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The 2021 7DRL Challenge Evaluation Process Click a table header to sort. 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 |
| Name | Author | Runs on | Play | Completeness | Aesthetics | Fun | Innovation | Scope | Roguelikeness | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enter the Chronosphere | Rhys and Ned |  
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.78 |
| Autonomy | Jay | 
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.72 |
| Bloplike | Drestin |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.72 |
| Duntris | anttihaavikko | 
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.72 |
| Pieux | Slogo |
| Play | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.72 |
| Shackles of the Stellar Tyrant | Chao |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.72 |
| Amoeba Roguelike | Vectis |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.67 |
| Rogue Meteor | Ponywolf |
| Play | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.67 |
| Dungeon Tetris | Numeron |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.61 |
| Idol Knight | Tinytouchtales |
| Play | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.61 |
| Rogue Impact | jmlait |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.61 |
| Runemaster | Luca Giacometti |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.61 |
| Harvest Dungeon | teamkalamakkara |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.56 |
| Pogue Thacker, Rogue Hacker | ZapJackson |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.56 |
| The Winding Paths Below | Ludipe |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.56 |
| Endgame 437 | kkairos |
| Play | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.56 |
| Pancaketheon | Super∴Try |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.56 |
| Starguy IV | saturnyoshi |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.56 |
| Guild Of Zany | Christophe Coyard |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.67 | 3.50 |
| Hazard Level | Spferical |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.50 |
| Starcharted Islands | Jan_rl |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.50 |
| cruiseRL | Once |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.50 |
| A King in Checkxile | Pendulin |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.50 |
| Beasts of Mehetia | Benjamin Soulé |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.50 |
| Dungeon Grinder | Devin Spikowski |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 3.50 |
| About The Kid Who Stole The Relics Back | Vedor |
| Play | 3.50 | 3.50 | 3.25 | 3.25 | 3.25 | 4.00 | 3.46 |
| Dungeons of Bonk | Pharaoh439 |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.44 |
| lostwoodsRL | ontical |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.44 |
| omnihexahedron | rgscherf |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.44 |
| A Root Path | gruebite |
| Play | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.44 |
| Eradication Bastion | BordListian |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.44 |
| Medieval Upbringing 7DRL | Eldar Bogdanov |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 4.00 | 2.33 | 3.44 |
| One Frame Sword | NykolaR |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.44 |
| Orbital Decay | gridbugs |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.44 |
| Thaum | Cassiopeia |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.44 |
| CONVERGER | -hexcavator- |
| Play | 3.50 | 3.50 | 3.50 | 3.25 | 3.50 | 3.25 | 3.42 |
| Deep Breath | jere |
| Play | 3.25 | 3.25 | 3.50 | 3.50 | 3.25 | 3.75 | 3.42 |
| Between The Light And The Dark | High Sodium Games |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.39 |
| Demonic Depths | Matt Kimball |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.39 |
| Evil Evil Woyems | janentikan |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.39 |
| Killing orcs with a sword | theq629 |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.39 |
| 4KRL | underww |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.39 |
| Deep sea diver | Mon amiral |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.39 |
| And Another Door Bites the Dust | zacryol |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 |
| Disguiser (2021 7DRL) | James McNeill |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 |
| Evilware | tndwolf |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 |
| Know Thyself Roguelike | cincospenguinos |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 |
| Octorogue | kylep |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 |
| Rainy Day | Slashie |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 |
| Deduction Quest | enegames |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 3.33 |
| Escorial | sunil. |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 |
| Proximity | spf_Grey |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 |
| The Prison Tower | SquareDev |
| Play | 3.33 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 |
| Vulcan's Dungeon | divagated |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 |
| Animozity | shp |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 2.67 | 3.28 |
| Bandit City | lionbark |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 3.28 |
| HitmanRL | XenonGhost |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.28 |
| KOGA | Cancelion |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.28 |
| MonsteRL | mrhthepie |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.28 |
| Octet | Memory of God |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.28 |
| Wyrm's Wrath | mscottmoore |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.28 |
| firefighter rl | indspenceable |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 3.28 |
| vigil@nte | irskep |
| Play | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.28 |
| Cardinal Ramship Pirate | st33d |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.22 |
| Escape from Dump Moon Detritus-7 | redxaxder |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.22 |
| FROGUE | Two PM |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.22 |
| Fight City | Baja The Frog |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.22 |
| Fishy Business | Spicy Chicken |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.22 |
| Furball Catacombs | Lauren H |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.22 |
| Hero's Choice 2021 7DRL | blockerz |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.22 |
| Phantom Feast | Sombrero Guy |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.22 |
| Poogue | plasmastarfish |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.22 |
| RayWizard | HighTyrol |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.22 |
| SUV Dungeon | never_k |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.22 |
| Schrödinger Dungeon | AlejoLab |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.22 |
| A Little Rogue | Ford Prefect |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 3.22 |
| A Roguelike Where You Fight In Formation | MuffiTuffiWuffi |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.17 |
| AscendRL | exezin |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.17 |
| Back to Life! (7drl) | tsutts42 |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.17 |
| Caves of Xol'thor | red-stake |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.17 |
| Devour - 7DRL 2021 | itkdog |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.17 |
| Electronic Scavenger | orange08 |
| Play | 4.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.17 |
| Elfball | Cole Heslinga |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.17 |
| Learning Chaos Magic Is Confusing (But I Must Keep Going Anyway) | Luis S. |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.17 |
| Lite Runner | MothInteractive |
| Play | 3.67 | 4.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.17 |
| Monstr | Jet Simon |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.17 |
| Snake but it's also a Roguelike | Moose_A_Lini |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.17 |
| Speed Vector 7DRL 2021 Edition | Grakkam |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.17 |
| Wizard's Mansion | xash |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 3.17 |
| Diggin' It | lagdotcom |
| Play | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.17 |
| Arcane Island | sponrad | 
| Play | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.11 |
| Assimilate | Bazyleeshek |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.11 |
| Cartomancer | Aviv |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.11 |
| Cecil Smith and The Catacombs of RA | automatonvx |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.11 |
| Lunge hero | hwata |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.11 |
| MAGIC*GUNNER Moestar-chan | Mahou Shoujo ☆ Magical Moestar |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.11 |
| Rogue Commander | ZwieBit |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 3.11 |
| Silent Elysium | Sunfire |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.11 |
| Square | Brin |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.11 |
| Talk Small | taraliu |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.11 |
| TinyRL | BitHack |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.11 |
| Excavation Site Mercury | Neon |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 4.00 | 3.08 |
| Rogue Sea | ondras |
| Play | 3.25 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.25 | 2.75 | 3.75 | 3.08 |
| 28 Turns to Die | progrimon |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.06 |
| Abyss (7DRL Submission) | ZwodahS |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 3.06 |
| Get the Gold and Run! | erroneus-dunc |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.06 |
| L4DRL[7drl] | Xpost2000 |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.06 |
| Mantis | Suri |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.06 |
| Spellweaver (7DRL) | Rakaneth |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.06 |
| Steel Dungeon | Eduardo Rodrigues |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.06 |
| The Road Less Traveled [7drl] | saturnSaint |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.06 |
| ToyboxRL | JPlay |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.06 |
| Pizza Frank | terff |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 3.06 |
| SecBot | Bracket |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.06 |
| A Helping Hand | amallie |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 |
| In Another Timeline With My Self | KhaoTom |
| Play | 3.75 | 3.25 | 2.50 | 3.25 | 2.50 | 2.75 | 3.00 |
| In the archive | badscribbler |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 |
| Pillar of the Old Gods | donblas42 |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.00 | 3.00 |
| ROTUND DUNGEON | Forehammer Dev |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.50 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 |
| Rescue Roguelike | stephan_gfx |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 |
| Ring Of Ire (7DRL 2021) | yangamedev |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 4.00 | 3.00 |
| Scription | Spinfoam Games |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 |
| Seeking Legends | Pixel Phantasm |
| Play | 2.00 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 |
| Sphere | user0009182 |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 3.00 |
| The Undertide Expedition | thp |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 4.00 | 3.00 |
| Build and Delve | doctor-g |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 |
| Oubliette | OublietteStudios |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 |
| JOMBAT | HammerBro |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.94 |
| Labyrinth | RCJ15 |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.94 |
| Mal | Aedalus |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 3.67 | 2.94 |
| Sewer Shootout | TylerDWSL |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.94 |
| The Apocalyptic Shuddering of the Strawberry Earth Mother | Burnerknight Studios |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.94 |
| appawiad | strangelyspartan |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.94 |
| Dealings in Dungeons | Sophie Houlden |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.92 |
| Found Magic | ekolis |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 2.92 |
| Gnome Hope | Banbeck |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.50 | 2.92 |
| HealthEater | Tuatarian |
| Play | 4.00 | 3.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.92 |
| Pataro | Alexandre Plt |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 4.00 | 2.92 |
| TigerClawRL | ibGoge |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.92 |
| L'Antichambre | 6toad games |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.89 |
| Jacinto | Classicwook |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 3.67 | 2.89 |
| Rusty Robot | stormwarestudios |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.89 |
| Tenebris | radman |
| Play | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.67 | 2.89 |
| A Nimrod and Monsters | Pocket Fun |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.83 |
| Alien Escape Plan | Xenophero |
| Play | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.67 | 2.83 |
| Cardlite Adventure | MichaelLange |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.83 |
| Counterpuncher | jzhang113 |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.50 | 2.83 |
| Echo Down | acegiak |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.50 | 2.83 |
| Fragile Knight | Prometheus |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.83 |
| Luut | tkers |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.67 | 2.83 |
| Mechanized Force Command | Igor Khotin |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.83 |
| Super Generic Roguelike #7DRL | LewisJones30 |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 4.00 | 2.83 |
| The Salvager | xandor9 |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 2.83 |
| forests of the forevers | p8 |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.83 |
| TOTEM | Mellow |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.83 |
| 7drl_Chesslike | thedarkmagi |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.78 |
| Dino Evolution | Fernofai |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.78 |
| Pepperwood Golf 2021 | beetlefeet |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.75 |
| Potato Science | Sheepwatch |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 3.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.75 |
| Tenement Hell | FrankieSmileShow |
| Play | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.00 | 3.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.75 |
| Uhhh, helm | velopman |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.75 |
| BattlelandsRL | mapsandapps |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.72 |
| Decode() | Pamela Clunes |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 2.72 |
| Elementalist | dannyli0109 |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.72 |
| Heimval | Sam Bigos |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.72 |
| Island Escape | PTrefall |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.67 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.72 |
| Rogue Royale [Project 2021-4] | IanGoGo |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.72 |
| Rogue of the Seven Seas | Gamepopper |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.72 |
| Abyssal Evolution | Serban14 |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 3.67 | 2.67 |
| H@CK3R | Geoff Blair |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.67 |
| HIO | Trash Dog Games |
| Play | 3.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.67 |
| Mansion | Box Games Studios |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 |
| Paladin Fever Dream | wazooinc |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 4.00 | 2.67 |
| RoboLike | sarrowsmith |
| Play | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 |
| Rogue3D | GPVoid |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 |
| Slay The Dragon On Floor 4 | delfoer |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.50 | 2.67 |
| Bladelight | Snowdrama |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 |
| Inner Demons | KeithComet |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.33 | 2.00 | 3.33 | 2.67 |
| Rogue-ish Knight - Around the world edition | thomas_yang |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.61 |
| Alk'oth: The Lost Fortress of Doom | Begebies |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 2.58 |
| Everybody Spikes! | TigerJ |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.58 |
| Tide WoRLd | rubybliels |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.58 |
| Gagapalos: Darwin was wrong! | Lazy Frogs Collective |
| Play | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.56 |
| Mind if I drop in? | grgkemp |
| Play | 2.67 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.56 |
| Splicer Slicer | Baz Lever |
| Play | 3.00 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.56 |
| VagabondRL | pandepic |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.56 |
| Europa 7 | Curious Dog Games |
| Play | 3.00 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.56 |
| Pen Fight Dungeon | ThakaInsaan |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.56 |
| 7DRL 2021 | ifman1 |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.50 | 2.50 |
| Breakout Chad | philipborg |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 |
| Dwarf Destroyer | Goblin_o |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 |
| HAGgle | RoadDust |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 |
| We Love Goblins | Mawerlick |
| Play | 2.50 | 3.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.50 |
| dungeons guns and dragons | Theboredguy |
| Play | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 |
| Football Crawl (7DRL 2021) | Juan Uys |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.50 |
| Weldon | BBoth |
| Play | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.44 |
| Bleak Friday | Unfocused Locust Games |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.42 |
| Light's Last Hope | GeoGianni |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.42 |
| Fathom | the-alex-g |
| Play | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 3.00 | 2.39 |
| rogue-dash | ccapo |
| Play | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.33 |
| Death Awaits | kogyblack |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.00 | 2.33 |
| Dragon Slaying Training | ultimagladius |
| Play | 2.33 | 2.33 | 2.67 | 2.33 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.28 |
| Rogue Manor | Mike Trupkin |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 2.17 |
| superROGUE | unidentified baguette |
| Play | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.17 |
Reviews
Enter the Chronosphere
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
4
4
4
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
4
4
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
Starting the game, you are immediately struck with gorgeous visuals. Making the level generation and the layers visible from the start is a genius move. Fantastic music as well. The gameplay is incredibly tight and the concept of paused time is executed perfectly. Successfully prefiring on enemies and having them move into gunfire feels amazing. Easy to grasp, hard to master, as all the best games are. The only gripe (an annoying one for sure) I can come up with is that I didn't find a way to exit the game other than control panel. This roguelike (Superhot-like?) was definitely the best among all the 7DRL entries I played.
Completeness 4 Fully complete, and with a ton of polish. The sheer amount of content here was incredible, so many weapons and enemy types. Aesthetics 3 Overall the game looked really nice, but there was some pretty crucial information that I would have liked to see. A rough indicator of how far a bullet is going to travel would have been nice, as a lot of the time I got damaged by attacks that I could have sworn weren't going to hit me. Enemies charging up an attack also would have been nice to see. Fun 4 There's a lot to love here. The real time turn resolution makes for some really compelling gameplay, and there were plenty of cool moments where a missile was flying towards me and I dodged at the last minute. There was also plenty of depth in the weapons and enemies, especially with the firing speed increases of heavier weapons. My one request to reduce the frustration is to have some kind of examine control that lets you look around the arena. A lot of the time I'd get attacked by enemies offscreen (especially from the top or bottom), and being able to see offscreen would have helped a lot. Innovative 4 Real time turn resolution isn't done all that often, but this game makes a strong argument for further experimentation with it. Scope 4 Although the gameplay loop itself is relatively simple, there was an overwhelming amount of content in the form of weapons and enemies. Even after I thought I'd seen everything, there was still more to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some weapons I still haven't seen yet. Roguelike 4 I'd say this has everything necessary to qualify as a roguelike. The only thing really missing is a more substantial character progression, but the increasing power of weapons you find makes up for that pretty well.
Overview One of the betters 7DRLs I played this year. Really entertaining, despite some balance quirks. Completeness No bugs, no missing features. Aesthetics The overall impression is very positive, and I really like that somewhat minimalistic artstyle. The music's good, but I can't tell it fits the game theme well. Fun Or rather FUN. Learning new enemies, trying out new weapons – that's from where the fun comes. Not sure how the game premise will hold when one's try all the available weapons, but the gameplay itself is solid enough. I mentioned some balance problems earlier – but who cares if the game is so fun? Innovation It reminds me – a little – Triangle Wizard, with some Superhot vibes. But this game does its own thing. Scope Here, I struggle a little. Game levels, while quite interesting and innovative due to the structure, looks always the same, without many twists between (except some textures and animations). On the other hand, the game is combat-focused, and on this field, it delivers a lot of content. And I think the latter is more important.
Autonomy
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
4
4
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
4
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
Great game. But oh so hard! Seems like controlling long range robots is king. Could use some more balance. Having said that this is a fun well produced game. Loved the music!
Very good gameplay and good implementation [and fit] of the "swap body" mechanic. The panel on the right is a little bit hard to understand for the first couple of runs.
This is very cool! It's rare for a jam game to have such a cohesive mix of aesthetics and gameplay. Looking forward to seeing where this goes!
Bloplike
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Ok, this one is fun. The DNA mechanic is innovative and interesting, it also works really well. Once you have an idea of how the DNA stuff works, it's a little easy to game the system, but it's still a good time figuring out interesting combinations. Like, for example, OnLoseLife:Teleport is a real hoot and makes the game way more interesting.
This is an exemplary traditional 7DRL. It's very hard to balance a game well in seven days and find the right variety of enemies. This game hits just the right spot for me. It introduces a creative, quintessentially roguelike way of dealing with player and enemy abilities that invites the player to really explore and consider different approaches. The aesthetic choices completely work. The help text at the top is a nice affordance, the small map is adorable and readable, and the ability list on the right can both be read at a glance and is easy to interact with. I did feel I'd seen everything after about three losses and one win, so the scope is within a typical 7DRL, but I would love to try an expanded version of this game.
Duntris
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
4
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
When I saw Tetris, I immediately guessed that you probably made Equipmentris from the last year :) That said, I like Duntris more - here optimizing tetrominoes is integral to the experience, and the game design overall feels tight. There are several dimensions to decision space (leaving enough space for future pieces, not opening too many question marks at once because you might get overwhelmed by enemies, potion recognition, pathing enemies to walk over traps / unwanted potions, etc.), and all of them are naturally interconnected. There are even varied powers-ups and teammates - the scope of the game, even without visuals and music, is impressive. My main problems were with balancing (never got past level 5 - how many are even there?), and with the game sometimes telling you Game Over when you can't place a piece, and sometimes not - you explained in the comments why that is, but the experience doesn't feel uniform. It also seems like the enemies get tricked after killing one teammate and won't attack the other.
There's a lot to really love here. The sound and graphic design works very well, and the game controls fairly intuitively. The tetris mechanic is designed fairly well and there's a good streamlined set of mechanics to support it. The ability to find a 2nd+ party member is a great surprise powerup, and there are a few others that also give a nice surprise. A very fun entry, this is really close to just being a really standout jam game, but there's a sort of flaw that brings it down. There's just a bit too many things competing strategy wise, and it makes the game feel exhausting or a bit random in outcome. Quite often I felt like I was picking which gamble I wanted to take rather than working on a strategy to minimize risk. There would be so many competing metrics for decisions that rather than picking a good option, I was just picking the least bad. For the pieces for the most part you can plan around what pieces you get offered when and that’s a great part of the game, but there’s definitely points where you will have to take a risk at potentially blocking a treasure. Perhaps starting the player with either 1 piece preview or a recycle could help there? Combat wise, floors 3+ make the armor system feel very punishing. If you reveal a big slime from a small ‘?’ you can often be left in a no-win situation where you only have 1 luck 1 attack and that’s not enough to kill a 1 armor foe. There’s no guarantee you’ll have seen any source of +attack or +luck by then. With all of the utility items and stats like range & speed it seems actually pretty unlikely. Pills also are a great incentive for exploring, and make for good variance and tactics in the level, but the identification system also makes it difficult to feel agency over the game. The auto-attacking, which otherwise feels great, and the multiple pathing options for an enemy makes it very difficult to pull enemies over new pills. Though I did also have cases of killing an enemy, having them drop a pill, and a second enemy moves over it right away. Combined with the pills that offer very negative outcomes and the armor system pushing you to find buffs, the identification metagame feels a bit hard to control beyond just gambling on new pills. What it feels like you have done is carefully thought through how the player will play and designed systems around those to mix up the play, a great idea of course. But what’s missing is the way for the player to then overcome those challenges with good play. Your players will pick up on using range early on, then you introduce big slimes with creep, to counter that. But that leaves players without much of a play around *that*, either they take advantage of their range or they suffer from being blocked in by creep and there’s not enough spare tools to deal with that. I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be added to make this a really fun and addictive game, but possibly just mixing up the existing mechanics a bit to give the player a bit more agency would go a long way and would let players feel rewarded for attempting to make plans or cautious plays. Overall happy to have played the game, it’s got a great charm to it, hoping to see it refined and taken to the next level.
Pieux
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
4
4
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I did not expect I'd get to play Dark Souls in roguelike form but here we are. This is an incredibly polished game and a smooth gameplay experience. With just a touch more content, maybe a few design changes, I could see myself playing this obsessively. I especially loved that the game communicated with me about what was going on more than just with a textbox: I knew what was going on at any given time. If I have to come up with something to work on, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table, and the control scheme isn't always intuitive (ESC cancels equip, took me a while to figure out how to unequip).
It's a hell of game! I was giddy like a baby mowing down heretics with my trident. Way to go, thank you for a really cool roguelike!
Completeness: It appears fully implemented and I found zero bugs. Aesthetics: It's very clean, and very usable. The only complaint is that the text on the intro screen is kind of hard to read for me with the monospace font, but otherwise it's well-done. Fun: Extremely fun! However, it feels kind of imbalanced in that if you get a scythe and pump nothing but Force you can pretty much one-shot everything. Innovation: It appears to be a pass at porting soulsborne mechanics into a roguelike, and while I think there's no way to port soulsborne mechanics into a roguelike sans more granular timing it's a fun attempt! Traditional Roguelikeness: It's a trad roguelike.
Shackles of the Stellar Tyrant
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
4
4
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
4
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
* Turn based 'bullet hell' mechanic is fun! * A little confusing at first, controls feel a bit unusual * Colours are cool
This was a ton of fun and brutally fun. I was really happy to see a game focused so much on ranged weapons! I will spend more time playing this, but from my first hour I was really impressed.
This is awesome! It really nails the feeling of a frenetic action game in a turn-based context.
Amoeba Roguelike
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
4
4
4
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Completeness 3 The level of polish is very impressive, there were plenty of very helpful features that really improved the experience, for instance the highlight on what parts of your slime are going to move, and the timer on the doors. I'd say it could use a bit more balancing though, the difficulty curve right now is quite frustrating. I found that the early game is quite fun, with lots of interesting a satisfying decisions to make, but when the number of enemies gets too large it rapidly becomes impossible to fight back. Aesthetics 3 Very readable, the only difficulty i had was telling at a glance what in my body was a digesting enemy, and what was an organelle. All the enemies except for the Mech were lowercase, maybe it would have been a good idea to have the Mech lowercase too. Fun 4 Although I never managed to beat it, I enjoyed my time with it immensely. Consuming enemies is very satisfying, and there was a plethora of interesting choices to make as far as organelle development went. I was a little hard to control organelle positioning, but it's hard to say whether making that easier would make the game more or less enjoyable, as working around the positioning difficulties also adds to the experience. Innovative 4 Really great and out there idea, with the added benefit that it actually works. This has definitely convinced me that a more fleshed out ooze based roguelike could definitely work. Scope 3 A good range of enemies and organelles, enough to give the player plenty of options and interesting situations they can end up in. Roguelike 4 Character progression in the form of upgrading organelles is there, so is perma-death, turnbased combat, and pretty much everything else I'd associate with a roguelike.
This game is a pretty well-done look at a sci-fi horror...from the perspective of the horrific blob. It's never made clear whether you are some sort of atomic horror or a blob from space escaped from some government facility, but play is tight and tactical. As of the time of this writing, I've yet to beat the game, but it's pretty good and engaging all-around. If you want a challenge, play this one for sure.
In a way this is the perfect 7DRL; it takes an unusual and interesting idea and explores the possibility space in a small experience. I'm a big fan of being an amoeba. It is satisfying to absorb things and break them down. Having organelles as abilities or powerups is such a cool idea. It might be nice to choose your upgrades, to make a build for yourself. Being a bright green thing in a dark environment makes you feel like you don't belong, which is appropriate. The enemy design is interesting as well, and you have to make decisions about which nuclei to move. However, I did have an issue with the difficulty curve. It is a 7DRL and critiquing the difficulty curve is perhaps a nitpick, but I felt that I would start building up my amoeba, and then all of a sudden there are two mechs, a tank, two marines, and a hunter surrounding me and it feels that there is nothing that I can do. Because you have to surround many enemies it takes several turns to kill any one of them, and each turn you are torn apart. Even two tanks next to one another are almost impossible. The color choice for enemies is also really unfortunate, as it is very easy to miss a dark blue tank on a black background. I also wish I could make more active use of organelles like the maw. I really tried to beat this one but I could only get up to 88 mass before being utterly destroyed. Maybe I am missing something. That being said, if this game gets updates, and I sincerely hope it does, I will return to check it out. One of the most memorable games this year.
Rogue Meteor
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
3
3
2
Scope
4
4
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Completeness: 4 The game has a great variety of enemies, items, weapons, and resources to keep you coming back. Some enemies move randomly, while others will hunt you down. Some weapons buff melee, while ranged weapons offer a whole new load of decision making. Face huggers are hilarious (and horrifying). Aesthetics: 4 The art and audio are awesome! It feels cohesive. There's a nice ambient background with plenty of well-curated sound FX. The sprites and tiles are easy on the eyes. I'd love to see more terrain types in that style. The controls for keyboard were not quite intuitive, but all the information is displayed in-game so that's a plus. Fun: 4 The game is great overall. The memory disk writing is funny and actually kept me hunting for more to try and figure out what happened. Innovative: 3 Visualizing the dice rolls and ranged mechanics are nice addition to the RL experience. Scope: 4 There are tons of enemies, weapons to discover, though they are tiny variation on the same core gameplay, they are satisfying to discover and use. Roguelike: 4 This is a pretty solid RL.
There is a lot to like here. Having a number of different weapons, some with limited use, a fair number of different monsters, different types of environments, and different types of consumables makes the game complex enough to be interesting. Graphics are nice and clear. The futurama-esque humor is a nice addition. Having facehuggers latch on to you with gratuitous blood is fun, and I like the idea that you almost want to get hit just to get them off. The food clock of oxygen is pretty stringent here. I ended up getting the furthest when I devoted most of my inventory to oxygen items. There is nothing wrong with a strict food clock, but it does make it so that the RNG of level generation becomes really important. You can die if you just happen to not find the exit, and it was the most frustrating part of the game. You can also die if a few tough enemies spawn next to one another. One way to mitigate this type of RNG issue may be to provide very rare powerful items or some kind of escape option. There is nothing wrong with difficulty spikes, but sometimes you end up not having much choice but to die. The user interaction is simple and easy, which I really appreciate. Showing the dice rolls on the map is a nice way to clarify how damage works. Sound reinforces the gameplay well. If the game were to be continued to be developed, I would like to see some ranged options and some items with more interesting effects.
A lot of great visuals, flavor text, and style. It's also a good amount of depth for a control scheme that fits on a controller. The die roll UI is definitely a nice touch, though the different shapes of the numbers made it a little confusing at first (but later much quicker to parse). As for gameplay, mostly this is a standard hack & slash roguelike, but with a focus on really tight and constrained resource management. Most of the interesting decisions are around inventory management and balancing the 3 resources (health, o2, energy) and that works well mostly. I think there's some balance issues that really pull the game down, but the overall implementation shows a lot of promise. I am pretty sure the game is impossible if you don't reserve a spot for a helmet, so effectively the player only has 3 inventory spots and often 2 because of reserve tanks. I enjoy the restriction. but it makes it very difficult to engage with some weapons (like the laser rifle that has a 2 spot dead zone). In general o2 probably drains a bit too fast, if you don't get a helmet things are going to be tough, and if you don't get a mask quickly either your run is probably over in just a few floors. The o2 problem is also compounded by level design. First having no-look command is punishing, if you end up in an area with no obvious direction to go, or have explored what feels like most/all of the level you just have to pick a direction at random to re-traverse and hope you are lucky that you find something you missed. That's made doubly worse by the tight o2 system making it best to move quickly through rooms. The other level problem is dead-ends. In the worst case I had a dead end where backtracking along the fastest route drained ~25 of my o2 *with* a helmet. Just doing a bit of check/cleanup on longer dead ends would help curve the level. Other than that my biggest gameplay complaint is that monster AI is done in such a way where monsters will prefer to stay diagonally to you, which feels really punishing. It's really easy to be forced to discover an enemy at a diagonal and then be unable to put them on any cardinal direction leaving you only with melee as an option. Given that the melee weapons don't scale as fast as ranged weapons this is pretty punishing. Control wise I do also have trouble with ranged combat. I get the scheme in general, but it's really easy, especially vs enemies with a ranged attack, to think you are in shooting mode and move instead. Having to double-tap the number to enter shooting mode feels clunky. The game should also probably have a wait command. I know there are reasons to not add a wait command, but in this case you can almost always "wait" by dropping an item anyways. It would just be more conveinent to have an actual wait command so you don't have to drop an item, then pick it back up. Overall a really complete experience with some fun tension in the inventory and resource management. Great visuals and changing environments to boot. Well done.
Dungeon Tetris
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
4
4
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Completeness 4 Very high level of polish. Range indicators, examining stuff, dynamic tile borders, it was all there. I didn't run into any bugs while I was playing. Aesthetics 4 The pixel art is gorgeous. Don't have much else to say besides that, but not much else needs to be said. Fun 3 There are a couple factors that I feel like hurt the experience and made it not as enjoyable as it could have been. One of those was blocked pieces spawning and overlapping each other. One of the really cool parts of tetris is the idea that you have to deal with every mistake you make, if you misplace a piece, you have to find a way to fill that hole you've made. Having pieces spawning in and overlapping each other removes those holes without any real challenge to the player. That said, there were plenty of cool touches that added a lot to the game. The side areas you could build to for more loot were awesome, and I really appreciated the design choice to have enemies not hit you on the same turn you kill them, letting you save a lot of HP. Innovative 3 I always love tetris mechanics shoehorned into other games, but I feel like they could have been explored a little more here. Enemies that pushed the pieces around would have been cool, or some kind of row making bonus. Having the boss interact with the tetris mechanics would have been really cool as well, maybe through healing beacons you gotta cover up with blocks before you can hurt the boss. Scope 3 While the game was quite long, many of the content you face later on is very similar to earlier stuff, for instance the ice flowers turning into the later shooters, and the air elementals replaced by skeleton imps. The tetris environment does change though quite significantly, and I appreciated how as the game continued the layout of the block placing areas changed. Roguelike 4 This is definitely a roguelike.
Dungeon Tetris is a pretty solid effort that hits the right notes for traditional roguelikeness. There are some interesting ideas with its central mechanic--certain areas become like a Tetris level and pieces naturally appear, with the hero able to manipulate them rather than move for the round. It's a fun idea that is a little compromised in balance by the randomness of enemy spawns, but (rather thankfully for this reviewer) also contained an easy mode. Scope is about on par and it does some interesting things with positioning. The mostly-scrolling-upwards direction of movement complements the general choice of conceit in this game. Occasional breaks give way to more a room or two of more "traditional" roguelike layouts, then it's back to the Tetris. An enjoyable experience that would be more or less unmissable with some greater tweaks in challenge.
## General review This is the 10th game I am reviewing, and so far the best I have played. Definitely a very strong entry in this year's competition ! ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 A full game with no bugs. Everything feels very polished. Note that I am playing the post-7DRl version, which fixed some bugs without adding content. Aesthetics: 4 Awesome graphics, leveraging some work from previous 7DRLs. UI is very clear and easy to understand. Nice starting screen. Help screen gives you all information you need to win the game. Fun: 4 You like Rogue ? You like Tetris ? Try this game now ! Innovation: 4 Mixing Tetris and dungeon crawling is not a new idea, several games have done this before. But it's the first time I see in a 7DRl and it works very well. Congratulations ! Scope: 4 The level of polish is quite impressive for a 7DRL. Part of this is due to the author reusing some elements from previous games, but the game play itself is completely new and one can read in the devlog how much effort went into putting all systems together. Traditional Roguelikeness: 4 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike game must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need to feel the sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. Dungeon Tetris fullfill all criteria to me. Definitely a must try for traditional roguelike fans.
Idol Knight
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
This was a fun little puzzler. It was a little rough figuring out what was happening at first, but it quickly became fun deciphering the levels and the enemies and finding unique little ways to send them to their demise.
Wow. So impressed by this game! Obviously there are some comparisons to Hoplite but if anything i found this more fun than that game. The playful design and rich and complex systems are really rewarding to prod at and invite attempts at mastery. I think the game could perhaps do a little better at explaining itself on first play, but that's actually a very low wall to climb - and i found myself very quickly getting the hang of it. I can imagine playing this on my phone pretty much as it's presented here. Really cool, the procedural puzzles it sets up would be perfect for a commuter in need of a quick tactical fix, and one can imagine returning to the game across a day/week/month.
Very nice artstyle, reminds me of a Slothwerks game. I'm a big fan when a game feels like a nice physical boardgame; the hand placing you is a nice touch. The mechanics remind me of Hoplite, Imbroglio, and P1 Select, which are all excellent. This is one of those 7DRL games that looks like it could be on the app store. I like the overall setup, there is enough to make interesting decisions. It is interesting that you have to move to end your turn, and it is interesting to think about the number of energy points left and how you are going to use them to get more. The game is pretty tough, especially because the player doesn't know the enemy's turn order. It might be a cool mechanic to have the turn order viewable a la Into the Breach. There could be some improvements to readability- the monster's abilities are easy to see if you look at each one and check it every turn, but it would be nice if you could tell from your peripheral vision-- maybe if their silhouette was differentiated more. I tended to miss the blocking walls all the time as well, they are not easy to see immediately. I would check this game out again if it is updated or is released as a full game.
Rogue Impact
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
4
4
3
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Completeness 4 Didn't run into any bugs, and very feature complete. The only missing feature that I would have liked was the ability to examine my party members while they're in my party, so that I can see what their abilities do. Aesthetics 3 Standard ascii, not much more to say than that. The portal effect though was extremely nice. Fun 4 The party mechanics add a lot to the traditional roguelike formula. Having different characters all specialised in their own little thing was really enjoyable, and I can easily see this being expanded into a larger roguelike. The only concern with a system like that is that having to manage four characters could be tedious, but that's not a problem at all here, as character management isn't super complex. Other than that, I really liked the finite health resource, and the monster types were varied enough to create different interesting tactical situations for each one. Innovative 4 As above, the party mechanics were fantastic, but there were some other really interesting innovations as well. Merging items together to level them up was a fantastic way to make every item valuable, and to get around the problem of everything being trash. The elemental vulnerabilities was cool, but since switching characters was so expensive I never really used them. Perhaps if there was some way to use another party members abilities, maybe through a consumable item. Scope 3 While there were a lot of interesting features, some party of the game were a little bareboned. Most noticably, there are only three different enemies, two of which with elemental variations. Most other aspects of the game were quite fleshed out, however the lack of enemy variety really hurts, since most of your time is spent fighting them. Roguelike 4 This is most assuredly a roguelike.
There is a lot to this game. The party system is neat and makes you balance the risk vs reward of switching to get different attacks. Even just the turn it takes to switch is an interesting choice. The leveling system helps support the party-based setup. Each character felt fairly differentiated. Controls were simple and intuitive. I wish more games had this mechanic of sliding past walls-- it's the opposite of the harsh corners of Brogue. It makes the movement feel buttery smooth. I did wish for a shift-move, since you end up pressing direction keys over and over. I liked having different items, though the melee weapons felt similar. The directional combat was interesting. It was nice to have varied level generation, especially the challenge of occasional open levels. I think the combat might have been even more interesting if there were more, weaker enemies so that you have to make more positioning decisions. I beat the game and then went through one new game plus without ever switching my rings since I find ring swapping to be tedious. I found the starting area to be nice, though a little confusing at first since the important bits are just laying around and not telegraphed visually from afar. I also wish that there was more to do in the starting area. The reason that I wish that there was more to do in the starting area is because I really enjoyed using the portal stones, and I wish that there was more reason to use them more often. The first time I threw one at the wall and realized what it did was an awesome realization, I had to step away from my computer for a minute to soak it in. So cool. I want to see this mechanic in more games, it is super memorable.
A solid roguelike. The party swapping works well, and it's fun to find new characters. I do wish you had some kind of choice when it came to the wish stones, though. It seems random whether you'll get a new character or imbue an existing one with a revive. Allowing a choice for making a character more powerful, or receiving a new character might be more interesting/engaging. Aesthetics work well (the glowing effect on stones is a nice touch), and the UI/UX in general is well done. Context menus are simple but clear, and easy to use. Being able to see where your spells will land before casting them would be nice, but the time constraint makes that understandable. The lack of food timer is welcome, even if it allows for a bit of cheese (waiting for spells to recharge), but your powerful spells do require kills to recharge. I didn't quite understand how "fusing" worked, and just continually fused items into the most powerful weapon available. I didn't understand how corpse eating worked either; I am thinking they can give you resistances if you eat enough of one type, but couldn't get that to happen.
Runemaster
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
4
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
This entry takes a concept oft-talked-about in games in general and roguelikes in particular and goes full ham on it. Crafting new spells is fun and intuitive, although a way to reorder your spells is an absolute must. Nice variety in environments and visually appealing: it was fun to play a more roguelike entry among many roguelites. The game's biggest downfall is the gameplay itself. Spellcrafting takes center stage and actually going down floors is repetitive and, frankly, boring; I never felt like my crafted spells were important in different situations, or much better than others. Minor spelling errors here and there but nothing big. Still one of the better entries.
Runemaster is lots of fun. I'm impressed by the scope. 7 base elemental attacks, with secondary effects, along with a whole slew of combination runes is impressive. It was fun to try the different runes and different combinations. The different environments are nice too, I like that we have wilderness, dungeon, and elemental plane, and they all feel different. The font is clear, the controls are simple for the most part. I really wish "g" was used for "get" instead of the Nethacky comma. The quick healing and mana recovery keeps the game at a fast pace. My biggest issue was honestly that the game is much too easy. I really wanted to eke out every advantage from my rune and use their secondary effects and have some tense moments, but you recover health and mana so quickly and there are potions just everywhere. The air rune especially, since it lets you hit monsters anywhere on screen, but also teleport. For a 7DRL game, this is very impressive and fun to play with, I'd love to see it expanded further and balanced more.
Very compelling and fun!
Harvest Dungeon
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
4
2
4
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Really fun retro style game. The balance between farming and mining and fighting enemies was interesting. The art style was very low res but well done. The sound effects helped to know when enemies were coming. If I had one complaint, it's that the controls could have been better. I died a few times because I pressed the wrong button. WASD movement with Q/E or Space bar would have been much easier to use, in my opinion.
I like the aesthetics of the game. It feels like a nice little place to carve out a life for myself. There is something nice about the simple act of picking up and putting down tools to do different tasks, and being able to affect the environment as well. The major issue that I have is the balance of the crop growing mechanic-- specifically, it takes much, much too long to grow crops. It isn't reasonable to expect a new player to figure out how to get crops to grow without dying many times, the timing is just too close, and it was very frustrating. I do appreciate a roguelike that does something unusual, this is like a simplified Dwarf Fortress Adventure mode and Fortress mode combined. Although the mechanics are unusual, the fact that it is turn-based, grid-based, and has some procedural generation, means that it is a traditional roguelike in my opinion. It's a nice base, it would be cool to see it expanded with more base-building and combat mechanics.
Overview "Fun little game", except it's not that little. Great exploration feeling. Completeness Complete package, no major bugs encountered, very polished. Aesthetics The graphics style is charming, but a bit unclear and hard on the eyes. Simple and intuitive controls. Fun That's definitely one of the most interesting entries in 2021. It has several mechanics, and while all of them (exploration, farming, combat) are simplistic, the final effect is incredibly captivating. Innovation It's a simple roguelike, with farming and exploration based on digging tunnels and bridge-building. Maybe it's not extraordinarily innovative but definitely feels fresh. Scope Here, I struggled a bit. The scope seems to be big (because I can see that every single mechanics of this game could be used to create a separate 7DRL) and small (simplicity of mechanics, also that's not a big game in terms of raw content) at the same time. Still, when I look at the big picture, Harvest Dungeon delivers even more than I would expect from the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Yes, traditional roguelike with additional twists.
Pogue Thacker, Rogue Hacker
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
2
4
3
There is a lot going on here, many characters to choose from... unlockable characters? Although it's more of a shooter with a hacking game mechanic (that I didn't fully understand) and very much not a roguelike. But it is pretty fun.
This is a massive, really fun game! The core is engaging; plus there are tons of enemies and stats and levels and loadouts. It took me a while to figure out what the number grid represented, but eventually I figured out how to connect the event log, the flashing grid numbers, and what was going on in the main play area. I like how the timed-shooting block works; you can trigger it by passing any of the four compass directions. I don't have much of anything to complain about; I wish I had an indication of when my shot was ready, and I don't feel like there's a lot of skill involved in using the arrow-key and plus/minus pickups, but maybe I'm missing something. I'll likely be playing this quite a bit more.
Completeness: It's fully implemented. The balance is a bit wacky but in that feels intentional, because of how the upgrade system works. Aesthetics: Great! The art's good, the music fits well with the themes, and the controls are pretty intuitive. Fun: I beat it three times, going through just to try new builds, so I had a ton of fun with it. The gameplay's pretty snappy and the unique build system is fun to experiment with. Highly recommend. Innovation: Mostly standard, except for the very interesting build system. You select the stats you want to raise/lower by navigating a grid via drops. It's a cool mechanic. Scope: It has a very reasonable scope. Traditional Roguelikeness: Well, it's real-time, but otherwise pretty trad-roguelike-y.
The Winding Paths Below
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
A nice mash up of two distinct genres. Not nearly as difficult as either of the games that influenced this, but really fun and interesting mechanics.
This is a very cool game. Using the tetronimoes makes the game feel more like a puzzle game than a roguelike, and reminds me of Into the Breach. Figuring out how to line them up *just* right so you can navigate through the floor perfectly feels good. However, it also feels too reliant on randomness. Having a "next piece" feature like many versions of Tetris would have alleviated some of this by letting you plan at least one more turn ahead. But, perhaps that would have been too easy, I don't know. Regardless, I cannot help but feel like I was robbed when I got several pieces in a row that were of no use to me. I am curious if there is some kind of "win check" when generating the floors and tetronimoes, or if it is purely random. To exacerbate the randomness, the game (and the final level in particular) is punishing, and does not really allow much in the way of mistakes. From my experience it is difficult or perhaps impossible to get higher than level 8 by the time you reach the end. That means you probably need full health *and* a shield to take the boss' hit. A single mistake in the final level will probably stop you from winning. If I were to change one thing, it would be how shields work. When I have 3 shields, and I get hit for 1 damage, I lose the entire shield. I did not realize this at first, and it cost me a win. It would be more intuitive for you to go down to 2 shields. Despite my reservations this is a lovely, inventive roguelike. I would love to see it expanded upon. Perhaps a shop to spend your treasure at? Other permanent upgrades or items? Well done.
Puzzle roguelike The art is pretty and I like it. You have to incorporate Tetris-like blocks into your map and move over them to collect items and level up. It's also like Tetris in that the blocks you need don't come as fast as you'd like, but you still have to make it work. The sense of accomplishment you get when you get it right is amazing, and I found myself playing it again and again until I cleared it! It's a wonderful game that expresses a novel concept with careful work.
Endgame 437
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
What can I say that hasn't already been said about Endgame 437? In a certain sense, this game feels like an ideal 7DRL: it takes a self-contained, well-scoped, fun idea and executes on it wonderfully. The game has the right amount of content to keep you engaged until your victory; has great music for each of the different levels; the art is well-thought out (I realized just how well when I looked at the different characters for XP counting). Special mention to the character selection ability - a seemingly useless but super fun addition! On the side of improvements, the game is pretty easy to finish, and dying is usually a result of carelessness more so than a difficult situation you should need complicated reasoning to get out of. I didn't mind this too much, as I was happy to explore the content, but replayability really suffers because of the lack of challenge. Related to this, optimization of different dimensions (torch, backpack, armor, etc.) becomes less meaningful after the first level because your goal is usually to just not get hit at all. With Ruffians hitting for 6, the breakpoints on hp+armor are really 7 and 13, and anything in between makes little difference.
One of my favorites from this year. This one is definitely on the easy side since once you have a handle on the mechanics and start to level up it's hard to die except to stupid mistakes, but that's fine for a 7DRL and makes it easier to experience all of the content. Plus the interface and audio design is just great. Higher enemy density to occasionally create more tense situations and actually needing to use the huge number of resources scattered around would be be an improvement.
## General review A roguelike implemented in MegaZeux (an engine in the style of ZZT). It's fun, it runs well, it definitely has the rogue feel and aesthetics. Congrats on a very successful 7DRL ! ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 It's a full game, winnable. I did not experience any bugs. Note that I played the post-7DRL version, which includes a few fixes. Aesthetics: 4 Great ! I like beautiful graphics but I find ASCII symbols easier to read most of the time. This game is using the old code page 437 characters in a clear and intuitive way. The interface is mostly easy to read and supports the game well. Fun: 4 I have not won the game yet, but I want to keep trying. Losing is fun ;) I definitely recommend this game ! Innovation: 3 The gameplay itself is classic, but I will award one additional point for the unusual choice of this game engine. Not many roguelikes are being written in ZZT nowadays ! Scope: 3 What I expect from a 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness: 4 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need that sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. EndGame 437 succeeds in all of that :)
Pancaketheon
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
4
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
I wouldn't have guessed Hades x Breakfast would work so well, but here we are. Pancaketheon is, in both visuals and audio, an amazing game, which when coupled with the intuitive controls and fun, super-simple gameplay, makes it an amazing entry. Tons of content too, especially for a 7DRL - I played through the game several times just to test out different abilities and get different endings. It's not perfect, of course: in some cases the gameplay is jarringly slow, such as when enemies appear, and it does little to innovate either in general or in the roguelike genre in particular. Still one of the gems of this years 7DRL, a fun sort-of PG-13 dating sim with refreshing characters and gameplay variety.
It's always a pleasant surprise to play a 7DRL as polished as this one. It feels very complete, end-to-end. I was able to win on my fourth run. Really excellent work.
Very impressive scope and art. The Hades influence is appreciated. I like how it allows you to see synergies and build a run from what you are given-- you can't force a particular build on any particular run, but you can still guide it and make decisions about what you want. I won a number of different games focusing on different abilities or trying a balanced combo, and all of the runs felt different. Playing the game makes you think about other possible synergies and mechanics that would fit the theme well, but for a 7DRL the amount of content that made it in is more than fair. Music is nice as well, I ended up playing like Necrodancer sometimes-- moving to the beat. The length and difficulty are reasonable for a 7DRL, though a little on the easy side overall. Nice character art as well.
Starguy IV
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
4
4
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
Gun based roguelikes aren't the norm, but they're certainly becoming a favourite with titles like this. The aesthetics are charming around the solid gameplay, and the soundtrack is a bop. The depth to this was unexpected but came up really well - the system of putting in levels for character upgrades worked extremely well, the skill system and obtaining of new skills is nice (and no mana system, just a cooldown based on movement? Fantastic.) I found myself running out of ammo frequently, but sometimes this was down to my own errors in aiming/pointing the right way/not realising gun range. Not being able to shoot up or down felt odd at first but it was a good way to make the player think strategically. Overall, solid and good fun.
You don't need to play the first 3 to understand the plot. Starguy IV is impossibly slick and mechanically charming. 10/10 gamefeel. The UI is intuitive and the tiles are beautiful, visually the game is a treat. The enemies are varied and novel. The gunplay has substantial weight - smashing [z] and vaporising the middle of a 3x3 opponent never gets old. Nice use of the think break in the soundtrack. Somehow in 7 days this team has made a game with a 3 act structure that ties together a number of unique components to produce a stylish and mechanically cohesive progression. This is work to be proud of.
Guild Of Zany
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
4
4
4
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
Guild of Zany is a cross of a card game, like Slay the Spire, with monster combat. It has strong notes of slay the spire, with character classes that play differently, a shop where you can buy relics that have passive abilities, and restarting a run if you die. Gameplay consists of your character moving along a path and auto attacking enemies until it survives at the end or you are defeated. You have a hand of cards, and can place one item on each open square, such as weapons and shields to impact the fights. Gems are a currency within rounds (used for rerolling hands) and between fights to buy relics to improve your character. The aesthetics of this game are really top notch, I have paid for PC and iOS games with significantly worse graphics. The character's animations bounce in a fun way, and the graphic have a children's sticker book feels. Really the art team here did a great job. The interface was spot on, and everything acted just as I expected. The gameplay is complete and polished, though I found it to be rather random and difficult at time. Randomness mitigation techniques such as rerolling hands help, but it sometimes feels you can lose to shear RNG. I was unable to complete the game in my testing, but that could just be player skill. I am only a level 5 ascension player in Slay the Spire. The biggest sticking point is how "roguelite"ish do you consider a card game with auto combat. Apologies to returning to the comparison to slay the spire, but does a card game with random content and permadeath sufficient to be a roguelite? In the end, however, this was a lovingly crafted game with absolutely top notch graphic that I enjoyed my time with. Well done!
"Guild of Zany" is aesthetically stunning card-based roguelike with enough content to explore for several hours - it took me a while to really understand each ability and mechanic, but the learning process was fun and rewarding. I only got to win all 7 rounds a couple times, but almost no playthrough felt unfairly hopeless - the balance seems to be tuned quite well. The game is also highly replayable, I can see myself coming back to it again and again just for fun.
Overview Polished roguelike card battler with a unique twist and some balance problems. Completeness The game has everything that I would expect from the 7DRL, is polished, has a nice and intuitive interface. The only problem is balance – the distribution of cards and obstacles is a bit too random, and sometimes a player just doesn't have the tools for the job. Aesthetics Stylish graphics, nice music, intuitive controls. All elements feel very consistent. That's so good that for some time I was thinking about requesting an exceptional score for Guild Of Zany. Finally decided against it, mostly because some audio felt like highly compressed mp3 file. Fun Despite its balance problems, I had great fun playing this game. The thing is that for Guild Of Zany, the aesthetics affect the fun factor, too. It's a quite simple idea, with an interesting twist, but very well-executed. I think that decision about keeping the levels short was the right one – it makes losses definitely less annoying. And I was losing a lot, the game's hard. Innovation This card battler indeed features an unusual twist: within one screen, player needs to plan all moves in advance, and then can only watch how the plan works in practice. Scope Good graphics, music, 7 levels with different bosses, unlockable characters – more than I expected! Traditional Roguelikeness Permadeath – check! Procgen – check! Being traditional, top down, ASCII roguelike – absent... And you know, that's fine.
Hazard Level
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Great atmosphere. Love the simplicity of the controls, makes for great tension - you really feel each misstep. You did a great job of creating atmosphere with text messages. Some more clues would be helpful too. What's the '&'? What's the spinning thing that always comes and kills me eventually?
This is difficult. It's occasionally difficult to see the little "hissing" things until they've killed you, and it's hard to tell what's going on in general. That said, the difficulty makes it ideal for rogueliking gluttons for punishment.
This one is a bit of a gem. The mechanics are simple and the player does not have many options, but it is still fun. You are forced to use the level geometry to your advantage, which is an interesting challenge. The only thing I would wish for would be some kind of minor upgrade in the game-- it can be hard to find the computer and going through hordes of enemies feels especially tough when you come through the other side with nothing to show for it. What makes this game special is the commitment to the SCP theme, and the little surprises that make it more than just a baseline roguelike. There are nice visual touches, it's very accessible, and I laughed a bit at some unexpected turns.
Starcharted Islands
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
I have never seen something quite like this in a game, and that is very impressive. I've seen plenty of unusual and experimental games but I've never navigated open waters according to the stars. It took a bit for me to understand the premise, but once I did I was really into it. The day cycles, weather, clouds, birds, etc really add to the experience. Making something this immersive in ascii is impressive. If you always had perfect information and could move in any direction at any time the game would become trivial, but the addition of winds and a heading for your boat, along with the stars being obscured sometimes is what makes the game interesting-- you have to build the constellations in your head and move them around to discover your path. I found managing my maps to be a little cumbersome but not a dealbreaker. I died a number of times while trying to get ashore, which was annoying but I did end up appreciating that you have to slow down and carefully run your boat to ground. I never got all of the treasures due to occasional crashes. However, the time I spent in this game was the most memorable of the 7DRL games I've played so far.
The colorful changing ASCII representation is very beautiful. I was immersed in the romantic atmosphere of sailing the silent sea with the constellations as my guide. The originality and roguelike feel of the game are combined at a high level. It's a shame that there are a few bugs, but it's a great game!
To be honest, I don't feel well reviewing this game. I just didn't got into Starcharted Islands enough to talk about game mechanics, scope, etc. Still, decided to didn't skip this review from my batch, because I'm the living example that accessibility actually matters. So, figuring out how to play this game took me quite a long time. Probably I would just skip that game if I wouldn't know and like other Jan's games. Cost of being truly innovative (without a proper tutorial and only short instructions). And when I finally figured out how to play it, the game crashed (with code -27). The next playthroughs went better. Starcharted, for me, feels totally about being alone, lonely and (almost) lost on the vast ocean. And this feeling continues, even when player will figure out that the game actually gives a large room for errors.
cruiseRL
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
2
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I wish i could take a bath lol. In all seriousness it was nice to play a game where the zombies are a legitimate threat. This game really accounts for the stealth part of being a rogue I enjoyed skulking around and managing my scent to try and avoid zombies while still making progress. The Benny hill chase sequence that ensues while i try to shake a zombie when I do get caught is fun tense and results in damage enough times to keep me humble. The different ship layouts kept thing challenging each run and the different ship names was a really nice touch. Although I was kind of hoping for some more fun /varied levels I feel like you can excuse most anything showing up on a cruise ship. The only thing I will say is that there is not quite enough incentive to explore the lower floors, once i realized I could go straight to the top I tried a speed run where I jumped to floor 5 grabbed a key and left which took about a 5th of the time of my first run when I tried to be a total loot goblin. Really good base though just needs a ill more variety than could be fit in in 7 days.Also you can leave while there are zombies on your lifeboat which I like to think of as the bad end.
It's fun, and has that traditional roguelike feel to it, but it comes down to kiting around the level dragging a line of zombies behind you. The scent idea is good, but it isn't that different from a line of site once the zombie enters the cloud of scent.
Thanks for submitting this! A very unique twist to the roguelike formula. I enjoyed the scent mechanic, though I do personally admit that it was hard for me to actually use (my OWN fault). I tend to just jump into battle all the time. I do love the atmosphere of the ship - reminds me a lot of the story of the Marie Celeste. Really good entry and you should be proud of what you were able to put together in such a short time.
A King in Checkxile
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
"A King in Checkxile" features a rather unique, exciting concept - it's equally a roguelike and a game of chess, and requires the player to have a sound understanding of the basics of both worlds. I found it very fun to play in spite of what I consider its greatest flaw: the unexpected, savage, and unforgiving death (aka chessxecution). You might be used to quickly moving around the map, with the game either giving you a good-sized alert if you are about to die, or consequences of one wrong move not being quite severe. Then it might take you a while to adjust to Checkxile's immediate death at the hands of a bishop lying in wait 8 squares away, whom you carelessly approached because you simply didn't notice the damn piece shooting up its exclamation mark as a warning that it sees you. Regardless, the game is worth finishing, and is a stellar 7DRL achievement.
Completeness: Fully complete, found no bugs except for some weird dots on the help screen, which I think is one pixel of the wooden wall tiles poking through the overlay. Aesthetics: Excellent and readable. The UI does use mouse/keyboard combo but it controls well nonetheless. Fun: Very fun! It's also quite difficult. The one-hit-kill nature of it makes it finnicky. I could see it getting repetitive if stretched out but for the short duration of 7DRL it is excellent. Innovation: There's a lot of chess 7DRLs, but this one is reasonably distinct in playstyle due to the capture mechanic. Scope: Wholly reasonable. Traditional Roguelikeness: It's a trad roguelike.
Beasts of Mehetia
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
"Beasts of Mehetia" is interesting, if only somewhat imbalanced - I couldn't get past level 6 for a while, but then got a lucky build that took me to level 10, and got me two locket parts from the old Ahu-Lani. The existence of achievements (which I kinda treated the score as) makes it somewhat replayable - I still have no idea how to achieve a couple. The "chicken friend" and similar achievements feel a bit weird because you get them all if you die without killing an enemy, so when you just start out, you are confused why you get any points. The visuals and sfx are lovely. The courage + closing eyes mechanic is pretty novel. The controls make sense, except that I really hated having to restart the game every time I died (which happened a lot), which slowly chipped away at my overall enjoyment. It would also be nice to be able to press down on a direction key and move continuously. Overall, with a bit more balance and a quick way to restart, this game would be rather fun to play!
A very solid game. My only real complaint is how infrequently you run into the jade locket pieces. My best run made it to floor 10, with only 2 pieces out of 4 found. Perhaps I was just unlucky, but I don't think the game has enough variety to warrant long runs, especially since it is easy to miss a piece of the locket. Otherwise, everything works well. The randomized "skill tree" is great, and allows many choices/playstyles despite being so simple. Do I go for higher inventory space, or boost my base health/courage? Is it worth it to spend a point on utilities like lava jumping or terrain destruction? Enemies and items are varied enough, though I wish there were a couple more for the length of the game. Great job!
Dungeon Grinder
Completeness
4
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Very fun! the grinding is just a really fun, cool idea. Neat look, great use of the kenney tiles! I did get the crash you mentioned in the description, but honestly, wasn't even that aggravated or anything, and I managed to win the game with no more problems after that.
I really like this idea. I've never seen this mechanic in a roguelike before. It's an unusually dynamic feeling for a roguelike as well. The tileset choice is simple and clear, and the colors are nice. Controls are simple and understandable. I would love to see the concept expanded; as it is the skeletons are fairly basic and easy to defeat and new enemy types would mix up the experience. I think the mechanic might be interesting with more enemies in a smaller space with more railroads to increase the difficulty and force you to take your turns carefully. I really like the simple tutorial, it teaches you the mechanics quickly and easily. I would love to see two paths, in the beginning, one that you should grind on and one that you clearly need to walk on, with the walking one taking you right to the level and the grinding one going through the tutorial first. I really like the ending, where you grind quickly through the entire level. It did lead me to beat the game the second time by just grinding forward. The fact that skeletons move right after the player, but before the grinding, is an interesting idea since it makes you anticipate their position. There is a lot of potential here, maybe spells that let you lay your own railroads down, or let you place or toggle a line switcher. There could be bumpers or things that reset your momentum. Even as it is though, a really interesting and unique experience.
(Review of a version that was updated post-7DRL to fix a crash.) This is a very short, very simple, yet really fun game! While there's only one enemy type, no equipment/progression, etc. it nevertheless feels satisfying to play thanks to its one key mechanic - the ability to glide on rails, which gives your knight so much momentum that they can immediately smash any skeletons foolish enough to be on rails in that moment, whereas simple melee takes multiple swings to defeat just one of them, and there's no way to heal (which is not a problem, since the dungeon is so short once you master the on-rails movement.) My main suggested post-7DRL improvement would be to add BGM/SFX: the game looks really nice, but it would feel even better if you could actually hear the knight grinding on rails or smashing skeletons to bits. Beyond that, it would nice to see if the author can figure out how to expand it while preserving this core gameplay.
About The Kid Who Stole The Relics Back
Completeness
3
4
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
3
Fun
3
4
4
2
Innovation
4
3
3
3
Scope
4
3
4
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
4
The stealth mechanic is great, the changing of the kids color while he's hidden works extremely well. The only issue is that you end up hidden in a corner watching the Vikings walk around . The mechanics support the story, the visuals support the mechanics, this is a good game. If the Vikings weren't always chasing me out the exit, I'd go right back in every time.
I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It focuses on stealth mechanics in a way that is reminiscent of Harmonist. The concept is simple but well executed, with just (but only just) enough mechanics and options for the player to complete the task. I think there is elegance in that balance. Visuals, especially the tiles in the post-7DRL release, are simple, readable, and clear. Some mechanics are not clear at first, but can be learned aftter some experimentation. The mechanics support the theme, so that you feel like a kid running around, trying to evade adults. The only real issue that I came across was that storing my treasure stash in the hideout didn't work, which is an important part of the game for getting a high score.
A roguelike stealth game I was surprised to see that a PDF manual was provided! I really enjoy the feeling of hiding from enemies, guiding them around, and collecting treasures. I'm sure it was hard to adjust the balance of the game, but it's well thought out and not too difficult. The score display is also a nice touch. Overall, I thought this was an excellent and exemplary 7DRL that was carefully crafted.
This is a stealth roguelike, which is cool. Unfortunately, not only does the game currently have a very limited scope, but several baffling decisions make it a lot less fun than it could have been. First and foremost, this is a stealth game where the player character is unable to wait in place, for no clear reason. This means that while you can theoretically hide under the tables and in crumbling walls, there's only ever a practical benefit to this if several tables have spawned next to each other and you can keep crawling from one to another to pass time: otherwise, you are better off just running to the next relic, or the exit, depending on your current position. On the other hand, while the Kid is unable to fight Vikings, and can only throw pebbles at them, he is ridiculously tanky for a stealth game character - in a genre where it's often customary for a single hit to result in game over, the Kid has to get stabbed TEN times by the Vikings to actually die. The "encumbrance" system that slows the Kid down the more treasure they carry feels almost pointless in the face of this: yes, you become more likely to receive a couple more hits even if you stop to toss pebbles at the pursuers, but so what? Then, stealth is often about discovery and the unknown - which is why all the treasures being visible on the map from the start is a strange choice. I guess it implies the kid already knows locations of everything by heart, but along with the other two factors, it ultimately means that the player can plan out the optimal route to the treasures before making any moves, and then adjust it as needed depending on when and how they run into enemies. Player's ability to receive high scores often feels less dependent on their skill and more on how the monastery layout is generated - if you are lucky, the most valuable relics are the closest ones to the hatch, while the Vikings are relatively far away. If you are unlucky, you might get spotted after taking three steps, or be in a room with few treasures or connections. 4-directional movement further exacerbates some of the game's flaws. The crumbling walls that allow the Kid (but not the Vikings) to pass through can end up generated in the corners, or with a pillar on one side, which renders them completely useless. While the game does not crash, it is possible to get soft-locked. If, say, The Kid has a wall on one side, a pillar on the other, and two already aware and hostile Vikings on the remaining directions, then this is an unwinnable position, since not even staggering the Vikings with pebbles will allow the kid to squeeze past them. However, you cannot even die to restart: once The Kid runs out of pebbles, the game prevents you from doing anything at all in that position. Moreover, since the game auto-saves when you close the window, and places you in the same position once you open it again, the best solution at this point is to delete the entire folder and re-extract it from downloads. I played both the Tiles and the ASCII version, and in both cases, the visuals are about what you would expect from a 7DRL, while sound is completely missing from the game. I mainly wish that the control scheme was listed in-game: both versions ultimately contain more than enough "dead" UI space to do so, but instead the player has to refer to the pdf attached. Altogether, this game is a promising concept that appears to have gone wrong somewhere down the line.
Dungeons of Bonk
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
4
It was a well made project, and I didn't find any technical issues with the game, I couldn't complete the game because I found it to be a bit difficult, but not to punishing, this was due mostly to the movement; I didn't really feel I had much control over my character. Aside from this one issue I have with balance I'd say you have a fairly complete game. I really like the simple pixel art graphics, the game was very pleasing to look at, there weren't any inconsistencies in the art and the simple UI fit in well with the general aesthetic of the game. I found the game to be pretty fun to play but again the difficulty really detracted from this, I'm not sure why I struggled to get used to the controls but I just couldn't fully understand it, and my enjoyment of the game suffered for this. I can't say I've seen any roguelikes with launch based movement, was pretty new to me and very interesting. The game is well designed, and is decent for something made in seven days, seems like a finished idea, and an idea I would like to see expanded. Not too much like a roguelike in my eyes, although having certain features I would consider to be very much like a roguelike, it lacks many more. seems more like a casual arcade game.
Roguelike pinball. This game is beautiful, way nicer looking than you expect to get from a 7DRL. The gameplay is polished and fun. The only gripe is that it skirts the line of being a roguelike, way more into the roguelite spectrum, if not just an arcade, action game.
Completeness: Fully implemented and found no bugs. Aesthetics: The art is great, the movement looks really smooth and funny, and the soundtrack is very charming. Excellent overall. Fun: It's very fun for the first few minutes, but the time taken in resolving turns means prolonged play feels like waiting around a lot. I had a lot of fun but near the end it started to wear. The enemy variety is limited as well, though it is a 7DRL. Innovation: The "settling" mechanic is a really good way of resolving the difference between physics-based and grid-based movement, and the physics-based movement is rarer than grid-based in general. This is a great prototype! Scope: Entirely reasonable. Traditional Roguelikeness: Yep that's a Roguelike.
lostwoodsRL
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
4
4
3
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
This is a creative roguelike; it basically has the theme of trying to find your bearings in lost woods--to do that you have to clear 10 rooms of the woods. Different items will offer wildly different progressions; e.g. some will give you bonuses for moving a certain direction and others are the usual bonuses. Perhaps it's telling that in the first successful run I wound up being a very defense-heavy archer and in the second I played a much more melee-focused, tactically-tense glass cannon. It's not the most innovative or balanced game ever (it gets pretty high marks for completeness from me, but it does have a couple of spots of bad balance), but its depth really pushes its fun factor up high. Aesthetically fine to look at, though controls are somewhat tricky to manage. A little more visual feedback and obvious menu changing would go a long way there. Scope and traditional roguelikeness are pretty on-point for a 7DRL.
This feels very close to a full game, which is impressive. The art is nice and clear and I like the different environments. There are some interesting ideas, making level decisions based on your items is the beginning of a really interesting mechanic. Using letter keys for movement is unusual but it ends up working fine. I like the symmetry of hand positions. The item keys were a little confusing because on my keyboard 7 is in the top left, but on the UI, seven is in the bottom left. There is a lot of tactical potential here, and I felt that I had to carefully consider my turns, which is what I play roguelikes for. The fact that you can shoot over mountains does mean that positioning is less important than it could have been. The monsters do not have good pathfinding and get stuck a lot. There are also some balancing issues, allowing the player to get so powerful, sometimes even early on, that no monster on the level can hurt them at all. I also would like to be able to inspect what items do after picking them up. Sometimes my turn count would reset without monsters moving, your turns should reset when you enter a new level, and at some point every game I would get to an empty white level with nothing in it. Maybe it was heaven? For a roguelike made in 7 days through all of these issues are understandable and overall, this is a very good effort with cool ideas that could be made into a full game.
omnihexahedron
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
4
3
2
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
Completeness 4 Plenty of content, and a high level of polish. Beyond being just a playable concept, the mechanics here are fully explored and the progression is quite fleshed out. Aesthetics 3 The game looks very good, the game piece esque icons work well with the dice theme, and the slight amount of 3d in the map also looks great. It would have been nice however to have a little more clarity on the different dice sides, as knowing what side of your cube has what face is key to the gameplay. The key to let you see the other side of your cube was a good start, but not super convenient. Would have been great to see a little more experimentation with how to effectively communicate all sides of the cube to the player. Fun 4 Really neat idea that definitely adds an extra layer of depth to your standard move around the dungeon blasting enemies ordeal. The 3d geometry puzzles were a cool factor, and keeping them in mind while also moving to dodge enemy attacks etc. added a nice challenge. Innovative 4 I don't think I've ever seen a roguelike take this kind of 3d geometric approach before, so I'd definitely call it quite innovative. Scope 3 The scope was good for a 7DRL, but one major thing that it was missing was an ending. There didn't seem to be any clear end condition, instead having the number of enemy spawns increase as the game continued until they became unbeatable and defeat was certain. This works fine for a 7DRL, but having a concrete end goal can really help to pull the experience together. Roguelike 4 All the essential roguelike trappings are there.
Very cool idea! I appreciate the QOL details, like mouseover text. The aesthetic is clear and has a nice feel to it. I especially like the ending portal work. The idea reminds me a bit of Michael Brough's P1 Select, where you have to move to get to a new ability, and I love that game. The enemies have interesting abilities. This is one of those concepts that I could see being expanded and released on Steam. A consumable item that lets you turn your dice would help a lot with smoothing the difficulty curve, but maybe I just needed to wrap my head around the concept better. The experience can be a little suffocating as-is, when you are trying to maneuver your cube to get a key on the right face, in a tight corridor as monsters continually spawn around you and summoners spawn new monsters and other monsters prevent you from using your abilities. The concept works super well in some situations but I had situations with 14 monsters on the map and 17 hex spots with very few options for movement. Even killing the monsters causes them to respawn right away, it's overwhelming. In the end, though that is just a balancing issue which is understandable in a 7DRL, and maybe I was just playing poorly. The game fulfills all of my requirements for a traditional roguelike for sure. I like that the shops require sacrifices, though there is no reason to have turns on that level. While I have some gripes, the idea and execution are really cool and one of the most memorable games of 7DRL. I would totally check this game out again if it ends up being expanded.
This is a very interesting roguelike game. The controls and flow of the game felt very unique, which is both a positive and a negative. I spent the first hour figuring out "what to do" and then the next hour playing the game. This was a hard game to "beat" (and I never did) but I'm glad I took many attempts! While its obvious that the developer went out of their way to label and describe how the game works, I still felt like it took a long time to get up and running. In the future I will try out the other classes.
A Root Path
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
This game was intuitive to play. I liked the aesthetics a lot. Having 1 color per sprite like that is really cool. Nice color scheme too! I found a bug with the graphics when a root Up spawned in a corner by the walls. I felt like both the core of the game and the polish was nice. But, I think it would have been nice to have a few more abilities. As well as more enemy types.
This game has a special feel to it. The idea of a floating wisp purifying water and growing plants is amazing, I love it. It's sort of a version of coming back up to the town in Angband, there is a nice safe space to return to after doing a dungeon run. I love the simple, unmoving enemies, their organic-feeling growth, and the emphasis on either stemming the growth or escaping. I'm reminded of Cassie Stuuman's talk at the 2017 Roguelike Celebration about slime mold. The pixel graphics are clean and nice. The interaction is simple and mostly clear. I do wish you could see what your plants will do when you are above ground for planning. I love the idea of exploring a damp cavern. The beginning garden area is fairly large, which indicates to the player that they should fill it with plants, which is reinforced by the mechanic of not being able to place certain plants near one another. In reality, since you need to upkeep your plants you can really only plant a few. Also, while much of the art is very clean and clear, it took me many trips to realize what tile was the downstairs. Overall it took a while to figure out how to interact with this game but it was an interesting and unique experience, and beating it felt like a nice accomplishment.
- Game felt polished, didn't come across any bugs. - Aesthetics were great, sound and visual. Controls were simple and intuitive. Couple minor things that would've been nice: some sort of indication of which plants need to be watered, and maybe some sort
Eradication Bastion
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
2
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
4
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
The unique nature and tight execution of the inertia-based movement system works wonderfully with turn-based movement - much better than I'd imagined - and the game does its best to lead a player in. With a game this complex and a learning curve this high, I'd prefer the controls, perhaps even the gameplay itself, even more streamlined. Nonetheless, the difficulty feels organic and succeeding feels genuinely rewarding. Other than slight crudeness in graphics (especially interface) this is an incredible entry.
This game is hard. Not because of the strategy in it, but because of the controls. The idea behind the game is really interesting, and the thrill you get when you actually pull off a maneuver is exhilarating, but trying to get the character to do what you want him to do is so challenging and counterintuitive that the game is quite frustrating the majority of the time you're playing it. I enjoy the ideas, the mechanics, and the themes, it's simply the overly complex control scheme that makes playing this game seem like a chore. Simplify the way the player controls the main character and this could be a real winner.
Probably the longest I've played in this 7DRL review. The game has a unique play feel, like a combination of a turn-based roguelike and an action game. It's a little difficult to learn the controls, as you have to move while calculating inertia. But once you get used to it, you can accelerate and slice through enemies with ease. This is a great feeling! The game is not unreasonable, even on the higher difficulty levels, as all game overs are your own fault. It's a great game with traditional roguelike elements, but very innovative.
Medieval Upbringing 7DRL
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
4
4
4
Roguelikeness
3
2
2
I don't even know where to begin with this one, its really interesting and the scope is clearly way wider than I would expect from a 7DRL by a lot. I mean leader boards and hundreds of professions and the mind map and all the different endings. This one had to be a monster to come up with let alone code.So im not sure i can give a fair review without playing it and seeing all the different endings/paths but ill do my best. I had a pretty good time with this one played through it twice and did not get a very good score but hey i got to learn telepathy so i chock that up as a W. The mind map is a really interesting little puzzle although It kind of plays itself after awhile and that kind of feels like the most rogue like element of it. Other than that I didn't really feel roguelike enough as since the stats you get from the actual mind map are pretty small you can manipulate the same build regularly. Big props for having all of the math behind it transparent a lot of these style of games can leave the player kind of aimlessly pressing buttons but I always felt like I had clear goals to work twords. Although I do wish it showed what mastery of a skill does to it. The emotion system is interesting I kind of which it changed more than what just appeared on the mind map. The writing is really charming around all of the events and im sure ill drop back by for another playthrough to see some more of the possibilities great work on this one!
This is a surprisingly deep game for a 7DRL, although it should also be mentioned that Medieval Upbringing isn't really a roguelike. It is certainly interesting, though, figuring out how best to choose skills, level up, fight inner demons, and participate in a variety of competitions over the course of your life. A full play of Medieval Upbringing seems rather long for a 7DRL, though this could be seen as a plus since it's not only fun but the pacing is actually not that bad considering how many new skills and features are encountered over that time. The excellent writing also adds to the enjoyment, and players who enjoy roguelikes will probably find fun in here regardless of its classification.
I had a good time with this one. It is very overwhelming at first, and I would be lying if I said that I understood everything that was going on, even after three runs. Especially the competitions-- I’m sure that the info that I need is in the game, but it is a fairly complex web of systems. the only times that I didn't get last was when I really focused on a stat. It reminds me of Kitten's Game in that way, where you need to build a mental model of a system in order to manipulate it to move forward. I like the tile clicking aspect, it was fun to find new tiles and balance choosing the tiles that you want with the tiles that reveal more space. With some nice little animations, it could be a sweet mobile game (or PC game). I did have some issues with some of the tiles-- the stairs especially when they are black on dark purple or blue. A few times I cleared much of the board before realizing that I'd found the stairs earlier. It would be nice if there was some indication of the amount of time for each tile. I know you can check with a mouseover, but when you are playing it would be nice to have that info on that board, either a small number in the corner of the tile or maybe a shade or saturation change. The browser pop-up situation is annoying, it would be nice if the borders of the board just flashed red. While I appreciate that the game shows its equations in the text, it would be nice if there was some way to get to understand what is going on in an easier way. Finally, although there is a grid, I have to say that despite the grid, the game is not a roguelike in any discernable way. However, it is turn-based and it's something I've never seen, so I appreciate it.
One Frame Sword
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
4
2
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Good, traditional roguelike with a couple innovative mechanics and a horrifying twist once you get to the sword.
Orbital Decay
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
This is such a solid game. It makes you consider your tactics so much instead of just "shoot enemy" or "run away and hope for the best", there's also "would it be better to try opening the wall behind my enemy and venting the lot?" or, what happened to me far more often - venting the enemy by accident and sometimes myself. My favourite feature has to be being able to pay to see the whole map. It feels better to know where you're going - and where the enemies are - rather than dying to a wrong turn you couldn't predict. Restricted ammo feels like it's going to be a horrible part of the game but it's balanced out by enough guns on each floor plus refills every time you move floor, so you still have to be tactical but not so much that you resort to trying to punch the lights out of every zombie. Overall, a solid, good short roguelike.
"Orbital Decay" is a fun short roguelike with a Martian Gothic atmosphere and an interesting armor/hull penetration mechanic. Namely, if you shoot someone with a weapon of high caliber, there is a chance that you breach the hull, start losing oxygen, and potentially fly into the open space (and, sadly, die). The game features a selection of weapons and enemies balanced enough for a challenging playthrough - although after escaping once, I didn't really find myself craving to come back to the orbital station again.
A great entry which knows its scope and executes it well. The core feature of this game about fighting zombies in space is that every ranged game has the potential to pierce multiple zombies at once, yet all but a few specialized weapons also risk tearing through the ship hull, which can at first suck bystanders into vacuum but eventually loses all its air and becomes a vacuum zone which consumes your oxygen supply. I have never really experienced the latter, since if you are shooting carelessly enough to trigger the chances of blowing through the outside hull (rather than the less important internal walls), chances are you also close enough to it to get sucked out pretty much immediately. Nevertheless, it definitely complicates your position and decisions about HP trade-offs. Everything else also works well. Graphics are easily readable and the soundscape is good. While too many entries place multiple floors that are functionally indistinguishable from each other, each consecutive floor both gives you the chance to expand your arsenal or upgrade the character, but also regularly introduce more advanced Undead. While the first couple of floors annoy you with the undying skeletons which will keep getting back up, later floors take a page from L4D with Tanks, and worst of all, Boomers, whose explosions can trigger hull breach on their own. Ammo is finite, and strictly limited (just four shots in a shotgun or rifle), but instead of having to scrounge for extra clips, it gets auto-refilled every floor. Basic melee is also surprisingly good thanks to its knockback; the chainsaw is plain awesome, though be careful not to use it all six times per floor, as then it won't get refilled. Upgrades are traits bought with credits, and a maximum of six are available, two per Toughness, Endurance and Accuracy branches. While they are hardly equal (i.e. if Accuracy 1 is essential for halving chance of hull breaches, Accuracy 2's damage boost mainly matters in case you have not found a rail gun yet), it is still a good system. The game even features a prologue and a plot twist in the epilogue, predictable as it might be. In all, a definite recommend.
Thaum
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
fun variety of spells kept me interested in crafting them each run through. Manages to capture the enjoyable puzzle aspect of top down dungeon crawlers in a small succinct package. Having the ingredient be randomized each run leads to some interesting decision making where maybe you hold out and take for damage for a better spell later or you make a early weak spell to save health and clear floors. The decision between just leaving and staying for materials is really compelling although I will say once you get a full spell roster the question sort of fades away, its a bit like a deck building game in that aspect. I finished the game with 2 teleports and 2 flash's and just flash banged the monsters and left even then it was fun to solve each room. I could imagine a wide variety of different ways to beat the game. I think the only thing i would change is having some way of distinguishing between multiple of the same creature and some way of telling what a creature is before you've wasted a fireball on a magma golem. Like a game of solitaire its nothing flashy but a fun little brain teaser you can come back to.
I like the aesthetics a lot-- the colors are nice, the font is clear, and the UI is simple. It's easy to jump into but does still have some additional rules that are not immediately obvious that you have to learn from subsequent runs. I am also a fan of roguelikes that take place on a small board. The game distills what makes roguelikes interesting and replayable and presents only those things without excess. To me, those elements are different monsters in a random grouping, different abilities to handle them, and different dungeon layouts to work in. The monsters having elemental affinities make them just interesting enough, instead of just having different amount s of health. Perhaps the elemental situation could have been expanded slightly to make them a little more different, or rare monsters could have some other ability, but it works the way it is. Since you have perfect information, each time you start a level you have to come up with a plan and then try to enact it, and there are interesting decisions around manipulating monsters to block paths or repositioning yourself to cover your back. Some of the abilities are pretty interesting, like ghost form and befriend. The game is well balanced in that it is not easy, but still winnable with a reasonable amount of effort. The spell creation process adds some nice world-building in a simple way and reinforces the aesthetic. I'm sure that there is some optimal build if you write down the recipes and come up with some OP combo, but I enjoyed just going with the flow and half-remembering recipes. It may be a coincidence, but I had a run where I polymorphed monsters into themselves over and over until I just re-wrote those spells. I would also think that monsters would get hit when they walk into a conjured flame, but I guess that that is not how the turns are resolved. I have very little criticism honestly, I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
This is fantastic. It's served really well by the constrained space and scope. Love it.
CONVERGER
Completeness
3
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
3
Fun
4
3
4
3
Innovation
3
4
3
3
Scope
4
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
3
When I saw CONVERGER was topical in nature, I wondered how well it'd play and I must say, I'm in love with it. I kept coming back to just one more go at getting those robodog units out of the way. It's a short roguelike, 14 levels, but the mechanics are deep and work with the principles of the setting - we are stronger together and we move together. The stats system is great, I can see from a glance how strong something is and how much of a pain it's going to be to bring down, as well as how strong my punks are (and how much stronger they'll be in one group). The books buff system is real great - some of the buffs I got made it real worth trying to pick them up while dodging the fash (like an extra +1 ally unit every level? so useful). There's more strategy in this than I expected at first, having to work out how to get your punks out of trouble, when to stand your ground and trying to manipulate the AI into walking through hazards. The tutorial at the beginning is very well put together, the audio is simple but effective, and the graphics are solid. I took a peek at the post 7DRL version and I must say, I'm a fan of the title screen and other little improvements. I'd love to see what a full, polished version would look like, cause this version already has me hooked.
Well this game really grew on me! The political premise of it made me groan, but once I started playing I realized it's actually something pretty neat! I like the ambient sound effects; they really add to the atmosphere. And the concept of moving multiple bands of rioters simultaneously is just... brilliant. You wouldn't expect it to work, but it did! Attacking with group 1 might cause group 2 to be vulnerable, so do you really want to do that? And then there were the enemies that knocked you back when they attack, so you have to surround them from multiple sides to have a chance to hit them... clever!
The concept of stacking and strengthening scattered units is unique. There are all kinds of distractions in the map, so the stack isn't that easy. When things go well, you can reverse the inferiority, so it's refreshing. It has a fascination that makes you play with it.
A fun, reasonably challenging game with a unique soft sci-fi premise.
Deep Breath
Completeness
3
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
4
Innovation
3
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
4
Deep Breath has a very unique premise - As a monkey escape a sinking ship while the crew fights sea monsters, collecting pearls as a form of mana/currency/final score without drowning. In many ways the gameplay feels like escaping a sinking ship, and that's when it shines the best. Aesthetically the game is pleasant and functional. The character art is unique, game state is clear. The flavor text before each run was a nice touch here. I was able to win a couple times, mostly staying ahead of the water and collecting keys to short cut past the last levels as quickly as possible. I ran into a few strange gameplay elements related to fast travel. It seems you can exit a level just by seeing the opening and clicking, as long as there is a path. I think it's not a bug, just the game not animating the movement (and the path is not blocked). I'm not sure all of the various abilities are balanced, but there were fun and different. Runs are in the 10-15 minute range, this is a great length, the game does not outstay it's welcome. It was fun being a monkey. Well done!
Quite an enjoyable little game with truly beautiful art and well-matching action soundtrack. This makes it fun to play the game even when you don't understand much of what's going on - which was the case until I read the hints. I found the breath mechanics quite innovative, and the idea of two factions battling each other while I'm dragging my monkey ass to safety is unusual too. On the flip side, I ended up winning on 2nd or 3rd attempt without really understanding the rules of each enemy type, or optimizing the skills too much. I felt like the game failed to make me explore these rules in order to do well, as for example getting out of deep water in time usually turned out to be more important than maneuvering around enemies. Given that there seems to be a lot of thought put into both the upgrades and the enemies, you'd probably want to tune the balance in a way that makes them more important to understand, or find another way to reward the player for optimizing there. I also had a slight issue with the controls - the game claims WASD, but I found no way to use some of the special moves without a mouse. Overall, this was a fun entry - special thanks for sharing this gorgeous tileset with the rest of us!
Deep Breath is an unusual concept for a roguelike, and a fun enough game in general, which I have beaten multiple times. At the same time, the current version feels rather unbalanced: in particular, you may end up with open ladders near the starting position rather often, including on the later decks. Perk selection also does not feel balanced, with some obvious favorites. It is relatively easy to gather enough pearls to unlock all the perks by the time you get to the last or penultimate deck. Once you do win, the end message flashes by far too quickly and there's no leaderboard (only your highest score in the menu) - both issues I would like to see addressed. The game has fitting music, but only some SFX. It is very clean-looking - too clean, in fact, as the game never captures the sense of chaos it intends to portray. While the crewmembers and the sea creatures do battle each other around you, it feels very sterile - just some red squares you can't go to appearing on certain tiles during some turns, and then one combatant or the other silently vanishes without a trace. The addition of corpse graphics (or at least generic blood splatter), attack sounds, monster sounds, maybe even crewmember speech through voice clips/text bubbles - all of these would help a lot to make the game come alive. Choosing a more down-to-earth color for the crew may also help to make them feel less like abstractions. In all, a fun game you should try, but do not expect too much challenge or atmosphere from it!
Fantastic. Like a more accessible Broughlike. Well done!
Between The Light And The Dark
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
3
4
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
4
3
This was an amazing experience! I was reminded positively of old, '95-era puzzle games with their simple graphics and excellent execution. Everything is very tight - controls, graphics, feel - and the fast pace and difficult gameplay complement the game well. This feels like a finished product, not a 7DRL. That said, I feel like there's little in the way of roguelike in it: @, some randomized abilities and playfield don't make a roguelike (to me).
Really a testament to how a very focused design can make a compelling game. Less is definitely more with this one. The atmosphere is really well done made me feel like I had just found some piece of software secreted away on an old computer. This game captures the spirit of what a rogue like is to me in a really succinct and compelling way. Each run feels unique and challenging with its different power ups that ask you to change your game play up just a little bit at a time. While the core puzzle is a nice little brain teaser that is simple enough to be understood at a glance but has enough depth to stay interesting after multiple runs. The difficulty also pushes the player to get the most out of each of those powers as at first it seems trivial but in the later levels it becomes quite easy to fail(or im just bad at it lol). This puzzle base and compelling game play loop has a lot of potential I would definitely play a much longer version of this with more powers and levels. If i had to make any complaints it would be that id like the player to maybe have a little more control over the power ups and their order maybe some way of switching them around mid game. All in all I think Between the Light and the Dark hits the perfect roguelike niche between luck and skill.
Demonic Depths
Completeness
4
2
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Overview Demonic Depths has potential and interesting core mechanics, but it must overcome its problems to become really playable. Completeness What *is* implemented already, is well done. But this game misses some core, basic functionalities, and that creates that strong feeling of incompleteness. Aesthetics Visually the game is appealing. It uses a small number of good-looking pixel sprites, and operates color rather well – everything's clean and clear. Unfortunately, to play this game, using vi keys is necessary – while Demonic Depths supports moving via arrow keys, the diagonal movement is accessible via vi keys only. Fun Unfortunately, the game is not fun. It definitely could be – the core mechanics (it all spins around resources managing – instead of mana, you are using several other supplies) are interesting and, potentially, fun. But again, missing functionalities comes in the way. Innovation Playing as a mage that needs to manage his magic resources cautiously instead of throwing spells all the time with mana as the only limit – that's refreshing. Traditional Roguelikeness Traditional roguelike, definitely.
This is a great roguelike! The spells are fun and inventive and the gameplay is well thought out. Each monster has their quirks (though I could never make it past the level where golems spawn). I have only minor quality of life grumbles which is to be expected from a 7drl! I found diagonal movement difficult. I couldn't get used to the keybindings for diagonal movement and died most often because of it. Also I often failed to learn a spell by accidentally hitting Space. Perhaps learning them by default unless there is no empty slot would be better. Leaving unlearned books behind also would have been nice. Explaining the casting resource system in the instructions would have made life easier. Took me a two or three deaths to figure it out, though it's apparent how it works once you know what to look for. Overall though, really good!
Evil Evil Woyems
Completeness
4
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
This is a heavily stylized schlock sci-fi game about escaping a space station where eponymous evil worms have taken over. You have to load cyan and magenta rounds into a gun and shoot the right color of worm with the matching bullet color. The game's controls are a little unintuitive for those who don't do so well with isometric as mapped to up down left and right, but once you get the hang of it, it's okay. Visuals are otherwise alright, but in some cases the stylization is more garish than stylish. Fewer very bright colors would help this. I'll shout out the shadows and dark/light effects generally, however, as looking pretty darn cool. The game is fun enough for exploring its mechanics but isn't very hard; there's a hidden information problem in here somewhere (what kind of worms will be on the other side of this door?) but it feels more like a guessing game. Perhaps in that respect it's good that basic kiting tactics are so readily available. Scope is about par for a 7drl, but it's more or less a traditional roguelike.
Aesthetic is really nice here. Very harsh contrasts and simple but effective color. The monitor distortion effect isn't so harsh that it distracts from the game. The UI element of the gun on the right is pretty cool but also presents important information in a clear way. I like the simple controls. The game has its own feeling, which is very important, and it's got plenty of nice weirdness. I'd love to see more expansion of the core concept-- color-based attacks have potential but at the moment the combat is very simple without significant challenge or decisions. This is my only real gripe with the game-- it has a great baseline, but it is too easy.
An entry which attempts to cross roguelikes with the classic fixed-camera horror games and even arcade/light gun games - and knocks it out of the park! The art side of the game is very well-done, especially when considering the timeframe - from the isometric perspective and the lightning system to your gun always occupying the second half of the screen, thus letting you know what your next shot is going to be, evne featuring brief reloading animations. Moreover, while quite a lot of entries with extensive graphics tend to neglect sound and end up feeling especially uncanny, this game makes no such mistake and has a consistently effective soundscape. The gameplay is pretty neat as well. Your character dies in only about 3 hits from the worms, with no way to heal, and you can only kill them by shooting them with the colour which matches their appearance once, twice or thrice, so having the wrong colour equipped results in extra turns spent on reloading. Luckily, your ammo is infinite and the worms are also slower than your character is, so you eventually learn to back out of every room you enter after spotting any worm and reload, if you need to, there, and to try and keep the monsters at the edge of visibility as much as possible. After all, your character auto-aims, and can even shoot through walls at times, which is probably a bug. Tank-like controls, where the same arrow keys can take you in a different direction than before if the room layout and camera perspective is different, may also take some getting used to, but it arguably adds to the experience and is a hurdle well worth overcoming on your way to beat the game. It has just the right amount of rooms, and an ending screen which is either a charming reference to poorly translated Japanese arcade games of the bygone era, or simply poorly translated by the creator. Either way, play it.
Killing orcs with a sword
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
2
4
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
"Killing Orcs with a Sword" is deceptively simple: hack through a horde of goblins, orcs, and ogres to defeat the Orc Lord. And you always get to hack through A LOT of them before you die - and for my first ~10 tries, the death was inevitable. This simplicity is likely what makes the player go "just one more round", and trying to defeat the Orc Lord becomes rather addictive. It also takes some time to figure out the optimal (or at least a passable) tactic, which abuses the unintelligent AI (although I felt like this was intended, probably because goblins and ogres aren't known to be very smart). Simplicity manifests itself in visuals as well, although here I really would appreciate a bit more variety. Making my way through a field of grey (and occasionally red) ".#goO^" was tough on my eyes, and I to zoom in the browser page to 150% to continue. It was especially frustrating to accidentally step into an ogre's club after having cleared several mobs. I was also a bit confused by the exclamation marks, which signify dealing damage, but sometimes show up on top of the enemy that steps into the square where you just defeated someone. All in all, this is a fun way to spend an hour!
A well rounded game with a fun splatter mechanic. Controls are a bit hard to remember, could be useful a lateral panel. There's no log, at last some warning when you're low on hp: normally i don't have any problem with it, but in this game it's easy to be overwelm by the flow and forget you're dying. This is the first roguelike where i can feel the speed of combats.
Completeness - I encountered no bugs. I didn't win, but I'll believe the dev that it's possible Aesthetics - I loved the brutalist design here, perfect match with the theme. 3 stars though because the controls aren't great. NE and NW on numpad seem to be swapped. It would also be nice to have numpad 5 to wait/skip turn. Additionally, it would be nice to have the controls for the various actions on screen, perhaps just long the bottom of the screen if they fit. It was a bit hard to remember. Fun - not sure how much time you can get out of this, but it's quite enjoyable for the time you put in. Innovation - not particularly innovative, but it figured out how to make grinding through trash mobs very satisfying in a roguelike, which is something I haven't seen before Scope - seems appropriately sized for a 7DRL Roguelikeness - seems pretty darn like roguelike albeit more minimalist
4KRL
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
4
2
4
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
A fun and interesting mix of exploration, combat and city building. There were a large variety of enemies, terrain and enemies. The game does suffer minorly from not being quiet deep enough to be playable for hours. The enemies are mostly the same despite looking different, the items don't seem to do much interesting besides raise stats in usually unnoticeable ways. The city building is intriguing but the balance is a little off and I raced to get even a level 3 city built before either the AI killed me or last of the other city leaders died. Often they killed each other. It was cool that the other factions fought each other independent of what you were doing but they often ended the game right when it was getting good.
I really enjoyed the experience of exploring this world even 3 runs in I felt like i was discovering new enemies items and locations. The different starting kingdoms all have their own personality and charm. Min maxing the characters stats was surprisingly engaging although it was a little disappointing to have no inventory space when wearing full gear. Upgrading the kingdom was another major replay factor that had me wondering what different builds would look like. Thats where some of the problems begin, I didn't manage to get enough gold to actually fully upgrade my kingdom in any of my runs as there just isn't enough money in the world. The other kingdoms are clearly gathering materials and clearing out their areas as judged by the massive amount of corpses I find when i go to visit. Once I clear out their kingdom I get maybe 5k from ransacking it and that's it most of their resources to trade have already been collected. On that note those champions are relentless they will chase you to the ends of the earth once they see you. Well more specifically they will chase you to the front of your kingdom, where you can fight them with as much health as you have gold as they politely wait for you to take a nap in between stabbing each other. On my first run every hero decided to come straight to my home and thankfully didn't notice the pile of bodies by the front door. Also the inn was the only thing I had built as after building it and upgrading the town I had no money left to buy the trading outpost. Since the only way to make more money other than 2k chests rarely around the map is to use that trading center it was a very sad and poor town that ended up winning that run. My second run I tried not locking myself out of money. I min maxed by traveling straight to other kingdoms and stealing everything not nailed down and at that point i realized that I didn't know what to buy because there isn't a lot of clarity as to what the upgrade's actually do and once you get them what the unlock purchasable sometimes unclear as well I think this game would have benefited from descriptions for town upgrades as well as showing the cost of things they unlock. There is so much to say about this game and that's a really good thing but since I don't have forever here's some other tangential thoughts for you. -I will remember gog and his juggling skills -the sheer number of enemies is impressive -the loot system always seems to make fun gear -does unidentified gear still give you its stats? -are staircases supposed to spawn so close to each other -on that note I loved traveling between continents on staircases 1 tile apart -lastly I'm not sure what to do with this from a review standpoint but this game doesn't really feel like a rogue-like it sort of exists in a midpoint between other genres
Interesting concepts, having a customizable home base and AI factions that act like the player! I think you should take the time to flesh out those mechanics - say, let the AI heroes build buildings, and change the victory condition from "kill all enemy heroes" (which is difficult when they could be literally anywhere) to "capture all enemy bases". I also like the art; it's easily recognizable even though it's so tiny. The animations are a bit too slow, though, leading to frustration, especially when ranged weapons are in play. Good job! 🙂
Deep sea diver
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
4
3
2
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
This ones got the whole rogue-like package, varied game-play, a good variety of enemies, heavy strategical elements, fun power-ups, appealingly simple art-style and punishing difficultly. that last point doesn't sound great but its difficult in a way that didn't discourage me from coming back. I think that's partially due to the calm atmosphere and partially due to the game-play loop being pretty fun in a resource gathering kind of way. Honestly the best game I have played so far and it broke my usual write a fun essay convention because Im not sure how to properly articulate why i like this game so much. So i have resorted to a bulleted list of pro's/con's/bugs: The tutorial is really seamless and intuitive, feels like dropping into the ocean and just being asked to explore. having the seeded run feature is really nice and worth the dev time imo. Sometimes fish will just lose aggro permanents, like they lost all will to eat seems to be cause by certain areas gold items can occasionally spawn in 1 block wide chasms making it nearly impossible to get to them. Swordfish will sometime refuse to move horizontally w/o dashing making them uncatch-able If you drop bait on your line and there are no fish nearby to eat it you will never be able to rewind through it, soft-locking you. The fish variety is good the first time a swordfish dashed at me it completely changed the way I interacted with the space around me. I would love to see more enemies with quirky rule breaking movement . despite my like 4+ hours of playtime I haven't beaten the game, which is probably because Im just bad at it, I never quite got the golden objects to spawn in ways that allowed me to get all 3 at once. This is the only real balance I would change, having the golden relics replace your item slots and have a downside really push's the player a little to hard i think. If they took up their own separate slots or you could return them to the ship one at a time. Even allowing for some way of purchasing like 1 extra life for 100 line or something would I think allow for a more satisfying amount of winnable runs. I also never caught an angler fish it just took so long to coerce them up to the net every time i tried something else ate me on the way up clown horn on clownfish eating bait :^)
The cartoony graphics and bright colors would make you think this game would be easy. Don't be fooled. This is a rough one. The fish are unrelenting and the bait to throw them off is only slightly effective. There are a lot of nuances in the game and fun little touches, like tying your hose in a knot. It definitely has the unrelenting difficulty of a roguelike .
Neat game! Glad I read the comments to figure out what to do. The controls were easy, graphics cute, and the music perfect. The beginning was rather slow and uninteresting, but then I got into a situation where I had to lure/escape one fish while controlling another, which was cool. It got interesting once I reached the swordfish. I think the game could use a little less traveling to/from the ship. All in all, very cool 7DRL entry!
And Another Door Bites the Dust
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
A fun game! The door-transmogrification mechanic makes choosing which doors to open into an interesting decision. Opening at least some doors is required to see the whole map and reach enough keys, but doing so may let monsters loose and possibly make other areas harder to reach. I like the conversion of extra keys into health at level exit; it adds a little bit of a push-your-luck element, particularly when gathering the extra keys involves dodging around monsters. The game plays smoothly and animates nicely. I wish there was additional feedback on or near the player character when taking damage. It is also fairly easy to accidentally break down a wall; perhaps if there were some slight friction in taking player actions that will result in damage?
Completeness: Fully implemented. I couldn't identify any bugs. Sometimes doors would spawn in unhelpful places but that seemed possibly part of the design. Aesthetics: The graphics are charming, the UI is readable, and the controls work well. The music's a plus, too. Fun: It had a solid gameplay loop. Near the later levels it started to get a little long, but it's definitely worth a playthrough. Unfortunately there's little variation on second or third runs, so there isn't a lot of replayability. Innovation: The doors closing is a sweet twist! I like it. I'm not sure it could support a whole game on itself but having that incorporated into other games would be cool. Scope: Scope is entirely reasonable. Traditional Roguelikeness: Yep it's a trad roguelike.
Disguiser (2021 7DRL)
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
2
4
Scope
2
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
"Disguiser" looks great, and features stealth mechanics with involved enemy behavior. I like the level design a lot, and I enjoyed hiding from enemies behind trees and tables. Wearing uniforms is pretty cool too - I think I even noticed that the guards do a better job of recognizing me if I face them, and not so much when they are looking at my back? There is even a side mechanic of diving underwater for a limited amount of time. Based on the game description/devlog, this game is built on a previous 7DRL entry/framework, and after playing that game for a bit, it seemed like a lot of "Disguiser" can be found in "ThiefRL2" as well.
Disguiser is a charming stealth puzzle game with a surprising amount of depth. The game runs smoothly and is easy to interpret, with a clean and stylish tileset. The _fun_ is easy to find! The game rewards patience and skill, but if you fumble or take a risk the humour that arises from the dialogue system and npc behaviour cushions your fall and prevents frustration. The fundamental loop of the gameplay is complete, the game just needs additional mechanics or progression to allow the character to scale alongside the difficulty of the levels.
Really cool. Simple but deep enough to keep things interesting. Well done!
Evilware
Completeness
2
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
"Evilware" is an innovative, but mixed bag of a game. The idea of turning the operating system and debugging tools into a game isn't novel (hello Transistor!), but I thought was implemented in a unique way here, and really felt full of things to be excited or chuckle about for a fellow programmer. I liked how every level is another system folder, how various software threats translate into different types of enemies, and how system commands correspond to varied mechanics. That said, the game was ironically very buggy (I could never get past level 3 in the 7drl version, and even in the post-jam version there seemed to be a lot of random glitches). Like, the cooldowns on hacking skills were inconsistent; skills were becoming unavailable when I still had bits to use them, and then become available again after I clicked around for a while; I sometimes attacked empty spaces, etc. Some suggestions for user interface improvements. A learned skill should be clickable to check its description - otherwise I found no way to check what it did. There should also be some correspondence between the skill icons and the skills in the compiler menu - while some were easily recognizable as icons, some others were not. Anyway, I would love to replay this with balancing changes that force me as a player to really utilize my wide arsenal of hacking/cracking, and make wise decisions about what to learn next. It would be cool if the final boss is more fearsome =)
Evilware is a very entertaining portrayal of the inner workings of one's operating system as roguelike levels. Every floor correlates with an actual directory of one's system like HOME, BOOT, etc. so the game is almost educational in that sense. Same goes for some of the commands that act as abilities (sleep, defrag, removefile, kill, etc.) These are split into two types: cracking commands are replacements for your basic melee attack, while hacking commands are activated with left click and have indefinite range but often possess cooldown. Often does not mean always, however, and some hacking commands do not even take turns: once you purchase corruption-removing defrag, you can just click with it at any corruption that is in your line of sight before doing anything else and not sacrifice anything. Likewise, temp command is a debuff with wide range, and it can be applied for free at the start of the fight. On the other hand, the cracking ability which inflicts momentary sleep upon the malignant file is essentially a recipe to indefinite stunlock. Then again, Evilware is a hacking-inspired game, so such exploits feel oddly appropriate. They also take a while to unlock and at the start, your program is often fragile to getting mobbed, since the only way to heal is by reaching the terminals that also dispense upgrades. Hostile programs also have the advantage of being able to move and attack diagonally: you can do that too, but only by right-clicking, as there's no numpad support. Choosing to start with the teleport ability help to survive early floors, but is no panacea. Thus, there's the classic roguelike difficulty curve where the game feels difficult at the start but easy by the end - further amplified by another classic strategy of beefing up defence until basic enemies can barely touch you. Still, at its worst, Evilware is no more unbalanced than the classic roguelikes that were often developed for many years. At its best, it is a visually attractive roguelike with a surprising amount of content (I played the post-contest version, but the changes were apparently limited to bugfixes, and did not introduce new creatures or abilities.) There are just enough floors for the game to not feel too long or short, just enough upgrades for you to be able to unlock the entire dozen or so of them by the end if you play it right, and a range of distinct enemies with behaviour that correlates well to real-world malware but is often unusual for a roguelike. It's definitely one of the best, or even the best, hacking-themed submissions in this contest's history, and a good coffeebreak roguelike in general.
Know Thyself Roguelike
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
* The core rune mechanic is kidna neat * The power growth is fun * I like the surrealistic theme * However the game is fairly limited in scope
An interesting and fresh set of mechanics in this one, which for a bit was fun to strategize about, though the pacing is definitely too slow. Level after level there are only minor adjustments to stats, and a very slow acquisition of abilities, which isn't great in an infinite game played for score where you want to be running into challenging situations on every floor to avoid wasting too much time. There's not really enough enemy variety here, either. The first five or so levels on the first playthrough were fun, though, figuring out how the systems work and how to defeat enemies while taking little to no damage. More quickly increasing the number and types of abilities gained would be a big improvement, probably by giving them to enemies and making them lootable, which is a thing but only happened very rarely.
I really like this idea. There is so much potential to the idea of setting conditions and results. While a lot of ideas are presented here, I would love to see another wrinkle or two added--maybe different types of attacks, or movement-based abilities, or different status effects. There is a lot of potential for building interesting runs based on synergies. I also love the aesthetics. The moving tiles is a nice effect that I enjoyed watching. Very Slay the Spire-esque colors and style. Really feels like some other world, which works with the theme. It might be good to not allow infinite runes since you end up with so many that they are hard to find and it's awkward to scroll through. I like having a few constant shines on the floors, and I like that enemies spawn sometimes to prevent scumming. As it is, the game needs significant balance changes. I ended up just walking around looking for the exit instead of making interesting decisions in fights. The biggest culprit is the ability to get runes that trigger as you walk around. I ended up on depth 35 with 154-156 damage, healing twice by walking around and increasing my sight by walking. Because monsters don't get stronger, there are never that many of them, they don't spawn often, and they are often too slow to be a threat, the player really just outstrips them completely. A food clock would solve this problem as well. Having larger levels, especially without the ability to hold down a direction key, makes the levels not fun to traverse. With balance changes and an expansion on the ideas, this could be a great game.
Octorogue
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
4
2
3
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
A very innovative roguelike! Movement is quite engaging and hilarious as is dragging all your stuff behind you as you travel along. Combat was a little hard at times and somewhat luck dependent on weapons spawning. I suppose you could try and avoid monsters but since killing them was the only way to level, that didn't really work well in practice. The hunger clock is downright brutal. I know the goal was to force you on but I died most often to hunger rather than monsters. But the game was still quite fun. There were quite a few objects to throw and manipulate but I never did figure out what the gems were for.
* Great backstory * Neat idea with the octopus limbs * Controlilng the game is tricky though, which makes it less fun. * Not sure hunger is adding much to this game, just a case of whether you luck-out and find enough rations to keep you going!
Fantastic idea, and pretty well executed in the Roguelike format. The choice for FOV and dungeon layout works well: the room-by-room FOV makes sense for moving in large steps; the tight corridors with wide rooms contrast tentacle mobility. The controls were intuitive and fluid for what they were for. Quit fun, and you can totally imagine yourself controlling an octopus. However, I think the hunger clock was quite aggressive. After a few moves, I was losing hunger stages. There may have been increased draining from carrying more items, but it wasn't obvious. With such a small margin on a vital attribute, I think UI could have conveyed some important information. The final stage furthered the hunger difficulty by being large and open. A possible replacement mechanic could have been a regenerating stamina meter. Carrying more than 4-5 items got cut off in the UI. When you died, any key exits to title, so easy to miss. At the time of review, there was a crash when throwing a bomb near an edge. I was in top-left, last stage, throw down, and it froze. I would love to see this explored more thoroughly. I have a few ideas: - Momentum for crashing monsters across further distances. - Moving heavier objects more slowly. Some being too heavy to move. - Monsters breaking free. - Moving multiple tentacles in a single turn. - Unable to move objects past each other in corridors. - Health per tentacle. Great concept.
Rainy Day
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
4
2
3
Innovation
3
2
4
Scope
4
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
On initial look, this feels very bland. It's a very typical looking green on black looking roguelike, but therein lies the hook. The obvious FF7 references - especially when the music starts up - when you start the actual game tugs on nostalgia so hard that it's impossible to not get sucked into playing this. It's a rainy day, and you're spending it playing an old game and fighting evil. As for the game itself - It's a pretty standard hack and slash with gun, but the upgrade pods on each floor that you can learn a new skill in adds an extra layer, especially when they aren't all combat skills. Increased carry capacity, increased FOV, power upgrades - there wasn't a skill that could be learned that felt superfluous or pointless. I got overwhelmed on the harder floors more frequently than I would have liked, but that's fine, it's still a great game. I'll be trying the post 7DRL version soon, I enjoyed it that much.
I like the aesthetic choices of the ascii alongside realistic sound effects its very immersive for the crawling through caves experience. I also liked the cute auto generated vhs tape names at the start and the rougenet link opening. The perk system is interesting but some of them feel significantly worse than others, never really felt like I could justify the plasma rifle upgrades as in the 60 minutes i played i found 2 ammo pickups. The game play also gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly as the only real combat choice is when to heal although props for being aware of that and putting them everywhere because this could've easily been a game with a lot of no win areas otherwise. I think the four areas was a little ambitious for this project as the game play loop doesn't stretch out to that long of a scale well. If you continue to work on this id love to see how they would gain their own personality though!
Initially very confusing, but the ability to log into another roguelike is crazy cool. The game plays like a couple different, very traditional roguelikes.
Deduction Quest
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
2
4
4
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
3
The game looks nice, sounds nice, and has some nice card animations. I'm not sure how this would be considered a roguelike, aside from procedurally generated names and character levels. It's simply a game of memorization with nothing persisting to the next round. It feels like a mechanic that should be part of a larger game.
Thanks for participating in the 7DRL and putting an entry together as ambitious as this! I really enjoyed the battle card approach in this game! I did find the difficulty level on the harder side, but take that with a grain of salt; I love roguelikes but I'm terrible at beating them. :) I encourage you to keep working on this! Hope you had fun and thanks again for participating!
Deduction Quest is a card battler roguelite based around what is arguably the purest form of metaprogression: figuring out which character defeats which from past experience alone. Neither the monster names nor their images have any real relation to their combat prowess. In fact, they are generally not even related to each other, and same goes for your roster of heroes - "Trigger-Happy Eliza" can be a swordsman with a shield and no ranged weapon, to give just one example. That is no flaw with graphics, or even a flaw at all: everything looks nice and well-styled, as well as accompanied by SFX, and the absurd mismatches only teach you not to trust names/appearances faster. Thus, weak-sounding creatures can often be the hardest and vice versa: there's no way to know until you try and the only way you are beating any battle on first try is through pure luck, since while monsters remain in place after they beat someone from your group, your victorious fighter is taken out of rotation alongside the monster, forcing you to use someone else and meaning that strongest fighters are wasted if the monster is weaker, as then someone else in the party would have to fight a creature only they could have beaten. Failing reduces global HP and brings you closer to the end of the run, when you stop being able to afford continues. It's not too complex in the first battle, where there are just three combatants on either side. These numbers go up by one in the subsequent rounds, progressively increasing complexity. Luckily, you are also offered perks after each cleared round that make things a lot easier: while you might resort to writing who beats what on paper in earlier rounds, you'll eventually get either the perk showing that on mouse hover, or the ability to know your fighters' levels from the start, which is of great aid when you also learn the level of the defeated enemies. I played this game several times, and have never lost. Yet, I came close at times, and the game's premise is surprisingly good at maintaining suspense: you might have defeated all but the last monster, but if it turns out it's stronger than you thought, that immediately triggers a scramble to figure out which particular fighter you matched with an overly weak enemy before, so you can rarely feel too safe in your position. Definitely worth a try.
Escorial
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
An excellent little puzzle game. I enjoyed the smoothness of gameplay and the quick-to-learn nature of it, although it is very luck-based in a way I really don't want in a puzzle game. Mouse selection also felt really off - I feel like it could easily have been keyboard-only or mouse-optional. The roguelike elements feel fairly tacked on. Certainly worth anyone's time!
Completeness: 4 I didn't encounter any bugs while playing. Escorial has a tight gameplay loop that keeps you coming back for a higher score. Aesthetics: 4 The colors, shapes and point of view work really well together to establish this as puzzly game. The squish animation is great! And everything looks just as good on a mobile phone. The sprites are a bit fuzzy when full screen though. Fun: 3 Escorial is definitely worth playing, especially if you enjoy Sproggiwood or Hoplite. I feel the concepts and aesthetics here, with some polish, could easily achieve that level of fun. Innovative: 3 This game forces the player into a challenging, but engaging balancing act. Scope: 3 This game has a great spread of abilities and each ability can be modified as well. It is exciting to imagine all the combinations available. Roguelike: 3 Escorial is definitely within the Roguelike family, but is a little more on the puzzle side of the spectrum. Other: I like the addition of the highscore and mobile functionality. Great job this year!
This is a super, super solid broughlike. The roster of abilities has a good variety, the controls are obvious, and the core mechanic causes plenty of emergent complexity. Definitely worthwhile to play for a bit. I did find the "lose an ability" mechanic to be much too punishing and never got past 12 points after about an hour of trying. It's especially devastating because it's very easy to lose 2 or 3 abilities at once if you get backed into a corner. I tried ignoring other colors to regain a solid ability on the one I lost but the enemies scaled too quickly for me to ever make it all the way.
Proximity
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
4
4
4
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
4
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
2
2
Although more of an autobattler than a roguelike, Proximity has an impressive number of abilities and enemies and it's fun working out different combinations of equipment and placement to mimize the chances of success in a given encounter. The interbattle crossroad options are a nice way to offer mutually exclusive upgrade paths at random intervals, although the balance is definitely off as the game gets easier and easier with each round. The party was basically unstoppable once life stealing abilities came into play, as well as the OP benefits of epic and legendary equipment. There are a number of bugs as well, but I didn't encounter any showstoppers. (My second Ranger copied all the abilities and gear from my first, and they were still able to level up in addition to that, giving them many abilities.) I liked how the UI provided pretty good access to necessary info.
Completeness: Appears fully feature-complete. There was a little weirdness with the Unity full-screen feature, but a refresh fixed it. Aesthetics: Both pleasing to the eye and usable. I had to zoom in but that's fine. Fun: Pretty fun! I think there's a winning strategy that involves pumping speed and attack, but you could probably make a heal team, so I think there's at least a couple of viable builds in there. Innovation: Hard to say, because it's not a traditional roguelike, and most of the interesting stuff lies in the grid-based autobattling style. Still, the positional modifiers are nifty, if not wholly novel. Scope: Pretty good. Traditional Roguelikeness: It's definitely a rougelite.
This is really cool, lots of potential! I kinda like that every item is a helmet. We wear a lot of hats in this party.
The Prison Tower
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
2
4
2
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
There's a lot to like about this game. The theme is strong, the gameplay is mostly obvious, and there's a decent amount of content. It's more polished than what I usually expect for a 7DRL. The ambiance created by the visuals and audio is excellent. Despite lots of experience with Minecraft-style combat like this, I was never able to beat the first level. There don't seem to be any health potions (I stopped quaffing them all when I realized they are mostly harmful), and every encounter whittled my health down until I ran out. I eventually got pretty good at timing my attacks to take less damage, but there's not enough feedback for me to get good enough at it to survive the encounters required to beat a level. I also found that the floating sphere monster was pretty much instant death on sight unless I was able to sneak up on it in a very specific way. I did try a more sprint-based strategy, but had too hard of a time finding the monsters holding keys while still surviving and not running out of sprint energy. With some balance tweaks, I could see this game being really fun. I didn't play the post-7DRL version, and it's possible those tweaks are already there. It feels just shy of the "fair" side of "hard but fair."
This is an action roguelike from a FPS perspective, but with a more traditional feel. You'll have to appraise items such as wands, scrolls, and potions as you progress. The process of appraising items is very fun because it is accompanied by action. For example, if you throw a potion at an enemy from a distance, and the potion produces poison gas or flames, and the enemy is defeated at the same time the potion is appraised, you will feel a strange sense of accomplishment! (Of course, there are times when you end up throwing healing potions.) I also like the balance of the game, which is typical of roguelikes that require careful play. I think it's a great and original game that combines traditional roguelike elements with the FPS perspective.
Overview An unforgiving first-person, real-time game that has more roguelike elements than most other entries I played so far. Completeness Quite polished entry, with no obviously missing features. Maybe the game's a bit too hard for my taste, and monster spawning is a bit wonky. The only bug I encountered is that sometimes the sprite sheet is drawn over the map. Aesthetics While the art looks quite generic, the overall impression is quite good. The style is consistent, and some effects look really nice. No issues with controls, maybe except very low mouse sensitivity by default (still, it may be easily adjusted in game) Fun I'm glad I played this game. It has some issues like unbalanced monsters spawns, a bit sluggish movement, and the necessity of walking back during most melee fights to avoid damage, but the game is fun nevertheless. Especially ID minigame is a nice touch here, didn't expect it. Innovation The Prison Tower is a very classic game. Scope This game has everything that I would expect from the small roguelike. Few monsters, some items, scrolls, potions, ID minigame, exploration... OK, most of the mechanics are quite simple, but I guess it's necessary for that kind of game jam. Traditional Roguelikeness At the first glance, it doesn't look very traditional. It's first-person, it's real-time, it builds the dungeon by placing prefabricated rooms on grid. But after playing The Prison Tower for a some time, it is obvious that the game takes a lot from the classics.
Vulcan's Dungeon
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
4
3
3
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
2
* Great fun, had good pacing, felt like a complete game. * Lots of quality-of-life things (autotarget, teleport to base) made this pleasant to play * Boss fight was different, I liked that he would retreat occasionally. * Levels could be more varied maybe?
I like the one central room idea where you continue to level your abilities and summon the boss. That's a really cool take on the traditional roguelike.
This was fun! The upgrades and the fact that you can summon the boss at any time really drove me to want to complete it.
Animozity
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
4
4
3
Innovation
3
3
2
Scope
4
4
4
Roguelikeness
3
2
3
Where do I start? Firstly, this is well done for a weeklong project - feels like it needs more content and a bit more polish and it could easily be a full fledged game. Twinstick shooter roguelites are not a rare thing but rarely pulled off well - and this one feels pretty good to play. I tried with both keyboard/mouse and a 8BitDo SF30 gamepad and the gameplay worked great with both. I'm a big fan of the aesthetic, strong 90s shooter style (Doom/Duke Nukem in particular). Some of the tradeoffs for skills seemed a bit off sometimes, notibly when I got one that was gain speed but also lose a little bit of speed? The actual playspeed was a bit all over the place at times - feels like it could be a little faster by default to up the pacing? But these are minor gripes. I'd be extremely interested in an expanded version of this.
Firstly I would say that your game was pretty Good; I almost never encountered any bugs, except for one that prevented me from getting to other rooms on stage 3. The balance of the game felt off at parts; like some weapons being obviously better than other's( The super shotgun is a lot weaker than the machine gun). But overall a very polished game. The game's graphical presentation is very good, I really liked the retro aesthetic you were going for. The textures and animation were excellent and really captured the feel of the ps1 era you were going for. and the UI was also pleasing to look at. I really like your art style. I thoroughly enjoyed playing your game, it has nice controls and just feels like a game I see myself putting a lot of time into it. I didn't really see too much innovation, but the give and take progression system tied to leveling up was pretty new, although it felt unfinished. I was truly blown away by how much you achieved in just 7days, your game has a lot of potential from what I have seen, and it is not far off from a finished game. The game didn't feel very much like a roguelike to me, but had a much more arcade like feel, sure there was permadeath and procedural generation, but that was the feeling I got. Overall a very solid game, I would very much like to play a finished release of your game. So good job.
Overview Roguelite twin-stick shooter with retro aesthetics. Pleasant experience. Completeness Feels like a complete, feature-complete game. Sometimes it's quite hard to tell if Animozity needs a bit more polish, or that *harshness* is here by design. Aesthetics Very retro, with retro graphics and retro music. Even UI feels retro, although not as much. But while the art style is very stylish and distinctive, it isn't easy on the eyes. Fun Shooting's fun, and enemies vary enough to keep the player interested, but there are too many "bullet sponges" in Animozity. Innovation Standard roguelike shooter. Scope There is quite a lot of content, and distinctive graphics, and music. It feels like a big effort for 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Roguelite
Bandit City
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
Completeness 4 Very feature complete, with some extras. No bugs that I noticed. I especially appreciated the custom game option to tweak the characteristics of the world. Aesthetics 3 The art overall was good, and even included animations on the main character. The music also fit the game very well. Fun 3 Playing through the different lives was fun, and there was plenty of variation between them. It seemed like there was quite a range of viable strategies, which was good. Sometimes however I'd spawn in, and pretty much already be set with plenty of friends giving me tons of food, which would then result in me spam repeat dumpster diving until I die. Some kind of random event system would have been cool to spice things up a little. Innovative 3 The inclusion of the pyramid of needs was really interesting, and not something that I've seen a great deal of before. It didn't seem like it was that super integrated though, I never really figured out what having each level activated did. Scope 3 A reasonable number of features, and fairly complex systems. Roguelike 2 Unfortunately I can not in good faith call this a roguelike. Apart from perma death, it lacks pretty much every convention. As a simulation/management game though it works quite well.
The concept and presentation of this game are really good. I have some nitpicks, but overall this is a really nice 7DRL. It really does make you balance different life priorities and rewards you for trying different things. The pixel art is adorable, a cut above typical 7DRL graphics. And it comes with a tutorial! Amazing! Nitpicks: - It took me a long time to figure out how to spawn more raccoons - I never figured out what the "???" was at the top of the pyramid - I found myself either starving or not worrying about food at all, depending on the initial raccoons present. The reward curves felt very weird.
## General review Great job on this game, it is very polished and fun. It has some interesting mechanics and I like the deeper scope: meaning of life (as a racoon, but not only). On the downside, my only issue is that I have a hard time classifying this as roguelike. It's more of a simulation game, but if you like that genre, definitely try it out ! ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 This game is very polished. Everything works as expected, I did not encounter any bug. The game has a clear start and end, and even a skippable tutorial. Aesthetics: 4 Cute graphics, music, an intuitive user interface. Great job. Fun: 3 I enjoyed playing it a few times, but not sure I would recommend it to people who are looking for a roguelike (see below). But it's still a fun simulation game ! Innovation: 4 Great concept, and the devlog explaining the rationale behind this game is very interesting. I like how the focus is on the "journey" rather than the "destination". Your life as a racoon in Bandit City will end at some point, and what matter is what you did with it. It's rather deep for a video game, in a good way ! Scope: 4 I'll give a high score here because the game is really polished. Lots of features, a nice UI. It reminds me of many games released on Flash portals like Newgrounds or Kongregate, and is definitely comparable in number of features. Traditional Roguelikeness: 2 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike game must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need to feel the sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. In Bandit City, there is no exploration, you are always in the same place, although the seasons/weather change. In my playthroughs, I never experienced a situation in which I had to make difficult choices. There is no clear success goal, because that is not the scope of the game. It's a fun game, and I like it, but not a roguelike.
HitmanRL
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
Completeness 4 Completely bug free, didn't run into any problems. There's a good amount of polish with the indicators, and the information presented for the enemies. Aesthetics 3 Art style was consistent and nice on the eyes. At times it was a little difficult to tell exactly the capabilities of each guard though, it did make sense eventually that the dudes with berets couldn't be tricked by anything, but it wasn't completely obvious at the start. It would have been really nice to have a little more expanded controls. Keypad + mouse is not very comfortable, and neither are wasd controls. Having the game playable entirely on keyboard or entirely on mouse would have been much nicer Fun 3 Scouting the area, determining the best assault path, and finally taking down the target, was an interesting gameplay loop. Sometimes it could get a little repetitive though, most of the time it seemed to turn into build up uniform levels until you're authorized enough to sneak past the guards. Innovative 3 This is the first roguelike I've played with a disguise mechanic, and in general the premise of playing a stealthy assassin is quite original. Scope 2 It would have been nice to see some patrol paths, and a couple more varied ways to take down targets. The Hitman series is well known for it's myriad different approaches you can take towards your goal, so seeing some of that translated over into roguelike form would have been awesome. Roguelike 3 Turn based combat, perma death, most things I'd expect from a roguelike are there. I would have wanted a couple more common roguelike features, for instance resource management and character progression to give it a 4.
I've played about 400 hours of Hitman 1-3, so I felt right at home in this game. It's very well polished and pretty well balanced. For the chosen scope, I really have no complaints, and I'm always glad to play a small-but-finished 7DRL instead of a large-but-unfinished one. The opening help screen is really top notch. The sprites are from a free tile set, and fit the game well. My high score was around 500,000 and I saw about 4 NPC types: target, staff, weak guard, and tough guard. I apologize if I missed any content. Taking off my "holy crap, you finished a 7DRL" hat for a moment, I do wish the NPCs had more interesting behavior. One staple of the Hitman franchise is learning your target's path and finding the right moment to strike. This game has none of that; enemies stay in place, and you need to lure them toward you. It makes for a pretty limited set of tactics. A few sfxr sounds would have gone a long way toward making the game easier to understand. It felt overly punishing to not have health restored before each level. Wouldn't Agent 47 get a chance to rest up between assassinations? Other than those quibbles, I was delighted to play this game and I would love to try future revisions of it if there are any.
Very cool idea. I am a fan of translating mechanics from other games into roguelikes, to bring a new experience to the genre. I am also a fan of stealth roguelikes. The graphics and colors here are nice and clear, and I appreciate the instructions page. It did take me quite a while to comprehend how the distraction mechanism worked. I think that it would have been nice to see just one more mechanic in the game, maybe moving bodies or throwing coins, along with either rooms with multiple people in them or people that walked around. As it was, separating guards was fairly trivial by using the distraction. After I understood the mechanics, the only reason I took damage was if multiple guards heard me through doors, and all came in at once. There is a lot of potential here for a very interesting and unique game if it is expanded.
KOGA
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
Completeness 4 Completed and well polished, with a significant amount of content. Aesthetics 4 Looks really nice, the level generation really plays hard into the aesthetic as well, with the curtains and other doodads around the place. Fun 3 At first when I saw it was real time, I was a little grossed out, as the enemies still seemed to be moving in a turn based manner. But it grew on me pretty fast, and once I got the hang of it and figured out what was going on, it was plenty of fun. There were two things that were pretty frustrating though. Firstly, it would have been nice to have some indicator of how soon an enemy is going to act. It felt pretty bad dying to a weak enemy because they just happened to be acting on the same frame I moved on. Secondly, each dungeon layer is maybe a little too long. The second layer was suitably much harder than the first, and once I got there I found it frustrating to have to trudge through the first again every time to get there. Having it be just a little bit shorter would have been nice. Innovative 3 There's plenty of cool innovative stuff here. Scope 3 There was a lot of content, but the game was quite minimalist, not a huge number of features. The features that were there though were very nicely polished. Roguelike 3 The lack of loot on each level made it feel a little less roguelikey than it otherwise would have, but other than that it ticks most of the boxes.
## General review This game is very hard, and very fast paced. An interesting roguelite, for sure, with a lot of character and a distinct feel. I prefer games where you have to evaluate carefully your actions so this one is not for me. But congrats on a successful entry to 7DRL 2021 ! ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 It's a full game, I did not experience any bug. Aesthetics: 3 I like very much the aesthetics of the game, the lighting effect, the minimalistic design. I find the controls perhaps a bit too obtuse, but that may be just me. From the webpage, I learn that some keys (arrows, numpad) are used to move around the dungeon. Other keys seem to be for actions, but which actions ? In the first room, you encounter a "=" symbol. Stepping on it gives you access to one of these actions. Some are easy to understand (e.g ">>@(Q)" means that pressing Q will make your character run), but others I could not figure out. What does "/@/(W)" mean ? Pressing W creates a flash around me, but for what purpose ? I tried to test it but all enemies one-shot me before I can even press the key. Fun: 3 This is very subjective. For me this game is not fun for two reasons: real time action, enemies kill you in one shot. I have no issue with either, but together they make the game unenjoyable. I cannot take the time to figure out what symbols on the screen mean, or what action to use, because enemies are rushing me and I have to act immediately. But at the same time I am not allowed any mistake because enemies will kill me instantly. So it's very difficult to learn how to get better. That being said, I totally see how such game could be appealing to other people, and I think everyone should try it ! Innovation: 3 Usual mechanics, but I like how you have to discover what actions you can take, although I wish it would be more explicit. Scope: 3 What I expect from a game developed in a week. Traditional Roguelikeness: 3 This game is labeled by the author as a rogueLITE. It has some roguelike features, but also real-time action and quick thinking.
Congratulations on submitting this entry! Glad you entered the 7DRL jam, and hope you enjoyed the process. I really enjoyed this entry, and felt that the arcade-y sound effects really added extra weight to this. I found the difficulty quite hard, but I'm also famously not very good at roguelikes (despite loving them) :) I definitely urge you to spend some additional time on this, maybe at least allow for a fullscreen mode? Thanks for participating!
MonsteRL
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
3
Oh, cool, a Pokemon themed roguelike! It took me some getting used to not being able to actually fight enemies and having to think about my monsters' health that I got wiped out a few times before capturing my first monster, lol! I think it would be interesting if you could choose to get involved in combat, but that would aggro the enemy monsters causing them to attack you as well as your own monsters, an interesting tactical decision! I find it odd that you added an endless gameplay mode without the option to save, but I can only assume you ran out of time! But yeah, a monster catching roguelike, that's definitely something new! Cool! The random monster names are a nice touch... 😉 Oh! One thing I really liked - monsters only gain XP from killing enemy monsters, not when you interrupt their battle to capture them. This leads to an interesting (and cruel) decision of, do I want that monster for myself, or is it weak enough that I can sacrifice it for my own monster's benefit?
MonsteRL puts you in the shoes of a Poke, erm, I mean Monster collector - every playthrough generates 52 random monsters, and lets you explore about 20 dungeon levels to catch them and use them in your own team. The game overall is a bit grindy - you gotta dive several levels, find fill up your 6 slots of monsters, and come back out (most likely using the Escape Rope) to heal them, deposit the worse ones, exchange found crystals for items, and repeat this several times. Unfortunately, the levels are not particularly varied, and the procedurally generated Monsteropedia might or might not be enough motivator to explore everything. In terms of controls, I think my keyboard really suffered from 10,000 clicks (pressing the arrow keys down does not move the character; you gotta press separately on each move), and I would have appreciated the heal item on some sort of hotkey instead of inventory access. The game has quite some depth in terms of combat (elemental types rock-paper-scissors, leveling, and even Evolutions!), but the balance in the current version isn't tuned well enough to really need to explore it - the most I did was spawn an elemental monster to combat a vulnerable type, and gave up on that after my starter monster evolved. I think what this game really needs is some kind of rewards system for unlocking more monsters - maybe a small quest system that forces you to evolve a couple monsters before descending to lowest level?
A good looking, fun game. Despite its repetitive and grindy gameplay, I could not stop playing until I captured that legendary creature. A bit more options to intervene in combat would help the game to really shine.
Octet
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
2
4
4
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
4
3
Strange game ... for sure it is innovative and polished. It took me way too much time to understand what was the objective of the game and how to write sentences. I had to take a look at a video on youtube. The deam part could be a little bit more prominent, just to fit better in the challenge.
Really unique. I'd love to see more of this concept. The strict limitations make for an interesting challenge. Sometimes I would start a sentence and then just hope I could finish it, and it leads to some interesting choices as you attempt to make something even somewhat coherent. The idea has a lot of potential. The roguelike part of the game was very basic and moved slowly. I'd love to see it expanded a bit, and I think that if you spend more time in the dream world thinking tactically it would make for an interesting switch of mental states between tactical movement and poetry creation. It would be interesting to be able to influence what types of words you get. It would also be nice to have a few words that you can use whenever for free- like "a" or "the". There was some inconsistency in the controls, between mouse, enter, and space being used differently in different menus. There was also inconsistency in how the word alternates worked, though that is forgivable in a 7DRL. I really liked the aesthetic, especially the dream world. The game fits my definition of a traditional roguelike because it is turn-based, on a grid, and has procedural levels, even though there isn't really a death mechanic. Very memorable game and I hope to see more confluence of poetry and roguelikes in the future. yellow weep, precious nest. yelp, speak from new ring smile, yellow drive, yellow nest. I ponder thirst of words. leave dirt.
I found this one a definite interesting twist on the roguelike formula. Very neat to see. I do admit that it took me FOREVER to figure out how to use the composition bar (my own problem), but I thought it was very clever. I found the Dream mobs very OP, as it would've been nice to be able to last a little longer to collect more words. Regardless, that's a minor detail. Really unique entry and hope your team had fun putting this together. Thanks so much for participating!
Wyrm's Wrath
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
This has a strong aesthetic, a great gameloop, and a nice concept. I'm a fan of card-based roguelikes, and being able to harvest abilities from your foes is a neat way to go about getting new powers. The movement was initially confusing but I don't play many hexagon-grid roguelikes. I do like that it acts like Snake in that you can't turn back on yourself (well, without a special card to do so). Sometimes I'd like to turn sharply more often for an enemy that's snuck up on me, but that's just a case of planning better for enemy movement. This definitely forces you to slow down and think a bit more but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The music sets the atmosphere nicely, the style is solid, and it's definitely one I'll return to after the judging.
I absolutely loved "Wyrm's Wrath". It reverses the traditional roguelike roles and casts you as the Wyrmling that tries to reclaim the artifact stolen by the Rogue - not a completely novel idea, but something unusual nonetheless. It's also a deck-building game, and I felt like there was a lot of interesting challenges and tradeoffs in building the deck in this game. It also has 5 varied dungeons, each of which comes with a unique original musical theme - and oh my god, these themes are gorgeous! So are the graphics, which are also originally made for this specific game. Aesthetic beauty aside, this game (at least in my books) strikes the right amount of balance between learning by trial and difficulty. I could feel like I'm continuously improving as I played more, by understanding some tradeoffs and mechanics better. The whole process just felt... fun. Sadly, the King Rogue refused to give me the chalice after I ate his corpse, so I never witnessed the winning screen - which kinda finished my final run on the sour note. So if you want ideas for improvement, I think that having defeating the final boss actually win the game is a pretty solid suggestion :D
Overview Really nice take on the niche "wyrm simulator" genre. Finally, you can feel all that huge body! Completeness The game feels complete feature-wise. Didn't encounter any serious problems, and it is polished. Disclaimer: I played the post-7DRL release. Aesthetics Nice graphics and simple UI. Hex-based maps and keyboard movement is not the most intuitive combo, but I got accustomed quite fast. I'm not a big fan of the music used in the game – while itself pleasant, doesn't really fit the game setting. Fun Wyrm is fun to navigate thanks to simple mechanics twist: you need to rotate, you can't take a sharp turn just like that. The problem with the game is that you have to keep an eye on too many things at once. You can attack things by bumping them, use cards, navigate the wyrm itself through the tiles that can heal or poison you, need to watch the always decreasing energy counter, hp pool, and at the same time enemies are shooting at you. That's just... a bit too much at once for me. Innovation Top-down roguelike deck builder with classic feel. Plus uncommon movement mechanics. Nice. Scope Big and small. There is a lot of mechanics throws at this game, and it delivers a complete package with the music included, and there is a variety of cards, and there is several level layouts... But at the same time, some cards are bland, and the procgen (e.g. comparing the City and the Lair) doesn't feel truly different. Traditional Roguelikeness Decently traditional roguelike.
firefighter rl
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Innovative hose mechanic. Occasionally it didn't feel like the controls were responding, but the game is challenging and fun. Nice twist on the classic roguelike formula.
This game is pretty interesting, I've never seen a roguelike quite like it. The controls are simple, the visuals are mostly clear, and the idea is fun. It's a pretty difficult game that asks you to use all of the tools at your disposal if you want to rescue all of the civilians-- I was only ever able to get 5 of 6. I like the fact that you can break through walls, and I like the exploding barrels, both of these add a lot to the experience. The levels seem very random so that the upstairs can generate on the other side of the floor, or basically right next to the stairs you came up in. It's always cool to see a game where the confrontation is with the environment rather than with monsters. I found it difficult to see the stairs or amulet sometimes when they were in fire. Unfortunately, the hard mode appears to be broken-- there is no FOV, and no items or civilians generate. The premise of the game is a little strange honestly-- you are a firefighter, but saving people is a bonus rather than the main purpose. You can very well just run past everyone to save the amulet. The civilians also don't move or anything, they are more like items to pick up. I think thematically it would have worked better to have some other pickup along the way, and the amulet could be replaced by a single person trapped in the building that you are trying to save; it would give the game more pathos. The only question that I am left with is: was Rodgort a man? Or, maybe, was he a dragon man? Or, maybe, he was just a dragon? Well, either way, I'm sure that he was still Rodgort.
Overview Small, simplistic roguelike with an interesting theme. Completeness The game seems to be complete in terms of features, but definitely could use more polish. Aesthetics I like the classic, clean look. The fire animation is probably too fast and depends on the max frame limit? Fun Well, the gameplay itself is really simplistic and quite RNG-heavy, yet also satisfying. Innovation The main innovation here is topic – but that's something! Scope Minimal. Simple level generation, just a few mechanics, and short, 3-levels map. Traditional Roguelikeness Yes, that's quite traditional roguelike.
vigil@nte
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
2
3
3
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
3
4
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
2
The game plays smoothly and the special attacks make the combat interesting. I feel it lacks the sense of exploration you get playing roguelikes. Also adding some items to heal youself could make me move a little more . The graphics could get some more love; pointing this out just because you decided to go with graphical tiles.
Vigil@nte is both a faithful adaptation of Arkham series' combat and a really fun entry in its own right! It is more deterministic than most entries tend to be, and as such is easier to beat consistently the simpler, less balanced submissions if you think your way through: I have finished it on my first try, and then did it again and again immediately after: however, "Atman" was reduced to single HP when he finally brought down the boss first time around, and pretty much any given battle will end quickly if you fail to watch out for others' attacks or position yourself properly. Otherwise, there's a lot of fun to be had as you dodge thugs' blows and they are left vulnerable and exposed, or even outright fall over, ready for a devastating takedown. Same goes for countering an incoming punch and swapping position with a thug, exposing them to blows from nearby criminals that would have otherwise landed upon you. I would say the one issue is the way the game handles guns. In "Otham", everyone is apparently carrying blackpowder firearms, since they can only shoot them once before spending multiple turns on reloading. Once they have reloaded, however, they are able to fire as soon as Atman is in their line of sight, and they'll always hit. Considering that any enemy's punch always has a single turn of wind-up, this is rather incongruent. Moreover, reloading is not an action in its own right, but simply a timer: not only can the thugs with guns walk around and even punch while simultaneously reloading, but they won't stop doing so even when stunned or thrown to the ground. This factor also makes "Atarangs" less useful than expected: one might think that the best way to use them is to stun a gun-wielder right as they aim, or at least to interrupt their reload: in practice, it only works to stop them from picking a gun off the ground; alternatively, you can toss multiple atarangs in a row to outright knock them out after they already fired, but are now reloading. Altogether, I would have preferred that gun-wielders have multiple shots before needing to reload, but require a turn of Atman standing in place in order to lock in their aim before firing (and of course, that reloading is a separate and interruptable action). The game is largely mouse-controlled, and it consists of a series of single-screen stages, with Atman immediately transported to the next stage after bringing down the last thug. The layout of the stages is randomized somewhat, but the progression is still quite rigid (i.e penultimate battle is always against 6 or so Titan Thugs). The main difference between the playthroughs is not in the map layout, but in the order you get to unlock Atman's special moves: like in Crimsonland or Nuclear Throne, you get to pick of two randomly selected perks every other level, and this shapes your progression the most. The greatest priority is to get the Leg Sweep + Ground Takedown combo that is able to immediately eliminate Titan Thugs and even the final boss: even without Ground Takedown, Leg Sweep may be the only way to avoid damage if you happen to spawn in while already having at least one Titan preparing to punch you next turn. On the other hand, picking Lunge Punch for any reason only makes the run harder, since you'll rarely be in a position to use it, and when you are, Atarangs are basically always superior since they deal the same damage but also stun, and are not ignored by Armored Thugs. Somewhere in between are the extra HP traits and Super Dodge, which lets Atman jump immediately behind a given thug: useless vs. Titans who hit in a circular radius and of limited help on regular levels, but invaluable on the final level as you rush past endlessly spawning thugs to get to Mr. Yendor. The game does a fair attempt at emulating comic book style from bird's eye view - every punch is dutifully accompanied by "POW!" and the like. One issue is that the gun-wielding enemies are marked with a crosshair next to them, but this disappears from view if they are next to a wall. Additionally, it is not always clear which tiles are fully blocked by debris like trash barrels and which are not. There are sound effects, and the creator has apparently purchased music for this submission, which I commend. However, music is often inconsistent, and only seems to play in every other fight: in particular, the final showdown is always in silence. Altogether, it's a very nice game and a solid recommendation, especially if it receives a few post-contest fixes!
This is really promising! My only complaint is that it's sometimes a little tricky to tell what's happening without mousing over every character, but that's a really minor polish niggle. Great work! I'd love to see a more fleshed-out version!
Cardinal Ramship Pirate
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
3
4
4
Scope
2
3
4
Roguelikeness
2
4
2
This would be an interesting idea for a game that ran in real time, but I'm not sure how well it translates to a turn based system. The momentum idea is difficult to understand in a turn based simulation. Even though you have a display of how fast you are moving each turn, comparing that to enemy ships, is nearly impossible. It also did not seem like there were too many traditional roguelike elements involved in this game, it seems like a traditional arcade style game translated into a turn based simulation.
Completeness - I encountered no bugs, everything ran fine Aesthetics - really like the look and feel. Navigating the menus for scrap and info felt kinda clunky. It would also have been nice to have some way to gauge the relative speed of ships (perhaps with the length of the blue direction indicator), since that felt like pretty crucial information but was hard to read. Fun - I enjoyed my time on this. It's not a game to sink hours into, but the time you can put in is worth it. Innovation - the burn mechanics were interesting and made a fun bump fest. Scope - a good-sized exploration of the mechanics Roguelike - it's a roguelike in my book. Turn-based, tactics, exploration. It's arguably missing a grid, but from a certain perspective, it is on a grid, just all the ships are multiple tiles ;)
Escape from Dump Moon Detritus-7
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
2
Very neat concept I wouldnt have thought to combine dungeon crawling and mine sweeping but this game makes it feel almost natural. Having the act of minesweeping take turns in the dungeon was a really good design decision really ties the two together. The pickups having visible fixed turn duration was also a really good idea stops players from hoarding them and puts the pressure on when fighting an enemy at low health. There is something so satisfying about dropping an enemy in one click I think the sound effects used for that are especially good.Having the enemies play minesweeper on your body is a cute touch too and an interesting way of balancing having lots of health. I would've liked to have seen more dynamic dungeons to actually explore through as managing player location and mine sweeping could have made the experience that much more challenging and memorable. Oh and it wasn't quite apparent what having multiple/different eyes I think they let me see purple and blue numbers for armor/health around them but im still not sure. Regardless very Fun concept if you keep working on it id love to see more augments, level/enemy variety and maybe having the board get larger as the game go's on.
Very cool idea. I've seen just a few roguelikes this year where the combat is completely removed from bump-to-attack, and I'm a fan of it. The game explores some ideas of having different tiles on the board, it could totally be expanded. I really like the idea of building your own custom board with upgrades to play an expanded version of minesweeper. Since you don't have much control over your upgrades and they are so small, there isn't much decision-making-- if you get an upgrade, you use it. Maybe the player could start with upgrade options but they are larger than one tile and you have to Tetris the board a bit. I like that the art is simple and clear. The field of view is unusual in that you can see monsters behind walls if you have opened the door to their room. It would be cool if the boards had some connection to the roguelike space-- as it is, since positioning doesn't matter, the two parts of the games feel disconnected. I haven't played minesweeper in many years so it took a while to really grasp everything, but I was able to escape. I did enjoy the game the more I played it for sure, especially when you have to think through the board when there are blue, red, and purple numbers.
FROGUE
Completeness
4
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
really gives the frog feel. I liked learning the enemy patterns and I think they reflect their buggy/lizardy/froggy counterparts. It was fun to the get the upgrades and use my new found frogue powers and it really felt like each one changed up the way i interacted with the map. the charming dialogue kept the experience very lighthearted and enjoyable. Had such a good time my first run that I went back for a second pacifist run just to see if it was possible and ill be frogged it was. The only thing I found a little unclear at first was what my frogs health actually was but a few deaths solved that problem. Also I never had a level generate with no exit so a surprisingly bug free experience. all in all frogue is a hopping good time!
Why do frogs need special "items" to swim? This is the same issue I always had with Frogger. Was the inability to backtrack a design option, or forced by the development time? It didn't seem to fit the story. I also could not figure out if my Frog's health was displayed anywhere, making combat very roulette like.
There are a few things that I enjoyed a lot about the game. It has a pleasant and consistent theme, which is important. The font, colors, music, and sound effects are nice and thematic as well. I like that it is a traditional roguelike with a few twists, mainly that the monsters just move around like animals or insects instead of attacking you, they kill eachother, and you don't have any incentive to kill them (that I could see). I like that they have unique movement patterns that you can exploit to move past them. Some of the UI and controls were a little confusing at first-- the controls say J to jump, but don't mention that you have to get the jump ability first. I assume that "Lick 2" means that I do 2 damage, but if the number never changes and you can't see enemy health, that number shouldn't be exposed to the player. Some visual indication for when you get hit would be helpful as well. I like the status effects, they add an interesting layer. I do wish that the abilities were more important-- I beat the game without getting hit, without killing anything, and without using any ability. It's refreshing to play a game where you aren't killing everything to get an amulet, and I've never played a game where I was trying to find a mate, have sex, and lay eggs.
Fight City
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
First of all, y'all should release the soundtrack on Spotify. It's dynamicity blends really well with the fightpunk theme of the game, and holds it together really well. Same can be said for the artwork - stellar sprites with various scary-looking opponents. The game is not very challenging, which makes it accessible but also makes winning it less of an achievement. Still, I enjoyed inspecting every weapon and ability in my several playthroughs, and it takes some time and joy to optimize for winning combinations. On the critical side, I'd suggest to add more variety to the city landscapes and let the player select the ability slot by using the same keys as for movement (currently you can move around with the ability menu active).
This is fun, it has a Commodore64 or OG Nintendo feel to it. The combat ends up feeling way too random, and the enemies being able to use special moves diagonally is just mean. The strategy of trying to position yourself to use your strengths is an interesting mechanic, just really difficult to use well in the small maps.
This has tons of potential!
Fishy Business
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
That was certainly something different! I was not expecting a game about being a sushi chef! It doesn't feel like a roguelike but I guess it has enough roguelike elements to qualify as a roguelite, at least. I like how you added some sound effects; that's not too common with these 7DRLs. The graphics are really nice but some UI elements (especially text) do not contrast well with the background. And I love the humorous "knives" that are available. I'm just picturing myself serving a customer a fish that I whacked with a mallet and then a chainsaw! 😆
Rogue-lite cooking game? Let's go! The game is engaging and fairly on-point for scope, neither bigger nor smaller than expected. the aesthetics are good and charming, though it would be nice if there were some keyboard shortcuts for using the different weapons to "attack" the fish. Resource and risk management are key roguelike aesthetics and the game is strong with proc-gen. A few of the calculations seem not to work as one would expect from the rules given (in particular, cooking away armor doesn't seem to work as expected.) The game's fun/engagement factor is very high, though. There are some flaws but it is definitely worth a play!
Completeness: It's fully complete, and I found no bugs. Aesthetics: Really good! Very clean and bright graphics, and the sound is a nice bonus. Fun: It's has a pretty good gameplay loop and I'd say it's worth a playthrough. Innovation: I enjoyed the "hot/cold" nature of the gameplay, where either not enough or too much slicing would cause you to lose quality. Scope: It's of a reasonable size and mechanics set. Traditional Roguelikeness: I wouldn't call this either a Roguelike or a Roguelite. The largest similarity seems to be that it's run-based, and you can lose the run, but it doesn't sport other major Traditional Roguelike traits.
Furball Catacombs
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
4
2
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Love the concept! A couple interesting plays on health and upgrades. I enjoyed the scratching posts and the fear mechanic with coughing up hairballs. And the roombas were quite scary. The dungeon layout was interesting and really cool, but I had a difficult time navigating and would become lost easily. Hunger became a problem pretty often while I backtracked to try to get a sense of where I haven't explored. I'm not sure how the dungeon is represented internally, or if there was already some hinting with the walls changing colors, but I think having a way to help navigate would have helped. Perhaps removing dead-ends could help too. Overall, pretty fun! Good job!
Very nice game, having 4 cats i can confirm it is also very accurate in its mechanics!!! Didn't quite understand the Non-Euclidean geometry, is it just something like elevation? Or is it more like the game Portal? All my deaths where caused by fear, i could do nothing beside licking myself when out of combat. Maybe tune it a little down. Great game!
Completeness: It appears to be fully complete, and I found no bugs. Aesthetics: The art is serviceable and the UI is very clear and usable. Fun: The "overlapping map space outside out of FOV" mechanic does not improve the experience. Without that mechanic, it's a fast-moving, solid game, but the overlapping space is itself just generally frustrating. Combine that with a hunger clock, and the game becomes immensely frustrating. Innovation: As much as I dislike it, I've never seen a game really commit to the "overlapping map space outside of FOV" before. I think I've seen it but I couldn't tell you where, so, points for novelty. Scope: Wholly reasonable. Traditional Roguelikeness: Yep, it's a trad roguelike.
Hero's Choice 2021 7DRL
Completeness
4
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
3
2
Scope
3
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
2
Procgenning Zelda 1 is an incredible idea, and this is a neat execution of that concept. The game was very loyal to the original game, right down to the placement of map features. Perhaps a touch too loyal: the game could have used more modern design sensibilities, especially in the enemy and dungeon departments. The biggest problem was by far the speed of the game. Such a large game (and one where I died repeatedly) needs to move very fast as there's a lot of repetition, but movement and combat, especially with lots of enemies on screen, was clunky. Lack of music was also jarring, although mostly because Zelda 1 music is so big a part of the game's charm. Nonetheless, definitely an entry that I obsessed over and played for a long while.
I really enjoyed this entry. Thanks so much for participating in the game jam! I liked that there were different environments to explore and how vast each "world" felt. It took a few tries of the game to come across the dungeon, so perhaps a bit of tweaking is needed for the logic behind that. Overall, I'd definitely encourage you to iterate on this work and see where you can take it; even just a bit of sound / music and a powerup or two could start to enhance this one.
Phantom Feast
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
Interesting game, but NOT a roguelike at all. It has procedural maps but that alone does not make a roguelike. Honestly, this isn't even a roguelike-like. That's the bad out of the way, the good is that it was fun. Didn't really like the feel of the maps, they were just too tight for no apparent reason. No one would design a graveyard that way. But the enemies were entertaining even when they killed me.
I had a great time playing Phantom Feast. The game fuses roguelike aspects with classic arcade gameplay in a way that is fun and replayable. It is aesthetic and polished with an accessible funky, spooky vibe and left me wanting more! Overall the game is nicely polished (although the keys felt sticky at times but that is likely the result of WebGL). The design of the enemies complement the maze-like layout of the world perfectly - later levels have the capacity to generate 'emergent challenges' where the combination of multiple enemies and a specific floorplan leads to a tricky timing puzzle. This design pattern is really engaging and worth building on.
I enjoyed this entry a lot! Thanks for an interesting concept. If you squint hard enough then this feel like a potential combination of pac-man and bomberman. Nice! The music and sound effects were a nice touch. Although I wouldn't call this a "traditional" roguelike, I applaud the entry and congratulate you on the work put into it. Hopefully you had fun, and thanks for participating in the 7DRL!
Poogue
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
I found it pretty hard to judge this game because I hate billiard. Hate to play it live, hate to play it on the computer. So this game really had a tall bridge to cross here - or maybe it was the opposite, cause I never got past level 2. That said though, I found a lot of things to appreciate about this game. I don't know how truly original this idea is, but I found the concept of procedurally generating billiard tables, with balls taking turns as enemies, and different balls having different abilities, very unique. I really wanted to explore more content and see what other cool things might be hiding beyond, but alas, I wasn't good enough. The game aesthetics are impressive. The boards look great, thematic music is cool, sound effects are on point. I bet particles were not easy to make either. Great execution all around. Honestly, while I will likely never come to love this game, I can see how this could evolve into an addictive, exciting, commercial (in a good way) product - keep up the good work!
Overview Roguelike billard. That's it. And it works well. Completeness Some physics issues, but nothing game-breaking. Poogue seems to deliver all planned features. Aesthetics Simple yet nice graphics. The UI could be a bit better. Music's quite generic, but really fits to the first, green world. Wish that music would change with the transition to the new world. Fun I had a blast playing Poogue. The game has enough variations of enemies and tables to keep the player's attention for a long time. Also, every enemy type behaves differently. Innovation I'm sure that I played a roguelike/pool game already, but it's still uncommon, and I think that Poogue pushes the boundaries a bit further. Scope Everything that I could expect from the 7DRL – it even has boss fights. Traditional Roguelikeness Barely, but fits the bill.
RayWizard
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Has a good length for a 7DRL, just enough to learn the basic mechanics and figure out some accompanying strategies without dragging out too long before winning. Deducing the various spell interactions with the environment and finding the best approaches to reach the next level (to heal) without taking too much damage was fun, although the levels themselves were somewhat large considering the low enemy density overall. But that's a polish issue, and each of the spells was useful in its own way. Didn't figure out what the totem one does though! Better spell descriptions would probably help there. Also most roguelikes would normally have a way to identify and learn about objects in the world (including creatures), rather than guessing or reading the log when something related to the object happens.
Ray Wizard puts you in the robes of a wizard with a set of spells at your disposal to progress through the levels. The spells can be used as much as desired and are tied to a cooldown system rather than the mana/spellcasting power system commonly found in roguelikes. Some of the spells are unique for the genre, in particular I enjoyed the Create Scout spell which sends out a drone to survey the areas around you, this leads to nice stealth elements (along with Earth Vision which allows the player to see through adjacent walls). The spells are also heavily interactive with the environment, with bombs destroying walls, or ice and fire spells capable of freezing and melting water and ice. Each level had a distinct theme to it which required different strategies and spell usage. All of these are great qualities that I enjoyed very much. Beyond that, the game is very simple and I would love to see it expanded to take further advantage of the spell system and to add more depth to the interactions and strategy. Ray Wizard didn't feel extremely polished but it's aesthetic has a certain charm to it. The 7DRL release isn't very long (but long enough to showcase the various spells and environtments), consists of a few levels, and can be beaten. The game fits my criteria for a traditional roguelike.
Overview Quite unforgiving traditional roguelike with cooldown-based combat mechanics. Completeness A quite complete game, but with some rough edges. Aesthetics I really like that classic look and feel, but the UI is not easy on the eyes. It's hard to tell on the first glance how many HP player has, which skills are ready to use and which are on cooldown. Fun It's both fun and tedious. Fun, because it is tactical, and the available spells are diverse. Tedious, because the safest way to progress seems to be spamming scouts and following already discovered routes. Innovation Roguelike focused solely on ranged, cooldown-based combat is an uncommon thing. Scope Fits the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Yup, definitely.
SUV Dungeon
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
The first few levels do a good job of introducing the game's elements one by one. I had trouble getting much further than level 4 or so. The movement mechanic is fun! I like the visual state you can get into where the vehicle swerves from side to side even though you're going in a straight line. It feels like I'm over-steering and losing traction. Some of the game's signals are confusing: * Skeletons who don't move and can't be hit. (Ghost skeletons?) * Gem counter and exit blocker don't update until the turn after a gem is collected. * When the SUV hits a wall it stops in place, not necessarily against the wall. Over all, though, a clever little game with a non-standard movement mechanic!
This is a fun game. A really, really fun game. I'm going to mention some flaws but they won't take away from how fun this game is. The aesthetics are pretty on-point and the controls are by and large responsive. I don't have a lot to say here. It's got a quick mechanical gimmick that's pretty excellently done. There are a few things that go against completeness--notably, it seems like sometimes skeletons "stack" and/or are taking more than a hit to beat, and it's not indicated which skeletons these are; it can be frustrating when you think you've hit one and then it hits you anyway. Even with the game's occasional frustration, though, the emergent problem of momentum management and skeleton-smashing is FUN beyond the sum of its parts. Scope is about as expected and while it's definitely on the "simpler" side of roguelikes, make no mistake, this is pretty traditional at its core. Turn-based tactical gameplay, procedural generation, and hidden information problems abound. And they're GLORIOUS. You will miss out if you don't play SUV Dungeon.
Overview I was a bit biased against this game as I'm not a fan of silly themes (and driving an SUV inside the dungeon is silly), but mechanically it is an enjoyable and quite captivating game. Could use a bit more content, though. Completeness There is a few rough edges, but nothing major. As far as I know, I was playing the post-campo version with several bugs fixed already. SUV Dungeon could use a bit more balance – it gets hard really quickly. Aesthetics Simple, yet adorable graphics with music together gives a nice '80 vibes. Controls are simple and intuitive... But when first time accidentally used the reverse gear, I had no idea how to switch it. Fun Well, "YES". I spent much more time on this game than I planned and expected. Innovation It's a kind of a simple physics game in a roguelike suit. It has been done before, but it's still an unusual cross-over. Scope It has everything what I would expect from the 7DRL, but I feel it would be much better game with just a bit more content inside. Traditional Roguelikeness Traditional enough.
Schrödinger Dungeon
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
2
3
First thing that needs to be said is that the premise is very unique - I'm sure each of us has had an idea of a quantum game mechanic, but I've never seen it actually implemented. The way it works in this game, with the screen always splitting into four, feels like a cool homage to the quadrupling procedural dungeon generation. I really liked the graphics - the tiles look pleasant both up close and from afar (when the world multiplies to the full extent). Nice, meaningful animations as well. On the other hand, the game (at least its 7drl version) has a strong puzzly feel - the map is preset, and the only variety comes from the random chest effects. Generating random maps with interesting quantum decisions might be challenging, but certainly a large avenue for exploration.
This game had a bit of a problem in its initial 7drl version but this was fixed by developer pretty quickly. I didn't notice anything else problematic. Controls and graphics are responsive and representative, respectively. This is not an idea that's *never* been done before but was interesting for sure! It wasn't the most fun game ever for me personally, but I can see why some would find it engaging. While there are some resource management and tactics, procedural generation and randomness seem to have little to no effect on the steps a player takes, which is why it's rated so low on traditional roguelikeness: It's effectively the same situation every time, despite the puzzley tactics. If the developer can build a generator even for dungeons of this size, where this mechanic has room to shine, that will be very interesting indeed!
Completeness: I played the post-bugfix game. All gameplay features appeared to work fine. I think the Fullscreen button on the web version wasn't working, though. Aesthetics: Graphics looked good, but in the 64-squares mode it was too small to really see what was going on. Fun: It's not a long game, but the ten or twenty minutes it gives you are really cool! I was inspired by the screenshot to go for a perfect run, which I otherwise didn't think was possible, and had a good time with it. Innovation: The forking is a mechanic I've never seen before, and is really cool. Scope: It's very, very short - there's only one level - but the core conceit seems like a lot of work. Traditional Roguelikeness: It doesn't have any random generation or distinctly roguelike qualities, being closer to a first level of a cool puzzle game than anything else. On the other hand it doesn't do anything that makes it un-rougelike-y, so a 3. If there was a level generator slapped onto it I'd put it at 4.
A Little Rogue
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
2
3
4
Scope
2
2
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
2
I thought this was really neat! The aesthetics are simple but work well and although quite minimal, the clear controls made it easy to quickly start playing. There's a great framework here for innovation in the future. With more time it could become something great!
An appropriate name for an appropriately quaint little title. Really liked the aesthetic chosen here compliments the simple and arcade-y game-play. Trying to solve each room even though its a little different each time is a really good hook and there's a fair amount of depth to think about past that. Its quick to get back into the game after a loss which is big for game like this. The quaint little messages from the death screens made me feel a little better each time I died and I liked knowing that my efforts were in vain because of my bat related diseases. The only major complaint I have with the game is that its often way to restricting in the players movement, since you cant move into a space a monster is leaving or entering (and angry onward the spaces besides those spaces) it often leaves you in scenarios where you have no way out. Its fine and often a fun feature of rogue-likes to have rounds you just cant win but in this game I feel it happens way to often. it could have just been my luck but I must have had 20 deaths to attempting to move out of the way of a monster into a block that had a monster in it. Then there were the times when I would reveal 3 monsters at the start and get boxed in, or reveal a monster on every square around the stairs, or had 2 angry enemies passing by. The shield saved my life so many times also really funny that i just wear it like a suit of armor. I started really taking into account what my move was if the next square I revealed was an enemy and in a lot of situation it would just end my run before I had any space to work with. I'm not sure how the enemy spawn works like if its a % chance based on level but it was wildly variant in my playthroughs In my last winning run I had 3 of the angry levels with 1 or no enemies spawn but 5 or 6 in bouncy tourney and slimy. in the last few levels when the map is bigger it actually felt like the game was so much easier despite the harder enemies just because I had more room to work with. I know that was kind of a lot to say about balance because despite being a little rogue-like there's a lot to love in game-play idea, aesthetics, and humor but had kind of a frustrating time actually beating the game and i thin with just a few tweaks I wouldn't have felt that way.
This is really neat!
A Roguelike Where You Fight In Formation
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
4
4
4
Scope
2
4
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
4
A game in which you take part in a war as one of the soldiers of an army, and fight the war while thinking about the formation of your troops. It's a unique system and it took me a while to figure out the proper controls. I played it for about an hour and found it very interesting as a war simulator. I love the lively atmosphere with soldiers forming ranks and running away when the battle lines break down. It must have been hard to build such a creative and difficult system in 7 days. However, this is still in the war simulator stage, and I must say that it lacks a bit of polish to be called a roguelike game...
Overview A very innovative game about being one soldier that needs to keep in the formation. And it still feels like a roguelike! Has some rough edges, but nothing really major. Completeness Looks like the dev implemented all major mechanics that were planned, but didn't have enough time to polish the game. Some spelling mistakes, visible background under the military units make the overall view a bit messy, and remains of the elements cut from the game, like zoom. Aesthetics I really, really like the color scheme used in this game. I'm crazy about some color combinations and this game hits the spot. Nice tiles, too. On the other hand, UI per se is not as clear as could be, system mouse position doesn't exactly match the game cursor, and that already mentioned issue about not cleared tiles under the units. Fun Yes, I had fun. Definitely. It was driven more by the curiosity and the initial "WOW" effect, though. The battles are very long, and especially at start I was feeling that my actions don't really matter (well, that one is not a problem, to be honest, I'm one from hundreds, so that's fair). *But* all I was doing was calculating risk – "how to survive and gain prestige at once". Still, fighting in formation, and the consequences (rejoining formations, rotating) are really fun mechanics. The system is quite easy to abuse, though – I could just wait and move left / right without losing my prestige when I was really hurt. Innovation There are not many games that tried to show the war from the perspective of a single basic soldier that doesn't matter much on its own. And this game has its own idea for following this trope. Scope In the terms of raw content, there is not that much here, but I believe that due to the nature of this game, that *raw content* is not the best way to measure the scope of the project. I think that ARWYFIF delivers everything what I should expect from that kind of game after 7 days jam. Traditional Roguelikeness It doesn't play like a roguelike. And the procedural generation doesn't have much meaning here. Still, it *feels* like a roguelike, and I'm OK with that.
A delightful little game with a fascinating new twist! There's a lot of potential here. It seemed like there was a few bugs that prevented me from getting as far into the game as I wanted to, but I felt like I was getting a hang of the strategy. I'd love to play something like this again!
AscendRL
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
This game is pretty compelling but im a sucker for asci art with a crt filter so take that as you will. The game play loop gets stagnant pretty quick but I loved the little dance you had to do with some enemies to hit and not get hit back as well as managing the enemies that were and were not hostile. I gave the game a good 10 tries but kept getting eaten by jackals or overrun by infinitely spawning slimes on level 0 so maybe work on the balancing a bit. I can see the potential for something really fun here if there was more variety in items types and dungeon layouts as the game plays out in the same way each time after the first few runs figuring things out.
Classic roguelike. It's fun, it's engaging. The CRT effect is makes the graphics pop. This is one that I could spend hours playing.
The CRT monitor visual distortion is pretty extreme, but I like it. Along with the colorful palette, it makes the game have its own feeling, like its own little world. The mouse control is smooth and easy, which I like. Seems like some inspiration was taken from Brogue, which is a good thing. One of the most interesting things to me was that the goblins weren't hostile, but I still needed to kill them to get items or the key. I felt kind of bad about those little G's. Although I enjoyed the game, there were a couple of things that could have improved the experience. Having identification be a wand instead of a mouse click or info/cursor mode is interesting, but I don't think it adds anything to the game. There is no way to identify an item on the ground, you have to pick it up. The fact that most enemies are slow makes them trivial to kite. It would be nice if the stairs remained highlighted after you see them the first time. I got through several levels a few times, but the duplicating jellies got me each time and they honestly ruined the experience for me. Breeding enemies need to be handled carefully. I really appreciated the visual experience and the smooth, quick movement. The game has potential and the issues are understandable considering it is a jam game. It could be expanded into a cool Brogue-like.
Back to Life! (7drl)
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
* Good use of ascii graphics, like the colours. * Interesting themse * Gameplay is classic, could do with some elaboration.
A very solid foundation for a roguelike here! The pacing is a bit too slow, and at least a bit more variety in terms of items and equipment would go a long way here. More spells in particular would be a good way to improve this beyond having the strategy be to simply always use the best equipment you've found and balance the use of health restoration vs paralyzation scrolls. There aren't a whole lot of real decisions to make in this as it is.
I really enjoyed the theme, idea, and aesthetics of this one. It feels like this adventure has a lot of potential. I love being in the underworld, and fading out as you take damage is both informative and a nice touch. There are just enough traditional roguelike mechanics to make you feel like you are using your tools and getting strong. I appreciated the simple leveling system. I played both the original and updated version, and the updated one adds a lot to the experience. However, it also introduces some issues-- I like auto-pickup, but it's also annoying to drop stuff and then just pick it back up if you have to walk on that space again. The addition of the shortbow adds a nice element, but monsters further than 2 or 3 tiles had issues realizing that they were being shot. I was thankful for that in the end, though. Also, there is no reason to prevent players from equipping both a bow and sword at the same time-- as it was I had to swap back and forth over and over and over. I liked the monsters in general, and having really strong demons makes you feel like you are descending deeper into hell. The only issue I had was-- why are there goblins? Goblins are such a generic monster, they felt very out of place in an otherwise thematically consistent game. As far as I could tell, there is not wait key, but walking into a wall passes a turn. I tend to believe that passing a turn when a player tries to walk into a wall is bad because players only do it by accident, or to exploit some system. The only other issue was that the game was too long. I was enjoying myself, getting new items, and seeing new monsters, but after maybe 10 floors everything is the same and the next 16 floors are very repetitive. I did like the new environment at the end and it was satisfying to win. These gripes are fixable though, and I would love to see this idea expanded on.
Caves of Xol'thor
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I enjoy the aesthetics, it’s a nice and simple game. The graphics reinforce the mechanics in that way. I personally enjoy very simple roguelikes. The biggest twist here is that there is no way to wait, which requires some positioning decisions from the player. Often games that do not allow waiting include actions that take a turn so that you may, for instance, waste a potion just because it uses a turn. Here, however, the only way to change your relative relation to an enemy is to hit another enemy. This is kind of interesting in a way, you end up running around to find an enemy with the right parity to you. Ideally, you would count tiles to get into line of sight with monsters such that you are on the right parity to get the first attack, but it didn't turn out to be necessary to beat the game. It would have been cool to see some additional options other than more damage and more health. Just one additional mechanic added to the roguelike formula would have made a big difference. It's maybe a small thing but I also prefer when movement is almost instantaneous, instead of waiting for the character to move every turn. Overall it's pleasant and very roguelike.
Completeness: It's reasonably feature-complete, but there are things I might expect that aren't there, like some way to know what your attack is relative to the hit points of the enemies. Also, it feels not particularly balanced, but this is almost entirely an artifact of the fact that there's no wait key. More on that in Fun. It does lag somewhat on my machine in the larger levels. Aesthetics: Very clean and I like the style! Controls are extremely simple. Fun: It's very simple and the fact that it's 4-directional movement and you can't wait means that, if the enemy configurations are off, you can sometimes just take unavoidable damage, which feels awful. The movement delay is also kind of vexing. Innovation: It is very simple in terms of gameplay. Scope: Entirely appropriate. Traditional Roguelikeness: It is a trad-roguelike.
Devour - 7DRL 2021
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
2
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
The game lacks some basics: Movement is sluggish. There's no feedback on enemies health during fights. No escape mechanisms (that I could find). The devour mechanic is interesting, but needs more to make it into a game. I liked the graphics and dark atmosphere.
I am a big fan of games that have a consistent and coherent style, and Devour has that. The art is really nice, the style is atmospheric, and I like the living feeling of having nice oily particle effects here and there. The shadows go a long way to make the game feel like a physical space. The art has a Darkwood feel. Doing all of this development and art in a week is impressive. This idea could become a full game for sure, with a dark, dirty, visceral feel and perhaps more complex combat mechanics to present more options, potentially taking ideas from deckbuilder games. The game currently does have bugs and balance issues. The biggest balance issue for me was that it felt that the bodyparts were pretty evenly distributed, such that I actually rarely replaced anything. I may have missed something, but it didn't feel that I was progressing as I went down through levels. The other largest issue is that the movement is much much too slow-- movement in roguelikes should generally be instantaneous. Overall a very nice submission.
Both a promising game, and an unfortunate example of graphics intruding upon gameplay. Devour's black-and-white-and-red artstyle isn't exactly unique nowadays, but it is still relatively rare in general and done well here in particular. Moreover, the core mechanic of limb replacement results in your character genuinely changing visually to reflect that every time as well. However, it appears that the fire and shadow effects this game uses cause it to stutter noticeably far too often: especially the case if you are trying to move fast in any direction. This may get optimized in the future, but we have to access what is available now. The controls are also lacking. Right now, combat is only possible with the mouse: while you can select the limb abilities with hotkeys, they still require clicking to activate. At the same time, click to move is impractical since it does not work outside of the immediate vicinity. Worst of all, getting to the next level requires finding a portal (a purple oval that occupies six tiles) positioning the character at the right spot within it, and then clicking on them. This seems to bug out at times, and it's unclear why simply moving into the portal would not have sufficed. The combat system itself is surprisingly extensive, given the timeframe involved. You always have four ways to attack (right and left arms, a foreleg, and your mouth) and while you can only strike with one at a time, they all have differing cooldowns, requiring you to alternate between them. There's quite a lot they can do: while all of them can just do pure, instantaneous damage, all can trade weaker hits to stack damage over time, whether up close (sharp fangs and blade arms for bleed, tentacles for poison) or at range (tentacle legs can strike two tiles, but poison and fire breath straight-up reaches 4 tiles.) Some melee attacks also have the Absorb effect which drains HP. There are also the non-combat body parts (body, head above the mouth, eye, horn), which just provide different stat boosts when swapped. Since your enemies are the same sort of creature you are, they play by the exact same rules, and you need to have a superior build to triumph. Pretty much all the body grades tend to be sidegrades rather than pure upgrades, too, which should make it challenging. In practice, however, the game becomes a lot easier if you are lucky enough to start with at least one limb capable of stuns. That effect is surprisingly hard to find from enemy drops, but it is by far the most helpful one: while cooldowns will prevent stunlocks, just having a free turn to hit without worrying about incoming attacks every few turns makes the most difference, especially if you use it to stack some DOT effects. It becomes truly easy once you manage to optimize your build to get high defence and HP regeneration values. A good combination of both prevents you from taking any meaningful damage in 1-v-1s with your brethren. In all, this is a promising game with a cool look and solid underlying system, but which now requires a lot of optimization and balancing.
Electronic Scavenger
Completeness
4
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
3
2
4
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
3
Both looks and plays pretty well, but as a platformer it isn't a roguelike at all. It was interesting figuring out the various interactions with the blocks, and the idea of being able to take apart any block and move it was fun, although the need for a timer and speedrun-based gameplay seemed odd when combined with the fact that levels are procedurally generated rather than handcrafted and repeatable to be able to challenge one's own high score.
Nice platformer, nice graphics and great level manipulation but this is not a roguelike nor a roguelite. I can see it as a great puzzle platformer!
A really nice roguelite puzzle platformer! The ability to drag any block of your surroundings around is deceptively simple, but works great in combination with procedurally generated layouts. It helps that the game does not stop there: it has both ways to die (laser turrets, bomb squares, electronic AOE traps that appear almost unpredictably but tend to have enough delay) and the additional tools, such as the infinite jump jet boost upgrade that can be unlocked on every level, through reaching a special block, to "fan"-like blocks that push you upwards. It also helps that the graphics are nice and clean, and the music + sound effects are very well-chosen. Beating its 7 floors is not too difficult once you get the hang of the game, but it is absolutely worth trying at least once.
Elfball
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
4
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
* Love the idea of a squad based roguelike * Controling your ever-growing squad gets tedious after a while :( * Game could use some more scope.
A nice classic roguelike with a few interesting twists. I like that you are exploring a forest instead of a dungeon, it has a First Age Angband feel. The idea of balancing damage on different characters is pretty interesting, and there were a few abilities that deal with this concept, either taking or dealing damage. I feel like this concept could be expanded even further in the future, with abilities that allow you to target a specific party member, or absorb damage from a party member, or transfer health, or spread damage across the party. The player gets a fair amount of information about what is going on, and the UI is clear. It would have been nice to have descriptions of the abilities-- while most are straightforward, others were not, like Taunt and the barbarian's ability. It is very forgiving that the player has a wait key, abilities do cost a turn, and magic missiles do not need to be aimed. In fact, because there was no food clock and monsters did not appear to roam, the player can just wait until their healing spell recharges over and over between fights. I didn't feel that the spells scaled well-- while it's fine for early abilities to not be useful later, your characters do not gain new abilities. Lesser missile in particular is almost useless right from the beginning. Because there is only one portal per level, I spent quite a while sometimes trying to find it. I like the idea of cutting trees; any time you can affect the board there are interesting potential side effects, although I didn't find a use for the untargeted effect currently in the game. Definitely fulfills my requirements to be a traditional roguelike, and gets points for having a unique feel.
I enjoyed playing this entry quite a bit! Thanks for participating. I couldn't find a portal past level 2, but the concept was really good. I liked having abilities, even though it's tough to use some of them during combat. Taunt for example feels weird when you're not displaying combat in a traditional "party" format (aka. anime rpg party view, etc) But that's a minor thing. I loved having an auto-generated starting party and enjoyed picking up Elves along the way. Thanks for participating and hopefully you had a great time putting this entry together.
Learning Chaos Magic Is Confusing (But I Must Keep Going Anyway)
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
4
3
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
2
4
Completeness 3 No bugs were encountered during the course of play. It did feel like there were a few features missing though, for instance escalating difficulty, and an ending. It was quite easy to go infinite because of this, which negatively affected the experience significantly. Aesthetics 4 Each enemy type was visually distinct, and each spell was easily recognisable from every other. The clear display of each arrow with each spell was very easy to understand, and left no room for confusion. Fun 3 There was plenty of room for tactical planning and interesting decision making here. The combination of the wait and spell keys was a cool bit of design, making waiting cost a resource was particularly significant given the player attacks first nature of the combat. The game did get quite repetitive after a while though, as there didn't seem to be much in the nature of progressive difficulty. Innovative 3 The randomised abilities were cool, and definitely quite an innovation on your more traditional roguelike. Similar things are relatively common in broughlikes though, and it would have been cool to see some really crazy ideas experimented with. Scope 3 Quite reasonably scoped, a good broad range of enemies and spells. Roguelike 4 While definitely more of a broughlike, I feel like they're definitely closely aligned with roguelikes enough to count here.
Completeness: 4 The main idea is well represented here. We have several types of spells that are randomized each level. The game achieves a wonderful sense of balance. The player must choose when to pick up a magic cube, when to move on, and when to stay and clear a level for more health. It would be great to have a description of the spells in game. Aesthetics: 3 Movement animation has a nice bounce to it. The sprites are awesome and the soundtrack is peppy. The environment tiles and spell animations don't quite match the vibe. Swapping out the level tiles and a few animations would really bring the everything together. Fun: 3 If you're into puzzles, you'll enjoy this one for sure. Innovative: 2 Nothing outstandingly new here, but that's no knock on the game. Scope: 3 This game is simple and can be fully discovered within 30 minutes of playing. That's just right for a 7drl. More monster types and variations in player movement would be great. Roguelike: 2 It's definitely more of a puzzle game but has some features of a traditional RL such as random levels and permadeath.
Glad to see broughlikes getting entered as part of the jam! I also love the charming visuals and sound of this entry. It was easy to pick up on and get playing, and everything was intuitive. The core chaos magic idea is interesting & compelling, it's easy to get a sense of how to use it, but I can see it being fleshed out for a lot of depth. I think you paired that well with the magic cubes, points for enemy kills, and the enemy AI you chose. You manage to bring some of the fun of the broughlike formula and I did enjoy the discovery of all the abilities, but beyond that you haven't yet hit on making a deep system. The spells end up being relatively basic, essentially they feel like just 3 types: the stuns, confusion which is pretty close to the stuns, and the damage spells. Beyond that the stun spells are only really useful when on a 1 distance so you can get a free hit (casting already inherently adjusts parity), and confusion even less so. There's also maybe not just enough to control, it's good gameplay to figure out exactly how to match your spell loadout to the current floor, but if there's a mismatch or power imbalance there isn't really any mechanic to relieve that pressure besides just descending. Similarly the range that enemies are possibly to manipulate to is pretty limited short of burning casts to adjust parity. So often there's just not a great solution to an enemy pattern to figure out. The game doesn't punish this, you've done well to give leeway and the ability to just descend floors, but it also stretches the time between interesting decisions a fair bit. Likewise there's no real incentive or structure to hit multiple enemies with a spell, only the reward of a saved cast. So mostly I didn't engage any planning on that level and just worked my way through enemies one at a time. Structure wise, there's not much fleshed out. Not the worst for this type of game in a Jam setting, but the low difficulty (a benefit if anything) + seemingly infinite depth lets you mostly disengage from the broader systems, and if there's any real danger you can just fish for easy levels to restore health. Overall it's fun to engage the puzzle-y nature of a broughlike, and the cute packaging makes that work on some level. It's not currently deep or strategic, but with the features in place it's a great base to flesh out the game mechanics and establish more.
Lite Runner
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
4
4
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
"Lite Runner" takes Pacman and adds randomly generated levels and a variety of persistent power-ups acquired after each level. The game is pretty addictive, probably both because it's based on a highly addictive arcade and because it adds a cool power-ups twist to it. On the flip side, the controls got my really frustrated - specifically how you have to time exactly when to press the button to make a turn. IIRC, Pacman is also frustrating in this, and stops if you hit the button prematurely - but why not just buffer the next command and allow me to turn if I pressed the direction within the last fraction of second? :( I didn't notice a lot of actual bugs - the only bug I noticed (that's to me totally a feature!) is that the power-up which nullifies the cost of the next shop actually extends into your next game if you die without completing the next level.
Pretty much a perfect "Pacman as a roguelite." In my opinon there are some balance issues (I've never been much good at Pacman) but the look is fantastic and the bones of the game are great. It definitely looks, sounds, and *feels* like Pacman. I was only able to beat the first level a couple of times. The first time, I was playing in fullscreen on a 2:1 monitor, and the controls were clipped so I couldn't click them. The second time, I noticed that of my two choices, one was very expensive, so I really only had one choice, to take a speed boost (or to save my points for the next round). This made me pretty disheartened because it had taken me so many tries just to beat one level.
Monstr
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
2
4
3
Scope
2
4
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
I think this game has a really cute premise and initial execution. The music and card art are cohesive cute and appropriate, really solidifies this tinder but fighting idea going on. I think there is potential for some really interesting mechanics here especially since your chances of matching seems to go down when you have more of one type of card. But the actually execution leaves only a few ways to play the game that is mostly out of the players control. weather you see cards of the type you need for you deck is very random(i think I went 15 rounds without seeing a nerd once) and then adding them to your decks additionally random on top of that so it just leads to the player feeling like they have very little control over their deck. Although this is accurate to using dating apps its not very fun to play. To kind of combine with that since you can play any number of cards per turn and your hand is always the same during combat every fight plays out the same way. You play all your attacks and hope you have enough hp/can stunlock the opponent enough to win. I my best run I got 4 cards in my deck in the first 4 likes then reached a new clicking record on the bottom half of my screen. There just isn't a lot of decision making to be made in combat or in the hand building portion and for that the game suffers. But the bright side there is so much potential for this game to go many different directions, that's the magic of card games your only limit is your imagination(and maybe what your coding program can support) and im excited to see what paths this one will lead down over time. also uhh some random bugs: multiple of the same upgrade on level up screen. +2 chad miss next turn doesnt make you miss skip your first 2 turns gain +2 all vibes doesnt skip your first 2 turns some people cant be liked even with alot of attraction and no other cards of their time.
A really fun deck-builder roguelite with an unusual theme, implemented well. The three archetypes all feel distinct, and there's a considerable variety of playable cards. There are some issues with balance, which is broken in favor of Goths: thanks to their vampiric abilities, pure Goth builds can easily leave most fights with more HP than they entered them with, and enter the final boss battle with almost 3X HP the boss does. On the contrary, building a pure Nerd or Chad build without vampirism is very difficult, if not impossible. (Which may well have been the point.) However, many classics of the genre have comparable issues, so it does not detract from the creator's achievement, and it is a definite recommend if you find the theme even a little bit interesting (and if you can tolerate the awkward ums and sighs of the Nerds and Goths.)
This is really clever and cool. I'd love to see a version of it with more content!
Snake but it's also a Roguelike
Completeness
3
2
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
'Snake but it's also a Roguelike' asks the hard question of what happens when you put a snake game and rogue in a blender and punch it. Over 10 levels, climb, collect health and a few items, and try to avoid those stupid disks that move faster than you do, ending with an thematic boss fight I won't spoil here but fits right in. Aesthetics are functional, key bindings are as expected. Enemy design varies from ingenious (the counter snake things), to expected (the blobs that move slower than you), to frustrating (the blue + robots that move faster than you). My only negative feedback is how turning snake into a turn based game really involves hitting the arrow keys a bunch. Hundreds of times in a run easily. My hand started to get sore. Maybe some sort of system where you can hold down space to continue going in your direct could have cut it down? Not sure, it's a bit mandatory w\ the theme when you make it turned based. I was able to complete it, and while I'm not sure I'll be back for more I think there is a lot to be proud of - it's a complete unique mashup that I would have never come up with in a thousand years taken to its logical conclusions. It is what it says on the tin, that's for sure. Well Done!
This one is a neat idea. The ability to spend health to sever your body is great, and I enjoyed blocking enemies when I could. The art is nice and simple, but clear. It's always good to have different enemy types as the game progresses, and I liked the items. The sounds are very cute. While I could sometimes trap enemies and make interesting decisions about them, other times the enemy's behaviors limited my choices-- the small fast blue ones and the three-turn ones often get into situations where there is just nothing to do except get hit. I would like to see enemies that move multiple tiles per turn but only in one direction, and the challenge comes from anticipating their positions and cutting them off when there are a few around at once. Some enemies move into my body and then hit me from behind. The final boss could just be right beneath me for many turns. In other cases, it seems like the enemies hit a part of my body that isn't my head and it causes damage. The instructions for the final boss appear in the middle of the screen all of a sudden, white on light green, and fade very quickly making them hard to read. The instructions are not quite accurate as well-- it isn't that the snake with the most rocks does more damage, but rather that the snake with the most rocks does damage at all. There are a number of interesting ideas in this game, fighting another snake at the end being one of them. This idea has a lot of potential and could be a cool mobile game.
The page for this game calls its premise "a tough question no else is asking". In fact, this is far from true: there were already snake-inspired submissions to the past 7DRLs, and this very contest features several other variations on the same idea. Luckily for us, the seemingly simple idea a "roguelike snake" can be taken into many different directions, so each such submission ends up quite distinct, and not only in terms of aesthetics. (Which are very workmanslike here relative to the comparable submissions, with too many grass tiles, meh SFX and lack of music, but do not get in the way of gameplay either.) This game in particular nixes "eat food to grow" part, as your snake grows in size every time it moves already, and food only exists to restore health from the losses you'll inevitably sustain on your way through the dungeon's 10 floors. Given its short size, there's some pretty good enemy variety, and you'll likely be losing for quite a while until you learn their quirks (some move slower than you, others keep pace, and others stay immobile for several turns before suddenly making up for it in one burst of movement) and how to handle them. You only take damage if they collide with snake's head, so trapping them within the folds of snake's own body neutralizes their threat - unless you accidentally end up locking off the path to the exit that way, in which case you'll have to shed everything below the head with Space and sustain damage in process. There are also items, activated with Enter (do not confuse the two commands!) although they are random, and while Invincibility and Freeze Time are always useful, Sever Body is situational at best, and Panic is an item which re-rolls the room - potentially into a worse layout. It's also the worst item you can bring into the boss fight with rival snake, as it'll reset your progress in it. However, the fight itself is surprisingly good for a 7DRL final boss, and the game as a whole is just the right kind of challenging.
Speed Vector 7DRL 2021 Edition
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
2
4
2
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
I didn't thing i would feel this amount of intensity playing a turn based game, there's just something about making a turn at the top of the screen literally touching the wall pulling back out cutting off another driver and seeing the explosion fade off into the background that's really satisfying definitely a lot drift king moments in here. Felt rewarding to play even 7 runs in and I could see myself going back just to toy around with it. The choice to show crashing movements on your option reel in red is really smart and definitely helped me get out of some situations I thought were game over. Its a nice feature to have a log to go back to as well, sort of a greatest hits(no pun intended) of the run I would love to see that keep track of more things like clearing a turn or passing cars. fun car names by the way. There is a lot of ways you could take this for Speed Vector 2: the need for steeg multiplayer could be really fun, a fixed course would be interesting, more rogue-like-y even. You stated in the game that you weren't sure if this classified as a rogue like but it absolutely is to me st least, just the very base of one. The randomness to the map generation is what makes it interesting keeps game-play varied and challenges the player I think this is a big piece to what makes rogue-likes themselves. The only thing this game needs to really embrace that is more features along those lines pit stops with random car parts/upgrades, different map location, pickups/hazards along the road, different cars of different sizes/speeds on the road, maybe some meta progression of unlocking new drivers. All stuff that I'm sure was way outside of the scope of a 7drl its honestly impressive you managed to code this in that time I cant imagine it was easy but i would trust your gut on this feeling like a rogue-like. Also I think my highscore was around 14K
I had a good time with this entry. My high score ended up being 65091, 357 turns. It seemed at first that it would be difficult to make a game interesting when it is about movement, but you can see where you will be next and can think as long as you want. But after playing for a while, and getting a feeling for how the movement worked and when you would hit other cars, I found that I was having a good time. There is an interesting balance between speed and control, and you can push your luck a little if you think you can make a turn. The other cars act like random events, causing you to have to make adjustments instead of only dealing with the corners. It was satisfying to watch other cars crash and burn on sharp turns as you make your way through them. I enjoyed having a Spotify soundtrack to listen to as well. The only thing that brought me out of the experience was that you aren't really racing the other cars. You can't fall too far behind, but as long as you are reasonably close, it doesn't really matter. That's why I felt that the cars were more like random events because they weren't really competitors. You also can't get too far in front of them or you go off the screen. It's honestly fine this way, I'm just pointing out how it felt. Maybe it would be cool if you went through courses and had to speed up at the end to make sure you came in first. There are actually a lot of cool ideas that this game makes me think of-- maybe a pitstop could gain you back some health, maybe there are drivers with different personalities who are cautious or aggressive, different tires or weather. I enjoyed the About section, and the UI and message log were clear and useful. I wish that you could have used space as well as enter to log your movement choice-- using enter meant picking up my hand to go back and forth between the movement keys and the enter key over and over. I also wish that, after you lost, you got your most recent score and turn count on the screen, instead of only your high score. Because the game is turn-based, on a grid, and has proc-gen, it fulfills my requirements for being considered a roguelike. Really well done and an experience I'd not had before. Well done!
A wonderful little game! Had a lot of fun swerving around and crashing into walls. Got the hang of it after a couple games, and there's some strategy there!
Wizard's Mansion
Completeness
3
Aesthetics
3
Fun
4
Innovation
3
Scope
2
Roguelikeness
4
After very many attempts, I finally succeeded in obtaining the wizard's staff. The game manages to create suspense and even a bit of creepiness with simple means. It was very entertaining to find out what the different monsters and spells do. The insistence on Vi keys is a bit daunting and requires the inexperienced to rewire their muscle memory. Overall, a good entry that just lacks more content.
Diggin' It
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
2
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
Combines the best aspects of Boulder Dash with with a traditional roguelike. This game is difficult. If you aren't paying close attention to your stats at every move, you'll die of suffocation before you even realize you're out of air.
This game has style, and I like that. It is a whole little world that you have an adventure in, reminiscent of Splunky mixed with old games from the 90's. Art is great. I'm impressed by the coherence of mechanics in a 7-day game. There is enough in the game already to allow for different types of runs-- defense runs, quick-diving runs, consumable-heavy runs. Music is good and appropriate. It would be nice to have some indication of when your health or air are getting low-- as-is, you have to always be looking away from the game itself to check numbers in the corner. It's also very easy to die from falling, it would be nice to have an indication of blocks one tile further down to avoid many deaths.
This is really excellent -- feels like a ton of game for a one week effort! I'd love to see a version of it with a bit more fit and finish.
Arcane Island
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
2
3
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
2
An interesting mix of ideas in this one, playing a stationary wizard using spells to reveal an island and gather items to deal with the monsters that wake up. Game felt fairly well balanced overall, juggling mana use and making sure you can kill all the woken monsters before they can reach your position since you only have 1 hit point. Pretty good and intuitive interface overall.
Neat game! It's an interesting twist to not be able to move the main wizard, that was pretty cool. With some better UI (such as keys to move the summons) and better introduction, this game could really shine!
This is neat! Love Master of Magic, and it would be awesome to see this developed into a bite-sized version of that experience.
Assimilate
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
3
This reminded me of the battle scenes in the classic C64 game Archon. The possession mechanic is interesting and once you get used to it adds a lot to the game play. The dark graphics make it difficult to see on some screens, I had to move to a new monitor to play the game, perhaps a screen alpha or brightness control would make it easier to see. The music and graphics create an ominous, almost spooky vibe. Unfortunately, there was not a whole lot of traditional roguelike elements in the game, as it's basically just a 2D, top-down, action game with some interesting mechanics.
A twin stick shooter, and therefore not a roguelike, but one which is polished pretty nicely and quite interesting in how you use a cycle of taking over the bodies of other creatures to defeat a much more powerful boss.
Assimilate is a real-time game where you become various forms by taking over the corpses of your fallen enemies. There are a handful of enemy types to fight against and to fight as, each with different speed, health, attacks, etc. You lose health when you attack, in addition to being hit, and as you run low on health you can exit the body and enter another fresh identity. The game felt polished, complete, and stable. Assimilate has a strong aesthetic and is a pleasure to watch as you play, with a simple but understandable UI and controls. The game is fairly short but has a lot of possibility should it continue to be developed. the player is asked to choose the map size upon starting the game, I initially started with Medium which felt far too large, grew boring while fighting the same enemies over and over and seeing the same terrain features, and had me wondering if this is all the game was or if there was an ending or way to advance to the next level; so I started over on extra small and think that these smaller maps are the appropriate size for the game's current scope. The player should probably not be given this option and an appropriate fixed size should be used instead.
Cartomancer
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
3
2
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
This has such a cute style - a real solid sprite style. The cards are clear, the interface is lovely. I love where the game's going - taking inspiration from Cardcaptors with defeating your enemies to gain their powers. Rinse repeat until the floor is clear. This is remarkably short (One Floor), but it did take a few runs to crack how all the attacks work. The one hit equals death is rough while learning but the fast restart negates that for the most part. All the powers are different enough to require some level of strategy, and I'd love to see what an expanded version could look like with more spells. I wasn't a fan of lightning clouds being able to instant kill if you were unlucky but that's a real small problem. Movement sometimes felt a bit clunky? That may be purely down to movement speed rather than anything else. I'd love to see this expanded to multi level, I really liked this.
* Needs more variety (more cards, more enemies) * Could use more scope * Has a lot of potential - interesting tactics
The card mechanic is interesting. The enemies are tough, and more than once I started out surrounded by a pack of enemies. If you can stay out of crowds and control the pace, the strategy has real potential and actual becomes quite fun.
Cecil Smith and The Catacombs of RA
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
3
2
Innovation
2
4
2
Scope
3
4
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
Very traditional roguelike and very complete. That food clock is unrelenting.
I definitely had a blast playing this entry. Thanks for participating and putting this together. While I had a mostly easy time of level 1-3, it would suddenly get very difficult around level 4 with pretty much no mushrooms available. I was fortunate enough to be able to periodically return to previous levels to pick up mushrooms when needed, but that strategy definitely didn't work every time. Regardless, I loved the animations and enjoyed the head bobbing of Cecil. Neat idea, and I hope you build on it further!
This is really charming!
Lunge hero
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
"Lunge hero" is a tiny, but surprisingly balanced game: you have to learn the abilities of each enemy type, and carefully consider your escape items, if you want to make it out of 6 dungeons. Each level also offers you a tradeoff: escape quickly, or go for a chest that adds an item to your inventory and another enemy to the map. Content-wise, I think there is enough here to play the 6 levels, but the game is a few minutes long every time. You'd probably need more variety in levels if you wanted to expand the game / make it more replayable (I did replay it several times, but more because of the "can I win this again?" factor than because the levels were very interesting). Some terrain effects or other puzzle elements might help to extend this further.
Lunge Hero doesn't do anything completely new, but some mechanics have an interesting twist, which I appreciate. It's interesting, for example, that lunging does not take a turn, but Sweeping Strike does. Because there is no wait key, each one of these can be used to change your positioning relative to monsters. I like that getting an item spawns a monster, though if you do it at the end of the level you can just walk away from the monster without fighting them. I also like that you can leave the level without killing everything, very Hoplite. I tested to see if you can beat the game without any upgrades, and I found it to be very doable. It's nice that information about the monsters is displayed on their sprites. Having two abilities along with other items offered some variety. The graphics are visually clean, though I wasn't sure what some of the monsters were meant to be. I like that the ranged monsters will attack their fellows. They did attack if I was in line with them even if I was out of their range, which was unexpected. The fact that monsters don't retaliate when you hit them is interesting, but it does make the game much easier. There are a number of spelling and grammar mistakes, which isn't a big deal I'm just bringing it up. The UX is a little awkward in some places-- you have to select your move and then a direction, but the sweeping move happens in all cardinal directions, so the direction that you enter is irrelevant. I would have liked to have seen one other ranged enemy, or one other enemy with an interesting attack mechanic. Overall, a solid roguelike.
A really nice roguelike with fitting graphics and some sounds (but no music) whose primary flaw is being too short. It can offer a challenge at first, but the six levels become easy to beat once you realize you do not need to kill all the enemies on the floor to advance to the next one - and that you can afford to take one damage per floor, since that's the amount of healing you get upon moving to the next level, along with the equivalent Grit (stamina bar) restoration. This short duration also means that grabbing items from chests is often not worth it relative to simply rushing the exit - you may sustain excessive damage or expend too much grit just to get an item with limited utility for the upcoming floors, and the items' comparative variety only increases this chance. Yet, the core gameplay itself is very good. It comes down to the principle of whoever approaches first, loses - so for all the melee enemies (cloaked red figures, armored knights with doubled HP, and pink mounts with doubled HP and damage) you must never end a turn moving into a space adjacent to them from a cardinal direction, or letting them move there, without also attacking them yourself. If you do attack, them, though, then they are either killed outright or are stunned and can be killed the next turn with no damage - unless others were able to reach you from the other directions in the meantime. Thus, you need to strategically use the titular lunge move which covers one-tile distances between you and enemies to immediately attack them, at the cost of grit, and at times move around to get trees in opponents' way to split them up. There are also the green-robed mages, which attack at a considerable range and can destroy obstacles, but also inflict friendly fire. In all, a nice entry that's worth checking out, and a promising start from this creator!
MAGIC*GUNNER Moestar-chan
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
Firstly, I've played this on both a desktop and a phone, and I gotta say, the control scheme for phone felt far more natural than the KB/M scheme. It took me a few runs to get the hang of the controls but once I cracked it (and moved over to playing on my phone) I really got into the game. It looks simple, the aesthetic works and it's genuinely fun to play. (Even if I keep finding the patrollers love to dodge bullets all the time). The map feels a bit too complicated at times? With the smaller view, it can take way too long to get around a floor, but that's something that can be changed to make the generation a bit more open, or smaller? The keyboard combo for transforming, Ctrl+T? That's a new tab in Firefox which threw me off when I was trying this out on PC. Might be worth swapping that to something else. Solid execution, would be good with some extra polish.
This game is basically a finished roguelike. It doesn't have anything innovative, but never the less is quite fun to play. I didn't manage to understand how to use some objects, but that's not a negative point it adds replayability.
Rogue Commander
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
4
4
3
Innovation
3
4
2
Scope
4
4
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
The challenge of creating a full-fledged strategy game in just 7 days is ambitious and amazing! Once you learn the controls, it's a lot of fun, but the AI is pretty smart, and it moves in such a way that it's wary of ambushes, so it's challenging for someone like me who doesn't usually play strategy games. The average session is supposed to last 30 minutes, but after an hour of play, I could barely clear the first map! The attention to detail in the game, such as displaying detailed statistics, is amazing! I respect the amount of work and effort that went into completing this game. It's just a shame that there's still a bug that causes the game to freeze while playing...
Overview Really interesting and fun game, but quite unbalanced – maybe there are some clever tricks I didn't know about? Completeness The game seems to be feature complete and I didn't encounter any serious bugs. Still, the menus are clunky (and try to click "Options" several times – you'll need to click "Back" several times, too) and the balance is not quite there. Aesthetics While I can't tell that Rogue's Commander is a pleasant game to look at, everything is designed in clean and clear way. Fun Issuing the orders and then taking the turns as a commander was a great fun for me – the core mechanics is definitely something worth expanding into a full game. There were issues regarding the balance, and I never managed to beat the game. Innovation Yes. I mean, I don't recall any other game when you really feel as a commander, issues orders and then takes turns only as your unit, leaving the rest to the computer. The closest one is Combat Mission, I think... Scope It would be nice to have more diverse squads, but on the other hand, Rogue's Commander has everything what I can expect from the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness For 7DRL it's OK, but if I would see it on Steam tagged as Traditional Roguelike, I wouldn't be happy.
Silent Elysium
Completeness
4
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
Overview Fun little puzzle (?) game. Completeness Well... On the one hand, I didn't find any bugs, the core game idea is well-executed, and it is definitely a proper successful 7DRL entry, but on the other hand, it has a strong "tech demo" feel. Aesthetics The graphics are very simple and not really pleasant to look at, but the interface is very clear and easy to use. Fun Yes. ...I mean, I had a lot of fun, but it's hard to describe from where this fun comes. I think, however, that it is strongly connected with having one simple, well-though, core game mechanic. Innovation Silent Elysium definitely brings something new to the roguelike (or rather roguelike-like) genre. That moving platform, superhot-like combat, movement and targeting systems... the final effect is more than the sum of its parts. Scope In terms of "raw" content, it's a very little game. But it still fits my requirements for "minimal viable 7DRL" – it does have character progression, multiple enemies to fight with... Traditional Roguelikeness. It does have permadeath and procgen, indeed. Still feels more like a small indie action/puzzle game.
This is really promising -- feels great to play. I'd love to see a version with a little more content!
Square
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
4
3
4
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
This is a fun little puzzle roguelike. It doesn't look like a roguelike, but it quickly starts to feel like one once the game gets moving. Simple mechanics with complex strategies make it a joy to play.
Really stylish and fun!
Talk Small
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
2
3
4
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
4
3
4
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
This game felt quite unfinished, for one there was no introduction and I was just thrown into the game. There were no outlined goals and I found myself confused at first, I didn't really encounter any bugs, but the blocks from previous encounters seemed to remain for each new encounter with the same character( Not sure if this was just a bug or a feature, but I don't know how it would work as a feature), and progression in the game was none existent. Also there seemed to be no game over condition and no way to exit the game I'll be blunt and say I didn't particularly like the artstyle, the hand drawn character portraits didn't didn't look very good and some were just pretty bad, although I did like how the block character was animated. The UI was also pretty bad, the buttons placement was odd at times( I found it difficult to rotate a block when it was at the upper left corner of the screen), and I had to play the game at full screen because the game was basically unplayable at lower screen resolutions. The only reason I didn't have fun while playing the game was because I had absolutely no Idea what to do and had no way to find out, I'd say a quick introduction with instructions on what to do would really help. I haven't played a game like this before and found the concept to be very interesting, It has a lot of potential and I would like to see it as a finished game. Although having a few parts that I feel take away from the general roguelike feel of your game, it is still technically a roguelike depending on who you ask( Including me ). I just feel some form of progression, perhaps gaining affection with different characters, would add to the game. Altogether, though I have my issues with the game, it is a good concept I would like to see expanded upon. Good job.
Completeness: It's fully implemented. There are some visual bugs with UI elements overlapping if you don't fullscreen the game, but if you do it appeared to work fine. Aesthetics: The game has clean illustrations, and the UI is very understandable. The walk animation for your character is quite charming, too. Fun: The mechanics were a little opaque to start, but after some experimentation I found it pretty interesting. The matching gameplay is interesting and engaging. However I didn't find the desire to continue playing after a few completed runs. Innovation: This game does a really good job of attempting to express the feeling of conversation via non-dialogue gameplay mechanics. Non-combat-based games are unusual and this is a cool take! Scope: Scope is reasonable for a 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness: The conversation scene itself isn't particularly Trad-Roguelike-y, but the game does share the roguelike feeling of embodied movement through an area and resource management. So, roguelite, I'd say.
TinyRL
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
3
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Completeness 3 I didn't run into any bugs, and overall the game was very stable. It did feel like there were a few features missing though, an ending being the biggest of them. Aesthetics 3 The visual style was succinct and effective, there were few times when I mistook two different enemies for each other, or didn't understand what I was getting attacked by. Some of the glyph choices were a little questionable though, for instance purple for the potions was really hard to see against the background. Also, the tiles in general were really small, it would have been nice to be able to resize the window to make them larger. Fun 3 The enemies were particularly interesting to fight, as each one had its own unique behaviour and abilities. The AI was also quite interesting, as it would try and get into a position where it could get the first hit on you, and it required some planning to get around that little bit of cleverness. The stats system was a little broken, as defence was clearly the most powerful stat by a landslide, but that didn't have too much of a negative effect on the experience. Innovative 3 As mentioned above, the enemy AI was very cool. Other than that though, mostly standard roguelike mechanics. Scope 3 While there isn't a huge amount of content here, the fact that it was made from scratch in C++ is enough to warrant the score. Roguelike 4 This is most definitely a roguelike.
TinyRL is a turn based traditional roguelike and the first attempt by the author at writing a roguelike ever. The fact that they were able to complete a functional game within a week given this is a feat worth being proud of. The game uses the traditional ascii interface, but was written in SDL so a "double sized" version was available and greatly appreciated by this reviewer. With larger letters and a faint by noticeable color scheme the action was always clear. TinyRL follows the Rogue mold closely, with weapons, shields and health potions being the items and bump combat. One small addition is the grass terrain type and the possibility to lose enemies with it. The game has no fixed end state that I could find, having a high score system with gold and kills being combined. Though every year as the community continues to explore new themes, mashups, and ideas, there is something to be said for revisiting the past classics to recapture some of their magic. I was able to use this game as an example of what a "original" roguelike looked and player like to my children during testing. Well done!
Nothing too out of the ordinary here, but everything is done nicely. The game looks very pretty, the UI is presented nicely, and it plays well & without bugs. I enjoy the map generation, the layouts work well for the gameplay and are varied without much dead space. Occasionally it's hard to find the stairs because of LoS blockers, but otherwise it flows well. Monster AI is the real draw here, and each enemy does behave unique in a way that builds into a nice set of challenges. Loot is nice, but barebones; you see the same items quite a lot, and it's pretty quick to find the best drops available (seemingly). The game plays like a stealth game, there's very few combat encounters you can take Even with defensive gear most enemies can deal 1/3rd of your HP or more. But it is fun to work your way around enemies and keep doing. Dwarves and Wraths are the standouts here, their mechanics are the most troublesome to keep moving and force fights. I probably killed more wraths than any other enemy. Vampires/Goblins fill the basic case while Ogres are pretty rare and skippable. Warlocks are neat, but their movement makes them generally not worth fighting. Mimics are a doozy, I think they're one mechanic that works the least. Their huge stats effectively mean once Mimics start showing up it isn't worth looting any items. It doesn't help that the item pool seems exhausted by that point so there's little value in most new items anyways. To make matters worse they make the game *easier* because they reduce the density of threatening monsters like dwarves, vampires, and wraths. Other than that mechanically maybe this leans a bit too much into stealth. There's very little reason to ever fight a monster and most of them you can skip around without any serious trouble. If expanded, I think you either would need to rebalance combat to be more worthwhile, or you would want to lean into stealth/evasion and design around that. Otherwise it's a fun and well polished roguelike. It all works, and it's great discovering the new enemies. It just needs more gameplay and direction to really make it click into something worth mastering.
Excavation Site Mercury
Completeness
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
3
Innovation
2
3
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
No bugs, and aesthetics were good, though it would have been nice to be able to view the controls somewhere in game. 2 stars for fun, innovation, and scope were all interrelated. As far as I could tell, the enemies just move randomly, and there's no benefit to attacking them. I didn't find any way to heal yourself either, so you mostly want to avoid enemies. That made it feel like the optimal strategy is to avoid enemies, try to give them time to move out of your way, and maximize your leg/dodge so if you do get attacked, the enemy will hopefully miss. There needs to be more here to create interesting decisions (more enemy behavior, more terrain interactions, more items). If there is more depth that I just didn't see, then it should probably be better presented to the player and/or included earlier in the game.
I quite liked this 7DRL, and I think it's a really good example of how to create a fun experience in 7 days without either compromising on roguelikeness or falling prey to feature creep and trying to stand out with more content than can be reasonably tested/balanced in a week. Instead, Excavation Site Mercury limits itself to the absolute basics, but makes them work. There is no equipment, no combat system besides bumping and only 3 stats to level. There are 4 floors and 4 enemy types. What keeps the game interesting is the complete inability to heal, as well as the score system, which drive certain trade-offs. Essentially, if you make it to the end, you are rated on the amount of treasure you have collected, as well as the time you have taken to get there. A lot of the treasure is hidden away in locked rooms - some of these are completely impossible to unlock if you have not invested in the corresponding stat. However, the only reliable way to level up stats is by choosing to enhance one of them as you descend the stairs to the next level (there's also an improve-by-use element, but it's tightly capped and of secondary importance). This means that end-of-level improvements to "Finger" (lockpicking) would come at the expense of "Leg" (defence). Your greed is thus in competition with your desire to survive. Ultimately, the common-sense play is still to improve Leg every time, which eventually renders your character immune to 2 out of 4 monster types by the time you get to the final level, and try to dance around the monsters as much as possible before that. Even so, it's not as easy as it sounds: after I have beaten the game for the first time on my third try, it's taken me five more tries to do it again, so there's still replay value in spite of its simplicity. In terms of aesthetics, the game has a nice, clean and easily readable look. Its main shortcoming is the complete lack of any music or SFX: addressing it is main recommendation for any post-7DRL version.
Rogue Sea
Completeness
3
4
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
2
Fun
3
3
2
2
Innovation
3
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
3
Rogue Sea is an entertaining if slightly frustrating pirate game about gathering coconuts in increasingly difficult seas. Controls are pretty intuitive and the game on the whole looks and functions pretty well, if a little slow when zoomed out in particular. It gets some points for innovation because of the relatively intuitive aesthetic of "playing as a large multi-tile object" but the frustration of frequent softlocks kept this reviewer from giving it a full fun score. The game does warn players that this is possible to do; still, it might have been better to give them a way (perhaps by sacrificing health) to leave the softlocked situation, or even to warn or prevent them from getting into it to start with. There is a fairly easy trick to avoiding it, which I won't spoil here, though it may not be easy to pull off if you're trying to shake another pirate off your tail. Avoiding other ships is a little fun, but the varying difficulty of different generations and randomly chosen goals among the islands makes for a bit of a balance issue. It is also not clear whether it is by design that you don't know which islands will be able to heal you or rearm you with more cannonballs. Having some hint might have been helpful.
This game is a different experience, and I appreciate that from a roguelike. The concept is really interesting, the name generation is amusing, and the mechanics all work as expected. The idea of procedural islands and ascii ships is great. The ships going on their own adventures makes a nice little world. The combat requires careful positioning, as you might expect from ship combat, but it does takes some getting used to. I wish there were one or two more options for the player in combat, as it can be extremely difficult to defeat enemy ships that have it out for you. I would also like to see a faster cannon animation, as you sometimes have to wait on your turn while combat occurs in the corner of your screen. This idea could be expanded into something pretty neat, maybe with different ship types, different goals, a larger map... it makes you think about the possibilities.
Seemed a little rough around the edges. Had some confusion from duplicate island names, got squished between an island and another ship with no way to get out, hard to tell what you'll get from which island. The core idea is interesting and I think it could be developed further.
Rogue Sea is full of pirate talk, with all the "Y'arr"s, "matey"s, "Shiver me timbers" and the like you could ask for in its instructions and log. Yet, it feels very little like being a pirate - unless you believe that dutifully following compass directions from island to island in the search of coconuts, of all things, all while constantly running out of cannonballs if you dare to fight, is what pirate life was really about. Going from one target island whose name is always written on your UI to another 4 times, getting rewarded with a bigger ship and a larger map, and then doing it 2 more times, is all that's needed to beat the game. The combat is present, and it's non-modal, too: even if you are not in combat, you'll still often hear cannonfire and splashes/timbers breaking from other ships infighting for reasons only known to themselves. Yet, all the fun is lost due to the need to regularly sail to one specific island out of many around in order to be able to shoot once again. You may well not manage to complete a single shootout without having to retreat (or worse - search for) cannonball island, which are impossible to tell apart on the map from any other island. Same issue applies to the repair islands, but at least they are more frequent. Your one advantage is that the hostile AI are bad shots, and are prone to shoot in spite of their target being blocked by an island - or even straight up get stuck on islands and end up utterly helpless and easy pickings. While you are technically rewarded for collecting coconuts by being awarded larger ships and encouraged to fight more, it's actually much easier to fight with the starting ship, as the cannonball island is much faster to get to, and larger ships getting a couple more cannonballs and HP is more than offset by them being far more cumbersome and easier targets for the AI. In fact, being larger can even make it more likely that a non-hostile ship runs into you and forces you to wait in place for several turns to get unstuck - and if you want to just blast it apart, you may well not have enough cannonballs left for that. In all, while it's nice to see multiple submissions devoted to the Golden Age of Piracy, Rogue Sea requires substantial rethinking in order to match the level of at least the other entries.
28 Turns to Die
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
3
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Really interesting and ambitious game definitely feels like the whole town is moving and alive as your scavenging to find all four notes. That lighting is immaculate gives a really fun pseudo 3d vibe a lot like Teleglitch if you have played that. Im sure this was an absolute monster to code but I honestly found myself not interactive with the mechanics very much. I think sneaking was useful once and running to reposition is nice but in my first play through I had so many extra resources because most zombies would just ignore me, love interest, or take a single pistol round. Still died in that run though to walking out of the only exit to a building and having a zombie sitting around the corner I think, its hard to tell because the game over screen covers the map after death. the next run i tried just not messing with weapons at all just scavenging for food and running around for the notes and honestly didn't feel much different. The variety in runs is really neat however during one of them I found a hot spot of zombies and civilians that basically locked up a whole corner of the map. Had a really fun moment that run where I came back with a rocket launcher blew open a hole in the building they were guarding got all the stuff and left, everything having health adds a lot of dynamism to the game play. This one definitely feels like it was crunched by the 7drl constraint which is why I'm really excited to see how this one heads in the future. also minor bug reports: attempting to pick an item from an empty chest occasionally crashed the game. If standing next to 2 chests space bar doesn't open either. Sometimes I could put items away in a chest but not take them back out this seemed to be true even if i put all my items in it. This might be a feature but zombies sometimes loose aggro even with nothing else on screen to chase. Sometimes F10 does not close the game
Relatively complete zombie-apocalypse-themed roguelike. Pretty traditional in form, on-point for scope. Not any real innovation here, though the mechanics are all fun enough in isolation. I think there are some pretty bad balance issues. In particular, the game feels nearly hopeless, which is fitting enough for a movie, but to be honest, I think the hunger clock and the "everyone's becoming a zombie" clock are doing the same thing and it might be best from a gameplay balance perspective if players only had to worry about one or the other. Day/night cycle is neat but similarly seems to add unneeded difficulty (though it sure helped for atmosphere seeing that shrinking field of vision). I've gotten 2/4 sequences. And there is at least one noticeable inventory bug which seems to disadvantage players who try to put a club into a box that has one already, preventing them from picking up a club again in that run. The aesthetics on the controls/UI side could also use some work; in particular, it should be easier to navigate menus. However, for all that, the game's fun factor is actually rather high. It's *fun* to lose in this world. If you want a roguelike that really captures the feel of being in a zombie apocalypse movie, you should play this game.
After a period of familiarization, I liked the game very much. It offers some tactical possibilities thanks to a selection of weapons and the possibility to run. The crouching, however, I could never use sensibly. Letting the zombies infect more civilians was a smart decision to gradually increase the difficulty. I found at most three notes before I made a mistake and lost. Maybe this is one of those games that would benefit from prohibiting moves that end up next to a zombie and therefore lead to defeat. I found it unpleasant that one processor core was constantly fully loaded and I think the chests are a bit buggy.
Abyss (7DRL Submission)
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
"Abyss" is a nice little broughlike about collecting loot in a disintegrating dungeon. I think the decision to hide the game rules (or at least the floor tile rules) in scrolls in the pots is a brilliant way to avoid help screens and have an interactive tutorial. Planning a route that leaves you with a guaranteed escape is an interesting problem/puzzle to solve, although I did not find it engaging for long. I wanted to find all the different loot types, but only encountered 3 or 4 - if there is more, perhaps it would help to give the player a hint that they have more to unlock? I also did not notice the enemies have substantially different behavior; if they do differ, it would be nice if the game demands the understanding of their abilities in order to do well in dungeons.
Completeness 3 The only reason I didn't rate this 3 for Completeness is there are no sound effects or music. Otherwise, the presentation was very good, up to the standards of a mobile indie puzzle game. Aesthetics 4 The graphics are good-looking and functional. The state of the game is very easy to read. The controls are simple and obvious. Fun: 4 The 7DRL version kept me engaged for a solid 30 minutes, and I played a bit longer to make sure I saw everything. The well-chosen set of mechanics and good balance made me constantly consider new information and think of new tactics. Innovative: 3 This is a well-executed genre mashup with solid ideas to tie the genres together. Scope: 3 Roguelike: 3 Meta-progression, lack of interlocking systems, and other things disqualify this as a True Roguelike to me, but it does have many roguelike characteristics. I am probably stricter on this category than most reviewers. Notes I would be happy to have this game on my phone if it had a bit more content. The content that made it in is well-balanced. The rules for the shifting map are mysterious at first, but are explained well and feel like a good balance of predictable, risky, and strategic. The map size also feels perfect for the gameplay. Adding the notes as in-game items was a fantastic idea. I felt like I was given enough information to get going, and as I got better, I learned new information at a good pace and played better as a result. They're like the "tips" screens you see in complicated software like IntelliJ but I actually want to read them. I do wish they had become more rare on subsequent runs so I didn't see repeated information.
Overview Tiny puzzle roguelike. Has potential, but the 7DRL build is too simplistic and random. Completeness No obvious bugs spotted. Quite unbalanced, but that's the "fault" of core game mechanics. Aesthetics Nice graphics, but the text is tiny and hard to read. Fun I would really like to give Abyss the better mark here (it's 3/5 right now), but I just can't. Not right now. I really like the core game mechanics (tiles disappear and floor shifts when the player moves) and its consequences (risk/reward management). The problem is that player can't really plan ahead. I know that the author in the post-mortem wrote about "pushing your luck", but I think it would be much more fun if the player could plan more, and if the floor changes would be a bit less random. Innovation A rather basic roguelike, with an interesting twist. Scope Tiny. One small floor, few enemies, gold, and pots. Traditional Roguelikeness If Hoplite is roguelike, then Abyss is one, too.
Get the Gold and Run!
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
4
2
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
There's something deeply interesting about ever-shifting worlds, even after the path has been laid out. Putting it in a setting where you're looking for treasure works so well - it feels like the dungeon itself is doing its best to protect itself from the plundering player. Games where the greed of the player factors in make for interesting experiences - I like my YASD experiences part the game punishing me, and part me overreaching for that extra bit of treasure. The only downside is there were moments where I got stuck going around in a circle waiting for the path to open back up again, but that's something that can be solved. Aesthetically, the style is simple but works. The controls are a little clunky and don't always pick up my direction inputs. The audio - the music is nice and fits well, but the audio for the enemies is all over the place in quality and quiet in volume compared to the game.
If you only have five words to describe this game, "Spelunky as a traditional roguelike" will do. Both are clearly inspired by the same modern mythos of Indiana Jones, and share some key attributes like snakes, mummies, whips and revolvers. The crucial difference is that you do not have to go down a set number of floors and can (indeed, must) go back up instead. In fact, you can get back out pretty much immediately at the expense of 0 score, so playing it is a constant trade-off between your caution and your greed. The other difference is that you heal with much more convenient potions here, while the whip is not a starting item and must be found randomly like everything else. However, it's a game-changer once you do find it since it lets you strike the square in front of you, with only the rarer revolver superior. And of course, while some roguelikes reroll the floors whenever you re-enter them, the crypt here goes further and also rerolls itself every dozen turns - which often temporarily exposes or buries some treasure as well. Altogether, it's a pretty fun game, and you can potentially spend quite a lot of time playing it and trying to get better. However, its current state lacks notable technical polish, with occasional issues that need to be fixed ASAP. Not only can you find yourself standing in lava upon entering the level (which is thankfully not immediately lethal), but under some unclear circumstances, your character can apparently get misaligned with the grid - after that, enemies will be able to move into the same square as him without dealing any damage (and vice versa), and you'll also not be able to move in certain directions, rendering the run unwinnable.
L4DRL[7drl]
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
2
4
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
I couldn't tell if the levels were procedurally generated or not.. they're basically wide open spaces, and I'm not really familiar with Left4Dead, so I can't really speak to the faithfulness to the original IP. At one point, I had an inventory full of empty weapons that I couldn't drop, which was a bit frustrating. The idea of turning Left4Dead into a roguelike is kind of neat, and I think a little more work could turn this into a fun game, especially if you made it a multiplayer game somehow.
I had a good time with this one. In my first few games I just moved around and fought some zombies before dying, but after getting the hang of it and after understanding that the green areas are staircases, I got my first win. Most situations can be solved by kiting the zombies into your squad. I like the fact that if you start losing people, things get much more difficult. In the end, after using the radio, the hordes slowly wore us down as I throw explosives at them and used the last of my ammo. As the last of my squad members was killed, I used adrenaline and ran from the hordes until I was rescued. It was very cinematic, and an unusual experience to have in a roguelike. There are a few other things that I liked, including just the fact that there are so many zombies; it is satisfying to throw the explosives at a horde. I know that the game isn't completely finished, so feel free to disregard my feedback if you are already aware of the issues. You should be able to drop items-- as it is, once you use up a gun it just sticks in your inventory. Picking up multiple weapons should just increase the ammo of your existing instance of the weapon. The camera shift along with the close-up view is a little jarring. It would help if dead squadmates changed color. Once, after using up the shotgun, the game stopped taking input. Once, after dying during the countdown, the end screen switched from a losing to a winning message. Some more closed and varied environments would help to make the interactions with zombies more interesting. There were some cases where I could just run straight to an exit without fighting anything or taking any damage. I wish that the different types of items on the ground used different glyphs. Although some of the mechanics, especially the squad, are unusual for a roguelike, the game definitely fulfills all of my criteria for being a traditional roguelike because it is turn-based, grid-based, and procedural. I really appreciated having a new and interesting roguelike experience, and I had a good time splattering zombie blood all over some dots and hashes.
A faithful and entertaining roguelike imitation of Valve's classic game! (Not sure why the creator considers it a It features pretty much everything you have come to know in it - from shotguns, molotovs, adrenaline and boomerbile found in care packages to Tanks, Smokers, Witches and large hordes of the basic Infected, who function much like you have come to expect. The ASCII is easily readable, the sound effects are well-chosen (especially the footstep sounds, which are often hard to get right), and the AI of the other three survivors is good enough to fend for themselves and not cause you any problems. Pretty much the only issue is that it's on the easy side - as long as you do not piss off Witches needlessly and remember to toss Molotovs at hordes and pipe bombs at Tanks, you'll typically get to the level exit without any real issues just by heading straight down. The final "survive for ~150 turns" showdown upon using the Radio is likewise not particularly challenging to endure. Even so, it's a worthy example of making a squad-based roguelike (no idea why the creator considers it a lite) in a limited amount of time.
Mantis
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
This was a fun, arcade style hack and slash game. Aside from the procedurally generated levels, there wasn't a whole lot of traditional roguelike elements to the game. The challenge and aesthetics would put this game right at home on the NES along side the likes of Berzerk or Gauntlet.
I had a fun time playing with this entry! The concept was an interesting enough hook to get me buzzing around the level a few times. I had a hard time getting any bees to finish the first level, but overall could see something fun here. Thanks for putting this entry together and I hope you enjoyed your project time on this.
Mantis is a curious hybrid. It begins as an apocryphal roguelite Soulslike - the kind of game you might expect to get covered by Iron Pineapple on YouTube at some point. Its combat has all the core features - light and heavy attack, stamina and a dash move with i-frames, all of which are appropriately insect-styled. While more than a little awkward at times, it is nevertheless impressive for a submission. From midway onwards, however, it plays much more like a shmup instead - both because only the ranged enemies evolve by shooting more projectiles per burst with every floor, while melee ones may deal more damage, but are no faster and so just as avoidable as before, and because by then you would accumulate a veritable army of bees, which are invulnerable and slowly shoot to whenever your cursor is pointing at. Insignificant at first, they start killing things out in the open far faster than you do once their numbers are somewhere between 6 and 10. The final (and only) boss never even came close to me - I just dashed around and let my 20 bees do the work in about 15 seconds. All in all, Mantis is a fun game and a definite recommend, although it would definitely benefit a lot from replacing its four enormous levels that all look the same with a larger number of much smaller floors: the current number of largely identical rooms/corridors takes a while to traverse without feeling meaningful and mainly serves to inflate the amount of available chests and thus boost player's stats well beyond what is reasonable. There is also the room for the usual kind of expansion (more enemies, more sound effects/music, etc.) and to fix the non-biological bugs - it is currently possible to dash so hard into a wall you break out of bounds and cannot get back, forcing you to restart the level.
Spellweaver (7DRL)
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
3
Easily one of the most roguelike entries that I've played, which I enjoyed. The idea of customized spells in roguelikes comes up a lot, but this is a very strong execution. The game also communicates the idea of "squishy wizard" really well, both in good and bad: sometimes survival is entirely random, with you descending stairs directly into enemies. Spell crafting, the game's strength, is also its weakness: it makes gameplay incredibly slow, as well as clunky. Also, while I liked the visual style, some design choices make no sense: the textbox being read bottom-to-top is incredibly disorienting, and targeting is hard when you can't see the cursor under enemies. I listed a lot of negatives, but I'd still say the strength of the basic gameplay makes it worth trying out.
I really like the idea here. There are so many opportunities for interesting interactions using the different combinations of elements to handle different enemies and enemy combinations. The aesthetic of the game is nice, and I like how the dungeon changes as you go down. Things like the water are a nice touch. Although I was able to get about five or six levels deep, I was not able to beat the game. The monsters are simply much, much too strong. I often die to a single enemy. The fact that each step to prepare a spell takes a turn is pretty harsh. I do like that the lichen just sit there and let you practice your spell-making. And you need a lot of practice-- the game does not communicate enough with the player. Sometimes I would make a spell and then target a monster and there would be no message-- did the spell fail? Was it out of range? Is it gone now or still active? If you imagine a new player making a spell for the first time, what information are they going to need in order to make decisions? The level generation also seems a little uneven-- I had levels that only took 4 steps to get through and others where I wandered for a good while without ever seeing an enemy. Of course, this is just a 7DRL, so some unevenness is expected. It definitely fulfills my requirements for being a traditional roguelike. I really liked the underlying structure of the game, and I gave it a high score for innovation. If the game did something interesting with every combination of elements and showed what was happening visually when the spell was used, it could be a very cool game. I can imagine an icy lightning bolt that freezes enemies and electrocutes everything in water, or a fire earth spell that does a lot of physical damage and turns water into steam. There are a lot of cool possibilities.
I love roguelikes and I really like spell casting! I thought this entry had some good ideas, and hopefully you can spend some time adding to this one. Perhaps a few sound effects and maybe some further instructional text blocks would help. It didn't prevent me from running the game, but also noticed some Java exceptions in the console whenever I'd exit. Thanks for participating in the 7DRL! Hope you had some fun and enjoyed creating this entry!
Steel Dungeon
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
4
4
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
4
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
2
I immediately liked the graphical style and responsiveness of the game compared to a lot of other entries, but I wished there was more of both: playing the game rewards you with a lot of the same, and there's little in the way of change in you character asides from a few of the upgrades. Upgrading was fun, but there wasn't a lot of things to fiddle with (and sometimes you'd randomly get two of the same choice). All this, coupled with the lack of music, made the game pretty monotonous. Certainly the base is there, now all you'd need is a lot of icing on the cake!
I enjoyed this entry! Great work for your first time out! I had a good time going through the map, though I wasn't entirely sure if there was ever more then one level....it kinda felt like I was going through the same sections repeatedly (not a negative, just an observation). The artwork was great! Thanks for participating and hope you plan to continue work on this entry and tweak it a bit more
This has a ton of potential -- very atmospheric, and the upgrades kept me playing for quite a while!
The Road Less Traveled [7drl]
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
2
4
3
Scope
3
4
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
Nice game on the Pokemon genre. The art could benefit from some more polish while the music is perfect. The "fun vote" could also benefit from some more polish, in the first run i got shredded to pieces in the first screen by a farmer 8). In the level up screen, when you have to choose which skill to discard, there are no descriptions so i could not understand which skill where better/worse.
A turn-based, modal roguelite which almost does not feel like it was made in 7 days. Whereas most 7DRLs can be figured out quite quickly, I spent several hours on this one before winning; granted, a lot of it is thanks to accumulated knowledge you simply cannot obtain on your first runs, like what the skills you have not picked do. This game is also a road you have to travel down for a while to truly appreciate what it is about. While the way you travel as if on rails is amusing, mouse-only controls are unfortunate, and it at first only offers you the usual JRPG combat against rather standard enemies, where the 4 abilities appear to barely differ from each other. As you start getting better and levelling up, you replace the most generic skills with their elemental equivalents and start facing more enemy types but it still feels rather standard...until you appreciate just how much decision-making is involved on the map and in deciding who to fight in the first place. It is the bonuses (and the occasional handicaps) you permanently obtain from fighting certain creatures that ultimately shape your run, and you have to think hard about those. The core factor of what makes The Road Less Traveled different is just how difficult the healing is. You do not get healed fully post-battle, or even at all; nor do you get healed when levelling up. Crossing from one screen to another does help, but to a limited extent, and trying to maximise that kind of healing comes with far too many risks in the long run. The other three ways to heal also have their own downsides. This forces you to carefully consider every encounter and make trade-offs: even if you can seemingly defeat every creature present on the map, powerful salamanders will keep being spawned from the edge of the screen to make sure you do not linger for too long. An even more unusual decision is that the only way to get cured of damage-over-time status effects (burning and toxin) is by consuming a semi-common enemy. You'll probably have a couple of these in an inventory by the time you start getting hit with these, but getting into unwise fights with powerful status users can easily result in your Hero gradually withering away during the subsequent battles. While the idea of a fire that never goes out on your character but only does damage to him on the combat screens is ridiculous and should likely be toned down, it does result in a calculus unlike anything else. A notable flaw is that the current way of unlocking combat skills is too rigid. On any given run, level 7 will always be Lava Punch, the next level-up Razor Leaf, etc. When combined with the complete lack of UI information about skill properties, and the requirement to drop old moves to learn new ones, the outcome is that you'll likely end up rejecting the majority of moves offered due to not fitting your playstyle at the time, and it does not help that some often feel like straight-up downgrades of your previous moves. A system where you are instead given a choice out of two-three skills drawn from a pool appropriate for your current level would help create more interesting runs. Even now, however, the spiralling interactions between over a dozen of passive traits and consumables you can obtain on the map and amplify, mostly through beating enemies (i.e. one defeated Turtle reduces enemy speed by 5%; 2 by 10%; etc.) more than make up for that. They are also the big reason for early, mid- and late-game feeling distinct not just in terms of graphics and music (although the shift from leisurely theme of intermediate area to the chanting in the third one hits hard), but also in terms of player experience - especially if you make a certain terrible mistake in the early-game which turns the late-game from a potential cakewalk into intense hell. A definite recommend, and I am looking forward to post-jam improvements - from typo fixes and better keyboard support to a revamp of the skill system.
This is really cool!
ToyboxRL
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I love playing a meat-and-potatoes 7DRL like this one. It's unambiguously a roguelike and is a nice combination of careful design and made-in-just-7-days limitations. The theming is very on point (though the music did get repetitive after a while...thanks for providing a toggle). The different enemies are very easy to tell apart, and the puzzle piece background is a nice touch. It's a bit on the easy side. I won on my first try, using tactics similar to what I would use in Brogue, staying out of sight and only picking fights I could win. The game felt pretty generous with the buff items once I identified them. The final "boss" was very easy. It was a little hard to tell what was going on with the army men. I wish there were a clearer indication I was being shot at. Overall, this is a really good entry, especially for someone learning a new game engine, and I'm glad I played it.
It looks like this game was a way to learn Godot, which is awesome. It has the basic roguelike elements and monsters with unique attacks. Content appears to be missing, as the player is shown their damage and evasion stats, but there is no way to change them. There are no items and the jelly beans don't appear to have an effect. It's a 7DRL, so it's understandable. The only item that needs to be picked up is the final super bean. While the lack of character progression means that there isn't much for the player to do other than search for the stairs, it does become interesting to learn the different enemy attacks and do your best to avoid getting in fights. The theme is nice and has lots of potential. The chess rooms with knights are great. You can imagine all sorts of childhood toys and their potential attacks.
(Review of v.1.02) A very traditional roguelike in an untraditional setting. It is very stripped-down as well, since there is no levelling, and the only items are jellybeans, which are equivalent to potions, so the only progression is through consuming the stat-increasing jellybeans. There are a few jellybeans with standard malignant effects too (confusion, paralysis and enfeebleness), and you can toss them at the enemies...but this only does physical damage without inflicting the status effect, and usually does not even destroy the jellybean. While that decision is unusual, the one design choice which defines the entire gameplay is the lack of health regeneration or healing from descending floor, with the rarest type of jellybean being the only way to restore HP. However, this is offset with player's health being ludicrously high: it begins at 500 HP, and by the time I finished the game (in a single run), it was 1400 - all while the starting toys deal about 5 damage with their attacks, and even the most powerful ones, Nutcrackers, are limited to 15. Having said that, while you are never in an immediate danger from the toys, they are capable of draining down quite a lot of HP over time and are refreshingly distinct from each other. Army Men shoot AND retreat from you until backed into a corner: RC cars move much faster than you are; Matryoshkas spawn Sub- and Subsubmatryoshkas. Most notably, there's a chess-styled room where the only enemies are Knights, which really do move in L-shaped patterns only. This enemy variety, along with the good choice of tiles (which even have brief attack animations) and music (but no sound) help make ToyboxRL worth playing in spite of its limitations. One last note: after beating the game, you are offered to "reset", but this ends up equivalent to NG+, as you retain your stats from the end of the last run, and your memory of jelly bean properties. This is likely a bug, since challenge does not increase proportionally.
Pizza Frank
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
4
3
2
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
3
2
4
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
Completeness 3 I didn't run into any bugs, and the game loop of collect pizza ingredients to make pizzas felt complete. A bit of polish was missing though, would have been really nice to have things like your money show up at the end when you die, so you can see your final score, and range indicators for enemy movement as well as the sauce attack would have been useful. Aesthetics 4 I'm going to include sound design here, as it has to be mentioned, and it only really fits here. I think this is the first 7DRL I've played with voice acting, which was great. The art of the patrons was also really nice, and I really appreciated the effort that went into the consistently goofy style. Definitely unlike the standard 7DRL aesthetic that I'm used to, and given that the jam is supposed to encourage experimentation, this is a fantastic thing. Fun 3 Although the players move set is very limited there was a decent amount of strategy in timing the sauce move to just the right turn, and planning your routes to avoid the most enemies. It also turned out to actually be kind of hard, it took me a couple playthroughs to get the end score of 18 that I ended up with. Innovative 3 The memorisation of the pizza patterns was a cool addition. I could definitely see this idea of having to memorise some specific sequence being used in a longer form roguelike. Scope 2 The scope here was quite limited. It would have been cool to see different sauce abilities that you could use, or more types of enemies as the game progressed. Roguelike 3 The standard roguelike formula of move around in a grid and face off against monsters, but with pizza added on.
This is a fun little dungeon crawler about MAKING A PIZZA. It has a lot of silly charm, though it suffers from a bit of "now how was I supposed to avoid that?" in terms of its enemy placement, which for a game with such tight player stats, has a large impact. If the game were a little more forgiving with sauce, which allows you to disable enemies, it might be too easy, but this reviewer suggests that starting the player at full sauce-meter rather than making them charge up would offset one or two of the more difficult random enemy placements. And while it's not terribly innovative, it's definitely entertaining for a play or five.
Extremely charming game.
SecBot
Completeness
3
2
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
Interesting and quirky with a lot of personality but suffering from a few design problems. The asthetics work really well to this setting mousing over things for descriptions and health made me feel very "cyborg scanning the enviorment for hostiles". Having to physically tell your character to not target people is a really nice form of ludo narrative storytelling. The line of sight working with windows led to some really cool scouting out the next room moments that i wished happened more often.I was impressed with the amount of thing tracked by the game although I would've liked it to track whatever killed me as often I found myself getting shot my sources i couldn't see. That leads into the main problems I have with the design some enemies cant be dispatched without taking a hit as they shoot the moment you enter their range. Xenomorphs seem to be able to shoot through walls. Its possible to enter a level an died immediately or on the turn after you enter & since the only way to heal is to hope for a health spot to spawn its very often getting taxed by enemies in this way will kill you eventually. I really wanted to like this one a lot more but it just generally felt like each level gets progressively harder but the player never gets any better at dealing with that difficulty. unrelated bug report the items/monsters destroyed counter doesn't reset on a new game.
You succeeded in creating a fun and simple game and I really enjoyed the flavor texts. Too bad the overall experience was shaded by enemies firing through walls and the fact that the game froze, just when I thought I could finally make it to the queen.
Great flavor, solid gameplay!
A Helping Hand
Completeness
3
2
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
2
3
4
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
This is an action platformer. It's fun to play, and for a first game in Unity it is really well done, but this is not a roguelike in any way, shape or form.
A plaftormer with limited roguelike elements but a very charming visual style and great music/sound. The room layouts are selected randomly from a pool of the stage you are on: however, it's only large enough to occasionally show same rooms in different order. A more important randomization is of what kind of animal friend boomerang you'll get to rescue from a cage: you may find ducks (?), which quickly fly straight ahead when thrown before returning; frogs, which immediately drop down and then slowly leap forwards unless you collect them/move far enough away to auto-drag them back, and jays (?), which are between the two. However, rooms with cages, rooms where you release animals to get upgrades or healing, and the boss rooms all occur in set intervals (and in strict order for boss rooms), so the game feels like it would have lost little, or perhaps even gained, as a traditional platformer. Even so, it's a very neat platformer for a jam game. Movement and jumping feel just right; if there's one issue with controls, it's that the "hitbox" for interacting with cages or upgrade stalls is too precise, forcing you to stand exactly in the centre to achieve what you want. With gameplay in general, there's often an amusing choice between jumping in front of/behind the robots and tossing faster ducks, or getting above them and dropping frogs onto them. Making trade-offs between the power of your throws or healing and paying for either with what is effectively your "ammo capacity" is also an unusual mechanic. Ultimately, the best approach appears to consist of staying balanced and never upgrading so much you are down to a single animal, but also making sure you regularly improve damage while not letting HP get too low. (There are also speed upgrades, but those appear much less useful in comparison.) All in all, this is a very nice game and I am glad it exists, even if I am unsure if the best future for consists of becoming a deeper roguelite, or a more extensive traditional platformer.
In Another Timeline With My Self
Completeness
4
3
4
4
Aesthetics
4
3
3
3
Fun
3
2
2
3
Innovation
3
4
3
3
Scope
3
3
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
3
2
2
This is a fairly simple game; sort of an essence of RPG grind; but it plays smoothly. You will win; it just might take a while. You start on level 0, a random maze with some stationary numbers sprinkled throughout. The numbers represent monsters or challenges; moving onto a number defeats it, and defeating all the numbers completes the level. You won't win level 0; you will die. This is where it has a bit of a twist. Instead of restarting, level 0 is saved and you descend to level 1. If you die there, you descend to level 2, etc. You carry over some of your power as you change levels, and the levels seem to get easier, and you get upgrade points on each level change, so eventually you'll start winning levels and ascending back toward level 0. Eventually you will get back to level 0 and be strong enough, or have cleared enough of it previously, that you can complete it and win the game. I wish outcomes were conveyed more clearly. When I click on a number to fight it my eyes are on it, so it's hard to see the changes to the power and health stats at the bottom of the screen. Something like a "+1 power / -5 health" flashing at the combat location might help. I wasn't sure if the tint of the numbers mattered or if it was purely aesthetic. I also wish I could see the outcomes from the final combat that wins or loses a level, and then see the power-to-health transfer afterward. The game is smooth and bug-free. I used the mouse interface, which has a nice smooth movement and repeat rate so you can hold the button instead of clicking repeatedly. The mouse doesn't quite pathfind to where you're clicking but it can get around some obstacles. The stacking structure, where the first level you start on is the level you complete to finish the game, is dramatically satisfying.
Completeness: It appears mostly implemented, but the game doesn't appear to properly lock the keyboard. Hence the keyboard controls are effectively unusuable. Also, there isn't a way to restart the game after winning, which is...mostly fine, really, since it's a browser game, but not high on polish. Aesthetics: It's very clean and readable. However, the UI is awkward, as every time you go up or down a level (and you will go up and down a lot of levels) you have to click a whole bunch of times to reassign your stat points, which is a major drag. Fun: It feels like there isn't much decision-making. Feedback, and the rules of the game, are extremely unclear. As far as I can tell the winning strategy is just to always hit the smallest number you can reach, with little variation, and if that's correct the levels seem very similar and repetitive. Also, as far as I can tell, you can't actually lose, so you can sort of just mash your face on the game until you win. Innovation: The mechanic of death-as-level-up, after which you return back to the place that killed you, is really cool! Having second-life or after-death mechanics in more roguelikes would be nifty. Scope: Wholly reasonable. Traditional Roguelikeness: It's mostly feature equivalent to a trad roguelike, barring that I don't think you can lose, which actually transforms the experience into something that feels completely different while having a similar feature set.
This is a very interest premise, the strategy of descending & ascending and the allocation of power vs HP makes for an interesting setup. However it ultimately feels like the start of a good idea, rather than a full experience. There's no real loss condition as far as I could tell, failure is simply a setback of time, that's not inherently bad, but it does greatly reduce the longevity of the experience and impact of following a good strategy. I'd enjoy engaging with this more if there was some failable goal, or even a score/leaderboard I was trying to manage to push me to think and optimize rather than brute force my way through. Overall with the straightforward combat, the strategy is a bit flat, there's some choice in how you allocate the powerups, and trying to take out a tough enemy when you're about to die on a floor, but otherwise things are pretty straightforward. With some expansion on the mechanics this could start to have very interesting gameplay as the layering system does work quite well otherwise.
This game's title invokes time travel: unfortunately, it is represented in what is arguably the simplest way possible, as its primary feature is metaprogression. Everything else is extraordinarily simple: from the dungeon layouts, which have nothing but in walls in them, to enemies, which are immobile and are simply depicted with numbers correlating to their power, as if this was Hero Wars or some other mobile puzzle, to the unnamed player character only possessing two stats: Health and Power. Essentially, you are doomed to get killed by the very first enemy you encounter, and then you'll likely keep getting for a while before you'll eventually upgrade yourself enough to start pushing back up. Having beaten the game, it seems like the optimal approach is to keep sinking all your upgrade points into Power at first, as Power is halved whenever the @ sign dies, yet the HP is increased by half of whatever that power was. Keep doing this, and you'll eventually become strong enough to clear a level. Once you do, you should reverse the approach and pour all level-clear points into HP to heal yourself. Then, if you eventually start getting killed again, you go back to just buffing power. Eventually, you'll win, and since there are no high scores or the like (only an "I have escaped the dungeon!" message), there would be no reason to come back to it again. I still had some fun with this game: more fun than with some more traditional and ambitious submissions. However, it was in a pure "numbers go up!" sense, rather than the kind of challenge and planning that is usually desired from the genre. In terms of aesthetics, the game lacks any sound, but looks simple and clean. Destroyed numbers popping like balloon was a neat effect. There's little else to say.
In the archive
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
2
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
"In the archive" offers you to explore a dungeon/library to find artifacts and notes about great sealed monsters, and eventually gather enough gear and info to battle these great monsters. I'd say the main mechanic is that each weapon has several keywords (piercing/slashing/blunt, fire/ice/light/dark, etc.), and you have to work out what enemies are weak against what types - the same extends to great monsters, for which you can find corresponding notes. I found this premise interesting enough to finish the game once, but has some feedback: * The dungeons all seem to be generated by the same algorithm, just with a different color. This really doesn't inspire to explore them further after the first one (I think the enemies were different, but since I mostly one-hit them, I didn't care). Having a different generation algorithm or some other feature of the terrain would make it more fun. * I found most (all?) of the notes on the very first level of each dungeon - would be nice to put them at the very last, or encourage player to go to the final depth in some other way. Also, a teleport that takes you back to the archive would be very welcome - at least in my case, cause I mowed down most enemies on my way down. Which brings me to: * The balance is way off, I did not feel threatened ever after picking up an armor and a weapon. I essentially brute forced the right weapon and armor against half of the great monsters, because I had a full arsenal and 20/20 heal charms. * Finally, having to press the key every time I need to move (as opposed to press down once and move repeatedly) is very taxing on my keyboard :)
I appreciated that this was a traditional roguelike, but had an unusual setup and a unique feel to it. Just the choice of glyphs and colors gives it a different feel, and the setup of building an arsenal of weapons, charms, and armor to take on bosses is pretty cool. It requires some patience from the player for sure, but I like the idea of having to write stuff down. The theme is improved immensely by the flavor text for me-- instead of just saying that a boss is weak to fire, there is a bit of history explaining why. This sort of thing makes it feel more like you are fighting creatures that existed before you got there. I felt that although there were a bunch of different armors and attacks, they were all basically the same other than the boss fights. I mostly used charms to get the first hit, and then used my weapon to get the killing blow. Because the charms can be used on any monster in your LOS, there wasn't any thought of positioning. That's fine, it just gives the game more of a feeling of resource manager and info gathering instead of compelling combat. The biggest issue that I had with the game by far was the lack of any type of fast travel; even the ability to hold down a key command would have helped. The number of key presses to go through the game over and over as I learned how to play ended up making my hand feel strained. It is a game where you can die suddenly and there are no potions, so small mistakes are costly. Most of these mistakes on my part had to do with the fact that I would assume that an auto-targeter would target the closest monster, but that was often, possibly even usually, not the case here. I also had quite an issue figuring out how to close any menus, since the key commands are not given on the inventory screens, on the itch page, or in a separate help menu. Overall, the game has some great ideas and I like the setup of it. With some Quality of Life changes, it can be a cool and unique-feeling experience.
Pillar of the Old Gods
Completeness
4
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
4
3
Innovation
3
3
2
Scope
4
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
## General review It's a beautiful game ! The artwork is great, the UI very polished. Gameplay is interesting, it's a kind of JRPG, where you only play the battles. ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 It's a complete game, and even includes several game modes (the normal mode + a tutorial). I did not experience any bug, everything seems to work as intended. Aesthetics: 4 Beautiful art, reminding me of the snes JRPGS (Secret of Mana, FF VI, Chrono Trigger, ...). The UI is clear. My only criticism would be that middle-click on skills to find out what they do is not too intuitive (I know it's explained in the help and tutorial). Perhaps replace with mouse-hover ? Fun: 3 This game is worth trying, and definitely has potential. Could become much more fun with added tactical positioning. I am also missing a sense of progression. You are supposed to climb a pillar but the game puts you on a succession of battles in unrelated settings (ruins, island, desert, ice ...). Innovation: 3 It's like a classic JRPG, but the skills and the way time and turns are handled are new to me. Scope: 4 This goes beyond what I expect from a 7DRL, specifically the inclusion of detailed tutorial and help system. On the other hand, the author states on the itch.io page that many elements were leveraged from previous games, so the final is clearly something that has been developed over far more than 7 days. But that's allowed by the competition rules :) Traditional Roguelikeness: 2 Not a roguelike... As stated earlier, this is a JRPG battle game. You just move from battle to battle. There is no exploration, no item collection, no clear final goal. There are some tactical choices, but very limited compared to what you typically have in a traditional roguelike.
Overview Nice idea about playing entirely as a support for the group of adventurers. Not very roguelike-y. Completeness Game runs fine, and I never encounter any obvious bugs, but it definitely could use a bit more polish. Aesthetics Overally, aesthetically "Pillar..." is very pleasing game. But that title screen and rigged font... Fun Fun concept and decent execution. Innovation Playing entirely as a support definitely feels fresh. Scope Reasonable for 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Well, it doesn't feel very rogueliky – it's more like JRPG with random encounters and permadeath.
This is an entirely fine jam game, but it also feels like it could have been a lot more with more focus and polish. The artwork is very nice, and the gameplay is alright. However, the premise does not really come across at all, in large part due to the lack a consistent battlefield aesthetic. I appreciate the wide variety of the enemy sprites, and they could have worked if the interiors stuck to the idea of the tower. However, I find that going as far as including island maps inside a tower (even if there's a reference to "faraway lands" in the description) cheapens the experience. The lack of a consistent progression from level to level, and from battle to battle, makes each run feel like simply a set of unconnected random encounters. The way the game immediately sends the player from an encounter to the next, with no victory screen, log text, etc. does not help matters. Lots of traditional roguelikes, including 7DRLs, managed to generate palpable atmosphere with their examine descriptions and/or log text. Even pure JRPG-combat games like LISA, OFF or Darkest Dungeon were able to incorporate narrative into combat through creative attack names and/or in-combat dialogue. As it is, there's not even a way to tell how far are you into the game: you are just suddenly presented with an encounter that turns out to be a final boss, and then get a single ending screen. (I would advise to disable Alt in the ending, as it can quit the ending to menu while one is trying to screenshot it.) With combat, I like that there's both a factor of some enemies being clearly either vulnerable or resistant/immune to the priestess' sole attack, and of the difference between normal, tanky and "glass cannon" enemies. Deciding who to target when there's both a fire-vulnerable tank like the Ent monster or White Wolf, or a less vulnerable yet clearly more fragile footsoldier creature can be neat. As is deciding whether a particular encounter calls for buffing the ranged party members or helping your frontliners weather the assault at the start, or focus-firing one creature early to relieve the pressure and help ensure they do not get overwhelmed. Likewise, whether or not the enemies are capable of ranged attacks can make a difference in regards to whether or not it's safe to buff Mage/Archer. However, the balance feels off. I defeated the final boss on the first try after losing a few times before that. He felt much easier than any of the "late-game" random encounters featuring 4-5 enemies at once. And while the combat is functional and at times presents interesting decisions, it is rarely as good as the best of the genre. The lack of any sort of progression or resource management can help make individual JRPG-style battles feel more tactical, but it doesn't really come across here, and only aggravates the "nothing in the run is connected" feeling. There's also the UI issue where the tooltips are currently bound to middle-click. That is a REALLY unusual design choice, and one not mentioned on either the download page or int he tutorial. Right-click is usually the preferred way to display this information. Potential post-7DRL improvements. * Music/SFX. Their lack may be one factor why the game appears to miss the sort of JRPG magic it was clearly trying to recreate. * Shifting tooltips to right-click, and expanding them with creature/ally descriptions. * Inter-battle narrative of any kind. Something as simple as a couple lines of randomly chosen banter on a victory screen before the next battle can help a lot. * Some sort of a score mechanic. Keeping track of how many times your allies have fallen in battle, average turn count per battle, damage dealt/healed, etc. * More cohesive set of battle screens and/or some inter-battle character progression.
ROTUND DUNGEON
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
Fun
4
4
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
* Lots of fun to play! Tumbling is fun. * Why don't bombs kill enemies?! * Found ourselves getting trapped sometimes. * Not very roguelike.
This is squarely in the roguelite category. Very little roguelikeness to it. However, it is fun, and the cartoony enemies and classic sounding effects make this a joy to waste an hour or two on.
Rescue Roguelike
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
2
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
4
I think the game is more of a puzzle then a roguelike, a nice puzzle. I can't seem to reach the end of the game after 30 minutes. The tactical comba is very good and gave me some hard time. I only found it unbalanced one time where my archer was stuck behind two villagers i could not see coming.
I love this idea, taking a lot of inspiration from Into The Breach and making it into something that has a new and interesting feel. Each character gets different useful abilities, there is a lot of thought about positioning. The graphics are very nice and the soundtrack is pleasant and energetic. I like this style of pixel art. While there is a lot of visual clarity in some ways, it would be nice to have big animations linked to sound effects-- it can be a little tough to understand immediately what is going on in some places. Adding to this-- the controls are nice, simple, and intuitive. And yet, the control screen is absurdly complex. I get that this may be a vestige of the tool used to make the game, and I like the handheld console feel, but looking at the control screen is overwhelming and not at all clear, and it makes it seem that you have to learn all of this. It was possible to push enemies down past where you could interact with them, but they would still act. This can be a design choice, but it is a little frustrating. It can also be easy to get overwhelmed after playing for just a while. Pushing enemies into the water is super satisfying. Because the game is turn-based, on a grid, and procedurally generated, it gets full marks for being a roguelike. The undo function is very nice to have. Overall, though I had some nit-picks, it's a really cool idea with good implementation and I enjoy this type of game a lot. This is the type of game that I would check out again if it were expanded on.
Ring Of Ire (7DRL 2021)
Completeness
4
2
4
Aesthetics
2
3
4
Fun
2
2
3
Innovation
4
2
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
* Love the idea of a battle-royale roguelike * Simple but complete game * It's a bit easy!
Basically a battle royale roguelike with armor and weapons to gather, 50 other enemies to fight (or avoid) with an encroaching circle of death and all. This seems like more of a proof of concept since as is it's relatively easy to just run away from everyone while gathering the best gear and then killing the other final survivor to win every time. For a single-player battle royale game the AI needs to be pretty good, but this one is not. To be honest, though, it would be pretty challenging to create such an AI in a single week, not to mention expanding the variety of items or other features that the AI could make use of so that it could actually have a chance to shine.
Ring of Ire has a simple point to make: "hey, those battle royale games that were played by untold millions for the past few years would actually be really damn creepy if they were real." Thus, it recasts the genre's defining feature - the ever-constraining and lethal border driving the players towards each other - as an unstoppable eldritch force, and while it retains the progression of finding better armor and weapons, it's extremely basic, as if to say that it's all completely pointless - a point emphasized by the haunting music. Likewise, while I would normally fault a 7DRL for basic enemy AI that does not bother to pick up better weapons and is quite passive by the end, here this can be interpreted as them resigning to their fate. In all, this is beaten quickly and with no real replay value, but it's a memorable concept regardless.
Scription
Completeness
2
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
4
2
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
4
This may not be very fleshed out but it's certainly piqued my interest. I'm not normally one for games like this, but combined survival and investigating glyphs mechanics makes me feel like a roguelike researcher scrounging for clues in the wilderness and I'm very for this feeling. Moving through kept throwing me off, I kept hitting nodes rather than paths while backtracking so I could rest out of the cold. I'm very interested in where this goes from here - extra polish and mechanics could really do this concept wonders.
Completeness 3 All the functionality is there, but it still leaves quite a bit to be desired in terms of polish. It would have been really nice for instance to have some visual indication of what sites have been meditated on, and what sites have uncollected items on them. Nevertheless, it is a jam entry, so full polish can't be expected, but these are changes that would be great to see in a future version. Aesthetics 3 The map is really great at telling you what regions are safe, but that's about it. As mentioned above, more visual indication would have been fantastic. Fun 4 The idea of translating a bunch of strange symbols is immediately compelling, and having that translation take the form of a trek across the world collecting pieces of evidence is great fun. There were a few frustrating points, for instance towards the end most of the statues started giving glyphs I already knew about, but overall it was a very enjoyable experience. The different biomes also added quite a bit to he exploration. They had quite a negligible effect on the exploration mechanics, but they really helped to split up the world into different distinguishable sectors, which then helped in keeping track of where different things were in the environment. Innovative 3 The overall concept of translating a bunch of ancient glyphs is already an interesting innovation, however it would have been nice to see a little bit more meaning in the glyph makeup itself. All the glyphs having roughly the same makeup led me to believe that there would be some meaning I was supposed to be deriving from number of lines and dots, and their orientation. That kind of a system definitely would have been much harder to implement, but also would have helped to separate it out from other mystery and investigation themed roguelikes. Scope 3 Very reasonable scope for a 7DRL entry. Would have been nice to see more polish, but other than that the ideas that are there are fully explored. Roguelike 2 Although it is procedurally generated, there aren't really enough of your traditional roguelike elements there to really call it a roguelike.
Well I am not entirely sure what I am meant to do here! But I guess that's the point? I figured out that meditating and searching only work when there are statues around, though searching doesn't seem do do anything useful anyway. I like the node graph map and variable climate, and the three stats interplayed with each other in interesting ways (e.g. you might need to rest to regain health but you are in the cold and you have no stamina to move so you die). At first I thought the runes were patterns of roads at an intersection, then I thought they might have something to do with the types of statues found there, but who knows... Kind of frustrating but definitely something new!
Seeking Legends
Completeness
2
2
2
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
2
4
Innovation
2
2
3
Scope
2
4
4
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
The bones on this one are good, but it's clear that it suffered from too large of a scope. 7 days was just not enough time to make this a full game at the scope it was aiming for. There were a lot of options for character builds but they didn't seem to matter much. Bugs both obnoxious (like fireballs and corpses persisting) and game breaking (keyless locked doors) made the fun suffer quite a bit. To be clear this review is of the "Shame Build" as it was made within the 7 day jam period. It looks like the maker has continued to work on this project. Which is good because it has a lot of promise.
first off I love the art I can clearly see you had a lot of ambition with this one and a lot of care went into it. Even with the shame build there's a lot to like. I gave it a couple playthroughs even I never made it past the 3rd level due to level gen just to see all the skills and gear. The character creator is quite robust and the options menu was more than most of the games Ive played through(i endlessly appreciate a volume slider). I think my review of the shame build is largely redundant as your probably already well aware of any problems it has. But Ill give the .2 version a try and leave a review in the comments because I hate to give this project as low of scores as I have and think you deserve the feedback.
I really found this one to be a gem! Incredibly ambitious for a 7 day jam, but I definitely recommend you find some time to keep building on this! I loved the character rolling, the artwork on your game page and just the whole "feel" of the game loop. I wasn't too sure what was a "bug" and what was by design in some cases, but that's fine. Also wasn't sure how to use proficiencies. *Maybe* an easier to read font in your in-game instructions? I hope you enjoyed putting this together and had fun despite the 7 day crunch
Sphere
Completeness
2
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Honestly this game just never clicked with me. Either it was way too easy (the first few levels which are mostly just empty corridors - a run key would be nice) or way too hard (anything after that in which I'm swarmed by aliens); I never really saw a reasonable level of challenge. I also found some rather significant bugs. First off, if you drop your pulse rifle, there's a chance it will disappear permanently. And this leads into the problem where if you hit the F key with nothing in your inventory, you'll be stuck in targeting mode with no way to exit it and continue the game. Finally, it seems that you can cheat by using the X key to examine tiles that you haven't explored yet. I do like the atmospheric text that is displayed when you enter a new level, though! If only the gameplay were compelling enough to match...
There is a lot to like here. The setting is cool, enemies and weapons are thematic, and I like kicking the eggs. Any game with smoke grenades is a good game in my book. It has some DoomRL/AliensRL vibes to it. It's always interesting to have a gun in a roguelike. Visuals are nice and mostly clear, though you can sometimes miss monsters that are brown on brown backgrounds. There is an amusing bug where if you return to the location of your ship on a lower floor, you can still see it. Unfortunately, there is another bug that makes the game very difficult to complete-- there is no way, as far as I can tell, to exit the fire mode unless your target has died. This info is not in the instructions either. For instance, if you target a monster that is outside of your weapons range then you have to keep shooting the wall until they get closer and you can hit them. This came up in a number of different situations and ended many runs.
In sci-fi, Dyson Spheres are objects so enormous they wrap around whole stars to gather their energy. Yet, in Sphere, whichever part of it you are exploring fits on a single screen, and goes just six floors down: presumably you had really good sensors to pinpoint the location of the artefact and know not to wander off. As a game, Sphere is enormously inspired by Alien: while AliensRL and its later fork Alienhack already exist, this does not stop Sphere from being effective at what it does. In particular, its level generation algorithm is surprisingly good for a 7DRL, with every level out of 6 feeling very different from each other, and the geography of the early levels goes heavy on either winding, angled tunnels, or organic walls, both of which heavily limit your visibility and mean that whenever you cannot see more than 2 tiles ahead of you, you are open to an attack from the Xenomorph expies scutterers, which act twice a turn. While they only deal 5 damage out of 100 to you per hit, and die in one hit from your Pulse Rifle, their numbers and ability to attack twice a turn once up close make it stack up - and that's before considering that both healing and ammo are very much limited. In theory, you can try to wait for a long time before every corridor entrance with poor visibility to be sure, but while this may work on floor 2 (and you may get to witness some scutterer-alien zombie infighting as a bonus), the hive floors are full scutterer eggs that may unpredictably hatch on any given turn; while that doesn't occur too often, it does mean that waiting simply converts more defenceless eggs into creatures you have to expend ammo to kill. Cutting through the organic walls of the hive at times presents a similar trade-off, but the enhanced visibility and thus less room to get ambushed feels worth it more often than not. However, your success in the current version of Sphere is heavily affected by randomness. There are only a few in-game items, and they are all randomly found in supply crates (and alien crates later on), with no real weighting. Thus, your ratios of Pulse Rifle ammo to Plasma Rifle ammo to Medkit charges to Smoke Grenades will typically vary heavily from run to run, and it's entirely up to RNG if you will have enough ammo to be able to fully clear floor 4 or not, and if you will have found a Plasma Rifle at all by the time it matters. The worst thing is consistently finding a surplus of Smoke Grenades: these only begin being useful on floor 5, where you begin to be beset by ranged androids, and even then, they'll only prevent them from shooting at you while in the smoke (and likewise preventing you from targeting them unless you try to guess their position in the smoke) but not confuse them enough to stop the android emerging out of smoke after a few turns, ready to shoot at you, and with greater accuracy thanks to being point-blank than it would have had if you just tried to trade shots at range in the first place. It's possible to get 20 Smoke Grenades by floor 5, but only have 20 Plasma Rifle ammo - when it takes about 5 shots to destroy one android, and you'll run into multiples (plus the alien zombies, which are slow bullet sponges that are best avoided on their own but can surround in you in numbers) unless you get really lucky with finding the exit/the crystal. Sphere is played in dead silence, but it has an effective and consistent aesthetic visually, and one nice touch is that every defeated enemy leaves something behind: typically green bloodstains for scutterers and yellow ones for undead xenonauts. However, I would recommend altering the upstairs symbol, since it uses same shade of green as scutterer blood, and can be difficult to pick apart once you have killed a bunch of them in the vicinity. Altogether, this is a promising coffeebreak sci-fi RL in need of better balancing.
The Undertide Expedition
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
3
3
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
Completeness 2 Missing party member functionality, which seems like it was intended to be a pretty big part of the game. I don't think there's a way to win either. Aesthetics 3 The underwater aesthetic is really neat, and I dig the splash screen at the start of the game showing the base. Readability wise it could have been improved a little bit, there were parts of the interface that bugged out a little bit. For instance, the description of your current kit is larger than the window it sits in, so you can't see the bottom of it. Fun 3 The water mechanics were a really neat idea, I'd love to see a roguelike that puts a major focus on manipulating water and its movement. The setting is generally just really cool, and I'd love to see the idea expanded. Innovative 3 Underwater is a setting I haven't seen take center stage in a roguelike before, so that was really cool. I can imagine a bunch of really cool ways it could be used, like swimming enemies you can see through the glass, and explosive weaponry that damages the station and lets in water. Scope 2 As mentioned earlier, still missing a bunch of key features. Roguelike 4 Fits all metrics.
Overview That's a strange one. It's fun, but also a bit tedious. Has a great atmosphere, but also lacks the substance a bit. I definitely enjoyed this game, and I hope that the dev will continue to improve this game after 7DRL. Completeness Didn't encounter any serious bugs (except long input lag in the initial 7DRL version, but it's fixed already). Still, the game could be more polished. Lack of 'look' command is quite big problem here – you can learn what the tile represents when you walk over it, but some tiles are impassable. Aesthetics In terms of aesthetics, it's a very classic roguelike, and in these terms I will judge it. I like the colors and the selection of glyphs, and the title screen is cool. Still, the entire user experience could be clearer – sometimes I didn't know if the character next to me is the enemy or just furniture. Font also is not really readable, and while it isn't a problem for map parsing, reading the instructions was just an eye-tiring process. Fun The best element of this game is the atmosphere. And the atmosphere is built by entering hatches, hacking doors, flooding water... The problem is that most of these elements don't seem to have any gameplay consequences – it's just a different tile, a new message. Another thing is that game's hard – if you enter a new floor and from the very first turn you are surrounded, it's hard to not die. Maybe that's I never progress much further, and never won the game... Still, pleasant experience. Innovation Well, the game itself is not revolutionary, it's a rather classic roguelike... But it has some rarely used mechanics, like water flooding rooms (and yes, you can drown). Also, the premise of rescuing people that will help you afterwards is interesting Scope In terms of content and mechanics, The Undertide Expedition delivers what I would expect from the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness You can't be much more traditional than this game.
Build and Delve
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
2
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
4
4
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
2
Well that was clever! It took me a while to figure out how all the different cards interacted, even after reading the instructions, but I liked it! There were a few annoyances and bugs, such as picking up a weak weapon automatically unequipping the stronger one I already had equipped, and for some reason the more powerful cards only cost half the advertised amount of focus (but I still can't buy them unless I have the full amount). But I really like the idea of combining a deck builder, a dungeon builder, and a roguelike, and tying the number of treasures to the monster threat and the number of monsters to the size of the room was a good way to balance things. I do wonder, though, what would happen if you just kept playing no cards, getting a narrow, empty corridor and lots of focus, and buying new cards with that focus... did I discover an exploit?! But that would be no fun so I didn't actually try it...😉
This game has a pretty interesting concept: you're dealt 5 random cards out of your ever-growing deck, and you distribute this hand to build a dungeon and beat it. It also has some amount of content to explore (three levels of rooms, weapons, armor, and monsters). The balance between translating more cards into enough monsters to translate the rest of the cards into items is quite interesting to play with. My main issue was that once my deck gets bigger, I started finding less and less rooms that I actually wanted to tackle, and instead either spent my Focus on additional high-level cards, or just skipped the room without any actions. One could argue that assembling a deck that leads to interesting levels is a challenge of its own, but I did not feel particularly compelled by it. I think the game needs to introduce some additional mechanic or constraint that forces the player to interact with most hands they are dealt, and minimizes skipped rooms. Another weakness of the current version is that the dungeons are small and homogenous enough to not really allow for much strategizing: there are no corners to cut to escape from the enemies, no terrain or environment to utilize - you either melee your opponent, or run. I was also confused by the cost of buying cards with Focus - they had certain prices below which buying was disabled, but the actual purchase only seemed to cost half the amount. Not sure whether a bug or a feature I didn't understand.
Oubliette
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
2
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
2
4
Oubliette is a turn based puzzle roguelike, with the primary mechanic being using the tiled to line up enemies so you can strike them with your sword. At the beginning of the game each enemies moves/attacks for every two of your moves, but as you progress you speed up and get more actions. Collecting chests upgrades your weapon, and after enough chests you get a key to exit the dungeon in victory. The pixel aesthetics and animations were solid, and gave the game some life and character. I was able to complete it after a few learning attempts. As the author noted, this was a learning effort and had limited development time. Despite this, they were able to complete it to functional, if tech demo length, and it is completed. This is to be applauded - real artists ship. Well done.
The game is cute. Between the music and the cartoonish graphics, it has a whimsical feel to it that makes it unique.
A brief, simple yet satisfying puzzle roguelike that's is exactly as long as it needs to be. You are either one of gaming's weakest knights, or you face some of the strongest slimes there are - either way, you both die in one hit, and while your knight moves in four directions, he only attacks in the direction he's facing. The confines of single-room oubliettes add tension, although the challenge is offset by slimes being much slower and thus, exploitable. Pixel art and SFX are both are really good for a jam submission. The one downside is a last-minute difficulty spike of the sort that requires foreknowledge, and which you probably won't see coming the first time you get there.
JOMBAT
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
3
3
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
As intended it does indeed seem to be possible to eventually become unstoppable in JOMBAT given the right combinations of stat bonuses, and there's a fair amount of strategy here. The idea of choosing a harder set of enemies to gain twice as much of reward is a nice way to lure the player to their death if not prepared well enough. In terms of mechanics, saving up extra time to be able to do more attacks at once is an interesting concept, but one that when repeatedly faced with multiple enemies didn't seem all that useful since I generally wanted to kill everything as quickly as possible before it could start damaging me.
JOMBAT is a menu-based JRPG combat game with roguelike elements. Aesthetically the game is simple but for the most part makes good use of its menus and is easy to navigate and play. The combat system has some unique elements to it such as its turn system where you can strategically save up or overuse turns, and its magic system where your spell power is dependent on the amount of mana that you choose to spend. The player is presented with strategic decisions to make with alternate paths on each floor and an upgrade system with randomized options for progression. JOMBAT appears to go on forever with your final score being how far you made it through the increasingly difficult levels, and has a detailed score sheet you can view and share for each run.
An experiment in JRPG combat devoted to pure stat min-maxing. There are no party members, abilities or status effects: just pure attack, magic attack, defend and heal, and the randomly generated enemies with silly names are no different. The only progression is through picking perks at the end of the floor and it is the only thing that matters. Nothing else does, and so the game is fine with breaking a lot of rules. You can act multiple times per turn by over-extending your TP (and get hit hard over the next few turns that you have ceded to your enemies), you can choose between easier and harder sets of encounters every floor or straight-up skip entire floors to rest - and do so indefinitely. There's even a Cheats panel that allows full heals or insta-wins - which makes no real difference in the end, as the game has no win condition and goes on indefinitely until you die or end the run with "Egress".
Labyrinth
Completeness
2
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
2
3
Cute I like the cube aesthetic I think the design of all of the spaces to just perfectly fit the character leads to a really comfortable dungeoneering experience. The weapon swings feel good the weapons all seem to have their own place and the power ups are appropriate. Wise decision to cap the speed potions at 3 because I was more than really to collect enough coins to clip out of bounds. On that note I never found out what throwing coins actually did, had fun throwing them at enemies and every wall or question mark I ran into but nothing ever seemed to happen. Returning back to center to buy items is interesting but since most rooms are just a time sink on traversal and combat rooms are basically empty space it kind of leads to a really boring slog back to base every time you want an upgrade. I thin having items be found in the rooms/drop from enemies would've helped a lot. its fun i would like to see more im a sucker for hack and slash dungeon crawling. Also major bug report when firing the wand in rapid succession it clips my headset, seemed to happen to my friends who were watching my stream on discord as well not sure what would cause that but you should probably fix that or put a disclaimer for headphone users asap.
The music has a very 80s retro feel to it, like watching Stranger Things. The mazes are unique and the combat is challenging, though having to kill everything in an area to open the doors is more akin to a Zelda game than a traditional roguelike. In fact, this shares a lot more in common with the classic Zelda overhead games than Rogue.
A roguelite which possibly shows the best use of sound in this contest. While a lot of submissions tend not to include any sound at all, limit themselves to only BGM/a few sounds, or have an obvious mismatch between different sound effects, every single sound here was clearly designed to work together. The starting beat dynamically accelerates to a much faster tempo as soon as the enemies appear, and seamlessly fades back down right as you kill the last one in the room. Death sounds differ for different monster types and the attack sounds are also apropos. Combat is simple enough, but the enemies' speed and the tight layout of each room means that kiting hostiles is nowhere near as easy as in some other roguelites submitted this year. Quite a lot of upgrades are available, but you can only buy them in the starting room - since the game intentionally emulates a labyrinth with no minimap, there is always a temptation to forego retracing your steps back to the start and instead attempt to push on further, hoping that you'll stumble upon the exit before succumbing to attrition. Whether or not that approach succeeds mostly depends on the total labyrinth size you set before starting the run. Labyrinth isn't perfect. The variety of individual rooms is relatively limited and some annoying layouts can crop up a bit too often if you select larger labyrinth sizes. There are also bugs - some rooms adjacent to the starting one may not generate properly, with the player seemingly sinking into a wall instead, or even getting to see another adjacent room from the side, and monsters may at times end up spawned on scenery and end up stuck there. Nevertheless, it is a unquestionable recommend, especially as those issues are secondary to the great core design and may end up ironed out later.
Mal
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
* Game was well made, UI was clear. * Gameplay was a bit dry; hack slash whatever * Hard to differentiate from the pack
This is a roguelike. Don't let the bug themed coat of paint fool you. You start out cutting your teeth on Ladybugs and ants, and the next thing you know you've been jumped by a pack of Scorpions that come packing permadeath. Charming little take on the classic formula.
A very simple roguelike about the toughest, fastest snail in the garden. While there are a couple of references to snails being slow, everything in the game moves at the same speed, so Mal easily keeps pace with critters that should by all rights be much faster - from ants and mantes (plural of mantis), to rabbits and squirrels. The only mechanics of note are a lack of regen, with healing instead provided by a limited number of berries per level, and each level containing neutrals (ladybugs, ants, rabbits) in addition to hostiles (mantes, scorpions, snakes, squirrels). The game retains progression through levelling, though, so the optimal playstyle is to kill everything that moves on the first four floors, and then rush through the last two. You can take as much time to clear out a level as you like with no penalty, though this arguably fits with the snail theme. Main difference between levels is actually in neutrals' strength: ladybugs can never hurt the snail so you should eat them ASAP to gain experience faster and take less damage from mantes. Ants are stronger at first, and require more levelling to become harmless, so you should clear out snakes/scorpions first before hunting them all down. Rabbits are killable but deal more damage than what a snail can heal, so just ignore them and only fight squirrels if they are clearly in your way. The game lacks any sound, but has a nice, clean look. I only think it goes a bit overboard on the fog-of-war effect: levels would feel a little less slow if once you spotted the stairs for the first time, they stayed marked even through the fog of war. All in all, a decent, if unexceptional jam entry, and hopefully a valuable learning experience for its creator!
Sewer Shootout
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Nice, well-rounded game. I liked the small number of elements. The resource management with knives and guns was fun and pretty forgiving. Some of the enemies felt the same, but overall had good variance. The number of options for the player is pretty limited, basically point and shoot. And I think some extra polish would've been nice, like some indication of knife and gun durability. And perhaps auto equipping the same item if it breaks. Nice job!
Sewer Shootout is a pretty standard "find the thing" type roguelike quest, themed on having, well, a shootout in a sewer with some cartoony sewer people and gangsters in a bid to recover your lost cell phone. (At least, cartoony is the vibe I get.) It's a pretty traditional roguelike that has a major mechanic that lends it innovation but also contributes to some balance issues: Weapons break. But it's not clear when or why they break, so it feels like a punishment that you haven't earned. The game, in the sense of the equipment you're left with, feels like a bit of a "slot machine", mainly because of the aforementioned mechanic. Some levels also seem harder than others for where they're at in the progression. However, it's easy enough overall that this probably won't matter to players more skilled than I. Scope is on-point for a week's work and the aesthetics are alright. The letters were a little wobbly for my taste but controls were good and well-communicated, mostly. There's a tactical trick or two that make it go way smoother, as well, but I'll not talk about those for fear of spoiling the experience, if this sounds like your kind of thing. Overall a short and sweet, but far from perfect, game. Pretty good for a "first ever Rogue-like" as the readme describes it.
Completeness: Feature-complete. Found one major bug where if you failed to pick up an item from a stack of items, it deletes the item you failed to pick up, which wasn't great. The balance felt really bad; weapons break almost immediately, and your health regenerates, so the consistent strategy is to get into a corridor, wait for enemies to exhaust their ammo, beat them to death, and then heal. I suspect that was not intended. Aesthetics: Mostly functional but I died multiple times to not being able to read my HP total, given the dark-blue-on-black nature of the UI. Fun: Due to the aforementioned weapon degredation, it quickly became repetitive, since I expected a boss and saved my good guns for it. Innovation: It was competently executed but featured no novel mechanics or interesting swerves. Scope: Pretty decent. Traditional Roguelikeness: Definitely a trad-roguelike.
The Apocalyptic Shuddering of the Strawberry Earth Mother
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
4
The sound effects, movement and colors made this feel like a classic Colecovision game. It's really difficult and I'm not sure what was happening most of the time. A health bar might have been nice and a little work on level layouts would help a lot. More than once the only move I could make was to exit the level.
TASofSEM is a Broughelike game based on Jeremiah Reid's Broughlike tutorial. I'm not too familiar with Broughlikes but I enjoyed this one. The game feels complete although I did play the post-7DRL version which adds some features and hones in the difficulty in a way that made the game feel more "complete" than it did in the 7DRL version. I really adored the art and overall aesthetic direction of this game, it was a pleasure to play. The game is relatively basic and doesn't do anything terribly innovative mechanically, but the post-7DRL version's abilities are creative and begin to make it unique. I gave a 3 rating for Traditional Roguelikeness because this game (and other Broughlikes) don't capture all of the ingredients that creates a true traditional roguelike in my mind.
A short puzzle-ish roguelike that's mildly amusing but ultimately has little to sink your teeth into. All the action takes place in the 7 X 7 tiles garden, and many of those tiles start off randomly blocked by tree stumps (?) as well - at least until the orange hornets (?) run into them and destroy them in a single turn, getting extra HP in process. They, along with the hares, the moles and some red-eyed black thing (rat?) are your primary enemies who'll aggressively come after the Strawberry Earth Mother: they generally have no chance if you can fight them one-on-one, as your attacks stunlock them, but getting attacked from multiple directions is often death. This apparently made the earliest version of the game very difficult, but the addition of powers added for every three strawberries collected makes things much easier - especially since one of the powers you might luck into, Destruction, straight-up clears the screen of enemies and so is perfect for getting surrounded - and stuff like Teleport or Heal is not bad either. You cannot fight indefinitely with these though, since strawberries appear on the level once, while pests will spawn indefinitely in random places in the garden, a grey cloud of dust foretelling their arrival - and they can be freely attacked before they emerge out of it as well. However, you get nothing out of killing the pests, so just go to the portal after collecting the strawberries on the level. In fact, you do not strictly need to collect strawberries either: the portal is always present, and I once tried to just rush the portal every time without collecting strawberries, and it worked, especially since there are only six levels. Strawberries collected do determine your score, but that is inherently subject to randomness: if a bird, the one creature that does not attack Earth Mother but instead eats strawberries, happens to spawn right next to a strawberry on the other side of the garden, there's often not much you can do to stop the bird from eating it and thus permanently losing a point, especially if there are stumps in the way. In all, an amusing game and a good start for its creator, but the issues with progression and in-game incentives mean that you'll be unlikely to do much with it after beating it once or twice.
appawiad
Completeness
2
3
2
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I liked the concept and I enjoyed reading about how the different deities might interact. The game looks nice and is easy to figure out. Good job for a 7DRL! I will admit I never got very far after about 10 runs because I couldn't figure out how to heal, or how to determine whether I should try to fight an enemy or run from it, because I couldn't see it's defense stat in advance. I also found it too hard to keep gods pleased unless they happen to like attacking, killing, and defending. It felt pretty bad to try to please a god who likes attacking and hates defending because any given fight will just give you net zero favor. Perhaps a wider variety of god characteristics and some constraints on which characteristics go together would help with the balance issues.
This game is presented by its author more like a toy than a complete game. Unfortunately I kind of agree; the game runs but there's no real difficulty curve or noticeable progress towards an ending or endgame. It's more of a mechanical sandbox for playing around with absurd diety conducts, some of which conflict each other. There are some bugs, most noticeably that one occasionally starts a new floor inside a wall and has to leave it. There's some amount of depth to the conducts you're trying to manage. However, unlike a Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup style thing, you can't opt out of gods with mostly random conduct if they're given, so you cannot opt out of "serving" dieties who punish you for no reason. All in all it's an interesting idea, whether it's worth your time depends on how the idea of proc-gen religious conducts grabs you.
A cute prototype built around the idea of multiple rival deities which all regularly intervene in the world around the player depending on the amount of favor with them - a concept most prominently featured in Powder. Yet, while alignment with Powder's deity largely acted as a substitute of classic D & D classes, and favors/curses were often little more than occasional inconveniences, appawiad's deities are procedurally generated and possess a random selection of favored/disfavored aspects. What stays the same is that there are always four, one per role: an obsessed deity only aligned with a single trait: a vengeful deity most likely to punish those it disfavors and help those it dislikes: a sleeping deity which does not intervene often (and does not care about your prayers or sacrifices); and a chaotic/trickster deity with a set of favored traits, but which randomly increases/reduces favor. The effects these deities have upon the world are paramount: so much so, that in the current version, there's essentially only one way to last for any real length of time, and that is to be a paladin and align yourself with whichever god is associated with health, since that is the only way you'll ever get to heal. On the contrary, atheists will quickly find themselves burnt to a crisp, since the deities can respond to negative favor in double digits by setting the player on fire: when favor is negative for all the deities, you are likely to be burnt twice in a row and die around floor 2 at most. Priests can try that too, but it's less reliable for them. On the other hand, once you have that sorted, dying is almost impossible, as the few monster types (spiders, pigs, goblins and skeletons) do not care enough about the player to bother chasing them, and given that there's no EXP, and how little loot there is in the dungeon (just light/medium/heavy armor and basic swords/axes/spears, both of which are soon superceded by divine-granted weapons), you should just head first towards the altar, and then towards the exit. Of course, the floors never really change, and the game does not even bother to count your depth, implying it goes on indefinitely. Though even if you do not get killed, it is at times possible to get a walled in as you enter the level. appawiad still feels like an extremely early stage of a rather ambitious game. Deities have quite a lot of interactions even now (those associated with death reduce favor for destroying skeletons and their curses make all the skeletons move to your location, deities of the forests are pissed off if you attack trees, while the chaotic ones may randomly set those trees on fire (along with random enemies), etc.) It might conceivably become a worthwhile standalone game in the future with a lot of effort: but as a jam submission, its value is exhausted after you figure out the interactions between deities and the world.
Dealings in Dungeons
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
4
2
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
Awesome idea! Love card games and Roguelikes. I think the website was a great and used that to play. Rules are simple to understand, and classes offer good variety. I really like the idea of skipping cards to make it so some stuff remains unseen. Some stuff felt like it could use balance work. The Cursed Idol was pretty detrimental for me and I never could sell it haha. Great game, had a lot of fun playing it and I'm inspired to consider doing a physical game myself next year!
The game is good, but not having it printed take away a lot of fun. if i could buy it in a store as a deck, fully printed in colors it could be awesome. Playing it in the browser, without a dice roller and no real game implementation [beside turning the cards] made this entry lose quite some points. I've also some dubts about replayability, but didn't take them in account because it took quite some time the first playthrough. Beside the lack of real cards, this is a nice take on Munchkin!
Found Magic
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
2
3
Fun
2
3
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
The spell casting mechanic is innovative. I had issues with enemies and the rogue disappearing from the screen and some of the controls seeming to be unresponsive.
I really love playing traditionalist 7DRLs, especially after going through a bunch of roguelites. The five spells and essences idea is a great fit, and the typing minigame spices things up. The UI is pretty polished, and the game comes with a delightful manual. I had to rate this a 3 instead of a 4 for Fun because I cannot figure out how to get a sustainable build and beat the first level. MP is regained by melee attacks, which tend to drain your HP. It's only possible (I think?) to regain HP using the darkness spell, which you only have a 45% chance of starting the game with. And even if you have it, it's expensive to cast, so you quickly burn your whole mana pool just trying to get back to full health. I also couldn't figure out how the typing minigame affects mana usage in practice. I'm a very quick typist and I was still paying full price for every spell. Despite the difficulty, I think this is a really solid 7DRL effort and I'd love to see an updated version with either a lower difficulty or a clearer way to use the existing mechanics to progress.
Gnome Hope
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
"Gnome Hope" casts you as a gnome+wolf+cat trio that attempts to get from floor 14 to the surface, as you face various enemies and the worst nightmare, Creeping Darkness itself. The game is definitely challenging - I couldn't get past floor 4, even though I felt like I was continuously improving by learning different enemy patterns. Putting buckets on enemy heads is a fun little mechanic :D There are some issues eating away at the enjoyment of this game though. First of all, the game is rather resource hungry, and had noticeable lag when responding to my commands. The darkness seems to move either horizontally or vertically, and always covers a whole new row/column - which might catch you off guard when you are traversing a very long row/column. The lantern seems to light up a turn too late (i.e., if you're in the darkness, and you light it up, it will still deal damage to you before activating). Finally, because the map is centered on the player, but the dungeon is rather uniform, it's sometimes hard to notice enemy movement patterns and turn frequency. I wish I got to the surface to see the ending :)
The visual style is all over the place with this one, and the gameplay didn't seem all that compelling beyond figuring out how to make the best use of the cat and wolf friend even though there isn't much way to control them. Seems like it could've benefited a lot from using a consistent tileset and some more abilities or interactions.
HealthEater
Completeness
4
4
Aesthetics
3
4
Fun
3
3
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
This is a pretty short puzzle game where half of the fun probably comes from deducing the mechanics since it's not entire obvious what everything is at first, and the other fun part would be planning a more optimal path to reach the end. It would be nice of the static areas that will be attacked were shown differently/outlined/whatever in between attacks so they can be more easily remembered without resorting to a photographic member or just... screenshots. Overall the game is quite short and not hard to win once the mechanics are learned, and it would be nice if it were longer with more challenging maps or other features.
I like the fast paced movement and the light sound. I had a lot of fun playing this game, but I cleared it quickly. It may have been difficult to build up the stages in 7 days, but I think it was a little too short. I wish I could have played more!
Pataro
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
4
4
This is the basis for a roguelike game engine. A good start to a traditional ascii engine. Keep with it and expand on this next year!
One the one hand, Pataro is a basic roguelike. On the other hand, basic roguelikes are awesome, so I had a good time. There are also some nice quality of life features, like fading text, simple controls, and clear, simply levels. I would like to had more mosnters to fight and more items to use, but what was there was quality. There were a few things that are very unusual-- the first is that monsters can attack sideways, but the player cannot. This is interesting conceptually, but in practice there are times when you can't help but take a hit when you are trying to get adjacent to them. Without a wait key, you can use a potion or scroll to take a turn when you are in a line with the monster at least. The other thing was that monsters move in cardinal directions when moving around corners, which means that you gain a tile of space on them. It is not a huge deal, but is a little inconsistant. I kind of like that it tracks your actions in a file as well. Requiring the mouse to use items is inconsistant as well, and makes you move you hand, which is slightly annoying. Definitely fulfills my criteria for being a roguelike. Overall, a simple but solid experience to build on.
TigerClawRL
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
4
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
4
4
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
Damn this is pretty! Three axes of movement is a constant source of intrigue for roguelike creators, and this tackles the problem well. Unfortunately, I still think the issues for XYZ-movement aren't answered: I had immense trouble learning the control scheme and wrapping my head around the interface, and at no point did I feel like I fully grasped where I was, where enemies where and where I was moving. Name of the game, I supposed, or could just be me being unskilled. There was also very little happening in the game due to the (incredibly gorgeous) emptiness of space: over the course of an hour, I managed to kill precisely one enemy ship. Bonus points for making me feel like I'm the captain of a starship!
Completeness: 2 The concept is awesome, unfortunately it crashed after about 5 or 10 turns. In demo mode it played longer than that, but it eventually crashed too. Aesthetics: 2 The home screen colors need some attention. The font is cool but it is very hard to read against the orange background. Once you are in the game, it's much better. It would be nice to have controls displayed within the HUD. This may help if you decide to add more actions and features. I will the say, the way yo handle z-levels is pretty good. I like that it fades and that the cursors change direction depending on the relative position of the objects in space. Fun: 2 Unfortunately it is hard to say this is fun with the early crashes. But The concept is worthy of pursuit! Innovative: 4 I have played with momentum mechanics in other RLs but I still thinks it can be considers an innovative twist as there is a lot to explore. TigerClaw also combines momentum with the concept of z-level which I have not encountered before. It's very cool. Scope: 3 TigerClaw hits the mark of what is normally achieved within a 7drl. It even has an AI arena mode where you can watch the AI fight which is a fun way to learn how the AI works in general. It would be great to see more abilities though, there's a lot to choose from within the space fighting genre. Roguelike: 3 This game includes enough of what is generally considered a Roguelike to get a solid score. It would be much improved with some procedural generation.
L'Antichambre
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
4
3
Fun
3
3
2
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
This game is intriguing. I never quite got the hang of it. At one point I had a full party of characters walking around with me, but still had no clue where I was going. It almost feels like I didn't know the controls and I was just pressing buttons. The tossing the boot out to look for traps and the dialog between characters are fun little twists, and the music and graphics add to the tense environment, but just feeling like I was missing something made it really hard to get into and it felt very repetitive after just a couple play throughs.
Overview Nice small roguelike(like). Kept me interested by dialogues and narration. Completeness Didn't encounter any bugs, but the game could use a better balance – currently, it's way too RNG-dependant. Aesthetics The game uses a very limited amount of (good-looking) and the UI is very basic. Still, the result is quite atmospheric and kind of... charming. Fun L'Antichambre is a quite fun small roguelike, but the fun itself comes more from the narrative-driven nature of this game rather than from the gameplay itself. Innovation It isn't your usual roguelike. Scope Small. Traditional Roguelikeness It checks the mark, but the usage of a procedural generation seems very limited – that comes from the scope, though.
This is a really cool adaptation.
Jacinto
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
4
2
2
Fun
3
2
2
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
Completeness 3 Overall quite a complete game, had a clear ending, and a nice difficulty curve from start to finish. Towards the end the flood of ammo and grenades can get a bit much, and it does get a bit easy, but overall nothing to complain about on this front. I also only ever ran into one error, sometimes it would crash on throwing a grenade. Aesthetics 4 Looks quite good, I played in the tiles mode and all the icons were quite readable and distinctive. The eye patch bandit and the skeleton were the only two characters that looked really similar, and could sometimes be mistaken for each other, but other than that no issues. The interface also did a great job at explaining how to play the game, none of this trawling through manuals to find the controls, everything right there on the screen. Fun 3 The inclusion of three different classes was great, and I ended up trying all three (in part due to crashing in some of my runs). The action point system was quite cool, and really changed the way I had to think about the combat. I'm not sure if it really meshes that well with your standard roguelike mechanics, but it was a cool experiment regardless. There were also some nice details, such as being able to shoot grounded grenades, that really pulled the whole thing together. Innovative 3 As I mentioned above, the action point system was cool, and not something that I see that often in roguelikes. I've seen it done before in other genres, but still it's quite an innovative addition. Scope 3 Well scoped, everything has it's place, and there's no superfluous features. It would have been nice to see a little more enemy variety, and overall it doesn't really feel like it's bulging with content, but very reasonable for a 7DRL entry. Roguelike 4 Definitely a roguelike.
This one definitely meets the criteria for a seven day rogue like but i feel the combination of those elements doesn't quite make for an enjoyable experience. The combat systems is generally pretty clear I like that I could mouse over my weapons and moves for more details. The maps themselves have a lot to be desired I don't think I had a single map generate that i didn't have to use a grenade to get out of so I really didn't get to use them for combat ever save for the one time i killed myself on the boss as he ran at me. Enemy spawns tend to be right at the start of a level so you often take damage right as you get in it is fun to watch them fight each other trying to get to you though. The chests on the map upset my little ape brain because i kept wanting to open them for items. I didn't really grasp why my weapons missed so much, I think it has to do with range but it seemed wildly different for each weapon. On that note it was interesting to play around with the different weapons from each class. I think this one could be pretty compelling, the tactics based areas are a good start and there's clearly a good framework to add more on top of but maybe a fixed set of 5 intentionally designed maps serves this style of game play better.
There is a lot going on here. The feedback about what just happened is sometimes confusing. I got the hang of running around and killing guys, but then the game would lock up, usually after I threw a grenade, which on one run I was walled in at the start and had to grenade my way out, only to have the game freeze. With some bug fixes and a bit more feedback to the player, this could be a really fun and engaging roguelike.
Rusty Robot
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
2
4
This is a fun little roguelike with a cute coat of paint on it. A little more context at the beginning would be nice, but after a couple play throughs you kind of figure it out.
Thanks for entering a submission into the 7DRL! I found this one to be quite interesting even if it didn't "feel" like a traditional roguelike. There were some interesting ideas there to keep building on. It took me a while to figure out where to burrow to find the gems, and found it quite difficult to dodge the aliens as I got close to the 18 minerals I needed. Neat concept, and I definitely encourage you keep building on this idea!
A very simple sci-fi roguelike with the one goal of gathering 18 chunks of green fuel obtained by blasting crystals with your laser (also the robot's only attack) and just one standard green alien type as the enemy standing in your way. While they are too stupid to get out of the way of the laser melting holes in them, this is balanced out by their (seemingly unintended) ability to move through walls, the rover only able to shoot in the direction it last moved (making kiting impossible as the rover has to make a move towards the alien to attack it) and by its finite health that can never be restored. It's not too much of a problem even then, as the pits where all the mining occurs are randomly generated every time you enter and exit the surface map, so if you enter a pit and find the rover immediately surrounded, all you need to do is to exit it immediately and see if some other freshly rolled pit would have superior layout. Rover's carrying capacity is unlimited (even if the UI seemingly suggests it's limited to 5 slots) so you only need to return fuel to the base at the very end. Visually, the game has a simple but appealing look, with an unusual focus on lightning. There's a simple day-night cycle on the surface, and the circles of light around the aliens look pretty good. Sound effects are present, though other than the silly alien death sound, they aren't much to write home about. On the other hand, the story is surprisingly effective for something limited to an introduction screen and the ending one.
Tenebris
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
3
3
2
Fun
3
2
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
"Tenebris" has pretty cool Greek-style intro/outro, and a cute tileset that makes exploring the dungeons fun. There is various equipment, including weapons, armor, and bombs. There are also various enemies, although I haven't noticed much difference between their abilities beyond the miss chance and total hp. I think the game could provide some information about hp/damage of monsters and items to make decisions a bit more purposeful - otherwise one can only guess that a two-handed sword is better than a normal sword, or heavy armor better than light armor. The balance of the game is a bit off, as it's easy to finish on the first playthrough with tons of items just hoarded in your inventory. Most importantly, the premise that enemies behave differently in the presence of light didn't feel explored deeply enough - I noticed some enemies (ghouls especially) keep away from the torches, but didn't feel like it significantly altered my strategy. I think that with a bit of tuning, atmospheric background music, and a more pronounced ending this could be an enjoyable dungeon explorer.
Tenebris is a great basis for a Roguelike, and there's a lot here to already be very happy with. The lighting system works well to make monsters a little more engaging and gives the dungeon a good sense of place and setting. The floors were paced well and the layout variance kept things a bit fresh. Doubly so because it was obvious how much further left in the game there was, always a great thing to know for shorter form games especially game jam games. However, beyond standard hack & slash there's not a whole lot there yet, just the start of a lot of promise. The bump combat is tuned pretty well, enemies are threatening or easy depending on gear, but there's no variance beyond that. Gear seems a strict upgrade over previous finds (or downgrade), and the items are useful and nice, but aren't yet offering depth of vary combat. The foundation is all there, a great accomplishment for 7DRL, now it's just a matter of fleshing it out and making it feel unique. On the Aesthetics side I struggled a lot with what to score. The intro, death, and victory screens are all gorgeous, something stylistically I wish you carried through into the UI for the game itself. The actual game map & world is pretty as well, the sprites are nice and clear and the dungeon lighting adds mood. On the other hand, this game was really rough to play during the day, I actually had to come back at night. Even the smallest bit of screen glare made the levels, especially the cave, almost impossible to see. It's the double edged sword of using lighting so heavily in a roguelike, but I think a small tweak to the lighting would make it more accessible. Overall I was happy to have played it, there's a good start of a deeper roguelike here and the start, death, and victory screens had some great design which made them a treat to trigger, but the relatively basic hack & slash kept the entry from really playing well.
(Review of Post-7DRL update.) With its Latin title, Tenebris sounds like a horror game, and the subtitle also implies as such. However, it is disappointingly traditional in practice. Your character will be bumping a typical assortment of low-level creepy-crawlies (primarily rats, giant spiders, zombies, and in what appears to be a NetHack reference, lichens and centipedes - the latter being the most likely to present a threat due to being as damaging and evasive as their NetHack-tier counterparts) to death and gradually trade the starting bone shard and shirt for proper (but still basic) swords and body armours that are simply straight-up stat upgrades. There is no levelling up, so this is the only progression. The one distinguishing feature - that monsters tend to be afraid of the light and will not enter the candlelit rooms, allowing you to retreat there and recover lost HP - only matters at first, and stops being relevant once you have found your first sword and enough grenades (which only cover one tile, with no risk of splash damage backfiring) to delete any enemy that starts causing trouble, which occurs pretty quickly. Even an ogre I encountered near the end only took up two flame grenades out of 8 I had at the time - not counting the stun grenades or a pair of "big boy" flame/stun grenades. The game is completely devoid of sound. Its best-looking part are the intro and ending screens, which have some neat text animations, while the dungeon levels themselves feel too large for the amount of unique content they have, and are so zoomed-out that many creature tiles are confusing - I still do not understand why rats look the way they do in-game. Altogether, the game works fine, but does not do enough to stand out, and there's far too little variation - the first level is almost exactly like the next five. If the creator intends to develop the game further, my recommendation is to reduce the size of the levels to have more zoomed-in graphics, work on making the floors meaningfully different, and to emphasize the darkness/horror aspect.
A Nimrod and Monsters
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
3
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
4
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
A decent bullet hell shooter game. But NOT a Roguelike. Or even a Roguelike-like. The map is procedurally generated but that's about it as far as Roguelike-ness goes. Not sure if it can be won as a bug prevented me from gathering points on Elf Toads. It was some fun but often frustrating in that you couldn't outrun a lot of enemies without relying on bullet knockback. Became repetitive pretty fast. Some of the gun were also awful and worse than the starting pistol. Looking at you, sniper rifle. Why have that as a gun when the map size is so small?
A Nimrod and Monsters is real time roguelike in the same family of games as games like Nuclear Throne and Enter the Gungeon. You are dropped onto a random map with a camera and weak weapon and told to survive 10 levels. The first thing that stands out here are the aesthetics - for a 7DRL they were polished and were the best part of the game. The player has animations, there are screen fades and death shakes, and each monster stands out. It all looks great. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, with humorous gun names and an "encyclopedia of monsters" with Polaroid photos of each enemy. The help text is also playful. For a real time shooting roguelike the controls were rather solid, and each enemy in general felt different with bullet patterns and colors. There is almost a bullet hell component of gameplay for sure. The game, for me at least, is on the difficult side. Enemies spray bullets, you only have 5 hearts, and I never found a way to increase that. That is, until I found the rocket launcher. It broke the game just a bit. Yes, it has a slow reload time and only one bullet, but it one shots almost everything in the game and can shoot outside of most enemies aggro range. If this game was extended, I'd suggest having chests drop additional items such as hearts, as once you have your gun of choice they are completely skip able. I found that 10 levels was too long, specially given the single map graphics, same layout, and enemies. I was not able to complete it after raging dying on level 9 twice, because I'm weak. While really not innovating in any particular area, it was polished, pleasant to play and made me enjoy multiple runs. Nice work!
Metaprogression-based roguelite with a surprising amount of content and great aesthetics, but not enough testing to make it feel good. Right now, it has zero qualms about spawning you right next to one or several monsters, whether when you start, or when going through the portals - it is even possible to enter the portal in a wounded state, and hear a death sound before the next island has even finished generating, as your character was spawned that close to a monster. Since, you can never heal, death is inevitable, and the goal is to instead kill enough monsters of each type (or take photos of them, but that may be a joke option, since it does not appear to have any advantages even for data collection) to fill out an encyclopedia, a task that is meant to be completed over multiple runs. However, one of the monster types, Elf Toad, appears bugged, as neither shooting them nor taking photos of them ever increases their count in the encyclopedia from 0/10, thus rendering the game impossible to beat. Even if it was beatable, there are still substantial issues with balance in the game's current state. There's a considerable variety of guns, but most of them are rather weak, taking multiple mags to kill the monsters. You can carry up to three guns + camera and switch between them, but unlike most other twin-stick roguelites, the process of switching is not instantaneous, as it forces you to reload the gun you are swapping to before you can use it: even if it had a full mag before you switched to a different weapon. In fact, for some weapons, NOT having a full mag is what avoids the need to reload immediately after swapping, although this obviously does not work for single-shot weapons. Often, you should just let current weapon reload instead of bothering to swap. Even picking up weapons is finicky - after you open their chests, the game just tells you to press E, but in practice, you need to press E while pointing and clicking at that gun. Meanwhile, the creatures are not just spongy but are also deadly, possessing either speed that rivals or exceeds yours, the ability to fire in large bursts or concentric patterns, or both - the two slime types will first start chasing you, but then generate a ring of projectiles on the move, without even breaking a sweat. The Firebal monster is not a fast chaser, but it does fire spreads of five in two consecutive bursts - which THEN explode after travelling a set distance. On the other hand, you can at least cancel out projectiles with your own bullets - this does not work for pure melee like Minitors, the dark, red-eyed humanoids that move faster than you, possess the largest amount of HP, inflict a full heart of damage per hit and are obviously not staggered by your weapons at all. Altogether, the most effective way to play the game is to locate Rocket Tosser, and enjoy its ability to blow up all monsters (besides Minitors) in one hit - a power not even offset by its slow reload time, since it also lacks friendly fire. Uzi and AK expies + the other explosive weapon that has 3 weaker explosives per mag are also good choices, while some of the other automatic weapons feel worse than the default pistol - and the sniper rifle is bafflingly weak relative to its enormous reload time. It may still be worth playing this game for the sake of inspiration, and as an example of what can be created in 7 days, but it requires substantial balancing to reach its true potential.
Alien Escape Plan
Completeness
3
4
4
Aesthetics
2
3
4
Fun
2
2
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
4
For a game made in a weekend, especially one with graphics and sound, this is a cool piece. That said, there's not a lot to do in the game proper: recognize the few patterns (enemy health, potion effects) and then beeline for the exit. The problem is compounded by a couple of bugs (e.g. you can continue moving - and scoring - after dying as well as after winning) and design flaws (e.g. the movement sound effect is grating after a while). A good showing for a first 7DRL nonetheless!
Solid Entry. Kudos!
A very simple roguelike with nice graphics and music (but overly loud footstep sound) where you control a little green man until you reach 5 upstairs ladders in a row, and bump scientists to death if they are blocking your way - or as many as you can if you are into high score points from the tokens they drop (not that there's a leaderboard or anything). Often, you actually can avoid fighting all scientists besides the two that are always present right next to the first exit - the others can usually be avoided even if they are in the other exit rooms, as there are often multiple doors to any room (which only you can open) and bumping into a scientist standing on top of a ladder just makes the alien immediately go to the next level. The only enemies are the two scientist types, and they mainly seem to differ visually: either are easily bumped to death, and you get healed with the tokens they drop. There are also colored conical test tubes that act as potions, and which are consumed immediately upon entering their tile: they are not randomized, so green is always poison, red is (temporary) blindness, and only purple helps by raising HP. In all, not bad for someone's first game, but as you might expect from something submitted in the first day of the contest, it only provides a few minutes of light entertainment at most.
Cardlite Adventure
Completeness
3
3
4
Aesthetics
4
4
3
Fun
3
3
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
2
The game plays well, it's short but replayable. Maybe add some more levels with some kind of story. I foud after a couple of runs that sometime you have no choice other then death, with more level you could make the first few easier. Veri nice graphics!
Cardlite Adventure has consistently excellent artwork on all its cards, and the sound effects are pretty good as well! Yet, at its core, it's a very simple single-screen game about nothing more than your ability to do basic maths in matching numbers together - your HP and/or your weapon's strength vs. monster's strength, as well as available healing vs. the damage you are likely to sustain. All three of these card types - Monsters, Weapons and Healing - are ranked from 1 to 10, yet are scattered randomly, so it's possible to end up wasting a strong weapon on a relatively weak monster simply because no other ones were close - or, in the most extreme case, get a 9/10 monster early on (who'll kill even a full-health character if they do not have weapons equipped) yet no appropriate weapon around, and thus lose. While this is rare, and getting to the exit repeatedly is easy, it also means that whether or not you'll be able to fully clear the map and take all the treasure is primarily determined by luck - and the lack of a leaderboard substantially reduces the incentive for going through multiple runs. In all, it's a pleasant experiment, but not one likely to hold your attention for long.
This is cool! A neat twist on the whole Card of Darkness thing.
Counterpuncher
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
I think the concept of combining a traditional roguelike with deck-building could work, but this game needs more content to be a worthwhile experience. Adding more cards with interesting effects and just a few different enemy types would help a lot.
Interesting mechanical idea! Would love to see a version with a little more variety/content.
Echo Down
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
A city-building game where other player's hand-crafted cities can end up as part of your dungeons, Echo Down has a really neat premise. I played the post-jam version which added or improved on a few systems, the developer left a comment detailing the differences in the comments section. Echo Down feels like a complete game and was stable during the session. Echo Down has all the staples of a traditional roguelike while showcasing a town-building system as one of the primary game mechanics. The skill and crafting systems feel like early versions and didn't seem to have a lot of depth during the play sessions; this depth may come with more playtime. The game looks great and for the most part feels pretty smooth to play. The UI, menus, and controls felt lacking and were not always user-friendly. The pacing felt too slow, with many dungeon expeditions needed to gain loot which resulted in a player experience that had too much grinding for materials and gold. The dungeons reset with each expedition and you can leave relatively freely so there is little risk unless the player seeks it. You can lose a lot of progress if you do die (all carried items and materials) but you town persists between deaths.
This game feels like it attempts to cross Angband with Minecraft for some strange reason. You go down small randomly generated floors that are re-rolled every single time, kill most enemies with just a single punch, but are also unable to heal the damage they deal in return unless you go back up (touching stairs upwards instantly warps you to the surface, regardless of how deep you were). There's no levelling or even good equipment: you just gather basic crafting materials, and some of the most valuable loot is floor tiles, so that you can go a little further in transforming the surface from parched red earth to houses and lawns. The more often you go down, the more people arrive at the surface, though they again only sell grass and dirt and crafting workbenches. If you die, you lose whatever you had in your inventory at the time, but the surface world stays the same as it was before, so it's really more of a metaprogression village-building game with no real villager interaction than anything else.
Fragile Knight
Completeness
2
4
4
Aesthetics
2
4
4
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
2
2
4
Scope
2
2
4
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
Sorry but the game was in an unplayable state for me. I just died over and over again with a mostly green screen. Frustrating. Also, can't be positive because the game was unplayable but reading the instructions and this really doesn't seem like a Roguelike. Maybe a Roguelike-like platformer with procedural generation.
Its fun as a meat boy or Celeste type plat former but it doesn't really contain any roguelike essence. No real progression in run or between runs, not turn based, and the only seemingly random elements to it are the level generation but that's very clearly 10 layouts or so stacked on top of one another at random. That aside there is some fun to be had here, wall jumping is a sort of intrinsically fun game play tool and this game delivers on that perfectly. From the moment the intro starts the retro aesthetic immediately sets the mood setting you up for the arcady platforming your about the get into T. Helped by absolute vibe that is the background music fits the feeling of precision platforming. I actually left the game running in the background as I wrote this so i could listen to the whole thing. I wish that i could've listened to the whole thing in a run where I was actually playing but the tiny amount of variety had me repeating areas before I was one minute in. Asking the player to make progress for 9 minutes in an easy plat-former is an absolutely grueling task. With the momentum of the character, unnecessarily large hurt-box of the player(or hit box of the spikes I couldn't tell), and the propensity to bonk off of the corners of blocks while landing or jumping into them this platforming is often very tricky and frustrating. I think controlling the fragile knight is really enjoyable but the level design and objectives do not accentuate this fun they take away from it. This is however a great opportunity for expansion into many different directions as the game really does have a lot of potential.
I don't think it qualifies as a "traditional" roguelike, but it's a REALLY well put together entry regardless. The concept is interesting, the art and sound is very solid even if done in a platformer-style. The entry page mentions a nod to Celeste which I can totally see. I'd definitely encourage the team to iterate on this work! Thanks for entering and hope the team had a good time during the game jam.
Luut
Completeness
3
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
2
3
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
There are a few things that this game does very well. The choice of artwork is very nice, the animation speed is good, the movement speed is good, everything feels nice and snappy to interact with. It is a very clean experience. The gameplay is simple but allows you to actually play the game instead of deliberating every turn, which I appreciate. My high score was 54 floors, though I tended to enjoy focusing on going down instead of getting more coins. Of course, I would like to see more added to the game-- more enemies, a ranged attack, some powerups. As it is, it is fairly bare-bones. It does do something very unusual, which is that you get hurt when you attack an enemy-- I'm not sure if I've ever seen that. It completely changes the interaction-- monsters change from challenges to overcome, into obstacles to avoid. This shifts that game into a more puzzly kind of experience, which is kind of neat. The issue with the puzzle, in my opinion, is that the random movement of the monsters along with the small board means that you sometimes can't avoid getting hit. The most enjoyable thing about games is when the player has interesting choices to make, but here you can't predict their movement or influence it, you do your best to avoid them and hope they don't hit you. Luut also has the bug or feature of passing the player's turn when you try to move into a wall, which usually I dislike since the player only does it by accident. However, here it could offer some strategy to the player if they want to move into the wall to re-arrange the monsters, so I think it's ok. The game definitely fulfills my requirements for being a traditional roguelike. Overall, while I think that what is here is extremely solid, I would like to see the player be given just a few more abilities or choices of actions.
For both scope and fun, I was wanted to score 2.5, and I think they're pretty closely related for this entry. The basic puzzly/minimalist mechanics worked well, but I think there just wasn't quite enough content there to really explore the possibilities. It would have been nice to see more interesting movement patterns, and perhaps more terrain/traps and items. All I saw in the game was bats, skeletons, and slimes, all of which seemed to just move randomly, with slimes sometimes splitting (I saw afterwards that you mention skeletons are more inclined to move toward the player, but that wasn't apparent while playing). It felt like the randomness of the movement undermined the puzzly nature of the game. Some randomness is fine, but it felt like this needed more pattern. I also encountered the spike traps and health potions. If there is more interesting content later in the game, I would probably recommend introducing it earlier. Again, I think the core game is good, but it needs more content to shine. Art is great and controls are simple. Only problem I encountered there is that up and down arrows would scroll the screen, so I had to use hjkl which I'm not used to. It would probably be nice to add wasd as another option.
A very simple puzzle roguelike with really small floors, and where the only real goal is to grab as many gold coins as you can before dying. It has great, clean pixel art, but the complete lack of sound makes it look uncanny. Unlike the similar puzzle games where player character in one hit, fighting is technically possible here, yet it is never to your benefit, as it always eliminates that enemy, yet simultaneously takes away one of your lives - regardless of whether it was the enemy that moved into you, or vice versa. Luckily, the standard low-level dungeon denizens (bats, slimes, skeletons) are quite apathetic about you, with only skeletons attempting to actively follow more often than not. As such, it is often possible to sneak by even when they are numerous, and there are occasional potions to restore lost lives, too. Still, the number of floors appears endless, so defeat is ultimately inevitable - and when it comes there's unfortunately no leaderboard, which rather dampens the excitement.
Mechanized Force Command
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
4
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
This game left me kind of confused, and after a good hour of trying different things I still felt short of understanding it (although I did win the first two levels eventually). Let me talk about the good first: the game is beautiful. It's visually pleasing, and has great sound effects appropriate to the theme. This hands down motivates the player to try to play and understand it. The premise of 4 factions battling for dominance, and you being able to interface with one of them and affect the battle is pretty interesting. I was not particularly sold on the 4-player local multiplayer (how many people can really fit in front of the same keyboard?), but it was still a fun concept to play around with. The game even offers three levels (+2 tutorials) with different terrain. Unfortunately, neither the game page nor the in-game help divulge any more details. What do robots denoting with different capital letters stand for? What do I pick up the o's for? Most importantly, what's my mechs' behavior when I'm not controlling them? I rammed neutral mechs to get the advantage on the board, but then watched my army size dwindle down because my robots always got shot down - perhaps I needed to leave the mechs with some specific instructions? Send them to patrol together? I just don't know. I finally just started running around and shooting everyone myself, and that worked surprisingly well - but that felt kinda overpowered. Overall, I found it hard to call this a roguelike - it has roguelike graphics, but it's pretty much real-time, while most of the promised functionality seems more from strategy games domain than anything else. I think a bit more information about the game would go a long way.
Completeness: All features appear to be fully implemented. However, it lagged pretty badly on the larger maps. It also dropped some inputs, proportional to the size of map / number of units. The largest map was both laggy and pretty unresponsive. Aesthetics: The game is readable and reasonably pleasing, and the UI is fully functional. It's a little unclear on how to select the level but there are no other issues. Fun: It's fairly basic (bump into neutrals to convert, mash E to shoot enemies), and there's not a lot of depth to the moment-to-moment gameplay. It has very little variety in gameplay. Innovation: I've never seen a local split-screen game, and it's pretty cool! The real-time seems like a necessity given split-screen play. Scope: It's of a reasonable scope. Traditional Roguelikeness: Quite roguelike-y except that it's real-time (though the simulation is running on turns, it's an entirely different experience).
Super Generic Roguelike #7DRL
Completeness
4
2
Aesthetics
2
4
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
2
Scope
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
Great work overall, unfortunately I can't say I enjoy the puzzle of completing the rooms with a limited number of turns... The enemies that walk randomly make it especially annoying
7DRLs with strict turn count limits and one-hit-kill gameplay have been done before in the years past. This particular version of the concept benefits from nicely done pseudo-TBOI graphics and SFX, but suffers badly from limited stability; the character can sometimes get stuck on top of corpses if the enemy corpse borders a wall/rock and/or multiple other corpses, which forces the player to restart. Additionally, it's a questionable design choice when the player can simultaneously fail through running out of moves, yet also has to hunt down every enemy on the floor, even when they are wandering randomly and may not ever come to your position naturally. (Waiting does not consume a turn.)
The Salvager
Completeness
3
4
2
Aesthetics
3
3
2
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Pretty bare bones as far as roguelikes go, but all the basics are there with a usable inventory, enemies, some resource management, and even a ranged attack. Not really much in the way of variety though, with just a single small map patrolled by a handful of enemies with a goal of reaching an artifact item randomly placed somewhere on the map. Overall a decent foundation for something more.
## General review Simple 7DRL, nothing really new but it has all the necessary elements. There seem to be a bug with the procedural generation, though. The aim of the game is to find the "Artefact of Yendoria". In 5 playthroughs I found it in the second or third room and won the game. Perhaps the artefact should be further down the dungeon ? ## Detailed review Completeness: 4 This is a complete game, no bugs, everything works as intended. Aesthetics: 3 The UI mostly works. It is not clear that one can use the mouse to look at symbols. I also wish there would be some information as to which letter is an enemy and which is a weapon/equipment. One can guess but a different color or lowercase/uppercase would help. Fun: 3 The game has potential. At the moment it's too easy to win because the end goal often spawn near the starting position. Innovation: 3 I like that you have to manage two parameters (oxygen + energy) to stay alive, and not just food. There may be other new mechanisms I have missed because I won the game many tiems without having to really delve beyond the first level. Scope: 3 OK for a 7DRL, could have a bit more content but it seems like the game was submitted 2 days before the deadline so I will judge it as a5DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness: 4 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need that sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. The Salvager feels like this (with the caveats mentioned in previous sections)
This submission appears to be little more than the first floor of a reskinned libtcod tutorial. Moreover, it is badly balanced: you may find the Artefact needed to end the run literally a room away from your starting location, or it may be far enough away for you to run out of air or run into too many robots and not enough healing/stim packs. Even the UI is awkward: dark blue robots blend into the dark green background in windowed mode, and even when playing fullscreen, the combat log is still poorly readable. There are far superior games with the same theme even in this contest.
forests of the forevers
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
3
Innovation
3
2
Scope
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
I really enjoyed this! I thought the controls were instantly grippy and intuitive. The look was pleasant and clean - i loved the way you get an overview of the map before zooming in, and the quick restarts of a single seed encourage multiple attempts which i found very compulsive. Music was really interesting as well - strange and compelling. It's a very simple game but i found myself playing it more than i expected. I thought the colours and art were also really unusual, i could have perhaps done with a couple more shades in there but what was there demonstrated a really clean and clear aesthetic. My only mechanical criticism is that it would have been nice to regenerate a new seed without restarting the game - though I would add to that that most, if not all of the seeds i played were completable,
Showing the level generation is a nice touch. The soft dark on light aesthetic is pleasant. The gameplay is simple but pleasant, who doesn't like a good platformer? I would like to see a little momentum on the player character to add some additional challenge. Art reminds me a bit of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, which is a good thing. The ending is a little surprising-- you play for a while and then just win all of a sudden. The procedural level generation is the only thing that makes the game resemble the roguelike genre.
TOTEM
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
2
Fun
2
4
4
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
A room-based twin stick shooter, so doesn't really belong in this event. The music is nice, at least. Pressing escape directly exits the game while playing, which is not a good idea since that's a common key to press when looking for more info or options. The game was rather easy to win on a first try, and that's without activating any items until very late because clicking on the boxes was challenging to do and required causing the game window to lose focus in order to get the cursor to pass over them properly. Also there was never really a need to switch to a different weapon since the first one found (snake) was easily the most powerful due to repeatedly hitting and stunning enemies. It's not always easy to tell that an enemy is dead amidst the chaos of some rooms, so it would really help to have a sound effect for that
TOTEM is a roguelite in the style of The Binding of Isaac, where you go from room to room and shoot things until you find the exit to the next floor. However, not only does it have pretty cool, psychedelic/vaporwave graphics to go with its New Age-y theme, but there are some substantial differences at play. In particular, you are not locked into the rooms you enter until you manage to kill everything inside, so you can pop in and out of them, or quickly move on past the horde if the room has no significance. However, you shouldn't do that too often, because in another difference from most Isaac-style games, you are allowed to go back up the stairs - in fact, you are required to go all the way back to the exit after beating the final (and only) boss on floor 8, and this will spawn new enemies in each room - potentially in addition to those you have not cleared before. Since the game does not mark rooms with stairs on the minimap, this also means that before you are about to fight the boss, it becomes a good strategy to go back up floor by floor and mentally map out the path from the down stairs to up stairs, so that you would not stumble through fights you do not need to have. Meanwhile, the combat is determined by the titular totems - animal masks which allow the protagonist to use the powers of their spirit in combat, with a room containing a random totem always present on each floor bar the boss one. You'll always attack the same way, through clicking/holding down the mouse when the enemies are near your crosshairs, but both your character's stats and the attack stats will vary widely, and there's a decent choice of totems available. Moreover, your stats can be modified further by using gems which occasionally drop from the enemies (alongside HP): up to five can be carried around, but only two can be active at any given time, which still gives substantial room for build-crafting. I.e. Eagle, a fast totem and the only one capable of shooting across the entire room, also has mediocre damage and so benefits a lot from totem multipliers - however, even stronger glass cannon leaves it too fragile even if also offset with a defence token. Meanwhile, the funniest way to play the game is to get a knockback-oriented Elephant totem, and modify it with MORE knockback gems - the end result throws monsters out of bounds almost immediately. While it's not very helpful in the long run, since they'll still be respawned in the center of the room when you come back, and with only minor damage sustained, it is certainly worth trying at least once. For actually winning, however, the totems with high rate of fire are far preferable to everything else. I have beaten the game with a Wolf totem and defense + glass cannon gems, but I have beaten the boss with a similarly rapid-firing Snake earlier, and the Bee is roughly as good as those two, any differences between them minor next to their superiority compared to slower totems, like the aforementioned Elephant or Eagle, the starting Bear or the Bat. After beating the boss, Tree of Life permanently replaces your current totem, and it is strong enough that the best move is to swap to dual defence gems to minimize danger from stray hits, especially from the one ranged monster type, whose 8-directional burst is only slightly weaker than the punch from lumbering troll monsters, and substantially stronger than the melee strikes from the other two. An unfortunate issue with the game is that while the four monster types all have good designs and serve distinct roles in combat, you'll likely see all of them on the first floor, and the subsequent floors and ascension run will simply gradually increase their numbers per room. At least you get to survey the carnage you caused every time you re-enter the room since dead bodies remain on the floor, forever frozen in whatever animation frame they were on when their HP ran out. In all, a roguelite with some great visuals and spins on the usual formula, and which could be really promising with more variety!
7drl_Chesslike
Completeness
2
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
3
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
2
3
The chess moveset is an interesting idea that can certainly be built on. However as it stands the game is a bit lacking - needs more enemies, and maybe some sort of loot or progression to make it more of a game.
The chess mechanic is interesting, but the strategy associated with Chess is lost on the larger, more wide open spaces that don't really restrict anyone's movement in any real way. Still it's nice to see innovation. More features and a better use of maps could make this really compelling.
I liked this entry, thanks for participating! I appreciate the mention of the "tiny" mouse click area on a square! It definitely is an entry that has plenty of room to grow. I definitely encourage you to put some additional time into this if you can. Huzzah to see more Dragon Ruby. Thanks for participating and hope you had fun!
Dino Evolution
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
2
3
Scope
2
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
4
This is a cute game with a creative theme. It was easy to figure out. Once I learned the rules, it didn't hold my attention for long. Even when I was being extremely careful, the health mechanic felt really punishing with no way to recover reliably. I never figured out when going in the water would damage me, and water is needed to survive, so I lost every game trying not to die of thirst.
Simple roguelike puzzle game with cute art. I like the concept of playing with long term resources in mind. Balancing a puzzle game with auto-generated maps must have been a difficult task. However, the game is quite difficult to play, and even if you're doing well, you'll find yourself in trouble if you're on a series of maps with low resources. I tried again and again for about an hour and cleared up to 60 stages, but 252 stages seems a bit too long.
An interesting premise with a nice look (but no audio component) that is diminished by poor balancing. At best, it appears to make a point that survival and evolution is inherently random - so you do not just get a choice of two random upgrades whenever you get from one screen to the next (which is meant to represent 3 million years passing), but your chances of clearing a screen are dependent on its layout and spawns more than anything else. The only other dinosaurs are either triceraptors or T-Rexes: the former are somewhat manageable, but the latter will leave you half-dead at best, so taking on even two of them is suicidal within just one screen - and you get no healing outside of random top-up/MaxHP increase, neither of which will compensate you for more than a fraction of damage from fighting a T-Rex. While they start immobile and unaware of your character, and lose that awareness and pause if you move far enough away (represented by their red eyes lighting up and turning down, respectively), the spawns can often be too dense to allow meaningful dodging - it's possible to enter a screen and find 7 T-Rexes standing in three blocks around the middle, rendering dodging practically impossible - or even worse, 8 T-Rexes, some at perfect 1-tile distances between them, so trying to move past will get your dino hit by 2 at once. There are also screens where there are large lakes in the middle you have to pass through - while T-Rexes do not follow you in the water (although triceraptors do), this is compensated by a chance to randomly take damage every time you enter a water tile, with no way to avoid it - and you need to regularly enter water tiles just so that your dino does not die of thirst. There's also eating trees to top up food, which is near-irrelevant at first, but much more important when you go through the desert periods where they are scarce. In all, play it as long as you need to realize that you are wholly at the mercy of a random numbers generator - and not even a remotely realistic one at that.
Pepperwood Golf 2021
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
3
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
Here's the funny thing: I don't care about golf at all, but I did enjoy spending half an hour swinging the golf in "Pepperwood Golf 2021". That's until I realized that the true (or at least an alternate) ending is achieved through story, so I just bugged all the various animals to unlock it. I never quite figured out whether the upgrades reduce accuracy, the terrain where I'm hitting from affects accuracy, or the exact landing spot is not always deterministic - so I got tired before getting below Shooter's 37 hits. A fun experience regardless! There were a couple of polish issues - the animals don't have any new lines after the story ending, and you can achieve unfair advantage in a single round if you move the ball close to the hole, and then end the round. I wish I saw the other ending to see more of the game :)
Completeness 3 Aesthetics 3 Fun: 2 The aesthetic and text are really cute, but it gets repetitive quickly, even when progressing through the plot. I'm pretty good at Golf Story on Switch, and the golf gameplay here is strictly easier, so it didn't hold my attention for long and I started to skip levels to talk to the characters instead of playing the golf game. Innovative: 3 Scope:: 3 Roguelike: 1 Has roguelike aesthetics, but I couldn't find any other roguelike qualities in it. If there's procgen content (I couldn't tell), it doesn't contribute to the gameplay. There's metaprogression and no permadeath. I'd call it a pure RPG. Notes This game feels like a super-condensed Golf Story. I see promise if development were to continue, but the 7DRL version doesn't have enough meat to hold my interest. I really like the look of it and I appreciated the little sound effects. It's exactly how I like a 7DRL to look.
Potato Science
Completeness
2
4
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
3
Innovation
3
4
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
I love the theme here! It's such a great absurdist setting and it ties together the game flow nicely with the potatoes falling back into the water. It's a great hook and instantly inviting theme. The crane setup works well too, grabbing the potatoes from the water feels nice and fishing for the potatoes with attachments is nice. However I think the actual potato-rolling game is very limited. It's a great setup for fun and comedy, but the player really lacks agency in the rolling game. It's difficult to actually make use of the attachments for any really effective play, though all of them are useful as well as fun and interesting to use. As a result most of the actual game play is rolling right and firing off abilities when you get near an enemy (or have an obstacle to overcome). That wouldn't be the worst, but the pacing doesn't match that level of gameplay. The potato rolls slowly (which is fitting it's a potato), but the levels are quite large. I think I clocked each level at about 4-8 minutes to complete. Mostly they are pretty similar with challenges or things to do spaced pretty far apart. As a result losing felt very tiring because of the setback in time, and that breaks the draw of trying yet another run. What I would recommend is trying to condense the potato rolling, make it something faster paced with more player agency and control somehow and then you'll have a great gameplay loop setup to encourage people to keep trying.
Likely the single weirdest submission to this jam. Very much not a roguelike with its Tiny Wings-style gameplay, and the maps are so similar to each other you may begin to doubt if there's even procedural generation involved. Nevertheless, it's an experience well unlike any other submission, and it's worth trying it for a little while in case you need inspiration.
Tenement Hell
Completeness
2
2
Aesthetics
4
4
Fun
2
2
Innovation
4
3
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
2
Tenement Hell is essentially a roguelite equivalent to Silent Hill 4: The Room: a horror game about the claustrophobia of being locked within a confined space, while also being in danger from supernatural assailants. This is very cool concept and I really hope it gets an expanded version down the line. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Tenement Hell in its current state. It appears that much of the week's development time went into creating the art, and it is absolutely the game's strongest point. Every single screen has this shabby, uncomfortable look: the monsters are all very creepy (with the exception of comically oversized rats that appear to be more of a comic relief) and even the peaceful Tenants look soaked in misery. Day-night cycle changes the view from the windows seemingly every other hour, and even if you keep the curtains closed, the changes in natural light remain. The soundscape is less developed, but it's still more than adequate. Unfortunately, the above appears to have taken so much time that a myriad of other intended features are left half-implemented. Some of it is to do with the visuals: locations like offices, toilet stalls, elevators, laundromats or a rooftop completely lack unique backgrounds and instead are represented by default empty rooms, which are often completely void of interactivity as well. Some gameplay options are present in a stub state: i.e. you can talk to the Tenants and gift them items, but both are completely meaningless right now. (At the same time, Tenants are completely apathetic to the player looting their apartments.) Likewise, the "examine" option that's designed for flavor text simply returns "An unknown object" for the majority's of interactable objects, including such everyday stuff as bedside tables and kitchen counters. I would have ignored this if that was the extent of missing features: sadly, missing or poorly coded content also impacts the core functionality in a drastic manner. * First aid kits are unusable, and there's no other way to restore HP. * Tins of beans are a food item that requires tin opener to consume: the game may not ever spawn that item anywhere. * Defeated enemies neither disappear nor are replaced with a "dead" sprite: instead, they just get stuck on that location's screen forever, no longer targetable or active, but visually unchanged. Moreover, it seems that defeating a certain kind of monster once prevents them from being a problem again: after killing one hostile Mannequin, the others stopped being targetable or hostile when they showed up. Subsequent rats were targetable 50% of the time, but never attacked. * Stamina is a resource that is consumed when either moving from one location to another or attacking. Waiting or resting is supposed to help restore it: instead, waiting always sets stamina to 12, regardless of its current value, and resting sets it to 26. * Sleeping is the only way to get stamina back up to 100. Sleep is broken as well: even if the character is not hungry and there are no lights on, he will still say that he normally goes to sleep at a time that's invariably hours away from the current time. However, he still gets stamina restoration from choosing the option, even as the text says he has not slept. * The bug with enemies stopping being targetable also appears to them being spawned. After you finally kill an annoying Split creature that appears heavily inspired by SH4, and bring down two location-specific monsters, no other creature ever appears. Then, there's nothing to do but to wait for the timer. * The player will run out of food about 5 days into the game. However, hunger bar is not programmed to kill the character once it runs out, so this is ultimately meaningless, and the only way to try and end the game then is to wait for the timer. * The 50-day timer was already unreasonably long, but it becomes truly interminable because many key actions simply do not consume any time whatsoever. Talking to the tenants passes no time: the current, broken form of sleeping also doesn't. Thus, the only way to advance the clock is to keep moving around or to wait in place (1 minute each) or to rest on a bed/futon/sofa (5 minutes). More than an hour into the game, I ran out of things to find on day 47, after which it was just resting and moving from apartment to apartment to consume food. By day 45, I ran out of all food in the game, and but since it didn't kill the character, I was again left with nothing to do but rest. I eventually installed an auto-clicker to see if that would allow me to rest until the game ends. However, thanks to the "loading bar" animations that play every time an action is taken, it still takes about half an hour to advance the clock by 5 more days, so trying to actually reach the ending would still require many hours of absolutely nothing happening. These reasons are why I do not recommend this 7DRL version of the game. However, I strongly encourage players to give this game a look should the creator resolve these technical issues in a later version.
Creepy atmosphere!
Uhhh, helm
Completeness
3
3
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
The game promises a nice traditional roguelike experience, and it does deliver for the most part. I enjoyed manipulating the enemies to overcome them, and there were sometimes moments at the beginning of levels when I was surrounded and had to make some interesting decisions. I never quite figured out why monsters get stunned when you walk near them, but it's a nice mechanic to work with. I also never understand what the monster tiles represented. The game's scope is very small-- the two enemies are almost identical, the levels are open rectangles, and the item/monster generation appears to work with a small number of hand-made level layouts, with the monster or item generated on a chosen tile being set between the two choices. The outcome of this is that once you beat a level, you are asked to beat another that is almost exactly the same as the last, over and over and over. A new item or new enemy would have gone a long way to improving the experience. I do like the setup of a story progressing through images as the game moves forward.
A game about one thing and one thing only - axe tossing. Trying to bump into enemies deals as much damage to you as it does to them and HP does not regenerate, so you need to exploit the moments when the only two monster types in the entire game pause to strike at the tile in front of them (which gets filled in with a confusing mess of tiles) and use that period to move a few tiles to their side, then throw an axe from there (which will boomerang back indefinitely). It's rather confusing at first, but becomes like clockwork once you figure it out and are able to clear the first level - and then, all the subsequent levels are just like that but progressively easier, as the monsters stay the same while your Viking both gets more HP and a lot more axes to toss. Later levels are just about pacing up and down near the starting position while tossing axes in the enemies' direction, only occasionally having to dance around one or two that ventured close. It doesn't look good either, and the one theme eventually cuts out, so there's not much reason to check this out.
BattlelandsRL
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
I like the simple and calm design. When you click on the game screen, @ glides around, and enemies occasionally slide in random directions. I think it's a shame that this movement doesn't have any particular meaning. I have a feeling it could be much more interesting with a little polishing.
Overview Game seems to have much bigger potential than it shows at the first glance. I would like to see it in active development post campo, even if the current version lacks direction and balance. Completeness Mechanically Battlelands seems to be complete. Still, it needs more work, especially towards balancing the game properly. Aesthetics At the first glance, the game is aesthetically appealing very much. Soon after it turns out the game graphics style lacks a direction. There is a fancy background, stylish UI, indeed, but I also would like to see icons in matching style, and perhaps more interesting font. Fun The game idea is definitely a fun one – some time ago, I too wanted to combine *Isaac-like* dungeon generation with turn-based combat. The problem is that the rooms are empty, you can avoid any enemy, and the abilities you gain don't differ much. Idea – fun. But there is actually not much to do... Innovation The dungeon presentation reminds me Binding of Isaac and the like (you can see only one room at time, and there are no corridors between rooms – you just move from one room to another one), and it's not common to combine that kind of representation with turn-based combat. Scope Reasonable. There are some enemies, a few abilities. Everything I can expect from the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness While I wouldn't call Battlelands a classic roguelike, it checks most of the most important marks.
BattlelandsRL has a cute style of moving from screen to screen, mouse controls and modal combat. Yet, while those are unusual, they are mean little next to the two key quirks below. The first is that moving from one screen to another is what fully heals you. Thus, trying to fight two or more enemies in a single screen at once is very foolish and most likely to just leave you dead, as there's no penalty for fighting one opponent at a time, moving away to heal, then coming back. The second thing is that even with this in mind, the outcome of most battles is entirely random. Up until you can get a Longsword ability (which mainly drops from pixies, who are rarely killable until midgame) every available attack type has a very wide damage range (with the exact numbers completely hidden from the player), and since the player and the enemies have the same abilities, it's completely up to luck who'll get better rolls in the early battles: before your first level-up, even the most basic creatures like Wood Rats are entirely capable of unpredictably getting superior rolls a couple of times and winning. While you can theoretically flee whenever you see that the battle is not going in your favour, that also has a hefty failure chance that can occur repeatedly, so often you might as well just hope for better attack rolls next turn instead. The few non-damaging abilities are equally underwhelming: sleep lasts for just one turn and so it wears off before you can take any other action, rendering it pointless. Invisibility goes away as soon as the caster attacks, and only reduces the chance to take damage instead of eliminating it. Barkskin does do a flat damage reduction, but not enough of it to compensate ceding a turn to your enemies instead of attacking. In fact, Invisibility and Barkskin are at their most helpful when it's the enemy using them several times in a row for no reason, and thus giving you a bunch of free attacks: these AI missplays can compensate for any lucky rolls they make, and make up the difference between winning or losing. In all, BattlelandsRL features unusual presentation that deserves to be used for something more engaging than a slot machine.
Decode()
Completeness
4
2
2
Aesthetics
3
2
2
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
3
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
2
Decode() is a triumph of style over substance. It has well-selected soundtrack and nice choice of colours. However, what really makes it stand out is the decision to use gradual, smooth movement from tile to tile. It is a rare feature in roguelikes, and for a reason: even though the levels are small just getting around becomes much slower as the result. Likewise, there are only three types of objects throughout the entire game - doors, elevators and terminals - and interacting with all of them could be handled with standard "bumping" into them. Instead, there are separate keyboard buttons for interacting with all of them, as well as the need to confirm them with Enter. Altogether, this slows the game to a crawl. Moreover, there's not much else to look at: all terminal hacking is just the matter of pressing Enter in response to prompts until you finally succeed: while you can theoretically fail by running out of energy, it never matters in practice - you are much more likely to fail by getting permanently stuck inside the corridor corners. The game does feature "Reset Player" option to counter that, but it is itself bugged - once you trigger it once, pressing Enter will always throw the character back to the starting position, up until you abandon that run. You get experience for successful hacking, but will max out your level well before the game ends, even if you only interact with the beneficial green terminals. The game apparently features a bad ending, but you have to explicitly try to get it, since even the UI strongly suggests which actions are required for that. I have beaten the game once, and gave up on the other ending after repeated bugs with getting stuck in the scenery, or even the level generator occasionally creating starting rooms where both doors are locked behind codes you do not have yet.
Elementalist
Completeness
3
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
I'm immediately struck with strong Binding of Isaac vibes from this, could just be the tileset. The game has a good graphical style, although the player character doesn't really fit in with the rest. Play is intuitive and smooth, controls well. Unfortunately, there's little to do with that smoothness: gameplay consists of walking into featureless rooms and beating identical enemies, then a boss that's a slightly upgraded version of the last one. It was also painfully slow at the beginning, something that got better with the upgrades - these could have been lootable items to increase interaction, maybe choices as well? All in all a good showing for a 7DRL, but didn't really catch my interest.
Really like the choice of character sprite definitely make me feel like I'm throwing fireballs the lighting effect was a nice touch on those. This one is kind of right up my alley enter the gungeon is one of my most played rogue-likes and I'm always excited to see more bullet hell esque games. There's just not a lot to do in this one levels 1-3 are really slow 6 shots to kill a enemy and they're all weak to circle strafing. Then you get the triple shot and the game really picks up but doesn't scale bosses health so by the time you get the 5 way spread on level 6 your not even seeing boss attack patterns anymore. I cant lie though I really enjoy walking into rooms and just filling them with fireballs. But that's also the most unfortunate design decision I would've like to have those upgrades in the map somehow as there currently no incentive to go to any other rooms once you find the boss. The game feels very samey and not very rogue-like-y in this state the maps are randomized but the range for that is so low since the enemies seem to fixed on some rotation the runs play out the same each time. I like ti beat all the games I play for this but I'm not sure if that's possible with this one. My longed run was 20+ maps in and the game just closed, no crash report or anything it just exited along with the console. Had that happens 3 or 4 times with no clear cause as to why. Just thought it would bring that to your attention although I'm sure that's not really helpful information for bug-fixing. All in all the movement and shooting feels good and the aesthetics are nice it just needs a hook.
An Isaac-style twin-stick roguelite where you move to a room, get locked in it until you kill everything that moves, and move to the next one until you kill the boss and get to the next level. This being a 7DRL, the amount of content is obviously limited: there's exactly one hostile elemental type per floor, and though your character looks vaguely electrical, their only ability is to toss fire darts, while the only form of character advancement is adding on two more bolts per shot for every three floors cleared. And while pixel art is surprisingly good, the complete lack of any sound produces a very uncanny effect: to a lesser extent, same goes for the combination of well-animated elementals and completely static torches on the walls. Ultimately, the elementals may look differently, but they are all ranged attackers that fire progressively larger bursts of projectiles directly at your location, so the combat comes down to entering the room, getting all elementals in the centre, and circle-strafing until they are all gone. The bosses actually require less movement than the basic rooms: they cycle through three projectile atterns that all look nice, but aren't particularly difficult to dodge. In fact, the difficulty of any given encounter ultimately determined by room size more than anything else, as it is completely independent of the number of enemies. Thus, you can enter a large room and not get attacked until its lone elemental moves into view from the edge offscreen, or you can walk into a small room and be practically surrounded by 6-7 elementals and proceed to take a lot of damage. The only way to heal is by moving on to the next floor: thus, you should try to just locate the boss room ASAP and not bother with anything else on the floor once you destroyed the boss. Lastly, the game is endless right now: it'll eventually start cycling through the elemental themes you already cleared before. In all, Elementalist is still a promising seed of a game. With its commercial-grade art and basic mechanics already nailed down, I could see it turning into a something like a better version of the old Binding of Isaac competitor, A Wizard's Lizard - perhaps it could even make the lack of metaprogression into a selling point. It just needs a proper ending(s) and character development pathways, as well as more variety in enemy types, boss patterns, room layouts and the other things which determine the longevity of a roguelite.
Heimval
Completeness
2
2
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
2
3
4
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
2
4
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
Aesthetically, this is very pretty. The lighting engine is very, very nice but it does turn the game for me into a stuttering mess if I have to load in a new chunk of the area at speed trying to run away from a slime or few. The crafting system is solid, and occupying a hastily repaired building while waiting for night to pass, hoping nothing breaks into your shelter for the night is a nerve-wracker works rather well in a roguelike context. Currently, this game feels like the start of an idea, rather than a proper concept. And at times, far too stuttery to play.
This game boasts a broody and beautiful atmosphere. The day / night cycle provides a real depth of feeling - with the shadows of trees elongating in the evenings and the glow of moonlight allowing safe(ish) transit in a short window, Heimval puts games with a simple light on/light off gradient to shame. The content is sparse but what is there is fun and accessible to anyone familiar with traditional survival games. I found myself punching a tree within the first 5 seconds of the game, missing the actual tutorial and dying shortly after. Following the tutorial provides you with some equipment and a quest that concludes with your death and the end of the game (unless there's another way through...). This is an ambitious and aesthetic game that with a bit more meat and improved performance would be an easy one to lose a Sunday afternoon in.
Heimval is a survival game based off you know what, whose only roguelike features are the inability to save and a procedurally generated map, which potentially stretches on indefinitely. There are so few pieces available, though, that the only practical difference between multiple runs is the direction you would have to head towards to deal with the antagonist - which matters a lot, as Heimval can start lagging heavily if you do not move towards the right place (a tiny bright pink dot far away from your portrayed map area, which can be quite hard to spot at first) and instead force it to generate too many extraneous parts of the level. Every run starting with a brief tutorial you must complete in order to get the tools needed to survive further reduces roguelikeness. On the other hand, the ending choice of sorts is neat, even if hardly compelling. Still, while Heimval may not be much of a roguelike or a roguelite, it is very MUCH worth trying as a game in general -- almost entirely thanks to its graphics, which are stunning for something made in 7 days. It has a well-realized day-night cycle, which possibly makes it the best-looking submission to this entry. The soundscape is less notable, but is still entirely functional - same as the combat. It might come down to walking backwards and pausing at just the right time to strike the slime/troll chasing you and knock them back before their own attack connects, but pulling it off consistently isn't easy, given both the forested terrain and the likelihood of nearby monsters joining in. There is crafting too, but it's only really useful for creating an upgraded bone axe and then combining slime ectoplasm and strawberries into healing potions once that is done. You can try building your own house, or place around torches, but neither will help you win the game faster, and house-building is hobbled by the seeming inability to rotate the walls before placing them down. In all, Heimval is an alright bite-sized survival game, but an amazing example of what can be accomplished visually on a tight deadline.
Island Escape
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
4
4
Fun
3
3
4
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
An impressive entry for how quickly it was reportedly put together (3 hours), especially the visual style of the map. Just a little more work on the UI and input feedback would have gone a long way, since probably the hardest part was realizing that bumping the campfire creatures was actually damaging them, even though they required numerous bumps to kill. It's also rather hard to see which item slot is active due to how faint the highlight is. Not very roguelike since it's just a static map mixed with crafting and a few stationary enemies, but does a good job as a quick puzzle game that's nice to look at.
Island Escape is not a roguelike at all. What it is a single-screen grid-based puzzle/adventure game - one where the level is handcrafted and never, ever changes. I would even hesitate to call it turn-based, considering that the player is the only one who is ever taking any actions - the few hapless "opponents" on the island are completely immobile and only deal damage if you have attacked them first - which does make you wonder if that escape you are attempting is a good thing at all. As it is, Island Escape works on adventure game logic, where if you are stuck, the solution is to take something you possess and either make it interact with something else (i.e. a few things are more helpful when held over the fire) or apply them in a different order when it comes to buffing yourself to kill the "enemies" and make the drop the stuff you need to escape. There's not much else to say. Visually, the game looks nice for something made in 3 hours, although it's offset by the complete lack of sound. Try it if you want to solve a couple of environmental puzzles, and maybe find some inspiration that way (though you are likely better off going straight to the source with any of the classic and modern freeware point-and-click adventures) but do not expect it to be very memorable.
Nice looking and fun little puzzle!
Rogue Royale [Project 2021-4]
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
4
Fun
2
2
4
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
3
4
Roguelikeness
2
2
3
This is a decent twin stick shooter jam game with nice sound and graphics. However, it is not even slightly a roguelike.
The game has basic royale mechanics, which provides some enjoyable and frantic movement and shooting. Restricting the healing potions with a cooldown is a good idea. Sound effects are good, movement is smooth. There are a number of different guns, which helps. I like that there are different environments as well. I won a few games and lost a bunch. I wish that my health was displayed in a bar instead of as a number-- in the heat of frantic battle it is tough to look over at my character and read the number, instead of seeing a bar go down in the corner of your eye. The experience is also very even-- if there were rare superweapons or maps that are very dense in trees or something to make some games different than other games, it would give you a reason to keep playing. The main issue that I have with Rogue Royale is that it doesn't fulfill any requirement for being a roguelike in a meaningful way, and isn't really appropriate for this game jam. I also felt that the game copies mechanics from other battle royale games without adding anything new-- some new twist to the genre would have made it a more interesting experience. It's a solid game, and other than the known bugs it seems to work well.
This game is essentially the singleplayer version of .io battle royales like surviv.io or zombsroyale.io (not to mention the games that inspired both of those) Nevertheless, it's remarkably good at emulating the style for something done in 7 days, as there's a considerable variety of distinct weapons (from swords and axes, to two shotgun types to revolvers, tommy guns, LMGs and bows) and three different map biomes: grassland, desert and snow, all of which also have nighttime versions. It replicates the feel pretty well too, as the best strategy is typically to let the others fight each other out, but the constantly shrinking area makes this difficult and you are often prone to run into a fresh hostile while in the process of dodging a different one. It happens to have more detailed graphics than most .io games as well, although this comes at the expense of performance, with fullscreen version feeling particularly slow. Over-dramatic music seemingly sourced from Incompetetech or the like adds to the charm. There are definitely flaws, be it the hostiles' inability to pick up healing potions and their tendency to get stuck on level geometry while in pursuit (though winning would have been so much harder than it is already if they didn't), to endgame screen simply listing the number of remaining hostiles (or announcing your victory), and being sparse on any other stats, like the number of kills. Nevertheless, it's a more expansive work than what is usually seen this contest, and though not very original, it's an interesting example of what can be done in 7 days.
Rogue of the Seven Seas
Completeness
3
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
2
3
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
3
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
Rogue of the Seven explores combines is a trading and pirate fighting game that reminds me of games like Sid Meier's Colonization and pirate games of my youth. Starting off with a small boat and 100 gold, you need to trade, explore, and upgrade your ship. I did not find an end state, though I was strong than any enemy and had a massive fortune, so it seems more sandbox than narrative. The game's strongest asset is the pixel art and graphics. As I noted before it reminded me fondly of past exploration and colonization games. The ships are clear, the chain of islands you are exploring feels thematic. Different island configuration are created each game, but in my game it was easy to find two nearby towns that had arbitrage potential on some goods and rapidly double my money over and over again. Once I had thousands of gold, I could quickly upgrade my ship to endgame. I wish combat was a bit more in depth, primarily auto attack with an opportunity to surrender to lose some currency. It was hopeless until I upgraded, and after than I auto-won everything. The setting of pirates exploring, trading, and fighting is ripe for continued development. I could imagine turn based battles as you pillage native settlements and forgotten temples, in depth ship battles, and a random land to discover every game. The entry gave me a taste of that, and because of that it will remain memorable for a long time. Well done!
Unfortunately it was hard to enjoy this game because the economy is completely broken. You can buy goods at your starting port and immediately sell them at the same port for more than you bought them for, so you immediately have access to infinite money. At least there's no cargo limit, so you can basically grow your wealth expontentially by going back and forth between the menus and holding Spacebar. So with a fully upgraded ship coming out of the primary port, including tens of thousands of coin and energy, nothing stood a chance and we just blew everything and everyone out of the water right away. It was interesting having a minimap/world map sort of thing but not actually indicating where you are on that map (whether intentional or not), since that meant having to figure it out from the island shapes, but movement is slow so exploration isn't fluid at all, and although I did check out a bunch of islands I never found any treasure, or saw the kraken. It felt odd that Enter can't be used to select things (like on the main menu), despite a bunch of other keys working for that purpose. Same with ending the tutorial, which is done via Spacebar rather than Escape, although there's no prompt for this. Some playtesting and work on balance would've gone a long way towards making this game more playable.
Pirate roguelikes are like buses: absent for many years, and then several turn up in a single jam, and we suddenly get the luxury of picking and choosing. Unlike some other submissions, bread-and-butter of this game is not combat but the buy-low/sell-high trading between ports and ship upgrades with the resultant profits. It is inherently satisfying and there's a good variety of goods to trade, even as you recognize just how ridiculous price differences and profit margins can be (i.e. buying gunpowder for 9 gold per unit and selling it for 100). Simply moving back-and-forth two nearest ports and playing on price differences is bound to realize enough profits to fully upgrade your ship after a dozen trips or so - especially if you can find a port that sells food for just 1 gold, as the savings from not paying 2 or 3 pieces per unit quickly add up. Even in the fixed version, there's the weird abstraction where everything is bought "per kilo", including crewmembers and cannons, while running out of food ("Energy" bar) simply ticks down your ship's HP - same HP that gets damaged by cannons. Yet, increasing the size of crew does not increase ship's HP - however, it does increase food consumption every single turn. Meanwhile, combat isn't much to wrote home about. It's modal, where the only options are "Attack", "Offer" or "Surrender", and only Attack is worth picking ("Offer" appears intended to intimidate other ships into surrendering, but that never seemed to work, even as my ship had several times more Fear than the opponent, and the other ship was half-dead already.) Unless you get really unlucky or reckless, you probably won't get into fights with other ships until you have levelled your ship enough to utterly outclass them. On the other hand, the game's boss, the Kraken, is fully RNG: even with fully-levelled ship, you'll still have 100 HP to its 1000, and it seems completely random if you'll get several rounds of 200+ damage while it inflicts scratch damage or no damage at all, or if it gets a couple of strikes that deal ~40 damage and thus ends the game (unless you "surrender" to it beforehand, in which case it takes your money and lets you leave). If anything, the greatest highlight is seeing AI transport and pirate ships sink each other on the map. The on-map graphics are very muddy, and are the one area where Rogue of the Seven Seas clearly loses out to similar submissions. However, it somewhat offsets it with a good range of pixelized portraits in the trade/combat screens, and its SFX, including a shanty-like tune. Altogether, this is a neat, if flawed, submission, and a solid foundation to be built upon. It would have likely looked more impressive in a typical 7DRL year where it would have had no competitors.
Abyssal Evolution
Completeness
2
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
3
4
Abyssal Evolution is a neat action-puzzle roguelike akin to Desktop Dungeons (but with moving parts). The aesthetic is simple but pretty with a satisfying colour scheme that suits the theme of the abyss. On first playthrough the aim of the game is not obvious - but as soon as you get to grips with the rules and start chasing down as many enemies as you can within the turns provided it becomes easy. The content and features are sparse and the enemies are similar, so it feels a bit like the tutorial section of a bigger game. The idea and mechanics are very compelling, it might be worth stealing some ideas from the incremental/idle genre (if you're happy to betray the roguelike format!). In running the game from source I experienced a number of crashes on restart and got soft-locked behind a wall a few times.
A fairly unique concept! I liked the idea of starting from the basics of evolution and slowly moving upwards. The jumping was interesting and would definitely encourage you to add the other abilities you were originally planning. Hope you had fun participating and thanks a lot for entering the 7DRL!
An extremely simple submission where all you do is bump into monsters to attack and eventually jump to close the distance or at times make some space from a large group of fellow abyss monsters. You rarely need to do this, though, since any familiarity with 8-directional movement and basic caution should allow you to comfortably take them on individually. There are four monster types which are just straight HP/damage upgrades of each with no other differences, and they appear right as you level up enough to oneshot the previous strongest monster, but would still need to two-shot them. Even the final boss dies in two hits from a character strong enough to get there - which happens quickly, as the game automatically transitions from one single-screen level to the next after you kill over half the monsters on it. There is no sound whatsoever, but at least the ASCII is easily readable and the level generator creates nice-looking rooms.
H@CK3R
Completeness
2
4
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
2
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
Pretty atightforeward and simple little roguelike. I can definitely see the roots of what was growing here but its definitely got a lot of room to grow.I like the aesthetic especially the sound effects but the footseps got a little grating by the end. It wasnt clear at first what the hacking actually did, at first I thought it maybe allowed me to summon some stun or kill drones which i was excited for. But when I discovered they kiled the grey drone enemies I never really had a reason to hack as they are not really a threat so much as a time commitment.I honestly felt more like a UFC fighter than i hacker the way i could just walk up to five guards and drop them without taking a scratch. I did like that they would pop out of boxes kept me attentive when opening them. This game also runs a little on the long side with 16 levels, I feel like i had seen most of the content by the 5th level. The hacking could be really interesting if it had some more features and the enemies were more dynamic. I think limiting the player would help a lot here actually. A H@ck3r probably shouldn't be able to take out a drone without taking damage or hacking it having the drone move like twice as often as the player so that you need to really lean into the hacking to get by could be interesting. good framework, just needs more methods.
Nice game! Good graphics, super easy controls, and very easy to learn. Was able to pick it up and feel like I was mastering it within the first couple games, which is really rare for roguelikes. After that, it felt a bit repetitive, like there was not much more to discover, but its a great foundation to build upon!
Cyberpunk is still an under-represented theme in roguelikes, so a submission named H@CK3R immediately caught my eye. Sadly, a far superior title would be K1T3R - as kiting what the entirety of gameplay comes down to. All you need to know to beat the game is that the default guards take two hits to die while the "drones" (which just look like red-eyed zombies) die in three - and that both of them take one action for every two you do. Thus, whenever a default guard spots you (which is a really small distance of about three tiles) you just need to let him approach you, then attack twice, and you'll defeat him without a scratch. For the "drones", you let them walk up to you from a cardinal direction, attack once, step back, and then attack twice. That's it. Their low speeds and small detection ranges mean that kiting either enemy type one-on-one is never much of a challenge. The only additional gameplay element is the ability to destroy objects to obtain energy, which can then be used on the terminals located at the start of each level to either stun or kill all drones on it, leaving only the basic guards around. Kiting is so straightforward, however, that it's far faster to just search for the teleporter room and get there ASAP, and checking out any additional room in the hope you can find more energy or HP does nothing but take up time. Destroying metal objects in the rooms you have to go through does makes sense, since you'll loot enough energy to reduce enemy densities on the final 2-3 levels, but that's about it. (While it's best to stay away from cardboard boxes to avoid wasting time with extra drones). The game's graphics and sound do a really good job of emulating console games of the 1990s. However, the lack of BGM means that the only thing you'll be hearing are footstep sounds and attack sounds all the way through the long 16 levels, which does get grating. It does not help that nothing about the levels' appearance ever changes; all they ever do is just become larger. This is ultimately the core problem with the game as it is - once you have seen the first 3 levels or so, you have seen everything it has to offer, and the remainder is absolutely the same thing, but longer. I really like the way it looks, and I wish that it is eventually built upon, retaining the same theme and aesthetics, while becoming more properly varied and possessing more engaging gameplay from the start. For now, I cannot recommend this game as it currently stands.
HIO
Completeness
4
3
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
2
4
Scope
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
Cool stuff! My one big item of feedback would be the inertia/friction: it takes waaay too long for the ball to come to a stop. That made the game a little frustrating for me.
This is a fun idea, but unfortunately, it's not really fun to play at all at the moment. After each swing, you have to wait for a long time to let the ball come to rest. This can become indefinite if the ball gets stuck between moving paddles. Luckily, you can restart the run immediately in that case. Unluckily, it often feels faster to just restart the run than wait until the ball that clearly went off-course will finally come to rest and you'll get the chance to do it right. Since you cannot see beyond the borders of the current screen, this can occur quite often. The golf ball sounds are on point, but some music would be really helpful too. However, the barren grey/brown palette dominates the experience, and not in a good way. Thus, while I appreciate the reasonably varied amount of obstacles used, getting past them does not feel rewarding. When moving obstacles are beyond the borders of the screen, dealing with them feels more like the matter of luck. Suggested post-7DRL improvements: * A button to speed up time after you hit the ball! The wait for it to come to rest is currently the biggest drag on the game. * Aesthetics that are more fun/pleasant/memorable to look at. * Music. * Make hitting the ball a two-step process: first click and drag to set up the direction and the impact force, then press something else to actually hit it. It would prevent wasted strikes due to misclicks.
Mansion
Completeness
2
4
3
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
3
3
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
2
I enjoy bullet hell games, and having a few different characters is nice. You don't always see multiple characters in a jam game and some of them do play pretty differently. Graphics are simple but enough to represent the gameplay. I'd love to see more environment objects to mix up the experience. If enemies fired much more often but there was more cover, the faster pace may have been more exciting. There are a number of bugs, though I'm sure you are aware and I understand that it is a jam game. The most amusing bug is that sometimes, if you don't shoot when you enter a room, the enemies don't aggro and you can just hang out with them. Another is that the doors are open after only taking out one enemy much of the time. The most fun that I had with the game was remapping my scroll wheel to left click, going through doors early, and beating the game in 26 seconds. It's unusual that the time-slowing ability has no limit, so you can just play the whole game with it on. The strength of bullet hell games is the bullets, and I think the final boss would have benefited from a bunch of bullets flying everywhere.
A decent top-down shooter roguelite with consistent large-pixel graphics and a good range of SFX. It is most notable for its commitment to replay value - there are four distinct playable characters, and there are enough room layouts that you won't see all of them on your first playthrough. Balancing is on the easy side - three out of four characters won't have any issues circle-strafing the bandits (which differ only in appearance, size and HP, but not in firing patterns) and while the SWAT character is slow, his minigun shreds opposition in seconds. He is also tough enough to face-tank the final boss without bothering to dodge its laser attack, and so is the easiest character overall, while FBI agent is the hardest, as his gun is weak and the back-up agent he summons is useless vs. the boss and not needed in regular rooms. Policeman and Sheriff are pretty standard, although it's notable that Sheriff's slo-mo ability can stay activated indefinitely. Altogether a fun roguelite for its brief duration. While the cliffhanger at the end suggests the developer may be considering a follow-up, the current mechanics are unlikely to support a larger runtime without becoming more extensive.
The boss fight was a fun surprise!
Paladin Fever Dream
Completeness
2
3
2
Aesthetics
3
2
3
Fun
2
2
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
3
3
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
4
I'm not sure what to think about that one. The potential is here for sure, there are some cool mechanics here, and the game is aesthetically pleasing. But the game rules are opaque. Even controls are opaque – I still don't know how to use inventory. After pressing 'i', I was trying to press the number assigned to the item, I was trying to press item name by mouse, I was trying to choose the item my movement keys... Nothing happens. Another thing: leveling up. I got the message "DING! You gained level!", but it seems to change exactly nothing, and I can't open any menu to, for example, distribute ability points. Also, balance. The first three levels were a breeze, even without using items. And these floors didn't differ much. But the 4th level was just impossible to pass for me. I don't feel well reviewing this game. Maybe it's complete package, and maybe I would really like playing Paladin Fever Dream. But i was beaten by very poor discoverability, no available instructions: nor in game, or via readme file, neither on the game page.
A lovely little roguelike where you play as a paladin. Pretty traditional, but it had a neat twist: your spells are invoked ahead of time, but only take effect next time you attack. I thought that was pretty cool. I had some trouble with the inventory, and I couldn't figure out how to heal or reasonably avoid damage, so I always died before level 4. Interesting game!
This game appears to be a badly broken implementation of some rot.js tutorial. I have seen the exact same tileset in a last year's submission from a different creator, Rogues Amongst The Stars, as well as the same gameplay mechanics. The crucial difference is that RATS was hosted on a webpage, while PFD is downloadable-only, and this appears to have broken the way throwing/dropping works. In RATS, choosing throw brought up a plain white message box where you needed to input a number corresponding with whichever item in your inventory you wanted to toss out. While ugly and immersion-breaking, it worked. Here, the option does not work at all, and this means you cannot actually beat the game, as it requires dropping the Amulet onto an altar. Moreover, healing requires tossing gold nuggets into an alembic in both games: since you cannot throw nuggets properly, you cannot heal normally either. Thus, the only way of even getting to the final altar in the first place is by start-scumming to get a Paladin one of whose two random starting skills is Holy Strike, which is essentially vampirism. Only then can you make it through the engagements on later floors - although it's going to require stairdancing to really work. In a further sign of how broken the game is - Holy Strike and its cousin Holy Shield both use orange AP points, but the UI only ever shows you HP and MP. I assumed at first that AP (and green EP, used by other, less important skills) were completely non-existant, but it turned out they are there, just not represented in the UI. You just have to memorize that you can use AP-consuming skills about 5 times at most, then spend about a couple dozen of turns waiting on the upper floor or somewhere else safe to make sure you recovered it (since waiting may randomly recover the other two meters instead). All in all, this game is remarkably broken and lacks anything you would not get in better implementations of the same libraries, like the aforementioned RATS.
RoboLike
Completeness
2
2
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
Completeness 2 Serious crashes that made it impossible to get past the first floor. Using ranged weapons seemed to occasionally completely freeze the entire game. Aesthetics 3 The visible weapons on each robot was quite cool, and a welcome feature. Overall, no readability issues. Fun 2 There was a lot of cool stuff with the scavenging and gear collection, however there were a couple points that made the game very painful to play. Firstly, and most significantly, the animations take way too long, the characters just move way too slowly. Secondly, the damage system often resulted in any hit lowering your speed to 0, immediately immobilising you. Thirdly, the weapon switching system was pretty tedious, cycling through all your weapons with a single button. With these issues fixed, the game would be a lot more fun to play. Innovative 3 The part picking up system wasn't super innovative, as it doesn't come to much more than upgrading equipment, which is a common feature of many roguelikes. The enemy AI however was quite cool, as they seemed to mostly execute fixed instruction chains with little reaction to their environment. This is quite a bit more interesting than the standard follow and hit model that most roguelikes employ, and I'd love to see this kind of AI style expanded upon. Scope 3 Unfortunately I wasn't able to see a lot of the game due to the crashes, but it seemed like there was a reasonable amount of content. Roguelike 3 This definitely passes as a roguelike.
## General review Some bugs, and it needs more content, but definitely a good start for a roguelike. I hope the author will develop this further ! ## Detailed review Completeness: 2 The Windows exe does not run (missing .pck file). I am able to play the web version, but it is very slow (~2-3 seconds for enemies to move). Key presses/clicks are not always registered, possibly because some enemies are still moving off-screen. Aesthetics: 3 UI is clear and intuitive. The tileset is working well for this game. There are some issues with tile borders, with sometimes a 1 pixel gap between tile, but this is a 7DRL and I am sure it can be polished with a few more days of work. Fun: 2 There is some potential here, but not too much fun yet because of the bugs and sometimes unresponsive interface. Innovation: 3 The current version does not innovate much but the design document and the devlog show several interesting ideas that could lead to a neat game. Also, not many roguelikes have been written with the Godot engine, so kudos to the author for taking up this challenge ! Scope: 3 What I expect from a 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness: 3 Definitely a roguelike. Perhaps implementing a fog-of-war would help carry the feeling of discovery.
Rogue3D
Completeness
3
4
2
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
2
4
3
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
2
Not quite my kind of roguelike, it's playable and has some randomness in level layout. It miss some key feature of roguelikes/roguelites. You wrote that's your first unfinished 3d 7drl ... not bad from a first timer, keep improving.
By all rights, Rogue3D should not work. All you can do is walk, run and left-click to attack. There are exactly two monster types per each of three floors, and they all behave in the exactly same manner, with the only differences being in HP and damage, and they all make the same, laughable "blah" sound when they get hit. While the three floors are procedurally generated, it is another one of these cases where there are not enough unique pieces for it to matter: all it means is that completely empty one-room houses are placed in a slightly different configuration within a walled area, and that you can never tell which one would have the portal needed to advance. Given all of this, abandoning the game before even beating the first level would look perfectly understandable. Yet, it is on the second and especially the third floor that the game comes into its own, in spite of all of the above. While it might fool a player into thinking that it is simply classic Doom downgraded to a hack-and-slash, it is ultimately a horror game at heart, as the levels become darker, the monsters become far creepier, and the combat becomes hard enough to warrant the term. Sure, it's always the same - you move just fast enough to always stay out of monsters' range if you walk backwards, and stopping for just a second before resuming is what lets you strike before you get hit yourself. However, this sequence needs to be repeated 3 to 6 times per monster on the second and third floors, which is what makes it imperative not to take on too many at once. Thus, you slowly creep around in the darkness, trying to stay as close to the edges as possible, anxiously looking at the huge horde of monsters in the center of the map, and hoping that you'll find the portal in one of the houses on the periphery and will never have to go through the center. This also turns what would otherwise be weaknesses into strengths: monsters not making a sound when they spot you forces you to pay much more attention to your surroundings, and the complete lack of an HP indicator means that you never know just how far away from death your character really is. Maybe you have regen, maybe you don't - but you absolutely do not want to find out. Lastly, a particular visual choice on the third floor appears to have come from the developer's attempt to reuse leftover assets - but the end result is creepier than it has any right to be. A definite recommend.
Slay The Dragon On Floor 4
Completeness
2
2
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
3
4
I think there's an enjoyable game, with a very diverse array of enemies, hidden in this one, but it still needs some work. I liked discovering the dungeon's inhabitants, but depending on the seed, the difficulty alternates between a cakewalk and simply unfair. It also crashed twice when I used the stairs to level 3.
Slay The Dragon On Floor 4 has an interesting premise (playing as a spell caster that can cast spells only in favorable circumstances – here, when standing on the pink tiles), but the game itself is plagued with technical issues and strange design decisions, and in the result is quite tedious to play. Still, I think if the dev would fix some of the technical difficulties (inspector cursor that is always on, confusing message log, unintuitive control scheme, only minimal instructions available only on the game page), his game would be a solid entry.
Bladelight
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
3
4
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
3
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
2
Completeness: The game feels complete, though I couldn't tell if it has a win condition or if it encourages a high-score. The game could use balancing in the early stages. Even though I was often outnumbered, I never felt in danger. Aesthetics: The tile set is great, and clearly depicts each thing in the game. The colors work really well and there is a nice shift in floor pattern from room to corridor. It might be nice to use various colors to show when enemies are stronger or have different stats. I like the transition from level to level as well. Fun: After playing a few floors I expected to see something different, or something that would force me to change how I play. There are many cool items to discover, but I didn't feel a need to use most of them since the enemy never changed their patterns. The levels are quite big and it takes a long time to find the stairs. This would be a good thing if the rooms had more variety to them. Innovation: This does a great job of implementing the fundamental gameplay of a Rougelike. It does not stray too far from the norm though. I do like the ease of using the mouse to choose a direction. Scope: With such a variety of items, already implemented in the game, Bladelight has a good scope, but many items have no reason to be used. Roguelikeness: This ticks most of the Roguelike boxes. Great job!
The definition of a generic, barebones dungeon crawler. All it has is the most generic potions (health, strength, agility), a couple of swords, bows and body armors that are just straight upgrades of each other, and ONE goblin-like enemy type to use them on, which lacks any special abilities and simply gains HP with every subsequent level. Remarkably, the only deviations from the traditional roguelike formula are those that make the game worse - you cannot "bump" into enemies to attack them and instead must left-click, which you'll be doing VERY often; you cannot hold down movement keys (only cardinal directions, obviously) to move quickly; and very little about the (overly large) floors appears procedurally generated; I wouldn't be surprised if the game just runs the same floor layout every time and only moves the stairs around. Lastly, while there are few types of loot, there's an extreme quantity of duplicate loot due to an abundance of treasure chests: 5-10 chests per room is nothing unusual. And once you pick up that loot, dropping it appears impossible. Altogether, this is a very bad game with nothing to offer and you should stay away from it.
Inner Demons
Completeness
2
2
3
Aesthetics
3
4
2
Fun
2
2
2
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
3
A clever idea for sure! The idea of managing two competing boards is immediately a draw and gives the game a nice hook and big potential. The idea of using two different art styles between the boards is interesting, and I like the outer world sprites. Unfortunately the current implementation doesn't click in a meaningful way. For the Outer World, things start pretty well, but without enemy scaling eventually you will trivialize the enemies, letting you clear the levels without worrying too much about your hp. Losing actions due to the Inner Demons is neat, but in practice it seems like it's random per attempt to act whether or not the demons prevent an action. That meant that once you have aggravated insecurities you just need to sort of brute force your way into taking an action and rarely did that hindrance have lasting consequences compared to more often just moving away from enemies for a turn. Fireball gives a nice option in the outer world, but without a little more there it's not really giving much variety to the combat. So mostly in the outer world I would manage parity, bump enemies, fireball when I can, and move away if I couldn't. The inner world by comparison has the opposite problem. The enemies scale dramatically to the point where they will one shot your inner avatar (my record was taking 2500 mp damage) and take many hits to kill a demon. Pretty quickly I realized I just needed to sacrifice the inner world to the demons, use my mana for the turn that the inner avatar respawned to fireball enemies, and just work through the insecurities interrupting my actions. This made for my longest run when made it to floor 11 or so before the game crashed (presumably from having filling the inner world with demons). If you do try to manage the inner world, the first time your inner avatar dies the inner world feels pretty lost, and it will be very difficult to get things there back under control (all the insecurities repaired & demons defeated). This also combines with the general difficulty of controlling the inner world, even besides the damage scaling. Because demons will focus your insecurities, the lack of a range attack in the inner world, and the insecurities moving every turn, it takes a lot of time to defeat a demon. The end result is by time you can get a demon adjacent to you at the start of a turn and attack it the timer has ticked down enough the next demon is right around the corner. Similarly for repairing insecurities, though the repair spell helps a lot. Trying to bump repair an insecurity takes many many turns, you need to bump them, spend a few turns getting them adjacent again, then bump them again for the next bit of repair. So overall the winning strategy seems to be just push the outer world, level up past the threats, and then ignore the inner world. That said I think with just a bit of work you could get everything to click well. I'd potentially recommend smaller inner/outer worlds to condense the experience and tension, if you've played any of the Brough games (Cinco Paus, Hack-868, Imbroglio) that would give you a good sense of the size of level that could work great here. This would also make it easier to reach/chase inner demons. You could then also consider adding more spells or options to manage the game state, especially for the inner world (freezing units, teleporting, etc.). Once the inner world is more manageable the outer world could become more impacted by the inner world beyond just missing actions, or otherwise have more difficulty as you level up.
An interesting premise with unusual visual decisions (real, Outer World uses 2D graphics, while the Inner World has depressing 3D polygonal graphics), but which is destroyed by broken scaling. While the idea of making use of the downtime when not immediately fighting the real monsters to confront the ones in your head is intuitive at first, it soon devolves into an annoying game where your character slices through monsters like butter, yet still constantly feels so weak, unfit and overwhelmed that he cannot do anything until you trick the game into finally giving you a passable roll on an action. Whereas the monsters in the real world soon become so unthreatening that being surrounded by them is no big deal, and actually a little more efficient given the game's quirks (when you try to move or attack in a direction with insecurities aggravated, a roll is taken once, and if failed, it'll block you from acting in that direction until you try any other action, which resets the "roll memory", meaning that being surrounded and just trying to bump in all four directions can at times be the fastest way to one-shot something), the demons in player's head eventually get HP in the thousands and one-shot him, let alone the insecurities. It soon becomes more efficient to just focus entirely on the real world and only think of the mental part as a way to get a heal or a fireball every 5 turns: since Inner World runs on MP, and deaths there simply drain your mana bar, and Inner World respawns likewise provide you with just enough MP to cast a spell before the Inner You is one-shotted again. It does not help that eventually, the game just crashes from integer overflow. Next to these issues, the others, like very limited variety, are of little importance. All in all, this game requires a lot more development time to do justice to its premise, and is a poor option relative to so many other submissions.
Rogue-ish Knight - Around the world edition
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
3
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
For me, this was lacking polish to the extend that impacted gameplay. It was hard to tell when I got hit or when I hit something. The first time I died and I got the gray game over screen, I thought the game crashed. I think I won once and I got that same screen, and I'm not sure if I won, or if I died, or if I encountered a bug. Perhaps there is a good core of a game here, but unfortunately I simply could not tell what was going on. There needs to be more audio and visual feedback to the player, as well as some UI polish.
## General review A nice prototype for a "Binding of Isaac"-like. I am looking forward playing a version with more content in future. ## Detailed review Completeness: 3 It's a complete and has no bugs. The enemy AI could could be improved, and a different screen for win/lose would be appreciated, but it's all fine for a 7DRL Aesthetics: 3 Original tileset, character animations, clean interface. A few things could be improved: - tiles/monsters have different level of details, the character and the orc-like enemy are more detailed than other monsters and terrain. I think it's better to have a consistent style. - the "tank" enemy exists in 2 versions, using the same sprite at different scales. The larger version looks very blurry. - in rooms with a door to the North, the door is drawn over the health bar, partially hiding it. Fun: 3 I like "The Binding of Isaac", and this game is similar. It's fun. Currently there are only a few room types (5 + boss ?) and 2 loot types (heal, increase max HP) so you will see everything in a couple of playthroughs. Good job on implementing different types of enemies with their own behaviour. Innovation: 2 Nothing new here. Scope: 3 What I expect for a 7DRL. This game is complete, no bugs, it has music and art. Congrats ! Traditional Roguelikeness: 3 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike game must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need to feel the sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. "Rogue-ish" is very similar to "The binding of Isaac", so definitely a RogueLITE.
This is a brief room-based roguelite with extremely limited variety. Even though you are only asked to go through 5 rooms before fighting a boss, you'll often encounter two of the same room, since the only options are: a "puzzle" of pushing two blocks the game always starts with; fighting a few of the game's only two monster types (unarmed green orc and purple spider drones with guns); fighting one really big orc or spider drone; outlasting increasing spawns of orcs until they all go away after 15 seconds. None of this is remotely challenging, as the orcs are very slow and tend to just stumble around their initial spawn, not trying to chase after the knight, and the drones are not much better. Their one advantage are weird collision damage hitboxes, and the big drone can inflict quite a lot of damage that way before going down, as your own sword swing feels slow and lacking in reach, and the grappling hook is essentially useless. However, you get so much HP (either bonus hearts of full heal) after clearing every screen that it does not matter. Even the final boss "battle" is simply about surviving the laser from the drone 40 seconds - a "feat" that can be achieved by simply not moving from the starting position, as the laser never reaches either corner of the screen, and any monster that does make it to you is easy to cut down. However, your "reward" is just a grey "Restart" screen - same as if you had run out of HP earlier. All in all, not recommended.
Alk'oth: The Lost Fortress of Doom
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
4
I tried for about half an hour to figure out how to play this game well and I was not successful. The enemies are extremely dangerous and the player doesn't have many tools to combat them. It's possible to "ignite" enemies and do damage, but the ignite spell costs half your mana pool and it takes a while to recharge. As a result, I never made it past the second level, and I only got to the second level because I was lucky enough to spawn next to stairs. As far as I can tell, there is no way to become more powerful. I saw there were a few different monster types and some of them behave differently, which I appreciated. The look of it is pleasing to a roguelike fan and the controls were OK to figure out.
It's very much a traditional roguelike, albeit stripped-down (most notably, no equipment at all, with the only progression coming from levelling.) It also has nice and clean UI choices. However, it suffers from the following core design flaws. * Spitting cobras can spit at you through the walls. Encountering multiple cobras before you levelled up is often a death sentence. * The fire from the Ignite spell has a rather low spread chance. Casting it onto the emerald vines is often unlikely to affect tiles beyond the one you targeted. This means that when presented with a whole cluster, you'll likely be forced to burn a couple, hack away a couple more, then slowly wait for your HP and mana to recharge while the vines also grow back - to be repeated multiple times. Ironically, fire is actually much more likely to spread if you cast Ignite on the normal enemies, since they'll all take multiple turns to die from it. However, the biggest problem with Ignite, right now, is that kills with it give no experience at all. This is unlike the kills with the other damaging spell, like Flowing Hands. * Waiting to regenerate HP and MP is an essential part of the game as currently designed. However, there's no button to wait multiple turns (i.e. 5, 10 or 20), which makes it slow and cumbersome. At the same time, there's seemingly no penalty to waiting to regenerate HP besides boredom (and the risk of vines spreading too far, I suppose.) Levelling up is the only form of progression, yet its benefits remain rather modest (an extra point of HP/MP per level; slightly improved damage/hit chances) relative to the amount of killing necessary to obtain them. Altogether, this means that the optimal way to play the game at first is arguably to slowly but surely farm the emerald vines in melee - cutting a handful of them down, retreating once your HP gets into dangerous range, going back in once it regenerated, etc.
Everybody Spikes!
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
3
4
Fun
2
3
Innovation
2
3
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
Kind of a quintessential jam game: adorable programmer art, quirky design choices, mixed polish. The core mechanic is functional. As a 7DRL, I can't say it's really a roguelike, or even a roguelite. The levels are random, but a roguelite needs another roguelike factor like inventory, environmental interactions, skill trees, etc. to qualify. I was pretty bad at this game. I couldn't figure out what any of the item pickups did after half an hour and at first I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be going up or down. Once I realized the floor is all spikes and tried to start going up, I had a really hard time progressing, and each time I fell I didn't feel motivated to try again. There didn't seem to be a reason for me to be going in any particular direction.
(Version 1.0 review) A very simple roguelite platformer that's intentionally unwinnable: even if you are good at avoiding the spikes, your score keeps going down and you'll eventually fail when it reaches 0. This is also what eventually removes you from the spots too deep and confined to jump out of: unlike Spelunky and the like, the algorithm here does not really care about keeping everything winnable. What it does do, however, is generate the Twitch chat atmosphere it's going for. The levels are littered with points where either the creator or testers fell before you, complete with funny death messages; after you start playing, messages of your own demise will soon start littering the level as well. Since levels change their layout every time, they appear to be tied to X, Y coordinates rather than specific spikes. There are also items and associated stats that appear to exist purely as a joke. You have "sneaker quality", "hoppability" and "ego level": none of those seem to make any real difference, but the items increasing/decreasing them at least introduce some visual variety to a platformer which already has respectable aesthetics.
Tide WoRLd
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
3
3
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
Completeness 2 The lack of an ending is quite a let down, but what is here is really cool. I can see that a lot of work has gone into all the different terrain systems and enemy AI, but the lack of more explicit goals really takes away from it. Aesthetics 3 The distinct colours for each of the different terrain/cloud types is perfect for quick visibility. There could have been a bit more differentiation between the berries and enemy types, but overall it's fine. Fun 3 Figuring out all the different terrain types and how they interact with each other is actually quite rewarding. I think there was some interesting interactions going on between the enemies, but it was quite hard to tell. More explicitly different behaviour for them would have been cool, perhaps backed up by some kind of bestiary you can fill up. Innovative 3 Although highly linked “living” worlds in the style you're going for here aren't actually all that uncommon in roguelikes, they're still really interesting and warrant points for innovation. Scope 2 I enjoyed the time that I spent with it, but due to the overall lack of content and goals, that wasn't particularly long. Roguelike 3 Although it's missing quite a few of the more core roguelike conventions, it has enough that it can still be called one.
So this one is interesting, It was completely incomprehensible as first but as I came to understand it I felt it was actually pretty interesting. Theres definitely systems happening here in the vain of noita or the powder game its very satisfying to watch the fruit just do their thing. Learning to manipulate some of the fruit effects to manage the absurd environments your get put into is fun but there is often so little feedback and the trail and error to actually got to that point is I think a little unreasonable even for something in the roguelike genre. This could be a really interesting complex system I would love to master with some more polish and direction. also big brain move to make the game have so much going on its hard to tell if something is bugging out but im pretty sure if you use the purple virus fruit and leave off the left side of the screen then reenter back into that same screen it breaks terrain gen.
Gagapalos: Darwin was wrong!
Completeness
2
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
2
2
3
Innovation
4
2
4
Scope
2
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
* Cool monsters! * Funny trailer * Gameplay was lacking. Basic idea is good but needs some development.
While not a traditional roguelike -- this game has many "Spore" elements to it. Trying to figure out the rules was a lot of fun. I never did get the man-butt :)
A parody of the intelligent design arguments which shows just how hard it is to micromanage an ecosystem. You start off with producers, primary consumers and secondary consumers in roughly equal numbers, and the first challenge is obviously to prevent the loss of producers and the subsequent loss of everything else. While that is easy enough by feeding enough primary consumers to secondary ones and making sure to always reserve at least one isolated island for just the producers to retain a surplus, the addition of higher trophic levels makes things much more chaotic, and it becomes far harder to avoid extinctions, if only of the highest levels. Greatest chaos is when a different species of producers no-one else can eat arrives, and immediately starts to displace the original producers, growing to dominate the ecosystem unless siloed off in time. I am only using the species' trophic roles because that's the only part that matters. A species can be assigned any one of the dozen or so 3D models (including NSFW humans) with no relation to their trophic roles, so it's entirely possible to have snails living off sunlight while walking cacti are living off snails. This is matched by the aesthetics, which are suitably hippie/New Age. Lastly, it feels little like a roguelike, being a real-time ecosystem model with no single character and where procedural generation means next to nothing in the face of drag and drop. However, that does not stop it from being an amusing experience for a while.
Mind if I drop in?
Completeness
2
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
2
3
3
Scope
2
2
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
I can absolutely see where this idea is going, and I like the idea. Autobattling your way through enemies and placing them in the right places is a great gameplay loop. But the lack of randomisation beyond the team composition really works it down for me. The graphics are cute, the gameplay is fun - the whole thing giving me real 10,000,000 and You Must Build A Boat vibes. but it doesn't feel roguelike enough.
This is an interesting attempt at a twist on an auto-battler. It's called physics-based but I'm not sure what really I've done at any point to knock opponents off the edge. A small tutorial about how to do this would have gone a long way towards helping me appreciate the innovation the author seemed to be going for. The game itself wasn't really that much fun to me, I'm sorry to say, though the controls were intuitive enough. It also doesn't feel particularly balanced or roguelike/lite. While there's clearly some randomization by way of enemy formations and available units for purchase, the winnings you can get without understanding the physics aspect are so small that you might as well not have a choice (I'm not even sure why there's a shop after level 1.) There's random units and some tactics, but the actual possibility space isn't big enough for these alone to really shine through to a roguelike or -lite level for me. I think randomizing the platform arena itself and opening up the space of play and progression for more meaningful player choices could go a ways towards putting it more in those aesthetics of play. I would add that it would be nice if there were *less* of a transition time between levels. Probably could be about 1/4-1/2 the time it's taking now and lose little of the experience.
An auto-battler where the only procedurally generated parts are the enemy and recruitment rosters - and even those are quite limited, especially at first. If Island 1 always has you fight a single monkey as an introduction, Island 2 is two slugs, two monkeys or sometimes a monkey and a slug. It's only by the time you get to Island 5 and beyond that the combat becomes engaging - coincidentally, that is also the time when buying units in addition to the two starting brigands becomes necessary - whereas not buying anyone before is actually optimal, due to the quirks of game's economy. You'll always get only one coin per defeated enemy, which severely limits your progression pathways - and means that buying starting-tier apes and slugs for 3 rounds, only to see them die next round while brigands are largely unharmed, is just a waste of coin. It also means that the hostile groups have a pure economic advantage later on, since while their group size is restricted by the island's number, they can have about as many expensive units as they want, and there's a point where starting position helps little against that. In particular, snails are practically OP with their defences, and fighting, say, a 3-snail + snake/brigand group is either a loss or a drain on your resources - especially since you would need to clear at least 2 islands to afford a snail of your own. Having said that, struggling against such odds is still unusually engaging for something you play little role in. The game would likely only benefit you did not have to put up with the first 3 islands and their foreordained outcomes first, and instead immediately started vs. a stronger group and with more money to spend to compensate. Being able to speed up combat animations and especially the currently unskippable level transition animations is also something that would help a lot.
Splicer Slicer
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
3
3
Fun
3
2
3
Innovation
2
2
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
This is a fun little action platforming, arena, hack and slash game. I'm not sure what about it makes it a roguelike. I do like the low-poly, pixelated look to the game and could see this being a fun arena style multiplayer experience. But, not very roguelike.
This is a real-time, hack and slash, platformer game with basic roguelike elements like modularly placed levels segments, random enemy placement, and permadeath. It is only loosely a roguelite. The mechanic of the level falling between rounds is interesting. The power-ups are a little unbalanced-- a higher jump is more convenient but healing over time makes you functionally invincible. I beat 8 levels before falling off the level by accident. While there are more enemies per round, the enemies stay the same while the player gets stronger, making the game loop easier the longer you play. I think the combat would be more engaging if the enemies quickly indicated that they would attack, then attacked in a direction, rather than the long wind-up followed by an attack that tracks the player. I'd love to see more impact in the attacks. The game doesn't have major bugs and the UI is mostly polished, other than a non-functional settings menu.
This brawler feels little like a roguelike, or even a roguelite. While the map does consist of separate blocks that are probably reshuffled every time you start playing, it is very hard to say for sure, since the number of sections is very limited, and the player's mobility is so high that same blocks being placed in different locations means little. There is also an additional section collapsing every time you advance to a round, as well a "boss" fighter getting randomly selected from a pool of about 5 at the start of every round, but these were around in wave-based games for a long time. On the other hand, the gameplay itself is decent when considering the game's small scope. You are very fast, but so are the boss fighters, while basic redshirts are slower but have progressively increasing numbers on their side. Running and jumping around to try and manage those waves and to separate the elite from the chaff at the start of every round is often intense. On the contrary, every round ends with the tedious process of trying to locate and cut down the last few fighters that got dropped on top of tall platforms from which they can't descend: in fact, even your character often requires wallrunning, whose existence is never mentioned in the game, to reach them. Being lucky enough to encounter a Wolverine lookalike elite and get HP regeneration upgrade from it, likewise allows you to jump onto an inaccessible platform and wait to regenerate HP there. The lack of even a heavy attack, let alone any other combat complications like kicks or combos, also limit the enduring power of combat, although their omission is entirely understandable when considering the timeframe. Graphics are likewise what you would expect from a 3D submission made in 7 days. However, the inclusion of a couple of songs with lyrics is a nice surprise. Altogether, Splicer Slicer is hardly a roguelite in its current state, but it is fun enough time-waster for brief amounts of time, and has a good room to grow in the future.
VagabondRL
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
2
3
2
Fun
2
3
2
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
Completeness: The Field of View cone seems to have significant artifacts on each corner. Aside from that, the experience is mostly bug-free, but so spartan that this consists of a major part of the experience. Aesthetics: It is not visually appealing. The music becomes repetitive quickly. Fun: It appears that there is not much range of gameplay, and the gameplay that does exist consists solely of slowly searching identical rooms in Fog of War, with no gameplay skill involved. Innovation: I cannot identify any unique novel mechanics. Scope: There are very few systems. Traditional Roguelikeness: It is real-time, but other than that there's nothing more un-roguelike-y.
## General review A hide-and-seek game, where you have to retrieve some loot on every floor of a dungeon without being seen by the guards. I could see this prototype turn into a fun heist game with some more development. ## Detailed review Completeness: 3 It's a complete and has no bugs. There is very little content, but the game works as intended. Aesthetics: 3 The game has original art and character animations. The UI is basic, but does the job. Fun: 3 It's OK, but lacks variety. Each level is the same: a very large room divided in a 6x4 grid. Each grid cell may contain a rectangular room. From my playthrough, it seems like level #x contains x+1 loot and x+1 guards. You have to get the loot without being detected by the guards, which is quite easy because the rooms/corridors are very large compared to the field of view of the guards and you walk faster than them. So the game can be won buy just walking from room to room along the grid, pausing once in while to avoid a guard. It's OK but introducing some variety in room design could make the exploration more interesting. Also, finding all loot automatically brings you to the next level. It could be fun to add stairs/doors, that are unlocked only after you get the loot. Innovation: 3 I like the hide-and-seek element, and that there is no combat. Nice idea ! Scope: 3 I wish there would be more content, but for a game developed in 7 days from scratch I think it's fine. Traditional Roguelikeness: 3 Disclaimer: For me, a roguelike game must "feel" like Rogue. It does not have to be a procedural dungeon crawling with perma-death, but I need to feel the sense of exploring the unknown, the chess-like thinking to get out of tough situations, and the relief when you succeed. This is a stealth game, with roguelike elements. But the grid-style room generation was actually used in Rogue. In a way, this make VagabondRL more rogue-like than many other 7DRLs ;)
A real-time stealth roguelite that goes indefinitely, with barely anything in it. It simply consists of wall tiles, floor tiles and some guards and treasure on every floor - the numbers of both simply increase by one with every consecutive level. The treasure is always placed exactly in the middle of otherwise barren rooms, so you just need to see the middle of the room before knowing if it's worth looting or you should head elsewhere. The guards are easy to evade and even if they do spot you, they'll stop soon after you leave their line of sight. The floors feel needlessly large given how barren they are, and how slow your movement speed is. The game does not look appealing either, and while there's a cool music track at first, it does not loop, so you are soon playing in complete silence. There's just so little to recommend here.
Europa 7
Completeness
3
3
3
Aesthetics
3
2
3
Fun
2
2
2
Innovation
3
2
3
Scope
2
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
2
3
Europa 7 is a real time science fiction real time roguelite where your goal is to escape from aliens who have taken over the station. This game includes two uncommon attributes: - 3D graphics - Science fiction setting. Throughout the randomly generated rooms are aliens and the occasional item. Items include health/energy and a variety of one use items. As there are much fewer items than aliens, and they are all one use, much of your time is spent rushing past the enemies and their slow attacks frantically looking for the stairs. I made it past a few levels but was unable to complete this game. In the dev blog, the author mentions some of the cut content, and I can see how it would have added to the scope and depth. While a 3d game is uncommon, and to be applauded, what made this game memorable was the theme. After playing it, I felt a bit like a scientist grabbing random chemicals, chucking them at enemies, and racing towards the exit. I could completely see a game where you mix chemicals like a mad scientist, leverage prototype wild technology to turn invisible or make single shot railguns, and all sorts of future tech fun. Well done!
The idea of a click-to-move proc-gen game focusing on a more horror/tension based gameplay is pretty compelling. Already there's some tension when monsters are chasing you, and scavenging the desks and bins is interesting. Doing all this with 3d graphics is likewise impressive. Other than that though, there's not much going on gameplay wise. The monsters are pretty basic, and easily evadable, they effectively can't hit you if you are moving. And since they can't open doors, you can shake them off pretty reliably just by running around, then closing a door. And that's sort of it? I just do that basic loop for the 3 floors until I clear the game. I am very happy you put an end in and kept it pretty short to match the content available. The items work, flasks cover any cases when it's easier to kill a monster than evade it, and you don't get enough to just kill every monster. I didn't encounter any gameplay affecting bugs, but at one point the enemies did start sinking into the floor. No gameplay impact though, just amusing. Overall it's a good effort, and there's a lot you can do with the basic building blocks you've built out in 7 days.
A mediocre top-down roguelite oriented around point-and-click gameplay and protagonist's inability to use conventional weapons. However, Europa 7 is a colony where flasks of dynamite precursor nitroglycerin, some highly corrosive blue acid and enough methanol to immediately combust whoever it's thrown at are present on every other table or computer desk, so it's still no horror game. While it is both possible and arguably more exciting to challenge yourself by only trying to avoid all the toothy aliens on floor 1 and rely on closing doors to keep them away from the protagonist, subsequent floors introduce laser-firing drones, which force you to rely on flasks anyway. While they always fall from just one flask, they can close the distance to the player character so quickly that her thrown flasks will overshoot, which is also nearly the only way to die in the game once you get used to its finicky controls, as melee monsters can be reliably dodged and medkits are plentiful, and food even more so. The main issue is probably not with the gameplay itself, which is average enough considering the deadline, but rather that it's stretched far too thin over a large warren of soul-crushing rooms on every level that are all completed in essentially the same way. 3D graphics, even if they appear to come from asset packs, would have likely been more impressive on smaller levels, whereas here, they just accentuate the sameness.
Pen Fight Dungeon
Completeness
3
2
2
Aesthetics
2
2
3
Fun
2
2
4
Innovation
3
3
4
Scope
3
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
3
The idea is cool and has potential. I think that if the pen could have more momentum if it was a little smaller on the board, and if there were some additional environmental objects, there could be some interesting tactics. The upgrades have a childhood daydream feel, like putting rubber bands and pencil sharpeners on pens and flicking them around, imagining little battles. The combination of turn-based and real-time is a good idea. The controls are a little tough to use and awkward, and the graphics are taken from a few sources and don't fit together well.
Personally, I love these free and ambitious ideas. However, the game very often becomes inoperable without accepting input within the first few minutes of play! I must say, there are too many bugs for a game to be submitted as complete...
The premise here is unusual and the core gameplay is very solid: since judging how hard you must fling a pen with the mouse is inherently difficult, each encounter can potentially go in a multitude of ways, even though they are all preset: instead of full procedural generation of each single-room floor, the game simply randomly selects one of its preexisting layouts. You can also find some random upgrades in chests: while their variety is limited (I got Hammer about five times in a row before finally obtaining some other upgrades like Shield of Spikes), they nevertheless help a lot to make the experience more dynamic and unpredictable. Sadly, the overall implementation is marred by technical flaws. Most notably, the game tends to hang up during combat mode - sometimes for so long that reloading the window and starting again feels like the best option. Other issues, like error messages appearing during some deaths instead of simply showing the restart screen or the one (really cool) piece of music not looping, are less important, but still drag on the experience, and will hopefully be fixed down the line.
7DRL 2021
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
4
I think the main issue here are performance, it took me 15 minutes to kill 3 zombies and go to level 4. From level 2 i didn't find any monster to fight, nor loot. The dungeons look nice, but i could not explore them because of performance. The animations are little bit out of sync with movement, but overall the graphics is nice.
Competently executed, but it feels a little more like an engine proof-of-concept than a fully realized game.
Breakout Chad
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
2
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
3
Scope
2
3
Roguelikeness
3
3
The game follows the basics of the roguelike genre. The turn timer could be an interesting idea for a mix of turn-based and real-time play. The movement is very very slow. The enemies appear to be aware of the player, but respond in a way that feels random. The player has very few options on what to do. There is no way to avoid taking the one hit from two-health enemies. Free game music is easy to obtain, there is no reason for a music loop that is only 6 seconds. The music has a harsh cut with no fadeout, and isn't appropriate for the story.
A stealth game with Prison Architect-style graphics whose defining feature is putting every turn on a timer, which will automatically skip to the next turn after a few seconds. While you would think it would make the game feel faster, the animations associated with the timer itself and the general movement give it a molasses-like feel instead. The entire process feels very slow even if you just skip turns manually with a spacebar, and while the primary mechanic is unusual - you are expected to be in prison, so instead of having to sneak, you always get the right of first strike with guards only becoming hostile after you kill one of them nearby - it is never iterated upon, and the only progression is in the levels becoming larger and more densely populated by the guards (levels 12+ easily feature 15-20 guards pacing around), which simply means that you'll have to wait for longer until you can be left alone or mostly alone with the key-carrying guard.
Dwarf Destroyer
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
3
4
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
2
A game beatable in a minute or less. You never even need to move from your starting position - just have to press 2 (charge-up), 1 (fireball) and left-click on one of the dwarves (logically the closest one, but you have indefinite range and are often spawned at a safe distance) to destroy them, then repeat it about 4-5 times, which is enough to kill all of them. You pretty much have to let a dwarf walk up to you to take any damage - and even then, it takes them a turn to ready up an attack, and it deals 2 damage to 10 HP. In other circumstances, such generous design would have been commendable, but here the balance and scope does not fit it at all.
HAGgle
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
3
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
More like tower defense, doesn't take much from roguelikes. That's one hard to judge because I simply couldn't progress in this game. The main reason is a weak initial loadout and very narrow corridors. I would need to run in circles to keep the enemies in the firing range, but with narrow corridors and fast enemies I simply can't avoid them. Same for collecting souls (necessary to heal and buy items), but it's actually worse as souls disappear after a few seconds. On the other hand, it is possible to beat the boss from the very start. Player and the Hag start in the same room (the only open space in the game, it seems) and it is not a problem to outrun enemies there.
A tower defence game with a great choice of music (not so much for sound effects) but just one enemy type and one type of tower, and the only things you can buy are either more of the same towers or straight-up upgrades to the existing towers. The only randomized element is that the crack on the floor from a bunch of small hags will stream out when you trigger the wave does not have a fixed location: everything else is fixed. Having said that, the idea of being able to face the boss from the very start, and just choosing to kill her underlings to get stronger first, but at the expense of the Hag also becoming stronger when you go to boss room to buy upgrades, is very promising. However, the current implementation is annoying - not least because enemies' souls, the game's currency, actually fade out rather quickly if you do not pick them up immediately, which isn't the most fun thing to do when the enemies are trying to chase after you. The easiest way to beat the game is possibly to just place your starting turret in the center of the boss room, trigger the Hag and then to keep moving in a circle for a rather long time - at the very least, that was the way I won. The alternative, of beating about five levels until I could buy a second turret, felt more than a little faster, but was also riskier due to increased damage and didn't work the one time I tried it.
We Love Goblins
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
4
3
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
2
A simplistic roguelike which chose to prioritize the visuals over the gameplay. Thus, there are dozens of possible appearances for your player character and all of them are quite well-drawn - same as the goblins, or even the different types of grass tiles. While the sound effects are lacking, the one BGM is well-chosen and death animation of goblins/player character falling to pieces is pretty good as well. Yet, the actual gameplay comes down to using your one sword slash that never ever differs against the goblins that are all functionally the same. In all, a pretty disappointment.
dungeons guns and dragons
Completeness
4
3
3
Aesthetics
4
3
3
Fun
3
2
2
Innovation
2
2
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
This is a simple game. I won it twice, each in less than five minutes. I also tried dying. It consists of five Japanese-RPG-style combat encounters and three shopping opportunities for buying ammo or health. The order of these things seemed like they were the same every time I played. In combat you have a choice of sword, gun, or rocket grenade for each turn, after which the enemy attacks if they are still alive. The gun and the RPG have limited ammo. The game didn't have any noticeable bugs and it ran smoothly. I'm not sure how much it qualifies as a Roguelike; it feels like a Game Maker RPG. I enjoyed the lines of flavor text the enemies say at the start of each combat encounter, though!
This game is pretty complete for what it is, but it's not really a roguelike. It's more like a very short jRPG with a small amount of player choice. There's no real randomness or procedural generation to deal with that I could see on a couple playthroughs, though. The game runs pretty well and has enough charm and usability that it rates some points for completeness and aesthetics\, but notably, you may want to be prepared to Alt-F4 or similarly work your way out of it when you've beaten it, since it's not clear how you're supposed to exit the program. Good first effort, but not necessarily in the general spirit of this competition, in terms of what comes through in the end.
Just a set of four brief JRPG-style turn-based battles that are always exactly the same. Even the damage is deterministic, so once you figure out a strategy (which isn't hard, considering there are just three attack options, the only way to spend money is either on healing or getting more ammo for stronger attacks), you'll reliably win with it every time. The pixel art and the music is alright (although there is a dearth of sound effects), but that's about it.
Football Crawl (7DRL 2021)
Completeness
2
2
2
Aesthetics
2
3
2
Fun
3
2
2
Innovation
3
4
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
3
3
This is a great concept with questionable execution. Of the two modes of moving - Classic, grid movement or Fast, free movement unconstrained by the grid system. Free movement is perhaps a little too free as I quickly found out, the the player is not constrained to the map boundaries in Fast Mode. This does make the game a lot easier, and honestly more fun to manoeuvre around the ball and kiting enemies around. Kicking the ball around is not easy with the mouse but works just fine walking into it, though navigating the ball into corridors was not always as easy as I'd like. Oftentimes the levels became a fight between me and the football rather than me and the enemies while using the football. The maps are not randomized, neither are enemies, so I'd be hesitant to call this a roguelike/lite. Has the potential to be a fun one. The title music is great, the graphics could use a bit of polish to find a cohesive style, but otherwise it's a good start.
Hey, sorry I didn't get a chance to give this game more time, but I kept on dying on the first two levels; the game is just HARD! Also what's with the levels not being procedurally generated? I think the idea of a roguelike where your method of attack is kicking a soccer ball is creative, but the execution just left something to be desired. Playing in the "classic" mode is next to impossible; I had to mash keys repeatedly and it's hard to line up shots on the grid. Fortunately the "fast" mode let me hold keys down for continuous movement! Why can I walk through walls? Oh well. Learn something, make an improved version next year? 🙂
Football Crawl (in the global, round-ball meaning of football) is notable for including two modes: Classic and Fast. The latter is a pure real-time roguelite; the former is meant to have strict roguelike grid-based movement... except that while you and the enemies (all of which only differ visually) may move turn by turn, the ball still travels completely in real-time. Altogether, Fast Mode is far easier - partly because it's a lot easier to outrun the enemies and manage the ball, but also because while in it, you lack collision with the brick walls of the levels and can walk right into them and chill there, completely safe from any of the enemies - which always deal damage if you try bumping into them, but somehow disappear even if they walk into a completely stationary ball. Meanwhile, Classic mode is barely playable with how wonky the ball physics are, how substantial the numbers of enemies get in every room and the limited room for manoeuvre on each floor, which do not resemble football fields or anything in particular, with especially unappealing combinations of empty large square rooms and very long corridors. Altogether, this is an amusing idea that needs a lot more development time to work properly - from fixing substantial bugs to making each floor actually look connected to the theme and be interesting to navigate.
Weldon
Completeness
2
2
2
Aesthetics
2
3
4
Fun
2
2
3
Innovation
3
3
3
Scope
2
3
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
There seemed to be a lot of neat ideas here, the push mechanic and the weird timing combat mechanic, but the controls weren't intuitive, the combat seemed very random and inconsistent, and I often got stuck on the movement screen and had to restart the game. With more time and care this could have been an interesting game.
Graphics are nice, and GameBoy games have a lot of nostalgia for me. I like the bitcrunchy music as well. The combat works well enough, and I did get better at it over time. I'd like to see more contrast on the health bars, so that you can follow them in your peripheral vision. I wanted to attempt a full-clear run, but there are a number of bugs, many of them associated with the item menus which made it impossible. I would like to see procedural generation and even a grid-based movement, making it more strategic. It's pretty awesome that this runs on a Gameboy, very neat and very impressive.
A submission actually designed to run on Gameboys, so its retro appearance and sound is impeccable, but it is cumbersome everywhere else. If you play the web version, you should know that while directional movement and menu selections are still bound to arrows, like you would expect, the "Confirm/main action" button is not Space, or Enter, or anything else reasonable, but J, while the other, B button is K (used for entering the inventory). That aside, Weldon has some other notable technical flaws. In particular, if your character gets killed and you try playing again, the game will most likely freeze right as you enter the second area, and this only appears fixable by reloading the page. On the other hand, if you do beat the game, and choose to loop it, then entering the inventory and trying to use an item there (a choice between guaranteed damage to the enemy with Fireball, Time Warp and healing) no longer works and tends to throw you back to the start of the level for whatever reason. The game has real-time movement and modal combat which is triggered upon running into on-map enemies and is about hitting the slider at the right time, and you only take damage if you strike and miss. There are technically two enemy types (werewolf-like monsters and their seemingly human leader at the end) but both behave exactly the same both on-map and on the combat screen, and you only need to enter the totem at the end to win. The game is supposed to be procedurally generated, but having played multiple runs, this is barely apparent: out of the five screens a run will consist of (intro screen with your car, first, second and third maps with enemies, and the final screen with the "boss" and the totem), only maps 3 and 4 appear to occasionally get replaced with different ones, and this only slightly complicates the overall goal (avoid the enemies you can, hit with the slider to death those you cannot.) Altogether, it's an amusing novelty, but not a very good game.
Bleak Friday
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
2
2
Fun
2
2
Innovation
2
3
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
3
Bleak Friday pits a shopper against a mall full of zombies and other undead, determined to complete her shopping no matter the apocalypse going on. It is a top down real time action game, with some random content, mostly enemy location and items. It leans heavily towards the "roguelite" category in general. I found the game on the difficult side, with one second of contact with of enemies able to drain my entire life bar. I also tripped up on collisions rects inside some stores. I was unable to complete a successful run. The best part of the game for me was the theme. I think modern contexts are an mostly unexplored design area, and I'm the author those this. They were also to complete a playable and complete game in the time, so well done.
A roguelite which can't even get room exits right: it typically spawns you at just such a position that if you maintain any momentum from the previous room, you are immediately made to re-enter it again. There is a fixed number of preset room layouts that are randomly picked - yet in many of them, the display cases are placed at such a distance from the walls that you seemingly can fit between them and go around, only to soon discover that you can't - at which point, you are likely to get cornered. The best thing that can be said about the combat is that it's likely just as intentionally awful as the graphics. The two monster types both deal contact damage, which your character cannot do - and moreover, the "ghosts" can randomly have any one of the offensive item in their inventory. This can at times be to your advantage if they deploy soccer balls, which are easy to dodge and deal damage to everybody, soon wiping out the enemies themselves as they keep bouncing, but is much less fun if they suddenly use faster baseball balls or a bat - pretty much the only offensive option that works for your character. The damage can overwhelm your HP in seconds, while healing is expensive. Even if you play "perfectly", you may well find yourself unable to progress if you cannot get the baseball bat early enough, as you'll otherwise not be able to kill the monsters and get enough money to progress. In all, a lame joke, badly balanced.
Light's Last Hope
Completeness
3
2
Aesthetics
3
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
2
2
Scope
3
3
Roguelikeness
2
2
Light's Last Hope is a 3d hack and slash set in a 3d dungeon. Survive multiple boss fights, handle light block puzzles, and press forward to the outside world. The 3d graphics remind me pre-Quake MMORPGs/RPGs and at least one cartoon of the 90s. The dungeon is generally rooms and block hallways, but there are some unique areas, in particular the boss rooms. Gameplay involves circle strafing and back peddling while shooting projectiles. It felt a lot like doom or quake in a way. The game involves about 30 minutes of fixed content, across 4 "acts" as you dive deeper through the dungeon. The connection to roguelikes is tenuous however, given the fixed level design and preset enemy spawns. I overall enjoyed my time, and found it nostalgia and charming in its own way. Well done.
Very awkward 3D TPS with no real roguelike elements. There is no randomization of floors, objects, enemies, etc. whatsoever, and while it may have permadeath, dying is more of a theoretical possibility here, since you start with 5 hearts, will be finding enough extra hearts to be at 12-15 hearts by the final battle, with healing potions even more frequent. Moreover, all the enemies are slow and predictable and it's trivial to shoot at them with your infinite arrows while walking backwards (Weirdly, the game implements arrow drop with distance, and arrows getting briefly stuck in objects, yet actually shooting them is instantaneous). No-one, not even the final boss, can take off more than one heart per attack, and even the final boss is easy to avoid: however, at least he has a unique model. The first and second bosses are just an enlarged model of a regular spider (which can get stuck on its own eggs in the center of the room) and three regular ranged enemies with larger healthbars. The lack of randomization does mean that every room is handcrafted, with a lot more purely decorative objects as part of the environment than what a roguelik(/t)e would have. However, this scope comes at the expense of technical polish: simply walking too close to a wall is likely to either expose you to out of bounds view of the level or just reduce your vision to a blurry mess until you step back. Enemy animations are about as detailed as you would expect given the timeframe: rats are a standout with their creepily shiny bodies and being half-sunk into the floor whenever they are not jumping at you, as opposed to only ragdolling weirdly at death like everything else. There's a reasonably good music track playing through the entire game, with no boss themes or the like, and absolutely no sounds. Altogether, this is just a very mediocre medieval-themed TPS.
Fathom
Completeness
3
3
2
Aesthetics
2
2
2
Fun
2
2
2
Innovation
3
2
2
Scope
3
2
2
Roguelikeness
3
3
3
* Controls were a bit janky * No UI feedback on hitting / taking damage / health * Combat was a bit boring * Great graphic cutscene at the end!
The common argument for real-time games is that they are more fast-paced and exciting than the turn-based ones. However, Fathom, a roguelite about magical combat, ends up feeling slower and far more tedious than the typical roguelike, since everyone moves slowly, and your life/mana gauge is shared, so attacking too quickly is easiest way to die. Moreover, your only attack has a sizeable area of effect, leaving you vulnerable to splashback, and while it has considerable range, the enemies only become vulnerable to it after you entered their (very short) aggro range. Thus, the optimal way to play is to carefully approach the two monster types to draw them out one by one, then walk backwards while shooting every few seconds and always keeping some distance. Even the golem bosses are trivial once you realize you get locked in their arena and do not waste time on trying to move out. The game also does not end when you kill those bosses, but requires you to walk to a boat and press "E" on it without telling you this - so you can still wander around for some time, while the basic monsters you have already killed will keep respawning. While the game has music and some SFX, the rest of its aesthetics are lacking. Graphics aren't exactly appealing even as far as the contest games go: moreover, they never provide crucial information in terms of enemy HP/reaction to damage, so you have to figure it out through trial and error that shooting at the monsters outside of aggro range does nothing to them, while they'll die after a couple of hits once they start moving towards you. Even the lore text uses an awkward cursive font that blends in with the background. There are some upgrades, but they are never exciting, only increasing some stats by 1/2 points and sometime reducing another stat to balance it out. The most useful one changes orb color from blue to green, reducing damage (which can be offset by other upgrades) but preventing deaths from shooting it too much. There's also a bug whereas you have a limited number of inventory slots and seemingly cannot drop what you have already equipped; you can still press "Pick up" button on drops, but it'll do nothing. Similarly, the monsters are not just slow, but are also prone to get stuck on bridges that are pretty much everywhere. In conclusion, Fathom requires a significant rethink to become a worthwhile game. While magic-based submissions aren't overly common, there are more than enough superior alternatives to this.
This looks neat and definitely has potential, but I was a little confused about what was happening. Some more feedback when enemies take damage might help. Also, maybe some different text when you lose would make it clearer why the game ended?
rogue-dash
Completeness
2
3
Aesthetics
2
2
Fun
2
2
Innovation
3
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
4
2
I like the idea of having to run from the edge of the screen, but I think this game could use some more work. The monsters' identities seem to be totally separate from their icons; they're either orcs or trolls but the icons are completely random. The game freezes when you die. The WASD controls only work with caps lock or shift pressed. The potions always heal you 4HP; there aren't any stat boost potions that I could see. Though that might be because I never could get very far in the game since the monsters were so strong! I get that the idea is to run away and not fight everything, but sometimes you run into a monster in a corridor and you have no choice... Maybe redo this game in next year's challenge using what you've learned in the mean time! 🙂
The premise of rogue-dash is that the map automatically moves up every few turns, and if you fall off the map you die - so you are in a constant race against time. A byproduct of this mechanic seems to be that the game is semi-real-time, i.e., every turn has a deadline of about one second to execute. This, coupled with the game seemingly not buffering input, but rather expecting you to click the buttons at very precise times, makes playing it a somewhat painful experience. The map generation algorithm matches the moving-map mechanic well: you have to explore long passages stretching horizontally before being able to move up further. However, there aren't that many decisions on the map - I've only noticed monsters and hp vials. Not sure whether the game is supposed to end after one level, but for me the program exits as soon as I reach the staircase. It looks like there is a High Scores server running, but I didn't notice the program send anything to it. Overall, I'd definitely suggest to fix the input buffering and add some more decisions on the map (and, well, more levels) to make this game more appealing.
Death Awaits
Completeness
2
2
2
Aesthetics
3
3
2
Fun
3
2
2
Innovation
3
2
2
Scope
4
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
* Very ambitious game! * Seemed rather too generous with flasks, which made it fairly easy * Map would be helpful! As would some more lighting. * Would like some more challenging / varied monsters
This game was interesting and I think could be built into something that is really !Fun!. Here are a few of my notes: - The only mechanics were a dash? Would be interesting to see what else can be done to make this more challenging. - Not clear if the shards were "consumable" or just collected? - No way to dodge aerial damage? With some better UI elements and descriptions, this could be a huge hit!
An extremely awkward attempt at making a Soulslike. All it has is one attack with your sword, stamina, dash, healing flask, three enemy types, one boss, one environmental prop (!) and 4 slots for procedurally generated crystals of variable power that buff HP/stamina/damage/flasks or some combination of thereof. Even those are borrowed from Diablo: the one unusual idea is that absorbing souls of different enemy types buffs different stats. There's not even actual permadeath, in favor of Souls-style revival with some progression. Altogether, very little about the game is fun, or appears to work as intended. Giants are very rare, yet are the easiest enemy, as you can hit them once and step away before they react, not even needing to run or dash. On the other hand, the basic "goblins" are much more likely to inflict damage: up until you find damage upgrade crystals, a single attack from your sword leaves them with a trace HP without slowing them down, and letting them get a hit in unless you turn and run right after your first strike. Finally, mages are straight-up impossible to kill without sustaining at least some damage: their projectiles are homing, and while they can be easily outrun, they cast them faster than you can swing your sword, cannot be interrupted and always require 2 attacks to kill. Luckily, the actual damage is low and you get extra flasks every few kills, so that damage is soon trivialized. Same goes for the actual boss, the Reaper: it's near-impossible to simultaneously attack it and avoid the spin of its scythe, so it quickly kills unupgraded characters: if you have found four reasonably strong crystals, however, you can just tank its attacks and swing at it until you get an abrupt "Thanks for playing!" After you find the right upgrades, the real challenges is finding the boss: you need to find a destroy a specific statue that can spawn anywhere in an invariably very large level, every single part of which looks exactly the same. In all, this game is not even the best Souls-like submitted to this jam. There's very little to see here.
Dragon Slaying Training
Completeness
3
2
2
Aesthetics
2
3
2
Fun
2
3
3
Innovation
2
3
2
Scope
2
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
2
This is sort of a borderline success for me. I think a 3D hack'n'slash roguelike would be a really cool game... but this isn't much of a roguelike. Randomizing a couple of corners is not procgen to me. Very little in the way of content, although that's to be expected of the time limit. Lack of ingame feedback was a big problem. When I hit foes and/or they hit me, nothing changed: no flashes, no hit animations, no sound effects, making combat confusing and unsatisfying. The rest of the game could have used similar polish (menu screens, better camere etc.) This felt like the start of a good template for a hack'n'slash roguelike!
I did have some fun with this, despite the near empty level. I liked the camera perspective choices and had fun wall jumping up over the tops of the map. The dragon combat was ok..hopefully you'll have some time to flesh this project out a bit more. Thanks for participating and hope you had fun!
Dragon Slaying Training is a tech demo of a real-time 3D action game with no significant roguelike features. While it does seem to alter the level layout a little from run to run, it does not matter to the gameplay, as every room/corridor is covered with the same stone textures everywhere, and the only opponents are 3 dragons (who are unable to breathe fire or fly, and can only do a couple of swipes with limited effectiveness) are exactly the same, so there are no differences between runs. The game is trivial to beat: you have 100 HP and dragons' swipes only decrease it by 10, while you kill them in three light attacks or with one light and one heavy attack. Thus, you are most likely to die if you attempt to behave realistically and dodge dragons' attacks before getting a hit in, as opposed to running up to them, holding down heavy attack, then striking again and moving away, losing at most 20 HP before one turns transparently red and falls dead. There is music playing but no sound effects, and the 3D graphics are far from impressive. At least the fast movement/jumping and attack animations aren't bad, and it's mildly amusing to run around for the few minutes it lasts, but there's not much else in this tech demo to build on.
Rogue Manor
Completeness
2
Aesthetics
2
Fun
2
Innovation
2
Scope
2
Roguelikeness
3
Seems to be a tech demo at this point but that's okay it happens. I like the idea of infinitely scaling stats over the course of a dungeon, the art style is charming, I like dedicated look at things button feels like it has alot of room for humor and gameplay. I could see this feeling like a turn based risk of rain eventually.
superROGUE
Completeness
2
2
Aesthetics
2
2
Fun
3
2
Innovation
3
2
Scope
2
2
Roguelikeness
2
2
Completeness 2 There was a lot of polish to be desired. Most notably, an indicator for which side of the map could be moved through would have been really nice. Aesthetics 2 The game could be quite hard to read at times. I think the most egregious example of this was the bullets, which were tiny, and almost impossible to dodge because they couldn't be seen. Fun 3 Gliding around trying to time my shots just right was actually quite fun. The issues mentioned above could make it a little frustrating at times, but overall it wasn't bad. Innovative 3 Although the super HOT time mechanic is a little strange to put in a roguelike, given that they're usually turn based, but I appreciate the innovative idea regardless. Scope 2 The content was quite lacking. Only three enemy types and two weapons, would have been nice to see more. Roguelike 2 While there was perma-death, that was the only roguelike feature that I could recognize.
This game is really simplistic but also really punishing. The player has two hit points and you can go from full health to dead in less than a second without even seeing the tiny bullets fired by enemies. Your weapon is melee-range only, and you can't leave a room until you kill all enemies, so I haven't been able to clear more than about ten rooms before getting killed by an enemy with a gun. I wasn't able to discern any roguelike elements in this game. I like the concept of how the player moves around the map by clearing enemies and choosing a direction to move next based on the minimap. With more reasonable enemies, more powerful player abilities, and a clearer objective, I could see this becoming a decent game.