL version).

3 - The controls were sensible, nothing too complicated. As for the game's appearance, this what I would expect from a roguelike game.

2 - Pretty fun, what with the firearm system and all. The only problem is since the levels are non-euclidean and it's impossible to clear rooms, you don't really get a sense of progress, more just wander around shooting things until you win or die. Exploration is sort of pointless.

1 - Pretty boring, really - largely because of the zelda-esque room-based level layout. Typically gameplay consists of simply standing in the doorway of the room shooting everything that comes towards you. When they're dead, pick an exit at random and then rinse and repeat until you either run out of ammo, are one-shotted by something lurking the other side of a doorway or win. There seem to not be much else in the way of valid tactics - since enemies respawn the second you step out of the room even retreating is usually not beneficial. While it initially seems to promise some compelling lovecraftian atmosphere this is completely undermined by the gameplay mechanics.

2 - The is nice to play, but the difficulty of surviving long enough to use the other features of the game is a little disappointing. Ramping up of the skill level more slowly, would have made this non-Euclidean romp that much more enjoyable.

1 - It's well-executed but fundamentally there's nothing but wandering around killing things.

1 - Nothing that Infra Arcana hasn't already done much better, with the possible minor exception of the 'non-euclidian' (i.e. overlapping) level geometry.

2 - I'm sure non-Euclidean geometry has been tried before, but for the games I've reviewed this year, that is certainly novel. I would have enjoyed exploring this landscape further, but I never managed to survive long enough to visit three or four rooms.

3 - Pretty impressive for seven days, even if it's all ASCII graphics.

3 - Seems to be a fair amount of different items and equipment types, several different types of enemy (though without many distinguishing features besides the name) and even some NPCs to chat to (if you don't accidentally kill them first!)

2 - Since I am not aware what non-Euclidean geometry the author chose for this game, I am not sure if this would merit a score of three. Spherical geometry is non-Euclidean and while it certainly would be different, I don't think many people would think that to be too challenging for a 7 day roguelike.

3 - Yeah, definitely an RL.

3 - Yep.

3 - Very much roguelike

This was pretty fun. You go through a randomly-generated maze, fighting Lovecraftian horrors. It doesn't feel very themed (you could rename the monsters to be orcs and it would play about the same) but it's not bad. A lot of the combat uses firearms, which have to be reloaded and have ranges, etc, which works pretty well. It's cool to be blasting away at something slowly shambling toward you.

This is an interesting and good-looking roguelike inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, however unfortunately only in the same way that a lot of other roguelikes are 'inspired' by Tolkien - i.e. it takes place and enemy names from the Cthulu Mythos, but not a lot else. There is not really any sense of horror built up and gunning down wave after wave of Mi-gos and Yithians is hardly setting-appropriate. The non-euclidian levels are a feature that sounds good on paper but ends up hamstringing the gameplay since it makes any form of forward planning or positional tactics fairly moot - a more traditional dungeon layout would have resulted in a much better game and would have allowed the otherwise fairly solid mechanics to shine.

I had pretty high hopes for this game, it certainly had the classic roguelike graphics and controls. However I was never able to get into the game because of the frustrating level of difficulty, I typically managed to visit three or four rooms before I was dead. That made the usage of non-Euclidean geometry pointless, since I never visited enough of the map to observe its effects. The lack of healing items made progressing a very rapid war of attrition, and with all the creatures moving every turn, you are not able to out run or out maneuver them. This could be an interesting game, the author just needs to ramp up the level of difficulty a little more slowly, and possible have a few health items laying around or dropped by creatures.

3 - Very polished feeling, no bugs, no missing features.

3 - Appears to be complete, no apparent bugs

3 - Feels pretty complete. Not too long, but all the features are there with no obvious bugs.

3 - Lovely and functional graphics that suit the game well. The smooth movement between tiles is especially nice. I thought the direction facing controls (ctrl+arrow key) would be frustrating at first, but once I got into play it felt very natural and worked really well. Top marks for a great interface here.

2 - Graphics a simple and the main character appears to be hand drawn, certainly adds a unique touch.

3 - I love the cutsey theme, it works perfect here. The controls are simple and tight.

2 - A high 2, because the basic mechanic here works really well. It has both a puzzley and chess-like feel, where you're counting moves ahead and planning your actions to get the most efficient outcome. However it's not all that compelling on replays - once you've mastered it the game has little to come back for.

2 - A fun little game, the goal being to avoid the mice that are chasing you and make it to the exit. The game can be quite challenging given the small size of each level and the number of assailants chasing after you.

3 - While what is fun and what isn't can be according to taste, for me this is a highly recommended game for its fun factor. For a simple game there is some definite strategy here, some semi complex manuevering. It could have been a bit harder maybe, but for the skill level of the average gamer this one hits that sweet spot, that intersection between tough and fun.

2 - The direction-facing mechanics are innovative and work very well in this game.

2 - The game is different from the hack and slash genre, but then it feels more like a puzzle game rather than a roguelike game.

2 - Turn based puzzle games are fairly common, and Nya Quest is one of these.

2 - There are only a few levels and 2 enemy types, though it's enough to keep one well entertained. The real "Scope" is in the basic mechanics themselves, which are done nicely. There's certainly room for expansion, mind.

2 - The scope appears about what I would expect for 7 days, but treading dangerously close to being just an @ on a map.

2 - This is about what one could expect from a 7DRL, it's a bit on the light side with content. Only 4 levels and 2 baddies, but the levels are well designed and procedural, the difficulty ramps up well and the behavior is challenging. So though it doesn't look like a ton of content, there is quite a bit happening in the code.

3 - Procedural levels, permadeath, turn-based, and with a solid roguelike feel to the play.

2 - While this game has roguelike elements, I found it felt more like a puzzle game.

2 - Though more of a puzzle game than a dyed in the wool roguelike, this game has permafailure, procedural contant and turn based play. Some sort of inventory or resource managment would have gotten this game a 3, with a bullet.

Nya Quest put you in control of a cute cat battling vile mice on a holy quest to attain a ball of yarn. The real core of this game is how you can manipulate the facing of enemies to land a hit without receiving any hits back. It means a lot of movement about in battle, keeping a close eye on enemy position and facing, trying to manipulate things turn by turn. It's a small but polished game, and it explores this facing mechanic very well.

The game looks cute with the hand drawn main character icon, and the levels while relatively small do provide a challenge, especially with the presence of several assailants chasing the main character. The addition of two varities of assailants with their differing AI, adds to the challenge the game offers. Certainly worth playing several times.

For some this game might be a bit too simple or short. But in the context of the 7DRL this is one of the standouts. A nicely tuned little strategy game with a cutsey cat and some dastardly mice. If you want a quick fix and some minor brain burns, this is the one for you.

3 - Seems complete, no bugs encountered while playing.

3 - Feature complete, everything worked well, everything seemed to be working, no bugs. Could have benefited from an outro for the victory.

3 - Runs well, only bug found was that the UI breaks when resized, but this isn't too critical.

2 - I really liked the old-school look for the game, the style was consistant and distinct. The interface was clear and simple.

3 - Stellar graphics and controls. They really captured the feel of those old school dungeoun crawlers. Bit more space around the movement buttons, to prevent mis-clicks would be helpful and maybe map feedback on sercet doors found.

3 - Attractive, nice controls and nice UI. Graphics are consistent and clear.

2 - I greatly enjoyed playing through this. I have yet to finish it, but it is one I could happily return to again.

3 - Another week of work and a soundtrack and I would pay cash money for this game.

2 - Run around the dungeon, collect weapons and potions and stab monsters. Fun but nothing ground-breaking.

1 - it's a pretty standard roguelike, about all that sets it apart is the visuals and the simplicity.

2 - We've seen first-person roguelikes before, but this is the first I've played that has seemlessly incorporated the dungeon crawler control scheme.

1 - Nothing out of the ordinary, although everything is well-implemented.

1 - Standard affair, could be expanded on much further. I'd be pleased to see a post-7DRL update to expand the content.

2 - A lack of a plot or theme elements keeps this from being a 3, but it is still an impressive undertaking for a 7DRL

3 - Full dungeon layout, potions, weapon enchantments, multiple monsters, traps. Everything has graphics, too.

3 - it is most definately a roguelike.

3 - All he major and most of the minor RL elements are present, only presented in 1st person instead of top done.

3 - Very much a standard roguelike, albeit from a first person perspective.

I have a few small issues with the interface, such as the fact the map does not indicate which way the player is facing at any time - which made orientating oneself rather difficult without moving. I also could not find key replacements for looking left/right, though that could just have been me not being very sensible. Overall, a very solid game, with very good visuals.

Rogue's Eye is a roguelike presented like a Dungeon Master title. You crawl the procedurally generated dungeon, find loot and exterminate monsters as normal, but from a 1st person perspective. The graphics are a solid blend from somewhere betweeh the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, with a dash of prerendered polygons. Gameplay is quick and straightforward, smash head on monsters to kill them, and you only improve via potions on your quest down to the 7th level of the dungueon. Definitely worth a try if you miss the days of Eye of the Beholder.

Solid Grimrock Mountain-esque dungeon crawl. No fancy features but everything is well-implemented and attractive, an all-round polished game.

3 - Complete as far as I can tell. Occasionally get stuck inside some large shards or in a small gap in a wall, but it doesnt take long to get out.

2 - by the author's own admission this game is incomplete and broken. The 2nd level had no exit I could find on my first run, so I had to restart, none of the shards even blocked movement but it seemed like they should. I was able to move right through them. My character easily walked straight off of the map and into nothingness, don't go too far off the map it seems to lock the game up. I'd give this a 1 except that I'm not sure what the author was going for here. If a neat audio and visual experience was the goal then I guess the errors I found were not too significant.

3 - Ran fine, looks and sounds very polished. Not quite sure if there is an ending but played for a bit without running out of new stuff

3 - While the jittering of the shards can get a little annoying, the game looks and sounds great.

3 - Totally beautiful, nice controls, sound and an neat zoomout map feature.

3 - Top rating here. Looks unique and beautiful, sounds amazing

2 - I found it hard to really get into because I often had no idea whether I was retracing the same steps, especially once you get abilities to move the terrain it becomes a nightmare of navigation and confusion. That said, this game is definately worth a try.

1 - It seemed like there was absolutely nothing to do but wander around. No dangers, nothing to overcome, just pretty pictures and sound. That's neat and all but it's hard to describe it as fun. In one run I ended up just moving in a grid pattern looking for an exit.

2 - It was enjoyable more as an audio/visual experience then as a game experience. Very casual toylike feel to it

3 - Its performance art plus game. Very unique.

3 - I will agree with the other reviewers that this is a very unique and interesting entry.

3 - unique combination of visual style, gameplay and audio mechanics

3 - The mechanics and level layouts make this a very solid effor for the 7 day period.

2 - With the music and alterable terrain this has a solid scope.

3 - the gameplay wasn't very deep but took a solid design and made it very polished for a 7 day project

1 - Nope. The level layouts are procedurally generated but simplistic, and one or two levels down they become totally malleable.

2 - I'll disagree with the other reviewers that this is not a very roguelike game. It has that sense of exploration, it has procedural content, inventory to find and use, it's real time but hardly twitch based. It's top down sort of dungeon crawl. It certainly lacks some of the more classic elements, but there's enough here that I can see the influence of the roguelike genre.

1 - Great game but really does not feel anything at all like a roguelike

Float around in a sea of triangles and chiming noise. Occasionally peaceful, occasionally frustrating, and often confusing - but there is little that can hurt you. If you dont mind just meandering around looking at the shapes and listening to the sweet cacophony as you search for the black hole to the next area then an overall enjoyable experience.

This is a beautiful looking experience for your eyes and ears. There doesn't seem to be a ton in the way of gameplay, but you can explore around and see all the nifty shards of glass. Very much a cool toy.

The game feels a little out of place here as its very polished and enjoyable but really has nothing to do with roguelikes. The combination of graphics and mellow audio effects make it an enjoyable experience to play with though.

3 - Solid game with lots of nice features, including several different classes, music and sound effects.

3 - opening screen, help files (!), quite polished overall. Could use a high score screen but that's my only complaint.

2 - It seems that you can auto-target enemies that you cannot see. Experience seems to carry over between games (and have no effect).

3 - ASCII but with some cool explosion effects. Sounds are very nice too, adding to the atmosphere.

3 - I love the font used for the characters, and I definitely like the idea of using non-standard fonts instead of pixel art as an alternative to classic console. Color scheme works very nicely, though the status screen is busy (why do I need to know how sensitive everything is to smell?). The sound effects (including voice acting!) are complete and generally nice. Music is a nice touch, but I don't know how well it fits the mood.

3 - Very nice ASCII-like graphics and sounds.

2 - Solid gameplay that can get a bit repetitive. You typicall encounter large groups of enemies. It's turn-based so you shoot at a Geth and then wait for the 10 Geth in the room to each take their turn firing back at you. Gets a bit tedious. Some Geth have an exploding attack which can one-shot you even when you're at full health. That's no fun.

2 - Lots to do here, especially with custom character creation, and the game is fairly difficult. Would have been a 3 if there was more (any?) variability in the levels themselves and if I could tell the difference between armor, shields, and barrier (which made those decisions moot)...and if I could figure out if it's possible to regenerate any of them.

2 - It is quite fun to play, due to the nice theme, and cool sounds and graphics. However, I do not see any strategy for success.

2 - A roguelike set in the Mass Effect universe. Similar to DoomRL or AliensRL but fairly slick in its own way.

2 - the shooting-based roguelike isn't new, but this is still quite different from, say, DoomRL. The different levels of cover are a really great element.

1 - There are "low barriers", over which you can jump in one move, or instakill weak enemies if they happen to be on the other side. I think that this is an original idea which could be developed further, but it is not very developed in this game. Other than that, I see no innovation, so I give only 1.

2 - Some nice ideas, including several different classes. Takes some ideas from Mass Effect like shields and barrier defences, reloading your gun. UI is nice.

3 - Multiple character classes and a customization option is something I don't expect in a 7DRL...even if I'm not sure what the differences actually do.

2 - Some enemies, many types of characters. There is Health, Shield, Barrier, and Armor, but I do not see any difference between them. There is Experience, but I do not see any effect.

3 - 100% a roguelike.

3 - A child of the DoomRL school.

2 - Lacks complexity. I have a feeling that the level is almost the same in each game.

Pretty impressive for a 7DRL. A bit more polish, some tweaked gameplay and it could easily fit alongside established sci-fi roguelike shooters. Sound and graphics are done very well, adding to the overall slick look and atmosphere of the game.

Definitely a game focused mostly on aesthetics, but those aesthetics are beautiful and somewhat innovative (I'd love to see that font used in more ASCII roguelikes). Some ideas could use clearing up, but that could be my lack of knowledge about Mass Effect showing. Still worth a download, though, if only to admire its character creation and its polish.

I have been playing version 1.1. I sometimes win the first wave, but it seems to depend mostly on the AI's decisions (whether the boss has decided to attack me or not), and I do not see any strategy which could be more successful. In the second wave, I run out of ammo, and I see no way around this. On the good side, this game has very nice ASCII-like graphics, sounds, and theme. I think it could evolve into a very good game.

2 - Many minor bits of polish. Messages that end with "!." Unclear switching from sentence to sentence. No prompting to hit space on overworld to dive to the dungeon. With I think assult I started to walk inside walls. When nymphs stole the plate I was wearing, it appeared I still wore the plate.

2 - When released this game had several little bugs, but Slashie, the developer, has continued to refine and fix things. The current version plays without noticable problems.

2 - Complete, but lacks extra oomph.

3 - I'm not a fan of the status messages, but the rest of the display (referring to the ascii 7drl version) is quite nice. The glowing effect is surprisingly not over done. Probably would be frustrating if the colour of enemies was important, but since it is one letter per foe it works well. Vi key support, very smooth game play with the controls being pretty much just arrows and space.

3 - Presented in the ASCII style of Rogue but with a fantastic user interface. There are only a couple of buttons you need to play the game, with arrows and space bar doing almost everything. For ease of play and clarity of display this game has perfect Aesthetics. I urge other developers to follow this example. The updated version of this game is even playable via mouse.

2 - Nice work with color and light. Basic ASCII view otherwise

2 - My main complaint is that the start seems too slow. With 100 hp it is very much a steam roller for a large part of the game. Things get interesting when you start having to manage your rapidly deterioating equipment, but I'd like to see a tighter start.

3 - I've played the heck out of this one in its various releases. There were some balance issues off and on, but there's no doubt this game is just fun fun fun. Getting to pick abilties each level instead of grinding xp for new abilities is a great 'fun' game play choice. Being able to chat up other players is also pretty cool.

1 - Balance is way off, was not challeged by anything in the first 10 levels.

3 - So, we've all seen in-browser games. And we've seen movement based attacks. And the monster abillities are cloned from Nethack. But what this does better than most games, and better than many games that *try* to do this, is have a game where you start strong and get weaker as you progress. Any powerful weapon you find soon breaks itself, leaving you scrounging for daggers (whose 1d6 base makes them best in ruined state) Your strength just is constantly sapped. Your max hp can only go down. And the monsters? They only get more powerful. This contradicts my desire for a tighter start game - I suggest that based on what would be more fun, but the very lax start game really hammers home the end games feeling of hitting the end of your rope.

1 - This game is not about innovation, not at all, but that is not a slam on the game. There are some interesting mechanics, but really this is an homage to roguelikes in the classic style but with an updated interface.

2 - Nice work with getting the UI and inventory to work with a minimal set of keys. Pretty standard fare otherwise.

3 - The entire zoo of roguelike monsters are here. And they are not just throwaway bags of hp, but have the proper special abilities that you'd expect.

2 - There is some nice variety here, not quite enough for a 3, but still very solid. Enough to keep you interested for a few hours.

2 - Standard 7DRL

3 - If this is not a roguelike, what woudl be?

3 - Classic style. Procedural and Permadeath, plus all of the ancillary qualities like fantasy theme, dungeon diving, bump interaction, inventory management and also resource management in regards to weapon durability.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

Most roguelikes are teenage power fantasies. You start as the weak and vulnerabel noob. You train and practice and become a death dealing god that steamrolls the world. Rodney does not look any different on the surface - it has the all the standard mechanics that signal to you that this is the path you will take. But you don't. As you go deeper, your weapons break, and your max hp drops, and your strength wanes. You swiftly yearn to be the carefree noob again, rather than forced to fight a regenerating troll with a ruined dagger.

This is the best example of a straight Roguelike in the competition. An homage to the classic ASCII dungeon dives we all love so much. On first release there were some bugs but they seem to have been ironed out since. Even the name is a send up of The Amulet of Yendor, the original McGuffin in Rogue. If you have played Rogue or Brogue you know exactly what you are getting into here, but this one plays quicker due to its interface. I recommend playing this one for all people who have ever enjoyed a roguelike, there's absolutely zero learning curve and only 1 button to remember. Space bar. Hit it when you want to do something. That's basically the only directions you need. Just jump right in and give it a go!

Standard dungeon crawl, apparently melee only, with positional combat maneuvers you learn at level up. There aren't many options for combat though, and actual gameplay seems to lack balance. Was able to plow through the first 10 levels without having to care at all about my HP. Game froze when trying to go to level 11. Liked the minimalist approach to interface with just the single action button. Could have gone further with that and autodrop useless items like spent torches.

2 - I like the auto-save on quit. Start screen can't be skipped with space or enter which keeps baffling me. Damage reports should clarify it is O2 you lose in combat.

2 - The game works fine, no bugs found. But it is really missing ingame instructions.

2 - It's fairly solid, but there was one very annoying bug - at least one of the levels that got generated had no way across to half the map. Aside from that lack of checking for inaccessibility, it felt like a full game.

3 - Very clean color choice, Excellent font and enemy letters/terrain letters. Bubbles and puffer fish, for example. 'u'sing items is rather hard to figure out, however.

2 - The game looks ok. I think background could be blue on shallow depth and become darker with each dive. Choice of keys is rather nonstandard. 'p' for pick and 'o' for drop. With non-repeating keys you have to tap your keyboard a lot.

3 - Nice, clear use of ASCII characters - particularly the use of tilds as seaweed. The field of view changes in size in seaweed, which is a nice effect. Use of colour is good, the user interface is clear, the message box is clear and doesn't take up much of the screen. It's a very nice style.

3 - The tension between diving and costing O2, the desire to ambush those anemoes that guard juicy treasure, the randomized equipment, all most for much fun as one dives for doubloons

2 - It's rather interesting to figure out types of charms and conches. Exploration vs o2 level choice is non-trivial. But combat is pretty dull.

2 - I really liked the game concept and story. The bug of closing off half the map was irritating, and the enemies seemed a little overpowered but aside from that, it was entertaining. The exploration side was fun, but the fact the goal (getting the treasure) was next to impossible, was quite disappointing.

2 - A very worthy attempt at a 3d roguelike. The big problem is that you are tantalizing close to being able to use the 3d dimension for working around the map, but if you dive where there is no valid target, you just dive randomly. If instead you could only dive or rise into an empty square, and there were two side-screens given your local 5x5 above and below topography, the game might blow open this genre.

2 - Oxygen level as hp is interesting mechanics. Doing too much combat or exploring too much - both might kill you.

1 - It feels like a fairly standard roguelike, with the only distinction being that we're treasure-seeking.

3 - This is a full fledged roguelike that goes well beyond the simple things required to make a game out of the chosen mechanics.

2 - There are several charms to choose from, there are several conches to be used. Nice level generator. It's very solid 7drl entry, content wise.

2 - There are a lot of treasure items, a small variety of enemies, and possible expansion.

3 - Most certainly

3 - Definitely roguelike.

3 - very much a roguelike - permadeath, random generation, look and feel.

In Sunk Coast you are diving for treasure. But these seas are not safe - not only do you have dangerous animals to face, but only have so much oxygen in your tank! Thankfully, there are bubbles of air you can recover some breath from. Remember, however, that technically you have to get back with your loot!

This is the kind of a game which is difficult at first, but the more you play it, the more you figure tings out, the easier the game become. Which is probably nice. You have to dive to the sea floor to pick up some golden doubloons. There are five doubloons and five items slots.You need to make a choice - what items to abandon. Greed might kill you on the way to the surface. It's a really worth to try this once. Killing sea creatures to gain exp and level up seems a little out of place.

Aside from the bugs and the slightly too high-powered enemies, this is a nice concept and quite well excecuted. The look and feel is really good for what it is conveying, and the controls and interface are solid and well done.

2 - It works fine, but there is no start menu and the game end once you die. Which is not really convenient.

3 - Actually quite good. Stable, I liked the death screen

3 - Feels complete and polished.

2 - Ascii in graphical window. Nothing fancy, look ok. Absense of some kind of a meter of eyes dryness annoys a little.

3 - Neither any more or any less than is needed. ASCII graphics but the LOS shading and creepy death screen gives it a suitably scary feel.

2 - Nice feel to it. Graphics are exactly what I need for a roguelike. Controls make sense. Love the death screen.

2 - You have to keep all angels that look at you in your fov. Which is not super hard, but not really trivial.

3 - Just great. It has a mechanic (keep the angels in view) and it strips out anything not needed for that to work. I think "blinking" is a little irritating since it's a random way to die, but the game is a lot of fun.

3 - I died so many times but I kept playing -- the sign of a fun roguelike.

2 - Instead of combat there is fov manipulation. Which is interesting.

2 - A really interesting and cool way to use line-of-sight calculation.

2 - Using line of sight as a game mechanic is a very neat twist. The game is basically a showcast for this, and it does that one thing very well.

2 - It's rather weak 2, but probably ok for a 7drl.

2 - This is an ideal 7DRL, I think. Everything that needs to be there is there, and finished. The idea doesn't need anything that couldn't be finished in 7 days.

2 - Solid 7DRL attempt. Not too huge, not too small, a little off the beaten path. Perfect scope.

2 - It's a roguelike, but it lacks in a depth department. The only thing you can do is to change direction of your facing.

2 - Without combat or inventory or anything it's not the same RL experience, but it's definitely borrowing a lot of elements of the genre.

3 - It's a roguelike, although it is missing more complex resource/item management, it definitely feels like a roguelike because of all of the terror and agonizing over every keystroke.

All you need to do in this game - navigate thru one level to find the key, and return to entrance. While moving around you have to keep angels the are looking at you in you fov. Loose the sight of them for a moment and you are dead. Fov is directional. But you can change facing without moving and lock facing in current direction. Periodically you have to blink. One blink might cost you your life. Blinking is automatic and this is the weakest point in this game. You have no control over blinking and have no idea when you blink next time. And obviously the game lacks in complexity. Your options are limited by moving around and changing facing. No items, no abilities. Bluntly speaking if my life will depend on blinking, I'll use my fingers to keep my eyes open.

Wow, what a fun game. It feels like watching the Dr. Who episodes it's based on, very creepy and sort of frantic. You should definitely try this one out.

Don't Blink! Weeping Angel statues stalk you through a mausoleum. As long as you keep looking at them, they won't move. This game essentially features one mechanic -- line of sight -- and executes on it very very well. You can 'g'lance and 's'tare in order to keep statues in sight. You will die a lot but you will have fun doing it - the sign of a great roguelike. You should probably play this game. Don't blink!

3 - Seems pretty polished and no major bugs encountered (at least, no obvious ones - see Roguelikeness).

3 - I only saw two minor bugs. When you die and restart, you restart on the depth at which you died, where you're now very underpowered. Also, there's a blurry fog of war effect on tiles outside your sight, but you can still see enemies moving around on those tiles (not sure if this is intentional.)

2 - Quite polished, but there are some problems. The player character can move and attack diagonally, and enemies cannot, which allows one to fight the melee enemies without any harm, in some circumstances. I suppose this is not intentional. Also some enemies use ranged attacks like energy blasts and magical spells, the player can find blasters and wands, but it seems that it is impossible to fire them (they seem to be just powerful melee weapons). I don't know whether this is intentional, or I have not found how to fire. I think this should be explained. A very strong "2".

3 - A huge amount of fairly well-done graphics assets. Controls are easy to grasp and the inventory and shopping systems are pretty nicely laid out. It irritates my nerd-gland that Ultramarines are green for some reason, but I suspect it's supposed to.

3 - The graphics are nice, the characters move smoothly, and it's easy to tell what everything is. The music and sound effects are nice and don't get annoying. I particularly liked the wand sound effect, which randomized a bit every time and made attacking feel quite satisfying. The menus aren't perfect (you have to scroll through a pretty small inventory window which fills up quickly) but they got the job done. I also liked the tileset changes as I went down further.

3 - Very nice animated graphics. I think the inventory would be more convenient if items of the same type would be stacked together.

2 - The gameplay itself is fairly simple and without a lot of depth, but it's quite compelling to keep playing if only to see what the next pop-culture reference will be. You can pick up and equip ranged weapons, but don't seem able to actually use them *as* ranged weapons which is a shame as it might have added a little bit more tactical nuance.

2 - The game's pretty easy and mindless. What sets it apart is the setting and the graphics. There aren't any mechanics besides hack-and-slashing enemies and occasionally using a scroll (comic book). There isn't any leveling either - the only progression is going to new levels and occasionally getting new equipment. Doesn't stay entertaining for long, although the new enemies and new tilesets as you descend help to keep things from getting dull too quickly.

2 - Mostly "bump to attack", so not very chalenging or replayable (you can also cast spells from the "comic books", but I think you could win without doing that). However, it is very nice to play, so it gets a strong 2.

2 - No major innovations in gameplay, but the nerd-baiting setting and the humorous analogues between con paraphernalia and roguelike staple items make this a new experience.

1 - Pretty standard mechanics - hack-and-slash, health potions, scrolls, and occasionally a new weapon or piece of armor.

1 - I do not see anything innovative here.

3 - Many levels with a lot of different graphical themes (seriously, I lost count!) and many different enemy and item types. It even has a nicely done winning screen.

1 - Pretty standard gameplay, only a handful of enemies and items. Looks like most of the scope went into graphics and sound, both of which turned out good.

3 - Nice graphics, several spells ("comic books"), types of weapon/armor/healing, and monsters.

2 - A roguelike in most respects (quite reminiscent of Dredmor in many ways) but lacks permadeath - dying just takes you back to the start of the current level (though you lose all items, so it doesn't help much). I wasn't entirely sure if this was intentional or a bug - if the latter then this should be a 3 and it loses a point on completeness instead!

3 - Very much a standard roguelike - randomized levels, hack-and-slash, standard roguelike items, etc.

3 - Roguelike, but could have more complexity.

This is a nicely-done graphical roguelike with a novel and humorous thematic twist and a huge amount of content. However a lot more effort seems to have been expended on cosmetic aspects rather than gameplay ones, which leaves the game itself a little lacking in variety and tactical depth.

A fairly standard roguelike with a bizarre premise - you're at a cosplay convention and everybody has suddenly gone crazy. The theme carries throughout the game - energy drinks replenish your health, comic books let you cast spells, and your equipment items are all costume props. Most of the development seems to have gone into the graphics and sound, and it definitely shows. The characters animate as they move around and attack, and as you descend through the levels you encounter new enemies and new tilesets. If I could change one thing about the game, it would be to make it shorter - each "area" of the dungeon is two levels deep, and I felt like they could have easily been 1 level deep instead. At its current length, the game areas get dull fairly quickly. Although it doesn't try anything new gameplay-wise, Cosplay Mystery Dungeon is a nice example of how polished a 7DRL can look and feel.

A beautifully animated roguelike with a cosplay theme. I have won, and I think it is very nice to play, but it lacks challenge and replayability.

3 - Works fine. Didn't find any bugs.

3 - feels very complete, very polished.

3 - Very much a complete game.

2 - While the inner "cave" is quite minimalist (primary-ish colors on black background), the outer "walls" are nicely shaded and the use of a hex grid gives a nice overall look

3 - Very pretty, the walls were shaded well and the ASCII characters were nice and clear

3 - One of the best looking games of the competition. Good use of hex and coloring. Good use of control characters. I found it very immersive and easy to use. Some may grade this title down a bit for the use of YUHLBN key controls, but after just a bit you get used to them. Also the controls are constantly displayed so you can refer to them when needed. Very smooth.

1 - you basically just have to follow the "corridor", kill mobs using single turn combat and avoid moving walls. The fun comes from the setting, but the gameplay lacks some diversity and challenge (I don't think you can lose except if you're trying very hard)

3 - I really enjoyed playing it - the premise is good and the actual gameplay is fun.

2 - This was a very fun game with a fun theme, but without more challenge I just couldn't give it a 3.

2 - barely any innovation in the gameplay, but the setting is a nice idea and there's innovation on the technology part (node.js on server side and as far as I can tell, some hand written code using rot.js on the client side).

1 - it's a roguelike, but doesn't bring anything new to the genre

2 - Nothing super new here. The theme was nice, the hex is a bit rare. The tail concept is innovative but I'm afraid it didn't get used much due to the lack of difficulty.

2 - random dungeon generation, player tracking monsters and moving walls. That's basically it. It's a small scope 7DRL.

2 - good system with the energy, and the enemy list could be expanded.

2 - Not a ton here, about typical for a 7DRL, perhaps a bit low. What makes it a solid 2 is that it all works so seemlessly. That's tough to do in 7 days.

3 - turn by turn, random level, permadeath. What did you expect ?

2 - it's a roguelike by far, but isn't a very complex one.

3 - Permadeath. Procedurally generated. Turnbased. Enemy variety, resource management. Seems to be spot on.

A nice little good looking 7DRL, a bit short-scoped, but you could easily imagine a much bigger game using the same setting (InnerSpaceRL ?). You won't get tremendous fun with it, but it's still worth a quick try.

Very much a quick, casual roguelike. Very enjoyable for what it is, and the premise is amusing. The visuals are lovely. I finished it on my first go, but I'd be more than happy to play it again.

Some games just have a theme that make you giggle, and this is one of them. You play a sperm going for the egg. So you are running up the birth canal dodging ganglia and fighting diseases like chlamydia and such. You can see your little dead sperm buddies littering the sides of the 'cavern'. Just a ton of fun. I was tempted to grade this title down because of the lack of difficulty, but I was able to sustain my interests by instituting personal challenges. I was able to get the egg with 482 energy left. My high score. Beat that!

2 - Had some bugs, really lacks polish in many areas, but there are many working features in the game. Lacks balance.

2 - The game work most of the time, but crashed several times on last level. There is either no ending or the ending is crashing the game.

2 - progressed through several levels with new monsters and items but crashed a few times

3 - Interface is streamlined, but separate attack commands are hard to get used to. Visual style of attacks is very cool.

2 - Ascii in graphical mode. Looks more or less ok, except for black background on most symbols, while default background is grey. Controls are inconvenient. Move and shoots keys are just too close to each other. It would be more logical to have wasd as an alternative to cursor to move around. Explosions and other sfx look cool.

3 - ascii style graphics but good use of color to show off explosions / weapons. Could have used a bit more on showing off the enemies

2 - It's entertaining the explore the systems and the special moves are really cool. The game lacks challenge and replayability though.

2 - There are some interesting weapons. I wish there were more threatening enemies to try this weapons on. But general awesomness=hp scheme where you replenish awesomness by doing awesome things is a little unbalanced.

2 - throwing grenades in a roguelike is quite fun. Enemies however are very basic and boring and the map isn't very interesting. Needs more 'awesome'

2 - Some cool twists on the special moves front.

2 - Awesomeness as hp which is replenished by doing awesome things is not the thing that you meet in many games. But it's not something that changes the gameplay to something significally different.

2 - Roguelike gameplay with grenades, pistols, lightsabers and mines.

2 - Fairly solid and simple scope. Could have had more attention put on the enemies.

2 - There are several items, several enemies with slightly different behaviour. Not entirely awesome, but ok for 7drl.

2 - core gameplay was there and a few levels to progress but not enough to want to spend more time in it

3 - Turn-based procedural permadeath game with special moves to enhance to usual bump to attack. The procedural element is very light though, with repeated plays being very samey.

3 - Very basic, but roguelike.

3 - All the roguelike elements are there, with the additional explosions as enhancements to core roguelike gameplay

Move in 4 directions but attack in 8, with items and abilities found letting you do some more advanced attacks. The separate move and attack commands will immediately grate on any roguelike veteran, but it's worth persisting with to see some of the cool moves and attacks included.

At first the game looks interesting. But at some point you realize that doing awesome, from the game point of view, things is stupidly simple. This breaks the fun, to some extent. It's still worthwhile effort, an experiment that has it's definite result.

This game shows that roguelikes and explosions do mix. Very good integration of weapons and explosives. Would like more interesting enemies to explode

2 - Mostly put together well, but since you don't deal damage and you can't bypass monsters easily it's really really easy to get stuck.

2 - I really wanted to give this one a 3. It is very smooth with only one bug I could find, but it was a doozy. You could get stuck between 2 guys and not move, causing you to need to reset. It's no biggie if it happens only once in awhile, but it happened so much I had to create a gameplay strategy to get around it. I don't think creating a gameplay strategy around needing to reset is so good.

3 - In one game I got stuck without faith between a follower and a non-follower, and the only solution was restart. The only bug I have found, so 3 anyway.

2 - Music fits the mood well and the controls are minimal but fine. The walls light up a similar color to the hallways so it's a bit awkward to tell where the hallways are at a glance.

2 - I liked the look and control of this game, it gave nice feedback. It used Oryx graphics, which I am a big fan off. The only issue was these strange one off pixels, or lines of color, surrounding some of the tiles. You earn big points for clarity, but those pixels were clear and destracting. But for that I'd give it a 3, I really would.

2 - I really like the player character design. However, there are some bad things: there are small glitches on my machine (some odd pixels above the character images), and healthbars are sometimes invisible due to being obscured by another monster.

2 - It's pretty fun. The idea of only being able to convert monsters which then fight for you is worth exploring, but it's not very well balanced making it easy to get stuck.

2 - I really enjoyed the concept here but there just wasn't enough depth for a 3. With the gameplay bug I was only able to get down to level 3, so there could be depth and fun I did not see.

3 - Very nice to play, and replayable.

2 - Being essentially a bard that can't fight and having a limited amount of charm (that can be refilled with items) is a nice twist.

3 - Not the most innovative game in the competition but definitely earns a perfect score. There may be some character builds in other games based around converting and charming enemies, but this is the first game I've played where this is the main mechanic. Good job.

2 - Game based on converting enemies. I think it is quite innovative.

2 - Has a fairly straightforward idea and explores it pretty well.

2 - I found it about average for a 7DRL, not a ton here but enough for a couple of goes.

2 - I do not think that anything should be added, but it is a very simple game.

3 - Turn based, grid, random maps

3 - Turn based, grid, procedural, resource managment, non modal, permadeath, throw in the fantasy theme for the cherry on top and you get a prefect score. One thing that could be done better is that the procedural content doesn't really change the game too much play to play, but that's a minor quibble in a 7DRL entry.

2 - Lacks complexity.

This one won't take too long to get the idea of and it runs in a browser (with Unity) so it's worth checking out. It's fun to convert the enemies and then move around so that your buddies attack the other ones.

Another impressive entry in the 7DRL this year, Faith In RL should definitely be given a go. There are some wonky issues where you character can get cornered, and some of the sprites have little artifacts, but those are minor quibbles. This is an above average game, has nice graphics by Oryx, is playable with mouse and has a very minimal interface. Meaning no keys to memorize or reference sheet to constantly consult. Very cool. It has sound and atmospheric music to keep your interested. Best of all it is based around a single gameplay feature, I love that in a 7DRL. Here that feature is the ability to convert baddies into your disciples.

In this game, where you cannot attack your enemies, you can only convert them using your "faith" resource. After the conversion they will fight for you. There are only a few types of enemies, and they are very similar, but the game is very fun to play. I want to win, I have to play a bit more...

3 - The core ideas of positional combat with a few different weapons are all there.

2 - The game works but sometimes your character or some enemy is rendered as a blank square. If you go down a stair while being a blank square, you are totally invisible and you have to guess where you are. Quite annoying since turns are not cheap in this hardcore game. Some times, an attack move won't work until you do some wait move.

3 - Very complete, doesn't seem like anything was missing.

2 - Neat style and only four keys. It can be a little hard to know whats going on and why things are changing - especially witht the different weapons. I know that's part of the game, but this would get an easy 3 if it was a little more clear.

2 - gameboy-like 1bit bitmaps. I would have enjoyed less contrast as black on white can be quite agressive after a few games

3 - Has a very unique minimal style that works well.

2 - A neat idea that's well executed. There's not much content and variety, but it's worth a look. The "stand in the corner" strategy is so overpowered that I never needed to do anything else though.

2 - you're back to the real heart of a roguelike stripped down to its simplest form. Every turn must be carefully planed, one mistake and you're screwed. On another hand, if you get bad luck at map generation and can't reach a safe place before starting the fight, you're dead. Once you get the mechanism, there's no real challenge anymore. A bit more variety would have increased the replayability (traps or some spells)

2 - Pretty neat with the various items you can pick up, but basic strategy ends up being very simple.

2 - Every movement affects combat stats. Surroundings affect combat stats. A few simple items also affect combat stats. Lots of things to kill with your awesome combat stats.

2 - as far as I know, taking your surroundings into account in the defense points computation is quite new. Each weapon also updates its attack stats depending on your attack moves. This gives a nice, complex combat system despite using only 2 integer variables (defense, attack).

2 - It's nice that the characters show what items they're using and that the enemies can pick up items.

2 - Random maps a few basic items and basic enemies. The modifiers for position, movement, and interacting with your surroundings are well done.

2 - A nice little game with some richness despite its minimalist look. A good achievement for a 7DRL. Some more help would have been nice (for example I don't understand what the third stat bar represents).

2 - Pretty much the exact amount of content you'd expect in a 7dRL.

2 - It's a basic roguelike. Very basic - but still there. Attack and defence bonuses are the only things that really change.

3 - as roguelike as a (minimalist) roguelike can be

3 - Fully roguelike

Take down swarms of contenders by positioning yourself just right. Shields, potions, and weapons can help but if you step in the wrong place, you'll quickly be outflanked and killed. Super simple to play with a strong focus on tactics. A level can be way too easy if you start near a dead end though. Good thing each level is small. There appears to be special moves with each weapon, but I never noticed much of a difference.

A chess-like, hardcore little game where every mistake costs a lot. Also needs some investment because you have to figure out the rules by yourself. The force of the game is to bring a great deal of tactical complexity with a minimalist set of rules. A must-try.

Runs in a browser so it's easy to play. The images were a bit small on my monitor and it can be a little hard to see what's going on with your stats until you get used to it. The help file and story are nice. There's a lot of potential strategy built in, but the optimal strategy doesn't require any thought about what you're wielding. Because items wear out I never died once I figured out that strategy but did end up in a position where I wasn't doing or taking damage, which is when I self-declared game over and restarted.

2 - Quite playable and winnable. The interactions on each level seem very well balanced.

2 - Almost there, no major bugs but certainly not polished at all. It felt like a game written in seven days. I could not move diagonal which frustrated me a lot. Some levels are instand death traps, e.g. multiple snakes spawning next to you, etc.

3 - Seemed to be complete, no bugs I could find. I didn't not beat the game, but I did get 1 tile away from the amulet!

2 - Looks good. This game does diagonal input in a new way, pressing both arrow keys at the same time.

1 - It really needed to be presented better; while the graphical tiles were nice, the rest of the user interface felt very rushed and hacked together. The "living" dungeon did not really work for me, it was really too chaotic. The inventory almost looks tacked on.

2 - Nice little tiles. I could tell exactly what was what despite them being a bit small. The controls and display were not quite as nice, but they were servicable.

3 - Definitely fun. In addition to ascending with the amulet, it's fun to just watch the levels do what they do.

2 - The game was a little too random to make it playable. Snakes spawn next to level entrances, fires can engulf entire levels. Not having a wait command or diagonal movement detracted from the game. I had to wait many, many turns waiting for a worm to dig a straight tunnel to the exit.

2 - This is a very fun little game, the only issue was in the coral level where I would sometimes have to wait hundreds of turns before the worms dug out a path to the exit. Also you could sometimes start very close to a snake, making the game pretty short. I tried to fight the snakes with various thrown items, but it didn't seem to pan out. So I just ran and avoided them, this didn't always work. Was hoping for a way to defeat the snakes without taking so much damage. Perhaps I just i didn't discover it.

2 - The focus on interactive level elements makes this a novel experience.

3 - Well I liked the idea here. Each levels was different, with different strategy; both in gameplay and level evolution. Loved the worms and their segmented bodies digging out the dungeon for me.\

3 - This game was very innovative in that it created 4 very unique environments. The levels themselves changed, grew and morphed according to lifelike rules. The worms each the grass, which grows on the stone, the stone comes from the coral, which grows from ground. Very nice.

2 - There are several different levels, each with its own play style.

2 - Seems quite simple on the surface, but as you watch how the dungeon levels evolves around you, you can see where the effort was put in. Probably on par for a 7drl.

2 - Kind of a short game. Not a ton of elements, but enough for a solid small game.

3 - Sure.

2 - Lacks exploration, more of a turn-based strategy game. Still some roguelike elements.

3 - Permadeath, procedural content, turn based play. Yep, it's roguelike alright.

This game has a different little ecosystem on each level. You can interact or interfere, or try to sneak past threats when the conditions are right. It might be nice to see the items given a stronger presence, as you can often ignore them entirely right now. Recommended.

Trapped inside a giant game of Life; the dungeon literally evolves around you, with each level having its own ecosystem. However the gameplay itself feels like it is playing second fiddle to theevolving world surrounding the character. Perhaps the game would be better as a peice of living art rather than a roguelike. That said the gameplay is quite simple but difficult to win. Luck and world generation play a large role in success. I could not find a way to wait a turn or move diagonally which really detracted from the gameplay. This made some levels nearly impossible and frustrating. What the developer has done is really quite impressive though.

This was a fun little game. At first it can be unclear about what's going on with all of the snails and snakes and what not, but after a few plays you realize that each level is alive. Just moving back and forth and watching the level develop can be pretty cool. I didn't quite beat the game, though I did get right next to the amulet. Watch out for the snakes!

3 - Entire game here, has help, graphics, animations, the lot. Also has difficulty selection and extensive readme file..

3 - No bugs found. Seems fairly complete and polished.

3 - Very, very complete! Even has a main menu, very impressive!

3 - Looks quite good, music pieces to set the mode, cool graphics and animations, shifting terrain sets and cool enemies.

3 - Very nice tileset and a large variety of different background styles that are good at giving different regions their own personality. Because nothing besides you moves it can be hard to tell at a glance what is an enemy and what is a pickup. The hallucination effect is pretty awesome.

3 - Not many people went for the sprites in this competition, it was a good choice however, I don't see how changing it to ASCII would make it any more roguelike. The HUD is very good too, lets you know what you need to know pretty much instantly.

1 - yes it is mildly fun. Has no replay value though, there are no differing play styles, you really just have to keep your concentration up - dont step into a blind corner, otherwise it is a basic puzzle game.

1 - The elemental damage model is interesting, but because you can only hold one spell at a time it really just means a lot of irritating running backwards and forwards. The game tells you what enemy each element beats, so there is not even any puzzle mechanic of having to figure that out for yourself. The enemies don't move so there is no real danger provided you are paying attention.

3 - I enjoyed it! It was hard, and challenging, and I admit I got frustrated very easily, but it really was fun collecting the pages. The hidden puzzle of getting the right essence to kill the right monster contributed heavily to that and the worry of keeping yourself hopeful kept you on your toes.

2 - Nothing really new here. Get the right rune to defeat the right enemy; rock, paper, scissors. An extra point for animation and the ever-changing landscape.

1 - While its rare for a game to treat it quite this strictly, there is nothing new about an elemental damage system. Enemies that don't move is also quite unusual, but I can't really call it an *innovation*.

2 - Very different, but enjoyable. Kept the roguelike theme but made it into a collecting game.

2 - So the scope is ok for a 7drl. Nothing over the top, very simple premise is literally to find 88 pages. Simple.

2 - Pretty big, with a variety of different zones, enemies and status effects, however as the enemies are static and the spells have no difference beyond the enemy they kill this largely just amounts to graphic-swapping. There are different difficulty settings, although from what I've played it doesn't seem to make much difference.

2 - Randomly generated levels, including differently themed ones is very impressive.

1 - Not trying to be a roguelike. Obviously based on a roguelike, but not a roguelike. Procedually generated content maps is about it. Ok a small fraction of the ememies actually move, but not really enough for a roguelike.

3 - Pretty much a roguelike, although it lacks the tactical challenge of one.

2 - A roguelike, but different. More of a puzzle/Scavenger hunt type game than a roguelike.

Another strategy based game, where most ememies do not move. You are a wizard on a quest to find 88 pages FTW. The landscape is maze-like, littered with unmoving elemental nasties that attack if you get close. If you have the right elemental defence or attack you can move past or defeat them. Due to the ever-changing landscape hard to get pages can be left behind, eleminating the need for any stragegy. Slow down and take you time and you will always get close if not win. Graphics-wise this game is good, but the strategy elements need to be better for this game to be fun and challenging.

A very nice-looking game which has a range of interesting ideas, but they sadly fail to resolve into gameplay of any depth. The game ultimately becomes a fairly uninteresting fetch quest, both in collecting the titular pages and in having to run backwards and forwards to change spell. Just exploring the world is actually fairly interesting, and I think that the game could potentially be quite fun if only the enemies could move (and thereby pose a threat) and if the elemental damage system were made a bit more nuanced.

88 Pages was the most complete of all the games I have reviewed. It is beautifully well designed and an extremely enjoyable experience that was a challenge to play. My only real problem with it was that the instructions, while straight forward, did not go into detail about certain things like how you could lose from depression as well as from being killed. The new elemental types in the differnent areas was nice, it mixed things up enough that it didn't get so repetative as I imagined it would. A fun game and very, very impressive for 1 weeks worth.

3 - Full game, no bugs I can tell except I couldnt figure out how to operate the compass or watch. Not sure if theyre broken or Im doing it wrong, but either way not worth downgrading to 2.

3 - No bugs found. Seems complete.

3 - Feels polished.

2 - Everything looks neat, with clear tiles and cool weather effects. Nighttime is based on annoying the player by darkening the field rather than shortening the actual field of view which I didnt like, and the directional movement doesnt allow for strafing meaning that to move one tile to the diagonal and still be facing the same direction takes 4 keypresses instead of 1.

2 - Low-fi graphical tiles, some of them are really unrecognizable. Even after playing for some time I couldn't distingish sock from boot.

2 - Nice look. Movement controls interact nicely with gameplay. Keyboard commands to interact with items are all mnemonic, but only one of them actually uses the first letter of the word! Inventory interaction requires mouse clicking anyway.

2 - Its a little disorienting at times, but I think thats largely on purpose. Eating mushrooms, which will generally have to be done at least once, will occasionally kill you outright which definately soured a couple of my longer games. Despite these things once you get into the swing of it, have your bearings, and get better at searching as you travel, its a neat survival game and worth a try.

2 - North weather survival is a nice theme, but the game is way too random, in my opinion.

2 - Managing warmth and food resources while trying to walk in the right direction makes for an interesting experience.

2 - There are some good ideas in here that make the game interesting like waterlogged clothes (watch you dont have to strip off in a blizzard!), orienteering via the shadows of trees. The FOV is also unique even if I dont quite think it worked out too well.

2 - There were 'survival in cold weather' games before, but this one have it's own unique features.

2 - Intricate clothing system with layers and damage, a rotating display with direction-finding mechanics, and an unusual objective. Temperature has been done before, but this is a new take on the idea.

2 - A perfectly sized game.

2 - Just fine for 7drl.

2 - About right for a 7DRL.

2 - A low two, there is turn based movement, but its only relevant when updating coldness and chasing rabbits. The world is randomly seeded though, and there is character progression and what seems like increasing difficulty as time goes on.

2 - It's random and turn based, there is inventory management, but that's all. Probably just enough to call it roguelike-like.

3 - Ticks most of the boxes. Tactical combat replaced with extra resource management.

Dropped naked from a plane onto a snow and ice filled landscape, all you know is that salvation lies to one of the compass directions. So you grab your parachute for a makeshift blanket, that tattered left sock you notice sticking out of the snow, and boldly head off in that direction! ... No wait ok, so its getting dark and the sun sets in the west and that means if the shadows of the trees are facing that way then... THAT direction! Hah! A False Saint, An Honest Rogue is a survival game with a unique and initially confusing method of movement where the arrow keys will change the direction you are facing, and you can only actually move forward and back. Its made even more disorienting with figuring out which way to go via the sun (which is only reliable at sunset and sunrise). Once you are over these things though, and have your bearings, its rather fun to trudge through the snow occasionally looking around for food or clothing to keep you from dying, and hoovering up the trinkets left behind in the snow by others. I think if the FOV and movement is worked on a little more, some extra content like combat and other things to do except get to the end asap, then this game will definately be one to come back to.

Survival in a nothern wilderness. Don't starve. Don't freeze to death. There is a lot of items scattered around. But you don't have time to collect them all. Spend your time wisely!

A harsh non-combat survival simulator in a procedural environment. Novel survival mechanics make up for the lack of tactical combat. Temperature mechanic is forgiving enough to give you time to find clothing and interesting before dying, and shadow mechanics make it possible to win without having to find said items. Navigating around obstacles feels awkward because the map display changes every time you change direction (so taking a single diagonal step takes four keypresses).

2 - Works fine. But often generates impossible levels.

3 - Very solid game with no discernable problems. Some puzzles/maps seem unsolvable -- my only complaint and an understandable one.

3 - This game runs fine. No real bugs. It may seem at times there is an impossible situation, but once you learn all the tricks, like walking through spikes, these seem to be very few and far between. So it gets a top score.

2 - Simple grayscale pixelart. Serves it's purpose well. In some situations I felt like the character is doing not quite what I expected him to do.

3- Black, white and gray. Clean and easy to understand icons. Has that retro pixel look.

3 - Very functional black, white and grey graphics. Everything looks like what it is.

2 - It's fun to figure out what you can and what you can't and increase the high score in the meanwhile. But once you learn the limits, the gameplay becomes repetitive.

2 - A puzzle, 2D platformer. Turn-based and requiring some thought for each move. Can get a bit repetitive after awhile and you'll often find yourself in a situation you can't get out of (only option is to die and start over).

3 - Very fun, nearly gave this a 2 because it can be a tad repetitive, but later in the game things mix up a bit.

1 - It's hard to judge how innovative it is, since it's not a roguelike. There were turn based platformers before. There were 'bump the tile above you for something to happen' platformers before.

2 - A clever game but seems reminiscent of various platformers from the NES and SNES era, and even before that (Loadrunner, for example).

3 - I've never seen something like this before. Not even close. Very innovative, perhaps the most innovative game so far.

2 - There is an absolute minimum of elements to be moderately fun. It's a very weak 2.

2 - Doesn't have a massive amount of depth, but accomplishes what it set out to do (I assume): a turn-based, thoughtful puzzle platformer.

2 - Seems to have a good amount of content.

1 - Nope.

2 - A solid "2" here: turn-based is what really makes it a roguelike-like, random maps as well keep it in the spirit of roguelikes.

2 - Not a straight roguelike, but heavily inspired by and adhering to many of the genre conventions.

It's a turn based platformer in a randomly generated side scrolling level where you collect gems and avoid enemies. It's a high score game that ends when you either die or run out of time/turns. I felt like it's missing some elements that could get you out of dead ends. Some items or special moves may be. It's fun to play a little.

If you crossed classic platformers (Loadrunner, Super Mario Bros) with some of the elements of roguelikes (randomly generated maps, turn-based, only a single life) you'd end up with something like Bump! It's simple enough to jump right into without the need for instructions and it's browser-based, so firing it up and playing takes just seconds. Simple yet challenging and requiring some thought and strategy. A solid entry in this year's competition.

This is definitely one of the better games in the competition. Also one of the most innovative, there's literally nothing to compare it to. It's only flaw is that it gets repetitive. It's just a straight run for points over time. There's no beating the game, no bosses or end goal. For what it is though, it's great.

3 - The game has no significant bugs, ran smoothly, has a story and an ending. The in game help was a little clunky but I cant really complain. However I could not get diagonal movement working though.

2 - I can't find any bugs. But apparently he left some debug messages coded in? That can happen. More important is that apparently there is no way to find out what some of the items are.

2 - No bugs found. But there isn't much beyond python+tcod demo which it is built upon.

2 - The game looked like a libtcod game and it was presented nicely; the dungeon looked good and was nicely coloured. The game runs with an undead flavour which was executed well. The interface was ok but the inventory system was a little clunky and items were hard to determine what they did but they were nicey themed (like putting a rib or zombie claw in your lucky pouch).

2 - It's okay. Typical libTCOD graphics, what you would expect. Bonus for not going over the top with colors.

2 - It's standard tcod look. Many nice cosmetic messages when fighting with special weapon. But several important for the game convenience features are missing. There is no look around command which feels important, as there are many items that you don't really need to pick up. There is no autorunning, but a lot of long hallways.

2 - Yeah it was fun enough, basically a hack n slash game though with no real strategy other than run away if you are getting whipped.

2 - It's not amazing, but worth a run or two to see the cool interesting stuff that has been done.

2 - I like fierce battles with semi-bosses. I wish there was more to do beside bumping to attack and drinking flasks. Zobmies and skellies are cannon fodder that you kill in masses while passing by. There is a lot of weapon scattered around, but not really much to choose from.

2 - The undead theme was been done but some of the weapons had some cool effects (there was an axe named after Trog that allowed you to go berzerk). The health system was cool, you have HP which you lose and gain as normal health, but once you lose you full health you take willpower damage which you can regenerate. A few touches like the necromancer, ghost types, and unique characters help keep the game fresh as you decend levels.

2 - It's an interesting mechanic, providing a regenerating health buffer, but it doesn't change the game fundamentally. Still, it's something new and unusual, and I appreciate that.

2 - Standard roguelike stuff. Quickly regenerating health and non-regenerating willpower (which is extension of health) was already implemented as quickly regenerating shield and non-regenerating health and several other combinations.

2 - I found the game length slightly too short and the game too easy, which may influence my score. There was plenty of items but most did not really influence the game, same as portals/teleporters. Ignoring these fluff items the scope was about spot on for a short game experience, however I was left wanting more.

2 - A typical 7DRL scope.

2 - Several monsters, including semi-bosses with advanced fighting skills, several weapons, and several items to use. It's just fine for a 7drl.

3 - A real roguelike, clearly influenced by roguelikes.

3 - No question, this is very roguelike.

3 - It's a roguelike.

"I live again". You play an undead warrior of some sort whom has achieved free will for a short time. In order to keep your free will you must slay the evil, nay vile necromancer that has enslaved you and many like you. Unfortunately only you seem to be in control of yourself and you must fight your way through the mindless undead to reach your final goal. There are some tough battles to be had, but once you understand the health system and the replenishing of health flasks each level, the game borders on a tad too easy. Of course balance is very hard to achieve in a 7DRL so no forgiveness needed there, it is better to by too easy than too hard. The game takes influences from a number of roguelike games, whether on purpose or not, but I felt reminded of Crawl, Moria/Angband and DoomRL while playing. Also I was reminded of the game Blood from many years ago, I would of loved some flares to set my enemies on fire... This game is really worth playing and was obviously written by a roguelike fan with a true appreciation of the genre.

The main feature of this 7DRL, the health system, is an interesting modification of the typical HP system. The trick in surviving, thus, lies in recognizing when your non-regenerating health bar is in danger and retreating to refill the buffer. Additionally, there are things like poison and bleeding to spice it up. I liked the idea, and the execution is solid, but there could be more. There are a few interesting items, but I was confused about the function of some of them. Anyway, to sum it up, a neat twist on a genre stereotype, but a little bit empty.

You are an undead warrior that tries to use it's remains of willpower to break free from necromancers control. You fight his minions, picking some weapons and items in the meanwhile, and finally fight him. Your health regenerates very quickly, but once you are out of health, your remains of willpower will be drained. So you can kill regular enemies without thinking, but take bosses very carefully.

2 - The game works fine, but there are several little bugs here and there.

2 - Feels complete. Menu shows signs of polish.

3 - The engine works well, seems stable and behaves predictably. One niggle is that fast multiple keystrokes are often ignored - pressing up and immediately right will just ignore the second keystroke, for instance, which makes navigating the long mazes increasingly tedious. The help menu promises additional info from the space key, but nothing seems to happen when this is pressed. Tested this on Windows, which worked fine - the release page has source available and it relies on SDL, so it could probably be compiled on Linux too, although I didn't take the time to try this.

2 - There is rather doubtful decision to mix ascii with graphical tiles. Walls and the player character are pixelcrafted, but the enemies are ascii. On the second level it's really really hard to distinguish corner cells from regular wall. But desaturation for out of field of view tiles looks nice. And escape that immediately end the game is really annoying.

3 - Looks very nice. FOV is well done and level color themes are great. Little flashes on combat are a nice touch.

3 - Clean interface that's very easy to navigate - there are only a small handful of keys, and they're clearly explained. However, I often found myself wishing for more options to choose from, and a bit more feedback - there doesn't seem to be any way to examine the monsters you're fighting, and little opportunity to guess whether you're likely to win a fight or not.

2 - The game is too easy to be really fun. There are many traits to 'purchase', but they aren't really required to win.

1 - Not too fun for me. I really really hate mazes. Combat also never feels very threatening, and it seems to take a very long time to earn enough resources for a new ability. But mostly it's the mazes.

2 - A nice and clean, logical hack and slash adventure. One thing I found annoying was the reliance on the "regeneration" perk - without this, there appears to be no way to heal whatsoever, so even the simplest levels can be deadly without it. With it, the entire game becomes very easy. The monsters respawn randomly, which takes away a lot of the fun of completely clearing out a level, since this is impossible. The levels are intended to feel varied in their layout, but really only the background changes - ultimately there are only two tile types.

1 - There is nothing new here. Setting is nice, but it doesn't provide any unique gameplay elements.

2 - Solid game shows some interesting twists on the standard roguelike mechanics.

2 - Certainly an innovative idea, and doesn't get too bogged down with the gimmick to still be a fun traditional roguelike. The ability to buy perks is innovative too, but overall the gameplay still feels like an ordinary hack-n-slash roguelike with few surprises once you've understood the main mechanics.

2 - There are several traits to choose from, there are several distinct enemies. Probably right enough for 7drl.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL. Shows just the right combination of polish and rough edges. Nothing too crazy but there is still some nuance in the mechanics and theme that obviously took some time.

2 - A fairly minimal roguelike that still manages to fit in a few interesting features and game mechanics, but often leaves me wishing there was just a bit more feedback, a bit more info about the enemies, and a greater ramp in difficulty to complete the game.

3 - It's a very weak 3. Choice of traits looks like a something to decide, but these decisions are trivial. Combat is rather uninsipired.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Feels a lot like Rogue itself, both in terms of look and gameplay. The main gameplay difference is you have to find multiple fixed points on a map to exit, rather than just one.

You are a virus that tries to infect an organism. On each level (which is an organ) you have to infect all corner cells. While doing this you will kill different defenders, gather parts and purchase traits with this parts. Sounds interesting, but once you purchase regeneration, which regenerates 1 hp per turn, the game become trivial. But without regeneration it is pretty much impossible to progress deeper. Worth to try it once.

Heavily themed game will have you searching autoimmune terms on wikipedia. Lymphocytes, t-cells, B-cells, and all sorts of other unpronouncable enemies will assault you in a series of mazes representing different areas of the body. Some interesting choices in ability selection, but it takes a while to earn enough resources to buy them. Combat rarely feels threatening. Game shows lots of polish in some areas, the menus are intuitive and the game itself does color selection very nicely. Levels are almost all mazes, and in some cases you must traverse the entire maze to discover the "cornerstone" blocks... this can get tedious depending on how you feel about mazes. Either way it is a great educational tool and a good-looking example of a solid 7DRL.

A medical twist on this roguelike; you play a microscopic invader inside an organism, and the monsters you fight are antibodies and other microscopic entities. Killing them lets you gain various kinds of upgrades. Exiting a level requires you to find and destroy each of the corner cells, but doing so produces an instant transition which seems a bit jarring when you haven't actually passed through an exit. While a nice idea, the medical concept and enemies healing each other didn't really seem to affect the way I found myself playing at all, simply barrelling into the nearest enemy repeatedly until it died and wandering around the maps until I found all the corner cells to exit. I think a bit more could have been made of the special abilities, as it's easy to complete the game without ever even getting most of the upgrades.

3 - Complete and stable

2 - The game runs ok. But there is no menu, and you have to start game again when you die. Also it crashed when I was experimenting with spells.

3 - Polished feel, one crash bug but otherwise everything ran cleanly. Clearly fully featured.

1 - I do like the idea of the 1-bit look. The use of remapped characters is very true to 8bit games where you often could remap fonts arbitrarily, limited to the two colour choice. Unfortunately the "broken" look chosen results in a lot of dirty tiles with dithering, Dithering simple doesn't work at this res. Really should have kept the res of the tiles down to avoid this temptation. And then it would also run unmodified on a sub-HD laptop. The real killer, however, is the interface. Quitting on death is annoying in 2013. No autopickup of arrows? Confirmation of firing is enter, not the fire key? (If I hit f to fire, f should confirm. Likewise, 1 for lightningbolt should confirm with a second 1) vi-keys are cool, but why not arrow keys? Why separate open and get commands?

1 - While tiles themself look stylish, but colored monsters and water look a little alien in this black and white world. The game doesn't provide any means of comparing or somehow evaluating weapons. There is no any information on spells. There is no information about terrain or item you are standing on. hjklbnyu as the ONLY way of moving around is really harsh. I had to make autohotkey aliases to numpad to freely walk around.

3 - Simple but attractive tileset, layout and interface is intuitive and clear.

2 - Starts fun, the deck drawing is a cool mechanic. But combat gets tedious and magic monotonous. Not sure of the wisdom of the downstairs being next to the upstairs, obviously this was to let users pace themselves, but feels more an abdication by the developer - should I fully explore each level or not? With HP regen so high and no monster regen, it seems one is trading boredom vs diving. I'd rather be able to just dive when I get the stair and rely on the developer to set the pace better.

2 - It is mildly amusing to figure how things work in this game. But once you figure it out, you will find the game that is somewhat hard at start, easy and repetative in the middle and have long and tiring 'final battle'.

2 - Enjoyable gameplay. The magic system is intriguing but not necessary enough to power the whole game up to a 3.

2 - A very well implemented form of MtG card drawing mechanic. Definitely a mana system I want to see expanded on elsewhere.

2 - Roguelike adaptation of MtG. Can't say it's groundbreaking. But it has something to learn/think about in it.

2 - The magic system with rotating spells is a lovely variant on the usual roguelike spellcasting.

2 - A lot of excellent detail in the dungeon generation, items, etc. I wish this scope work was directed to the magic system!

2 - A few items, a few enemies, a few spells. It's typical 7drl scope.

2 - Fully featured and well implemented, not quite a 3 though.

3 - Definitely a roguelike

3 - Yes, this is roguelike.

3 - It's a solid hack and slash dungeon delving roguelike - the magic system does not detract from this.

MGRL provides a cool spell-casting mechanic based on card decks. It is well worth playing to try this out. It is also worth playing as a dungeon crawl, but sadly the innovative deck component does not seem fleshed out.

Take some basic roguelike and add simplified MtG magic system into it. The most serious problem about this game is magic. It is somewhat useful at the start, but after you gain some levels, you can totally ignore it. Which is not right thing in the game that is supposedly centered around the magic.

An enjoyable dungeon delving run. Lovely interface, a clean graphical style and an enjoyable and innovative rotating spell system. A pity the spells aren't a more necessary component - the game can be played quite well without them, weakening its best feature.

3 - No bugs, installs and runs easily.

2 - Seems like a complete game, but definately needs some polish. There is a bit of lag between each turn making movement and fights frustratingly slow. Its reasonably easy to enter the final stage first thing and win without seeing any other content. The procedural content in this game is very undercooked, with every tile not special to the boss section being a random pick of several terrain types for the level, which also makes it possible to begin an area trapped behind a wall of blocking terrain.

3 - I didn't find any bugs, seems to be complete. You can defeat the tyrant, so it's winnable.

3 - Really looks beautiful. Great use of extended character set. The UI is mostly good, although I had a hard time noticing when the messages scrolled.

1 - There are a number of unusual choices of glyphs for the terrain, occasionally making floor hard to guess from wall especially through the very visually complex level layout. Colors are often similar to the background (dark blue walls or enemies on black background) or each other (brown rats brown ground brown walls), or areas without LOS (grey floor in LOS and ever so slightly darker gray out of LOS) - very often making it difficult to fight and walk around and see clearly whats what. This is all contrasted by the rainbow of colors that make up the hud, which has the same problem but for the opposite reason since its difficult to see what is and isn't important when everything is clamboring to stand out the most.

2 - I nearly gave the game a '1' here. The colors and business of the screen was hard for me, tons of nonstandard characters used for terrain threw me off but were eventually okay. I did like that many of the controls were listed on screen, that's a big plus.

2 - The nonlinearity is pretty cool. Not a lot of variation between games though. Maps are random, but the character is the same.

2 - The lag between turns, and difficulty navigating the soup that is the random terrain make it too frustrating to really get into properly, but its an altogether decent game.

2 - Seemed well done with some good tactical use of your resources. Nothing super special but a solid experience.

2 - Some new things I hadn't seen before. Having to take a turn to load the crossbow is an excellent touch. The final boss apparently gets harder the longer you wait to face him, but as far as I could tell your character doesn't get more powerful as you complete quests.

2 - The author may be onto something with choosing which areas to address in which order, but it feels as though there is neither gain nor consequence to picking any one over the other. Even with the final boss fight it feels as though there is no difference in completing the other areas or not. Add some consequence of choice in, possibly unlocking abilities at each area or something, and Nightmare Tyrant could have a good twist over other more linear games.

2 - Nothing incredibly innovative here, but I very much like the choice of zones (or quests). Megaman was doing this back in the day and I always thought a roguelike could use this mechanic to good effect. The order of the quests do not seem to matter but still a neat feature.

2 - Just about right.

2 - There's a full game in here with a couple of abilities and bosses and areas.

2 - A solid amount of stuff here.

2 - Random maps, non-random enemies (per area) and items. No character growth.

3 - Roguelike through and through.

3 - Pretty obviously a roguelike, some of the level design is a bit scattered, but definitely a procedural dungeon crawling strategy game.

(I'm reviewing the 7-day version, not NT Gold.) Overall I had a good time playing Nightmare Tyrant. It really looks great, and I will definitely aspire to make my own games look as good. The nonlinear quest structure is a neat idea, although it was implemented as a menu rather than, say, areas attached to a hub zone. I was a little unclear on what the Stamina stat was for, as I ran out of it with no apparent problems. The quests don't include any loot or character upgrades, so there isn't a compelling reason (other than exploration) to do them first. The author made the crossbow a slow and powerful weapon, and I'm really delighted by that bit of realism. As it is, it's very worth checking out, and there's a lot of potential to build on.

A dark shadow looms over the village - a Nightmare Tyrant is invading dreams and consuming souls! Empowered by fear, you can choose to weaken it by removing the things that the villagers fear from their lives before meeting it in the final match. These are represented by several areas which can be completed prior to the final area should you choose - but unfortunately there seems to be little real consequence in doing so. The soupy dungeon generator, laggy turns and terrible choices of glyphs and colors all make for some agitating gameplay, but underlying all that is a decent game with a neat idea.

This is a pretty mainstream playing roguelike with a very cool feature, it allows you to choose the quest or zone you want to dive into. It reminds me a bit of how Megaman would allow you to choose which boss to go after. The presentation can make your eyes bleed a bit, but other than that it's a solid entry into this year's 7DRL. Note there is a 'gold' edition with some updates, check that one out for sure.

3 - no bugs found

2 - Occasionally crashes when trying to restart. Doesn't seem to store best level.

2 - Very complete, only wish that there would be a bit more balance when it comes to the different classes

2 - using colored background makes the game less agressive to the eyes andd makes it possible to use shading to display the monster attack range. Thanks for not using only primary colors.

2 - Controls clear, an in-game help system and standard ASCII. Given the complexity of the game it needed to go a little further, though - it can be very hard to tell what is going on.

2 - A bit ugly even for a roguelike, I wish that the developer used different colors (though I find myself saying that for almost all the games I review). The classes are easy to get a hang of thanks to the letter cordination but I don't get what some of the things coming out of the enemies are.

1 - I think the game is too complex to be fun. Your brain might blow trying to handle all the monsters specificities and figuring out which one could be used to attack another.

2 - There is a very deep, very complex game here but I suspect it's one that hardly anybody will get to experience since the game is so difficult to learn. Even after an hour of play I hadn't figured out how to use most of the classes effectively and was clearing levels more by luck than judgement. Some classes are pretty fun (dancers, zappers) while others are a bit of a chore to use.

3 - Fun fun fun! It helped that it was challenging and strategy based. I wouldn't play this game for more than a few minutes at a time but I do find myself coming back to it every so often.

2 - while transforming into the monster you attack is not totally new, basing the whole game on it is still some move away from the classic roguelike formula

3 - This game is highly innovative both in its central conceit and in the particulars of the different abilities it offers, any of which individually might have formed a good basis for a 7drl.

1 - Not very innovative but it does what it does well.

2 - while small, the game is complete with in-game help and a readme.txt to get you started. A normal scope for a 7DRL

2 - Over a dozen (I think) different monster types, each with its own special ability, and plenty of potions as well. If anything there are too many enemy types, since to play effectively means having to learn about the different abilities of all of them. Level generation is very basic.

2 - Randomly generated levels and enemies, you get a different class each time you play.

3 - it is!

2 - While it has most of the hallmarks, the ultimate style of gameplay is very different.

3 - Stays true to the roguelike genre for the most part.

You must kill everything on the map. Seems simple, except that when you kill a monster, you become the monster, and each monster has its specificity that you must take it into account to figure out how to clean the map. While this seems promising, it turns out very difficult to use. What could have been a chess-like game turns into an unmanageable challenge due to unconsistent monster feats. Maybe trying to remove as much as possible from the game would make it better. For example, something as simple as monsters being able to attack only in one direction could have worked better.

This game has a fairly unique concept - that when you kill an enemy, you become that enemy. This is an interesting mechanic with a lot of potential, however in this case it suffers in execution simply because there are so many enemy types with such different abilities and tactics required both to use and defeat them. This gives the game not so much a learning curve as a learning cliff since in order to play the game effectively or even understand what is going on you need to absorb information about all of the different monsters and their abilities, which is at first overwhelming and requires some real persistance in order to uncover the tactics needed to make it past even the first level. The game could have benefitted from trimming down its roster to fewer monsters with more easily understandable abilities or at least limiting the monster types that could appear in the early stages in order to give a smoother introduction to the game. As is, I suspect not many people will succeed in breaking though to the interesting and rewarding tactical gameplay that lies underneath.

A very fun little game that I personally enjoyed. My only problem with it was that you weren't always destined to win the levels, if you were a healer and a jumper was close by you were pretty screwed. I found myself NOT using items that much actually, they never were that useful in the levels I played with the sole exception of the healing potion, which I used whenever I got it.

2 - Definitely feels complete. Balance isn't bad, but it could be tweaked toward a tighter experience (slightly smaller levels?).

3 - almost flawless. Sometimes, an item can block the access to a part of the map, but since there are several stairs, it's not blocking the game progression

2 - Solid and bug free, except for a slight delay between turns that makes moving around and fighting a little frustrating. I feel like I should be able to move diagonally since enemies can. Im not sure what the stats are or what they do.

2 - Looks good! Colors and symbols are well chosen. The choice of keys had me playing at an awkward angle on the keyboard, though, and the numpad is flipped so that up directions cause you to move down, so I mostly played with arrow keys only.

2 - good looking dungeon with light/fov shading and a good color palette. Lacks some information about the stats (SK/ST/AG/TG/IN/WP/CH/CR) and how they affect the gameplay

2 - Clear, classic roguelike look. The keys are explained in the help screen, though there is no indication to the player that such a screen exists (tip: its accessed by '?')

2 - Despite the ease of the first half of the dungeon, the ability to craft stat gain potions suggests an element of strategy in dealing with the tough monsters that appear near the bottom.

2 - good map generation with a lot of variety. Items identification and potion crafting is always a fun addition to a game. Lacks a bit some challenge to be really fun. There are few enemies in the big maps. Maybe a way to increase the fun would be to remove melee fight and have to use exclusively potions to solve encounters.

1 - The levels are a bit too big with too few enemies to fight. Combined with the mild lag between turns, it felt rather like a long slog. I accidentally killed myself through inattention while having 100 health potions stocked, and couldn't bring myself to work through just 7 levels to get back to where I was.

2 - The crafting system is interesting enough, and the total focus on potions is novel.

2 - use of analysis lab to identify items and an alchemy workbench to create potions (maybe inspired by miasmata). This apart, it's a standard RL

2 - You can create potions out of ingredients found in the dungeon, but there is no experimentation since you are given all the recipies, and there are hundreds of potions lying about already anyway.

2 - A little above average.

2 - a good scope with a solid dungeon generation, a lot of variety in the potions

2 - Standard fare.

3 - Absolutely.

3 - random dungeon, melee fight, instadeath, turn by turn

3 - Ticks all the boxes!

There's a bit more to this game than the first few levels might suggest. Even though the key commands got in the way of the game, I think there's fun to be had trying to actually beat this game - I came close.

A solid entry with a good map generator, some fun potion crafting. Lacks some specific setting to really stand apart, but if it were possible to save the game, it could be a good coffee break game.

Alchemy sets you against a dungeon to potion your way down and find the philosophers stone. There are boatloads of items to be found, and few enemies. While the enemies seem to increase in number and difficulty later on, it makes for a slow early game. The alchemy portion of the game allows you to combine items into potions, but the mechanic isn't really very core to the game because existing potions can be found in an abundance. This game has some good potential though, since it has a decent interface, and has all the other roguelike basics down properly. With some tightening up of gameplay, more importance placed on the alchemy mechanic, and a bit of extra balancing to make all levels equally as interesting, it will certainly be one to come back to.

3 - I didn't come across any bugs, the gameplay felt pretty solid

3 - Seemed feature complete, no real bugs.

3 - Some unusual AI behaviour and scroll effects which could be either bugs or features

1 - Standard ascii, clear and decent, but nothing special. The menu layout is done well, the sidebar which provides a summary of ingame actions is a nice touch

2 - I liked the looks of this one, some of the menu stuff seemed a tad tacked on, but it was all functional. I did have some trouble squinting to see the small font, but it was clear enough. Going back and forth to the scroll menu became tedious, but I cannot see any way to improve that.

3 - Neat, clear ASCII. Colours and characters clearly differentiate game objects. Easy to learn enough controls to play and win. Never used hotkeys. O to use stairs should be replaced with auto-stairs.

1 - I played it a couple of times, it's good simple, solid gameplay but the use of only scrolls makes the game rely far too much on luck on scroll generation rather than any modicum of skill, which is a bit of a disappointment. The inclusion of a small amount of weapon-based combat might have improved it.

2 - I had fun with this one. I generally try to give some feedback here on how to make it even more fun. More content perhaps? More scroll effects? The concept seems pretty well fleshed out as is, some good variety and strategy here.

2 - Use a mixture of stealth, trickery, and planned attacks to bypass a few levels and escape. AI behaviour is rather unpredictable, which can be frustrating when trying to make plans.

1 - standard mechanics, nothing to really set it apart from most roguelikes

2 - No bump attacks. Magic only. I like this. There's enough new stuff here to warrant a solid 2.

2 - Everything is finite - enemies, health, attack opportunities.

1 - Pretty standard everything - most scope went into development of the scroll effects, which are well done.

2 - With a half dozen scroll effects, some suffix/prefix quality modifiers and a good handful of enemies this is just right for a 7DRL.

2 - A few well-differentiated enemies and spells. Few enough levels that the content doesn't become repetitive.

3 - has all of the expected elements of a roguelike - scrolls, permadeath, randomly generated levels, etc.

3 - Grid based. Ascii. Turnbased. Strategic Resource Use. Procedurally Generated. Permadeath. BAM! Perfect score.

3 - Random maps and loot, permanent death. Dying is easy.

Having the combat as scrolls only is a nice idea...in theory. I understand that it complied with the setting(The Library of Alexandria) but considering the scrolls were randomly generated it didn't make the game particularly enjoyable, having very few scrolls for attack. I had at least one playthrough that involved having only one attack scroll, and the corpse detonation skill wasn't helpful in the least. I wish I could like it more, but it was a mildly frustrating game.

This little gem derives it's gameplay from a fun gimmick. You cannot attack in melee. Instead you must cast a variety of spells to defeat or avoid the baddies and pass the level. Or you can just plain run for your life. It plays well, very smooth. Everything is clear in what it does. It has a nice difficulty curve. You could play this one for a few hours without getting bored. Overall a very solid entry.

Escape from the Library of Alexandria, which is full of sand, scrolls, bodies, and more-or-less Egyptian-themed monsters trying to kill you. Consuming the strictly limited supply of scrolls and terrain features is the only way to damage or bypass enemies. Most monster attacks interact with the use of scrolls in some way. A complete experience in its current state, but with room left over for new monsters, spells, and enemies. My only gripe is with the AI; it seems totally random whether enemies with line-of-sight notice you, and they sometimes break off pursuit for no reason. Finite supply of attack spells makes it profitable to avoid killing non-damaging monsters, but their random AI makes it a grind to get past them in a corridor.

2 - It works fine, no crashes. But it misses more complete mouse control or at least minimap, as levels are big, and it gives hard times finding unexplored parts.

3 - All system go.

2 - Game itself seems fairly polished. Some weird glitches on the main menu when I started it up - half the exit button was missing and the hit detection was off, so that when I clicked 'new game' it exited instead.

2 - Tiles of characters and items are nice, but dungeon looks too light and clean, almost sterile. It doesn't looks like dungeon. Absense of autorun and non-repeating directional keys makes it extremely annoyng to navigate big levels of the game.

3 - Alot of work went into the graphics, that is obvious from the start.

2 - Pretty nice graphics, especially the item icons. No repeat on the movement keys combines with the large levels makes moving around irritatingly tedious. Tooltips are nice, but would be better if it showed your currently equipped item stats as well. Pretty unclear what the stats actually mean.

2 - You have to manage your equipment to make sure that you are not too powerful for current level. And it's not only about level of items, you need to try to tone down the damage while keeping the defense up, so you don't get killed. But the gameplay is very repetitive. There are 35 levels total. You spend around 3 minutes per level, in best case. You need at least 2 hours to beat the game!

1 - The maps were large with little variation in design and plenty of dead ends. Because they were on the large side and you could not 'run' through the levels by holding down the arrow keys, you had to click a million miles to get from one end of the map to the other with very little to do in between.

1 - While the concept is interesting, as-implemented it's not much fun. Levels are large and maze-like making exploration tedious. Equipping too high-level gear reduces the drop-rate of enemy equipment, but as there is plenty lying around anyway there seems little advantage to downgrading until absolutely necessary.

2 - Reverse character power progression was implemented before. Not in this exact manner, where you have to manage you level down on your own. But other than that it's pretty straightforward simplistic roguelike.

1 - Promised an innovative concept but did not achieve in application.

3 - An intriguing idea.

2 - Just enough for 7drl.

2 - All good to go with nothing relatively ambitious to add.

2 - Fairly simplistic. Lots of equipment types, but little variation in what it actually does.

3 - Standard roguelike featureset.

3 - Everything a roguelike strives to be.

3 - Even though it's in reverse, definitely a roguelike.

You are the boss of the dungeon. You are level 35. And want to get out of dungeon, for some obscure reason. You need to equip weaker and weaker items to have a chance to kill incoming heroes without destroying their items. It's a nice concept, but current implementation it lacks veriety. 10 floors higher you are doing exactly the same thing. Numbers are changing slowly, but that's the only difference. Absense of autorun or click to run there kind of controls makes traversal of pretty big levels very cumbersome. But it's still very good for a first roguelike!

I was looking forward to playing this because of the 'reverse' concept it promised where I had to level down instead of levelling up but I saw no reason to comply to the rules because that would mean extra effort for little to no reward on my part. Instead I found myself overpowered so that it's easier to kill the baddies and then just equip myself with lower levelled gear for the ending.

This one is definitely on the 'interesting idea' end of the spectrum, not so much the fun end. You start at maximum power and must ascend through the dungeon downgrading your equipment as you go. The potential for strategic gameplay suggested by this idea is undermined by the lack of pay-off for downgrading and the tedium of exploring the dungeon. Would be improved by greatly shortening the game and by tightening the trade-off between short- and long-term gain in downgrading your equipment.

3 - only minors bugs (sometimes the player starts at a wall position).

3 - It is complete and playable. No bugs found.

3 - Plays fine, doesn't crash.

1 - mostly white on black with touches of primary colors

2 - It's your standard libtcod look. There could be much more variety of obstacles. Nameless white squares do not add anything to atmosphere.

2 - Simple looking but serves its purpose. Traditional white on black but kerning makes information hard to read somewhat.

2 - the fun comes from the challenge but the game lacks a bit balance and maybe some more linear difficulty

2 - It is non-stop tactical puzzle with some variety of skills to choose from at start. It was fun at start, but I started to loos interest with each win. Variety of skills didn't brought enough of variety in gameplay.

2 - Pretty fun as is a traditional roguelike.

2 - very unusual hyper-wide game window. The game itself is classic

2 - There were games where you are tiny part of some much bigger conflict. But not in this exact format.

1 - Point and shoot with trajectiles everywhere.

2 - the dungeon is quite basic (just randomly placed one cell obstacles) but the game is complete, with proper menus and requires no readme to get you started.

2 - 6 skills to choose from, enemies ai who fight each other and you in some scary mostly ranged combat. There could be more types of obstacles and interaction, but I think it's still more or less enough for 7drl.

1 - Simple stuff.

3 - pure-blood

3 - Battle field is a little bit too simplistic to be called truly procedurally generated. But it's not enough to not call it roguelike. So yes, it's roguelike.

3 - What a roguelike is.

A basic roguelike where your only goal is to move 200 cells aways from your starting position in the middle of an insane battle. Despite it's simplicity, the game is quite fun, mainly due to the fact that the mobs can shoot each other. Nothing better than confusing a troll and seeing it stumbling in the middle of a cross fire and die. The game really deserves better dungeon generation that would improve the tactical aspect.

A lot of powerful creatures are fighting each other around you, and you can be killed in an instant if cought in crossfire. That's scary. But you have to move thru this. Probably abilities should be more rogueish/thiefish.

Quick and dirty roguelike fun with your garden variety gnomes, trolls and dwarves shooting at you from all over the dungeon. You will die many times and you will be not so victorious.

2 - Stable, runs well. Missing some polish in important areas.

2 - Runs just fine in both Opera and Firefox, could use some polish. Got stuck in some situations due to lack of 8 way movement.

3 - It does everything it sets out to do. It runs in browser with minimal requirements, I was unable to find any bugs.

2 - Keybindings are nicely displayed, could use slightly better font choice (fixed width maybe?) and maybe some color. Animals are super hard to spot (although maybe that's the point?)

1 - The default font made the limited ASCII very difficult to differentiate. Could have used color and/or forced monospace.

3 - An austere and clean black-on-white pure text roguelike. The few controls are made very obvious, and are completely intuitive, although it takes a while to learn the limitations of the way you take photos, and what works and what doesn't. Transient messages fade out, and the keys flash when you press them for visual confirmation. It's a browser-based game, and has a dedicated .org site with no extraneous cruft, so the overall presentation is very clear and uncluttered.

1 - There is defintiely something to say for the game concept (taking pictures as opposed to combat) but this particular implementation does not have enough going on to make it that fun.

2 - It's interesting sneaking around the savannah, trying to take pictures without getting bitten. Pulling up pictures of animals when you do succeed is a nice touch, though it could use higher resolution pictures with more variety.

3 - A lot of replay value, partly because it's quite difficult to succeed, and partly because it's not that easy to die outright either. The unusual game mechanic encourages you to experiment with different strategies, some of which work and some of which fail terribly. The only thing I could wish for is a greater sense of progression - perhaps different levels with different sorts of landscapes, and more potential creatures to photograph with different behaviour.

2 - I like the photo-capture element, risking getting a better shot vs. getting mauled is a great mechanic. Seems like a good hook for future non-combat games.

2 - It feels like roguelike meets Pokemon Snap! And there really isn't enough Snap-likes out there, in my opinion.

3 - A completely original non-violent roguelike, with combat mechanics replaced with photography (which acts a bit like ranged combat), but where the wildlife can attack you as in a traditional rogue game. As an additional gimmick, a random appropriate wildlife image pops up whenever you take a successful photo, which is a cute way to reward the player.

2 - Good length/bredth for a 7drl.

1 - very few animal types, wandering about with an @ on a map.

2 - An original concept and detailed execution, but no immense depth. There's enough content to keep you interested long enough to enjoy the unusual style of gameplay, but the rest of the developer's time has been spent on polishing that delivery.

3 - it's a roguelike, even has some minor resource management systems (photos/reloading camera).

2 - Turn based, mildly procedural environments, permanent death. No combat and not much strategy, though.

3 - Although limited in features, this manages to capture the spirit of the roguelike. A pure text interface with basic statistics, a procedurally generated landscape, unpredictable and challenging "enemies", and fairly detailed control over your character make it tick all the boxes.

Wander around an ASCII jungle snapping photos of animals. Monochromatic color and font choice makes everything really hard to see but perhaps that is part of the challenge? Getting closer to animals means more points when you take a picture, but also risk getting bitten or mauled to death. Mechanic is interesting but the implementation does not have much going on. Oh, the pictures are great though!

An interesting take on non-combat roguelike, taking pictures of dangerous animals. Could use polish and variety, but not a bad effort at all, and it's nice to see more browser-based roguelikes out there!

A very unusual non-violent roguelike where you play a photographer wandering through the savannah, attemping to photograph dangerous animals which either run away or attack you or both. The concept and execution are simple but original, and the game has surprisingly high replay value due to the elusive nature of the enemies and the challenge of navigating the landscape. Being a black on white text-based roguelike, it's often hard to spot your quarry, and line of sight around the trees limits how far you can see. You can crouch or crawl to reduce the likelihood of startling your target, but this reduces your visibility and speed too. Overall it's a startlingly realistic roguelike simulation of a real life scenario, and one i'd recommend to any lover of the genre as something just that bit different and cool. The one thing missing is the lack of any real win scenario - once you run out of shots, you are left to wander the savannah endlessly, waiting to be poisoned by a passing snake.

2 - Feature complete but lacking polish. Help screen and chat texts vanish before you get a chance to read them. Gameplay doesn't support all of the classes well.

3 - Seems complete and bugfree.

2 - A very complete game with but a couple of small issues. It seems the help screens want to close on you unless you tap the button very quickly. Also there seems to be some lag in control response time, maybe due to the POV routine?

2 - ASCII with directional facing highlights. A little plain and ugly but generally functional. However the controls are archaic - requires 'o' and direction for every door you pass through for instance. The changing direction of FOV makes exploration very frustrating.

1 - It look pretty standard for a python+libtcod, but there are a few things that makes playing this game really annoyng. The way directional fov works here makes you press keys twice most of the time. Visited, but unseen atm tile is indistinguishable from unexplored. Now in addition to double keypresses you have to visit some places twice. You have to press o to open the door and then direction. The same for chat. Insane amount of extra keypresses that aren't really necessary.

2 - Clean ASCII, good choice of font. The display is a tad busy for my tastes, but overall very serviceable. The commands seem to be obvious once you learn them, but there are quite a few. Not as many as some of the classic roguelikes, but nowadays this is a bit too many.

2 - The game is very slow to play, which kinda ruins the whole experience. The directional FOV is interesting, but there's no way to actually game it, so it ends up frustrating rather than fun.

2 - It's moderately fun once you figure out that you can run away from most enemies. But directional fov here is more of nuisance than first rate element of gameplay. Yes, you can stab the enemy in the back. But you do this by random occasion much more often than because you made this situation.

2 - This game is fun enough, but I found the FoV system to be a real pain. It's a very interesting mechanic, it just didn't seem to be used for anything besides making me confused.

1 - The theme is cool if you can get past the initial confusion barrier. However overall this is a standard dungeon crawler. Facing in roguelikes has been done before and better many times.

1 - Indian theme is interesting, but here it more of facade that hide pretty traditional roguelike. It doesn't add new elements to gameplay. Directional fov was done before and more successfully.

2 - This is hard to score. On the face of it there is quite a bit of innovation here. There's an interesting Indian theme I've never seen used, but seems to be more of a vocabulary change than anything else. The gameplay is straight classic roguelike. The player still picks Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, etc and then plunges into the dungeon as usual. The Field of View is also an interesting mechanic, it just seemed to not due much for the gameplay. So as much as I want to give this a 3 on innovation, I'm going with a 2 here.

3 - Quite a lot in here, including 4 starting classes (the usual warrior, archer, priest, rogue) and a variety of items.

2 - Solid 7drl entry.

3 - Very nice amount of content here. Character classes, tons of baddies. Just a nice fully featured roguelike. Highly commendable.

3 - Very classic roguelike.

3 - True roguelike.

3 - This is as straight a roguelike as you'll find. Which is awesome.

A game with an Indian theme, facing tigers with tulwars and the like. The unconventional terms for everything can be confusing, but it is nice to see something different than the usual fantasy or sci-fi fare. It has directinal facing with weak-points on backs, but there's little way to take advantage of this as there are no movement skills to close in on enemies or escape them when they see you. The constant need to change direction as you move makes for very slow exploration around levels that are far too big for the content spread around them. Smaller levels, slicker controls (bump to open doors or chat) and a sprint ability could work to make this a much more compelling game.

The game dosn't tell you what is the aim, but aparently you need to kill the demon on 5th floor. The game features directional fov and is set in indian setting. But the fov only annoys, and indian setting is mostly renaming traditional classes and items into unfamiliar terms. What is sad that with several easy tweaks this one could be much better.

This is a rock solid entry into this years competition, hitting everything you want to see in a 7DRL by the numbers. It's a straight roguelike, adhering to all classic elements including ASCII display, lots of stats, obtuse key commands, tons of content, a fantasy and magical setting, etc...Beyond that classic style, it does bring 2 innovations. The first is the Indian theme. This is the only Roguelike I know of that uses ancient India as the setting, it's worth checking out just for that. The second innovation, one that's problematic, is the direction FoV mechanic. You basically cannot see outside of where you are facing. That's sounds very cool in a simulationist sort of way, but it hampers the fun of the game a bit. So go check out this uniquely themed Roguelike for yourself, it's heavy on content and full of interesting features.

2 - It works, but there is a crashing bug in the wizard's spell, making the game slightly broken.

3 - I encountered no terrible bugs, but I may have played a later version of the game.

2 - Sometimes pops up an unhandled exception dialog, and there's some UI niceties missing (for instance seeing what you have equipped and what's in your inventory without actually going through all the equipment menus). For some odd reason, while packs of mana potions are blue, big ones are red - oversight, or intended confusion? Also, I get the impression that the reason consumables are used on pickup is that the author didn't have time to implement an inventory, because use-on-pickup really doesn't seem to fit the game.

1 - Symbols are very small, as 1 tile is 3x3 pack of symbols. And when you pick item that increases sight range, symbols become so tiny, that it's hard to recognize them. Sometimes attributes of characters do not fit information cell. And there is no other way to see them.

2 - Seemed very functional, but it's hard to make sense of a lot of things. This goes with the tile within tile aspect. You'll need to read the manual.

2 - Fairly impenetrable UI if you haven't read the README, but once you have, it makes sense. The map is scaled down if you pick up the vision-enhancing item, with results that are not that great.

2 - It's nice to try this, but significant part of fun is ruined by several design decisions. There is a lot of meaningless running back and forth.

1 - It seemed like I was just running around a lot, felt a bit scattered.

1 - Mostly I'm just docking points for the annoyance of having to leave consumables lying around and go find them again again. This game doesn't need a lot of changes to become quite a lot of fun - let the player carry consumables and make the map smaller or otherwise more interesting, and you're on the way to gold.

2 - While idea of subtile party formation is really nice, but it is not complemented by mechanics that really takes advantage of it. It feels more like multiclass character with limbs damage than party.

3 - This is a very interesting idea, I've never seen anything even close to this.

3 - A quite cool idea, though I don't know how possible it is to make it really work. Author was definitely going for a game based on a different gameplay idea, though.

2 - Random terrain, some monsters and items. Ok for 7drl.

2 - Seemed about what you'd expect from a 7DRL.

2 - Average 7DRL scope.

3 - All attributes of the roguelike are here.

3 - One of the few games that's highly innovative and also very roguelike.

3 - A roguelike basis, with one unique quirk on top - it's exactly what 7DRL is for.

There are several design/mechanics decisions that make the game worse than it could be. First - the mage is always the target. No matter how you change the formation. If you place your mage behind the warrior, enemies can hit him, but he can't attack them with diagnostics 'The mage is blocked by worrior'. Second - health/mana potions are used upon picking. You have to run around alot when party starts to take some serious damage. You can't pick weapon and not pick potion in the same tile even if you don't need potion at all. It's a nice try, worth checking, but it could be better without much effort.

This is a very innovative game where each tile on the grid is split into more tiles. The game play seemed to involve a great deal of running about that tended to wear thin. Over all though it's a pretty solid entry I would recommend to anyone seeking to find out just how a game can be highly innovative AND stick pretty strongly to the roguelike formula.

We heard you liked roguelikes, so we put tiles inside your tiles so you can play while you play. Each tile in TriQuest consists of nine subtiles. You can arrange the order of your three-member party on these subtiles, although it's hard to actually make this useful. Character progression consists of getting items to fill out a total of six slots (each member uses their own item set), and once you have an item, all the other possible ways to fill the slot are sidegrades (I think some equipment combinations might dominate others, though). For that amount of progression, the world map is far too large - I never even managed to see the end boss, for having to wander around and trying to remember where all the consumables are.

2 - The lack of an ending screen is a bit of a downer, but for a 7DRL, acceptable. Otherwise I couldn't find any bugs. The user interface could use some more polish, but otherwise nothing to complain about.

2 - Lacked an ending screen when the player died. Instead, the program abruptly ended. There were some instances of missing characters in place of items.

2 - feels solid and complete, no death screen though -- game abruptly ends and exits when you die

3 - I'm giving a three here because a) excellent choice of colors, b) good keybindings and c) the whole graphics don't hurt my eyes, as is the case with some other 7DRLs. Overall, good job.

3 - The maps are very lovely - a sign of a good roguelike. Good colour and text choice. It was very pleasing to the eye.

2 - Colors are nice. Inputs make sense. Graphics are solid tradition roguelikey without getting too repetitive.

2 - It's okay. I just wish there would be more use of the cool structures on the map, as most enemies seem to run around outside the rooms and tunnels. Overall a bit bland, but okay.

3 - A good, solid roguelike.

2 - I did not have much fun, the starting level is just way too huge, with nothing obvious to do. Eventually I read the README file and I think some people will find the exploration fun so it's a 2. Enemies do not do much, but combat feels satisfying. Potions are limited but useful, very streamlined. The text is an excellent touch, compells me to keep trying.

1 - Your typical roguelike, very little innovative stuff about it. I guess the level change mechanic kind of counts, but that's a minor thing.

1 - Just another roguelike.

1 - Seems a solid roguelike but nothing groundbreaking in terms of gameplay.

2 - Typical 7DRL scope, yeah.

2 - Nothing new to add.

2 - About what I'd expect from a 7DRL. Polish in some areas (text), lacking in others (insta-quit on death, giant empty levels).

3 - It's a roguelike, no question.

3 - Everything a roguelike strives to be.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

It's a nice take on the standard roguelike tropes, and one that I enjoyed. The fact that there was a sort of background story - which you can read as you explore - definitely contributed to it. Overall I think it's a neat game, and it could be expanded to way more than it is now.

The story of Uushuvud has intrigued me enough to keep playing for hours and experienced many deaths. Even without a deathscreen, though that would be nice but assuming the developer was unable to provide one due to time constraint, I was still gearing up to go again. It has your garden variety of rats, gnomes, trolls and many more creatures to kill with plenty of loot to pick up. Be wary of higher level weapons that might be lesser in terms of kill points depending on the creature you encounter!

Uushuvud is as mysterious as the name implies. Make sure to read the README very carefully so that you know how to get off the first level. Also be careful not to pick up weapons weaker than the one you already have -- your previous (better) weapon seems to disappear when you pick a new one up. Aesthetically Uushuvud is nice to look at -- excellent use of simple colors and simple menu / item system is perfect for a 7DRL. Lots of descriptive text sets this one a apart.

2 - The core mechanics are there.

1 - Had quite a lot hard crashes (on windows 7 64 bit). Hard to get far without losing progress!

2 - Mostly pretty polished and bug free, but with a few features that have not been fully finished (useless items, mana without any magic to use it on etc.)

2 - The UI windows are nice and the keys are simple.

2 - Graphics are simple, colourful and they work well for this style of game. Some of the ascii symbol choices could be improved - e.g. some items use letters which makes them hard to distinguish from monsters. But overall a decent roguelike aesthetic nicely done.

3 - Nice clean ascii graphics with a very attractive colour scheme. Controls are straightforward and easy to pick up. Does a good job compressing the views for both versions of the game into one screen.

2 - Worth playing.

1 - Hard to really get into for two reasons: a) lots of crashes and b) the difficulty seemed a bit too high - even on the first level many monsters are strong enough to quickly kill you. I think with a bit more debugging / balancing it would be much better.

2 - Pretty entertaining gameplay and the controlling-two-games at once aspect adds a nice twist, though sadly it doesn't have as much of an impact as it could have done - it is fairly easy at the moment to wedge one character in a corner somewhere and then just concentrate on one game at a time. Combat seems very randomised - I was killed a few times from full health by an enemy type that other times I had brushed aside relatively easily.

2 - The central mechanic is novel enough.

2 - The split screen concept is the central innovation here. The idea is quite cool, but I think could do with a bit more development. 90% of the time you end up playing one character while the other just runs into walls. I think it needs a couple more mechanics to make the split-screen play really stand out.

2 - The controlling-two-games-at-once gimmick I have seen before in a couple of flash games, but it's still pretty novel in a roguelike. Nearly a 3, but I don't think it explored the concept as thoroughly as it could have.

2 - Average.

2 - Seems reasonable for a 7DRL scope. I'd have liked to see a bit more balancing and developmet of the split screen concept.

3 - A lot of enemies, equipment and items, even if a lot of the latter don't seem to have been fully implemented yet.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

3 - Definitely roguelike. Items, random maps, ascii graphics, permadeath etc.

3 - So roguelike, it has two roguelikes in it.

Controlling two characters at the same time is a cool concept. I'd have liked to see more done with it here, more than movement and attacking. Enemy fights are hard until you've leveled up and found equipment a few times. The map is huge and I never saw stairs, so you're just exploring for experience and items that give permanent stat boosts. Would be more interesting with more tactical gameplay added.

A nice "concept" game (you play two roguelikes simultaneously). Fun to try out, though a bit let down by bugs and lack of early-game balance. Would potentially be a very good game if given a bit more time for polishing - always the challenge in 7DRLs!

A very competently put-together game with an extremely interesting twist - that you are controlling two characters at once in two separate games. While that does add a fun new element to the game, my main complaint is that I don't think it was taken far enough. I would dearly love to see some more experimentation on this theme that explores other ways in which the game's two realities could be linked together - shared equipment, items etc. or differentiated (different monsters, game rules etc. in each). I think there is the potential here for something genuinely mind-blowing.

2 - Appears complete, no bugs, a little rough around the edge, solid effort.

3 - The game looks complete and polished. No bugs found.

3 - Feels like a complete game

2- This is where the game tries to win you over and does a decent job. Rooms are themed; gardens, pools, clouds out windows etc. Text characters are spaced too far apart to be easy to read, and game messages are ordered top to bottom sequentially.

2 - Typical libtcod look. But I really love all the little details floors of this tower have. Controls are my main complain. Why bother and add possibility to choose items and even amount of items you pick from the barrel, when you always pick everything? When you cast a lot of spells, targeting nearest enemy by default could save a lot of time as well as possibility to cycle targets.

3 - Competent libtcod

1 - The game was just too hard; I struggled to get past the first level. Right from the start I was inundated with enemies which soon overwhelmed me. I could not really explore the games unique ally system as well as I would have liked.

2 - The game is interesting, but it is somewhat tedious. You have to wait a lot after each cast by wizard. Targeting spells of apprentices is also cumbersome. Apprentices are felt more like pets that you have to feed constantly.

2 - Good roguelike fun. Very lethal though, and the UI for the central magic combat could do with fewer keypresses per spell.

2 - The game features two apprentice spell casters that follow you around. Interesting enough is that you control their spell casting, presuming because you can’t just have apprentices casting spells all over the place. This adds an interesting tactic.

1 - There were attempts to make multicharacter roguelikes. This one is not the best of it's kind. Apprentices are felt like additional spell slots.

2 - The commandable companions are interesting, but the interface could maybe have been streamlined to make using them a bit less like a chore.

2 - Simple idea, executed well (except for the all too expected premature dying of your wizard).

2 - There are several fixed floors layouts that are picked at random and rotated/mirrored. There are a lot of non-functional details in interior, and even birds outside of the window. But actual game content is rather limited. Probably just enough for 7drl.

3 - Quite polished.

2 - It looks quite like a roguelike but with what appeared to be non-precedural levels. Maybe it has other elements that are hard to get to.

2 - It's very roguelikish, but lacks in variety. Static maps, same spells, no character progression.

3 - Definitely a roguelike.

So your wizard pal has gone quiet, time to grab some scummy apprentices and find out what happen to him. Once you’re in the game, you are quite literally put in the thick of things, the enemies are ecerywheret. A few quick orders to your apprentices telling them how to behave and what to cast and you start cracking heads. However soon enough you and your apprentices find yourselves out of spells and health. Thankfully you had time to admire the pretty garden flowers or quiet pool surrounding you before dying. All in all a nice try with an interesting mechanic. Standard libtcod look and feel. And I guess I know what happened to the other wizard, he could not clear the first level either!

The game is definitely worth to try. What is really impressing about this game is level of details of tower. A lot of things around. Even the ice box contains items appropriate for the ice box. Too bad all that have no impact on gameplay. This game shows that wizards and their apprentices are superglutons. You need to eat after every single spell. That's cumbersome. There is a lot of food around, so you don't need to manage it. Just eat. A lot. And there are layouts where fighting basilisc is almost impossible.

You are a mage with two apprentices, going on a dungeon crawl. The apprentices are something between a pet and another player character. You can order them around and tell them to cast spells, but losing the game is still tied to your main avatar. The game is quite polished, but also sticks to traditional roguelike UI. You should be fighting by casting spells at a range, but spells need way more keyboard work than just bumping to attack, so I ended up just seeing what I can kill by bumping into it and repeatedly dying.

3 - Seems to run fine and has all the features the designer planned.

3 - No real bugs, seems to be complete.

2 - Graphics seem fairly polished, but the gameplay is very basic. Sound wouldn't work on Firefox, but did with Chrome.

2 - Retro pixel art. Your guy has a penis. People seem to enjoy that.

3 - Simple controls, nice graphics. I guess there was sound, but not on my browser. Still, good looking and smooth playing.

3 - Nice clean animated pixel graphics, controls fairly simple (though it is a simple game). Music is cool and fits well (however it is on a fairly short loop and does start to grate after a while). I was going to dock a point because the controls are not very smooth, but it wins it back for the pixel willy.

2 - Fun for a bit but combat lacks depth. Most fights are a war of attrition, and then you hope the mob drops food which heals you and prepares you for the next fight. Luck is a big factor and usually gets you killed pretty early on.

1 - I really wanted to love this game, your character starts naked with a little 1 pixel wiener. Hilarious. There seems to be a nice variety of enemies, weapons, etc...the problem is the complete and total lack of challenge and variety. I played and played and dived and dived and never met a single enemy that could match me. Every enemy was the same just some with more HP, if things started to get hard I'd level up or find gear that kept me WAY above the curve. Also combat was just windshielding foes, no real tactics or strategy.

1 - While its fun for a little while to run around bashing things, that is the only thing you can really do - there is no depth to the gameplay and balancing is way off - getting through the early levels is largely a matter of luck in getting decent equipment quickly and enough food to keep your health up, by later levels you severely outclass all enemies and are practically invulnerable - you start with 10HP and by the time I finished playing I had over 5,000HP and could basically ignore enemy attacks completely. Gameplay then becomes totally lacking in challenge and very tedious and repetitive, not helped by the later levels becoming pointlessly massive. The underlying mathematics are in desparate need of tuning.

2 - Cute and fun for a bit but not doing anything that hasn't been done already, including the retro pixel art.

1 - Nothing really innovative about this.

1 - Nothing really new here. Besides the pixel willy.

2 - Typical dungeon-drawling roguelike. Monsters, random drops, a few armor and weapon upgrades but nothing too expansive.

1 - It seems like there is a lot here, but really besides the occasional enemy trying to run, all enemies are defined by HP, all gear by protection or power. It's the ultimate arms race, with no difference between each level of gear, character level and enemies besides stat inflation.

2 - There are a large number of different enemies in the game (although they all act roughly the same) and the graphics are nicely done and animated, yet the gameplay itself is very simple and lacking in features.

3 - Definitely a roguelike. Turn-based combat, random dungeons, random monsters.

3 - Has all the basic criteria.

3 - Pretty much, although it is missing a lot of the standard secondary features.

A graphical roguelike using cute, colorful retro pixel graphics. Luck plays too big a role to keep you coming back. Strategy is there but too often gets overridden by luck. You know going into most fights if you're going to win or not based solely on how many hit points you have left. Avoiding fights is possible but there comes a point where you just have no choice but to roll the dice, and you usually lose the roll.

This is a very playable game. Direction keys and space bar to pick up and equip items. It looks neat and has a real sense of humor. The issue I had with it was the lack of game play variety. All the enemies are stronger or weaker versions of some base type, as well as all weapons and armor. A valiant try, definitely. If you want to know how a solid roguelike might look and play, check this out. If you are looking for challenge, variety and fun there are other options.

This game has a lot of character created through its graphics, animation and sound, yet sadly its gameplay has not received the same level of care and attention. The equipment system is nice, but as it is a purely linear progression of armour and weapons it and the purely bump-based combat system mean that the player's options are always fairly limited and uninteresting. Does show some promise, however - would dearly love to see the nice graphical base built on with a more complex set of gameplay mechanics and better balancing.

2 - It works, but it looks like some features are missing.

2 - Seems complete but it's hard to tell, the game is pretty complex, and takes some getting used to

3 - I didn't encounter any bugs. My only gripe in this category is that the resolution seemed to be fixed pretty high, which made things a bit of a pain on my somewhat low-res monitors.

2 - It's somewhat hard to understand what is where in this 3d space.

2 - Looks OK. it's hard to get across 3D space, so kudos on that. For my tastes, the art assets were a little small compared to the space. I would've rather had scrollable space with a minimap.

3 - All the spaceships look nice and are pretty easy to differentiate. The grid system lets you see where you are in 3D space and makes things much less confusing then they could have been. The color-coding on the ships helps you understand what is going on at a glance, without too much hassle.

2 - It's interesting while you learn it, but then become very tedious. A lot of things to do, so the pace is very slow.

2 - I think this game would be fun for certain players but it doesn't really hit any of my roguelike buttons. It also has quite a steep learning curve, which is not a BAD thing, but does tend to get in the way of fun (at first)

2 - This game was really more of a squad-based tactics game than a roguelike, which isn't really a genre I like, so I'm somewhat biased against the game in this respect. Since you are giving orders to each unit at once, and the orders are fairly complex (movement in 3 dimensions, actions against planets or other ships) the game moves very slowly. Also, there's really no room for surprises in the game - you know what enemies you're going to face and what sort of ships and planets you'll encounter from the beginning. A fan of a squad-based tactics game would probably like this, but it wasn't really for me.

2 - There are some things that are new for roguelikes. But the game itself is far from roguelike, so it's hard to judge.

3 - The concepts are very interesting. Tactical gameplay in 3D space with plenty of non-combat (resource mining, fleet size management) strategy.

2 - The 3D space combat system is certainly original. Also, the enemy fleet system is interesting - each time you destroy a fleet's base, you eliminate that type of enemy from the game, so you can sort of strategize there.

3 - Very ambitious project.

3 - Seems ambitious for seven days!

2 - It seems like all the features in the design were present in the final game. I didn't get far enough to see the end of the game, but there were clear goals from the beginning and it seems like there is a clearly defined end to the game. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of depth - there's a handful of ship types, module types, and enemy types, but they're all based around gaining or destroying one of the many resources you have to manage.

1 - The game is turn based and have some random elements. But that's all. Squad based space tactics in 3d space is very far from roguelikes.

1 - Definitely NOT a roguelike. This is a squad tactics game with random levels.

1 - The only roguelike elements are turn-based gameplay, randomized maps in each sector you visit, and resource management. This game is really more of a squad tactics game with random elements than a roguelike with squad tactics elements.

It's hard to judge this game, as it has very very weak connection with roguelikes. It is set in 3d space, you give order to multiple ships and these orders are simultaneously executed during the turn. Position and qualities of objects in each star system are random, but I can't really say that they create significally different tactical situations. It's interesting game, and as far as I can tell it's actively developed post 7drl, but it's just not roguelike.

A great little tactical squad turn-based game. Unfortunately it is not really a roguelike, but the game has surprising depth for a 7DRL attempt. Using your fleet of ships, battle enemies and gather resources on a full 3D grid. Learning curve is a bit steep but things get going fast once the bad guys get in range. Worth a play if you are a fan of x-com or other squad-based tactics games.

A tactical game where the player controls a fleet of ships trying to avoid the "Sleepers" while tracking down and destroying their bases. Draws clear inspiration from Battlestar Galactica - the fleet is perpetually low on resources, and must convince lone ships to join them while scavenging from planets, wreckage, and abandoned bases. The gameplay ultimately feels more like an old squad-based tactical space battle sim than a roguelike, although the resource managment and random areas are clearly drawn from the roguelike genre. Ultimately I didn't care for the game simply because it's not a genre I particularly like. However, others may enjoy it.

2 - It looks like a few features weren't implemented. It halted firefox several times. But other than the it worked fine.

3 - Complete game, no bugs

2 - The telekinesis weapon doesn't seem to work right (at least on my browser), but everything else is shiny. The very simple FOV algorithm can be a bit annoying, as you can't see monsters in a room when you're in a corridor even if it opens directly into the room.

2 - It looks fine. 'A' for armor, 'W' for weapon and 'J' for jewelry is rather odd choice. Fov is strange. Sometimes you want to avoid fights, but cannot peek into the room without walking into it.

2 - Simple straight forward, nothing special.

2 - Basic roguelike ASCII graphics, but executed with no really obvious mistakes. Uses the HTML5 medium for what it was meant for: Getting the information across and just letting you play. Could use some UI conveniences to improve the fun factor, particularly showing e'x'amine-visible traps directly on the map.

2 - Funniest part of this game was to find and examine artifact items. Damage/health balance isn't really fun. Main gameplay is straightforward.

2 - Nicely balanced and the progression is nice and even. A pleasant experience.

2 - Quite decently balanced. There was no really obvious winning strategy I could find - it felt like the choices I was taking were real ones (aside some odd null choices, such as there being several weapons with exactly equal stats). Finding the boss in the final level can get tedious, as well as frustrating if a character who would otherwise have been a winner is worn down to death simply because you had to cover three quarters of the level to find it.

2 - hp or damage. That's main choice in this game. Can't say it's superunique or changes gameplay completely.

1 - Nothing special

1 - Nothing we haven't seen yet, really. No-heal is a standard game mechanic these days, and the "balancing" (making your character stronger with less HP) doesn't seem very fun or interesting.

2 - Just enough for 7drl.

2 - 7DRL through and through.

2 - Standard 7DRL scope. The end boss pleasantly surprised me with a fireball spell, and the artifacts are interesting enough to want to at least try them on and see what they do.

3 - It's true roguelike.

3 - Standard hack and slash.

3 - Roguelike through and through.

Main idea of the game is to balance damage vs hp. When you heal you gain hp, but loose damage. When you loose hp you gain damage. But other than that it's pretty simple hack&slash experience. Keeping that balance isn't really exciting or interesting. But it's a nice experiment.

This game is the epitome of a classic style roguelike scoped out to 7 days. You explore, kill, get loot, drink from fountains, go deeper... I feel that compared to other reviews Ive completed I haven't said a lot, but there really isn't much to say: there is nothing particularly good or bad or memorable about this game. That said its well polished, shows a good understanding of all the aspects which make up an aesthetic game, and a no-frills roguelike. It can be considered a blank canvas of a roguelike upon which anything could be painted, and I hope we get to see more soon.

A HTML5 roguelike that runs easily and is quick to figure out, might be good as a very quick introduction to roguelikes if some of the screen space was used to show the list of keys. Very much standard fantasy hack-n-slash fare. Solidly executed for a 7DRL. I played about ten games and won three.

3 - No bugs, looks good, balanced to be challenging but not impossible

3 - seemed pretty complete for what it is - a fun, playable multiplayer browser game. Quite well polished with no big flaws.

2 - Seems complete, maybe lacking a little polish.

2 - Key layout is easy to use quickly. Graphics are great, don't look like the usual Flash-based garbage from 2002. I'm skeptical that more than one person could easily play on the same keyboard, though, much less four.

2 - Nice graphics, some simple animations. The look fits the casual style of game quite well, I like the

2 - Visuals are mostly clear. Controls can be a bit wonky, and it is very difficult to play with more than 2 players cramped around the one keyboard.

1 - There's not a lot to do in single player but try not to die and run out the clock. In multiplayer mode you try to die last, so there could be some competitive potential there, but single-player seems incomplete. Even one or more AIs to compete against would be a good addition. The spells are pretty neat, but there's not much chance to play around with them when you're frantically fighting off a large horde.

2 - Pretty good fun. The competitive element makes it a good enjoyable game with a friend. The different spells are fun to try out too.

3 - Definitely fun, though multiplayer naturally plays to this strength. The balance between trying to improve your character whilst trying to destroy your opponents is great! The real-time clock on moves takes a bit of the fun away, but there's enough here to keep you coming back when you get the chance.

2 - Spending your "time to live" resource on casting spells is a really cool new idea. Having to choose between different ways of fending off impending doom is a great game experience.

2 - Fairly innovative. I like the competitive multiplayer action - quite a hard thing to get right in a turn-based game but Versus Time manages to do it quite well.

3 - Multiplayer is hard to get right, and this does some very cool things to achieve it. Players go turn by turn, but have a chess timer on their moves, encouraging them to play fast where possible. You build up strength against enemies, but must at some point use this on your competitors. Some very original mechanics!

2 - Pretty standard in terms of complexity.

1 - Not a particularly big scope - the game plays on just one level with a relatively small set of enemies. There is some variety in the level graphics but that doesn't seem to affect gameplay.

2 - On the low side - only 1 level and few monster types.

2 - Realtime franticness impedes the deep strategic thinking that I'm normally looking for in an RL, but it's more like an endurance/survival game anyway. Otherwise, standard grid-based random map and random monsters are pretty usual.

2 - The gameplay is definitely quite roguelike (turn based movement, spells etc). The time limit is a bit non-roguelike, but makes sense in the context (a fast paced multiplayer mini-game). Not so much in the way of dungeon exploration.

2 - Lack of real procedural content really hurts this, and the real-time clock doesn't help a great deal either. Close to a 1, but it does still retain a lot of roguelike feel.

Versus Time is well-made overall, but the emphasis on multi-player severely detracts from the experience. Roguelikes are (almost?) universally single-player, so I think the RL community is not the best one to release this game to. The control scheme for accomodating four players at the same keyboard using one hand each is frankly genius, but to actually have four people playing at once would require having very thin and/or secure friends. Some possible ways around the single-player issue would be implementing online multiplayer (which is waaaaaay outside the scope of a 7DRL) or implementing a bot AI to replace one or more players (which would be much harder than it sounds). That aside, I like almost everything else: the graphics are beautiful, the spells are clever, and the mechanic of using the time-to-live resource to cast spells is awesome. The game's a bit hard, but maybe having more players would make it easier to break out of a mob of monsters ganging up on you.

A good little game - simple but definitely worth a few plays with a friend if you want to test out your competitive roguelike-playing mettle.

Multiple players take turns to move, attack or use an ability, but mindful of a real-time clock that ticks down on your turn. Enemies keep spawning, and killing them efficiently can lead to extra resources and improvements. But victory only comes from beating other players, and choosing the opportune moment to stab your friend in the back is an important part of the fun of the game. With 2 players it's cagey and tight, with 4 palyers it's manic and fun. A really interesting take on multiplayer roguelikery!

2 - Most of the content is there, however there are some semi-crippling bugs (staircase ups are invisible, allies getting lost, etc.)

2 - Fairly complete but missing some features here and there.

2 - Presumably most features present, but a few key things missing such as energy (which is explicitly stated to be pretty useless)

3 - Pretty levels including ice, fire, forrest levels. Controls are intuitive and functional.

3 - Controls and graphics are all pretty tight. I like how the enemy is listed on the right, the inventory system was adequate as well. Good job here.

2 - Generally clear keys, plus keybinding options. Graphics are readable but nothing spectacular.

2 - Fairly standard bump attack roguelike. The bugs and AI frustrate the gameplay somewhat. Otherwise fairly challenging.

2 - Seemed a pretty standard Roguelike in gameplay. Bump and throw bombs. Fun game.

1 - Walk, talk (sorta), bump into things until they die or you do. Functional but nothing more.

2 - Nothing groundbreaking, having allies join your party and the different themed worlds were nice.

1 - A straight Roguelike. I generally don't like to give 1's out, and a 1 here should not be considered too terrible of a thing. This is a rock solid example of the classic roguelike style. There's nothing wrong with it, but with all the zany and crazy games that came out this year the bar for innovation has risen.

1 - Hack and slash, nothing new here.

2 - Ambitious and almost there. Feels like it was missing a more dynamic array of gameplay options.

2 - It seemed more was planned, but as is this is about typical of the scope of a 7DRL.

2 - A decent amount of content plus random maps.

3 - Pure roguelike. A+ for theme.

3 - Turn based, procedural, ascii, bumping. A good example of how it's done.

3 - Procedural levels, combat, levelling, whole shebang. No food requirements, but not enough to knock it down to 2.

Inspired from some of the more awesome themes of the last few years, this is a traditional roguelike with a few twists. Magic Fountain draws some of it's imagery from Warhammer and other fantasy settings. You can gather a party or venture solo through the portals to different worlds. It feels like it's missing a few elements that would make it a solid game though, plus a few bugs brings it down a notch.

This is a straight as an arrow roguelike from one of the veteran developers of the competition. There seems to be a bit of an issue with the AI, but I liked it all around. All the standards like inventory and combat are done well and true to the classic form, but the added wrinkle that you can get NPCS to fight with you. It looks Corremn is continuing to update this one a bit, so by the time these reviews come out the game will be even better.

A fairly standard dungeon (technically starts outdoors, but mechanically identical) crawler. You can pick up allies with a Leadership stat, but they seem to bug out pretty easily and almost never came with me, so little benefit there. Otherwise it's fairly repetitive. Something to be said for enemies which stop fighting when you kill their leader, though.

2 - No features seem to be missing and it is pretty well polished as is. I do feel like it is lacking though, there is a sense that the developer trashed a few ideas just to get it to the deadline.

3 - No bugs. Polished. Would be nice to access the help menu from the game as well as the start screen.

3 - Seems complete and polished.

3 - Look is very, very good. Easy to tell what I'm seeing from the get-go and it looks very appealing to the eyes. The gradient vision is a nice touch.

3 - Obvious controls, very nice ASCII display with well-chosen colours. Updates slowly in Firefox, but that might be an issue with Firefox. Running into a wall passes a turn, which can be good or bad depending on the situation.

3 - Looks very nice (rot.js I think?) controls make sense, although I found that you can move diagonally even though this is not documented.

1 - Not very fun I'm afraid, the game, while it looks nice and is bug free, is too easy (especially for a roguelike) and very, very repetative with absolutely nothing to break the monotony.

2 - Good exercise in fleeing tactics for 4-way movement. Only the map changes, so levels get samey after not long.

2 - Fun for a bit. I like the fact that you can see the Principal stalking towards you at all times. Not much else going on gameplay wise, and no real roguelike systems to play with.

2 - I like the idea of the game, it is very original and it takes the idea of the roguelike and makes an entirely different game out of it.

1 - Nothing new here. Chalk functions as a trap for the opponent to walk over.

2 - I like the constantly-apporaching enemy, but nothing else here from a game-system perspective.

2 - It has all the nice and neat trimmings. A view, procedurally generated levels with rooms, and a rudimentary AI. It's hard to tell the scope of this game cause there was so little in it, but it was impressive from what the developer put in

1 - If you've played one level, you've played them all.

2 - About what I would expect for a 7DRL.

1 - It was more of a minigame than a roguelike. The only similarities between the two would be procedurally generated levels and ASCII based graphics.

2 - Map layout is procedural, but nothing else is. Permadeath only affects level number. Roguelike time/space and display, but no depth.

3 - Certainly a roguelike, but only on the surface. Needs more depth.

This was a fun game, for all of 5 minutes. I tried to get to level 10 but gave up at 8 and just let the principal catch me. It's too easy, nothing apparent changes and even if you do manage to make a big enough mistake, you have 3 chalks to correct it. There was just nothing to do in the game. So, it was fun, only wish it was longer.

Run from a deterministic AI with 4-way movement, and explore until you find the stairs. Then do it again. Use chalk to delay the opponent if you get trapped in a dead end. Not much to do, but a very polished interface. Every level needs the same tactics.

A fun little browser roguelike. Not a lot of depth but on the surface it has a lot going for it. Looks great and nice use of lighting. Would love to see the concept of constantly-approaching indestructible AI enemy fleshed out into a more mature game. Think Terminator vs. Sarah Connor!!

2 - Barely. No real choices or features. There's a collision detection bug when attacking someone whos next to a door sometimes.

3 - Seemed to be complete as a game, with no errors or other inhibitions to the game's running

3 - The game page says there are some unfinished bugs, but I didn't encounter any when I played (although the "Options" button on the main menu is dummied out). Feels very polished.

3 - Sensible tiles, sensible controls, sensible sounds.

3 - Well lit and nice art job. Controls feel natural and are easy to infer

3 - Great intro, ASCII special effects, and character creation process. Very nice sound and graphics, though the walking sound gets a bit annoying. The pixel art and lighting effects are very well done. The villain banter between levels is very reminiscent of the System Shock series.

1 - Nothing to do except open doors and bump things to death. No items, no progression, no features, no differences among the enemies. It took me nearly an hour to make it past level 20 and there was still no end in sight.

2 - Not too bad, but starts to feel repetitive after playing more than once or twice.

2 - The high production values help boost what is otherwise a pretty barebones roguelike. Fun to play for a little bit due to the atmosphere, graphics, and the solid feel of controlling the main character, but there isn't enough gameplay to sustain it for very long.

1 - Bump into things before they bump into you.

1 - Not really anything more than walking around and killing things

1 - In terms of gameplay, this is a completely vanilla "bump into enemies and hope they die first" game. No items, equipment, skills, etc.

1 - Simple map where player and enemies bump into each other.

2 - Had variety and interesting additions to the story that made it more interesting. Also contained a lot of good map flavoring

2 - It looks like a fair amount of the development effort went into the excellent presentation of the game. From the version log on the game page, it looks like the author built the intro first and crammed the gameplay in the last few days. Unfortunately, once you get past the intro there isn't much meat to the game at all.

2 - Progedural dungeon where things bump to attack.

3 - Simple, but 100% roguelike

3 - It doesn't have many gameplay elements, but the dungeon-crawling that's there is very much roguelike in nature.

Lure toasters, blenders, and desk lamps into hallways and bump them to death. Descend stairs. Cool looking menus though.

Sort of fun but starts to feel repetitive and boring after a few playthroughs. Nothing is really added between multiple levels that make advancement exciting, but each level is just a cycle of opening doors, running into electronic enemies, and finding a staircase. Some sort of new, interesting challenge on each level would add tons of flavor.

A psuedo-cyberpunk dungeon crawler with a solid look and feel, but unfortunately little in the way of gameplay. The intro hooked me immediately with its excellent static-ASCII effects and survey-based character creation screen. Once I got into the game, I was very impressed with the pixel art, the main character's handling and the smooth lighting effects as I moved around. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that the gameplay is very barebones. You can bump into enemies to attack them, open doors and go down stairs, and... that's it. I would very much like to see a game from this author with more development time and gameplay mechanics behind it, since it's clear that he can deliver a polished experience even with very little gameplay.

2 - Seems fairly complete but not well balanced. Only accepts Xbox 360 controller input.

3 - Quite playable and the polish level is impressive.

3 - Left stick moves (including jump), right stick shoots. Art style is fairly unique and is nicely consistent, except the NSFW easter egg.

2 - Well done visuals and presentation, but pushing up on a thumbstick to jump felt a bit awkward.

1 - Not much reason to play this if you've played Spelunky. The graphics are cute and the upgrades are cleverly reflected on your character, but it's so unbalanced you'll end up playing the opening area over and over again which gets boring quite quickly.

2 - Platforming isn't particularly fun for me, but I had a good time trying to beat my previous scores and keeping ahead of the rising sand.

2 - Having the upgrades effect the character's look is nice. Twin stick style in a realtime platformer works reasonably well.

3 - I haven't played many platformer RLs, though I know they exist. I liked the change of pace, and the time-pressure of the rising sands.

2 - Reasonable progress, some ranomness to the maps and upgrades you get.

2 - Feels like a good range of pick-ups, though the enemy variety wasn't robust.

1 - It's a Twin Stick Realtime Platformer. Maps are semi-random templates and upgrades are randomly placed. Death is permanent, you have to start back at the beginning of the tower if you die. Plays like a twitch platformer, no strategy involved at all.

2 - Procedural maps, "get to depth", permadeath. Has a lot of the roguelikelike elements. Doesn't deliver what I want from RL, however.

A cute game that will probably be really fun in the future but isn't at the moment. Because of severe balance issues it's very difficult to progress. You start with so low weapon damage it's very easy to get in a situation where there's too many enemies to get past, and the random placement of power ups means you might not get anything that will help you. The areas you traverse seem very cramped so even though there's kind of some path choices you basically are on a linear route. No strategy to speak of, just standard platforming fare.

Well-done game, and I did genuinely have fun playing it for awhile. I'm not that interested in real-time platforming, so not much replay value. Well put-together. Especially in the time allowed.

3 - Very complete set of rules and even some optional rules. Put a lot of thought into this.

3 - The rules are clearly written. The pictures do a nice job of explaining the game. I didn't see any spelling or grammar errors that stood out.

3 - No issues found with completeness

1 - Not sure how to score here. It's a card game. No code to download, no executable. Just a document with a set of rules.

2 - The instructions have some nice illustrations. Also, there is a nice backstory about why the troll and the bridge are at odds, which sets the stage nicely for the game.

2 - It's a card game, using the standard 52 card deck. A tried and true gaming system.

2 - The rules are quite complex making it difficult to find fun among all the rules.

2 - A very interesting take on solitare. A little tough and very much dependent on luck, but certainly something you could play more than once. (Also, it's quick to set up and to play, which is a definite plus.)

2 - As fun as solitaire with some other neat additions.

2 - A card game with some similarities to Free Cell and Solitaire but with LOTS of extra complexity.

3 - An attempt at a roguelike game playable with a regular deck of cards is certainly original, and though the game might not be super roguelike-y, it's definitely fun.

3 - We've seen cardgames before, but not like this.

2 - The rules are complex but the materials are not: a deck of cards, a die and an object used as a marker. There's probably a lot of depth here if I spent hours playing and digging deeper into strategy.

2 - I'm honestly not sure how much work goes into writing a card game so it's hard to judge this category. I'll give points for the presentation of the rules and for the fairly well balanced gameplay, but I feel like the game would have to be a bit more complex to merit a 3.

1 - Hard to rate scope here, but with few elements and rules I'd say it's on the lower end of scope for a 7DRL.

1 - Not a roguelike. While I appreciate the broad variety of games submitted this year, games like this one (and many others) are simply not roguelikes. If this was a "design a game in 7 days" competition, maybe, but it's not. Just not a roguelike. It's a card game.

2 - While the game doesn't have a ton of roguelike features, it's easy to see the inspiration in the randomized turns, the constant struggle against the clock, and the item mechanics. Some might award a 1 to this category, but I can't think how you would make a more roguelike game with a pack of playing cards so I think it's worth a 2.

1 - It's hard to identify any roguelike features.

A solitaire-like card game that uses a six-sided die to add randomization. It's somewhat interesting in that it's you (the player/troll) versus the cards and the die. The complexity was a bit much for me to digest. If I was willing to spend a few hours with this, perhaps I'd get more into it but the fun wasn't enough to draw me in.

A very interesting attempt at a roguelike played with only a deck of cards and a 6-sided die. You start the game by creating a "bridge" of cards, and putting your character (a troll, represented by any token you like) on the bridge. Every turn, cards attempt to escape the bridge and your troll must prevent them from leaving. If enough cards escape, the bridge collapses. This alone makes for a compelling "race against the clock" as you scramble around the bridge trying to smash the cards back into place. A bit more depth is added by the ability to pick up cards and use them as items. The items do suffer from a few balance issues - for instance, picking up a diamond lets you attack an escaping card from any distance (the diamond represents a throwing star), while picking up a club does the same thing, but only within melee range. It seemed to me that clubs should have an additional power to prevent them from being completely inferior to diamonds. Nevertheless, this is a short, fun (and difficult!) game that anyone with access to a deck of cards should try at least once.

This is a single player card game similar to solitaire, though perhaps a bit more complex. It's a pretty interesting entry into this year's competition. It uses only the standard 52 card deck, standard dice and some marker for your troll. You can use a salt shaker or a poker chip. It's easy for just about anyone to play.

3 - No bugs or problems that I could find.

2 - has basic gameplay but missing any sort of balance to it or sense of progress

2 - Okay, but does not seem polished.

2 - Classic roguelike look with clean colors and straight forward keys

2 - basic standard ascii graphics

2 - Typical ASCII classics.

2 - Would be a 3 but for the difficulty. The spells can be used in a range of imaginative ways, and dealing with groups of enemies often requires some puzzle-like strategy.

1 - no balance at all. Purpose of character is to trick enemies into trap but frequently not a single trap would spawn

2 - Okay, but more work is required.

2 - Illusion focussed spells put the focus of the battle more on tricking the AI than knocking down hitpoints, and it works out well.

2 - standard roguelike with neat twist of having to rely solely on illusion type spells

2 - I think that the idea behind this game is interesting.

2 - Well polished features, a number of abilities and a couple of monster types. Unfortunately lacking variety from the upper to deeper levels.

1 - feels like the beginning of a roguelike but not an actual game

2 - Random dungeons, some monsters and illusions.

3 - The unique set of abilities generally favors flight over fight, but that doesnt make it any less roguelike.

3 - roguelike clone with illusion focus

2 - Lacks complexity a bit.

Delusions of Grandeur is a classic style roguelike that does away with much of the fighting nonsense and gives you the power to cowardly dash in the other direction while sealing up the tunnel behind you with an imaginary wall. You can cover pits with a fake floor, frighten off your enemies with a dragon, or watch as goblins duel it out for a pile of pretend gold while all you hide invisibly in the corner. These and many other illusion based spells make for a neat tactical game that unfortunately gets too hard too quickly. Still, its well worth a shot, and I look forward to any future balancing and features.

A basic roguelike clone with the focus on using illusion spells to trick enemies into trap. The choice of illusion spells is interesting but unfortunately there is not much else in the game except some basic enemies that chase you while you look for traps to lure them into (which may not even exist in the level).

A game where you can cast illusions to help you penetrate the fortress. As far as I understand, these illusions do not cause any real effects, they only change how the monsters behave (for example, you can hide a pit, making monsters likely to fall into it). I think that this is an interesting idea, and it could have potential, but more work would be required... I have won.

2 - Have an ending! Or maybe there is one, but after -52 levels I'm not going to keep looking. The content has clearly ended long before that, let your player go! I did get one room generated where the stair case blocked my access to the rest of the level, forbidding me from the powerups. That is a risk with one-way auto-descend stairs.

2 - Polished, but it's difficult to tell if the minimal content and nonexistent balance is deliberate.

2 - Seems pretty complete, no obvious problems, but lack of play depth.

2 - Very nice focus looked. I like the monchrome/rainbow effect. I like how the map fits and locks into one spot on the screen. The inability to hit up then left quickly, as the left will be eaten if you don't complete your last command, is very frustrating. Why do ravens regain health? I thought it was sadness? The inventory really needs tooltips to let you know what they are.

3 - Excellent contrast between gothic imagery and happy rainbow-flower-cupcakes. No surprises in the controls. Movement is sluggish, but the levels are small enough that this doesn't cause problems.

3 - I really liked the graphics, the HUD, the controlls, everything.

2 - I would have a lot more fun if I had been told to quit sooner. It is dangerous to rely on players to grow bored to quit. A lot of the powerups seemed to have no choice involved - there was no reason not to consume them right away.

1 - After the first few levels, all the challenge disappears. Your stats get so high that the enemies don't stand a chance, and the game devolves into a mix of diving, grinding, and windshielding. The theme makes for a few minutes' amusement.

2 - This game does have a sort of hilarious charm. The problem is that after a couple of minutes you realize there's nothing else to the game. By about level 70 I was killed due to lack of caring.

2 - I really like the combat mechanics, the sudden switch from turn-based to a realtime melee caught me by surprise. But I found it very nice to play with - it takes away the boring "I go/you go" rote of rogelike combat without affecting the ability do turn based thinking.

2 - Unusual surrealist/gothic theme and hybrid turn-based movement/real-time combat.

2 - Pretty standard but for the sword fight mechanics, which were real time.

2 - A large number of clever lines and cute powerups make this a well-scoped 7drl.

2 - About right for a 7DRL.

2 - This game had items and baddies and a good variety of level designs, but there was not a lot done after that. It seems like this game wanted to do more, but ended up with time issues.

2 - Tough to call! Framing this as a roguelike definitely makes one think what a roguelike is. I'd really call out the lack of resource management.

2 - Permadeath and turn-based dungeon crawling, but no procedural levels.

2 - It seemed pretty roguelike, procedural and turn based. It doesn't get a 3 because of the repetitive nature of play. Like when you die and restart is the game really any different? Are the challenges new? So that's why it didn't get a 3.

Down The Brain is a gothic descent into someone's mind to prevent them turning into a happy-fun-loving-brony. Its graphics and witty one liners are worth a few minutes of play. Designers may like to see the auto-combat method used.

A game in which you guide a depressed protagonist through their subconscious, helping them to maintain their anger and sadness against the relentless good cheer of the world. This is very easy to do, and in fact it's more of a challenge to "lose" the game (if recovering from depression can be called losing) than to reach any particular depth. There doesn't seem to be any final level, so this may be the intended message. The graphics strike an ideal balance between whimsy and grimness.

This is a beautiful and funny little game about being sad and depressed. The text in the game is full of witty little jokes and what not. The controls are tight as well. The draw back to this game is that it sort of makes you want to quit after a bit. Get down dozens and dozens of levels until you get depressed and want to stop...wait...maybe that's the point...maybe this game is brilliant.

2 - Feels incomplete. There's a lot of partially implemented possibilities with different enemies and weapons but there seems to be a lot of things that weren't really fleshed out.

2 - More or less makes you figure out the controls by yourself, although they're simple enough. Movement is implemented by sliding your character between map positions (which exist only at tile scale), which makes moving feel somewhat clumsy. Otherwise everything you'd expect to be implemented is implemented and seems to work. Not sure whether the madly grinning guys in the last level are supposed to do anything but run away from you.

2 - Feature complete but unbalanced, combat and item usage is rather trivial at this point

2 - Almost a 3. Beautiful and unique graphics, but it took a while to figure out how to change weapons once I got others. I never figured out what Shift+Arrow keys did either. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE GAMES EXIT ON ESCAPE! Explaining the controls on the intro screen and removing escape to insta-quit would have made this an easy 3.

3 - While the music gets old, it does its job really well for the time you'll be playing. The sprite graphics are the most recommendable thing in the game - there's nothing new about them, but they just make the game feel fun.

3 - Very pretty, pencil graphics are very good, controls are solid. Could use some improved sound and animations, but fairly solid as is.

2 - There's not mutch depth and the strategy is pretty much the same throughout, but it's worth the 20 or so minutes to beat it.

2 - Killing things with all the different weapons is very satisfying, though in practice you don't actually need much beyond the quite powerful starting rifle (which is more like an arm-mounted cannon, really)

2 - Worth completely, but trivial to do so. Combat is easy and the ending is ... unfinished?

1 - The ranged weapons have slight differences. Not enough to really make much of a difference though.

1 - It's Everyone's First PyGame Game, just done solidly.

1 - Aside from the graphical style, nothing that hasn't been done before.

2 - Several different ranged weapons and ammo. There's also five different creatures with different aggressiveness.

2 - There's half a dozen ways to kill things, different resources, a bunch of monsters, etc.. Also lots of furniture lying around just to be smashed to bits.

2 - Fairly average for a 7DRL. Feels like as much of an art project as a programming one.

2 - Turn based, simple random levels, permadeath, and weapons to pick up.

3 - The game tries to hide its roguelike nature a little bit but once you realise that movement is simply tile-based, there isn't really anything left in this game that you could point at and say "that's not roguelike-ish".

3 - Procedural, turn-based and permadeath. Meets all the criteria, if a bit focused on ranged combat.

Run through five levels picking up different weapons and ammo along the way. Avoid or kill the five types baddies - each slightly more aggressive than the last. Break furniture if it's in your way. If you like tiles more than ascii then the fantastic pencil-drawn graphics alone are worth giving this game a try.

A turn-based top-down tileset-based cardinal-direction shooter. Balanced to be quite easy - as soon as you figure out that there actually is a key to shoot, that is. Simple, sketchy, greyscale, but quite effective style of sprite graphics that makes the weapons feel satisfyingly murderous. After my first game where I had tried to kill things by bumping into them (and soon died) I went through the game a couple of times, trying out the different weapons, and had a decent amount of fun doing it

In FHRL you must steal the beatifully drawn doomsday device from the equally well drawn villian and his impeccably drawn cast of henchmen. Beyond the solid graphic style, FHRL is a fairly short, easy, standard crawl. Worth your time for the graphics alone really.

3 - The game works fine, no bugs found.

2 - Lacks some kind of map feature. I had to draw on a sheet of paper. I could not find a key to a door on the fifth level despite replaying whole game once.

3 - Levelling, dungeons, multiple monsters, better weapons - solid feature set.

2 - Wow. First person view roguelike in gameboy palette. It looks really cool. But I have two major complains. First - absense of map. Levels are relatively big without any distinctive elements. There are lights and matches. But they don't really help to find the door that you missed. Second - forced mouse. I don't see why I have to use mouse. It doesn't matter where you click. It's just click that counts. Why not have space as an alternative. And one minor nitpick - escape that closes the game unconditionaly is BAD.

2 - Cannot complain about graphics but having no key to open door and chests is bad.

3 - Pseudo-3D (2d sprite monsters), attractive, and a consistent aesthetic. Good lighting, too.

2 - It's more like classical rpg experience. Traverse the dungeon, open chests find keys. Absense of minimap really spoils the fun for me.

2 - Appears fun at first but quickly becomes boring because there are no challenges to face.

2 - An enjoyable if simple dungeon romp, possibly some additional interest to be had for people who like mapping dungeons. Never feels threatening though.

1 - Nothing new here. Classic in every sense.

1 - Turn based movement in FPP RPG is uncommon. On the other hand almost every roguelike game is turn based and there is no way to count this feature as innovation.

1 - Other than the first-person-perspective, nothing new here.

2 - The game looks cool in technical department, 3d and all, but pretty simple contentwise.

2 - Some handmade maps with few monsters to battle.

3 - Impressive look and feel, with multiple enemies with different sprites, weapon upgrades and such.

2 - I'd say it seriously lacks in combat/tactics department to be called true roguelike.

1 - Turn based gameplay is the only thing that make Like a Rogue a roguelike game. There is total lack of procedurally generated content.

3 - A first person roguelike, essentially.

First person view roguelike. That's it. You walk around, kill bad guys, open chests, pick keys and new weapons. As a prototype it's cool. But it's too simplistic for a complete game.

Like a Rogue is turn based FPP dungeon explorer. Its roguelike characteristics are next to nonexistent. There are five handmade maps. I found lighting torches on walls to be fun feature in remembering where one has been. A pity matches are limited resource, it would ease exploration.

Fun little roguelike where the main selling point is a consistent and lovely graphical style. Play loop is simple and clean - look everywhere, hit everything in the face, find keys to open locked doors. Despite simplicity it is basically just satisfying to play, but unlikely to have staying power.

3 - Everything works.

2 - A solid 7DRL effort. One thing bothered me - I can't seem to attack diagonally, but the monsters can? Not sure if this is a feature or a bug.

2 - The game appears to be bug-free, but I have tested the game on a few systems and running on Windows 7 32-bit through Virtualbox the game would crash when trying to open the mini-map. It would also crash if I tried to select outside the treasure chest dialog box, but I did not see those errors under a native Windows 7 64-bit installation.

2 - Quite nice graphics, and it even shows weapons and armor on the player character. However, I would recommend improving the inventory: health potions should take just one slot ("5 health potions"), and weapons/armor which are obviously worse than newer ones should be removed.

2 - Graphics are cute. Love the on-screen visualization of weapons and armor. I know it's a pain in the ass but more games need this. On-screen menu is also VERY intuitive and item interaction elegant and simple.

2 - The controls are intuitive, the UI is easily navigable, and the tiles are unique.

2 - Playable, but there is nothing special about this.

2 - Had a surprising amount of fun playing this game. Simplifies a lot of roguelike mechanics, but the "choose your own treasure" chests are great. I wish weapons were more damage-oriented, the early game has way too much 'miss'ing which never feels very rewarding. i would rather just hit with a lower-damage weapon than miss. Item interaction is great, and forces some interesting choices (strength vs speed, damage vs to-hit).

2 - The game is enjoyable for a while, but it does get repetitive. Not much variety in enemies, but the variety in items is decent.

1 - No innovation. Chests where you choose the item to get are a bit unusual, but similar things exist in other games.

2 - On-screen menu is a very nice touch. "Choose your own" treasure chests are an innovative and neat mechanic, reminds me of brogues treasure rooms... which to pick?!

1 - A basic hack and slash game, not much innovation here other than the graphical UI.

2 - Average 7DRL.

2 - Perfect scope for a 7DRL, not too huge, but enough content there to allow the mechanics to shine.

2 - The game appears to be quite reasonable considering the 7 day restriction, a high 2.

2 - Lacks complexity and challenge.

3 - Definitely a roguelike, although I could do with fewer cooridors (personal preference!).

3 - Definitely roguelike

A very standard 7DRL, I would say. Randomly generated dungeon, several types of items, monsters, nice tile graphics. It works very well, but there is nothing special.

A fun dungeon diver with great on-screen menus and cute graphics. Simple levels but treasure chests force you to make interesting strategic decisions about your character, similar to brogue's treasure rooms. Difficulty curve is very shallow at first, I found myself diving as quickly as possible after I had half-way decent equipment. Worth a play.

This is a nice little game to play for a short period, as the name suggests. The graphical UI is easily navigable and the tiles are unique, a nice change from ascii-only games.

2 - Game freezes on death. Hitting the home button crashes, which is fortunate as then I can start a new game. Your hands are empty is a strange message when I have four slots - maybe your pouch is empty and proc it on all pouches. It also is strange to have the fourth slot reserved for the skull - I'd have expected to be able to swap it out for a mushroom. One other solution is to make the special slot skull shaped to make it clear it only has one use. When I die with an idol in my inventory, it still stays I haven't got even one idol. There is a draw order problem where mushrooms seem to move as they are drawn in the new position before/after the background map. I'd recommend either double buffering or making sure you draw both items and tiles in the same pass. You can't eat mushrooms when healthy - this makes it hard to swap a red for a green. Since you also can't choose not to pickup (and a red mushroom may block your path) this really hurts the resource management game.

2 - Playable and fairly bug-free, though dying and winning both seem to result in crashing.

3 - Seems pretty complete for what it's trying to do.

1 - I love the look of the ascii. Very well rendered. A good example of actually using lots of garish colours together successfully! Base camp, however, shouldn't disappear when it is out of FOV. It could also due with being made a more garish colour as it is very depressing to not be able to find it. So what merits a one? The controls. To be fair, touch controls for a roguelike are likely an unsolved problem. But slide move is just painful. It might work if you had very few movement commands, but there is a lot of wandering over open space in SkullDorado (which is a good thing, it is an explore/backtrack game! So do not think an answer is to cut out the wandering!) This needs to be easy and fun. But there are also the battles where each move matters. Slide move solves the latter problem, but butchers the exploration experience. I found I could do a sort of quick tap-slide to move somewhat less painfully, but I'd get about a 50% tap triggering spurious door closes and waits. And then I'd still use that to fight a monster and end up waiting beside a jaguar by accident. Tap to move would be better - detect which quadrant with respect to the @ the person taps in, and move that way. Put a reasonable deadspace in the center for holding still. Allow keyrepeats on the tap so you can press and hold to have the @ wander around by spiraling your pressed finger around the outside of the screen. Long distance movement has to be fun. And, no, I do not think path finding is an answer as it destroys the feeling of exploring between the places. You do want the user building a visceral knowledge of the map by walking each square, but you don't want to force them to do a complicated gesture for each square.

2 - Nice clean colourful tiles. Drag-to-move works OK but gets a little annoying on long journeys.

3 - Very colorful with a solid UI. Its the jungle theme well.

2 - This score presumes a more pleasant interface. SkullDorado is nicely straightforward in its premise. Definitely a game that rewards good spatial memory, while the combat system isn't meant to be center stage, it comes out remarkably balanced for a 7drl.

2 - The lost city theme provides some interesting atmosphere, but the game itself doesn't have a lot to it yet. The only items are healing mushrooms, making for little tactical depth, and the hunt-the-idol objective is a little tedious and of random difficulty - sometimes the idol is in a far flung corner of the map and sometimes it's in the room next door. There are only a few enemies, but each one is fairly distinctive in behaviour and well-done.

2 - Pretty fun, theme helps it quite a bit.

2 - A pretty straight forward roguelike. However, it is very well skinned. I also very much like how the room & corridors was changed to room & paths through forests. Then allowing one to see through the trees gives a weird inversion to the usual roguelike trope of narrow claustrophobic corridors and open rooms - the corridors themselvs let you see adjacent corridors.

1 - The theme is interesting - if not unique - but otherwise not much new.

1 - Seems pretty straight forward, hack and slash. Heal up.

2 - SkullDorado feels like a good seven days of work.

1 - Almost a 2, but there's just not quite enough to it yet.

2 - Some items, some bad guys, nice levels.

3 - Definitely a roguelke

3 - Pretty much.

3 - All the major elements are present

This year Android 7DRL submissions have come into their own. We see the author of 2419 return with a real game this year well worth trying out. Beautifully rendered and with a reasonable balance, SkullDorado's main flaw is a crippling control scheme. If that can be fixed, it may make a fun coffebreak game to play on a commute.

SkullDorado tasks you with exploring a lost city to find an idol and return it back to your starting point. There are monsters to fight along the way but other than that there is not a whole lot more to it - there's not much of a tactical aspect to the combat and winning is largely down to luck - how far away the idol has spawned and whether or not you can find enough healing mushrooms to offset the damage you'll take. Despite this, the game does have a fair amount of charm to it and what is there is fairly solid. I would definitely be interested in playing a more developed version.

This is a fun little roguelike, not all that complex, but the basics are there. I enjoy the theme and presentation. Loved the jaguars and monkeys! Using symbols instead of letters helped spark the imagination.

2 - The game is quite stable, but severly lacks polish. Things like a help (so I could discover 'd' for amputate without peeking at the source) would have been nice.

1 - There is nothing wrong with how this game looks, however the gameplay is lacking, there is no help, commands involve move and pickup. Not sure if there was limb bugs but animals seemed to drop some weird limbs with weapons attached. The first rat I killed seemed to be made up of troll limbs wielding weapons. A look command would of been nice. No bugs other than strange animals which may actually be on purpose.

2 - There is no winning condition, you have to refresh browser after death. You can descent on stairs up. Other than that, no gameplay related bugs found.

2 - The use of rot.js and the slightly randomized colors made this ascii presentation quite nice. I cannot give a 3 because of a few undocumented and slightly odd choices in key bindings and visuals. For example, it took me a few turns through the dungeon to realized that 'v' is what most roguelikes would represent as '>'. I had to delve into the source to discover 'd' for amputate (which now make sense because its basically a drop).

2 - Standard ascii dungeon with nice lighting. The colours are nicely themed and text was clear, however the text needs a little formatting perhaps. Some strange symbol choices for terrain.

2 - Absense of 'seen tiles' on the map is somewhat cumbersome. Pressing slash in firefox brings search, and there is no alternative key. Very important key 'd'ismember is missing in keys description.

2 - I really loved the idea of chopping off limbs and attaching new ones to create an unholy abomination of a killing machine. There just wasn't enough content to keep me wanting to play more and give this one a 3.

2 - The fun is short lived but because of the unusual theme it holds its own for a while. Attaching limbs is a nice aspect but the game does not really have enough depth or content to really bring it home.

2 - Switching limbs is pretty fun. I ended up with 1 shield arm and 3 troll arms with clibs. Too bad there is no some kind of final challenge and winning condition.

2 - I really loved the idea of attaching and detaching limbs. The mechanic really gives the game a unique feel and focus. In the end though, it amounted to just a humourous reskinning of the standard roguelike inventory mangement. You make choices between big strong hard hitting weapons/limbs like the troll arm with a club, or fast and speedy limbs like the kobold legs.

2 - This game has one aspect that is unique enough (at least for people who have not played IVAN that is); limb attachment! Perhaps not fully developed as I would of liked, it is a little hard to know what different limbs really give you.

2 - Replacing lost limbs isn't really new, but there are very few games with this kind of mechanics. And even fewer game where you can replace missing len with arm.

2 - The scope was on par with what I expect from a 7DRL.

1 - The scope is too small. I managed to become undefeatable early on and then it got boring realy quick. There are not too many enemies and the are not too dissimilar to really make a difference. There is a dungeon, enemies and lopped of limbs. I think a little more development and this would of worked.

2 - Ok for 7drl.

3 - This game is clearly a roguelike.

3 - Its a roguelike alright.

3 - It's very weak, but 3. There is no tactical variety. You are only limited to melee attack. And all character management is limited to picking limbs. You cannot even replace a weapon in a limb.

The game focuses on the idea of attaching and reattaching limbs to customize your hero. You can choose to attach things like troll limbs to do immense damage, or kobold legs to be very speedy. Limbs get chopped off as you go. If you lose all 4 limbs, your vulnerable core can be hit and you can die. Monster function similarly, so you can sometimes run into some strange creatures like rats with bear legs and the like. The game is powered by rot.js and runs in your browser, so it is super easy to try out. There is not enough content to keep you playing for more than a few minuites, but since it is so easy to run, I'd say its worth a spin just to see the interesting mechanic.

This is a game about losing limbs and attaching new ones, in any unholy manner you see fit. The limb system probably could of been developped a bit more for this game to really work. You lose limbs in battle and you can aquire new ones by defeating enemies. It was a little hard to determine what effect different creature limbs did but I think I noticed a speed difference with some limbs. One game I had a dog leg and a rat leg and nothing could chase me down. However lose of limbs also seemed to have no or little noticable effect on the player. I still managed to run away from a kobold whilst having no legs (or arms for that matter). Weapons (and shields) can also be found in the dungeon but only found attached to lopped off limbs. These items are apparently cursed and stay with the limb. One time I had two shields and found myself unhittable; funnily enough I could still lob of limbs though. Love the name of the game, it really sums it up..

Interesting experiment - you can attach lost limbs with other limbs found in the dungeon. Too bad actual implementation is way too shallow. There is a little bit of challenge on first levels, until you find a few powerful arms. Then you can complete thr set of most powerful arms and rely on luck after that.

2 - The game starts and runs, but at start it is very slow. The game crashed once while I was playing as zombie.

3 - Quite complete. Various weapon types, enemy types, ammo. Large maps with many features.

2 - I have noticed a house with a door on the edge of a map, impossible to enter.

2 - ascii display is ok. The weak point is controls. Running (shift+direction) works with cursor keys, but doesn't work with keypad. Dropping items is very inconvenient. Pressing and holding direction key doesn't update display.

2 - Fairly typical ASCII display. Good UI and a larger color depth than the typical ASCII game (256?).

2 - You can only drop the last item picked up, that is inconvenient. It looks okay, but most items are marked with letters (e.g. bandages are "b"), as well as enemies and friends, which is unconventional and thus confusing. There is no look command, so I cannot see what a letter means, or the name of a friendly human. I do not know whether this is intended or not, but if you have explored an area, do not see it, and monsters are moving there, you see them as empty spaces (instead of dots). Quite scary.

2 - It is yet another zombie apocalypse. First you run around collecting items and avoiding zombies, then you run around hunting remaining zombies. The fewer zombies remain, the more you need to run. Sometimes it is fun to shoot some zombies, but when you need to search for zombies, it is awkward.

2 - Reasonably fun zombie killing game. Survival/horror roguelike. Limited ammo and healing resources. You start empty handed and must find weapons, ammo, bandages ASAP. Maps are city streets, buildings and trees(?). Can be a big too big and sparse, resulting in lots of running without finding anything for long distances.

2 - You have to figure it out, after then, the game is very straightforward. If you are not for a challenge, you could find some fun.

1 - Zombies are way too popular these days. There are roguelikes about zombies too.

2 - Zombie horror as a roguelike. Has been done before but is handled well.

1 - I like the day&night, friendly humans, and the town/park setting.

2 - There is random town, human AI that picks items and fights zombies. I guess it's about right for a solid 7drl.

2 - Enough depth here to make it more than just "kill the zombies!" Large maps (maybe too large), a variety of stuff. One interesting feature is you have an infection level. Never got it high enough to discover if you become a zombie.

2 - Okay.

3 - It's roguelike for sure.

3 - Turn-based, random maps and enemies. Yep.

2 - A strong 2. Too simple.

There is a fun feature in this game - you can turn into the zombie. But I don't know if it is possible to achieve the bad ending since the game crashed soon after I turned into 'z'. While you are a zombie your control of movement is approximate, and you automatically attack nearby humans. This is somewhat inconsistent with how zombies chase you by moving perfectly straight. It would be nice to have the police station building where you always find some weapon and ammo. Having to run around the whole map to collect them is tedious. As well as it could be nice to have a siren or a hooter to attract remaning zombies. Anyway it is really great game for a first roguelike.

Yet another zombie game but a solid entry in the competition. Difficult and a bit frustrating as you begin empty-handed and must try to find weapons and resources all while being pursued by zombies. Once you do find weapons it's satisfying to kill zombies but you run out of ammo quickly. Most games are short as a result. Some clever ideas like other human survivors on the map with you and a running count of the human-to-zombie ratio.

A zombie apocalypse game. Find weapons, armors, ammo, and bandages/antivirs, save the humans, kill the zombies.

3 - Its a full bug free game, though you can attack your pet for some reason.

3 - Some occasionally jerkiness, but no major bugs. Seems fairly complete and polished such as it is.

2 - Astonishing art and sound pull it way up, but its not an easy win three is because while some of the humor is alright, the needlessly crude image in the opening story just kills all the class. Its demeaning, immature, and out of place with the tone of the rest of the game. Some other nitpicks are the keys are incorrectly displayed - neither space nor 9 go down stairs as described, < does (even though thats the RL standard for up), and move up/left isn't D. Some artwork like trees, terrain, character speech and some attack/death effects all often get in the way of what you're doing or obscure items/creatures.

3 - Gorgeous graphics. Nice story presentation. Clear controls (even though it tells you the wrong keys). The attempts at 'edgy' humour I found a little forced and juvenile, but perhaps that's just me.

1 - Despite looking great there is little depth here, and it simply ends after 1000 turns. It feels a lot like a run of the mill iPad game where your only purpose is topping your last highscore moreso than achieving anything meaningful within the game itself. There are passive powerups available, but if there were any activatable abilities at all or any variety between monsters forcing you to adopt any tactical plan whatsoever there might be something to this game.

1 - Not enough to the gameplay that it becomes interesting - just bump stuff until the time runs out. The protagonist has a gun as part of her character art, but there seems to be no way to actually use it.

1 - Nothing special going on here.

1 - Nothing new here. Even the 'dark' red-riding hood setting has been done to death by this point.

2 - Its clear that this is a team effort, since the polish is widely spread from the music to the slick graphics. However, I expected a lot more gameplay than what's there. You wander around bump-killing things and collecting points from the ground, then it just ends. There is levelling, but it makes little difference in the small time frame, and a pet but with no personality or independance. No equipment or other progression, no variety in enemies, no special non-passive abilities.

1 - A lot of effort seems to have gone into the graphics animation, sound etc. which almost earned this a 2, but the game itself is about as basic as it could possibly be. I would have expected a lot more from a team of 5.

3 - There is some procedural generation, classic roguelike movement and basic combat. Lacks complexity, but still 3.

3 - Ticks the boxes, though the lack of complexity or indeed any interesting decisions to be made really rob it of any roguelike feel.

On a quest to retrieve your companys' rum and gold, you travel about the dark forest searching for the aforementioned rum and gold bumping into whatever enemies get in your way. An unexplained 1000 turns later the game simply ends, and your points are tallied. There is literally nothing more to this game. Given the top of the line amazing artwork, there is huge potential here, and for all the other developers I strongly recommend a look to see what majestic things can be done for the top end of looks for roguelikes. Sadly there isn't much going on below the shiny surface. Also, while some people may not care - sexism in the gaming industry is a real actual problem, and pushing it beyond the all too common scantily clads right into upskirt shot territory is just tasteless. I hope that the devs don't continue down that road for their protagonist.

Pretty much the textbook example of style over substance. Beautiful artwork and a high degree of aesthetic polish, but this seems to have been at the expense of any real gameplay to speak of. Indeed, the whole package comes across feeling rather corporate and soulless, not helped by the trying-too-hard humour which undercuts rather than enhances the game's personality. That said, there is a firm technical and graphical base for a larger game here - which given the fact that the game refers to itself as a 'demo' I assume is on the way.

2 - The game runs ok, but it looks like there is no winning condition and there are couple of bugs that causes crashes.

2 - Reasonably complete, seems to be missing an ending or much variablity, a help screen would help too. Items seem kind of pointless aside from food.

2 - Ultima Ratio Regum font looks cool. But part of the dungeon that is out of field of view is way too dark. I can barely see anything there. I don't really understand why there is no way to use skills with keyboard. Everything else is done with keyboard, but even eating food can only be done with mouse, that is otherwise unused.

1 - Graphics are fine by controls are poor, movement is with the directional keys (cardinal directions only) and targetting is with the mouse. WASD and the mouse would have made this a solid 2, boarding 3.

2 - There are some interesting traps and enemies that you have to figure out how to fight with. However, absense of aim really spoils the fun.

2 - I could only get to the fourth level or so, but the game grinds better heavily. New monsters type will show up eventually, but you have to aggresively manage your health via your food level to stay alive.

1 - I don't see any new ideas here.

2 - Most of the game is standard RL fare, but the moving traps are fairly interesting and innovative.

2 - Just enough for 7drl.

2 - Pretty standard for a 7DRL.

3 - It's a roguelike.

3 - RL all the way, permadeath, turn-based and procedurally generated.

There are bits of technical information in a readme file. There are controls in a readme file. But not a single word about what is going on in the game. No plot, no aim, nothing. You can guess from the name of the game that your main aim is not to starve. But judging from my experience - death from starvation is the least threat. Probably survival game should focus more on gaining food, and probably eating strange stuff. Food in this game doesn't even have a name. It's generic food. It's especially sad because the game looks pretty nice and have it own fun aspects.

Dungeon-Themed Starvation Simulator is a quest in food management. You delve into a dungeon and have to carefully choose when to eat to ensure that you have enough health to survive encounters yet save enough food for future encounters. It has neat moving traps and lighting mechanics, but the controls are difficult to work with as the directional keys and the mouse do most of the work.

2 - Interactions with people are a bit simplistic, they do nothing when you start punching them either

2 - Good but had some issues with the screen scrolling when I pressed the movement keys. I had to change my monitor resolution to accomdate. Also there were some rooms with characters listed as being present but they were not on the screen.

2 - It works

2 - I really like what the developer did with the controls and sparse colors. Did not get a 3 because of the field of view algorithm. It just confused the issue, caused you to lose track of all the house locations and added nothing to game play.

1 - Go one house to the next, asking people who they saw near other houses, then try to guess the murderer

2 - This game is a mystery game. You question everyone and narrow down the suspects.Things became very tedious.

2

3 - This seems like a unique idea, I've never heard of a roguelike doing something like this.

2

2 - Seems about what you'd expect from a 7DRL. There is quite a bit going on under the hood producing the mysteries.

2

2 - A roguelike presentation but diverges quite a bit in gameplay.

You are a pair of detectives investigating a murder case. You wander from house to house asking people what they know, you can either seize or whack down the suspects with your bare fists.

This was a very innovative game, something unique I have never seen before. It seemed to play just fine. Unfortunately the actual game play became a bit of a chore. Eliminating suspects, finding out who was where and with whom. This game would be perfect for mystery enthusiasts.

1 - Ran into several crashes and bugs, including one amusing bug where a character cast a fireball when ordered to cast a healing spell

1 - Seems seriously unfinished. Crashes to desktop every time I tried to go down the stairs to the next level and numerous things seem not to have been implemented as intended.

1 - Looks good, though it's heavily based on the RogueBasin libtcod tutorial's look. The characters are really small, though, so it's hard to tell what's going on. The controls are not listed anywhere, so I had to go through and try every key. Menus are closed by the enter key or the excape key, and it's not easy to remember.

2 - Standard ASCII. Pretty clean, and controls are easy enough to figure out, but uses a tiny font that started to hurt my eyes after a while.

3 - I never got all that far before crashing, but it seems like there's a good game in there. Good variety of items, and potential for deep tactical thinking with the companions.

2 - Despite its rough-and-ready state, has the makings of a fun game with a decent grasp on the roguelike basics. The two allied characters don't seem like they would really add that much though - I suspect that if the game were playable for longer keeping them equipped and healthy would be more of a chore than a pleasure and having to choose who is going to use an item even when it seems to make no real difference just adds an annoying bit of faff to inventory management.

3 - Having two companions where you can only set their AI parameters is a really cool idea. Nothing I've seen before.

1 - Pretty standard, really. There is an attempt at innovation with the party-management mechanics but as implemented it doesn't go much beyond any other roguelike with allies.

2 - Good variety of items. Random dungeon layout is well done. A solid round of bugfixes would get the game up to a 3. I get the feeling the author was trying to do too much, and didn't have time for a debugging pass.

2 - Hard to judge, since I couldn't get off the first level - perhaps there is masses more content hidden away on level 2. From what I could play it seems like the implemented scope is nowhere near as big as the intended scope, but there's already a fairly largish selection of items in place.

3 - Random dungeon, monsters, and items in a fantasy setting.

3 - Definitely.

I consistently got the feeling that there's a great game in there, if only I can get to it. The companion mechanic is really out-of-sight, and the items have a good amount of variety. But the bugs and the interface/control quirks get in the way of the experience. Work on the bugs, regularize the controls (consider asking some people you know to give you feedback while they're playing?), and make the graphics feel like your own, and you've got a solid game.

Due to it consistently crashing when I tried to go down to level 2 I had to base this review on just playing the first level a couple of times over, so hopefully that is representative of the game as a whole. It has the makings of a fun roguelike, but it seems to me like the author tried to do a bit more than the time available permitted and as a result the game in its current state is very unstable, unbalanced and unfinished.

3 - One end-game bug and continuing doesn't restore ammo. Polished thematic text and background images.

2 - Game runs, no major bugs found.

2 - A couple of minor bugs; in the sewers the exit warped me back a level rather than forwards one time and after exiting (accidentally) and continuing I had lost all the bullets in my gun.

2 - Hard to go wrong with libtcod. Would have been a 3 except pressing escape insta-quits the game! You can continue, but without bullets.

2 - Very roguelike in appearance. Only issue is the escape key exits you from the game. Though the game does auto-save your progress, but you resume with your character in the first room. A repeat detection on the keyboard would be nice.

2 - Nice clean graphics and the background images do a nice job of setting the scene. Would be a 3 but for three small niggles - there doesn't appear to be a 'wait' key, Esc quits the whole game and it could do with having a repeat detection on the arrow keys - travelling down a long corridor is likely to give you RSI.

2 - Worth a look. Especially if you like narratives about detectives and dames and thugs.

2 - A decent game, not a hack and slash, but a point and shoot.

2 - Pretty nice. The story, while fairly generic, has a nice noir feel and punching, shooting and blowing up goons is pretty fun. The limited pistol ammo also gives it some small element of strategy in deciding when to rely on fists over lead. The game lacks challenge, however - you are pretty much drowning in bandages the whole way through. As the levels are pre-designed it also lacks replayability.

1 - I don't think any new mechanics or gameplay ideas are tried here. The detective setting is a bit different, but deep down, are thugs really any different than orcs?

2 - The point and shoot is a nice touch, especially with the FOV calculations, so it isn't possible to shoot around corners.

2 - I'm being a little generous here, mainly because I like the revolver-chamber ammo display. The setting and several features are fairly novel in terms of roguelikes, but then this isn't *really* a roguelike...

2 - What I'd expect from a 7DRL.

2 - The features in the game alone would certainly warrant a score of three, but since this is based on the recent libtcod roguelike tutorial, I can't in all honesty give it that high of a score.

2 - Feels like a fairly well-rounded game, although it is quite short.

3 - Some levels are static, but others are random. Simple enemies, a few items, a place for messages, etc. It's a roguelike.

2 - The game is somewhat roguelike with a different weapon mechanic, but the levels are static.

1 - While it uses a roguelike engine and shows some inspiration from roguelikes, the levels are pre-made and the gameplay is story driven, so not a roguelike.

Oh those crazy dames! Find out who killed your detective coworkers, run through some seriously thung filled sewers, infiltrate the crime boss's house, and save the girl in the red dress. And do it all with nothing more than your six shooter and a few grenades you find along the way. A simple game with good storytelling.

The game at least has a little back story, and some of the dialog in the game indicates the developer at least spent some of their time trying to explain the circumstances the character finds themselves. The aiming mechanism for the pistol is nice, especially with the FOV calculations included to add *some* realistic physics to the gameplay. The game restore feature should have saved the player's current position, instead of starting the all the way back at the beginning, though that might have been an oversight. The enemies are quite basic, nothing special.

A neat little story-driven game with a noir setting. I enjoyed it but as the levels are all pre-designed and the overall design sensibility is rather 'mainstream' I'm not sure it really meets the criteria of being a roguelike. That aside, it's rather a pleasant experience. The story is evocative though fairly derivative and contributes to a surprisingly exciting final level, although the gameplay itself doesn't have a huge amount of challenge or depth.

2 - There's a playable game here, winnable and losable, but the authors definitely didn't get to everything they wanted.

2 - Map generation buggy, otherwise it's stable (although lacking "s"cope)

2 - Though I didn't find any bugs, there are no instructions and no way to restart the game once you either die or win. No way to exit the game without exiting the window. I did have to restart once because the level was not connected. None of these were major issues, but for a perfect '3' it needs to be very tight.

2 - The art is simple and does the job well, and the sounds are creepy (although I suspect they'd get on my nerves if the game took much longer.)

3 - Very clean looks, controls work

2 - The graphics were nice and the interface was pretty simple. It took me a few games to figure out that my only controls were arrows and space bar. The FoV was very well used.

3 - The learning curve is a lot of fun, very tense, but there really isn't any game left after that. Still, for a 7DRL I'm not looking for great replayability.

1 - Not very much to have fun with

2 - Not a bad game, there's just not a ton of elements. Find the key to the secret door, enter the basement, go to the end, come back. I did feel that creeping sense of horror, so that's cool, but for a '3' there needs to be more. Solid effort though.

2 - This kind of horror/stealth gameplay will be a welcome component of the roguelike mainstream, I think, one day. I'm looking forward to their doing more with it here.

2 - Hiding inside closets and under beds, light switches.

2 - It's a very basic production but I am impressed by the ability to create that horror feel with such sparse elements.

2 - They aimed for a reasonable target.

1 - Barely a complete game

2 - Not quite an '@' on the map, there are plenty of other objects. Furniture, doors, keys, special doors, light switches and 1 creepy enemy. Your character closes his eyes, the lights go off and on, there's a baddie that makes you shut your eyes.

2 - Grid-based, turn-based, procedural generation, fov. Nothing detracts from the roguelikeness, but there's not a lot contributing, either.

2 - It has random level generation, permadeath, grid based movement, LOS

2 - It's perfectly roguelike in many ways, a procedural permadeath game. It lacks any sort of resource managment. Note that this sort of game doesn't really need resource management, but to get the perfect '3' I like to see that or at least one other classic element.

You wake up home alone and hope for the house layout to be correctly generated. The front door is locked so you find a door into a magic corridor, survive a horrible critter into a corridor of Doom just to unlock the front door and escape.

This is a nice little horror game with limited elements and a basic control scheme. It's pretty creepy, utilizing sound and darkness to create that hint of fear required for a good horror game. This game does not score a lot higher because there are just so few elements. For what it is though it's pretty approachable. It confuses you about what to do for the first few minutes, but that seems purposeful. Just use spacebar and arrows to move around, you'll figure it all out and have a bit of scary fun doing it.

2 - No bugs, reasonably polished, but seems to be lacking features, especially procedural levels.

2 - Not a big game, but everything that seemed like it was supposed to work did. Telling the user exactly what actions are possible each turn is worth props.

2 - The game has armor and weapon upgrades, but no explanation how they work. Other than that, I think the game is polished.

3 - ASCII with a nice clean look. The context based controls are great.

2 - Doesn't put special effort into presentation, but doesn't make big mistakes either. I actually felt a fair bit of tension before the monster first showed up.

3 - Nice ASCII graphics and controls.

2 - The tense atmosphere with the stalking creature is great. However it becomes very easy, and replays in particular offer no challenge.

2 - I enjoyed the first game, and there wasn't much beyond it.

1 - I had some fun with this, but not enough for a 2, IMO.

2 - A roguelike with a single enemy! Nice idea, and done well.

1 - No interesting innovation.

1 - Not innovative IMO.

2 - On the small side. Could have done with a bigger environment, and maybe a faster monster with more player abilities to keep it at bay.

2 - The levels seem to be static, with only the pickup location and spawn points randomised. Still, it's winnable and, if you don't figure the strategy out on the first try, meaningfully losable.

2 - Medikits, weapon/armor upgrades, stun gun, monster. Enough for a 2.

2 - Loses a mark for not having procedural levels, which would have made the game much more interesting.

3 - Nothing I can point to that isn't roguelike-ish, and I would imagine that more development would bring in more roguelikey features.

2 - Lacks complexity. Dungeons are maybe too deterministic.

A monster is stalking you through several levels, and you are initially too weak to do anything other than stun it. You have to collect enough weapon and armour upgrades to let you face up to it. This is pretty neatly done, and at the start of the game in particular there's a nice tense atmosphere as you wonder whether or not the creature is round the corner waiting to eviscerate you. However with perfect play it's very easy, and lacks procedural levels to make it engaging for replays.

A very small scifi roguelike that tries to raise tension as you wander an empty spaceship, stalked by a dark creature, and... oddly, kind of succeeds, really, or at least did in my case. The creature appears as just an empty tile, which means that the best way to spot it is to actually watch the list of allowed actions for "stun creature" to appear. Winning was quite easy - lock the creature in a room, go pick up stuff, come back and kill it while stunlocked - and there needs to be more game before it would be possible to "balance" it to be more challenging.

A very simple roguelike, where you gather powerups and have to defeat one enemy, who is initially stronger than you. I have won after several tries.

2 - It works, it is complete in a sense, but actual gameplay is so basic, that it's hard to call it polished.

3 - Certainly complete though a bit simple and lacking in complexity. Mazes seem to have only a single solution. Might have been better if there was more than one way through a maze.

3 - No obvious bugs.

2 - It's labyrinth in ascii. Nothing fancy, but functional.

2 - Classic ASCII look, though with only a single type of enemy. Black, white, gray, red and yellow are the only colors used.

2 - Nothing special here. Standard controls and display for a roguelike. Perhaps a bit bland. I like the convention of using '&' to represent other people opposed to the '@'. Those two symbols seem like good nemesis to each other.

1 - First you spend a lot of tine traversing pretty big labyrinth. Then you patiently wait for guards to move in right direction. Not really fun for me.

2 - A thinking-man's roguelike. You don't fight the monsters, you need to lure one close enough to another and let them fight each other. Dying once is game over which is a real pain if you were on a deeper level of the dungeon. The worst aspect is the long complex mazes. Might have been more fun if the mazes were shorter and less complex, or if there were rooms connected by halls.

2 - There are some good strategic decisions. Wishing there was more to it. I think the maps need to be smaller so the player doesn't have to run so far to start the action.

1 - There were labyrinth games and there were games in which you use enemies to kill each other. As well as there were keys and games. Nothing new here.

2 - An interesting take on a roguelike. Not being able to kill anything and needing to get the monsters in the maze to kill each other is a different way of doing things, but that's all there is to it.

2 - Nice positional game, not a rogue clone.

2 - I guess it's ok for 7drl. Especially if you never done labyrinth generator before.

2 - An interesting puzzle game dressed up as a roguelike. It's clever but not that complex once you figure out what you're doing, and at that point mostly becomes tedious.

1 - Pretty basic.

2 - Well. It's turn based, top down, permadeath is here. But it seriously lacks in meaningful complexity and choices.

3 - Definitely a roguelike: turn-based, perma-death, randomly generated levels, even ASCII.

2 - The game has procedural content and permadeath, but none of the variety, resource management or associated tropes you'd expect. It is a tile grid rendered in ascii, but that's not quite enough here for a 3.

In this game you have to traverse big labyrinth, aggravate guards of labyrinth so they fight each other, get keys from dead guards to open gate(s) that protect exit. Each next level have more gates and more guards. But labyrinth is damn big. I've spent a lot of time just reaching first guard to practice confusion technique mentioned in instructions. I'd say the game is too tedious. You spend too much time mindlessly pressing keys.

It crosses a puzzle game with a roguelike, resulting in a game that's fun for a bit but becomes tedious after a few plays. Mazes are long and complex and you're often backtracking through them, which gets annoying. There's a lack of variety having only one kind of monster and only a single way of killing them, making the boredom come creeping in pretty quickly.

This is another nice entry into the burgeoning procedural puzzle subgenre. It focuses more on positioning than on resource management or loot chasing. There isn't a ton here but I recommend a quick look to everyone. It has some interesting mechanics and is easy to pick up and just play. With so many games in the competition this year it's refreshing to play a game that doesn't require a huge commitment to learn. So give it a quick run through, if anything the run away and set the guards off on each other gameplay can and should be folded into other larger games.

2 - Works just fine in Chrome, would not run in Firefox.

2 - I count monster stacking as severe bug. Even if it is intentional health bar displayed on top belongs to random monster instead of whomever you are fighting.

3 - Complete and lacking in bugs, as far as I can see.

3 - The tiles and animations are retro felling but look quite nice. The lighting for the fov looks good.

2 - Controls are acceptble. However, graphics are terribly ugly. Should have been ASCII glyphs.

3 - Attractive, clear tileset, easy controls and an intuitive interface.

1 - There isn't much to do in this game. All the monsters are basically the same, but some stronger. The lack of any interesting mechanics besides multiplayer makes the game boring.

1 - This is a chore to play. Exploring takes ages and you cannot steamroll weak monsters like you are used to in almost any other roguelike game.

2 - Worth a brief look, particularly since it has multiplayer. Relatively limited set of enemies and no special abilities or character growth limits the interest value though.

2 - Adding multiplayer and real time is definatly not typical in a roguelike, but is hardly a giant leap either.

1 - Multiplayer roguelikes are rare but have been done to death already. MAngband and TomeNET are both very old and do they job much better.

2 - It's a simple roguelike but having multiplayer is notable.

1 - No items, no characters, all the monster the same but reskinned, the only thing added here was multiplayer, which is harder than it might sound, but doesn't really make the game have bigger scope.

2 - A weak 2, because there is almost nothing. On the other hand setting up multiplayer engine probably took some effort so it does not deserve a 1.

2 - Clean and functional, multiplayer puts it at an easy 2 but would need some character variation for a 3.

2 - Multiplayer and realtime does not a roguelike make, although the game obviously borrows roguelike elements and might be considered a roguelike-like.

2 - Has some roguelike characteristics like items and grid-based gameplay. Levels are randomly generated although this hardly matters. Only thing that has impact is stairs location.

2 - A roguelike without levelling and in a slow real-time, not turn based.

I think that this game has a lot of potential to be turned into a really fun multiplayer roguelike (or roguelike-like at least). However as it stands there isn't a lot of content. You bump a bunch of monsters with a character that has no discernable way to improve. You chug lots of health potions as you fight, but the interface for doing so is awkward (requiring multiple mouse clicks while using the keyboard to keep fighting in real time). The multiplayer aspect isn't really all that exciting in my opinion as it would just mean you do the same thing as before, but chug health pots less often. With more content though this game could be a really nice starting place for an awesome game.

A try at creating yet another multiplayer roguelike. It works but does not have anything to offer as a game.

It's a nice, simple little dungeon crawler you can adventure through with whoever turns out to be playing at the same time, which is neat. No levelling, no abilities and no items except potions limits its longevity, but an attractive layout helps it become an enjoyable experience for fifteen minutes or so.

3 - no bugs

2 - ESC should never instant-quit a released game. It is very nice that after death you don't have to re-read the intro - it was excellent to have the intro - once. I managed to get a key on the room that had the door with the key, but when I wandered off to try another room, the key icon vanished leaving me stranded. Deflecting the shooters with my shield really should kill the slimes

3 - Very polished

2 - classic 8bits pixel art

2 - It holds the look it sets out to achieve. Rupee hit targets seem small. I'm not sure why I only get a half heart for a heart pickup. A huge starting problem is that I didn't know I needed to get my sword. I then thought I was stupid not noticing Link wasn't wearing a sword. But then I saw he still lacks a sword after the pickup.

3 - Nice look; easy to control

2 - lacks a bit depth to be really fun but the controls are really smooth

1 - It takes way too long to kill the enemies. The enemies (two that I found) did not pose problems other than boredom.

3 - While I thought the combat gets repetitive playing it a third or fouth time, I laughed several times at the text

1 - a classic gauntlet-like

1 - The mechanics are, intentionally, lifted from other games. In some ways, I wish *more* was lifted, such as keeping number of hits to kill enemies low.

1 - It's a Zelda-clone in its mechanics; doesn't bring anything new there.

2 - procedural levels and key/locks puzzles are good enough for a 7DRL

2 - This is quite a faithful randomly generated zelda-like.

2 - The random layout adds some depth, but otherwise what is expected given its tropes

2 - more gauntlet than rogue (real time and no grid based gameplay)

1 - This is a slightly randomized zelda-like, and one that focuses on the dungeon only portion. Each room being a disjoint encounter means there still are two discrete modes - exploration by moving between rooms and combat within a room.

2 - Different genre

A good gauntlet base. So far, it lacks some depth and variety to be really fun, but it's really promising.

DiveDive is best described as a Zelda-like. It presents a randomized Zelda-ish dungeon, with a very familiar protaganist and gameplay. Unfortunately the dungeon feels linear and the combat tedious, detracting from an intriguing storyline.

Uses the Zelda-clone model (similar to Binding of Isaac) to tell a silly and rather surreal story. Makes good use of in-game text to provide moments of levity to what what can get repetitive after playing through it a couple of times. Random room placement adds some depth, but with limited weapon choices and monster variations, the replay value is not as high.

2 - Some elements are polished(visuals, info displays), some don't feel 100% balanced(speed of progress) or complete (trading).

2 - Many features seem present, balance could use some work

2 - Impressive feature set but so lacking in help files or any such that it's hard to tell what features there are.

3 - Local and galaxy maps set the mood. The interface is easy to pick up.

2 - Graphics and controls are functional. I couldn't hear the music, but it the name of the file is correct, it is appropriate.

2 - Extremely attractive game for ASCII, but controls are 50% guesswork. Beautiful sensor implementation!

2 - Worth playing.

1 - Some potential, but gets repeditive pretty quickly. Trading doesn't seem to be implemented so not much to do besides shoot enemies and upgrade.

2 - Definitely worth a look just to be impressed by scale, but lacks the depth necessary for continued play.

2 - Several elements not typically seen in roguelikes.

2 - Other RLs have tackled the topic, but not many.

2 - Space flight, trading and a universe to explore which is neat but trading not complex enough to be actually innovative.

2 - A little above average.

2 - Pretty standard for an 7DRL, would have liked to see trading implemented.

3 - Impressive scope, given the number of features and the attractive style of the game. No obvious crashes either.

1 - It's real time and the default game is played in a static galaxy.

2 - Procedural generation and permadeath. But more of a shooter like the original Elite than a RL.

1 - It's 2D Elite, minus some features and in ASCII. Only a roguelike in terms of being ASCII, really, and in the sense that Elite had permadeath as well.

This game looks very good, and the UI is well designed to give you lots of information. However, you seem to be forced to buy a scoop immediately in order to progress, and progress is slow because trading doesn't seem to work. The game(i.e. flying and fighting) is still fun to play around with, and this game would turn into a really cool spaceship game with a little more content.

Elite RL is an interesting attempt that seems to have suffered a bit from over overreach. Like its namesake you play as a merchant/warrior traveling the galaxy trying to make a profit while trying to avoid smasking your ship into space stations. The good looks and plays well, but suffers from lack of depth. Trading is present, but all stations have the same prices. Combat is present, but all enemies are more or less the same. This is definitely a title that could use some more development and I would look forward to playing it some day.

It calls itself Elite RL and it means it - a lovely implementation of the feel of Elite in a 2d ASCII game. That said, non-Elite-players are likely to be even more baffled by the controls than I was, and there's no explanation for anything. Trading and exploring starts to feel a bit hollow once you realise how little variation there is as well.

2 - The game basically works, but lacks some polish : help screen missing, some bugs in dungeon generation (misplaced doors or unwinnable levels)

2 - Game appears to be bug-free, but not completely polished. Random doors in the middle of a room, and no apparent use for Imagination stat.

1 - This game certainly has some cool emements but just does not seem complete. One type of enemy and each level is the same. There is no balance to the game mechanics either.

1 - Quite basic, primary-ish colors on black background. The walls background is shaded though, but the shading seems random and doesn't look very good.

3 - I liked the aesthetics of this game, especially the attention to detail with respect to the mirrors and the shaking effect when being hit was a very nice touch.

3 - Straight out this game hits you with its funhouse quirks. The mirror rooms are awesome, espacially the parellel mirror effects, add some evil clowns and you've got atmostphere baby! The plywood walls are a nice touch as is the creepy man on a stool. Colours are great.

1 - probably because it's not finished, the game lacks some real gameplay element. All you can do is kill clowns (and this certainly adds to the fun. I hate clowns!) and eat food to restore your health (which is called self-esteem here). You can increase an imagination bar and there's also a breath indicator but I don't think they have any use yet so you basically have to find the stair down and kill clowns.

2 - Despite the aesthetics, the game is quite straight-forward.

2 - Even though the game does not really have much gameplay it initially hit me as a fun experience. Sure the fun diminishes as the game goes on, but for a few minutes there it was an awesome experience.

2 - the funhouse setting is nice. Clowns laugh at you to decrease your self esteem and mirror rooms are as confusing as real ones. There's definitely some good ideas to dig here.

1 - After consideration, the game doesn't offer anything new here other than the aesthetics. The theme is different, as are the player stats, but not all the stats appear to have any function (e.g. Imagination).

2 - The mirror effect is great, as is the laughing clowns. There are some great ideas but I guess time got the better here.

1 - You can really feel the lack of time here. There's even a "press ? for help" message, but no help. But according to the todo list on github, the author intend to add more features and the game could really spawn some good gameplay elements.

2 - The scope of the game appears to be what I'd expect for a 7 day programming effort.

1 - The game has some great aspects but is just not complete enough. You get to see everything this game has in about 30 seconds. But what a ride!

3 - yep

3 - The game definitely has roguelike qualities.

3 - 'Tis a rougelike I reckon.

Another rot.js game, this time using coffeescript. While it runs and you can actually play, it lacks some polish and a few more gameplay elements to really be worth a try. The funhouse setting brings some fresh and interesting ideas though, and come on, everybody loves to bash clowns.

While I like the game's aesthetics, the lack of eneny varieties leads to very rapid boredom. Obviously I would have liked to see the usage of the other character stats such as Imagination (as a weapon?) and Breathe (a stamina-like stat?), I think that would make the game much more interesting.

FunhouseRL has a great premise; about time someone made a roguelike about a Pink song but it just does not have enough content. There is no where enough variation in the game to keep it entertaining. That said the atmosphere really works as would be its strong point if developed further. The player statistics were not really developed well, I still dont know what imagination does, presumably you hold you breath when attacking and self-confidence was obviously hitpoints. Levelling up seemed to do nothing. All in all a great start to a game that I hope will be turned into a complete game at some later stage.

2 - Basic game is there, random map, enemies and basic combat. Not problems or bugs encountered.

3 - Runs well in Firefox, includes nice help screens.

2 - Everything works.

2 - Uninspiring dungeon, but well themed text, enemies and corruption was a cool effect.

3 - Color choice and glow effects support the Tron theme really well. VI keys are the only control choice, which would make this a 2 except it has a well done autoexplore so you don't actually have to use them much.

1 - I like the mixture of graphics and ASCII characters. Later, it does not look so nice due to corruption, but this is probably intended. But a big penalty for supporting only the VI keys.

1 - Not exactly fun, levels were too big and empty. Vi keys really killed it for me.

3 - The theme comes out really nicely in this game, in all sorts of little details, a must play for the aesthetics alone.

2 - Quite boring, unfortunately.

1 - Not inspiring, the theme has been done before, combat a little boring, thankfully there was auto-explore. Almost gave an extra point for vi keys, almost.

2 - Uses rot.js to good effect and has a great theme but the actual mechanics are average roguelike style.

1 - Maybe I simply do not see it, but I think there is no innovation.

1 - Not much content, at least in the levels I made it to. No items. Combat very basic.

2 - On the high end of a 2, there's a lot here but it's mostly in the thematic polish.

2 - @ on map, monsters, ranged attacks. Nice graphics.

2 - Its the start of a roguelike. Random dungeon and enemies.

3 - Fully roguelike

2 - Lacks complexity.

So its another Tron inspired game set inside cyberspace. The theme is actually well done, you have a random executable name, you start off as version 1.0 and try to level, i.e. upgrade versions. Very cute. You go around "derazzing" other malicious software entities until you eventually find the i/o tower to re-establish contact with your User. The game is quite well done technically, has clean interface, autosaves your progress and easy to follow help. However the gameplay is a little bland, and the use of the vi keys as the only way to move you program around was a big mistake. Presumably this was done to add to the theme, but it makes the game hard to get into, the addition of auto-explore and auto-stair find was essential to a usually non-vi player. I really wanted to find some way of in game hacking to enable numkey access. The game has promise but lacking scope/content. The corruption effects on the game screen were a novel addition.

This is a really good game for getting an idea of the kind of visual aesthetics you can get while still using ASCII (actually UTF) characters. The descriptions of events and the leveling process really support the theme without being uncomfortably foreing to a roguelike game.

This is not a Discworld game, but a game where you are a program who wants to defeat all the malware on the disk and be executed by the user (does not make much sense, but that's not the point). It has quite nice graphical elements, but it is annoying that it supports only the VI keys. Unfortunately, it becomes boring quickly.

2 - Movement is wonky: sometimes you move one space and sometimes you go flying across the room. Not sure if this is working as intended (zero gravity in space?). Makes the game difficult to play. There's a delay between pushing a button and you moving or shooting. It's browser-based. Is that Internet lag?

1 - There's a major movement bug here that makes it tough to play the game. A game breaker.

2 - Cute pixely retro style.Music is nice, but does get repetitive.

3 - Graphics, sound, display and controls are all top notch (ignoring the movement bug). They all seem to go together fine, and it's easy to see what everything is.

1 - Found this incredibly frustrating. It's real-time which, combined with the wonky controls and endless enemies, makes for a frustrating mess of just trying to move through the maze and not die.

2 - It's tough to tell with the movement issues, but what is here seems like it could be neat. You collect corpses to throw them out of the air lock, you can blow stuff up and kill ghosts. Shooting, whacking stuff with a wrench.

2 - Sort of interesting idea here: find a corpse (injured guy?) and carry him to the airlock while fighting ghosts the whole way.

2 - It's pretty cool how the ghosts come out of the corpses, seemingly infinitely, so you have to collect the corpse and toss it out of the airlock. I never succeeded because my guy kept flying all about, but that's a pretty interesting gameflow.

2 - Fairly limited but not necessarily more than your average game of this type.

2 - There are enough elements here for a solid 7DRL in game play. The graphics and sound are above average, and they all seem to work together as a whole. There's only one enemy, one explosive barrel, and one goodie crate but it all seems to interact and play off of each other well.

2 - Random mazes and randomly placed items. Really falls down on the real-time aspect, however, which turns it from strategic roguelike to frustrating button-mashing twitch fest.

2 - Well, it's procedurally generated, has resource management, and it's grid based. It's a real time game though. Not really a twitchy shooter, but not so strategic either.

Does the (now fairly common) pixely 8-bit retro type thing that I feel I've seen a lot these days. It's colorful and cute and has nice creepy music playing the whole time. Classic NES-era feel. Very twitchy gameplay which is crippled by terribly slow, non-reactive controls, sucking all the fun out and replacing it with frustration. Endless enemies also just adds to the frustration. Might have been more fun if it used turn-based combat.

I am unsure if this developer want this game to be considered finished. Unless I'm somehow missing something, there's a bug that forces the player to fly several spaces instead of moving just one space per click. If that could get cleaned up then this game is pretty neat. You play a little mechanic or robot guy on a space ship. Your goal, I think, is to get all the bodies on the ship flushed out the air lock. Each body emits ghosts like the old Gauntlet game, so you need to get that body off the ship before you are overwhelmed. Your robot has 4 way shooting but with limited ammo, he also has a wrench he can use to whack ghosts. Ghosts hate both bullets and wrenches. You can also blow up barrels and cause a nice bit of AoE chaos. There's also a bunch of goodie crates stacked around you can bust open for space bucks, healthy packs and ammo. I hope this developer finishes this little game, it could be pretty fun.

2 - The game appears quite polished, but it appears to be based on the recent python libtcod tutorial.

2 - Pretty complete and polished, with some minor bugs such as RMB not cancelling throws. Enemy AI is very dumb.

2 - The controls are straightforward, nothing confusing. Though a README file or a help option would be nice to explain all the available keys.

2 - Standard ASCII, pretty clear. Some weird inconsistencies in the control scheme - you can choose targets for flashbangs and grenades, but not revolvers?

2 - The game is playable, but on the lower end of two. The enemy strength is quite high, and it is quite frustrating since they can attack diagonally while your character is restricted to the four cardinal directions. A more balanced game would have made it less aggravating and more certainly more enjoyable.

2 - Pretty standard roguelike gameplay. Would be a 3, but there are lots of exploitable systems here. Enemies just walk straight towards you and get 'stuck' on corners and each other, so there is little chance of being surrounded. Using items is instantaneous, so you can easily use medkit after medkit while enemies wait patiently. Damage is deterministic, making gameplay a predictable war of attrition and making it impossible for some enemies to hurt you once you've raised your defense enough.

1 - Quite standard, nothing terribly innovative.

1 - Pretty standard. The setting could be interesting, but is not really fleshed out at all.

1 - The game is certainly complete, but considering it is based on a recent libtcod python tutorial, there could certainly have been more put into the game.

2 - Quite a nice selection of items and a few different enemy types, although without much variation besides basic stats. Most gameplay systems could do with a bit more fleshing out.

3 - Very roguelike, no question.

3 - Definitely.

The game is quite standard in its approach, and nothing unusual other than the enemy difficulty. More could have been accomplished given the starting point, so a little disappointing.

A pretty solid 7DRL entry with a fallout-inspired setting, but not too much here to set it apart. Main drawback at present is that enemies are too stupid to present much of a challenge and the gameplay systems are a little too predictable once you've figured them out - there is little to surprise you and the chief danger of dying becomes simply getting bored and not paying enough attention. These faults could be corrected without much effort, however, and this could form the basis of a pretty good roguelike in future.

2 - Complete and playable, but many niggling mistakes. Number of lights turned off is always zero. You start mysteriously on dungeon 0, so have dungeon 0/0 for a victory screen. When you die, you still get "You escaped like a coward" in the gravelog. Grammar is sloppy. You can easily start in an illuminated room with enemies in it that will certainly kill you.

3 - Works fine. There is nice ascii ninja on the title screen.

1 - I appreciate the ascii ninja and the borders. Notifications like level ups need to work better, I tend to notice them by wondering why I can't move anymore. Stats should be capitalized. Solid red blood tiles are strong and confuse one with the all important illumination. I'd rather if a corpse tile was dropped instead. I appreciate that stairs stay visible when out of sight, but it would be bonus if they also were white rather than grey. This would have been better to have been kept grey scale or moved entirely to colour.

1 - Sorry, but grey symbols on dark yellow background is too painful for my eyes.

1 - I really wanted to like this because it has the makings of a fun stealth game. The problem is that the enemies, I think, were giving a bit too much smarts. Somehow they know not to step beside you in the dark when you wait, which really thwarts the feeling of ambushing people. This results in painful times when you are passing turns hoping for the enemy to wander out, but their motion doesn't seem random enough to gamble on, or controlable enough to control them. This really needs stupider enemies. Some almost seem to patrol, for example, but as soon as you move into a place on their patrol route to catch them? They stop moving there.

2 - It is nice at first, but the game lacks meaningful choices. If stairs down are in illuminated area and there is guard there, you have no other choice, but to reveal yourself. You often find yourself in a situation without means to solve it in the ninja way.

2 - A straightforward stealth roguelike. The use of the lamps is nicely done.

2 - Almost invincible in the darkness and relatively weak when detected. Can't say it's absolutely unseen, but not really often used concept.

2 - A respectable achievement for seven days.

2 - Just about right for a 7drl.

3 - Tactical combat in a single mode with random maps. Quite roguelike.

2 - It's almost 3. But the game really lacks choices. No items to use, no abilities to activate (healing aka meditation doesn't count). In some sense it is more of a puzzle then rlg.

NinjaRL is quite well explained by its tagline: Move in shadow... kill in silence. While in the shadows you can slay enemies with abandon. But stray into the light and you have a fair fight. Fortunately, you are quite capable of turning off these lights yourself to darken your way.

It's nice to be a ninja. Invisible in the dark. Invincible in the dark. But when there is no way to lure the enemy from an illuminated area, all these ninja trick do not have any sense. Also the game can generate level entrance in the middle of an illuminated area with couple of enemies around. 'Normal' ninja could use the smoke bomb to conceal himself, but not in this game. It could be much more interesting game with just a few additions.

2 - Has a nice help introduction and drops you in the game. Probably should tell you how to move. I assume there are no other keys\actions other than movement. No bugs/lag issues at all. Unfortunately there is not a lot to this game.

2 - The game inintially wouldn't run past the help screen, but was eventually patched. The patched version has some lag issues.

2 - Big square ascii game. Game word looks a little unorthodox and perhaps not that appealing. Wall symbols looked a bit strange.

2 - Standard ASCII which is just fine, but there are issues with differentiating between walls and spaces. The controls are very simple, move and bump, but sometimes the lag can throw things off when the user isn't sure if the game received a command and ends up doubling up on inputs.

1 - Not really fun, the game is too hard and different weapons/armour seems to only differ by their durability.

2 - This game was enjoyable with a 4 way move and bump interaction scheme that kept things brisk. A good variety of items and enemies kept it interesting for a bit, though the behavior of the enemies did not seem to be greatly differentiated. I did find kestrals randomly walking and various bad guys that chased you. They chased me even when I should have been out of sight, surely there's a 'hunt by sound' code section at play. :-)

1 - Nothing new here. Hack and slash ( or maybe run run die might be better.) However showing enemy path-finding was amusing, athough they did not always follow their path!

1 - Don't be alarmed by a low score here. This game is as straight up a Roguelike as can be. There is absolutely no shame in that.

2 - No large scope for this game, dungeon levels are similar and items are more-or-less generic and enemies try to bump into you.

2 - There's some good variety here. Different weapons, potions to pick up, armors. Some durability mechanics. Variety of monsters.

3 - Very basic rouglike but still can only be described as a roguelike.

3 - This game is as roguelike as it gets. It's nearly a clone of Rogue. It even has Kestrels!

This aptly titled game certainly made me feel my characters pain alright. A never ending game where unfortunately your only escape is to die and start again. Perhaps there is an ending but I did not find it. The game levels are basic, a few rooms and doors with a few random items and monsters thrown in for good measure. All monsters seemed the same to me, except for that 'E' that just randomly moved around. Items have durability as their only stat as far as could tell anyway. It did not really make a difference what you chose. With instant use potions as the only real way of healing, I found it nearly impossible to progress without been caught in the open. Secret passageways were a good way to escape monsters but they seemed to really delay the inevitable, as monsters just skirted around obstacles and caught you anyway. Promising start but needs to gameplay twists to become a better game.

This game took awhile to get playable and I'm glad it finally did. This is a straight old school style Roguelike with a stripped down interface. No need to worry too much about inventory management and what not, you bump an item and pick it up and/or drink it. Simple and easy. There can be some strange lag between input and player movement, I'm not sure if it's a field of view issue or if the program is getting caught upon the enemy behavior routines. Could be either. This doesn't make the game unplayable but it's definitely an issue. If you want to check out a straight up dungeon dive without much fuss, check out Unhappy Devil.

2 - stable, but felt like it lacked a bit of polish.

2 - Dungeons were done well, had nice in-game help and came with a readme file. Played the updated version and found no bugs.

2 - The ascii was fine, but the spacing of the tiles with default font was weird looking. Changing font size sometimes left the last line chopped in half.

2 - The game has an adom/infra arcana feel which works quite well. Random colourful monsters with strange lovecraftian names can be found everywhere.

1 - The game was somewhat enjoyable to play. It felt a bit like a simplified DoomRL or something. The AI was brain dead stupid and easily exploited down corridors. With the over abundance of resources, and lack of anything interesting with the sanity mechanic, you don't really lose.

1 - Not much going on here, it is a promising solid start, but there is no real gameplay other than move and mash the fire key. Fun also disappears when you can finish the game in one move.

2 - The sanity idea could have been really cool, but from what I could tell, it didn't actually affect gameplay in any way. Maybe it did, but I couldn't tell. The idea of the flashlight was also nice, but there were plenty of batteries, so it didnt affect gameplay either.

1 - Basic roguelike, did not really expand on the light/insanity/explore model I think this game was going for.

2 - Just about what you'd expect in seven days.

2 - Solid game, good inventory system, items with different purposes. Perhaps the game did not quite get to where it was aiming for.

3 - Its a roguelike

3 - Yep it smells, tastes and looks rogueliky to me.

This game came really close to being great. The idea of sanity was nice, but I think the game could have done more to explore the concept. From what I could tell, it decreased every time you encounter a new monster type, but had no real effect on gameplay. The game also suffered from a (clear) win condition. Eventually I just left the dungeon and got a score, so maybe the idea is just to get a high score? I couldn't get passed level 5 - perhaps it had something to do with sanity but I couldn't tell. The game does have a nice horror feel though. I loved the names and descriptions as you encounter new monsters and stumble upon dead companions.

Ok so you are an aspiring author in search of inspiration, which comes in the form of weird named multi-coloured monsters. And there is plenty to be found. This game really gave off an Adom vibe with Infra Arcana overtones, which I might add is not a bad thing. It seems that the idea of the game could have been explored further, there is an insanity system that eventually means you can not descend further and affects your score, your light requires batteries or your plunged into darkness. But these features just did not really bring anything to the game. Upgraded guns seem to just have larger capacity with no other effects. All up a solid start that with a bit more effort could turn into a decent game.

2 - Everything seems to work, I never saw it crash.

2 - Seems complete. No bugs or obvious crashing. A few rough edges.

2 - Everything works.

3 - I really like the B&W icons, and the inventory system.

2 - The black and white stencil-ey look is cool. Keybindings are roguelikey and well-described.

2 - Quite nice pictures.

2 - Neat time travel mechanic but it could use some instructions or something.

1 - I couldn't ever get the time travel mechanic to work.. so not very much fun unfortunately! Some of the text was funny.

2 - Not much reason to play this, other than for the funny theme.

2 - The thyme-travel and the two timeline displays are neat

1 - hard to judge without the main mechanic. Otherwise it is a static puzzley kind of game.

1 - Maybe this time travel mechanics could make more sense in a more complete game, but for now, this is nothing special.

2 - Standard roguelike sort of game with time-travel as part of the mechanic.

3 - bonus points for trying time travel and (apparently) at least partially succeeding!

1 - Not much to see here.

3 - Definitely a roguelike. The map is always the same but that's the only thing missing.

2 - barely a roguelike. no procedural content.

1 - Non-random level, inanimate monsters, no complexity.

It's a pretty standard web-based RL, with the time-travel mechanic. You have to kill the horse, which you don't have enough health to do, but you can use items more than once by time traveling. Unfortunately sometimes the time travel kills you, and it's not clear what you did wrong.

A nice-looking time travel puzzley game, with a slightly confusing (and undocumented) time travel mechanic. Maybe you can get it to work! Kill that stupid horse right in the face.

A very simple game, where you can eat thyme for some time travel. Sounds funny and interesting, and it would not hurt to try this browser game, but I think it does not give much in terms of gameplay.

3 - Feels pretty complete, balance is a bit wonky and zombies can be next to you eating you and you don't know it.

2 - It works aren't there aren't glaring bugs in it, but there's not a whole lot there.

2 - No major crashes but not a lot of polish.

2 - Graphics are a bit mis-matched, they're stolen from different internet source by the developer's admission. The admission screen however is great.

2 - It has nice music and tiles but the control scheme, while simple, is tedious - keyboard controls would be nice - for an app it would be ok though

2 - Mishmosh of graphics takes some getting used to, but fits in well with the music. Lack of keyboard controls is bad.

2 - It gets repetitive and boring pretty quickly. If you're lucky enough to get a good starting weapon it's pretty fun. If you start with a broom just restart.

1 - There's not a whole lot to it, you chainsaw zombies or run by them to find food randomly scattered around a city.

1 - hard to have fun with this one because of the mouse-only controls. Very frustrating to move around.

2 - Making noise is somewhat interesting, but it's hard to tell if anything heard you.

1 - It doesn't really bring anything new to the table.

2 - +1 point for incorporating sound into the game and visualizing how much noise I am making. Otherwise there is not much here that breaks new ground for the roguelike genre.

2 - Run about, avoid / fight zombies, try to get back home. It's about standard for a 7dRL.

1 - One enemy type and one map (randomly generated) with a singular aim is kind of limited

2 - About what I would expect for a 7DRL.

3 - Maps are random, turn based, grid based,, starting item is random.

2 - Randomly generated levels, permadeath, random items and turn based but it feels more like a turn based action game if that.

2 - barely a roguelike. Not enough sub-systems to really get involved too deeply.

If you start with a decent weapon this is a reasonably fun game. I managed to get back to the safe place a few times with the food, but was always bit on the way back. It's not really clear what the chances of getting bit are, but if you don't have something better than a broom you're screwed anyway. The very tightly and short directional FOV makes it much harder than it should be. Being able to look any direction for free makes it pointless to have directional FOV but it's boring enough to do that I rarely looked around much. It seemed like sneaking until you found the food and sprinting back was the only strategy that actually worked, unless two zombies randomly lined up and you couldn't dodge past them.

A pretty basic zombie survival game - Set in a city, you must venture forth each day to find food. That's pretty much it. Nice tiles and sounds but there's not a lot of depth in the gameplay. It can be fun for a while running around chainsawing zombies but there isn't much to keep you involved.

Run from zombies and try to collect enough food to survive one more day. If this game had keyboard controls I would recommend it, but as-is, the graphics are a bit harsh and the gameplay is very shallow. Sounds and music are nice though!

2 - No bugs, some basic polish, but lacks balance and any punch on finishing. Looks like there were plans for items/upgrades that are missing.

2 - No bugs detected. Looks like some planned features are missing.

2 - Pretty solid, but it looks like there were lures in the original design that did not get implimented. The character shivers a bit when moving, some sort of out of sink scrolling/moving issue. That's VERY minor though and most wouldn't notice.

2 - Simple graphics and controls, though movement is slow and laggy.

2 - Nice look and sensible controls, but with no ? for help I had to start a second instance of the game to see the instruction screen. No clear feedback about where I'm allowed to move the bobber, and hooked fish mostly ignore any keypresses.

2 - Neat little sprites, animated fishies. Controls do what they should.

2 - Like real fishing this does require patience. Little variety between games and low challenge both restrict replayability. It is quite cool when first playing though - the game has charm. And if you avoid resting it suddenly has some fun challenge.

1 - Just felt like a slot machine. Sometimes a fish deigns to move onto the correct square and get hooked, sometimes a hooked fish deigns to move closer to you, sometimes a caught fish lets you go to the next level.

2 - Just like when you really go fishing, you might have to wait forever for a fish to bite. This grew tedious as there was no real challenge to it, just sit and wait...and wait...and wait. Also the challenge was a bit off because you can rest up fully by just waiting. Still I'm giving it a 2 because it had that little indescribable quality that makes me giggle, "I got one!"

2 - Procedural fishing! Not the best possible implementation, but it's an interesting start. The combined resource system is neat too, though alas broken by the ability to rest as much as you want.

2 - Using a fishing rod to hook and reel in more or less resistant creatures.

3 - This was a solid innovation for this genre. I don't see many, or any, fishing roguelikes.

2 - On the small side.

2 - A few different fish to catch and a new mechanic implemented well.

1 - I think this is where this game falls down a bit. There were only 3 fishies. They each had interesting behavior, but it just seemed so short. More content would make this game a must play.

2 - Grid-based, turn-based, resource restricted, but no feel of your movements mattering (no bump to attack) and the procedural content really lacks variety. Overall game short and linear.

1 - Random levels, but without any real impact on gameplay.

2 - There is procedural content and permadeath here, but it is not integral to play. That's not a bad thing really. I don't think a game like this really needs it to be integral.

Turn-based procedural fishing with a central resource that acts as health, stamina and food clock (it constantly decreases). However since you can rest all you want to increase stamina the game lacks challenge - you can just scum the spacebar key. It's much more fun if you ban yourself from using this. The fishing controls work well, and though there aren't many enemies they do all have intersting features.

A neat idea, but I didn't feel there were any decisions to be made. You catch fish until you're allowed to go to the next level. Perhaps with some kind of resource management (a limited supply of alternative lures, other objects salvageable from fish, etc.) I might have felt more engaged. Keys were often unresponsive when the line was cast - there seem to be some hidden rules about where the bobber can be moved.

So this was a fun little fishing game I recommend to everyone for a bit of diversion. There isn't a ton of depth here, but if anyone is going to make a fishing Roguelike in the future this one will be the prototype. The enemies that exist are nice and varied and the controls work just fine. It is a testament to the quality of the game that this reviewer wants more more more!

2 - Rare unconnected dungeon, resolved by giving the player a key to skip the current level. Using a potion doesnt decrease the number you have. These two bugs unbalance things horribly, however everything else seems alright.

2 - The game doesn't crash, but there appears to be a bug with the health potions which do not get removed once consumed, essentially giving the player infinitely reusable health potions.

2 - Seems like a pretty complete game but for the major bug.

2 - Scaling fonts to emphasise the pixels can be a good look but not when scaling up a font with antialiasing. With the exception of the title screen, color is used well and there are few keys that need memorising. I wish there was a wait key.

2 - Black and white ASCII graphics with a few different coloured characters. Sensible keyboard input, nothing confusing.

2 - A nice clear ascii display with simple controls

1 - You will have to have an iron will to get anything out of this game since you can choose your FOV range, you can skip levels at will, and you have infinite health because potions don't deplete. I found it too hard to play without engaging at least one of this things and ruining it for myself.

1 - Not really fun or challenging considering the bug with the infinitely reusable health potions.

2 - without the bug this game would be a pretty straight forward crawl, but a couple of interesting decisions. Beat all the bad guys and level up? Explore long enough to find treasure? It doesn't have enough variety to keep it interesting forever, but it has enough for a couple of plays.

1 - Basic hack and slash.

1 - Just your basic hack and slash game, nothing very innovative.

1 - Straight old fashioned dungeon dive. Note that the low score here should not be considered so bad.

2 - Despite being simplistic there is some PCG, a crude levelling system, enemies of increasing difficulty, and a boss fight. All the ingredients for a full 7DRL.

2 - About what I would expect from a 7DRL, though a little variety in items would have been nice.

2 - Some nice levels, several enemies, a boss at the end. A solid scope for this game.

3 - What a basic hack and slash hurts in innovation, it makes up for in roguelikeness.

3 - Definitely roguelike.

3 - Adheres very strictly to the roguelike formula.

This game is a simple, no frills dungeon crawler. Unfortunately, it has some serious balancing problems that are left up to the player to resolve. You can lower your FOV and keep a manual count of your potions, and choose not to skip levels... but ultimately you can either hold down x for an instant win, or walk straight past monsters since they dont hurt you unless you attack them. Not attacking enemies will hurt you in the long run though because you will need to engage the boss at the end to win, and the only way to level up is wiping out a floor. All of the nessecities are there for a solid game, but unfortunately there isnt quite enough polish to round it out properly.

This is your basic roguelike game, and were it not for the bug with the unlimited usage of the health potions, it might actually be quite challenging. However without a variety of items, the game rapidly loses its replay value. The ability to regenerate a level when the algorithm produces an unwinnable scenario is a nice touch, though some of those issues could be avoided if the creatures could walk over chests and the staircase.

This is a nice straight forward dungeon dive. You can adjust the field of view, and this keeps the game fairly tense. You make the choice each level to slaughter all the bad guys and level up, to sprint for the exit and move on and/or explore the level for some potions. The fatal flaw in this game, which kills it almost dead, is that the player seems to have infinite potions. My potion count never counted down and I was able to just heal on a whim whenever. So you are basically able to windshield the entire game. Fix that little issue and this is a solid entry into this years challenge.

2 - Stable, but it could use a bit more graphical polish

2 - Music, UI, navigation, map-generation, it's all there. But just there, no polish.

2 - Controls make sense, it actually has music (but no way to turn it off), just the art is fairly ugly. But art is hard to find.

2 - 8-way controls didn't make sense for me, but 4-way was okay. I actually like the pixel-art characters, but the environmental tiles seemed bland. Wish there was a way to turn off music.

1 - I didn't really enjoy it.

1 - Didn't reward much tactical play, mostly seemed luck-of-the-draw with the erratic child/follower and the one-hit-kills. The creatures moved very erratically too, so there was no way to study their movement to plan your own.

2 - The child has some interesting potential but really he's just a liability, another way for a guard to insta-kill you.

2 - The escort mission, with the child dynamic especially, is emotionally powerful. Could be some good gameplay built around it. Just needs to be more predictability to make the stealth work.

2 - The amount of stuff here seems like a good thing to aim for for seven days.

2 - Plenty of enemies and useable items. The goals and map-size work for what the game is.

2 - Really more a puzzle game than a roguelike.

2 - Has the elements of an RL, but lacked the tactics and exploration.

It's almost like a puzzle game more than an RL. The goal is to go down a road, without being killed (or your child being killed) by guards. You pick up items to do so, that allow you to sneak past enemies, kill them instantly, etc. The problem is that the items are very random and either under- or over-powered, and guards kill you instantly when you step near them. It's random and unforgiving. Getting past the first level is an accomplishment actually.

It is an interesting concept, the fleeing for your life part of a RL as a full game -- but it felt a little too random (and not enough procedural) for my taste. I think the theme is ripe for further development, though.

2 - Runs ok. I wasn't able to get the special attacks to work, but that may have been from running Windows on Mac hardware. Although I haven't had that happen on other games.

2 - Seems feature complete but lacking balance.

1 - 3D can be cool, but it requires a lot more from the developers, designers, and artists. Colors were a bit over the top except for the third level which was *way* over the top. Like, seisure-inducing over the top. Controls were ok.

3 - Really cool 3D visuals, I love the textures on the walls. The controls are slick, with a very novel menu system (Escape key to make the menus appear on the walls around you). Could have done with a HUD showing health/sanity/spell selection on the screen at all times.

1 - Meh. Every enemy other than the chicken killed me. My only options seemed to be run away to the left or run away to the right? Spend orbs on upgrading my stats in ways that don't seem to do much or buy attacks I can't use?

2 - The maze exploration can get frustrating and combat feels imbalanced with few good choices available (most spells are weak). However it is enjoyable to play, and when you realise that enemies are best avoided it can be fun to keep trying to move around them. Being sexually assaulted by giant bunnies was a unique and compelling experience.

1 - Melee, stats, random maze, simple wandering enemies. It is 3D, but that's kind of the out-of-the-box defult with Unity. There's a dream based story, but it didn't influence much. Just collect the McGuffin and move on.

1 - Nothing really new here beyond the funky visuals.

2 - Collect orbs and spend on better stats or special attacks. 3D graphics.

2 - A high 2, as there are many enemy types, though ultimately they aren't very varied.

3 - Turn based, random levels, consumable items, frequent permadeath, progression by buying stat increases or special attacks.

2 - First person maze exploration makes this rather different from the usual roguelike experience. Otherwise it does have procedural levels, permadeath and turn-based combat.

Get lost in 3D labrynths. Pick up Blue Dots and spend them on stat upgrades or special attacks. Potions help, but you may not find the next level before your time runs out anyway. This is not a "fight every monster you see" kind of game.

You explore a maze in a first person view looking for a key item before you move to the next level. Enemies randomly move about the maze, and there are some items and power ups to be found. Overall the gameplay isn't as solid as it could be, with combat in particular being stale and unengaging, but the very unique visuals still make this really worth playing. Each level has its own visual theme, and they're all cool and different. Should maybe come with an epilepsy warning for one of the levels...

2 - Seems to do what it's designed to do, though the developers apparently had planned for co-op and maybe some other features they didn't get in in time.

2 - A little obtuse, but I presume the game is operating as planned. Fully functional balloon launch/pilot.

3 - Looks great. Very atmospheric and the music adds to the atmosphere. Wind sounds give you the feeling that you're actually flying high in the atmosphere.

2 - Hard to know exactly what to be doing, but the 3D world and controls to pick up and mount items to hot-air balloon function as expected. Sound design is appropriate.

1 - Just didn't find much fun in this. It's basically hot air balloon simulator. You don't actually steer your balloon, just hope to catch an air current that sends you in your desired direction, though there's not really a desired direction.

1 - Plays more like a sim. Long stretches of just drifting through the sky. Not much tactical decision making.

2 - Not aware of any other game quite like this, though it probably falls into the simulator category.

3 - Definitely different than other RLs, and brings a different scale and form to the "action". There could be something to learn here tone-wise. A cross between adventure game, sim, non-game, and RL.

2 - Though it looks vast, it's really not. A randomly generated landscape (I assume) which isn't actually land, rather mountains acting as islands in a sea of gray fog. Land in the fog and it's game over.

2 - For the vastness of the environment, the scope is not overwhelming. A few simple elements.

1 - Nope. Even with a very broad definition of roguelikes, this just doesn't qualify.

1 - While it can claim "procedural environments", I don't see much RL here. At least, not what I consider the core elements of RL.

Hot air balloon simulator without any sort of end-game or victory condition (though one was planned: reach the North Pole). Interesting at first but gets boring really fast. Flying through the air and over non-descript mountains loses its appeal quickly. You can't steer the balloon and rising and lowering is extremely slow and tedious. An interesting concept but falls short of a major aspect of game design: fun.

Spent longer with this game than others I reviewed, and definitely had an interesting experience. I just wouldn't say it's a RL one. I like what they're trying to do with this and hope to play more with a tutorial or more compressed experience.

2 - The game has a few bugs, like auto-walking after entering a new ship and the instructions mention WSAD for movement however only the arrow keys worked.

2 - Feature complete, but with occasional bugs

2 - Enough there for a 7DRL.

2 - Its a spacey/retro shooter, reminds me of old atari games. The graphics are cute, and retro, which of course means pixely, but I quite liked them. Controls were very simple and the starting text adds a little bit of flavour.

2 - Good graphics and layout, but listed controls are not accurate

2 - The graphics have a weird sort of ugly charm to them. Not my personal preference but some of them seem almost hand-drawn and that makes them more endearing.

2 - The game is very simple and not a big learning curve required. The amusing upgrade text at the start of the game gives it a bonus point. The choices made at the start of the game also give a little variety to the game.

2 - Worth playing

1 - Did not have much fun with this game, apart from the initial menu. Levels were mostly empty and combat felt way too twitchy, especially for a roguelike. Initial menus were hilarious. More games should start that way.

1 - Nothing new to offer.

2 - It hides its complexity well. Interesting pre-game mutators and has an AI that both reacts individiually and will hunt you in packs.

2 - +1 for the menu-based selection of skills. Otherwise there is not much here that pushes any roguelike boundaries. Turning/facing taking time is interesting. Realtime twitch combat COULD have a place in an innovative roguelike (see: binding of isaac), but the game would need a lot more polish to showcase that.

1 - Very limited. No items, 1 enemy. There is no variety between levels (not counting empty levels).

2 - Beyond mutators, is very straightforward

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

2 - Not really a roguelike, it has a random map and standard turn-based movement.

2 - Roguelike

2 - 1.5 rounded up. Real time element really detracts from roguelike-ness (implementation feels un-roguelikey as opposed to innovative). But other roguelike systems are there just fine.

As a rogue of the dashing space kind, you are tasked to take out enemy ships single-handedly (you wouldn't want it any other way now, would you?). Filled with pixelated/retro goodness you move around in a spaceship killing badies and initiating self destruct sequences before jumping to the next ship. The graphics are cool especially the interior cutaway effect from the outside of the ship. However the gameplay is lacking as you really just move, occasionally shoot and go to the next level. Enemies are predicable and need more variety. The ship interior is also a bit lacklustre. There are some different options/upgrades to choose at the start of each game, which have a noticable effect on the game, including more amour/ammo, health or ammo replenishing between levels, and speed effects. The slow enemy ammo upgrade was perhaps a little too powerful though. A solid effort in seven days but needs a bit more content. .

It isn't as simple as it seems at first glance. It tooks me several rounds to realize that the AI would actually group up and move with me if I tried to run. However, I found the shooting/avoiding mechanic frustrating: if I shot at an enemy, I would get hit in return. That meant for quick sessions where I would ponder the mutators (less ammo, more health, or movement constraints) and then die very quickly. I liked the graphics though, but the random layouts would sometimes produce edges that appeared inconsistent and it meant their visual positioning left me wondering as to their purpose.

Board ships and shoot robots with hyper-lasma (relitivistic combination of laser and plasma). This game starts off with a hilarious menu-based skill selection system. Twitch real-time shooting does not feel very roguelikey but the game itself has cheek and some endearing graphics. Levels feel very empty though.

3 - Well polished, everything fits together.

2 - The constant popups and losing focus causes the webpage to scroll when you pressed the cursor keys. Tried on a couple of browsers but problems persists.

2 - Not many features, but seems to do everything the author intended.

3 - Mostly works well. A couple odd key choices (z to skip a turn). All the commands and a legend are always visible.

1 - No graphics were harmed in this production. The mazes were not exceptionally interesting either.

1 - Browser-based ASCII and block graphics.

2 - Fairly simple, but some fun ideas. Have to deal with non-combatants that steal your stuff (which might actually help you get through the level)

1 - Simple objective which can be a good thing but this became repetitive very quickly, mostly down to luck of the moving shoppers.

1 - Not doing anything terribly exciting. Run around a maze, picking up money and items (but only if you can afford them) while avoiding monsters. Shoot rockets (which cost money) at monsters.

2 - The setting is pretty unique, and the way of progressing through levels is interesting.

1 - Nothing new here.

1 - Fairly standard monster-maze type of game. The shopping mall setting is a bit quirky, I guess, but not enough to get excited about.

2 - Reasonably scoped. Has only a few kinds of things to interact with, but for this concept it would be hard to add significantly different new things. Includes a really large amount of hilariously named items to purchase.

1 - A simple puzzle game with no variety between levels.

1 - Pretty basic. One weapon type. Get touched by a monster just once and it's game over. Not much room for strategy.

3 - Fully roguelike

2 - More a puzzle game than a roguelike but with roguelike elements.

3 - Has all the elements of your basic roguelike.

Ever want to run through the mall buying things you didn't know the price of and trapping monsters? Then this is your game! It's quite a bit of fun, but by the third level or so you'll have the strategy figured out to get you through. Hint: after you fire a rocket you have to move or a bug causes it to blow up immediately, killing you.

Presumably endless levels of the same objective per level; shop as much as possible without getting killed or shopblocked by other shoppers lest the monsters get you. If you're lucky, your rockets fire and not miss them. Otherwise, you can always shop again. And again. And again. Please come again tomorrow, we love you. It would have been nice if there was a highscore table or just some feedback so I knew if I played better or worse the next try.

A fairly typical monster-maze game. You don't have hit points, so getting touched by a monster is game-over. Imagine a turn-based Pac-Man with sparse, randomly placed dots and fruit and you get the basic idea behind this game. Well, if Pac-Man could shoot exploding rockets. There's just not quite enough to the game to give you any strategy other than running away from monsters and hoping you stumble upon the odd bit of money.

1 - Its not buggy per se, but it feels very feature incomplete. The levels have no uniqueness being no more rectangular rooms, there is no indication of what items are better than others or what slot they fit into (a flag is body armor rather than special?). There are no special abilities or anything even though there appear to be preparations made for such.

2 - It seems complete, but the interface is lacking. Still feels like a full game.

2 - Crashes on exit and on picking up an ordinary soul. Brimstone ring is bugged. You may spawn on a monster when changing locations.

1 - Mouse interfaces can definately work in a RL, but those tiles are so small that hitting the precise tile is difficult and frustrating, and disallowing keyboard use is cruel. There is no way to wait a turn. Enemies, items and the floor are all very similar murky colors that are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another, and the background is made up of distracting bright moving waves making it a chore to see whats going on.

3 - Standard use of ASCII, interesting use of colour and other terminal effects to add something extra to the roguelike asthetic

2 - Okay color choices for places, items and enemies. There is nice effect in the background. Monster speech tends to obscure important things. Controls are atrocious. Some actions require mouse and there is no way to move diagonally by keyboard.

1 - After choosing not to complete level 1 you can go directly to the final boss encounter where he runs away from you constantly, seems to have a lot of health, and as far as I can tell doesnt fight back. Its a tedious fight.

1 - I didn't find it that fun as I didn't know what was going on, despite multiple playthroughs

1 - Balance is bad, you can enter an area completely surrounded. If this is early you simply die. Marquis may randomly instakill you. There is nothing telling player what weapons are good. Usual hack and slash without interesting bits.

1 - This game is less like an arena style game and more like a dungeon with just one room per floor. There seems to be an energy mechanic that displays a long float when inspecting things, but this is largely unexplained even in the readme, so I have no idea what it does or how to engage it.

1 - pretty standard roguelike. Brings little new.

2 - Every tile has temperature value. Each monster has minimal and maximal tolerance values. Creature present in area where temperature exceeds its limits starts burning or freezing to death. Sometimes best way to protect you from deadly cold is blowing up afireball in your face.

2 - A low two. There are a range of different monsters and items, but they dont seem too different from each other.

2 - variety of enemies, could be more to it.

2 - Quite many enemies, several room types and plenty of items to use. If only rooms were something other than randomly sized rectangles.

3 - No procedural content, but you can walk around and attack things in the traditional roguelike manner, grab what items are lying around to give yourself a boost, and permadie.

2 - definately a roguelike, but nothing innovative

3 - A true roguelike game.

Having recently died, you are back to avenge your death as a wight, feeding upon the souls of any foolish enough to cross your path. Each level is a single box room with a selection of enemies, items, a portal down and maybe a portal to the final boss. The final boss runs away from you constantly, and combined with the mouse interface over tiny tiles - it is the most annoying fight ever. Its impossible to power up effectively if you choose to dive because you will have no idea whether the thing you just picked up is better or worse than the last thing. There are no abilities, and the ambient energy that is hinted as being a core unique feature appears to have no effect on gameplay that I could work out.

I have a large amount of issues with this one, namely that on death, any keypress exits the game. It's very confusing at first. The graphics are good, but the messages on the playing area disrupt things visually and are rather distracting. It seems like it could be a good game, but lack of UI clarity ruins it quite a bit.

You hack your way through rooms teleporting between them. After you acquire a decent weapon (sword or saber) and cold or freezing soul you may take blue teleport to Marquis' throne room. Then, you hope not to get instantly slain by random number generator's whim while pounding De Sade into a pulp. Try freezing and burning system. It is the only innovative thing in this game but it alone does not make it worth checking out for me.

2 - Some control and movement bugs. Possible combat bug: there seems to be a way to not take damage while fighting a monster? If intentional, I would put some thought into making that happen, but it seems sporadic.

2 - runs fine. There are a few minor bugs with the pathfinding but you can walk around.

1 - Nicely complete but there are some bugs. One with regards to moving, sometimes you character just won't move to the adjacent square. Also you cannot be injured really by enemies attacking from the right or bottom unless you try to move. I think it has to do with the hit detection and how the character sits in the tile. Makes the game trivial once you figure it out.

3 - The controls are minimal, and the sprite graphics and animations are good for a 7-day game. The BGM is surprisingly non-iritating too. Auto-save/load just works!

2 - classic 8bits pixel art and music. Nice monster sprites.

2 - Some great sound, music and animation here. This doesn't get a 3 because the controls didn't quite work right.

1 - Combat with tougher monsters takes a while. Little variety in combat, levels after 10. 10 levels would be long enough. Is the cave really eternal? If so, I don't feel like there's much point in playing. By level 20 I felt like I had earned a "you win" screen.

2 - The gameplay is smooth. Even if there are no items or spells (combats are resolved automatically as you encounter a monster), there is some tactical challenge. You try to find the stairs to the next level and the life bottle (one per level) while avoiding the tougher monsters.

2 - I found this to be a pretty fun game, and played it all the way up to level 21. Not sure if there was an ending, or a goal. It seemed like content was done being added by then. When people just get bored and stop playing, that's not good, but it was fun until then.

1 - Move around, hack and slash.

1 - not really. kill monsters, stack gold, find stairs

2 - Point and click to move, automatic attacking. Standard faire but enough nonstandard elements for a 2.

1 - A bit limited. Monsters have the same AI and attacks, and differ only in HP pools. The pathfinding is good. Overall it doesn't have enough for a 7DRL

2 - while the gameplay is quite simplist, there is some effort in the presentation with good graphics, sound effects and a music. I'm not sure there's an end. I stopped at level 21. I was really disappointed to find no gear porn in the chests. The game is begging for weapons, armors and scrolls.

2 - A bit on a low end, but solid for a 7DRL. There were a few monster types, a couple of items. It would get a 1 but for the animation and such. There are not a lot of elements.

2 - Death is not consequential. Random levels, monsters, and loot. It's not clear what the loot and the xp/level system are for.

2 - more hack-and-slash than roguelike due to real time and lack of inventory

2 - It's procedural generated and top down. That's enough for a 2.

I was actually pretty delighted when the tileset changed on levels 6 and 10, because it felt like I was making some kind of progress. Aside from that and my maximum HP increasing, there wasn't much change between levels: a few tougher monsters, and that's it. At one point I found a spear that seemed to increase my damage, but otherwise the loot just increments a counter, and I'm not sure what I'm working toward there. The lack of a goal or motivation is really the only issue I didn't cover in the rest of my review. (And it doesn't take much to motivate me, either: I spent a few hours once building a gigantic glass tower in Minecraft, just because I had a lot of spare sand.) Some kind of progression, in character, environment, or both, would go a long way toward holding the player's attention. I liked the graphics and the music, and not just because they're well beyond what I can do. Just a bit more complexity and change would make it much easier to play for longer.

A good base for a 8bit hack and slash. As always with 7DRL, lacks a bit variety and depth but this could be added later.

This is a pretty looking webgame where you point and click your way through dungeon levels. There is a some good content and difficulty curve for a few levels, but it just never ends. Perhaps that's what the title is all about. There are a couple of unfortunate bugs and movement quirks but all in all it's a solid effort.

3 - Nice graphics, music, and sound effects. No bugs found.

2 - No game-breaking bugs, but some problems with monster path-finding and serious balance issues.

3 - No problems here.

3 - Simple but well done. Has a 16-bit look to it that works well. The animations are nice too.

2 - Simple graphics, nice enough music. The controls can be very fiddly.

2 - Nothing special, but alright.

2 - Pretty fun, but the strategy is really simple so it won't take long to master it. The only way I died was when I got far enough along that enemies spawned on top of me.

1 - Not really very engaging. Gameplay is basic and repetitive, and not really challenging beyond being mobbed at the start at the level.

2 - Could be nice for children.

2 - The theme of being a zookeeper and that's why you're tranking animals is a fun non-lethal idea.

1 - Doesn't push any boundaries.

1 - I do not see any innovation here.

2 - Has graphics and a good introduction screen but only a few types of enemies and the levels are room sized and feel fairly generic.

1 - A very very basic game. The 3 enemies seem almost identical, the levels have no variety, the gameplay has no variety.

2 - Works, but nothing special.

1 - Twin stick realtime, not much that's roguelike

1 - Real-time kinda shootery game. The levels have random elements, but this has no effect on play. Death has little effect either, as you accumulate animals across many plays.

1 - Not a roguelike.

A fun little flash game. I really liked the music and happy feel of the game. It gets repetitive fairly quickly though and even though the levels are random, they felt very samey the second time through. More enemies and special items would help keep it interesting longer.

A game of animal hunting. The animals move in simple patterns, but pounce on you when you're close. You tranquilise them and catch them. It's real-time on very simple maps. It seems like it could have gone further, but there's really not much depth to the game as is.

A game where you shoot animals in real-time. Could be cool for children, but it is not a roguelike.

2 - I think I can traverse the arcology in the wrong direction, but otherwise bug free as far a I can tell. That said there is little story, purpose or explanation of gameplay to work with.

2 - Mouse over has 1445% hit points and debug UID numbers show up. Lack of documentation about what or why you are escaping, or what this kick thing is, is frustrating.

2 - Nice colors and simple keys which are displayed on-screen. Nothing fancy.

2 - I like the stun time out on enemies. Why is the map built at an ratio that causes vertical scrolling? Nice theme. I'd have avoided a lot of the t-engine cruft - just because you can have a minimap doesn't mean you should - each run should instaed just fit on the screen!

1 - I know that many others really like games distilled to the point where every move is crucial and planning ahead is essential, but I feel like there simply aren't enough abilities or options to balance the single hitpoint. If you like to plan 10 moves ahead every step, then give it a try, but prepare to die. A lot.

1 - One hit point roguelikes are tough, It really becomes critical that the player understand the consequence of their actions. And it is critical that the RNG plays fair with building levels. The linear runways really made stuff feel either trivial or impossible depending on the RNG

2 - It steps outside the boundaries with its 1hp model, and the player abilities support the gameplay appropriately, however I wish there were more stealth or maneuverability elements (short teleport?) to help make the game a little less hard, and give you more options when you begin to get surrounded. Perhaps the 1hp model wasn't quite the right choice but rather a 3hp would work better.

2 - A sort of "run the gauntlet!" roguelike does seem cool. I',m not sure why insta death was added to it. I think it would have been equally, if not more tense, if one suffered a slow attrition while charging down the hallway.

1 - A high 1, but unfortunately the lack of supporting material, one type of enemy, and that every level appears the same let it down.

1 - There does not seem to be much here.

2 - There is permadeath and turn-based movement, but the procedural content is overly simplistic and there doesnt seem to be any progression. There is also little opportunity to properly engage with the enemy because you die in a single blow - This makes it more of a puzzle game than roguelike.

3 - Pared down games like this can be hard to categorize, but I'd say this would grow into a roguelike if expanded in logical directions.

Kick enemies back, stun them in place, and run at speed, while you franticically scramble from one side of each floor to the other - with the kicker being that you will die from a single blow. Given that there are no stealth elements at play and no option for greater manueverability except running, it is extremely easy to become surrounded, and that means death. In order to pass a level you will have to count many moves ahead, and I think there is often no way out no matter what you do. I think getting to the end of this game may require more layout and enemy placement flukes than skill.

Arcology Escape sees you running for your life down crumbling hallways, trying to avoid the dreaded Reavers. How far can you get with naught more than your stun-gun and your wits?

2 - Winnable and losable, but the interface is prone to odd input freezes and other quirks.

1 - Unfortunately this game feels very incomplete, with lots of lag and control hitches. It's playable, but will die due to control issue more than anything else.

3 - More sophisticated gamers might scoff at the visual devices of smoke and coloured lights, but I thought that they worked quite decently here. It's not the most amazing audiovisual experience ever, but you can see that effort was definitely put into making the game look nice.

3 - This game is beautiful to behold with all the information the player needs displayed well. It's easy to control, when the controls work.

2 - I enjoyed the time I spent on this game, once I figured out how to get the interface to do what I asked at least half of the time. It's a bit annoying to wait for your character to walk around in real-time, but fortunately the game doesn't overstay its welcome.

1 - There's just not a lot to do here. A couple of bad guys who lack variation, walk around, shoot.

1 - It's a good practice Unity3D game and possibly a good platform for further development, but innovation is definitely something it was not about.

1 - A point and click RL, there's not a lot new here. It's very pretty, but not all that innovative.

2 - Would be a 1 if it was done in ASCII as there really isn't that much in the way of game mechanics here.

1 - This is hard to score, depending on what you think of by scope. For me it's scope of game play, having lots of elements. Here the scope of the resources is very high but there's little variety in play.

2 - It's tile-based, and the middle dungeon seems to be either randomised or chosen from a decently large prebuilt set, but the main challenge in gameplay seems to be shooting at and kiting things in real-time. It doesn't take a lot of speed and twitch, but it takes enough to definitely take away from roguelikeness.