The 2023 7DRL Challenge Review Team

Each of the following categories was graded from 1 to 3. A higher number is better.

Specific comments were also written by reviewers. Note that these are criticism for the developer to better improve the game - please do not be unduly offended if they are nitpicky or consist of "I got killed by a ferret on the first screen".

The categories are, with description of what a 3 means:

The 7DRL Challenge

The 2023 7DRL Challenge Evaluation Process

Click a table header to sort.
Click a category score number for details, or the average score for additional comments.

2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2021 - 2022

The 19th 7DRL Challenge ran from March 4 to March 12, 2023. Developers were challenged to create a complete roguelike game in 7 days.

Right after the submissions finished, a team of volunteer reviewers was assembled to evaluate the 182 Completed entries. This page is the result of their work.

Note that, by design, there is no winner of the 7DRL challenge. As such, this list is not meant to be an authoritative ranking of the games but instead a tool to help players find which 7DRLs are likely to have things of interest, and to provide developers with feedback on their work.

Name Author Runs on Completeness Aesthetics Fun Innovation Scope Roguelikeness Average
Conga Dungeon jere 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.67 2.67 2.89
Decker illiux 2.67 2.67 2.67 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.83
Loose Spirits sportzer 3.00 2.67 2.33 2.67 2.67 3.00 2.72
Magpie sunil. 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.33 2.72
Life Cyan Andrew Kay 3.00 3.00 2.67 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.61
Fire-Fighting Wizard Pet Rescue Roguelike Keep Flying Games 2.33 2.33 2.67 3.00 2.33 3.00 2.61
KROK mrhthepie 3.00 2.33 2.33 2.67 2.33 3.00 2.61
Boat Journey gridbugs 2.67 3.00 2.67 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.56
Mines Sweeper orion_black 3.00 2.33 3.00 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.56
Bulb Against The Machines StabAlarash 3.00 2.67 2.33 1.67 2.33 3.00 2.50
Trials of the Bloodmaster actualfint 3.00 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.33 3.00 2.50
Wizard-Thief-Fighter jmlait 3.00 2.33 2.00 2.33 2.33 3.00 2.50
FADING SIGNAL Enjl 2.33 3.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.67 2.50
Uthel's World UthelGames 3.00 2.67 2.00 1.67 2.67 3.00 2.50
Animal Party Ethan's Byproducts 3.00 3.00 2.67 2.67 2.00 1.33 2.44
CaveRunner Pharaoh439 3.00 2.67 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.44
Dungeon Cards Numeron 3.00 3.00 2.67 1.67 2.33 2.00 2.44
Peculiar Potions r0ckems0ckem 2.33 3.00 2.33 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.44
Shadow Dream gruebite 3.00 2.67 2.00 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.44
Totem of Seeding anttihaavikko 2.67 3.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 2.44
Warlock's Keep randrews 3.00 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.44
Trouble Builder Marco Trentacosti 2.50 2.50 3.00 2.50 2.50 1.50 2.42
Exalted 7drl left-pad 2.67 2.33 2.33 1.67 2.33 3.00 2.39
Temptation of Saint Anthony Seth 2.33 2.67 2.00 2.67 2.00 2.67 2.39
Yellow Game About Falling Things Evgenii Petrov 2.67 2.67 2.33 3.00 2.00 1.67 2.39
Chickadee's dungeon Christophe Coyard 2.67 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.33
Murder Most Foul Lone Spelunker 2.50 3.00 2.00 2.50 3.00 1.00 2.33
One Step Behind You (7DRL 2023) DragonXVI 2.67 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.33
Seven Nights in Vienna redxaxder 2.00 2.33 2.33 3.00 2.33 2.00 2.33
Snapdragon sarn 2.67 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.33
Sword Hero BionicBlueBell 3.00 2.33 2.00 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.33
AND THESE IRON LIMBS EXILED FROM HEAVEN krisekrise 2.00 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.33 2.67 2.33
Alabaster tomtl 2.33 2.67 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.33
Coffee Rogue vidarn 2.67 2.67 1.67 2.67 2.67 1.67 2.33
Feast or Fathom Tom Quinn 2.00 2.33 1.33 2.67 2.67 3.00 2.33
Lost and Pounced flavedogame 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.00 2.33
Mutamorphic microteller 2.67 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.33
Rogue Overdrive Arto Koistinen 2.00 2.67 2.33 2.33 1.67 3.00 2.33
Railrogue croooooow 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.33
Rogue Hike Jaiden Gerig 2.67 3.00 1.67 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.33
Grave Digger MonoFlauta 2.67 3.00 2.00 1.67 3.00 1.33 2.28
Gravity RL rubybliels 2.00 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.00 2.67 2.28
Senior Unrest Catralitos 2.67 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.67 2.28
Something In The Tall Grass Classicwook 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.00 3.00 2.28
The Lich Is Back blockerz 2.67 2.67 2.00 1.33 2.00 3.00 2.28
Furniture: Screws and Blood Lauren H 2.67 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.33 2.28
Lurk, Leap, Loot (2023 7DRL) James McNeill 2.67 2.67 2.00 2.00 1.67 2.67 2.28
Rerbal Space Program Deathray 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.50 2.25
Monte del Diablo Slashie 2.33 3.00 1.67 1.33 3.00 2.00 2.22
@man spazzylemons 3.00 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.22
Cravespace lagdotcom 2.67 2.00 1.67 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.22
Dawn of Bronze rwhaling 2.67 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.67 2.22
Let Them Eat Cake TheGoatRodeo 3.00 2.67 2.00 2.00 1.67 2.00 2.22
Post Apocalyptic Roguelike coldrice 2.00 2.67 1.67 2.00 2.33 2.67 2.22
The Asylum zendarva 2.33 1.67 2.33 2.67 2.33 2.00 2.22
A Scoundrel in the Underlair InsidiousArts 2.67 2.33 2.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 2.17
Hedged bet badscribbler 2.33 2.33 2.00 1.67 2.00 2.67 2.17
Puddlepath Mushmallow 2.33 2.67 1.33 1.67 2.00 3.00 2.17
Return to the Stygian Abyss [7DRL 2023] ibGoge 1.67 2.33 1.67 2.00 2.33 3.00 2.17
Bore of Time Ahmed Khalifa (Amidos) 2.67 2.33 2.00 1.67 2.00 2.00 2.11
Yoko City Fire Rush rentonl 2.00 2.00 1.67 2.33 2.00 2.67 2.11
Oil Barrens cornfab 2.33 2.33 1.33 2.33 2.00 2.33 2.11
BLAST DWARF BillyTheWhizz 2.50 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.08
DUSTBITE kindanice 3.00 2.50 2.50 1.50 2.00 1.00 2.08
Daikon Hero andyman404 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 1.50 1.00 2.08
Fishy Legs Self-Made Goblin 3.00 3.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.00 2.08
Septem University - 7DRL 2023 mikeredhorse 2.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.50 1.00 2.08
Systems Restart Shadow Kitsune 1.50 2.50 1.50 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.08
The Last Marble Artless Games 3.00 2.00 2.50 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.08
Death's Door Esosek 2.67 2.67 2.00 1.67 2.00 1.33 2.06
TurboVector leftsharkbyte 2.67 2.33 1.67 2.33 1.33 2.00 2.06
Acolyte's Pledge Aviv 1.67 2.33 1.33 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.06
Corsair: The Sawgrass Blade yumaikas 1.67 2.33 1.67 1.67 2.00 3.00 2.06
Hamster Than Light Zebulah 2.33 2.33 1.67 2.67 2.00 1.33 2.06
Stronghold Shift ZorbN 2.33 2.67 1.67 2.67 1.33 1.67 2.06
Way of the God- 7DRL 2023 loudngaming 2.33 1.67 1.67 1.67 2.00 3.00 2.06
BorgRL mtimjones 1.50 2.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 2.50 2.00
Duality Luca Giacometti 3.00 2.00 1.50 2.50 1.50 1.50 2.00
Gene-freak Fury DonPasquale 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.50 2.00
HSH KeTuFaisPikinut 2.00 2.33 1.33 2.33 1.67 2.33 2.00
King's Conquest teamkalamakkara 2.33 2.33 1.33 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00
Mistic Dungeon D4f Games 2.50 2.50 2.00 1.00 2.50 1.50 2.00
Under Oakbury dotti 2.67 2.33 1.33 1.00 1.67 3.00 2.00
Down the Mountain k4gi 2.33 2.33 1.67 1.33 1.33 3.00 2.00
Loop Dungeons tukkek 2.33 2.00 1.33 1.67 2.00 2.67 2.00
7D Mad Rogue Kart Strange People Games 2.33 2.33 1.33 2.00 1.67 2.00 1.94
Avalanche newtnewtnewt 2.67 2.33 1.33 2.00 1.33 2.00 1.94
Eternal Space Rogue Seph 2.00 2.00 1.33 1.33 2.00 3.00 1.94
Planet Escape: Short Sci-Fi Roguelike npixia 2.00 2.00 1.33 1.33 2.00 3.00 1.94
Roguezilla jsuvs 2.67 2.33 1.67 1.33 1.67 2.00 1.94
RUN wavefold 2.33 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.67 1.67 1.94
Cosmic Corsair tapio 1.50 2.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 3.00 1.92
Dungeon Drawler Wired Dreams Studio 2.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.50 1.92
Elemental Caverns floyza 2.00 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.50 3.00 1.92
Gun Drops st33d 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.50 1.92
Amulet of Nyrac HoofedEar 2.33 2.33 1.67 1.00 1.33 2.67 1.89
Window Traveler 2 Thorben 2.00 2.67 1.00 2.33 1.33 2.00 1.89
Rogue Space Roaming Maelstrom 2.33 2.33 1.67 1.33 2.00 1.67 1.89
@urora's music box Wyvex 2.50 2.50 1.00 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.83
ASCII survivor AnninaGames 2.50 2.00 2.50 1.50 1.50 1.00 1.83
Ancient Rage Kiëd Llaentenn 1.50 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.50 1.83
Avian Vault Clamber Litigations Soft. 2.50 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 3.00 1.83
ColorRogue piotrii 2.00 2.00 1.67 1.33 2.00 2.00 1.83
Cyberarctica BrineShrimp 1.50 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.50 2.50 1.83
Entropic Ocean BordListian 1.50 2.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 1.83
Eye of the Goblin Lord: A Knight's Descent into Darkness Feliciano Creadoros 2.50 2.50 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.50 1.83
Knave's Tales chilly_durango 2.00 2.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.83
Magicora Supermuch 2.50 2.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 1.50 1.83
Mission Improbable Rogue Agent [roguelike] hiphopy 2.00 1.33 1.33 2.00 2.33 2.00 1.83
Robe jakelaux 2.00 2.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.00 1.83
Rogue Linear 7DRL 10To10Games 2.50 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 3.00 1.83
RogueChess GenyaDev 2.50 1.50 1.50 2.00 2.00 1.50 1.83
SE-2503 YarDev75 2.50 2.50 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.00 1.83
Swords With Friends katerberg 2.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.50 1.83
Lost in the Dark eternalStudent 2.33 2.33 1.67 1.67 1.33 1.67 1.83
Burglar Robloxillian 2.33 2.00 1.33 1.33 1.67 2.00 1.78
Goblin-sino demiskeleton 1.33 2.00 1.67 2.00 1.67 2.00 1.78
(JAM Version) AHAD: Adventuring Heros of the Alternate Dimensions Gawain (DarkGriffin) 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.50 2.50 1.75
Att's Assault (7DRL Challenge Entry) Spex130 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 3.00 1.75
Cat vs Slimes lunafreya2001 1.50 3.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 2.50 1.75
Challenge - Dungeon Skank - 7DRL ronilivid@abinary.life 2.50 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.75
Chomper's Dungeon [PROTOTYPE] andrfw 2.00 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.75
Endless Yeti e_sid 2.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.75
King Duck of Cluck Mountain langel 3.00 2.50 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.75
LiDAR Dungeon wojciech-graj 3.00 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.00 1.75
Slimes rhizomegames 2.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.75
Wolves Of The Mystical Forest Fumble Games 2.00 1.50 1.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 1.75
nnRogue - Dream of the Seer MagicScreen Games 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 3.00 1.75
pax per mortem Legacy System Software 2.50 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.75
Cavian (7DRL 2023) WillReardon 1.33 2.33 1.67 1.33 1.33 2.33 1.72
Abyss Knight MatthewHaight 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.67
Back Fire johnath james the greatest 2.00 3.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.67
Crypt Shuffle MGaudi 2.00 2.50 1.00 1.00 1.50 2.00 1.67
Drift or Die! Flyce_9998 2.00 2.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.67
Gravity Mage evolvent 2.50 2.50 1.00 1.50 1.50 1.00 1.67
MagiCrimen DragonKruiden 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.50 2.00 1.67
Nightmare Corridor pyroceper 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 2.50 1.67
Rule Bender SharpEdged 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 2.50 1.67
Slide N' Dash Trashcan 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.67
Word Hunt Balmonec 3.00 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.00 1.50 1.67
Yo desarrollo, tu juegas ivanvi 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.67
Abominium coppersoft 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.50 1.58
Blunt Quaternion Escape Character 2.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.58
Firefighter in Hell kigu 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.58
Ghost Quest lancethecat 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.58
MAGIC DUNGEON Fernando Aires Castello 2.50 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.50 2.00 1.58
Promoted to Shadow 5P 00Py Team 1.50 1.50 1.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.58
Untitled Orb Game yellowdragoon 2.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.58
Veggie Ventures Nidavellir Games 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 1.58
Volta Mike Trupkin 1.50 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 2.50 1.58
struo evilplato 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.50 1.58
A Rogue's Journey MappiPlays 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.50
Clean Clone fela 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.50
Cowball Dalton 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.50
Goblin's Redempiton aeterponis 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.50
I Remember... (7DRL Game Jam 2023) WalkerSheep 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.50
Isles of Madness ryegame 2.00 3.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50
follower RL ldd 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 1.50
Operation: Rogue Dungeon Sleipner Games 1.50 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.42
(7DRL) The Prison TtsSoftware 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.33
AiQ Dynamics Lukaras 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
Bio Reaver Random Access Games 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
CyanDreams heckruler 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.33
Grim Arrow Sp00kz 2.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.33
Grooving in spaceships with no gravity and bad guys! LRD 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.33
The Grind ephun 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
The Last of Dingus Janku 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
Twilight Castle ConstantRage 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
Untitled Hook Game Starwhip 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.33
Layer 88 The Chromian 1.00 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 1.25
Slay The Serpent Unrederd 2.00 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.25
Stabby Office Wizards Mag 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 2.50 1.25
MR.failure sword-game 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.17
Minirogue: Alchemic Beginnings yergicol 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 1.50 1.17
Olympic Smashdown jackypark9852 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.17
Troll-y Problem claud9999 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.17
shower of power johnath james the greatest 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.17
Shadowed Realms todin 1.00 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.08
The Cross Master the_pro_game_devloper 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

Reviews

Conga Dungeon

Completeness

3 Fully fledged game

3 I played version 1.1, has more polish than most 7drls, one polish issue is that whenever I lost I would press buttons not realizing that the game was over and get abruptly sent to the main menu without getting a chance to try to figure out what caused my loss, I didn't notice any bugs, I beat it despite not understanding a lot of what was happening so the balance might be too easy

3 Worked fine, ran fine, had a lot of polish, didn't really notice the bugs, played the post-7DRL version

Aesthetics

3 Beautiful graphics and music + SFX + So juicyyy

3 The game looks good and enemies are easy to tell apart, the controls are simple tho the timing was unintuitive to me, the adjustable juice is great

3 Controls were alright, sound was great, music was banging

Fun

3 I'm bad at it but it was fun!

3 The timed movement and autoattacking party line make this feel very fresh to me, I enjoyed developing tactics to deal with these elements, rushing to the stairs as the timer counts down is tense, playing with 2000+% juice is a fun hard mode

3 Certainly a fun idea that puts a unique spin on the Crypt of the Necrodancer formula

Innovation

3 Crypt of the Necrodancer + party-snake with some nice effects playing with it

3 Necrodancer style rhythm movement, autoattacking party, snake movement

3 The rhythm based beat idea has obviously been done but it hasn't been done that much, the Congo Party snake idea is a neat twist for sure

Scope

3 Impressive. Fully fledged game with tutorial, free-move mode and beautiful visuals and sounds

2 Several songs/levels, large number of enemies and party members

3 This really puts the bar quite high in terms of what can be done in a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Yes. Permadeath, Turn-based, mapgen, party building, tactical choices

2 Fighting thru grid based procedurally generated maps, there is a turn based option but considering the emphasis on the music the real time option seems like the primary mode

3 Played in the Free Move Mode I think even some of the purists would have difficulty arguing that this isn't pretty damn close to the Berlin Interpretation; not that the Conga Mode isn't close enough already

Very impressive entry. A lot has been taken from Crypt of the Necrodancer, but it is already a feat in itself to recreate it in one week. And you added new enemy patterns and a whole new mechanic! I really like some of the effects I've seen in party members. Such as the necromancer who fully plays with the snake mechanic. I also like the go wide vs go tall strategy choice you have in upgrading members. Some minor remark on the game design: - There is an incentive to infinitly stay in a level to gain infinite gold from moves. This is an easy (and unfun) way to break the game. I think the gold system from Crypt of the Necrodancer is better (combo multiplicator, but only on kills), as it doesn't have this flaw. - Price values should be generally lower in my opinion, and round. Why does it cost 288 (or something)$ and not 300$? And I could buy 10 upgrades in my first shop, which seems like a lot^^. But this is just tweaking numbers. Very good job anyway!

I was thrown off by the game page talking about moving with the beat when you need to press buttons on the offbeats. This was especially confusing since when I tried to hit at the same time as the beats (as wrong as the timing could be while matching the tempo) it would work about half the time, making me think I just needed to make slight adjustments. Once I realized the actual timing it was fine. I would recommend using Free Move Mode to learn the basics of the game.

This is a hard game to review because I don't know what could be done better. Maybe add an option to adjust the key press input window or perhaps have an option to adjust how fast the songs play; but you could easily ignore it if you want players to just 'git gud'. Well done.

Decker

Completeness

2 Stable and looks good but is not intuitive, text/canvas display is small and difficult to read on the two displays I tried

3 Game freezes for me in some small incident. Overall, it runs fine.

3 Game runs, feels complete, no crashes or bugs. F1 in-game help did not work.

Aesthetics

3 Excellent hacker look and UI

2 I wish I could be able to give the maximum score, but the font is not intuitive and the colour used for the font is also not that great.

3 Style gives the feel of a 20th century BBS, controls easy to understand

Fun

2 Difficult to figure out but eventually fun to do runs and quite immersive

3 This game is definetely fun, it is a little boring after some time but I can say that the game is indeed quite fun.

3 I enjoyed trying to figure out what to do. It's not a typical hack & slasher. I could not win a game in 30 minutes of play and wanted to keep going.

Innovation

3 Unique neuromancer/cyberpunk setting and gameplay loop

3 The gameplay is very unique and I recommend.

3 Cyber-punk hacking as a roguelike.

Scope

3 Amazing amount of content for a 7DRL even with reusing the bulk of the engine from last year

3 Definetely beyond what could be achieved in 7 days, I would imagine, but here comes this dev and surprise us with an unique mechanic.

3 There's a lot to figure out and try to do.

Roguelikeness

3 Lots of classic roguelike features but in an entirely fresh setting

3 Definetely roguelike.

3 Turn-based; procedural, mazelike levels and program availability; soft "deaths" by disconnecting, permadeath in instructions (but I didn't play long enough to actually die)

Great visuals, theme, and gameplay. Was difficult to get going and figure out what was going on with the different enemy types, even knowing that you start out at the beginning of a "run" is a unique concept. A tutorial moving beyond the F1 help screen and some more polish on the display would go a long way! (The canvas seems to be hard set at 800px x 448px and it's a tiny viewing rectangle on the two screens I tried). Overall lots of promise and a fantastic work for a 7DRL!

Although the idea behind this game may not be entirely original and may be reminiscent of older franchises (such as Hacker Evolution, now that I think about it), the game does present these concepts in an enjoyable and well-executed manner. While it may not be entirely unique, it is difficult to bring something entirely novel to the table in an industry where thousands of games are released daily, and this game certainly does the job well. Well done, developers! The only suggestion I have is to improve the layout slightly.

Good theme, good feel, more to accomplish than I could do in 30 minutes. Might be too long for a 7DRL.

Loose Spirits

Completeness

3 The game feels largely complete, although it could use some extra variety in the later levels.

3 Everything seems to be in order here; All the game mechanics are there and seem polished to me. If anything, I wonder if it's balanced a bit too aggressively, since I keep dying, even as the character class that heals constantly. But that could very well just be me being bad at roguelikes, which I am.

3 Looked to be working as intended and didn't seem to have any bugs

Aesthetics

3 Clean ascii aesthetic, controls are intuitive enough

3 I love the look of this. I particularly enjoy the use of lower-case characters and upper-case characters to indicate manifestation. The controls are not the most intuitive in the world, but you've provided documentation and a help screen that mitigates this just fine and they're not hard to get used to. The user interface is nicely polished with colors and subtle UX things like that; just visually very attractive across the board IMO.

2 A little bit overwhelming in information, otherwise it was good

Fun

2 It was fun to try to manage risks between using a high level spell off the bat or going slow and risking more manifested spirits. However, the game feels pretty static: besides perhaps a higher spawn rate, each level seems the same.

3 It took me a while to really get the hang of the gameplay, but once I got it sorted out in my mind I really dig the unique combat mechanics and the whole ghost-busting, rift-closing concept here. I'm definitely coming back to dig into this one a little more after the judging, which is probably the most resounding endorsement of fun I can give.

2 I enjoyed it enough to keep playing it a bit

Innovation

2 The echos, which act as spell modifiers, make for pretty interesting gameplay

3 The combat mechanics really shine here. All of it makes perfect sense logically but also makes for interesting gameplay. I like that ghosts are harmless until they manifest fully, and the need to constantly rotate out echos and attempt to pick curses that are better for you is neat. The Bleed/Pain/Harm mechanics are also really interesting to explore.

3 An interesting way of using ASCII, an interesting spellcasting system too

Scope

2 Decent size for a 7DRL

3 I almost gave you a 2 for this, but then I remembered that there were two whole character classes I hadn't played yet, and all the polish, and the fact that I've barely scratched the surface of the game so far. I'm really impressed not only by how much you got done in the 7DRL, but by how nicely polished it all is.

3 It had a lot of content, but what impressed me was the depth of both the different classes and the enemies

Roguelikeness

3 Tactical turn based dungeon crawl, definitely a roguelike

3 This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see most in a 7DRL: A game that really nails the classic roguelike feel, but with lots of interesting new mechanics to explore that I've never tried before.

3 Very within the realms of a roguelike

It takes a bit of time to memorize the different monster types and particularly the echo curses, but once you do, there's a decent amount of depth to enjoy. The different classes also play quite differently, although I didn't spend too much time with the mage and witch. As a side note, it's undocumented that hitting an enemy with a spell stuns them, which tripped me up. Overall I liked it a lot!

Wow. Good job. I think this game might still need some balancing, because it seems really hard to fight off the onslaught of spirits long enough to do more than close one or two rifts before I end up overwhelmed. But if there was ever a game written in seven days that couldn't use a little rebalancing, it was certainly something much more minimal and less complete than this. I really enjoyed this and will definitely be playing some more after the judging is over, to see if I can learn the mechanics more and get further.

I liked the idea of picking up Echos that have negative costs associated with them; but I sort of feel that the unidentified aspect to them was a bit annoying. Also it seems like when you have fewer gates to close it causes a torrent of enemies to appear around the last gate without mercy. Probably the biggest worry I might have is with the information presented to the player though - there is an awful lot here for a player to grasp.

Magpie

Completeness

3 Some difficulties getting browser to run it, otherwise everything is good here

3 Fluid and stable gameplay with no noticeable bugs.

3 Complete and quite polished. There are even online high scores!

Aesthetics

3 Simple controls, graphics clearly showed what I needed to play

3 Intuitive controls, nice graphics, and fluid UI. The death SFX is atrocious, however.

3 Graphics is simple, but good enough to understand what I'm looking at. Controls are fine. Sound effects are not annoying. Visual indication of vulnerable side is a nice touch.

Fun

3 I had fun with this and could see it as a really good way to kill time on my phone

3 I can definitely see myself killing time on my phone in the future with this game!

3 Absolutely addicting. Can easily trap the player into "one more game" loop.

Innovation

3 I liked how the trinkets are both your weapon and your shield, also like how the trinkets adjust what your attacks will do

3 The mechanic of having weapons be both offense and defense seems pretty unique, at least within my limited experience.

3 Directional weapon that acts as HP as well. It adds another dimension on positioning on the game field.

Scope

2 About what I expect from a 7DRL

2 What you'd expect. I wasn't able to explore much of it though.

2 It's actually somewhere in between 2 and 3. While are are quite some enemies and quite some items, the only difference is amoount of hp and attack patterns.

Roguelikeness

2 The high emphasis on gameboard style gameplay kills the feeling of this being a roguelike

3 Turn-based, permadeath, some procedural generation. It's a roguelike, period.

2 Once again, it is between 2 and 3. It feels more like a puzzle game, but at the same time there is this weapon management, tight tactical positioning. But I can't really call it true roguelike.

A nice entry, this is something I could see being made into a mobile game with how simple it is to pick up and how quick the runs are to play. I liked how the items all felt fairly unique in their effects and how the gameplay really hits to the heart of what you can expect from a good broughlike. That said I wonder how many playthroughs I would get out of it before I ultimately got bored of it as I believe it would get repetitive quite quickly.

A very unique and interesting submission, and highly enjoyable though very difficult. I'd love to see this as a native mobile game in the future.

Nice little game in it's own genre, as author noted. Very addictive and quite well balanced. It requires some serious concentration, as one wrong turn might end your run easily.

Life Cyan

Completeness

3 Very complete and polished game

3 Feels like a complete game with a clear end goal of clearing 4 missions, a cool art style, solid gameplay, and loads of polish (quasi 3d view, animations, chatter between operatives etc.)

3 Seems completely and pretty polished.

Aesthetics

3 Beautiful art, both the tile art and the dialogue portraits

3 Visually extremely pleasing with nice usability touches like hiding walls, ability to pan around the map, and some simple prompts from the operative to get you started. A little bit of lagginess in the character responsiveness to key presses.

3 Impressive aesthetics for a 7 day game, and imparts all the information clearly for gameplay.

Fun

3 Has a really fun gameplay loop; sneaking from room to room, and coming up with plans to avoid guards

2 Very satisfying initially but it felt punishingly difficult far too often and as a result I was regularly died on the first or second mission. I promptly finally finished all 4 missions once I got over the initial hump. Pay attention to the difficulty ramp in future. The conversational bits between the two charactes got repetitive. The line of site of the guards was sometimes a bit confusing because it didn't indicate whether you were hidden when behind some obstacles

3 Mechanically simple but very addictive.

Innovation

2 It's a well executed stealth game with some cool ideas

2 Not too much here that hasn't been seen in other stealth-based games. Liked how the peak and prediction mechanics were implemented. Innovating in the stealth genre is very challenging because seemingly small mechanical changes can upset the entire gameplay balance.

2 Not the first stealth roguelike, but it's still an uncommon genre, and this adds some nice quality of life features.

Scope

2 A decent size for a 7DRL; could use a little more level variety

2 In terms of the totality of the design this would have been a lot of work to put together but there isn't a ton of variety here or much of difficulty or variety progression in the levels themselves.

3 The mechanical side seems reasonable for 7 days, but add in the nice aesthetics and the presence of a story, and it becomes impressive.

Roguelikeness

2 It's a great turn based, grid based game. The main thing it lacks in terms of a roguelike is any sort of RPG elements (items, character progression)

3 Lots of familiar rogue mechanics. Mostly solid map gen. Guards mostly dumb as rocks but brutal if you are badly positioned. Not enough systems for truly emergent gameplay but nonetheless some pretty good moments.

3 I'd consider this a roguelike

This was a really good stealth game. The core gameplay is a lot of fun, the graphics are great, and I really liked the level generation + vision cones.

Really liked the production here and despite a few gameplay issues it's one of my favorite games of the contest in part because I can see the potential for a fully realized game with many and varied missions. Amusing to read the main character say she's got it with the brass knuckles and the other operative sighing but she's already dead.

A pure stealth game - access terminals scattered around each level and then escape, all without being spotted by the vision cones of patrolling guards. Has some nice touches like being able to peek and see a predicted patrol path, and the fact that it has a story and pretty nice visuals makes it feel much more polished. Tough game, but kept bringing me back for another go.

Fire-Fighting Wizard Pet Rescue Roguelike

Completeness

3 Simple controls, everything works

2 Feels quite polished apart from a couple minor bugs. Arrow keys scroll the window; preventDefault() maybe? And letter keys don't seem to work in the upgrade menu.

2 Doesn't feel like you have to save the pets, despite this being a game about saving pets; also some of the houses didn't really come together well with the procedural generation

Aesthetics

2 Nice style, simple but pleasant graphics

3 Interface is colorful and neat, with a bit of animation.

2 Wasn't really perfect control wise in the browser to control the character, else I could understand the tiles fine

Fun

3 Fun game, different difficulty levels and randomly generated floor plans

3 I had a blast deploying spells, scrolls, and good-old-fashioned smashing to rescue animals! Love it.

2 It had some intriguing ideas with the fire spreading and how the AI for the pets worked

Innovation

3 Neat idea and variation on RL

3 The setting is pretty unique, for me. Rescuing animals as a mechanic is uncommon as well.

3 This seemed new enough and distinct enough that I can't say it is quite like anything else I've played

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

2 It's a high 2; this is a solid 7DRL entry with a lot of features in it.

3 A nice little list of spells, items to use, multiple pets with different AI, different houses to visit; quite a bit here

Roguelikeness

3 Good variation of a RL

3 Yes.

3 I think this is close enough to the spirit of what roguelikes are about

Neat idea and fun little game. I like the difficulty levels you can chose from each time you complete a level.

It took me a bit to come to grips with the game; needing to purchase spells right away, for instance, and the minor interface gotchas mentioned under Completeness. But once I did, it was so fun to figure out how to deal with the buildings, the fires, and the pets.

This was an interesting experience, although I wonder if more ideas could be used to flesh it out. I sort of felt it was getting a bit repetitive towards the end of my gameplay with this one as you are just storming into houses to save what pets you can. Maybe there could be different situations like smoke that obscures vision or noxious gases to avoid. Fun idea nonetheless.

KROK

Completeness

3 all features functional and clear to the platyer with above and beyond features like mouseover for stats and multiple control schemes

3 KROK is complete and I encountered no bugs in the time playing it. Has significant amount of features and balanced fairly well

3 Very complete with no bugs.

Aesthetics

2 Solid and presentable good color disctictions for different kinds of objects and a pleasant ui

2 Fairly standard roguelike ASCII Graphics. Easily read and understood with no embellishments

3 Game looks nice and the addition of mouse support is a good bonus.

Fun

2 fun gameplay loop and reqarding systems to get to know but a bit samey at the start and quite a long game for how eassy it is to die

3 This game is very fun and fairly balanced. The sword swinging mechanic really makes you think about how you move in spaces and how you engage enemies. Particularly fun is swinging your sword wildly to cut down grass.

2 It was a fun experience, I dont think it is exceptionally great but fun enough.

Innovation

3 The main mechanic is a really compelling change of pace for top down turn based gameplay

2 The sword swinging mechanic is the main innovation and certainly provides quite a lot of fun. Other mechanics are what you would expect out of a classic roguelike

3 I guess we can say that it is innovative enough.

Scope

3 Lots of gear, perks, enemies, and a fair variety of zones for a 7drl its very fleshed out

2 The game is well made with good amount of features, didn't feel like it was missing anything when playing but it also wasn't ambitious in scope.

2 Expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Roguelike with a fun twist that keeps to form

3 Absolutely a roguelike, has all the features you'd want or expect. Character progression, randomized dungeons, turned based movement.

3 Totally a RL

Really enjoyable experience, very accesible with the ability to use borth the on screen buttons and a variety of key binds. hovering over enemies for thier details and stats is also a really nice little touch that i feel ads alot of the ability to comprehend the world and interact with it accordingly. This is really part of what makes the game so compelling to play your always looking for the series of movements that puts the sword where it needs to be and enemies genuinely feel like theyre reacting to that theat(save for the rats). the perk system is interesting and adds to each run but I do with less of them were numbers changes I totally understand why especially in the scope of this challenge. One change I would make is the swinging perk and causes the player to fully swing when killing something should just be a default ability of the player, as it stands the game feels more like a stabbing spear based fighting styles in the early game more than swinging a sword at things just because the action economy of a swing takes so long. I loved the later areas and the triangle zone actually teacher the player alternate ways to move through obstacles that makes future runs easier but increasing the players understanding of how to move with thier weapon is a really good touch. Honestly not much critique here is a well made functional game that I think would be a fun base to continue iterating on in the future great job!

KROK is a classic ASCII roguelike with a sword spinning twist. At first it looks like a standard dungeon diving game but quickly you'll find things not so simple. You must swing your sword left and right around your character to attack enemies, break doors, and cut grass. It might seem simple but narrow corridors and agile enemies give life to this mechanic making you think about your positioning and engagements carefully. Overall its a wonderfully fun game with challenging positioning mechanics that gives a good spin to a classic roguelike style game.

It is an interesting game with unique mechanic but it needs work. Why cant we unsheath the sword? Like sheath it for when you dont need it and then when enemies are coming you could then draw the sword much like a samurai? This way we do not become stuck in some places unnecessarily. Overall, it is a good idea but it can be improved.

Boat Journey

Completeness

3 Does what it sets out to do. The one bug I encountered (at least I assume it's a bug) is how you can throw beasts into the water by backing your ship diagonally.

2 The game feels very complete, I dropped it a point because the WebGL version cut off the bottom of the screen for me, so I didn't even know there was fuel or health. Then the downloaded version crashed on me once.

3 Complete. Almost every run, I could progress farther than the previous attempt.

Aesthetics

3 Great controls. Controlling the boat works flawlesslly. The way you close doors is particularly clever. Excellent ASCII characters. My one complaint here is I wish there was music and sound, but that's a nit.

3 This game looks great, the graphics are simple and easy to get used to. The boat looks amazing and just feels right when you're steering it.

3 Ascii style, simple palette used well; controls fairly easy to use

Fun

2 The boat movement and survival elements are fantastic. There's not enough depth to go higher than 2 though.

3 I really enjoyed this game. It feels like there's a lot to discover and it never felt boring or too hard (once I figured out how to see the bottom of the screen).

3 I enjoyed figuring out how to get further each run; I'll play this one again later

Innovation

2 The boat mechanic is fairly unusual and well done.

2 I haven't ever seen the boat mechanic or the passenger mechanic done like this before. Ultimately it's just a knew wrapping on some old mechanics, but it feels fresh and new.

2 The boat movement was a good twist

Scope

2 Once I considered the crew member element, it's about what I would expect. There are islands and dungeons but they're both very simple.

3 I didn't finish the game. The world feels huge and expansive and the mechanics and sheer number of options available make the game seem very large.

2 Felt about right for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Has all the staples.

3 This feels like a roguelike in almost every sense of the term. The procgen is well done, the turn based mechanics make dealing with beasts interesting, and the ever looming threat of the permadeth hangs every over each playthrough.

2 Procedural generation of map, turn-based, permadeath & easy to die; no inventory or levels

I enjoyed the boat mechanic and exploration in Boat Journey, though many of its elements are rather simplistic. The win condition is a bit nonsensical. Great job on creating a multi-tile vehicle and having it work in an intuitive way. The fuel/light mechanic was tense, enough that I died several times trying to find an inn and failing.

This was a fun and different take on a traditional roguelike. I enjoyed playing it and will probably revisit it later. The WebGL version was broken for me, but I am very glad I downloaded it and played it the right way.

Get in the boat and try escaping to the ocean... and die many different ways while trying! Fun game that I didn't win but want to try again.

Mines Sweeper

Completeness

3 Pretty darn complete; good itch page with screenshots and can play full game

3 The game is complete, with a few different game modes

3 Looks pretty complete. There is minor glitch with numbers in corners, but it is really minor.

Aesthetics

3 Definitely "pico-8" feel to it, but in its pixel favor

2 Pleasant pixel art that fits the game well

2 I know, it is limitation of the platform, but controls could be better. God know how many times I wasted my items. And attack animation could be a bit faster.

Fun

3 Easy to play, hard to master - just like mine sweeper

3 I had a lot of fun with this. I loved the blue/red/purple numbers, and the rules for monster placement, that let you make educated deductions about where to explore next

3 It is damn addictive!

Innovation

2 A neat idea to combine MS with roguelike

3 Very cool idea that combines minesweeper with a roguelike

2 There were attempts to fuse minesweeper and roguelikes. This one while brings some twist to the formula, but its not new formula.

Scope

3 A great size for a 7DRL with enough depth

2 This is a decent sized game for a 7DRL

2 Very solid 7drl.

Roguelikeness

3 Just missing a dungeon, but it's definitely turn-based and permadeath

2 Turn based and tactical. The levels are kind of like mini-dungeon floors, but each run plays similarly

2 It is more of a puzzle than a roguelike. Enemies are immobile and there is no character progression at all.

A great idea here - A good candidate for a mobile device I think too. Good twist on the minesweeper concept to make it feel super roguelike. Hopefully the dev had a great time on this one!

This was a really cool idea. And I loved that it didn't just slap minesweeper map mechanics without thinking it through. The fact that there were different colors of numbers and rules for monster placement added a lot to the game

Fun little timewaster. I think it could be played much more comfortable with mouse. Difficulty is a bit too random, but I guess it's hard to finetune it in 7 days.

Bulb Against The Machines

Completeness

3 Some visual nitpicks, but the only things I can really complain about are balancing issues

3 Ran well, noticed no bugs, and seemed complete

3 Very complete game with no bugs or issues

Aesthetics

2 Really cute and visually appealing. Some issues with inventory spacing and menus as well as some visual issues with large inventory and hover requirements, but this one could easily be a 3 if the edges got cleaned up e.g. clearer description of "boomer armor" vs "armor"

3 Looked fantastic, controllled well enough

3 Nice graphics. Even had sketches/drawings for an intro

Fun

2 Solid, if minimal roguelike. Enjoyable but not one that I'll fly back to even though it was cute.

2 I had enough fun with it

3 Fun game. Simple controls that starts easy but gets progressively harder.

Innovation

1 Not doing much beyond the standard, but a good visual experience in that realm.

1 Standard Traditional roguelike

3 Nice take on a traditional RL. Well thought out

Scope

2 Scoped for a week of evenings, this is great, but didn't reach for the stars.

2 Had enough here but certainly desired more

3 Very complete and vetted especially for a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Very clearly a roguelike!

3 Full on Traditional Roguelike with Cardinal Directions

3 Definitely RL with a nice twist.

Visually adorable roguelike with simple mechanics that you can grasp pretty easily and doesn't take long to beat. Definitely relies on the visuals for a pretty game over interesting new mechanics, but it's a great example of what a standard "path to fun" looks like and I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

I would have liked to face more enemies but the the developer did a good job with what content was here. This was an extremely refined experience and outside of maybe wanted a 'f' key to fire ranged weapons and more a diamond range for ranged attacks I was engaged enough to play it through to the end.

Well done game. Nice look, great intro, overall the nicest game I've tried in this review.

Trials of the Bloodmaster

Completeness

3 Ran, was stable, seemed polished and bug free

3 Seems like a full game to me.

3 Seems complete, no bugs.

Aesthetics

2 Game looked fine but I think the controls with selecting enemies could have been better

3 Good use of the Oryx tiles, some animations and basic effects. Title screen and endgame screen

2 Decent.

Fun

2 The idea here worked well and didn't go overboard

3 Good Roguelike game loop: fight enemies and pick up powerups, while managing dwindling resources. It was pretty hard, I wasn't able to actually beat it

2 The difficulty spikes suddenly in the second environment, but otherwise it's enjoyable.

Innovation

2 Using one resource for everything isn't new but it is rare and not often explored

2 There are a couple concepts: the timer in the form of blood drops (which isn't that different from a really fast food timer) and the abilities. Mostly it plays like a standard Roguelike though

2 Puts an unusual twist on the format with its blood mechanics.

Scope

2 A lot was here but maybe it could use items, equipment, or more things to interact with

3 Perfect scope for a 7drl I think. Complete game with a new concept and everything seems to work

2 Reasonable.

Roguelikeness

3 I can call this a roguelike for sure

3 Absolutely a roguelike

3 Roguelike.

The idea with blood being used as a hunger clock isn't new, nor is bloodtrading, but it isn't often revisited. It might have been an idea to make some of the abilities use blood to add bloodcasting to the repetitoire here; although that may have scared people from using them and this looked like a fairly forgiving game with the blood waiting for you to pick it up on the floor. I liked how the enemies weren't just brainless mobs that run up and hit you; although starting some of the levels got me killed when I was completely surrounded. The game did feel a bit repetitive though on a second playthrough.

Great basis for a game, perfect example of a 7DRL. IMHO it was hard but maybe I'm just not very good at it. It would be easier without the blood timer but the blood timer is also the whole point / theme

Uses blood as a clock, a health meter, and also a currency. Some enemies drop blood when slain, so you can get some back, but it's a tight resource and you have to make decisions as to how much you surrender to the shady salesman for upgrades. You also get some cooldown abilities which fit well with the rest of the gameplay. Enjoyable, though hampered by a sudden spike in difficulty after a few levels.

Wizard-Thief-Fighter

Completeness

3

3 No obvious bugs, and it's a full-featured Roguelike.

3 Complete with lots of impressive touches

Aesthetics

3 The 3 characters all see the world differently, which is a neat touch. Customisable menus too.

2 Interface is quite standard and functional; I had no trouble.

2 Clean classic roguelike style, nice menu polish and prompts. But needed something to make it stand out more and sell the theme.

Fun

2 A clever idea, executed pretty well. The idea of 3 different dungeons that are also the same dungeon is confusing at first.

2 The game is built around a novel idea which is interesting to discover. I didn't enjoy playing the game much though. For example, I felt the hunger clock kept me from taking the time to decide who ought to collect what items. The space mapping was chaotic enough that I did not make plans, really; just jumped if the current character was stuck or having a hard time.

2 The core gameloop is classic rogue and works well + plays snappily but the game needs to give you more of a reason to switch characters/maps besides evening out the character progression. Lots of keyboard shortcuts, which felt like a bit of a throwback to old school roguelikes. Also way too much time fighting bats and other simple enemies at the start. Gameplay perhaps a tad long for a 7DRL and I wasn't able to progress all that far before dying (around level 8 on my best run).

Innovation

2 Mechanically standard but with a twist.

2 The core idea of maintaining and isometry between three views of a game is novel. Beyond that it plays as a very standard Roguelike. (Which is good! Given how opaque the core idea is.)

3 Really neat idea to be able to switch between 3 different characters play on different but isomorphic maps so that if you get stuck in one place you can make progress elsewhere.

Scope

2

2 It's tough to assess scope. The moment-to-moment gameplay is a very traditional Roguelike; I'm guessing built from existing games. I imagine the mappping process took quite a bit of work to develop though.

3 This feels like a big game and it's impressive how much detail has been packed in.

Roguelikeness

3 Aside from its novel gimmick, it's pure roguelike.

3 Yes, quite.

3 A classic ascii roguelike with that one key change of being able to switch between 3 characters playing on isomorphically equivalent maps.

Very traditional in most ways, but you're actually playing 3 overlapping dungeons - the same space with the same items, but you experience it differently which each character. Clever idea and works well here.

Cute name! It took me a long time to get a clue of what this game is doing. That's most of the fun of the game.

I found this to be one of the most fascinating entries in what looks like a very conventional roguelike presentation. Needs a bit more gameplay tuning to bring out the essence of the core mechanic.

FADING SIGNAL

Completeness

2 While the game is mostly stable and runs well, I ran into at least two clear bugs, one game-breaking (door to next level was definitively inaccessible) and one not. Additionally the interface is needlessly opaque in several areas.

3 Seems complete and bug-free.

2 The game looks more or less complete, but there is a game breaking bug where level exit door cannot be reached.

Aesthetics

3 Good sprite work, sound design, and animation. Using ambient noise is a good move, as it is unlikely to get repetitive upon repeated play.

3 The aesthetic fits the game pretty well, and everything is clear enough.

3 Very nice pixel art, atmospheric ambience. Controls are fine. Sounds of movement planning make changes in number of movements seamless.

Fun

2 The game is decently fun, though it has noticable issues I elaborate on in my overall review.

2 Solidly enjoyable.

2 It's somewhat fun to poke around. But either I didn't understand the idea behind this actions queueing scheme, or there is a big flaw in it.

Innovation

2 This falls pretty firmly in "neat twist on usual mechanics" I think. The idea of being forced to queue actions is a cool fundamental mechanic, but the rest of the game is pretty standard, and, notably, doesn't support that fundamental innovation as well as it could.

2 Puts a twist on the usual crawling by introducing action programming.

2 Actions queueing is not innovative in itself, but very rarely used in roguelikes.

Scope

3 There's actually a pretty shocking amount here. Different areas have very distinct aesthetics and there are an impressive amount of enemies with distinct behaviors.

3 I haven't got to the end so I don't know how long it is, but it does feel ambitious for 7 days.

3 Several clearly distinct environments, quite a few monsters, feels a bit more than your average 7drl.

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike.

3 Feels like a roguelike to me.

2 A bit too barebone mechanics-wise to be called true roguelike. IMO absence of any kind of character progression turns the game into tactical puzzle, not roguelike.

This game has great aesthetics (with particularly good sound design), and is built around an innovative core idea. However, there are some bugs and the gameplay has a few design issues, failing to entirely support that innovative core. Additionally, the interface can be opaque. For instance, as far as I can tell the only way to learn the name of an enemy is to get hurt by it, and it's unclear whether a tile blocks movement sometimes (which is a problem when attempting to move onto it is transformed into a wait). Flashlight feels very RNG, rather than a strategic resource management element. It can't really be stockpiled and it drains at such a rate that it's not really worth hunting around for batteries rather than picking up the ones you happen to find. Worse, playing with zero flashlight isn't particularly fun. In my four runs that reached labs, I was generally out of flashlight essentially all the time. Finally, the movement of some enemies feels too random for a game built around queuing long sequences of actions, and a misplay can end the run in a single "turn" as enemies get multiple hits in without you having a chance to react. In labs, the shotgun felt mostly (though not entirely) useless bcause of this. In general, the game feels like it's missing something to really build around its core mechanic. Having to queue your actions means that the mechanics need to support a long planning horizon or else the player is forced into extremely conservative play and offensive tools are of limited usefulness. It might be a good idea to give the player more information about the future actions of mobs (similar to how Invisible Inc. shows the player where the guards will move next turn). The farther ahead it is possible to predict enemy motion, the more filling your action queue will feel like a strategic puzzle.

The main novelty here is the action programming mechanic - you input several actions ahead of time and then they all execute in succession. This means you have to predict what you'll need to do and where enemies will be in a few turns' time. It works well here, and the rest of the gameplay offers enough to keep it interesting without over-complicating. Enjoyable.

I was charmed by this game at first. But the more I played it the more I was frustrated. I don't understand the key point of queueing mechanics. Longer queue makes things harder. Multiplied by harder monsters you can easily die in one turn. Absence of 'free' attack makes things even more frustrating. Given that you are on a robot and they are organic monsters. It could be very interesting if while planing your moves you could see possible monsters moves with branching in some cases. But alas.

Uthel's World

Completeness

3 Ran well, no bugs, well done

3 Defintely complete, didn't notice any bugs and it was balanced enough for the type of game it was

3 Complete without bugs

Aesthetics

3 Been a while since I've played a four-direction-view game; after adjusting to that, everything was easy to parse

2 This was a beautiful looking roguelike but it was held back by how slow it was to move around

3 Very nice visuals but the layout of the map needs improvement. The directions you face that you can view is far from the map in terms of the layout so you either pay attention to the map or to the visuals of the directions you face on the right.

Fun

2 I wish there was more variety in enemies and combat decisions

2 It was fun, but highly dependent on randomness

2 Yes I had a lot of fun but this game needs some balance and the skills takes too long to be managable to be used.

Innovation

1 Nothing really new

2 I liked the viewing panels having a sort of 3D inspiration to them

2 I do not believe it is innovative but the viewing panels are nice

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

3 A lot of content here, enough I think that I can justify the score

3 Beyond what could be expected from a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Procedural, yes. Lots of death, yes. Labyrithine, yes. Turn-based, descend levels, increasing power.

3 A roguelike for sure

3 Yes a RL for sure.

I descended to Level 51 before quiting. A few more options (different opponents, more tactical decisions, player abilities, etc) and this would be great. Pretty good for a 7DRL.

Very cool entry, although I wonder if perhaps it could have been streamlined more with controls and made a bit more interesting with its depth. The AI was somewhat easily abused and the fact that the enemies could move diagonally while you couldn't was quite annoying. I really liked the idea of the viewing panels and how they worked to give you a 3D sort of vibe to the game; without actually being 3D. Otherwise I enjoyed my experience with the game.

This is a very nice addition, the visuals are nice but the weapons did not seems to have any sort of grandiose effect. The skills takes too long to be managable to be used. The monsters always swarms you as soon as you enter a new level so the strategy is to find a small corner and fight them 1-on-1. The layout also needs improvement. However, the core gameplay is nice but needs some twist mechanics to be memorable.

Animal Party

Completeness

3 Full game spanning multiple battles and shops across 3 zones.

3 Sometimes when I tried to use the shield the game wouldn't let me select some animals but after clicking on the bomb and then back on the shield it would work, I didn't encounter any other bugs, the game was very polished

3 Worked, ran, didn't have any issues, seemed polish

Aesthetics

3 I loved the style especially the traveling sprites and interaction sound effects. Great touch with randomizing them.

3 Solid graphics and controls, nice jaunty walking music, good sound effects when selecting stuff

3 Looked nice, controlled well, liked the sounds

Fun

3 Good puzzles to find the optimal configuration of animals, and powerups.

3 I had a lot of fun figuring out the best play to eat as many enemies as possible while protecting my own, especially once I got past the initial section and the board needs to get filled up

2 A very interesting puzzle concept

Innovation

2 The puzzle mechanics are straightforward but the scenarios and amount of potential solutions are where the depth comes in.

3 I'm not sure whether it's innovating roguelikes or just making a totally different puzzle genre, but the puzzles are clearly unique and interesting

3 This was certainly a very interesting puzzle styled game that feels very unique

Scope

3 Very polished, with full levels and scaling difficulty that isn't just higher numbers as well as a variety of power ups that meaningfully affect gameplay.

2 Has a reasonable amount of content, more balanced than typical 7DRLs

1 Didn't honestly feel like there was enough gameplay here

Roguelikeness

1 Much more of a puzzle game, with the slightest hint of ideas that are present in roguelikes such as being run based.

2 The puzzles are closer to sudoku than a typical roguelike, but it does have procgen obstacles to puzzle out, resource management, and strategic choice of which items to buy

1 No, not at all like a roguelike

Great stylish and polished puzzles. Definitely forced some tough decision making, though I do think it was well balanced. There is a bit of information overload with how much stuff is on screen by the final levels between positioning powerups and timing. I didn't use my power ups at first because I thought they were single use though. Had 2 potential bugs, ocassionally enemy animals would not damage eachother, and it was hard to tell why. Also on one of the last floors I could not use the long tongue power up on any of my animals, though it did allow me to use it on an enemy.

This was one of my favorites, a really compelling central mechanic and great music/sound effects.

Not really a roguelike if it doesn't have procedural generation. Maybe make it so that you can choose the path of your animals and have different battles to fight; or options on when to visit the shop and other non-battle related activities you might fit in here.

CaveRunner

Completeness

3 Works well, fairly balanced though a bit long.

3 I did not had any problems running this game, no bugs and even completed it.

3 Looked to be complete, despite not having everything the developer planned

Aesthetics

3 Great style and music, lots of variety in collectibles and dungeon features.

2 The game presents a nice pallete and tiles but the slime that was part of the game seems very out of place. Some of the items to be picked up also it is hard to distinguish between them, for example certain boxes or the medicine.

3 Some of the graphics made me think of other items, but I could distinguish them mostly well enough; loved the music cue for when the Goblins arrive

Fun

2 Interesting route planning gameplay with limited resources and time pressure. Besides a few minor stat changes each floor basically plays the same as the last. Could use increased rewards to go along with the risk.

2 The game is good as a coffe time breaker.

2 It was interesting enough but lacked depth outside of picking up things and getting to the exit before the Goblins caught up

Innovation

2 Cool subversion of the usual formula of kill as much as possible, though still practices many of the standard principles.

2 I dont think I saw this idea being developed in previous roguelikes but it was not innovative in terms of the mechanics. Either way well done.

2 Robbing things is nothing new, but certainly puts quite the unique twist on it

Scope

3 I think this is a well realized game for the jam, a few different tools, a few different powerups, and randomized levels.

2 It was to be expected from a 7DRL

2 Around what I imagine can be done

Roguelikeness

3 Roguelike feel basically with a hunger clock replaced with goblins

2 I am almost tending to give a full score here but there are certain elements that do not combine as a rogue-like, even though it is a turn-based combat. The developers should not take that as a negative opinion, because it does show a different aspect.

3 Close enough that I would call it a roguelike

Well done, great charming aesthetic, interesting decisions with trying to plan the best way and hope slimes don't keep getting in the way. Would liked to have seen more incentive to take risks for more money and more variety in the future levels or just a lower requirement to leave.

This game takes a very nice idea of time-limited action to steal things to progress into the game in order to finish it. Some of the icons representing the items were confusing so a little polishing would be necessary. However, the slimes seems very out of place and does not combine with the mood of it. No story was described as to why it was there and you can pass through them. Not sure that was intended but sometimes there was so many of them that they almost killed me. I was able to finish the game without any problems. Congrats to the devs!

I sort of wonder if more could be added into this; outside of what was planned after the 7DRL. Maybe you could set Goblin Idols on fire so that Goblins will immediately try and put out the fire instead of chase you for example? It is a simple idea that well executed nonetheless. I do note however that it likely would have made sense to have thrown weapons that can't be recovered as opposed to the breakable knives.

Dungeon Cards

Completeness

3

3 Very complete and very polished, ran with no problem

3 Stable, no noticable bugs, feels highly polished.

Aesthetics

3 Control is simple and information is clear.

3 Spectacular, I like the options to turn off sway and mute SFX or Music as well

3 Lovely look and feel. UI is intuitive. Tooltips might have been nice, but everything was logical and interpretable.

Fun

2 A bit too luck-based for my liking but enjoyable.

3 This was extremely engaging to play, and the combination with the grid was done very well

3 Very enjoyable turn-by-turn tactics, with a bit of strategy thought in the deck-evolution aspect. Could definitely benefit from higher difficulty levels or extra challenges.

Innovation

1 Deckbuilding mechanics have become very common. In that respect, nothing groundbreaking here.

2 The innovation is strong here, but it really only feels like there was only one innovation in total

2 The card-based control has been done before, but it's rare to see it done quite this well whilst retaining a roguelike feel to the gameplay.

Scope

2

3 While only about a half hour to play, there is replayability here as a result of the depth in the card mechanics

2 Fairly minimalist overall, though highly polished.

Roguelikeness

2 Mostly roguelike but the deckbuilding and random card drawing gives it a -lite feel.

2 This is certainly catering to a lot of important roguelike tickboxes; maybe add in bump attacks, unidentifiable potions, a hunger clock, a leveling system, or what not (not that I think it is necessary)

2 Reduced score because the levels are simple squares with no terrain features.

Clear each room to progress to the next, with every action other than movement driven by deckbuilding. In each room you get more cards or upgrade existing ones. It's a pleasant game with a simple and clear interface, if you know deckbuilders. It's perhaps too easy to fall prey to unlucky draws but it's a solid effort. If you don't know deckbuilders, it might be a bit hard to firgure out.

This was a joy to play. You could probably flesh this out into a much greater game - just add more stages, maybe add cards that buff you are cause different effects besides just the stun to enemies, more elements outside of the cards to deal with, maybe have dungeon hazards, etc. I really have nothing bad to say about your game, it is just that well done.

A tactical roguelike where you move around a grid like normal but your abilities are linked to "cards" in a deck which you can expand and upgrade as you play. Very enjoyable, hugely polished, and the ending leaves you wanting more and harder!

Peculiar Potions

Completeness

2 I only seem to hit one soft lock, beyond that, the game is pretty solid

3 Feature complete. The game runs fine

2 Worked, ran, didn't look to have issues, could have had more polish.

Aesthetics

3 Solid aethetics, good controls, great use of potion color against dungeon background

3 Very nice graphisms. The animations may be a bit slow. Nice music too.

3 Sounds were good, controls worked well enough, art was fine

Fun

3 Figuring out potion combinations is fun, having Murky Water as a backstop helps a lot in terms of strategy. I *do* wish that diagonal movement was an option

2 Fun to learn how the ingredients impact the potion, and to make the most out of the stuff I have. The spawning can be a bit harsh. The pace is a bit slow.

2 I liked the interactions of different potions but felt it would have been better if the game remembered what ingredients did; as opposed to personally having to remember

Innovation

3 Feels like a fun use of a cooking system aside a turn-based game that I've not seen before

2 Spell-crafting system with basic effects and enemies.

1 This sort of concept has been explored before

Scope

3 A *lot* of potion combinations to figure out

2 Good content for 7drl.

1 While there was a multitude of potions, everything else was a bit lacking

Roguelikeness

3 Oops, all potions: The Roguelike

3 Yes. Grid, turn-based, procgen impacting the gameplay, permadeath, strategic thinking.

3 Roguelike enough

Oops: All Potions as a roguelike. The only reason I didn't keep going was due to hitting a softlock a couple of times, beyond that, a very nifty package, and a roguelike I could see playing on a phone very easily

A nice and eye-pleasing game. I have some complaints: - The whole game is a bit slow (animations + waiting every enemy to move). - The player spawn is too rng dependant: I got to floor 20 and then lost because I spawn in the middle of several 5-hp enemies, with one just near me, so I couldn't even hide myself behind rocks. - Also, it is somewhat weird that enemies can attack you diagonally, where everything else is orthogonal only. Apart from that, the only thing really lacking is more content and variety, specially among enemies. The game is beautiful. I liked the feeling of figuring out the ingredient effects and optimizing my potions. Nice work!

A fun idea that could be expanded on by a lot. Maybe enemies could have resistances, the game could remember what ingredients will do when mixed together, and perhaps the effects could be randomized between runs (didn't look to be in my playing). I'll note that I would look at enemy pathing since if they can't 'cardinally' reach you, they won't path to you when it is possible they can get in range to attack.

Shadow Dream

Completeness

3 This feels like a complete experience. It's polished and has a clear end goal.

3 Game runs, no crashes, probably a win state but I didn't get to it

3 Started up, ran fine, didn't seem to have any bugs or note

Aesthetics

3 I absolutely love the color palette, sprites, soundtrack and sound effects. They all come together well. sfx provide good feedback. I loved the little *tink, tink* as you mine crystals. controls are simple and easy to remember especially with the help of the menu on the right side. you put in directionality (flow) in a way that easy to understand and simple to use.

3 Controls work but take a minute to understand, glow mechanism has a unique style

2 Looked fine, sounded great, movement was fine, not sure about targetting for the spells

Fun

3 I enjoyed discovering new spells, fae, and observing how the darkness behaves. I am a horrible mental mapper and I got lost a lot. The world was so big I felt I was walking for long bits without much intersting things popping up. This got easier as I found crystals to light torches though. And I will say lightling my first obelisk was very satifying. The darkeness creatures being just little black squares was quite evocative. Soemtimes they were just going about their business and avoiding the light, other times they were swarming me. "back you animals! back!" I liked their behavior. I would just stumble upon little highways of dark, knowing they were gathering for an attack. Some of the fae were just not helpful, and that felt right to me. The NPCs in this game added to the fun.

2 I enjoyed exploring the shadow world, finding totems, and lighting up obelisks; wish there were more crytals to use the totems more

1 I found myself wandering around a lot more then anything else; until a group of shadows came down on me as as frantasically blasted my spells around to no avail

Innovation

2 The mechanics here are innovative to me. Of course we see FOV a lot. But we don't often see playing with e range of visibility as the core of gameplay. In this case it was key, and well executed. The range of one's glow was tied in with resource management, visibility, and spell casting range.

2 Unique glow mechanisms to reveal enemy shadows

3 This does seem quite unique for what it is

Scope

2 This gets a high 2 for me. Ther is plenty of content and interesting mechanics tied to the glow. There's alos a l ot of UI polish and thoughfulness, That more games of this genrea could learn from.

2 Maybe tried to do too much, the world was big but mostly empty yet there were not enough resources to power everything I found

2 Looks to be appropriately sized

Roguelikeness

3 tis a standout roguelike.

2 Turn-based, level rather random but very open, some procgen for totems, permadeath

3 Hits all the important marks for being a roguelike

This is an amazing entry with solid core mechanic and wonderfulyl evocative. I had a great time reviewing and learning from its strong points.

Good sense of exploration, good use of shadows as threat; I enjoyed the experience. Would play again if more content fleshed-out the world.

I sort of felt that trying to find the Obelisks and Stones to power them up was akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack. You did have the Totems which helped out a bit but due to how vast the game world is I sometimes overshot what I was seeking. Probably the greatest issue I had though was with the spells - they didn't seem all that useful against the Shadows that would come for you. Heal would mitigate your death a bit, Shield would allow you to stave it off further, sometimes I could blink away; but trying to offensively take on the Shadows really came down to if I found Blast or not. Also I sort of felt that I didn't understand what the purpose of the torches were; other then that I could pay to light them up?

Totem of Seeding

Completeness

3 What a beaut! The bat enemy might be bugged but otherwise this worked perfectly and seemed very complete

2 Lots of polish on this one, but the core gameplay doesn't seem complete - a lot of the rooms are empty, I can progress to later stages (?) just by walking back and forth between the hub room and the dungeon entrance. The boss fight took place in the starting room where the campfire was, which I'm not sure was intentional, since the campfire heal has no cooldown, it made the boss utterly trivial with no need to dodge anything.

3 Complete

Aesthetics

3 This looked beautiful. Definitely taking a nod to classic roguelikes by having the characters and equipment made up of letters

3 Lots of attention to making it look good, and I like the way you made things out of letters. The music is cool and sets the tone well. Controls were not easy to use on a touchpad, as I could only aim while not moving with the keyboard, but I imagine this wouldn't be an issue for most players.

3 Visuals and pallete colour is very good, the gameplay is balanced

Fun

3 This was fun and I wouldn't mind going back to play it perhaps

1 I didn't enjoy this at all, to be honest. Maybe I just didn't get to the good parts, but the experience I had was walking through empty rooms and clicking on things. I gather there are some special abilities, but the game didn't seem to tell me anything about them and I only used them by accident.

2 Although had a lot of fun in the first minutes, it later becomes very tedious

Innovation

2 It is an Action Roguelike but the idea of gathering letters to spell out 'seeds' for dungeons to visit it is quite awesome

2 The idea of collecting letters that can either be used as equipment or to spell words which modify the levels is neat. Other than that the game seems very much in line with many others in its genre.

2 It does not bring anything novel to the genre

Scope

3 Was this really done in seven days?

3 There's certainly a lot in here - procedural levels, bosses, juice, an online leaderboard, and the "seed" mechanic.

3 Game is beyond what I could consider an expected 7DRL game

Roguelikeness

2 Obviously a step away from what roguelikes are since there is a high focus on real time gameplay

2 This is what I would call an Isaac-like rather than a roguelike, but Isaac-likes are recognisably roguelike in some regards.

2 I am torn between giving this a 1. It is a roguelite style of binding of isaac but it is rather missing a lot of important information on stats of enemies and your char.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the top contending 7DRLs that people remember for 2023. The amount of content here is quite impressive, as is the art, the sounds, and the graphics. Commendations to this developer.

I didn't really enjoy this game, but I can definitely appreciate what you achieved in a week from a technical standpoint. I think the game needs some balance fixes, but otherwise it is a solid jam game that will appeal to people who like modern real-time dungeon crawlers.

Really good game, had some fun in the first trials but later it became quite bland. I suggest the devs to add some more enemies, give stats to them, improve the layout or add a teleporter to get back to the fountain without the need to use an item. However, it is not a roguelike in its true sense and should be modified if that was intended.

Warlock's Keep

Completeness

3 Stable and runs well, good help text on how to play the game

3 Fairly complete, though I couldn't run it from itch.io - only worked on author's website

3 Seems complete, didn't encounter any bugs.

Aesthetics

3 Pleasing to look at and controls are simple and intuitive, the UI supports the mechanic of combining spells well

2 Good controls, UI was decent, no audio

2 Simple but effective enough.

Fun

3 Fun! Using spell combinations is a wonderful mechanic. Exploring while conserving MP is a good puzzle

3 Pretty cool here. I enjoyed the spell system of casting which changed every run

1 Challenge feels very arbitrary, like you often couldn't really have done anything to prevent your demise.

Innovation

3 Great combination of traditional roguelikes with the spell words mechanic and discovering new spells

2 Simple idea, but executed fairly well

2 Casting spells by assembling them from word fragments is a nice idea, though in practice it doesn't really matter here.

Scope

2 Good size for a 7DRL

2 I know there's only 7 days, was looking for a touch more

2 Reasonable.

Roguelikeness

3 Full on roguelike

3 Definitely. Turn based, permadeath and spell casting.

2 Ticks many of the roguelike boxes but feels more arcadey to me.

This is a fun game already. I love the spell mechanic. It's fun to explore the levels and figure out the best way to kill the enemies while keeping mana up (I always felt low on mana). I could not get it to work on itch but it did work on sevendral (still had to press tab, so glad you had that note on the game page). It would be nice to have some options when you are completely out of mana (or maybe I didn't find them).

I thought this was a great concept that could be built upon. Graphics and UI were fine, and I enjoyed the randomly generated spell casting system! Thanks for the entry!

The gimmick here is that you combine your 5 words in different ways to cast different spells. In practice it doesn't really work like that though, because you have to find recipes anyway, and then you can just check the spellbook for a reminder. The game is ok but a lot of the time you get killed by a room full of enemies you couldn't have had any way to deal with.

Trouble Builder

Completeness

3 Feels like a good shell of a game, but has a few rough edges like enemy pop-outs and level differentiation.

2 Ran without issues, didn't encounter any bugs, but really felt the Challenge and Boss Room was a bit unbalanced compared to the rest of the game and would have liked a hit point bar somewhere

Aesthetics

2 Sound was fantastic and the level overall had a fun arcade-y feel to it.

3 Controlled well, could place blocks fine, background music and sounds were excellent

Fun

3 Devilishly hard boss fights, but the rest of the game was really enjoyable and I found myself playing it a few times more than I needed to.

3 I did have quite a bit of fun with this title, though the Leeroy Blockins sound effect was maybe a bit too obnoxious

Innovation

2 Interesting genre to throw into this jam, particularly when you have to select troubles and other little progression elements

3 Building dungeons and such has been done before, but I felt this was enough of a novel twist to give full marks

Scope

2 Right in line of what I'd expect

3 I can't say I got to see more then up to the Challenge/Boss rooms, but seeing a lot of different effects, enemies, and such makes me think there was more then one would expect from a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

1 I don't think this is really a roguelike unless there's massive run differentiation in later levels. It just feels like an arcade game.

2 Despite being an arcade/roguelike, I felt that there was enough depth to the design here that it was a lot closer to roguelikes then arcade games

Fun game that captured my attention for a long time. It's a fun arcade game that could use more procedural generation or other differentiations between runs to really qualify as a roguelike.

I really liked this title but felt that it was too difficult once you got to the Challenge or Boss levels; the combination of increased enemies and the sheer wackiness of the level dynamics + block effects really hampered being able to make any sort of progress at that point. Likely even the Leeroy Blockins sound effect wouldn't be so bad if there was less enemies as they would be less likely to trigger! Outside of this though there is very little to dislike about this entry - Good job!

Exalted 7drl

Completeness

3 Runs well, plenty to do, I beat it!

3 This felt very complete! Worked really well, great itch.io page and lots of procgen

2 Complete. Needs balance work.

Aesthetics

2 Nice palette and font. Satisfying effects.

3 Good controls, bright, clean and color graphics!

2 Ascii style; fairly easy to understand the UI but some mobs were dignificantly more dangerous & I didn't learn how to tell them from the others

Fun

2 Pretty fun working out what equipment synergised well to create an OP build. The enemy AI is very basic though and it seems like they always know where you are so you can't really explore until you've beat the level as everything just runs at you as soon as you spawn. Easy to get overwhelmed on the first levels due to this.

3 Great design here and loved the blessings concept along with the gear stat choices.

2 Hack n slash, but with AoE effects and visuals

Innovation

2 The variety of passive abilities on equipment were fun to experiment with.

2 "Hard" category to judge for this game. Innovative gear and stat approach which is built on a traditional roguelike experience.

1 Nothing new here

Scope

2 Feels about right for a 7DRL

3 Felt like a real decent accomplishment for a 7DRL entry

2 Typical 7DRL scope

Roguelikeness

3 Pretty classic feel

3 Turn based, permadeath, gear, procgen, booya.

3 Very classic. Procedural, turn-based, explore a maze, descend, gain levels, clear win state

Clean, chunky ASCII art with a great palette. Lots of equipment with various active and passive abilities to experiment with. Enjoyed the world building and lore. Enemy AI is rather basic though.

This was a lot of fun to play and I enjoyed it a lot. The stat combos and choices were a really enjoyable twist to a classic dungeon Roguelike. Great project and thanks for submitting!

Good roguelike feel in a short game, could use rebalancing and better differentiation of enemies

Temptation of Saint Anthony

Completeness

2 I played a bug fixed web version, it sometimes doesn't register key presses, game over screen pressing enter/escape does nothing

2 When i tried to restart the game with enter after game over the game just freezes and closes. However, overall game is very polished apart from the fact that you have to run like crazy to find the portal to the next stage because apparently, there is no food ingame and you have to keep eating to stay alive. I finished the game nonetheless and was greeted with a good finishing text symbolizing I completed it.

3 Oh my! A very polished production.

Aesthetics

2 Nice colors, solid music, slightly obnoxious sound effects, changing fog of war characters a bit distracting especially when reading text

3 I must say, the UI in this game is top-notch. The developers did a great job with the color palette, sound effects, and overall design. It all fits the theme perfectly, making it one of the best UIs I've seen in this competition so far. Congrats to the devs!

3 Visually simple yet splendid looking. Great!

Fun

1 Barely any thought required, just exploring big maps until you find the portal

3 I had so much fun with this game, it was challenging, albeit with some caveats, but very enjoyable. Definetely recommend this one.

2 Felt like more of an experience than a true game, and although nothing wrong with that, gameplay at times suffered from being a little too abstract and opaque representation of a hermit's life. My best progress was about 5 levels in before succumbing to hunger. Line of sight distance felt too confined (couldn't even see across a room).

Innovation

2 Standard bump to attack themed as preaching

3 This is very unique, I can guarantee I havent seen this before, I am very admired by it.

3 Ascetic simulator is like no other roguelike I have played.

Scope

2 Typical

2 Altough the game has excellent features like previously described, the scope is not that big and it fits what you would expect from a 7DRL.

2 Appropriately scoped for the gameplay but not much variety from play to play

Roguelikeness

3 Turn/grid based, exploring procgen maps, permadeath

2 Definitily roguelike but it does gets repetitive since there is not a lot of available options for the player in each run

3 A subversion of the classic roguelike mechanics with combat, for example, being "attacked" by peasant begging for your money giving you bad feels and defeating them by giving away money. Defeat is settling for an easy lifestyle.

I liked the color scheme, and the theming has potential, but as it is the lack of interesting choices kept it from being fun for me.

This game is truly unique. It's fascinating to play as Anthony, a character who takes the path of a saint in a very unexpected way. The game's consistent theme, font, and design are all impressive, but what really stood out to me was the concept of 'followers' that encourages Anthony to continue on his path. Overall, I believe this game deserves to be a contender for this year. It's truly incredible. I see that the food aspect has been fixed in the newer version of the game. However, we do have to analyse it on a 7DRL raw files so is one of the reasons that I gave some medium scores.

Unique, religious experience with deft handling of the subject matter and brilliant presentation. A must try but not necessarily something one would come back to repeatedly in its current form.

Yellow Game About Falling Things

Completeness

2 Can play a full round; screenshots and a good page with even some proc gen

3 The game froze at one point

3 Ran fine, looked fine, didn't seem to have any bugs

Aesthetics

2 A very minimal but unique design; lots of geometry :)

3 Simple easy to pick up graphics, the rotating controls were intuitive once I realized left/right essentially meant move everything to the left/right

3 Controlled well, although I would have preferred visual control buttons to rotate with

Fun

3 Not sure how long I could play this, but it's a great puzzle game to get into

2 I had fun figuring out how everything works and staying alive as long as possible

2 Couldn't really get into this one, but I did like how the geometry and interaction of objects worked

Innovation

3 Definitely a unique spin

3 Rotation caused movement/attacking

3 This was highly innovative and very unique

Scope

2 A decent size for a 7DRL entry

2 Typical

2 Despite how minimal this was I did notice it had a little depth to it

Roguelikeness

1 Didn't really throw off a roguelike vibe for me, but at the same time I'm super glad the dev put this together for the 7DRL

3 Turn/grid based, after the first level as far as I can tell the levels are random, the hazards aren't as independent as typical roguelike enemies

1 I'm not even sure I would call this one a roguelike, it is that far and away

Overall, I liked this entry quite a bit. I don't know if this falls into a "roguelike" but I could also see that it could totally belong in a 7DRL. Hope the dev had a great time putting this together, and maybe should put this out on mobile

This was one of my favorites, figuring out how to use the rotation to get everything in place was fun. It's different enough from other stuff I've played that I needed to discover new heuristics to play well. Replaying the tutorial levels every game was a bit of a drag.

This game really doesn't strike me as being a roguelike, but it does take a lot of roguelike gameplay ideas. Maybe having an exit point you have to navigate too after defeating everything or something to make it feel like it isn't a series of puzzles one after the other is the biggest suggestion I can give. Outside of that it was a good game; though perhaps the white ball could have more health to survive with.

Chickadee's dungeon

Completeness

3 Polished, no bugs, feels complete, arguable balanced

2 The game runs fine, completed it(?) but no window is seen, showing a story or rather why you are there in the first place. Just a box saying retry.

3 Works well, has decent content but a bit short and unbalanced.

Aesthetics

3 Nice artstyle, understandable UI & controls

3 The game is indeed very beautiful, nothing to complain about it.

3 Looks great, really high quality art with alot of personality

Fun

2 I enjoyed it and felt compelled to play it more then once, but beat it within 20-40 minutes and I'm good with putting it down

2 Yes, the game is fun and had a lot of good moments playing it. However, there are too many weapons and the game is not that balanced. With certain weapons you wont see the end of the game.

2 It was fun exploring the different combos you could make with relics and weapons though sometimes it puts you in unwinnable situations.

Innovation

2 You choose your weapon in combat and attack left or right, pick your reward, and move on. Simple mechanics like these have been done but this is a nice spin on it

1 Nothing novel, the only interesting thing is the enemies and the protagonist.

3 Interesting 1D puzzle-like combat that makes you plan out your moves multiple turns in advance based on where your opponents are and what they are doing.

Scope

2 I think this game could be expanded upon quite a bit, but it feels like a bit more then a simple tech demo

2 What you expect from a 7DRL.

2 There are a handful of unique enemies but you will fight all of them after 1-2 battles. Decent amount of items gives some replayability to see more effects.

Roguelikeness

3 This is close enough that I'd call it a roguelike, specifically a puzzle roguelike

2 Yes, not a classical roguelike in my opinion.

2 Light on roguelike mechanics, there is some procedural generation with the organization of the encounters. Incremental progression and a few resource management decisions, but feels more like a puzzle.

This reminds me a lot of Slay The Spire in terms to presentation and gameplay, but without that cards and only having the ability to just attack enemies. Despite having very limited controls, there was a lot of tactical thinking going on here. Might be a bit too random for my tastes but that would be my only real complaint.

This is a cute little game that I enjoyed, it is very short but all weapons have certain specific attributes to it. However, the relics needs a little rework to balance things properly, poison is not really a good feature because the quickness of the battle. Maybe rework that a little. However, there is no ending just a box after you finish it saying retry. So I would focus on that as well if the devs wants to continue improving. Perhaps showing more enemies in the line but that cannot attack you but you can using poison(?).

Cool and really polished game, with some really creative and charming designs and moderately deep gameplay. The balance was the main point of contention, some runs felt unwinnable if you don't get a good enough weapon or the layout forced you to take multiple hits, poison is devasting. Conversely if you are doing well you one shot every enemy while power ups can be stunning them for 18 turns.

Murder Most Foul

Completeness

2 Ran fine but I wonder if enough safeguards were put in place to allow for a concrete picture to take shape

3 Bug free and well balanced. My only complaint is occasional hitching

Aesthetics

3 Looked fine and played fine

3 Great sprites and intuitive controls. The UI is also pretty and nice to use

Fun

2 Trying to uncover the clues and piece them together was certainly fun

2 Solving the mystery is pretty fun. Collecting clues, however, quickly becomes quite mindless and rote.

Innovation

2 Has there been other Clue mixed with roguelike games before? Mystery and roguelike games are nothing new though.

3 This is very unique, I've not played anything quite like it.

Scope

3 Imagine having 6 suspects to go through, there has to be quite a few different dialogue options for sure.

3 This was hard for me to judge. The map itself is static and doesn't represent a lot of content, but there's a lot of content in the procedural mystery aspects.

Roguelikeness

1 Do we call Clue a roguelike?

1 This was a cool and fun game, but I don't think I can justifiably call it anything close to a roguelike. It has procedural aspects and grid-based movement, but it's not really even a strategy game. There doesn't appear to be a way to lose and there are no resource management aspects to the gameplay. It's also not really realtime *or* turn based because the player is the only real actor, it's instead more like a puzzle.

I liked going around looking for the mystery but in the end I couldn't really figure out what I was missing to piece the puzzle fully together. I was able to nail down where one suspect was and what motive they had, but outside of knowing what the murder weapon was and where it wasn't I couldn't really discern much else. I ultimately made a lot of random guesses and luckily stumbled on the right suspect with a guess. Something to note as well is that this game likely could have had more roguelike elements to it; one can hardly say there is permadeath in this game anymore then they can in Clue, and there were no other roguelike mechanics like a hunger clock present either.

This was pretty cool to play. The mystery generation works well and putting the clues together is fun and satisfying. Some of the clues are a bit narratively implausible (the information you discern from photographs, mainly). The game's biggest issue is the clue collection gameplay, which in my view doesn't really work. You can't fail at it and there isn't a whole lot of thought involved, and what is there is somewhat dampened by the "Intuition" mechanic. Overall something is sorely missing from this phase of the game; it needs some sort of spice to introduce more thought either in puzzles or strategic decisions. I quickly found myself blazing through the manor rapidly hitting 'i' and completely ignoring the description of every clue I collected until all were found. The game looks and runs well, with the exception of semi-frequent hitching (which I'm a little puzzled by given how little happens as you explore the level). Overall, though I don't think this is really a roguelike, I enjoyed playing this.

One Step Behind You (7DRL 2023)

Completeness

3 Noticed a couple of bugs but they didn't impact the game, ran fine

2 While I didn't encounter any bugs during my playthrough, I did notice that the game isn't very well balanced. In particular, the detection zone seems a little off at times - for example, after breaking a window.

3 Complete. No crashes, fairly well balanced.

Aesthetics

2 I liked the graphics, the sound effects, and music. Need to fix that walking into walls bug skipping turns though

2 I really appreciate the aesthetics of this game, especially the beautiful lighting effects that appear whenever a torch is present. The soldiers and generals are also very well-designed and add to the overall visual appeal of the game. It's easy to spot coins and artifacts too, which is a nice touch.

3 Tile set looks good. Controls easy to understand.

Fun

2 I had fun but without those planned features that didn't get in it wasn't as fun as it could be

2 I had a lot of fun playing this game, but I did notice that the replay value isn't very high once you complete the first level. The soldiers and generals follow the same pattern and the only thing that changes is the size of the building you have to raid or steal from. While this was enjoyable at first, I think the game could benefit from some reworking in later levels to increase the challenge and reward.

2 Good stealth mechanism. With more variety in opponents, maps, etc and this would be really fun.

Innovation

2 Not too innovative with the thief mechanics but not devoid of them

2 This game presents a unique mechanic that I found interesting. However, I wouldn't necessarily describe it as highly innovative since it doesn't offer anything particularly groundbreaking or game-changing. Nevertheless, I appreciate the developers for taking an interesting approach and trying something new.

2 High focus on stealth, like a roguelike theif

Scope

2 It was decent enough for seven days and the developer should be commended for what got in

2 I don't think this project is very ambitious, as it seems that the developers simply copied and pasted the designs of the first level to the subsequent levels. While this approach can certainly save time and effort, it doesn't necessarily result in a very engaging or interesting gameplay experience.

2 Typical 7DRL scope. Music was a good extra.

Roguelikeness

3 This is a traditional roguelike, albeit you are a thief and not a rogue

3 Yes roguelike, absolutely.

3 Turn-based, procgen levels and names, maze-like buildings. Perma-loss. Defeat enemies, but no death at all. Did not play long enough to reach an end state.

I really liked this game but it is certainly competing with the 7DRL games like it of the past. This isn't to say this wasn't a good game and I certainly enjoyed this game a lot more then a lot of those games; but there are bars that this game just didn't meet. The main thing hurting this game was its lack of depth in terms of interaction with guards - ie, moving their bodies, special abilities to deal with them, etc.

I really enjoyed playing this game, but I have to admit that my enthusiasm waned after finishing the first level. The subsequent levels featured the same tiles, palette, and design elements, making it feel like a repetition of the previous one. I understand that this game was made in a short amount of time, but I do think the developers missed an opportunity to add some unique features as the game progresses and the difficulty increases. By introducing new obstacles or challenges, or even just adding some visual variety, they could have kept players engaged and invested in the gameplay experience.

There's a good core game here, sneaking into well-guarded mansions and stealing stuff. Add more content and this one would be worth playing again.

Seven Nights in Vienna

Completeness

2 Encountered a few minor display bugs and music cutting off. Nothing huge. The bigger problem is the balance is all over the place.

2 The game is more or less complete, but lacks polish and have a bug - after each game you have to restart it and wait until it loads.

2 Had no problems when playing this game but noticed a bug that if you go through the edges you will end the night. Sometimes you are stuck and the only direction you can go is the outer edges. This needs to be fixed.

Aesthetics

2 A beautiful aesthetic, great music, and decent enough (sometimes comical) AI portraits. The dancing animations are delightful. Controls are simple, though I couldn't figure out how to close the node graph for the longest time. The game suffers from a somewhat tedious UI because you're constantly having to hover characters and switch between menus. The message log is overwhelming. There's clearly room for a few tweaks and added information.

2 The game looks interesting. But fonts, while stylish, are very hard to read. And it definitely wouldn't hurt if some kind of info collecting range would be displayed.

3 Game looks great but the layout of the steal and bump into others could have been a little better.

Fun

2 I oscillated from a 1 to a 3. The mechanics seem underwhelming at first until you learn how tight the balance is. At its best moments, the dancing/spy fantasy works flawlessly. But the UI and balance issues hamper the fun.

2 A few first game I had no idea what's going on. When I grasped some of the game mechanics, dances become quite fun. But whole relationship idea is quite confusing.

3 This game brings such an unique perspective that I totally recommend it!

Innovation

3 Procedural dance moves, mechanics based on wisdom of the crowds, an interesting historical setting. Absolutely a 3 on innovation.

3 Wow. Randomized tactical dancing. Hell yeah.

3 It is very innovative! Well done.

Scope

2 There's several neat systems but not a huge amount of actions or content.

3 Quite a lot of work was done. I'm impressed.

2 Althought the game is unique enough, the scope is not that ambitious as the layout seems like the same overall.

Roguelikeness

2 It obviously isn't a dungeon crawler. Though it substitutes dancing for tactical combat, the result is closer to a puzzle game. It's close for me, but there's not enough complexity (all problems are solved in a pretty similar way) to make a roguelike comparison.

2 It is turn based. There is tactics involved, but not quite enough to be called true roguelike.

2 I do not think we can categorise this as a true RL.

Seven Nights in Vienna is a fantastic "spy" game hampered by UI and balance issues. It asks a lot from the player and has several inscrutable systems at play. But when it works, it really WORKS. During this game, I naturally experienced all the dance+spy tropes I had ever seen in film. The high point: you push someone out of the way to work your charms on a particular target, you're twirling artfully between dancers, the suspicion is boiling over, you grab a necklace from an honest party, you need just a little more grace to deposit it back somewhere else. Amazing. The low point (too common sadly): you need the stars to align on conviction/honesty/resolve/item/parity/connections and too often you're just left with no meaningful way to influence the outcome. I tried for many hours to beat it and failed.

It's very intriguing. It's very unclear why you would want to break some relationship if your only aim is spread of supporters. It would be more logical if there are 3 factions: pro-coalition, neutral and anti-colaition. Then you would want to connect neutrals to supporters and disconnect anti-coalition.

Loved this game! It is unique enough to be considered one of a kind! Trully brings some unique mechanics! Please improve and continue developing this because I can see something quite nice with an improved layout and A.I.

Snapdragon

Completeness

3 Definitely seems scoped down from what this could evolve into, but has all sorts of polish that would make this feel like it's very close to being a $2-$5 game on Steam.

3 Snapdragon is a complete game, no bugs, good amount of content between the various enemy types and their movements as well as a good number of unique map themes. Only thing I would like to see more of is unique items

2 It works. Doesn't crash. There are some glitches of AI. It is relatively easy and somewhat pointless, as there is no score.

Aesthetics

3 Simple, but natural key layout. I'm also a sucker for having every key available shown on the screen at all times

3 Aesthetics are great, the dragon and its movement is well animated and feels cute and fun. There are lots of unique enemy types and the various maps all feel unique.

3 The pixel art is nice, controls are fine, music is ok and can be turned off.

Fun

2 Cute and does some things I've never seen before. I enjoyed playing it, but it doesn't quite have the depth to make this a "must-play" for me. Alternative modes, more items, leveling up, etc would really push this over the top since the game is just a little too easy

2 The game is quite fun but I think the snake mechanic is under utilized. It doesn't often feel like it makes a large difference in gameplay when snapping and flipping don't cost much to do. Its very easy and even safer to almost always pull your tail in whenever you're near enemies and using snap/flip to end/skip a turn is even fairly powerful. Once you get the hang of movement and combat it becomes fairly simple to deal with almost all the enemies (except the damn diagonal movement guys).

2 It's somewhat fun to figure out possibilities of abilities of the character. But replayability is very low since every run is basically the same. Items do not change much and more or less optional.

Innovation

2 The snake mechanics are fun and the whole game feels "slidey" in a good way, but there's nothing here that really transcends.

2 This could have easily been a 3 if there was just a little more play with the snake mechanics. Taking that a step further would really make this game unique and lots of fun.

2 There were attempts to bring snake-ish experience to roguelike world, but not quite like this one. However, it's not really groundbreaking.

Scope

2 Right in the wheelhouse of doablity and nails it!

2 This game clearly has a lot of love and detail especially in the art. The gameplay and item types could have been scoped up a little.

2 Very solid 7drl entry. Quite a lot of mosters with different attack/move pattern. A few usable items.

Roguelikeness

3 Needs some more depth in the mechanics, but it definitely qualifies as-is

2 This game is definitely a roguelike and has all the elements you'd expect. The only thing I wish there was more of on this front is developing your character, items give you unique abilities but there is no progression.

2 The game is closer to puzzles than roguelikes. You need to solve how to aproach each enemy. Or just ignore them and rush for the exit. Absence of any character development or risk vs reward mechanics moves the game away from roguelikes.

Really loved this one. It was cute, the enemies were interesting but still predictable. The only things I would suggest is to up the difficulty, particularly early on, and then add more depth so that it wouldn't be possible to beat the end-level enemies at the very beginning.

Snapdragon is a quite roguelike that takes influence from your classic Snake game. Instead of moving a character through the world you move the head of your snake, extending your body and forming a long tail that inhabits the map. This opens you up to attack as any part of your tail can take damage. To combat this you're given the ability to snap your tail back in, flip your facing and to dash across the map by extending your body in a lunge like movement. The aesthetics are a win in this game with cute characters and a number of unique maps you must fight across. Unfortunately I think the game doesn't take full advantage of the snake mechanics and has no character progression beyond usable items. That doesn't take away from the fun of the game however, navigating and timing your movements to fight a large variety of enemies is challenging and fun. Overall a wonderful addition to 7drl.

The base idea is quite fun. But the game is a bit pointless. Which can be fixed very easily - count length of the snake on exit as a score! Then killing enemies will have some sense. Right now it is much easier to rush thru the levels than fight, especially on later levels.

Sword Hero

Completeness

3 Could use more text on the itch page, but ran fine and smooth

3 Seemed Complete, ran fine, didn't seem to have bugs, had a little polish to make it special

3 Complete with no bugs.

Aesthetics

2 Really interesting concept with different enemy types

3 Controls were fine, graphics were decent, sound was nice

2 Neat, simple graphics but overall pretty good.

Fun

2 I would vote for a 3, but I wish there was a difficulty setting to make it easier for terrible players like me.

2 I could see myself having more fun with it if there was perhaps more decision making, some instructions might have helped get me into the fun quicker though

2 Nifty little game. Fun with RL with some arcade aspects thrown in.

Innovation

3 I think it was a pretty innovative idea

2 Simple innovating of being a weapon that thrusts at stuff

2 Familiar aspects to the game but nifty

Scope

2 Tough to decide. Quite a bit of detail here in the feel of the game

2 A little bit more then a tech demo, but not by much

3 Seems fairly well made, arcade sounds and decent graphics

Roguelikeness

3 Arcade-y, but I could see this as a Roguelike with powerups, coins and permadeath

1 Just needs a bit more decision making or a bit more depth with the sword and enemies

2 RL with some arcade aspects included

An interesting concept for sure here. I loved the Pico-8 aesthetic, and had good sound and enemy design. Wish it was just a little easier. A neat showcase for the new Godot 4!

I liked this idea, I think though that it likely would have been better to have a different attack then the spear, more attacks to perform as the sword, maybe a parry to thrwart enemy attacks, etc. Maybe throw some hostile swords into the mix to fight too as minibosses. Beyond that though, it could use some more content outside of the Relics and more decision making outside of 'spend a little gold here' etc. Not a bad game though. Note, need to include your controls somewhere - blundering around figuring them out was not fun.

Overall a nice little game. Included old school arcade game music and sounds, decent graphics.

AND THESE IRON LIMBS EXILED FROM HEAVEN

Completeness

2 There's quite a bit going on with the ring/hand inventory, but there's also a lot of bugs around it. At least they make the game easier rather than softlock it

2 Um, I think its complete and polished? I think there ws a bug with moving rings on the bottom part of fingers

2 Feature complete and mostly polished, but did crash to desktop after about 8 or 9 levels. No saves, so all progress lost.

Aesthetics

3 It is a very cool style, though the nature of the gameplay is hard to suss out from it at first

1 This was pretty incomprehensible to look at and understand

3 Fascinating, weird aesthetic. It takes a few minutes to parse what you're looking at, but it works well once you get it.

Fun

2 It has a cool asethetic/setting, but the game really needs a "wait a turn" button, IMO

1 I was blundering around not understanding anything I was doing in this game

3 Although cryptic and initially cumbersome, it's actually a very interesting game and well worth checking out.

Innovation

3 I like the ring mechanic a lot, it made me think of a proper turn-based Vampire Survivors-alike

2 The idea of having different effects happen on different turns has been explored before but there was some innovation in regards to how it was done

3 Highly unusual, with ideas I haven't seen elsewhere.

Scope

2 There's a decent amount of cool 3D models, but the gameplay seems about

2 I could tell quite a bit of work went into here; though less in regards to the gameplay

3 I'm impressed that this was only a week's work.

Roguelikeness

3 Good variation on an RL, very much in the spirit, while doing something I've not seen before

2 Has some discernable roguelike elements to this

3 For all its strangeness and novelty, it's still a roguelike through and through.

The 7DRL version of this game clearly had a lot of rough edges, but there's both an interesting setting, and a cool combat system. The main thing I wish I had was a "take turn in place" button.

Looking at this game for the first time I wasn't sure what I was getting into; finishing with it I'm not sure what happened. I found the whole gaming ordeal with this one to be quite confusing and I mostly just blundered my way through. The gaming area seemed a little too dark and I couldn't really guess as to how the attacks ultimately worked (I just stacked rings pretty much and hoped for the best).

This is the kind of thing I like to see in 7DRL. It's a bold, peculiar game wherein you play a 'Biblically accurate angel' whose actions are controlled by three fingers which alternate from turn to turn, and the rings you put on each finger trigger various attack patterns in the corresponding turn. There's also an almost dating sim flavour to it as well. Very odd, but very good. My only criticism is its instability - it crashed to desktop for me, and based on how loud my fan was it's taxing and/or poorly optimised.

Alabaster

Completeness

2 Quite polished, but with a few annoying bugs and a hard lock from map gen

3 This was a very complete experience, with multiple levels, items, and an end boss

2 Enemies that spawned in instantly attacking, no wait button when it feels like it really needs one, light physics perhaps hitting enemies a bit too much; your game works but polished it is not

Aesthetics

3 Really liked the background sounds (the rain being quiet in houses is a nice touch), and the art fits the theme. The ui could be better though

3 I loved the art here. A lot of care and effort was put into it

2 I had trouble determining what the gravestones were from the flooring in some areas, otherwise is controlled fine

Fun

2 Decently fun, interesting to figure out mechanics

2 The core gameplay loop was enjoyable, wandering around catching ghosts. It did start to get a little repetitive, though, so after a couple playthroughs it started to feel the same

2 I could see myself having more fun with this if it wasn't as rough as it was

Innovation

2 Interesting balance of taking on danger for better rewards

2 This was a fun idea. Having to catch the ghosts without killing them was a nice twist

2 It was different enough from the usually lightening games

Scope

2 Good size for 7DRL

3 This felt like a complete game: there were a few different monster types and upgrades available

2 Just about right for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

2 Has a lot of roguelike elements; procgen levels, turn based combat. The RPG elements were a little light

3 Felt a bit simple, but otherwise hit all the right notes for being a roguelike

A fun risk-management type of game, particularly with the secret areas that can contain more resources to power up. The lack of different types of moves and the deterministic combat makes the final boss more of a puzzle than stategic. The missing 'wait' button was a bit annoying.

I loved the art style, and having to catch ghosts without looking at theme was a nice gameplay twist. It was enjoyable for a little while, although there isn't that much variation from run to run.

If this was worked on a bit more I'd likely enjoy this game quite a bit. My chief complaint though is that it feels a bit unfair with the shades that spawn in and immedaitely attack you. Health pick ups were also a bit low and bombs of course were a double edged sword early on.

Coffee Rogue

Completeness

3 This feels pretty solid, with good presentation and plenty to see and do. I was very pleasantly surprised that when I accidentally pulled a chair out from under a customer, they fell down – some very nice attention to detail there.

3 Slipping on coffee spills covered by rugs seems like it might be a bug, nothing else I noticed

2 Mostly complete. Everything seems complete except interacting with the customers (2nd time).

Aesthetics

3 Loved the cozy visual style. Attractive and approachable.

2 Solid graphics, needing to press 3 buttons every time you have to pick up or give something (most of the game) gets extremely tedious

3 Nice graphics. Good intro slides explaining things

Fun

2 The early game is fantastic! Nice and cozy, pleasant activities, and a nice, casual vibe. The late game gets a little frustrating and repetitive, though. Once a lot of customers come in, they start pushing each other around, which makes it almost impossible to deliver an order when you have, say, four rabbits on screen and you cannot distinguish them. I found responding to orders and fulfilling orders became somewhat tedious after a while – in the early game there are breaks where no customers come in and you can get some other stuff done, but the late game seems to just be always-on with no "breathers". Also, some of the keyboard choices felt like they could be less painful; talking to someone who ordered something from you could offer to give it to them as an option. But again, that early game is very nice – if some things could be tweaked to bring more of that forward into the later game, it would be great!

1 Once I figured out the basics I was just repeating the same loop of get order – give food – pick up trash for each customer, it was funny carrying around a bunch of each item over my head (felt more like a stadium food vendor than a coffee shop owner)

2 Could be a fun little game. That one interaction glitch reduces the fun.

Innovation

3 Loved the cozy feel to the game, A "slice of life" feel to a roguelike was pleasant and approachable.

2 It's unlike roguelikes I've played but seems not too different from other restaurant sims, being able to pick up and move everything is an intriguing mechanic

3 Innovative little game, not really RL though

Scope

3 Quite a lot going on in this game, with some impressive attention to detail. I liked that you could design and decorate your café and that there were several kitchen stations you could expand to. Quite an achievement for a 7DRL.

2 Several different menu items and improvements

3 Complete except for the interaction glitch

Roguelikeness

2 There's no exploration and only light procgen content, so I can't give it a full 3, but everything else felt fairly strongly in the roguelike genre to me. It didn't have the usual combat features, but I didn't miss them in this – there was definitely challenge and "permadeath" so it certainly had much of the roguelike feel, especially when you end a run.

2 Has similarities (single character turn based on a grid, slightly randomized starting positions) but seems more like a restaurant / time management sim

1 Turn based with a little RL in there but not really a RL

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with "Coffee Rogue". It felt very cozy and approachable, it was quick to pick up, it looks great, it's fun, and it really seems to succeed at what it's aiming for. A few quality-of-life improvements would take this game from good to great.

The repetitive nature of fulfilling orders and the control scheme made this not fun for me. That being said, during the review time I wasn't able to earn enough to buy many of the expensive upgrades, those might make the gameplay more interesting.

Seems like a fun little memory game. Not really RL and has a glitch.

Feast or Fathom

Completeness

3 Quite indepth with alot of features and story.

1 The game is very buggy, had a lot of crashes, related to unity content. The error is Runtime error divide by zero.

2 Worked, played without issue, didn't encounter any bugs, but it didn't seem balanced and there was no option to go back and see the intro dialogue in the executable

Aesthetics

3 Great style, and very well done characters and sprites. Controls were a bit awkward such as requiring 3 buttons to move diagonally.

2 The pallete is very impressive and the controls is not so intuitive, the drag and drop features does not work as intended sometimes and the UI lacks polish when in the kitchen.

2 Having to hit shift key to move diagonal is really annoying, no wait button, a little confusing figuring out what to do in game, music was a nice touch as was artwork

Fun

2 Compelling loop of needing to find ingredients by fighting monsters to heal and learn new abilities, though there were a few balance issues that made it frustratingly difficult due more to random chance than skill.

1 I dont recommend this because of the difficulty and the gameplay mechanics, enemies can attack you on diagonal but you cant. Besides, it is supposed that you should avoid enemies that you dont need the recipe for, but you cant avoid them they will always chase you and wont forget your position. There is also no compendium to understand which food you might be able to obtain from the enemies.

1 Reminded me of Sword of the Stars: The Pit, with the randomness of outcomes; unfortunately it also had that implication of frustration when you failed constantly due to bad rolls and not being able to manage the RNG

Innovation

3 Both the premise of crafting meals and the way the repeated dives also tied into story segments was a great feature.

3 The game is indeed innovative, nothing against this part of the element but the basic mechanics are very bad.

2 Entering dungeons for 'x' isn't new, but not sure I've seen it done with a food motive before

Scope

3 If anything I would say it was over scoped! Story, crafting and ability acquisition were alot of things to tackle.

2 What you expect from a 7DRL.

3 This was very ambitious to be sure

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike.

3 Yes, roguelike.

3 The roguelike parts of the game were roguelike enough that you deserve full marks

I really liked this one, and was impressed by the level of quality, though I think there are too many things going on. Often times I would not find enough of the right ingredients to even maintain repeated dives, and there were compounding pressures that made it very difficult. I think this has alot of potential and would love to come back to it if it gets more updates.

The game has a great concept - killing monsters for food to fill up your health and tend to your restaurant business. However, it is brutally difficult. My main complaint is that swarms of monsters are hard to avoid, and sometimes, you don't need to kill them, but they will chase you forever. This leaves you with no choice but to fight, which costs you health. I also dislike the recipe drop rate, which is based on luck and makes the game even harder. It doesn't make sense to me why the developer would add this feature to an already challenging game. To restore your health, you need to cook the food you collect, but recipe drops are infrequent, often appearing only as a boss reward. Boss battles are tough, and you have to fight many monsters to reach them. This can be difficult with limited health, and boss battles often drain your health further. It's rare to find skills in the game, which makes progressing to higher levels even more challenging. Overall, the game has a great idea but the difficulty level, reliance on luck for recipe drops, and scarcity of skills make it a frustrating experience.

I think I'd like to see more done with the control scheme; others have used QWEADZXC or QWEASDZC to simulate eight way movement on the keyboard; my preference for the first scheme since the S key can be used as a wait key; alternatively just use cardinal directions if you are aiming to make this game easier for control pads and laptops. Some more instruction on what to do might be nice and perhaps the game is too difficult as I had trouble acquiring ingredients for recipes; that may be due to a RNG problem though.

Lost and Pounced

Completeness

3 Complete, polished and accessible right away

3 No bugs that I could notice and it plays well.

3 Game runs, no crashes, minor audio bug when changing tabs in Chrome

Aesthetics

3 Pleasing interface with all information and available actions/gameplay options clear. The item and enemy images are fantastic and descriptive.

2 Altough I am not a fan of its U.I., I believe it does its job and I could understand everything after some time.

1 I had a hard time figuring out how to do what I wanted

Fun

3 Fun right away, the puzzle of getting a few position swaps in to make each attack optimal is fun. Enemy and item descriptions

2 Yes, a fun experience but I dont think it is much more than that.

1 This one isn't for me with its rogue-lite mash-up style; too much time spent watching animations

Innovation

2 Has a few unique twists like the attacking side of the briefcase changing, great mashup of familiar things

3 Highly innovative, have to give points for that.

2 Attack and defend with a unique grid-based card system that doesn't quite feel right

Scope

2 Good size for 7DRL

3 I think this game does feel complete and ambitious, so it is better than I expected.

3 Full mechanics, lots of original art, original soundtrack ; well done!

Roguelikeness

2 Not a roguelike but has elements, permadeath, randomized gameplay, attack/defend theme

2 Some of the drops adquired can be carried out in the next runs. Not a true roguelike per se.

2 Turn-based, procedural enemies, no maze; permadeath more like losing an arcade game & ending one game affects mechanics in subsequent runs

Wonderful presentation, more of a puzzle game with roguelike elements. Great theme, perfectly captures luggage bouncing around and smashing enemies! I think could use a few more move/swap or other AP spend options before commiting to the attack for the round.

While this game isn't typically my style, I found it to be quite charming and enjoyable. Although the controls took some time to understand initially, once I got the hang of them I was able to play the game well. I would categorize it more as a puzzle game than a roguelike.

Not my style -- more in-line with current "rogue-lites" but I think this one could find an audience that really likes it

Mutamorphic

Completeness

3 Solid straightforward traditional roguelike

2 Game runs, itch.io site has a line of text and a single screenshot.

3 Polished and found no bugs.

Aesthetics

3 Ascii art with vibrant colored characters that really stand out on the more muted level.

2 Pretty clean visuals with some good color fading.

2 All elements are easily perceived.

Fun

2 Overall pretty simple bump the enemies to win. The draw comes from wanting to see what the various level up mutations do.

2 It's an interesting idea for a roguelike. The mutations add a good flavor to the gameplay, and help to keep you alive longer then most similar roguelikes

2 Fun and was able to complete.

Innovation

2 The core level up system of mutations is a neat way to build you own character independently of a class based progression.

2 Dungeon crawler but with mutations on the player every level. Noice.

2 The mutations are very interesting, albeit not that novel. Many roguelikes already have mutations like caves of qud

Scope

3 Its a full game, complete with multiple level up options enemies and effects.

2 Quite a lot there for a single dev on a 7DRL. Good size!

2 Expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Can't get much more roguelike than this.

3 Definitely feels roguelikey. Turn-based, procgen and mutations!

2 No specific attributes for the monsters but overall a good RL.

I really enjoyed seeing the different mechanics that you fit into this little roguelike. Things like the grass reducing vision, status effects and player options were nice to see. The game overall wasn't very hard but I don't think thats necessary bad. Also the ascii art was really well done, and easily identifiable even for someone like me who plays more tile based roguelikes.

A good twist on an old favorite. I love roguelikes but I never make it very far into them, since I'm terrible at them. This entry helped me last a lot longer with the creative mutation system. Good entry and thanks for submitting!

Game is interesting, rather small but mutations need to have a deeper meaning rather than just getting them randomnly perhaps devs could add some progression system based on previous mutations.

Rogue Overdrive

Completeness

3 Complete, good controls

2 Almost fully there, can run missions and find gear but the rewward payouts for winning did not seem to work.

1 Worked, but seem to crash a lot, has lots of bugs, missing character status window

Aesthetics

3 Good graphics, pleasant look

3 Cool style especially the animations for the walls coming into view. The music was good as well.

2 Graphics were interesting, sound was a bit loud, could have used a wait button

Fun

3 Fun with intuitive controls.

2 The premise sounded fun but the execution was somewhat lacking. Dealing and taking damage needed more feedback, it was easier to be unaware how close to winning a fight you were or even if you were bleeding after you won. Somtimes I could 1 shot an enemy barehanded, but others an enemy surived 4 shots from a shotgun.

2 I liked the concept of doing missions and having your character get worse as it was wounded

Innovation

3 Modern look but RL feel.

2 Mostly standard mechanically though the mission structure with varying objectives each level is a cool addition to the roguelike formula

2 Having more realistic combat has been done, but not often

Scope

2 Average sized 7DRL

2 Very feasible jam game, had a little bit of everything.

1 Couldn't really experience the full game, but from what I've seen it looked a little shallow

Roguelikeness

3 Classic RL but with a modern look.

3 Very much a roguelike

3 Seemed roguelike enough

Nice graphics, simple controls. Nice job for 7 days

Its a cool game, and the cyberpunk style works well, though some of the bugs and game feedback and balance could use improvements to really shine.

I sort of feel that my review might be marking this game a bit down as a result of all the crashes and bugs I experienced. However, without a doubt that was probably the biggest issue with this game. Hope to see it perhaps fixed up a bit so that it is more playable.

Railrogue

Completeness

2 Didn't work initially, had problems with music cutting out on restart/portal scroll use, but otherwise it ran well

3 Complete no major bugs or issues hindering gameplay only one minor bug which benefitted me so im not complaining

2 Complete. Balance could use work between loot, enemies, and damage taken

Aesthetics

3 I really liked the animation and music and in controlled just fine

2 cute basic graphic set used in a servicable way with nice clear animations

2 Clear controls. Window was larger than my monitor and did not scale down

Fun

3 I had a blast with it! I really felt engaged playing this game

2 compelling little gameplay loop with just a little more fleshing out I could see myself coming back for more

2 Interesting split between controling the wizard & setting up the train tracks but barely enough to play for 30 minutes

Innovation

3 Reverse Tower Defense with moving enemies; we are really seeing something out of the norm

2 Interesting idea that changes up the basic formula of the genre very puzzle game meets dungeon crawler

2 Train mechanism was unique

Scope

3 Quite a few enemies, quite a bit of depth, an excellent amount here for a 7DRL

2 Level gen items enemies and the main mechanic are all captured well a good example of getting all the features of a 7drl in one package

2 Typical 7DRL scope

Roguelikeness

2 It edges away a bit from the genre due to the Reverse Tower Defense elements

3 Like a roguelike and a puzzle game are going on a nice date

2 Turn-based, procgen levels, not so much a maze as a line with side channels, permadeath

Fantastic game! I like how you took the Reverse Tower Defense idea and expanded it further. I highly recommend continue work on this to polish out those bugs and maybe make a downloadable executible. Well done!

I had fun with this one, working out levels and planning around the different enemy sets while trying to maximize profits was engaging. It plays like a really well made puzzle game on the well generated levels especially with enemies that die and block your path your plan can change moment to moment dependong on how they move its fun and sometimes frustrating but in a good way. However, also like a lot of puzzle games the players solve to actualize time can be a little far apart there were many levels where I would have the only enemy killed and half the rooms would be empty so the only action left is to walk through a largely empty space to the one objective thats spawned then watch the train walk that path again(Very glad theres a speedup button for that). Which is the sort of last piece of this game that I think would really bring it all together the level gen is the star player.Sometimes it really hits and generates a fun and interesting level and other times its 3 empty rooms and pcikaxe I cant reach before the ore. Fun premise well excecuted with some really interesting routes it could take from here if you chose to continue working on it. Also i had a lot of fun just seeing how many cars i could add to the train and I kinda wish there was no ending so i would keep doing that haha.

Interesting track-laying mechanism, would be good with more content and work on balance

Rogue Hike

Completeness

2 Feels quite polished and mostly bug free, apart from a game-ending bug where I wasn't able to move past slopes at the beginning of a level. Sometimes it also feels that you are left at the mercy of the rng without very much that you can do about it, if you get landed in a level with a wall of enemies. That could just be my inexperience with the game, though.

3 Great playing experience, audio, good itch.io page and lots of procgen

3 Looked to be complete and quite polished

Aesthetics

3 The theme is very well done, with accompanying music to match. It has a kind of relaxed theme, reminding me of lara croft go and moument valley.

3 Really good graphics, camera control, card system - nice!

3 Looked excellent and controlled well enough

Fun

1 Sadly I wasn't able to get into it, since the I felt like I spent more time watching animations happen then making decisions. The unskippable enemy movement animations that occur after every move take at least 5 seconds, and slow the gameplay enough to make the game a bit painful to play.

3 Had a lot of fun even though I couldn't make it to level 3. Great concept!

1 Can't say I enjoyed it, I felt mostly I had two options - move or trap enemies

Innovation

2 The consumable cards idea is notable, but for most all of the game my inventory size was generally equal to the number of cards I had +/-1, so it felt a lot more like an ordinary inventory of consumables.

3 Roguelike card game! The execution was quite innovative

2 Journeing around isn't something I feel is done often

Scope

2 The gameplay is a bit limited, but I think the graphics make up for it scope-wise

3 A lot was achieved by this team. Congrats and great work!

2 Felt like it was big enough

Roguelikeness

2 More of a stealth/puzzle game than a roguelike

3 Permadeath, turn-based and monsters to deal with.

1 It felt far too handcrafted for my liking

This is a relaxed stealth-roguelike, with a bit of a card gimmick. It felt a bit frustrating when had to sit around and wait for enemies to walk away and I couldn't do anything about it. I found that it played a bit too slow for my tastes, but it feels really polished.

A real solid entry into the 7DRL! Great team effort with a creative design and wonderful execution! Hopefully the team can build upon this for a general release! Thanks a lot for submitting this to the 7DRL and hope everyone had a good time!

Food Cards felt pointless since it didn't really stop animals from being hostile. It also felt a little bit repetitive as you just ran from things and played on the same maps (with same spawn areas). It would have been nice to view the cards in your deck or discard pile.

Grave Digger

Completeness

3 Ran well, looked complete, was quite polished. Some minor bugs but nothing really major or impactful

3 Combo system, items, shovels,enemies, begging and end with a fun gameplay looop and only one bug i could find

2 Complete. Real-time but controls weren't fluid. Purple coins to buy perks but I never aquired any of them.

Aesthetics

3 Sounds were great, music was great, controls were great, art was great

3 Neat aesthetic with some unique character designs and good visual cues for the player

3 Good visual style. Thematic music.

Fun

2 It was fun but 'farming' the destructibles sort of impacted just how fun it could be

3 Its fun especially for a 7drl a little functional hades clone that scales up to you filling the room with damage zones is a nice little change of pace from other submissions

1 Not for me. Action game, farming coins, no decisions to make except how to fight.

Innovation

2 I guess I would call the combo system innovative, but it is basically every other action roguelike

2 Nothing totally unique persay it combines a combo system, meta progression, and lodouts in its own way

1 Action rogue-lite

Scope

3 Quite a bit here for a 7DRL

3 Larger than you would expect for a 7drl, many enemies with unique animations, shovels, upgrades,and combo effects

3 Good for a 7DRL. Gameplay, graphics, music.

Roguelikeness

1 This was an action roguelite with persistent upgrades so its veering quite away from what roguelikes are

2 Roguelike in the more general understanding, random level generation and unique runs but doesnt adhere to the more strict turn based grid system

1 Lots of enemies to kill but rogueishness ends there. Little procgen, real-time, no maze. Not-quite-permadeath with the upgrades.

I was really impressed by this game, it ran quite smoothly and the action was fast and fierce - when I was battling enemies. Likely as you get the upgrades it would get better and better, the question is whether you want to bother 'getting' those upgrades. Commendations for your work.

I had a lot of fun messing around with this game, found a fun glitch where an enemy killed with multiple hitboxes could be "killed" multiple times, farmed like a thousand coins from this, bought every upgrade and swept the game. This is a really good roguelike base and the developers should be proud of this one, fits well into the hades genre of hack slashey roguelike. The different shovels are unique and the meta upgrades are fun if not a bit overpowered. The big thing here is that the progression is solely based around the combo system that the room by room clearing gameplay doesn't totally support and the combo system sort of scaling into itself makes it the central most powerful thing to focus on while playing out the same for every run. I think this is actually an easy and not to hard to implement fix as just having the upgrades you purchase enable, tweak, or disable pieces of that combo system(like an item that adds the projectiles to your attacks while you combo instead of just starting with that) would make this a really engaging system where I feel like im building out my gravedigger each time. The animations for the enemies are clear and understandable and it was a really smart move to have them show a little shine sprite when they're about to attack. The players animations are really nice as well but the movement seems to be tied to them in some strange ways, at low movement and attack speed i would often over or undershoot my movements and the player would just keep moving till the walk cycle finished and as such until I got a combo going I had trouble actually landing attacks. That being said, the generous hitstun on enemies was a good choice to keep them in those hits when I finally landed them. All in all really impressive for a 7drl, good fun, happy i got to review it!

Too much of a twitchy action game and not enough rogue-ish elements. This one's not for me but maybe Hades fans might like it more.

Gravity RL

Completeness

2 Stable, combat feedback feels lacking

2 Feature-complete, doesn't seem to have any bugs. Relatively difficult so I am not sure if there is more later on that I didn't get to.

2 No bugs and detailed.

Aesthetics

2 Fairly basic, but servicable, and controls make sense

3 Good ASCII graphics that communicated essential gameplay mechanics, checkerboard grid is a nice touch.

2 Easy to identify enemies and good pallete colour choice

Fun

2 Decent, kept me engaged. Would be curoius to see a 2-block jump arc, instead of a 1-block jmp arc

2 Difficult to get going to begin with but once I knew what to expect, there were interesting decisions and puzzles. Some situations seem unwinnable but only as a consequence of my actions.

2 A fun experience.

Innovation

3

3 Turn-based platformer is interesting and not done very often; procedurally generated power-ups are also nice to see.

2 Bring some novelty but not unique.

Scope

2

2 Except for the variety of abilities, the gameplay is pretty simple and there aren't a lot of features. Seems about what I would expect from a game jam game.

2 What should be expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3

3 Turn-based, grid-based, proc-gen meaningfully affects gameplay, fresh runs, ASCII graphics. Very recognisable as a roguelike.

2 Present some features of RL but still needs more details.

Some interesting ideas that make for fun tactical decisions. Not sure how far it's possible to get or if there is any more to it if you can get further than a few screens; it's hard to get past enemies without trading health, and opportunities for healing are rare, so progress depends a lot on getting useful movement abilities and being able to evade enemies. More 1HP enemies would be a better balance, I think.

Nice idea but it was very easy to loose the game, needs some more obstacles. I could not find a ladder, seems like that feature was misssing...

Senior Unrest

Completeness

3 Traps sometimes spawn over walls, the exit sometimes spawns on the spot you're standing on

3 Complete game without bugs, game needs to be balanced however.

2 Fairly complete. Controls don't work on browser, however.

Aesthetics

2 Graphics and controls are solid and functional

2 All controls were easy to identify but no diagonal movement.

3 Overall, very polished for a 7drl. My only complaint is the angle of the wall tiles looks strange.

Fun

2 I enjoyed thinking about which items to buy and tactics to use, it might be too easy as you start with a lot of health

2 Really fun.

2 I found the core mechanic fairly enjoyable.

Innovation

2 Setting traps for enemies is more of a focus than usual, old person theming

2 The idea is interesting but lacks to be able to be trully innovative.

2 Traps and pushing enemies around instead of hack-and-slash is nice.

Scope

2 Towards the small end of typical 7DRLs

2 Expected from a 7DRL.

2 What you expect from a 7drl.

Roguelikeness

3 Fighting thru random turn/grid based levels

2 Missing monsters stats and specific char details.

3 Turn-based, tactical gameplay, permadeath. It's a roguelike.

A nice small 7DRL. It's not something I would play for years, but in the time I played I definitely had fun.

Game is interesting but the difficulty needs to be adjusted. It is too easy to loose energy points with the gremlins second form. Money is also scarce so maybe add some random junk to be able to sell.

I loved the main mechanics and ideas of this game. My only complaint is that in its current state you die from making lots of little misplays over time, and as such its difficult to figure out where you went wrong. Hardly a dealbreaker, though.

Something In The Tall Grass

Completeness

2 Seems fairly complete, although I struggled to work out the right way to approach the gameplay.

3 Games runs well and I encountered no bugs, movement and turn order feels nice. On some later levels I noticed turns take a little longer to resolve but it wasnt a large issue. Nice polish and balance on the weapons and enemies.

2 Complete but needed a bit of work on balance, polish, and accessibility

Aesthetics

2 Looked good but some interactions a little unclear – when an entity takes damage it is replaced with a number representing its HP but when fighting a mob easy to lose track of who is who.

2 Graphics are good if a little simple, the inventory UI was a little clunky, some of the combat effects of enemies expoding and you taking damage can muddle the view, otherwise it was very readable and understandable.

2 Effective at conveying the theme. Visuals needed a bit of work. Inconsistency of interface, icons that were a bit easier to read

Fun

1 Might just be me, but I really struggled to make any progress or work out what I should be trying to do.

3 The gameplay is solid, the light and fear mechanics play very well with digging through the tall grass. It definitely does a good job of conveying a sense of dread. Theres just enough resource management to make you think before fighting enemies or running.

2 Enjoyed this one quite a bit but the interface was hard to learn and got in the way of some of the fun as did the high variability in difficulty coming from the random placement of the needed items and the enemy difficulty. I wasn't able to finish but got the 4th component area a couple of times.

Innovation

2 Some cool ideas – I like the way the tall grass is implemented.

3 Fairly innovative, the soft walls that you can search your way through makes gives this game an awesome feel of exploring through some dreaded areas. Combining that with the light and fear mechanics make this game really shine.

2 A nice combination of survival horror mechanics with a mysterious theme and a lighting mechanic. Solid but not wildly original.

Scope

2 What you'd expect, not that I managed to explore much of it.

2 This is about what I expect out of a 7drl, I'd rate this a 2.5 in scope if I could.

2 Nicely scoped game for a 7DRL with some interesting emergent gameplay at times but could benefit from a bit more variety in objectives and enemies in the early levels.

Roguelikeness

3 It's a roguelike!

3 Absolutely a roguelike, hits all of the major features you'd expect and puts a nice twist on some of them.

3 Some tweaks on the classic formula (e.g., aciton point movement) but very much a roguelike

I really wanted to get into this one. The light mechanic is cool and I loved the idea of things hiding in the tall grass and that being an impedient to your exploration. It feels pretty polished but I really struggled to work out what I was supposed to be doing and progress in any meaninful way. Might just be me, so I still say give it a go!

Something In the Tall Grass is a horror exploration style roguelike. You're a woefully unprepared member of a SCP style organization sent into a horror infested sea of tall grass where everything around you feels alive in the worst way. You're tasked with retrieving missing items to bring back to base camp, walking through a field of grass may seem like an easy task until you find out that nearly everything including the plants themselves is out to make your life hell. One of the unique aspects of the game is that the walls are 'soft walls' in that you can walk through the tall grass that separate what would normally be rooms in a dungeon. Combined with a light mechanic from your lamp that never seems to give off enough light it leads to a strong feeling of being closed in on from all sides. Additionally there is a fear mechanic that builds as you move around the levels that apply status effects, you can burn fear by taking a minute to gather yourself, if you ever find the time and safety to do so. All of the mechanics you'd expect to find in a roguelike combine well with survival horror aspects added making Something In The Tall Grass a very strong contender.

Lots of great concepts in this survival horror roguelike but needs a bit of work on the presentation, balance and execution to make it shine.

The Lich Is Back

Completeness

2 Game is not balanced at all, some classes are too strong compared to others but overall no bug and feels like a complete material.

3 Ran, didn't crash, and seemed feature complete

3 Stable, polished.

Aesthetics

2 Game is hand drawn and is very beautiful with good controls.

3 Controls worked and art was fine

3 UI is good with various controls supported. The graphics aren't always super polished, but the hand drawn aesthetic is lovely.

Fun

2 I had a fun time playing this game.

2 I found it a little repetitive and felt that skills both needed a resource of some sort to use and longer cooldowns

2 The basic tactics are enjoyable, but ultimately a bit too easy and repetitive with a very simple set of enemies. More challenge to enemies and longer cooldowns on abilities would have given the tactics a bit more chunkiness. Also the levels are far too big!

Innovation

1 Not innovative at all, this is an expected roguelike game.

2 This felt like a light version of Tales of Maj'Eyal; but with its own unique traits

1 Standard roguelike fare.

Scope

2 What you would expect from a 7DRL game.

2 Quite a bit of content to this one but not an unbelievable amount

2 Good amount of content for a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike.

3 Full marks here

3 Solid roguelike.

The game features three classes and boasts a good hand-drawn design with numerous monsters. However, the monsters mostly attack in a similar manner and the game's balance is not well-tuned. Additionally, although the levels retain the same scenario, more variety could have been included. While it is a good game, it may lack innovation in some aspects.

I felt this entry had some interesting things happening - like enemies that don't just rush your Hunter as he pelts them down and the Dolls that attack you when your back is turned. It would have been nice to see a bit more uniqueness to some of the other monsters perhaps too but understandably only so much can be done. I do however feel that one weak area of the game is the skill use; in that they are more or less free to use and can be used too frequently. Well done otherwise.

A traditional roguelike with delightful hand-drawn sprites and fairly straightforward mechanics. The choice of 3 classes with unique abilities to each is really nice. But ultimately the game is rather easy with overpowered class abilities and gets repetitive with big levels and samey enemies. It could do with being shrunken down and tightened up significantly.

Furniture: Screws and Blood

Completeness

2 Seems fairly complete, though the balance feels a bit on the punishing side

3 Feels like a complete experience.

3 Worked, ran, and seemed to perform as intended

Aesthetics

2 The art style works pretty well, but having to do inventory menuing in real time in closed corridors runnging away from hard enemies felt rather punishing

2 Loveable art style. The monsters are hilarious. Music sets the scene.

3 Could easily tell what everything was and did

Fun

2 There's a cool game here, and a neat take on a horror-Ikea. The biggest holdback, IMO, is the lack of auto-pickup

2 The gameplay is an odd mix of realtime and turnbased: the enemies take turns at scheduled intervals, while you can take turns faster than that (if you can react fast enough). It's fun enough, but I feel like I would feel fairer if it was strictly one or the other. Exploration is a little monotonous without a minimap showing where you have already explored. The lore and flavour text are hilarious.

3 I oddly actually enjoyed this, despite it not being my usual cup of tea

Innovation

2 A rather unique take on the roguelike beastiary, though the realtimeness of it blunts it a bit, IMO

2 Unique setting, unusual mix of realtime and turnbased. Standard dungeon crawling key & door stuff.

2 A realtime dungeon crawler where you can push stuff around is novel enough

Scope

2 There's a good bit going on here

2 A decent amount of content and polish

2 Definitely felt like more then a simple demonstration

Roguelikeness

2 This being a real time, but tile-based game puts it in an *interesting* design space, IMO. It feels about as roguelike as one could expect a realtime game to be, bringing to mind System Shock or Pathways into Darkness. It's still not 100% a Roguelike, since there's a lot of reflexes in play, vs tatical descisions

2 Despite the realtime element it still feels grounded in traditional roguelikes

3 Even though this was in real time, I felt that it checked enough boxes that I can consider this to be a roguelike

This game feels the start of a cool dungeon crawling game! It feels like some of the monsters don't have many counterplay options other than "run away", at least in the 7DRL version.

You'll never look at your furniture the same way again. Like a fever dream you might have after a weekend binging Resident Evil and getting lost in IKEA.

This was a fairly surprising in that you made the real time nature of the game work properly! I didn't feel like enemies moved so sluggish that I was just running through them and I didn't feel that they moved so fast that I didn't have time to think! The use of both keyboard and mouse centric controls certainly made me think back to the days of Castle of the Winds. I do think though that it might be an idea to adopt some Sokoban mechanics with the items though; just make attacking or dissembling them possible perhaps to offset if you get yourself trapped.

Lurk, Leap, Loot (2023 7DRL)

Completeness

3 This seems like a very complete experience, and a surprisingly elegant one

3 Worked, didn't crash, didn't see any bugs, had polish

2 When an enemy notices you there is no way to hide. They chase you until you are dead. I found no way to overcome this obstacle.

Aesthetics

3 Controls work well, guard AI gives lots of feedback

3 Music and sounds worked fine, controls were decent

2 Good elements and easy to identify all the objects.

Fun

3 It's well executed, and figuring out gaps in the patrols is a fun element

1 Not all that involved, you just grab the loot while scoping the place out, and run

2 Very fun and a nice game.

Innovation

2 This is a variation on a previous project, as I understand it

2 Usually you are blindly raiding a place, this is sort of a precursor to that; which makes sense

2 It bring some unique mechanics with the jump ability but I think that is about it.

Scope

2 There's a lot of elegance and balance, but player pretty much only walks and jumps around

1 While it was long enough I didn't feel enough was truly done

2 What is expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike.

2 While the mechanics are close enough, I don't feel this has enough depth to justify this as a roguelike

3 Yes roguelike.

I had fun with this one. It's got an elegant simplicity to it, though not many systems to allow for emergent happenings. That being said, it's probably the least buggy of the entries I've played

I feel like more needs to be added to this one. Maybe a stamina bar to prevent the player from infantly jumping around, having items to distract guards or whistling to draw them away from patrol routes, etc. Not a fan of guards being able to move diagonally while the player can't (even if they only do it when they are alert).

Very nice one, needs improvement in the visual quality aspect for some floors and designs, but overall, the patterns of the enemies were very interesting and I quality it as a high quality. Good game.

Rerbal Space Program

Completeness

3 Controls work, no software crashes (though *lots* of spacecraft crashes!)

3 I don't know if you can win this, but it sure feels complete. And hard.

Aesthetics

3 Understandable interface; everything laid out well

3 The graphics do it justice. It's very roguelike looking, yet conveys all the rocket ship stuff very well.

Fun

2 I kept intested for an hour. Never managed to get a craft to orbit though

2 This is hard. I'm not sure what was going on, and this isn't my type of game, generally, but I can see the challenge and the draw to try one more time was hard to resist.

Innovation

2 Turn-based KSP; not a typical RL

2 I've never seen this kind of game done in this style, or turn based.

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

2 I'm not sure how accurate the physics are in this, if they are calculated with any kind of accuracy, that's VERY impressive for 7 days, though I think it's a reasonable approximation of physics. Otherwise, it's a rather unremarkable 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

2 Rogue-like-like: no procedural generation, no labyrinth, plenty of dead Rerbals

1 I can't say this is very roguelike. Humorously the developer llisted all the roguelike elements on the game page and intro screen, but it's very tongue in cheek. This is a space craft simulater with a very thin roguelike coat of paint on it.

Definitely enough here to keep me trying to get a ship in orbit. Not what I would have imagined at the pitch "KSP as a roguelike" -- more like a slimmed down, turn-based KSP

This is a fun, lighthearted distraction and feels very welcome among the 7DRLs. I enjoyed playing it and can easily recommend it to anyone as a fun little diversion.

Monte del Diablo

Completeness

2 Mostly works fine, but there are some minor bugs like actions used while responding items and items blocking paths when you're at full inventory. Feels like a good start, but not 10/10 polish

3 This seemed very polished and I ran into no bugs.

2 Text is slightly unreadable within the second line. Sometimes text is incomplete and phrases are disjointed. Also, some NPC's I was not able to read all of what they were saying. Overall, game is well made but run into some bugs. I could not finish some trades since the dialog did not allowed me to. Also, no information about the amount of money I had to upgrade the equipment's.

Aesthetics

3 On a great track. The overworld's purpose is pretty confusing to me, but it adds to the RPG feel. The walls and pits being different is pretty aesthetically jarring, but that's a quibble. The music and theme is just :chefs_kiss: good.

3 Very nice graphics and music. The intro cut scene was also very nicely done.

3 Loved the GBA look and the overall theme.

Fun

1 Seems like it will likely get there, but for now, it had a Hades-like feel where most runs I'm just going to grind up a net 40 gold in the first few levels so that I can try to get my machete leveled up another time. This feels like a good start of a cross between Moonlighter and Zelda, but hasn't been balanced yet.

2 I didn't beat it, but what I played, I really enjoyed. There's a good sense of humor about the game. It is a little grindy and the inability to ascend from a dungeon was frustrating.

2 A very fun experience.

Innovation

1 Other than the overworld, the rest of the game feels pretty standard. The interesting parts of the game were a little annoying to me (e.g. the seemingly random pushes from enemies)

2 There is a little innovation with the guts mechanic, and the humor is something you don't see very often, but otherwiase it's a pretty straightforward roguelike.

1 Well, it lacks a little on the innovative side. Sure upgrade weapons from dropable loot. The energizer perk is interesting as well.

Scope

3 Sadly didn't get to realize the scope, but the idea of an overworld where you're exploring and finding merchants in addition to a tactical roguelike is definitely ambitious

3 I didn't finish this one, but it seems like there's a lot of polished content here. I am very surprised this was done in 7 days.

3 Sure it is beyond what I expect to be produced in a 7DRL challenge.

Roguelikeness

2 The fact that money, gear, holy water (which clutters inventory and can't be dropped) and potions float between sessions makes it hard to give this a full 3.

2 It seems to have all trappings of a traditional roguelike, aside from having much nicer graphics, but it doesn't "feel" like a roguelike. The permadeath seems very subdued and there doesn't feel like a whole lot of consequences for your actions.

2 Still missing certain qualities to be considered a true RL. Monster's attributes.

Beautiful theme with an engaging story. The music and item choice is incredible and makes me want to go back to South America (only been to Peru and Ecuador, but now I want to go north too). The gameplay feels like it's not quite done, and sadly I never explored past level 3 because the inventory system not allowing dropping items makes it hard to explore past there unless you just don't pick up things on the way. It really ended up feeling like a grind to get money each run rather than me really learning how to play better.

This is VERY impressive. Probably one of the most polished and playable 7DRLs I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Really liked this but there are many bugs that could not let me continue with the game. Overall the idea is interesting but I suggest the dev to improve the loot from cave system and the guts system as important information about the attack system is missing.

@man

Completeness

3 I found no bugs, and the controls are self-explanatory

3 Everything seems to work as intended. I only wish the description clarified that using items does not take up a turn.

3 Worked fine and didn't seem to have any problems

Aesthetics

2 Nothing really out of the ordinary graphics-wise, but it works

2 Very clean, easily readable ASCII. The game would benefit a lot from audio feedback, especially when your attack cooldown refreshes.

3 Controls were good and everything was depicted clearly

Fun

2 Fun game but no real ending, once you beat one board it's just the same forever

3 I'm not usually into infinite games, but this one was pretty fun! I can see myself coming back to it in the future.

1 I can't say I liked Pacman so....

Innovation

2 I haven't seen a game quite like this

2 A faithful reinterpretation of Pac-Man - a game as old as Rogue itself.

2 It is kind of hard to say this is innovative since this is Pacman; but I think you deserve a point for the roguelike aesthics on top of it

Scope

2 Decent size project for a week

2 In line with most 7DRL entries I have seen so far.

2 This idea is quite simple but I can appreciate the work that went into all the items and enemy AI

Roguelikeness

2 On the low end of 2; it plays more like a puzzle than a RL

3 Permadeath & simultaneous turn-based + simple gear. I wish floor procgen felt a little more apparent, though.

1 Pacman isn't a roguelike, this game is a small step towards roguelikes but not by all that much

A neat little puzzle game, cross between Pac-Man and Rogue, but closer to Pac-Man

A fun combination of Rogue and Pac-Man - the two classic games which both turn 43 this year. Not only is this faithful to Pac-Man, but it plays pretty well, is not too easy or hard, and the items are well-integrated into Pac-Man structure and are quite balanced (only bomb feels rather underpowered, coming across like an arrow with a long delay.) I think that the main improvement would be to add audio to every important action - preferably of the same sort as the original Pac-Man.

I didn't make it all that far, but I wonder if more enemies could be spawned in. Maybe instead of having the strict translation of ghost enemies from Pac Man, you might have less of them and more enemies that just wander around doing their own thing; leaving the wizard, serpent, ghost, and hellhound as more of a hunger clock type of enemy perhaps. Having an exit point to get to would also help with making the game more akin to a roguelike. If the map could be procedurally generated then that would be a nice addition too.

Cravespace

Completeness

2 Controls work, missing screenshots, felt a bit buggy but otherwise ok

3 The core turn-based bullet-storm version of Galaga with what appears to be interesting enemies feels pretty complete

3 I haven't encountered any obvious bugs or problems. Nicely put together and good polish.

Aesthetics

2 A random starfield goes a LONG way

2 Responsive UI, some really nice ASCII-based visual effects with cool explosions, interesting multi-glyph enemies, intutive gameplay with nice mouseover details

2 Very attractive ascii presentation, lots of good use of color and characters. Controls are reasonably intuitive; it took me a little bit to understand what the smart bomb key was for, but I think that functionality/mechanic is probably more obvious to someone who's an enthusiast of bullet-hell shooters. The one thing that wasn't really explained sufficiently was the stats system; I tried a bunch of different stat combinations but I feel I never got any kind of indication of what the function of Body, Mind, Spirit or Talent were in a game mechanical sense.

Fun

2 a neat twist on a shooter, just wish the difficulty level wasn't so high

1 The core gameplay loop of shooting waves of enemy spaceships in a turn-based bullet storm is pretty cool but also felt very chaotic. The game felt coolest when you pressed keys in almost realtime, which, although deadly, suggests to me the game as submitted would actually be more fun in realtime. Often I found the enemies did much more damage to each other than I did to them, then I'd get stuck playing anti-tennis with the last enemy in a wave trying to get a killer shot in without taking damage in return. Also I found the secondary sword weapon mostly useless and the fixed facing or player and enemies in galaga configuration (player faces north, enemies face south) limiting in terms of strategic play. I also found the game very difficult and I don't think I progressed beyond a second level.

2 I enjoyed this a lot but there's a cap on that enjoyment; I think you may have made your enemy AI too smart, because the short-range beam is almost a worthless weapon; all enemies stay out of its range at all times, so the only way to use it is to chase them into a corner where they can't keep distance. And if you do that, you're putting yourself in the corner, which is a bad place to be for your own maneuverability. So you end up just firing the basic peashooter 99% of the time; the ability to scoop up enemy weapons and use them is nice, but they're single-use so you rarely have that option. I'd actually like to see the weapon system fleshed out a little more so that you could have different equipment on your ship.

Innovation

2 definiutely a unique concept

2 As a realtime game this would feel like a fairly conventional space shooter. It feels fresh as turn-based game but mechanically doesn't quite work.

3 I love the combination of turn-based mechanics and bullet-hell shooter mechanics, creating a sort of planning-based gameplay. I'll readily admit that most of the time I don't have the patience and I end up hammering my way through turns at top speed, which means I make a lot of mistakes, but when I slow down and take my time it's an interesting little tactical challenge to dodge all the bullets while still somehow getting my own bullets in there too.

Scope

2 felt decent for a 7DRL

2 There's a lot more here than meets the eye in terms of interactive systems, it's just a shame it's buried under difficulty and chaos.

2 Pretty solid 7DRL scope. You didn't overreach, and it's clear you spent a lot of your time tweaking and balancing and creating a good depth of content. So while the base mechanics are pretty shallow in terms of your own play options, the number of different enemy variations brings a lot of variety to the table in terms of what tactical challenges you're facing.

Roguelikeness

3 classic roguelike in space!

2 Could use some additional proc gen in terms of the waves and then a lot less chaos to allow strategic emergent gameplay to thrive.

3 I'm still not sure if this should be a 3 or a 2, but it _feels_ very roguelike to me, so I'm erring on the side of giving it a 3. It's basically procgen enemy waves and turn-based mechanics on a bullet-hell shooter, but maybe that's all you really need-- it gives you a really neat little tactics puzzle to solve as you play each turn, and that's one of the key aspects of roguelikeness to my mind.

A unique twist on a space shooter - picture a turn-based Galaxian. Hope the developer can iterate on this a bit more to add some meat to it. Maybe turn down the difficulty knob on wave 2.

One of the more intriguing entries of the jam that brings together lots of cool ideas and some good polish but struggles to bring together a cohesive whole. Tons of potential for post jam adjustments to realize the potential.

I enjoyed this game a lot, and there's an impressive variety of enemies and items and mechanics to play around with, but it still feels a little shallow just because you're spending such a huge proportion of the time just shooting the basic peashooter gun. The number one improvement I could suggest would be to give the player a little more configurability and variety of weapons to work with. It would be cool if you could swap out your basic loadout for new permanent weapons, and maybe get access to some of the more interesting enemy weapons that way too rather than as one-use items. Then the player has to decide if they want the rapid-fire basic gun or the powerful gun that has a long reload time, or whatever.

Dawn of Bronze

Completeness

2 The game seems fairly complete; I was able to play through several quests and make progress

3 The game has mechanics, quests, creatures, different camps. Everything seems to be working, and nothing is obviously missing.

3 Ran fine, worked fine, and didn't have any issues

Aesthetics

1 The art is simplistic, which is fine, although it was kind of hard to identiy regions with the color scheme

2 I quite like the colorful and textured look.

3 Really not a fan of the controls but they did work, could clearly make out everything too

Fun

2 I enjoyed my time with the game. The focus on hunting was interesting, although it does start to feel a little repetitive.

2 I quite liked hiding in wait and catching animals, though I felt that I spent most of my time just holidng down the space key. I like the concept and feel of the game, but it might need most actions to feel like a complete experience. Great exploration of a simplified version of something like Unreal World.

2 I had quite a bit of fun doing the quests and sneaking up on prey

Innovation

2 I don't think I've ever played a hunting focused game like this before; it was a nice setting and idea

2 While I don't think that the mechanics are completely new, I do feel that this is an unusual set of mechanics. It is refreshing to see a roguelike that is not just bump-to-attack.

2 Probably one of the better hunting style roguelikes

Scope

2 There are a few types of biomes and animals, and a few different quest chains.

2 I feel that the scope is just about perfect for a 7DRL experience.

2 About what I expect from a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

2 Turn based gameplay, but the procgen elements don't reallly have much impact on the game. Each run plays very similarly

3 This game is turn-based, grid-based, uses ascii characters-- definitely a traditional roguelike.

3 Definitely fits the bill for one

This was a neat game, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I never quite finished it, because I kept getting killed by boars, but I liked the direction that the quests gave me. It would be great to see a bit more variety, though

I really like the idea of a simplified survival game. I did feel that most of the time was spent waiting for certain letters to get close. It was really easy to just use my food until I died, and the game doesn't really give you a choice as to whether or not to cheat-- there is only a Yes option. I found the scouting to be difficult-- I found one campsite by running into it but never by using the scout action. I think a few more mechanics around hunting and surviving would make a pretty cool experience.

WASD keys are great for cardinal directions, but where you have eight directional movement I can't say I'm a fan of using the S key for down. I found it odd that prey could vanish right in front of my character if you corner them against water or a mountain; likely when that happens they should go hostile or try and keep moving away from you. I otherwise liked what was done here: having direction in these types of games gives me something to aim for and get into the game. Boar killed be twice though.

Let Them Eat Cake

Completeness

3 Bugless, well balanced such that no feature goes unused

3 Controls work, no major glitches or unfinished features had a intro tutorial and ending that all seemes to work just fine

3 No issues with it starting up and running, no bugs noticed

Aesthetics

3 Unlikely you'll find another game in this jam so unsettlingly photorealistic with its graphics. The mazes and UI otherwise look fine. Controls totally fine, though I wish shove was space instead of enter.

2 Nice but nothing impressive I likes the use of different levels in the 3d space and the camera usage, and i have a soft spot for graphicas that are just pictures of people in outfits

3 Controlled fine and looked nice - ASCII or not

Fun

2 Clear objective, good variety of "obstacles" to overcome where each weapon has strategic use. Ammo just sparce enough I had to carefully consider each encounter. After a few playthroughs it started get more repetitive

2 Interesting for the first playthrough but nothing compelling enough to keep coming back, basic loop but with no big hook.

2 Nothing to do besides hitting those buttons; I did like the announcer dialogue though

Innovation

2 Nothing new, but nothing missing

2 The real time turn based system is always a fun take on the genre the combination of stun meters pushing and range weapons is almost something new

2 While the Superhot style of gameplay has been done in roguelikes, it isn't often seen

Scope

2 Gave me just under an hour of fun, so ideal for a 7DRL

2 Basic amount of features you would expect from a 7drl multiple items a few different enemies generated levels, the commentary on the side was a cute extra feature

1 Needed more content to explore, either in terms of items, objectives, environmental hazards, doors

Roguelikeness

2 Unmistakably a roguelite, though has a similar UI and turn-based combat style to a traditional roguelike

2 Im less picky than most on this still I think this captures the roguelikey feel despite its hybrid design so ill cave and put a 2 for it not beng strictly turn based and gridlocked

2 Lacking a little in depth of complexity is the main problem to address here

Never thought a Squid Game type setup would make such a good world for a roguelike. Good sense of humour in the text, character graphics and running commentary in the bottom right. The gameplay loop is simple and sweet, though runs out of novelty pretty quickly. With the gameplay and lore already well established, I'd love to see this project expanded further. Delightful stuff!

Intersting little gimmick that clearly just needs some touching up to really be fun and engaging, kiting enemies and shoving them into wallls for followup shots is neat the freeze + poison dart being a nice way to lock down and sometimes kill and enemy before they get to act is cool and sightlines on the towers help for assessing combat. I honestly think this one just needed a little more enemy variety and tweeking on how those enemies react, taking instant damage upon entering thier fov and having almost every enemy out pace your rate of fire makes the actual damage guns feel basically usuless a lot of the time. Melee enemies can never reach you when shove juggled and ranged enemies will always hit you before you have a chance to react. I think just adding a countdown to thier attack instead of a cooldown after it would have helped a lot with the game feel. Giving the player more tools like the freeze way to effectively gain turns over the enemies is the real sell in my opinion. Good call on the post release balance though it definitelty made the game a lot more beatable and enjoyable as a result. Theres good character and bones here especially for a 7drl it just needs a real hook to keep the loop interesing. Also I loved liked the commentary in the bottom right the whole time.

I liked the theme of this game but felt that what was shown was a bit too basic. The enemies simply just ran to get into range of you and then attacked; only running to get to you again if they are out of range. I wouldn't mind seeing that clueless contestant run to a gun to pick it up and fire it at you, or if there were prizes on the floor they might greedily be running to pick them up! Maybe have the accountant hold up next to a corner out of sight and jump out. Maybe have a cover system where enemies will fire, have their weapons go on cooldown, and duck into cover. Having the enemies battle each other might be a thought too. Ignoring the enemies, you might have doors that you can hear open as enemies move around, hazards that you can navigate around or shove enemies into, different scenarios to encounter.

Post Apocalyptic Roguelike

Completeness

3 Seems stable enough

1 Extremely buggy.

2 Game freezes when loading different environments, crash in some instances but overall seems very complete.

Aesthetics

3 Has an intro, sound, graphics

2 A lot of effort has gone into the presentation, though the choice of symbols in ASCII mode is very unclear.

3 Yes, I enjoyed the way game handled the environment and the different signal part.

Fun

1 It didn't seem that fun to me, just moving around hunting signals and bump-to-attack-ing enemies

1 There's potential here, but in its current state I can't recommend it.

3 Very fun!

Innovation

2 I'll give it a point for the graphics changing between night (ascii) and day (graphical) but it doesn't really add much fun.

2 Hunting for signals is a mildly novel, and the way that nightfall brings out the ASCII display is clever.

2 Althought the idea is interesting it needs to add some other mechanics because it becomes quite a chore to go via each singal route without interesting dialogs.

Scope

2 Good amount of scope for a week

2 Reasonable for 7 days.

3 Beyond what is expected in seven days.

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike, maps are same-y but do seem randomly generated

3 It's a roguelike.

2 Yes not a true roguelike missing enemy stats, damage inflicted etc...

Good foundation for a game and it's nice to see a setting other than extruded-fantasy-product. I think it would be nice if the maps were more interesting than random city streets though.

Go to different locations to find the sources of signals. When night falls the display switches from graphics to ASCII, which is a neat concept because it makes everything harder to identify (in the dark). Gameplay is dull, basically just walking back and forth until you stumble upon the signal. Worse, it's very buggy. If you press the space bar, stripey bars will start to appear all over the screen and they never go away. I also ran into a level where invisible walls blocked off the corner where the signal was, forcing me to quit and restart the game.

Really liked this one but missing something extra to be able to have some extra fun in the game. The scenarios are different, monsters as well, had different weapons but the signals needs a better reward rather than some random text which sometimes are not that funny. The combat is interesting and the night cycle is innovative enough I guess.

The Asylum

Completeness

2 Wow, this game is a good start, but it feels like it needs some more map elements to really shine. Affecting other squares and the ability to add room descriptions or triggered text would go a long way towards being able to add some interesting puzzle elements. But there's a lot here already, especially having a level editor, which is amazing. AND it talks to a server back-end for sharing with is pretty solid. It still felt like there were things missing, but the things that are already in the game are impressive.

3 A very complete experience; worked well, with only a few minor bugs

2 Very good, feature complete, feels a little buggy though. I threw together a level that relied on the Blink scroll effect for some nifty tricks, but it seems that the effect is bugged somehow-- when I blink from a square to another, I appear to be occupying both squares afterwards, which quickly makes it impossible to move around since I can't move if any of my invisible alternate selves are blocked in that direction.

Aesthetics

1 The tileset was workable and I did appreciate that some floors and walls had multiple tile types, but I'd like to see more tiles and some more UI polish, especially in the editor.

2 The art is decent pixel art.

2 Controls are reasonably intuitive, but the editor especially could use some serious additional polish work. Graphics are a little bulky, but I like them anyway; it evokes a little bit of that early-graphical-era turn-of-the-century aesthetic. Probably still wants a little polish around the animations since it can be difficult to put in a lot of inputs in a row without overshooting.

Fun

2 The core game loop is traditional roguelike fare, but the killer feature here is being able to create your own levels and share them with other players – that is cool! The editor itself could use some work – it's a bit janky and more tedious to use than it should be – but I did feel it was worth the effort to get into it, learn it, and be able to create my own level and share it. Both modes of play were fun – running puzzles and creating puzzles.

2 The levels I played were fun, and putting together levels was enjoyable. There's not a lot of content right now, but that's sort of the nature of the game, because levels are user provided

3 This is reasonably fun to actually play. The low level of base content means it feels more dungeon-puzzle-y than hack-and-slash-y, which I think is actually a good match for the aesthetic I mentioned. And it's fun to make your own levels. The "big fun" comes from that GCS feel of putting your own levels together and having others potentially play them. I also like that the configurability of the ECS makes it so that you're incentivized to examine everything you see because it might be some weird variant dreamed up by the level designer with twice the HP or whatever.

Innovation

2 Having multiple players and a level editor is something I haven't (personally) seen in a 7DRL before, and I thought it was a fun addition. Having a creative element to the game is a great draw for players like me. The actual gameplay of running through levels was fairly standard fare, and could perhaps use some love on that side of things, but I think the best way to do that is to provide level creators with more fun building blocks. This game could really shine with some more options and better UI.

3 This is a very cool and unique idea. It's basically a roguelike level maker

3 The innovation here is the "Mario Maker"/classic GCS idea; build your own roguelike. As a fan of many of the old GCSen I love this, and I get the "procgen by other people" part. I think this is a really fascinating 7DRL that everyone should both (a) try and (b) upload a level to, since that's a big part of the fun.

Scope

2 While this game feels like it needs more elements to put into maps, there are still multiple options, and the editor does have enough in it that you can be creative with it. For the 7DRL scope, I think it's pretty impressive what's here, given that there must be server infrastructure going on in addition to the front-end UI!

3 There's quite a bit here. When creating a level, there was a good variety of options available

2 This is a pretty impressive little system you've built, the underlying component system exposed to the editor makes it very flexible for building various interesting things in levels. You get bonus points in my book for not only having the upload functionality but also all the mario-maker-like stats &c. That said, it's pretty spare "out of the box" as a game-- One thing I'd really like to have seen here would be for you to provide some more levels beyond the single demo level. When I reviewed it, there were only two levels submitted by players, plus the demo level. So I've actually already experienced literally all the content this game has to offer at present.

Roguelikeness

2 The core gameplay feels a lot like a roguelike. There are roguelikes out there with a lot more content, depth, and procgen content, but I don't feel like this game really needs to go that route. If this game can attract enough level creators, it'll have what it needs to deliver.

2 It plays like a roguelike, although there isn't actually any procgen or randomness.

2 Obviously this is very roguelike-adjacent, but unfortunately it's also missing a couple of the really vital roguelike points. I imagine people will take issue with your "procedural generation provided by crowdsourcing" argument, but I actually totally buy that argument. My roguebeef here is that by letting people play the same level again and again, you're diluting the permadeath factor; sure, death ends your run, but you can start again from the same spot.

This was an impressive work. It must have been a challenge to get a front-end UI AND a back-end web app AND a level editor all working within the 7DRL timeframe! Wow. It's an achievement, for sure. I suspect the ambition of this project might have robbed it of some of its power, sadly, because it's clear that there were some things that just didn't make it into the game. But all the parts are here for a great game with fun features and a community of level creators. I'm confident that with some UI polish, some quality-of-life updates, and some slicker graphics, this game could really shine. It's got a lot of exciting potential and I hope that the developer continues improving on what's here, because this game is certainly worth revisiting if some of those pain points are removed. Overall, a robust effort, and I enjoyed my time with it.

This was a super cool idea. While its's not really a true roguelike, it's really interesting. It would be great to see more levels and more variety, and possibly even some form of progression / RPG elements

I love this game in principle, but I really hope you'll keep polishing it up, improve the interface, and maybe add some more components and mechanics to play around with. The biggest suggestion I have here that would make it feel more like a classic roguelike would be to figure out a way to have runs be more than one level. Even if I've seen the "Snek Pits" level before, it would feel more like permadeath if that were one of many levels in my dungeon, and I had to make it through all the levels in order to win the game.

A Scoundrel in the Underlair

Completeness

3 Controls work, floors are slow to load, chargen point exploit

2 One of the 4 available versions works fine, but I'm docking a point because none of the other 3 versions do.

3 Very complete with no bugs.

Aesthetics

2 Old-school green monitor feel. Easy to see each tile

2 The blocky retro look is quite nice, and distinct colours make it easy to parse.

3 Loved the palette colour and aestethics.

Fun

2 Interesting to find initial strategy, repeatative after that

2 Not bad, worth a go.

2 It was a fun experience.

Innovation

1 Melee, potions, enemies pretty much all the same

1 Completely standard dungeon crawling.

1 I cant see anything novel from this game. It is just repetition of same old mechanics.

Scope

2 Good size for 7DRL

2 Reasonable.

2 Expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

3 It's a roguelike.

3 No description of monsters attack or hp value.

First two plays made me want to find a strategy. Third play was about an hour to PC level 4, down to Floor 5, and repetative. Enemies, items, environment could use more variety.

Completely standard hack and slash roguelike. A bit too hard, I'd say - your success in combat is very much dependent on how good your found gear is. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the look, which is reasonably charming. There are 4 versions available right now (32- and 64-bit versions of v0.1 and v0.2) but only v0.1 32-bit actually works.

Very nice game, had a lot of fun but is missing some critical aspects such as the look attribute so as to understand the attack value of a monster, hp and other aspects. Potions did not for me at least, modify anything from the char stats and the healing potion sometimes did not worked.

Hedged bet

Completeness

2 Feels complete, ran well enough, but it looks like there can only be one soul per tile; also game wasn't immediately available come time for reviewing

3 This was definitely a full game experience. It had a variety of weapons and armor, and a deep dungeon.

2 Stable, polished enough.

Aesthetics

3 Controlled well enough and enemy icons were distinct

2 It had a nice pixel art style.

2 Artstyle isn't my favourite, but it's all funcitonal. Keybindings are simple and strightforward.

Fun

1 I felt that the game encouraged the player to endless wait a bit too much; likely weaker enemies should have done no damage, the players health pool should have been much higher, or some form of hungry clock should be enacted into the gameplay

3 This game was simple, but I really enjoyed it. I found myself going back multiple times to try and get deeper.

2 Engaging for a while, but the repeated trips get very repetitive.

Innovation

2 The Enchanted Cave - but with enemies that move; but enemies are still fairly passive. Enough to say something is different here!

1 Nothing particularly innovative here, but it was very well executed

2 The push you luck element of when to return to the surface is interesting.

Scope

2 I kind of felt that more could have been done here, but you did more then just demonstrate your idea and do a bit more

2 There was a decent amount of content here for a 7DRL

2 Fairly standard.

Roguelikeness

2 Permadeath isn't a thing in Enchanted Cave I don't think; but this is still a gametype revolving around farming to win

3 Definitely covers all the bases for a roguelike.

3 Classic roguelike in style.

There are some intriguing elements present that could eventually be made into something fun; but there is a lot here that I sort of wonder what the point regarding it was all about. It might be a good idea to include some more hostile foes that match the Shades in hostility, include some more 'blood gambling' elements (Ie, spend health for a reward), maybe do something with all that soul currency you collect.

The concept of this game was simple, but that's not a bad thing. It's a very well executed game loop of delving into the dungeons, and a bit of risk/reward trying to decide how deep to go. It definitely had me coming back for "just one more run." Which inevitably ended in my death, so it's a roguelike through and through. Nice job.

In this game you defeat enemies in repeated cycles, coming out of the dungeon to claim new loot before diving back in to earn more loot points. The cycle of this ends up a little over-repetitive for the depth of mechanics in play (simple bump to attack). With more meat on the combat and extra stats on the icons this could be a very compelling gameplay loop.

Puddlepath

Completeness

2 Controls work, it's winnable but missing screenshots

3 Game runs, no crashes, can be won

2 Started, played without issue, was able to complete it, but felt that the 'game' part was missing here

Aesthetics

2 a jumping squishy puddle in a dungeon - neat

3 Controls work, everthing easy to understand, nice style

3 Excellent graphics and sound effects for a 7DRL

Fun

2 it's almost there - I feel like there's one other element missing but can't pinpoint what

1 Not enough challenge, I felt no threatuntil the last level; fight, heal, take the stairs.

1 I walked from Point A to Point B. I think I attacked a few enemies along the way - that seemed optional.

Innovation

2 a good concept to build on

1 Fight, heal, take the stairs. "Moist" meter instead of a more traditional food meter.

2 Reminded me of the water levels from Tales of Maj'Eyal; but it feels different enough

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

2 Typical 7DRL scope

2 I kind of feel that just for the inclusion of the tutorial you need to be ranked higher; but I can't give really give anything here

Roguelikeness

3 a good roguelike feel

3 Turn-based, procgen levels, permadeath, maze-like.

3 I'm actually tempted to mark this down since the gameplay was very shallow

I liked this entry and could see it being a decent experience on mobile - I think a bit more iteration is all it needs, but the concept is a good one!

Simple, functional game. I wish there was more here -- enemy AI, enemy variety, different enemy or environment effects on moisture.

Likely there could have been a lot done to make this title better; having a hostile enemy being one of the obvious additions. I at no point felt I was challenged. Possibly there is a bug where enemies can hit you after you initiate an attack against them; but that might be intentional if you have simultaneous moves in mind here.

Return to the Stygian Abyss [7DRL 2023]

Completeness

2 Feels very complete, but encountered quite a few bugs. I wasn't able to complete a run, because I hit blocking bugs a few floors in each time.

1 Pointer constantly drifts to the right, which makes the game very awkward to play. Also dropped some inputs occasionally.

2 I was very impressed to see an options menu, and a fully fledged menu screen when I opened it up, that's a nice level of polish that we don't see all the time. There were however a number of fairly pressing bugs, including some that stopped me from being able to finish runs due to staircases not spawning in.

Aesthetics

3 Wonderful style; a creative mix of 2D/3D, and a beautful lighting effect

2 Decent blocky third-person look.

2 Very unique perspective for a roguelike, think it works quite well. Interfaces are a little annoying to navigate though, I preferred the keyboard controls and being forced to use mouse for the casting menu was frustrating. The map also could have had a bit more direction, I often found myself thinking I'm going a certain direction on the map and then realising I was moving in the opposite of what I'd thought. This happened quite often, not sure why, I did start to get a suspicion that the map was flipped though.

Fun

2 It's a fun game. The combat is a little shallow; more variety in items/spells might help that

1 Has potential to be good but in its current state it's hard to play.

2 Overall quite a fun roguelike experience, the novelty of the new perspective and the couple of innovative ideas definitely made it worth sticking around for. The bugs were quite frustrating though when I ran into them, and for the most part it didn't seem like there was a ton of tactical decision making as far as the fights went. More monster and item variety would have been cool, and some more spells that did things other than straight damage and buff.

Innovation

2 The rune magic system is interesting, and it's unlike anything I've ever seen before. It has a lot of potential. The camera/graphics are also something you don't see often

2 Scores some points for trying to adapt Ultima Underworld ideas to a roguelike.

2 The different attack types were very cool, it would have been great to have had a bit more feedback on what worked against what though, maybe some log messages for “this was really effective”. The spell casting system was also very cool, but the runes felt a little arbitrary, and I managed to get a full collection pretty quickly. Having runes that contribute to more powerful spells gated to later levels would have been good.

Scope

3 A full game with a decent number of spells, items, and monsters'

2 Seems fair for 7 days.

2 Did not seem super ambitious, however I did only get to see the first couple floors due to staircase not spawning in bugs. Overall a very reasonable scope for a 7DRL though.

Roguelikeness

3 Covers all the bases for a turn based roguelike. It also has exceptional level generation

3 I'd consider this a roguelike

3 This is most definitely a roguelike, by all definitions.

This was a fun traditional roguelike, with the main diffference being a really intersting rune spell system. With a little more polish to fix the bugs, and maybe a bit more item/magic variety, this could be great. (Note: There might be more variety in later floors; I was never able to make it past floor 3 because I kept hitting blocking bugs)

I'm not very familiar with Ultima Underworld but I recognise enough of the terminology here to get that this is based on UU to some extent. It has potential, with a rune-based magic system (though only partially implemented) and the aesthetic gives it an unusual feel for a roguelike. Sadly, it's badly hampered by how awkward it is to play with its current mouse drift bug, which causes the camera to rotate to the right continuously.

This is a very cool entry, the changed perspective especially was very neat. Personally I would have liked a downloadable version, I found myself constantly hitting esc to leave menus and escaping out of fullscreen, but that might just be me. More detailed comments below.

Bore of Time

Completeness

3 Polished, balanced, no bugs.

2 The only “bug” I noticed was that the arrow keys stopped working after I'd alt tabbed, though I suspect that's a bug of Itch.io. I downloadable version would have been nice though. Other than that, the game was nice and stable, possibly could have had a bit more in the ways of a tutorial, was a bit confusing starting off, but I quickly got the hang of it.

3 No bugs and seems complete.

Aesthetics

2 The sprites, color palette, and puzzle tiles combine to create a pleasing, cohesive theme. The sound effects could be changed to mathc the animal theme a bit better, but the soudns were very helpful feedback regardless. The controls are pretty smooth and have the arrows show which ways an actor can/will move s helpful. Though there were a few time I stopped too ealr or too late because I missed timed my keyboard input. I got used to it quickly enough. Overall, it's a nice aesthetic. The game looks pretty good on mobile phone. I think this would make a great mobile game. You all may consider adding some touch controls!

2 The clean and simple aesthetics work very well here, I liked the distinction between the pink and yellow enemies. The webs should have been yellow though, and perhaps some more signalling of what they did would have been good, perhaps even a completely new colour.

3 Colour coding and highlights work well to communicate the information. Charmingly retro.

Fun

2 There isn't a lot of depth compared to many games in this genre, but I'd like to say congrats for making this in 48 hours. That's an amazing accomplishment. It is well-polished and would be an amazing mobile game, time-killer with the addition of touch/swipe controls

2 Was very satisfying pulling off the combos, and there was sufficient enemy variety to keep me on my toes the whole way through. Overall quite an interesting experience.

2 Pretty enjoyable puzzle game.

Innovation

1 This is a fairly standard grid puzzle game, nothing new.

2 Lots of cool ideas here, the “combos” with the zero time tiles and enemies was cool, more experimentation with that idea would have been really cool to see.

2 Implements a little twist on grid-based movement.

Scope

2 This is a small puzzler but you had a lot of differnet enemeis that kept me interested to get a higher score. There's a great variety of enemies. This added to my interest over time I wanted to see all the different kinds. The sloth is my favorite. He just sits there patiently gaurd his spot. The spider was fun to defeat as well. And those poor rabits, just food for the player.

2 Fairly average scope for a 7DRL entry, there weren't a huge number of enemies, but definitely sufficient.

2 Reasonable.

Roguelikeness

2 The game shares some features of the genre, but it's more of a puzzle game than a roguelike. Its focus is purely on positioning and planning a few steps ahead but there are no other chocies than to move in a direction.

2 I wouldn't call it a pure roguelike, and there is definitely space in the design to introduce more roguelike elements. Potions that do interesting things to introduce more inventory management, and perhaps more randomised terrain would have been nice.

2 Roguelike-adjacent. It's a procedurally generated grid movement puzzle.

Great job on this. I'm amazed at what you submitted in 48 hours. I really liek the art style, the variety of enemies and the sfx and UI feedback. You even included two tutorial levels which more roguelike should have!

Nice Entry! Quite a cool idea, I always love these kind of spatial tactics roguelikes, and the combos were nice and satisfying.

A series of levels, each one a grid where you have to eliminate enough enemies to open the exit. The twist is that every time you stop moving you take damage, except on certain spaces or when you defeat some enemies, so it's all about trying to find a way to do what you need to do while limiting stops in the wrong places. It's a neat little game.

Yoko City Fire Rush

Completeness

2 Had some problem running the game, as the page informed by the devs, only one link for download I was able to run. The one with .rar file.

2 Did not see major bugs, though the game does face some serious slowdown on the last (ground floor) level. Balance could use some work. I tried the easiest, normal, and hardest difficulties and was able to easily escape in all three cases and got an F score each time despite trying to rescue everyone I saw that needed help.

2 Able to run, able to play, had the ability to customize the experience and didn't seem to have any bugs; however, it felt like some work needed to be done with civilians exiting the building to escape

Aesthetics

2 While playing the game, I found it necessary to use an on-screen keyboard to access the numlock enter key, which was a tedious process (devs warned in their main page but still think this is a feature that should have been added). The game's aesthetics could also benefit from improvement.

2 The game looks terrific especially particle effects. Numpad is required for diagonal movement and targeting confirmation. I think item usage should have been a hotkey plus bump. Right now, many keys are required and hitting numpad Enter is awkward. A simplification of the controls and a shortening of the blocking movement animation would make this play way way faster.

2 Excellent graphics, numpad related controls worked well enough, and the only thing really missing is the sound effects - also how clunky the game felt when selecting abilitiies to use

Fun

1 The game's long paths and unusual building layouts sometimes resulted in getting stuck and requiring a new route to complete the task. While the developer's intention may be to provide a realistic feel, the feature needs improvement to avoid tediousness.

2 The item abilities are fun. I particularly like the roll, which actually seems too good since it lets you roll past walls. I didn't particularly like or understand the civilian saving mechanic. Most of them just stood around.

2 This was fairly fun, though a little frustrating with the civilians becoming clueless if another civilian was blocking the way to the exit

Innovation

2 This game introduces an interesting mechanic that stands out as its highlight.

2 A nice combatless idea.

3 Extremely innovative and doing quite a bit different from the norm

Scope

1 I feel that this game has potential, but it currently feels more like a demo due to various aspects that require polishing. For instance,certain mechanics are unclear, and the building layouts can result in tedious gameplay. Overall, while the game deserves credit for its unique mechanic and roguelike elements, it requires significant improvements in several areas to reach its full potential.

2 There's some interesting simulation and several abilities.

3 I realize this was built on an existing framework, but it is still amazing how much work went into the environmental interactions here

Roguelikeness

2 Although the game possesses roguelike elements, such as permadeath, it lacks features

3 It feels pretty roguelike to me. No combat but your abilities fill the gap somewhat. I wish there was more character interaction though.

3 This isn't the usual affair for roguelikes, but it certainly is close enough to one

While the game has potential, it requires significant improvements in several areas. For example, its mechanics are not always clear, and certain walls cannot be destroyed. Moreover, some characters that require saving may not be cooperative, which can result in confusion and frustration for the player.

A very interesting firefighter roguelike. The graphics are pretty nice, it has some cool simulation aspects, and the abilities are fun. Rescuing civilians is where it falls a little flat for me because most of the time they just stood around doing nothing. It's also not clear how many you have to save to improve your score which always seems to be F. For this kind of game, I'd much rather have a tight balance where escaping itself is hard.

I believe that more work needs to be done to the civilian AI so that they have more states besides running, clueless, paralyzed, or dead. Take a nod from Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun with unit pathing and have it so that when units are moving (or in a running state) - they don't count as blocking the path of other civilians attempting to escape. It might also be an idea to have it so that you can always use the axe to hit things every turn and give objects hit points that you can see diminish. Some other ideas might be to add some scarcity to items and maybe making it so the first floor isn't so fire intense (have the other firefighters drench that floor since civilians need to exit from it). A fantastic game nonetheless and you should be proud of your work.

Oil Barrens

Completeness

2 Can't read game over black text over black oil background

2 The game runs well and I did not notice any bugs. Balance and tuning are what I felt it needed.

3 Started, didn't crash, functioned nicely, only had one minor bug with running into stuff (and skipping turns)

Aesthetics

2 Visuals and controls are OK, isometric graphics sometimes hide things, annoying to have to press down movement keys repeatedly rather than holding down when moving over long distances

2 Like the look! The input interface is a bit rough; sometimes keyboard is required and sometimes mouse and it isn't always clear.Using X instead of S to move downward took getting used to.

3 I loved the inputs, the sound effects were nice, and the tileset fully readable

Fun

1 Not much to the turn based part, the minigames are mostly insultingly easy, doing 2 at the same time is more interesting

1 I kept dying from lack of water, despite using every cactus I came across.

2 I didn't initially have fun but once I learned how to not die from running out of water it was interesting enough

Innovation

2 Minigames rather than automatic bump to attack or taking damage

2 Dexterity mini-games to resolve interactions is a cool idea!

3 I could see this being a really neat idea if explored more

Scope

2 Has a decent number of minigames

2 Pretty good scope for a 7DRL.

2 This demonstrated its idea but didn't feel like it it really went all in on it

Roguelikeness

2 Has randomly generated grid maps but the main focus is real time minigames

3 It is a Roguelike.

2 I'm mixed on this one as I feel it could have had more depth to it, but the idea was very well fleshed out

Playing to win wasn't interesting, but intentionally getting into 2 minigames at once and playing them both with the same controls was pretty fun. There is a lot of down time, with the game taking a surprisingly long time to load very simple maps and the minigames staying on screen for a while after they are finished.

It was fun trying out the mini-games; the occasional thing where multiple mini-games were going at once was interesting! I never did fgure out how to deal with enemies. It felt like once they were attached to me I would be playing their mini-game every other turn until I ran out of water. I ran into a shop in one run, but still ran out of water before I could do anything useful. This game feels like it has promise, if it got some tuning for balance.

A lot more could be done here. Maybe have melee attacks where you have to both dodge the enemy and attack them, have multiple enemies attacking, have ranged enemies that will attempt to ruin your day, etc. Outside of exploring your idea more with the minigames I'd likely balance the cactus a bit to make them give more water or start players with more water. Making the level end a bit more flashy might help with telling players to 'go here' too.

BLAST DWARF

Completeness

3 This feels like a complete game. Plenty of polish, solid gameplay, solid content, music and UI.

2 Feels fairly complete

Aesthetics

3 Lots of polish makes this game approachable and pleasant to play.

3 Nice art and effects, music is vibey

Fun

2 The game is quite fun. The UI for building the blasts was a bit confusing to get into at first, and I'm still not exactly sure how the blast mixing is intended to work. There is no guidance or onboarding. It could really do with a tutorial to give the player the basics. But it's fun to run around the map blasting the slimes with different effects!

2 Crafting cool bombs and throwing them around is pretty fun! Too easy to run out of basic resources though.

Innovation

2 The powder-mixing was interesting. I liked being able to yield different effects with different mixtures.

2 Bomb crafting feels fairly unique.

Scope

2 Multiple levels, some procgen content, and mining gave this some solid scope for the 7DRL.

2 Typical 7DRL scope

Roguelikeness

1 The real-time, non-grid-based play made this not feel a lot like a roguelike to me. There was a bit of procgen in the levels, and it's got permadeath, though. It wasn't enough to "scratch the itch" for me, but I did like the random maps and ore placement, which reminded me of mining in Dwarf Fortress.

1 Feels more like a top-down arcade arena game.

Good game overall. Always having to dodge enemies running at you made this feel more like an arcade game to me than a roguelike, but there are roguelike elements that add value, like the procgen maps and the mining elements. I also want to call out the music and graphics programming as being excellent – they were both very enjoyable and everything here is polished and well-thought-out (except for the onboarding mentioned earlier, but I think that could be easily remedied by adding a tutorial or just some text to the screen where you mix your explosives). I'd encourage the devs to continue working on this and release it as a full game. There's definitely an audience for this!

Crafting weird different bomb types is a really fun idea, but the intricacies of the crafting system itself are a little obtuse. The enemies close in on you pretty fast and due to the realtime gameplay it feels a bit hard to strategise about encounters, which feels at odds with the crafting system! It's also way too easy to run out of your most basic bomb making resource which leaves you with no choice (AFAIK) but to restart

DUSTBITE

Completeness

3 The game looks and feels complete and quite polished.

3 Ran fine, seemed complete, and looked quite polished and bug free

Aesthetics

2 I really wish to give 3 here, but health bar that is really hard to parse and guns that are really hard to distinguish do not allow me to do this. Otherwise the pixel art is very juicy.

3 Controlled well, sounded great, and looked appealing

Fun

2 It's relatively fun to play it couple times, find the most effective combo and ... that's all. Way too few weapons and upgrades for real replayability.

3 It was fun and I enjoyed it to go back for another runs to get over 20 minutes

Innovation

1 Crossbreed of Nuclear Throne and Nightfall. Too trivial to be innovative.

2 I'm not sure I would call getting new weapons, upgrades for said weapons, and the encroaching wall of death innovative; but I don't think I've seen this combination before

Scope

2 Probably just about right for a 7drl.

2 There was enough here to get a taste of what this gameplay would be like and a bit more

Roguelikeness

1 The game is an arcade shooter with very light procedural genertion that doesn't affect gameplay too much.

1 There could be a bit more depth beyond just upgrading your gun and moving forward

There is a bit of potential in this game, with more enemies with different behaviours, more weapons, more upgrades, different levels it could be an interesting game. Not quite roguelike though.

I can see this being a nice way to kill time, but I feel that more content could really be added here. Maybe a few Relics to augment how the player plays, environmental features, arcing pathways or choices of some kind, etc. This has the potential to be more if worked on.

Daikon Hero

Completeness

3 Almost bug free, the developer crammed enough in here that it feels complete and polished

3 Polished, bug free, good instructions etc.

Aesthetics

3 Looks and plays very nicely

3 Distinct art style that suits the theme. Atmospheric and light-hearted at the same time.

Fun

2 I enjoyed playing it but probably wouldn't pick it up again - even if the developer added in the stuff that didn't make it in

2 Gameplay feels good but there's not much depth beyond what you experience on the first level.

Innovation

2 The idea of having a WW1 style battlefield that changes its shape as time progresses is certainly novel

2 Unique theme which translates well to the genre

Scope

1 It really didn't feel like more then demonstration of the idea was in place here

2 Decent scope for a 7drl

Roguelikeness

1 Run and gun top down shooter, but the main weakness here is the lack of depth

1 A little more depth would have enhanced its roguelike inspiriations

I'd be excited to see more roguelikes like this. I love the idea of having to chaotically run through a trench filled with bad guys. That said it didn't really have me making much in the ways of tactical choices and was simply just a casual shoot and get shot tye of game. Also the lack of enemy variety was a bit of a downer too.

Impressed by the polish and vision here. Great theme and characters. Gameplay is standard twin stick shooter stuff, but it's a joy to play. Shame there wasn't a bit more depth to it

Fishy Legs

Completeness

3 Binding of Isaac with a cuter theme and fewer items.

3 Looked complete, polished, bug free, and without any issues

Aesthetics

3 Really cute, even down the death animation (which you'll see a lot). I'd give this one a 4/3 if I could

3 Looked gorgeous, sounded great, controls were fine

Fun

2 Very fun, but the difficulty and sparse upgrades kept me from getting all the way to a 3

2 I enjoyed it, but I felt that I had to do a lot of running around when the spear was on the floor and enemies were around it; until I could recover it

Innovation

1 Not anything new other than a cute theming.

2 Innovative enough to say there was something here

Scope

2 Falls into what I'd expect from a 7DRL. It's not aiming really high, but it hits the marks in every way

2 Quite a bit here for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

1 This is a high 1. The procedural generation is nearly meaningless, and the upgrades are pretty close to nil. The only rogue-ish quality is permadeath, since the rest of the game could be linear and it wouldn't matter.

1 I think it was lacking a little bit in meaningful choices and mostly focused on running around throwing a spear

Really fun game that should be tried by anyone that likes twin stick arcade games. It's Binding of Isaac with a fun weapon and a cute theme.

Entertaining, I feel that it would be nice to have perhaps a melee option or an easier way to retreive your weapon. Having only a single health point made the game quite hard; likely having some difficulty settings would be a good idea if you want to have such a hard start. I'd like to see some more choices thrown into the game somehow.

Septem University - 7DRL 2023

Completeness

2 Can play a full round; screenshots and good page; not sure about proc gen

2 Mostly pretty polished but I ran into a game-breaking bug in the final level which prevented me progressing.

Aesthetics

3 For what it is, it's a great effort with some good artwork

3 Clear and reasonably easy on the eye.

Fun

2 Very "card-like" in terms of battles, and I appreciate the game field size

2 Decently enjoyable during its brief run time.

Innovation

2 Pretty cool idea to try out for the 7DRL

2 Different elements having different ranges is a little twist that works well.

Scope

3 A good size for a 7DRL type of entry

2 Reasonable for 7 days.

Roguelikeness

1 Sorta? Duelling wizard action, but nothing else in terms of exploration or familiar roguelike thingys

1 Other than being turn-based it doesn't feel roguelike at all.

I liked this idea! A good candidate for a mobile device, so I'd encourage the dev to keep working on this! Hopefully the dev had a good time putting this together!

Essentially a cross between a (turn-based) gallery shooter and a game of tennis. You try to shoot the opposing wizards on their half of the board while dodging their attacks in return. Nothing roguelike about it, but it was reasonably enjoyable for its short duration - up until I ran into a bug in the last level where no actions or hits would register. Worth a go though.

Systems Restart

Completeness

2 Enemies can spawn in walls, energy can go above 100 if you have perks that increase it (as opposed to decrease it), and you can bump into walls and enemies will move

1 Most of my games end in crashes, usually while I was walking across an otherwise empty room. Other than that it feels fairly complete, but the fact that a game can end in a crash at any instant feels like it deserves a 1 here.

Aesthetics

2 Messages scrolls a little too fast and might be clipped at the edge of the screen, otherwise this was NICE

3 Really love the look of the game; graphics are great, the music is a nice accompaniment, all that jazz. You lose some ground here because the controls are a little sticky and it doesn't feel smooth controlling the character, but that's not enough of a hassle to dock points for. The controls are fine; not super intuitive, but you've documented them and messaged them thoroughly, so that's not a problem for play.

Fun

2 Did I have fun? I guess it kept me occupied but I likely wouldn't pick it up again

1 I really tried to give this a 2, because it seems like it could be a fun game, but almost every game that doesn't end in a crash, the energy clock kills me. If there's a way to prevent that other than randomly finding one of the upgrades that negates your passive energy usage within 100 turns of the start of the game, I haven't found it. And then there's the elephant in the room: Of the time I spent reviewing the game, probably about 3-5 percent of that time was spent watching the unskippable intro sequence, which I timed at 44 seconds. Making the player sit through that every time they start a new run is an almost unforgivable sin against fun, especially when runs are so short.

Innovation

2 Very simple idea of adjusting your robotic abilities and trying to reach your destination

2 I was all set to give you a 1 here, but then in one run I discovered that it's possible to get into a state where your internal components are so damaged you can no longer see your own stats, at which point all items show up as "Unknown item" and using them just gives me "Result unknown". I like that, it's a cute effect and the loss of information plays into the roguelike milieu.

Scope

2 There could be more depth in terms of what enemies do, interacting with them, and perhaps other features

2 The farthest I got before crashing was three levels in, and I still don't really know what Operative 0049325-A is supposed to be, but I gather it involves me going into this facility and breaking some stuff. Bottom line, it's a pretty solid scope for a 7DRL actually. The gameplay is a little thin, but I like that there's a little story behind it, so those are sort of a wash for me; story and concept is one thing a lot of 7DRLs miss out on IMO; though I reemphasize that the first bit of story at the start of the game especially needs to be skippable for when you've already seen it N times.

Roguelikeness

3 This is a roguelike, but with less focus on combat

3 This feels very roguelike to me. It needs a little more interactivity to the gameplay, and a lot of general polish, but you've definitely got all the classic features; turn-based cerebral play, procedural generation, permadeath, etc., and for me it's important that there's some strategy and tactics to be had, which you have in planning your movements to avoid being first-hit by the other robots, and so on.

There was actual effort put into this one and I wish I could have given it better scores. The problems with the message log though really hampered my experience. Enemies also spawned in walls more then a few times and would move if you bumped into walls. I would have liked to hear more of the music but only ever got to level 3 on my third attempt. Might be nice if adjustments to the robot were listed in the message log, rather then forcing the player to experiment and find out what safe does what when interacted with.

I'm really sad that this game crashes so much, and that every crash means I have to sit through another 44-second unskippable cutscene to get back in the game, because this is the bones of a really solid little roguelike with what seems like a fun little story attached to it, and it's charming and I love it. It's also the single most roguelike-y game I've played so far in the judging, so kudos to you for that. Please do release a bugfix/polish update to this after the challenge, I really want to play it.

The Last Marble

Completeness

3

3 Looked fairly complete and stable, had no issues playing

Aesthetics

2

2 Pool style physics worked just fine, graphics were nothing special but depicted things well enough

Fun

2

3 Despite the simplicity here, I found myself wanting to play more

Innovation

2

2 Pool style games aren't new but this had an intriguring spin for sure

Scope

2

2 It looks simple but has more depth underneath

Roguelikeness

1

1 This felt just a bit too distant from roguelikes

A rather fun game, but this is far more in the mold of Slay the Spire than Rogue.

I looked at this game at first and thought it was something I would play for ten minutes and be done with; I spent closer to thirty-five minutes when all was said and done. This is one of those odd times where I would have to recommend working on the Aesthetics a tad more; even just having some background music or sound effects would help out. A screenshot is definitely not going to help you in promotion - get a video or something else that shows animation. Outside of that the game was excellent and I have nothing but commendations for how fun the game was.

Death's Door

Completeness

3 Very polished! The only bug I found was a visual one about two hours into a run (!!), when the enemy's attack got up to the mid triple digits and it displayed as a two digit number (https://i.imgur.com/EznHhTi.png -- supposed to be 384 attack).

3 Seems complete, ran fine, noticed no bugs, only real weakness maybe is how polished it was

2 Seems feature complete and bug-free but balance could use a bit of work.

Aesthetics

3 Torn on 2/3, but I think it's closer to 3. It has intuitive controls and the graphics, while not being amazing, have a pretty consitent style.

3 Little music in the background, sound effects, and mouse only controls worked fine

2 Clear, if a bit drab.

Fun

3 Extremely fun, I started playing it and played for hours. The random card generation makes for some exciting runs when you get especially powerful ones. Trying to break the game is a blast.

2 Interesting idea that makes deckbuilding roguelikes a whole lot more procedurally generated

1 Not enough here to be interesting for more than 10-15 minutes.

Innovation

2 Compared to games like slay the spire, it's similar enough, but the randomly generated cards and selling (exhausting cards, to use a sts term) mechanic set it apart.

2 Makes the cards procedurally generated is certainly new

1 Pretty barebones deckbuilder.

Scope

2 Mid-sized 7drl

2 Big enough to like, small enough to want more

2 Reasonable.

Roguelikeness

1 Perhaps this should be a 2, but I feel that it lacks roguelikeness, despite having proc generation and permadeath.

2 A deckbuilding roguelike with an extra level of procedural generation too it

1 Nothing roguelike here at all, other than permadeath.

Slay the spire inspired, but with proc generated cards and simple static fights. I really liked trying to figure out what's powerful. The only thing that feels really unbalanced is the cards that increase gold without 'selling' (consuming) them (and perhaps the cards that increase max hp). If you start with one and good enough healing to survive the first fight indefinitely, you are rewarded with infinite gold, making the game pretty trivial. You could also say that the 'draw 2' cards might be a bit too powerful, but I don't think it's in a bad way: having strong cards makes the game more fun.

I could see a player being able to break this game if they really tried, but the idea was sound enough. Likely there should be some sort of ruleset here to make it so that your cards can't get wildly out of control and such. Overall though it is an intriguing idea and a lot different from the norm.

A deckbuilder in which you try to defeat a series of opponents. The key thing is judging when to sell cards so you can buy upgrades. Not a bad idea and works well enough, but too simple to be worth recommending, and it seems like the difficulty of the opponents ramps up too quickly.

TurboVector

Completeness

3 Controls work, if a bit confusing, but can complete

2 The game runs well, and races can be completed. But there's not a lot of variety or depth; just racing randomly generated tracks

3 Booted up, played alright, didn't seem to have any bugs

Aesthetics

3 love the colorful ascii racetrack feel

2 Simple tile art, which works well here

2 Little hard to see the icons and blue on black text on title screen is hard to read; controls were fine though

Fun

2 The confusing controls / feedback kinda blocked me but otherwise good!

2 This was a lot of fun. It really captured the feel of a racing game - avoiding pileups on the first turns, and the satisfying feeling of hitting a turn perfectly. I also realy liked the AI - sometimes challenging, sometimes spinning out on turns

1 Nothing really to play with outside of racing around the circuit

Innovation

3 definitely unique

3 It's the first time I've played a turn based racing game (other than board games), and it really does justice to the idea.

1 Racing has been done and momentum mechanics too

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

1 What's there is fun, but after you've finished a few races, they start to feel the same.

1 Really need more done here besides racing around

Roguelikeness

3 felt like a roguelike, just in a race car

2 Turn based, procedural maps, decent tactical depth. Doesn't have any RPG elements, but it hits a lot of the main points.

1 This is a racing game that doesn't really have any roguelike aspects to it

This was another unique racetrack entry for the 7DRL. Neat aesthetics and really loved the track layouts, but more time could be spent on iterating the controls and feedback and maybe differences between cars?

This was a lot of fun. I got destroyed my first couple races, but learning the momentum system was very satisfying. I went from coming in last, to coming in the middle, to winning my last four races. It felt genuinely rewarding to get better at it. My only complaint is that there wasn't more to it. This was decent for a 7DRL, but it definitely left me wanting more.

Need to do a little more besides the racing part of the game, else you only 'have' a racing game; the only difference being the turn based aspect. Maybe copy Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit and have a race through a city with cop cars chasing you that you have to avoid (or the inverse), look to Mario Kart for item usage against other racers, copy GTA and just 'gun' down the other racers, etc. Alternatively if you just want to focus on the racetrack you could make the racing environment have a lot too it with jumps, moving sections, hazards to avoid, etc; with some items or special abilities to tactically use.

Acolyte's Pledge

Completeness

2 While this is a functioning roguelike, it seems that some mechanics are not fully implemented. It may be that they are just not explained completely.

1 I am getting a lot of runtime error... Besides, sound and music sometimes stop, tiles of walls are not completed in some parts of the dungeons. Zombies and items stuck inside a gargoyle statue. Dev state that VI keys should work but the diagonals up-right and up-left for example when in a top corner will never work. Tried many times to reach the boss and I found no way to finish it.

2 Ran, worked, and had some interesting things done with it; might be a bug with moving diagonally and certainly felt like randomization determined if you won or not

Aesthetics

3 Good chose of tiles, colors, and music. It feels atmospheric

1 I dont think the pallete fits for an ASCII. Dev stated that it should be possible to change from a tile to ASCII using tab in the home page but it didnt worked. I think this is on the version not for review.

3 Controlled well enough, music was nice, and enemy icons were distinct; plus ability to change to ASCII is nice

Fun

2 There is some basic roguelike gameplay here with the added challenge of maintaining oaths every run. Really great idea, though the oaths are explained, some seem absolutely crippling, and I could never get even close to finishing the boss no matter what I did. Also, the combat is quite limited, perhaps to balance out the oaths. Some additional stealth mechanics would greatly improve the ability of the player to use more than one path through the game.

1 Since the dev did not stated what is the usefullness of praying I found nothing from praying on altars. On each floor, I tried to pray 50 times and nothing happened. I could not see the benefit out of it besides the X coup-de-grace. However, even that is really nothing out of the extraordinary because if you get a better sword you can defeat the monsters easily.

1 Didn't really understand what the oath's required and sort of felt like I was playing just a run of the mill traditional roguelike

Innovation

2 Nothing completely new, but having two random oaths chosen for you at the start of a run is such a great idea, I was really happy with the concept.

2 I will give the benefit of the doubt to this dev because I could not find the maybe unique aspect from the altars that is hidden. Perhaps that is a hidden good ability here but I could not find it. Found the boss five times and nothing happened.

2 The idea of the random restrictions sounded interesting

Scope

3 Good scope for a 7DRL, in length and in mechanics.

1 This seems like a demo and nothing out of the extraordinary.

2 I think more then a simple tech demo was here but not enough to showcase the games idea

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a traditional roguelike, as close as they come.

3 Definetely roguelike.

3 Definitely fit the bill for being a roguelike

Really great ideas. A game with conducts as a central mechanic is super cool. The combat is pretty simple because there are so few monsters. The killing blow idea would have more weight if you were getting more swarmed. I would love to see more stealth options to accomodate the pacifist oath. I was not able to understand the final boss unfortunately. Also, prays, alters, and the oaths are explained anywhere. Overall, I really liked the idea and atmosphere.

The game's manual and website provide limited information on certain mechanics, leaving the player unsure of what they are supposed to do. While starting with a blessing, it can be easily removed, and praying for forgiveness doesn't seem to have any effect. The game involves progressing through floors until reaching a boss with invincibility, making defeating them impossible. Additionally, some oaths, like the pacifist one, are difficult to attain due to the enemy swarms. The game doesn't offer any solutions, such as the effectiveness of praying at an altar. As a result, I unfortunately cannot recommend.

Having more information about the Oath's would be nice; I had no idea what upholding or breaking the Oath's did or what purpose they had. The game felt maybe a little bit sparse in enemies to fight and I think the ability to kill unconcious foes was a bit pointless (though I assume Self-Defense would break if I had that Oath?). I beat the boss on the second try but I'll note that on first getting to the boss I certainly didn't have enough gear to take him down.

Corsair: The Sawgrass Blade

Completeness

2 Good selection of weapons, basics work, some bugs and interface could use polish

2 Ran into some bugs: some minor ones (a skeleton spawed in a tree) a more critical ones (The button push are doubled between menus and game => I move when I choose the A weapon. If I have enough items, I can no longer move an item on my belt since the L one is chosen each time. Also, I couldn't go one the first row or first column, and I didn't find the exist once. I strongly suspect those two are linked). Also it is a bit slow to wait for all enemy movements.

1 Worked, but it was possible to softlock yourself and enemies sometimes seemed to be bugged, stable otherwise

Aesthetics

3 Nice monochrome sprites, included sound / music!

2 Nice tiles. The auto-target sometimes chooses the furthest enemy => I have to bring back the cursor all the way

2 Overall it looked nice but sometimes it was hard to determine where the staircases were when out of sight of them, and backpacks looked too much like logs because of similar color

Fun

2 Pretty fun, timing attacking enemies although you seem to die to the first hit

2 It was quite fun. The bugs and slowness spoiled it a bit.

1 I felt it wasn't difficult enough since enemies would sit there while you attacked them

Innovation

1 Unfortunately there's not a lot distinguishing it from any other Roguelike

2 A nice stealth game with an original hit-point system.

2 Kind of a weird twist on stealth and hit points, not stuff I've seen done with a more traditional roguelike

Scope

2 All right scope for a 7DRL

2 A complete 7DRL

2 It looked to be demonstrating a bit more then a simple idea

Roguelikeness

3 Pretty definitely a Roguelike

3 Turn-based, resource management, permadeath (and tension), mapgen which impacts the gameplay

3 I think it is close enough to give full marks

Looks like a good basis for a game, the one-hit-kill, puzzle-like combat is all right, but I think it needs some different mechanic or something to add some fun. Good progress for a week though!

A nice game! What I didn't like: - Some bugs. Some critical enough to make me restart the game twice. - The slowness of the game once there are a lot of enemies. - I gathered daggers and sabbers in the hope of finding a lucky one. But there is no way to get rid of them! - More importantly: The stealthing is a bit strong (or the enemies too dumb): > the enemies don't look for me in the grass, so I can very easily stay there and wait without any risk > I can attack them and kill them from nearby and they don't even notice What I like: - The character is not overpowered, but not underpowered either. I can kill stuff easily enough. - The guns really feel powerful and precious. - The mapgen. The alternance between safe and dangerous areas. - Putting the stairs and precious items in the open more and more near the end. - The lucky system has potential. It adds value to daggers and sabbers even if I already got one. The fact that cards are always lucky makes them high priority to pick. Very good job :)

I found it too easy to softlock myself, despite there being a warning for it. I also found it kind of easy to kill enemies - when they weren't glitched. Outside of the bugs though it was an interesting mix of ideas. Maybe the skeletons could be a bit more menacing though - detecting you when you failed to kill them AND moving to attack you proper. Another thought that might be nice is adding a drop item button and making the lucky items matter a bit more by giving less inventory space (so when you have to make a choice with lucky items and unlucky items, you have to choose what you drop and what to keep).

Hamster Than Light

Completeness

2 The core gameplay is decently well executed, but many affordances haven't been added yet

3 Game booted up and had no problems, I didn't really notice any bugs and it seemed complete enough

2 Feels stable, but missing features.

Aesthetics

3 Generally looks good, and the controls weren't bad to figure out

2 I prefer spacebar for pause and go style games like this, I also found it was kind of clunky getting my hamsters where they needed to go. Outside of this, the visual interpretation was fine.

2 Everything is pretty, but the controls are tricky. Some of that is obviously intended, but surely not all. In partcular movement via a mouse-controlled dial is incredibly fiddly.

Fun

2 Took a bit to figure out, and, I think I'd have liked *one* more hampster

1 I can't say I found it all that exciting to play

2 Somewhat frantic but enjoyable. Could do with more tactics and structured upgrade paths (instead of just random upgrades).

Innovation

3 This definitely took FTL, and put it in a more classically RL sort of scenario

3 This is certainly innovative

2 The multi-control aspect is interesting.

Scope

2 There's quite a bit here in terms of systems that looks cool, but the reach definitely exceeded the grasp

2 Despite what didn't get in, you got a fair bit working

2 Fairly normal for a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

2 Definitely has grid-based proc gen, and leveling via gear, but is also real time+pause. It is, however, closer to traditional roguelikes than FTL is

1 You have a lot of depth with the mech but I feel the lack of gameplay outside of it; to the point that this is more of an action game with a highly customizable character

1 Whilst it has procedural levels and permadeath, the levels are highly unfeatured with little tactical impact lending the game much more of an arcade feel. The Pause ability is very unlike FTL's where you could essentially queue up tactical options - in this there is very little to do when paused so it gives no tactical control.

Neat start to a game! I think there's more systems and/or traps and such that would help flesh it out more, but hamsters piloting a mech is cool. It is, however, decently far from a traditional roguelike

This is a cool game idea but outside of the mech itself, the game is kind of simple. You just approach a spawn, get your guns blazing, defeat the enemies, and move along. The lack of work outside of the innovative idea is a bit of a shortcoming for this game.

You control multiple hamsters in a mech suit, but with never enough hamsters to have all the bits running at the same time. That means moving from leg control to weapon control to fire at enemies, or swap a hamster into the torso to recharge shields. It's frantic and silly and fairly fun in that respect. But there is little in the way of tactical interactions as you jankily move around trying to shoot enemies. It also lacks the tightness of a proper reaction-based top-down shooter because of the janky controls. Game has some potential with some easier control elements (hotkeys for a start) and maybe a more sedate pace to combat (slower bullets, missiles, bomb-laying, etc).

Stronghold Shift

Completeness

2 Core idea was there but could use some work to make it feel like a complete game

2 Push puzzle + monster bashing roguelike unfortunately did not feel like a coherent whole and no obvious endgame (I quit after about 20 levels) but otherwise a finished and quite polished game.

3 Worked, ran without issue, and didn't really have any bugs

Aesthetics

2 Looked nice, the enemies stood out well and autotiling with the moveable walls made it feel dynamic.

3 Responsive UI that was easy to look at with nice choice of art assets. Very intuitive gameplay but could have used a few in game hints about when the rune placement triggers and what they do.

3 Controlled nicely and sounds came through fine

Fun

2 I liked the puzzle nature of the level rearrangements, and using the level itself against the enemies. Though it was not very challenging due to being able to gather all the runes at the end of each level.

2 Way more fun to push runes into position than there was any reason for it to! Unfortunately, the positioning part of the game seemed mostly divorced from the monster bashing, other than needing to collect enough runes to make the next level easy, and that really detracted from the experience. Collecting the runes while the monsters were still alive and then needing to promptly leave the level so you couldn't fully optimize the rune arrangements would have been a more satisfying and challenging mechanic I suspect. More variety and a sense of progression would also help. Appreciated having an easy difficulty level, although a steady ramp up in difficulty would make the game more fun and give it more replay value.

1 Can't have fun without any real game to play

Innovation

3 Great idea, completely changes the way you view the level as a player.

3 High marks for the push mechanic.

2 Moving the dungeon around has been done before, but this had some interesting twists to it

Scope

2 Could have used more depth, each level basically played out the same.

1 Just scratched the surface of integrating push puzzle mechanics into the gameplay. You could have items and monsters that interact with the push mechanics in different ways, some parts of the environment that can't be pushed. Also pulling as an alternative to pushing etc.

1 Didn't really feel that a game was actually made out of this idea

Roguelikeness

2 Has many properties of a roguelike though is skirting the line of a puzzle game as well.

2 Defniitely of the roguelike genre but lacking the complex systems or emergent gameplay to really put it over the top.

1 No game here, therefore there is no roguelike here since roguelikes are 'games'

The main mechanic has alot of potential, I really like aligning the level how I need it which is a really fresh take for a roguelike style game. Though the game does need another pass on balancing. As is, you just need to gather up a few shield runes at the end of each level and you will be invincible. I would have enjoyed it more if the runes affected you immediately and none carried over, so you had to think about what moves to take while there were active threats. Also it is very difficult to tell what you should be doing at first.

Lots of potential in this polished jam entry that needs a more satisfying end game and more work on making the core gameplay varied and replayable.

You have a neat idea but you didn't actually make any sort of game out of it. It was just killing all the enemies on a level and then shifting the runes around before proceeding on. Maybe runes that lock into each other will prevent the dungeon from moving around, have enemies able to attack those runes (thus making it harder for you to progress), or have the enemies do a bit more then blunder around aimlessly. Add a timer of some sort, be it a hunger clock or additional spawning enemies? Demonstrate how this idea can be made into the game is the main takeaway here.

Way of the God- 7DRL 2023

Completeness

3 Controls work, complete environment

2 No bugs that I noticed but seems to be no objective either.

2 Ran, didn't crash, but seemed unbalanced and possibly missing some consequences for 0/X hunger

Aesthetics

2 Simple, traditional RL graphics

2 Decent enough.

1 Sometimes the art style was hard to see on certain biomes, issues with walking into walls and skipping several turns, very slow movement

Fun

3 Fun with intuitive controls.

1 Walk, kill things, keep walking. Gets repetitive very quickly.

1 This really felt sort of tedious to play

Innovation

2 Solid game, nothing new

1 Nothing unusual here.

2 I think the idea of having randomized bonuses associated with items/enemies is novel enough

Scope

2 Good size for 7DRL

2

2 It felt like a lot of work was done but a lot more could have gone in

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

3

3 It was certainly a roguelike

Fun game. Large map. Classic RL feel.

There's not much going on here. The gimmick seems to be that you choose a (randomly generated) god at the beginning, and it gives you bonuses for using certain items. In practice it doesn't make all that much difference - just use the things your god likes. The gameplay itself is fine but there doesn't seem to be an objective and after walking for what felt like forever I hadn't found anything beyond countryside and enemies.

I could see some potential in this game if it was perhaps fleshed out, but it also very much felt like a lot of work needs to be done to get the game there. It was a little bit tedious moving across the world and at the end of it I fought a Dragon that didn't put up much of a challenge. Besides the archer characters in the game, nothing else seemed to be really be much of a bother; though I was romping merryily along with a Long Bow and killing most things in one or two shots. Also, I didn't really need to eat because I wouldn't lose hit points and eventually my Hunger Clock reached zero - yet nothing happened. Probably the worst failing here is that while you had an innovative idea, you did nothing really exciting with it.

BorgRL

Completeness

2 Took a bit of tinkering to get it to run on my system, but I'll freely admit that that's more on my system and dev environment than the repo. Just providing the bare repo with nothing except a makefile is a little rough for the general public though; I suspect you should put a little section in the README explaining how to get it started. By itself that wouldn't be worth docking a point IMO, but it also locked up in one of my runs for some reason and needed to be kill'd.

1 While the game is playable after compiling the makefile and downloading the necessary dependencies such as libncurses5-dev, it lacks a stable release that can be easily installed without additional steps. In its current state, the game lacks a user-friendly factor that can make it difficult for some players to enjoy.

Aesthetics

2 Purely on the visuals, this would be a 3-- it's a nice clean texty presentation that I find pleasantly evocative of the old-school "Star Trek" ascii games from the late mainframe era while still being modern. Really nice presentation, good status displays &c. That said, the controls are hard to get used to, and you've made an effort to document them but it still took me about five or ten minutes of play to really grasp how everything worked.

2 The game's environment is well designed as it makes it easy to identify monsters, walls, and roads. The clear visual distinctions between different objects in the game make it easier for players to navigate and engage with the game's mechanics.

Fun

3 The core of this is pretty enjoyable-- the killbox pushes you forward, and you want to explore within that restriction and acquire resources to fuel your progress and defend yourself as you go. It feels a little sensitive to initial conditions, but given that the game's name is "BorgRL" the positive-feedback assimilation loop seems like it might be intended as part of the experience. The one thing that doesn't feel fun to me is the large maps, which often leave me just clicking around empty space looking for something to encounter.

2 Although playing the game was an interesting experience, more information about the capacities of the drones should be added, along with a proper manual. Without these features, it may take a while for the player to fully understand what they are supposed to do. Once these features are in place, the game has the potential to be engaging and enjoyable.

Innovation

2 This deserves praise for a nice "RTS-style" interface for a roguelike, and once you get the hang of it, it's pretty nicely implemented. You don't really have any "new" mechanics or anything I've never seen before, but it's a new combination of things to me, at least. I'm seeing this as an interesting attempt at evolving an existing game by adding roguelikey elements to it.

2 The game's approach is certainly interesting, but it lacks in the area of clearly defining the abilities of each drone. This can make it difficult for players to fully grasp the mechanics and limits of the game.

Scope

2 Very ambitious project, and what's there is all quite well put together, but that comes at the cost of variety-- the levels, at least as far as I've gotten in the game, have all just been empty spaces with gas clouds as obstacles. The map legend suggests that will continue, and also suggests I've already seen all the enemy types except for Tanks and Bosses. Given how large the levels are, this makes the game feel a little barren; see my general comments for more on this. That said, "a little sparse in content" is pretty much par for the course for a 7DRL, but that's enough to get a 2.

1 At its current stage, the game feels more like a tech demo than a fully-fledged game. While it may have potential, more work needs to be done in order to make it a complete and polished experience.

Roguelikeness

2 This has all the basic trappings of an RTS with some roguelike features tacked on. I don't begrudge you the real-time play in principle, but the pausable-real-time mechanic actually comes out a little clunky here. It's objectively difficult to accurately target moving ascii characters on a screen with the mouse, which means that in practice you're never issuing orders in real-time because you're pretty much always moving; instead you lean on the pause key and always pause before issuing orders. This feels like the worst of both worlds, if you'll pardon the pun.

3 Yes roguelike.

The core of this game is really nice and has a lot of potential, but it's missing a little variety and a little spice to liven it up. It's at its best when it's a tactical simulation and you're running in circles to avoid enemies while trying to scavenge up enough resources to make another assimilation roll. It's at its worst when you're just unpaused, running around in real-time Diablo-style looking for planets or wrecks to raid for resources. I'd like to see it play a little more in that former "tactics mode" and less in the "diablo mode". You've got good visuals but there's a few things that I really miss for usability-- for example, I'd like to see targets highlight when you select them, the same way your drones do. My biggest wishlist suggestion, though, is that the levels could probably stand to be scaled down a lot smaller and made more cramped/abstract, which would bring more of the roguelike tactical elements to the forefront and really drive home "this is a roguelike" for me. I also wonder if you could automate the pausing/unpausing so that this becomes one of those "realtime but time only moves when you're moving or pressing wait" types of games.

The game is a total roguelike and has the potential to be an engaging and unique experience. However, in order for it to reach its full potential, it needs a proper manual, clear information about each drone's abilities, and further development from the developers. With these improvements, the game can bring interesting mechanics to the roguelike genre.

Duality

Completeness

3 This is a solid, self-contained game that works just fine with the elements provided and nothing else feels needed. It's very simple, but it feels like a complete and finished game.

3 The game played just fine

Aesthetics

2 Very simple and approachable. Loved that the game could be played with one card, but the symbology, I think, is still a little too abstract to interpret without the other card, so I'd probably play with the card with text on it. Also, there were a few typos which were noticeable, but easily fixed. But the simple, black-and-white presentation felt very clean.

2 Four dice is all that is really needed as one can substitute the stat dice for something else, main failing here is the instructions as you mispelled 'least' as 'last'; which I consider a grievous error for a pen & paper style of game

Fun

2 This little game delivers some good fun. It's not complex enough to have a lot of staying power or replayability, but I don't think that's the design intent; this seems like it's intended to be a quick and fun diversion, and it achieves that effortlessly. The core dice mechanic is simple, and the ability to tune the difficulty easily by choosing different starting food values works great. Feels balanced, challenging, but not impossible. Amazing that it could deliver this with one card.

1 The gameplay was a bit too simple to have fun with

Innovation

2 The one-card design is interesting! There's not a LOT you can do in the game, but again, I don't think that was the design intent. This game boils down the core gameplay loop of roguelikes into just "town and dungeon" and gives a simulation that drives that pair in an ultra-compact way which still feels fun. It's a very interesting design.

3 This is innovative for a dice based roguelike styled game

Scope

1 This is a weird category to judge this game on. By the judging criteria, this game is very low on the scope score, but it's clear that paring down this experience to a minimalistic core was the design intent, and it succeeds really well at that. I'll list it as a "1" so it matches the judging criteria of other games, but in terms of achieving a good game with the INTENT of aiming for a minimalistic scope, I'd say it shouldn't be taken as a criticism. For this game, a "1" is a good thing.

2 Having two locations is fine and the dice outcomes were interesting, but there could have been more depth to the dice rolls

Roguelikeness

2 As mentioned earlier, this game boils down the high-level roguelike game loop into a tiny simulation that fits on a single card. It definitely captures some of the important aspects of roguelikes - dungeon crawling, hunger clocks, fighting enemies, going back and forth between the dungeon and town, some light advancement mechanics, etc. It is missing other hallmarks of the genre like procgen content, grid-based maps, etc., but it manages to evoke some of the same vibes, so it's solid.

1 This felt akin to Yahtzee, but with RPG elements added to it

Overall my reaction is: what a charming and cool little game! It's very minimalistic and boiled-down, so it's not going to be of interest to a lot of people who want deep, expansive, unpredictable, procedurally-generated worlds. But it's clear that wasn't at all the design goal. What this provides is that quick shot of dungeon crawling action with almost no setup time, almost no bookkeeping overhead, with some challenge and also luck in the mix, and all provided in a very portable and accessible format. When I originally downloaded it, it seemed like there wouldn't be much there, but I was able to play quite a few games in it, and it held the fun because who doesn't like chucking dice? The difficulty scaling worked well to fine-tune the difficulty, and I both won and lost games, so there is definitely some challenge there without it feeling too overwhelming. I've added it to my collection of grab-and-play PNP games, and I'm pretty sure I'll be pulling it out again from time to time because it's so very fast ot take out and put away. Fantastic, minimalist design that was quite enjoyable. Good job.

I like the concept for this game but feel like it could have been fleshed out more, eventually I figured from the rules given that it would just make sense to build up to four dice and maintain those said dice by keeping Anger somewhere within the 1-5 range. Maybe there should be a cap on the number of dice throws you get, maybe Anger should go up or down based on taking extra dice throws, maybe there should be a turn limit where the Evil Forces win because you haven't defeated them in time? I'm certain a lot of ideas could still be fit in here if this is pursued further.

Gene-freak Fury

Completeness

3 No bugs, feels close to a perfect imitation of a doom game

3 Game runs, no crashes, did not manage to win but possibly win-able

Aesthetics

2 Looks good, controls fine and UI is straightforward

3 Controls work, everthing easy to understand, retro style

Fun

2 Massive map with good random generation, but the combat got repetitive very quickly. Gave up before killing every enemy in the run, was too much to ask

2 I had fun for a few minutes. Tried to play cautious, tried to play reckless. Just enough to keep me trying to win.

Innovation

1 Basically plays like a doom clone but with fewer features. That's no small achievement!

1 Doom with a procgen map

Scope

2 Competent start for a full game. Randomization makes it worth trying a few times, but it's a pretty small game

2 Typical 7DRL scope

Roguelikeness

2 Sort of roguelite, lacks any RPG elements that could make it closer to a most other roguelikes

1 Real-time, procgen only for levels (not gear or enemies), maze-like, permadeath

As I stated earlier, I didn't complete the game, sorry. Defeating every enemy doesn't feel worth the work with there only being two different enemies, three items and one rogue oil drum explosion to end your run instantly. Everything else is well made and cool. Impressive imitation of early shooters. Keep making more games :)

It's Doom on a procgen level. Fun but didn't quite get the gameplay balance right -- too many enemies do that cautious play was a slog & reckless play was deadly.

HSH

Completeness

2 The game seems to be stable, but despite the developer's intention to create a challenging experience, I struggled to find the appropriate tools to build defenses.

2 I got it to crash a couple times, the main menu seems to be somewhat buggy. Game itself is stable

2 Worked and ran well enough, but the lack of instructions and feedback was noticed; also, enemies seem to always hit you first?

Aesthetics

2 The controls are fine, but some of the furniture items, such as the shelves, can be confusing to differentiate.

2 Graphics (ascii) look really nice. Interface is a bit clunky

3 Looked fine, controlled fine; assuming I used all the controls

Fun

1 In my opinion, the game lacks the fun factor. The developer failed to mention certain crucial aspects that would allow for the flow of gameplay, leaving me stuck with monsters entering the house without any means of locking the doors.

2 Normal Roguelike tactics don't work here. Your goal seems to be to just hold out as long as possible, I won a grand total of one fight ever. You're supposed to hide and build fortifications rather than explore the map and power yourself up, it seems.

1 This could be fun but as it is now it isn't

Innovation

2 It is a little innovative, some games presents this mechanic already not in a roguelike per se but there is a game which the dev should check with a similar approach (darkwood).

3 It does some stuff gameplay-wise I haven't seen in a Roguelike before, a focus on hiding / map preparation rather than normal dungoen crawling

2 Had a unique flair to it

Scope

1 The game lacks ambition and feels more like a demo game due to its small scope and objective.

3 Definitely feels like a complete game

1 Feels like not enough was here

Roguelikeness

2 While it claims to follow the Berlin interpretation, there is not enough exploration or discovery aspect to categorize it as a true roguelike. The numbers used to describe the protagonist are shown, but the manual lacks information to provide context.

2 Other than random maps and permadeath I'm not sure how Roguelike it is. It's more a survival-horror game in every respect but the graphics.

3 It ticked enough boxes

This game is interesting, but I could not find any method to build materials to progress further. There are no clear instructions on how to build them, and the only message I receive using the build function is that I need planks. Despite trying several ways to obtain planks, such as attacking, picking up, or breaking chairs and tables, I got nothing. Unfortunately, the lack of clear instructions on building materials makes it difficult for me to recommend this game at its current stage.

Not a bad game, although not something I would usually play, I don't really like survival horror. It has you holding out as long as you can against an unwinnable horde-of-mostly-unkillable enemies.

The biggest failing that should be addressed here is the lack of instructions and in game feedback. I didn't feel I was learning a lot from how things worked in the game; something that is incredibly important for mastering roguelikes. Adding in some ability to measure what damage you are doing to an enemy could also be helpful; also not automatically being hit by enemies when they move close (so you can run while they bleed out).

King's Conquest

Completeness

2 Seems to be no 'Check' option or level clear on wiping out all enemies, otherwise it runs fine and stable

2 Game is fully functional with little bug, balance needs a pass for both material cost and the power of pawns.

3 Seems feature complete, no bugs or other issues, and feels polished enough.

Aesthetics

3 Pieces all look distinct and control as you expect them too

2 Art is very clean, on one hand there isn't much you can do for chess art but the game still felt slightly bland

2 Mostly fine but it would be nice if different unit types were more identifiable at a glance.

Fun

1 Not to my tastes (in regards to chess based games) and gameplay is far too slow

1 Gameplay feels like you expect out of a chess game. The roguelike elements give it some good flavor. Ultimately pawns are extremely overpowered for material being able to move and attack in cardinal directions, they can mutually reinforce each other and building as many expendable pawns seems to be the best value in most cases. The material cost of pieces causes you to play hyper conservative with units as while in chess trading the same piece would be considered fine or advantageous, in this game it is heavily discouraged.

2 Worth a play. It has an addictive quality that brings you back for another quick go.

Innovation

2 Chess styled games a lot more common now, but raiding a castle was somewhat unique

2 Chess and chess style games are exploding in popularity (for good reason in my opinion.) This game does a good job applying that classic game to a roguelike style game.

2 I've seen other chess-based roguelikes before, but not that often and no usually with a constantly expanding roster of pieces.

Scope

2 Several pieces and a lot of refinement

2 This is about the scope of a game I expect out of 7drl, no bugs with a full featured game, some balance issues.

2 Fair for 7 days.

Roguelikeness

2 Certainly a couple step away from roguelikes, but not that far off from its foundations

2 Has most of the classic roguelike features, the only thing I think is lacking that would bump this to a three is randomized progression/resources. The material being a simple point buy system leaves you to find a specific strategy and doing little else.

2 Feels more like a puzzle game than a roguelike, but it's roguelike-adjacent in a similar way to something like Hoplite.

CPU was certainly strong enough to understand the idea of pinning pieces and forking them, but the lack of a 'Check' option meant it was too easy to lose your King (which is an instant game over). Trading pieces was only worth it if you were going to get your materials back for them since when you lose material - you do so permanently; this mattering since it heavily slowed down gameplay (since you want to take as many pieces as possible before finishing a level to increase you material).

King's Conquest is a chess style'd roguelike. Applying your classic chess pieces plus a few others to a randomized board against opposing chess pieces. The strategic thinking of positioning that comes with Chess is all found here. The game suffers from no bugs and runs smoothely leaving you fully focused on the board. Unfortunately chess doesn't neatly port to a game like this, this is evident in the pawn piece who can now move and attack in cardinal directions. That and its low point cost leave it to be the best material-to-piece unit in the game. Additionally due to material cost the game encourages you to play hyper conservatively, slowing the game down to a crawl sometimes. Trades between equal pieces only hurt the player. Ultimately King's Conquest is a solid game that has good potential to be very enjoyable with some balancing passes and slight tweaks to gameplay.

A decent little game which gives you control of a team of chess pieces, with the ability to buy more between levels. It'll probably get too repetitive after a while but for a 7 day game it's a solid effort. My only significant gripe is that I mainly lost my king to not noticing which type of piece was approaching - I think the game would benefit from the non-knight pieces being more distinct visually.

Mistic Dungeon

Completeness

3 Cool Enter the Gungeon clone with solid movement and combat mechanics

2 Stable and seemingly bug-free (assuming decor in boss rooms was meant to regenerate indefinitely), but for an obvious Gungeon clone, it's distinctly lacking in actual guns (let alone other items) and you can feel it when chests spawn empty or with a gun you already have. Its balance is also not great.

Aesthetics

2 Decent pixel art graphics and correct sound

3 The amount of pixel art is certainly a stand out for this jam, and attention had been paid to the sound as well, with multiple themes and various SFX. I am sure some assets have come from elsewhere, and it could do with more SFX still (i.e. player/enemies getting hit/killed), but even so, it's impressive.

Fun

3 Solid gunfight!

1 I might have given a high score here if I stopped at the first level. Unfortunately, the longer you play this game, the more tedious and limited it gets.

Innovation

1 Well, it's quite an Enter the Gungeon clone

1 Blatant clone of Enter the Gungeon. Though if Gungeon had an unquestionably unique setting, this dilutes it with generic dungeon crawl aesthetics.

Scope

2 Enough to keep you entertained for a while!

3 I almost can't believe this was actually made in 7 days and doesn't secretly use assets or codebase from Enter the Gungeon. Whatever else can be said about the game, the amount of work here is impressive.

Roguelikeness

1 Sorry, no for me if it's not turn-based. Not a bad game, but not a roguelike.

2 Pure Enter the Gungeon clone - real-time, levels built out of premade rooms, etc. - ergo, a roguelite.

Nice Enter the Gungeon clone that unfortunately is not turn-based (ey, that would be a game I would love to play!). Even though, well done!

The creator has certainly proven their ability to faithfully replicate much of Enter the Gungeon in just a week. On a technical level, they are talented, and seem poised to do grander things. Sadly, this particular game is essentially Gungeon where all the base enemies are stronger, yet all the bosses and all the guns are much worse, and the result is not very satisfying. It's very unfortunate no weapon seems strong enough to kill any enemies in one hit, even as they rain down about 3-5x more bullets than their Gungeon equivalents. Things like empty chest spawns, inability to see if a chest has a gun until you have taken hearts and ammo you may not need, or the inability to fight a boss until you have cleared every single room feel inexplicable. Some entries to this jam have gone on to become commercially successful games, but I don't think this could be one of them.

Under Oakbury

Completeness

2 It runs, it's stable, but lacks features two classes feel the same, two races feel the same

3 Game functioned with no major problems or bugs, had a start to finish with level gen and enemies with i think seperate ai and stats

3 Booted up, ran fine, seemd quite complete

Aesthetics

2 Controls are easy to understand, appearance typical of tile roguelikes

2 Looks servicable the revealing system of the map was a really nice touch but it could have used a fullscreen mode or zoom feature perhaps things were hard to see with small sprites

3 Controls for both keyboard and mouse worked nicely, visually could tell everything apart, graphics might have been a bit slow

Fun

1 Died alot, even by RL standards

2 The saving part of the experience is the ability to throw every item in your inventory at an enemy everything else is bog standard

1 Not a fan of having to choose in a menu if I have to enter a door, seemed to be rather difficult and emphasized throwing items a bit too much

Innovation

1 Nothing new, not much here

1 Nothing you havnt seen before or if there is i cant see it

1 While stealth based games aren't that common, they aren't uncommon

Scope

1 not much to do

2 Theres a fair amount of features, stats, items, enemies ect.

2 Felt like enough was here to say there was more then a little bit here

Roguelikeness

3 Procedural maze-like dungeon, lots of death. Hits the major ideas.

3 Very roguelikey right feel

3 Definitely a roguelike through and through

I couldn't find a strategy that affected the outcome: enter dungeon, try to do *practically anything*, and then die. Classes, races, stat blocks. Stealth or attack. Never seemed to change anythin.

I wanted to like this one a lot more, any game that lets me throw every item in my inventory at an enemy then walk through the pile of weapons picking them all back up makes me smile. Its just as a player I have so little control and understanding of the systems going on under the surface that effect the combat. I never seemed to notice a difference between what weapons I was using and the only time I could tell what my armors stats even were in the hit dice roll feedback during combat. Enemies seemed to have a damage range from 1 to 9ish which is some major variannce. I never had the rescources to fight enemies head on meaning i was at the mercy of level gen as to if I would be able to progress. With levels being as large and winding as they are its only a matter of time until you meet a situation where you cant avoid damage and in a game with this limit healing and communicaiton to a plyer it makes it feels as if its out of the players hands if they get to the end.Celearly a lot of effort went in to this one and im sure there are systems at play that I cant see as a player and theres a lot of items and enemies for the scope of a 7drl keep up the good work. Also starting without any of gear equipped leads to a really funny first run where you punch a zombie then get wiped in 2 turns.

Very nice looking; if you don't mind the very small graphics. There was a few odds and ends that could have been smoothed out but it certainly was a decent entry to play. Probably the biggest criticism that I can note is that due to how fragile the character feels the game goes very slow.

Down the Mountain

Completeness

3 Everything works with simple controls.

2 It ran and was stable, but I noticed a bug with the wait button

2 Stable, but not much balancing.

Aesthetics

2 Simple but complete.

3 Besides the issue with the wait button, everything controlled fine and I liked the fading sight range idea

2 Very basic, monochrome, but controls are straightforward.

Fun

3 Pretty fun; fairly difficult

1 A little too simple to have fun with

1 Extremely simple game without much in the way of tactics to consider.

Innovation

2 Solid but doesn't stretch the boundaries

1 Not really doing anything new here

1 Very straightforward game.

Scope

2 Average sized 7DRL

1 Far too small for a 7DRL

1 This is on the low side for a 7DRL. Basic interactions, no progression, only 3 enemy types.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

3 A puzzle roguelike, but close enough to being a traditional one

3 Classic roguelike, albeit very bare bones.

Fun simple game. Controls are easy and the look/feel are good. Old school ASCII graphics

I liked how the map faded and waned based on how far away the character was from the points you wished to see. The movement focus was interesting, although it got repetitive soon enough. Biggest complaint I would have here is the length and lack of content.

A simple roguelike where you explore procedural levels fighting 3 monster types, each a little harder than the others. You collect gold whilst seeing how far you can get before the harder monsters inevitably whittle you down. There's not much tactically to do other than optimise movement a little. Overall very bare bones.

Loop Dungeons

Completeness

2 There are monsters, items, and a combat system-- seems like a fairly complete game. The game is missing some polish and balancing to make it more playable.

2 Pretty stable and seems feature complete. There's some obvious missing polish and minor bugs (something weird happening with rendering walls bordering unseen tiles for instance)\

3 Very nicely polished up and put together. No notes here.

Aesthetics

2 I really like the UI and character art. I think the game would get a 3 if the pixel graphics weren't so blurry.

2 This game has pretty good art, especially for battle backgrounds. However, the UI doesn't feel the greatest to use and some interactions are awkward (particularly the use of browser alerts)

2 It took me a lot longer than I'm willing to admit to notice the keyboard commands that appear only when the help screen is visible, so I played the first couple of games entirely with the mouse. Once it became clear that there were better controls available I liked this a lot better.

Fun

1 Unfortunately, although it feels like there is a cool game here, the battles take much too long. One battle with a mushie last more than 4 minutes with no meaningful player input. As it is, this makes the game unplayable.

1 Battles are both slow and not very fun (very few decisions for how many actions there are, and fewer interesting ones). The fact that nothing moves and battles are modal makes exploration rather mindless.

2 Kind of borderline on this count-- The first 5 or so levels all being identical and filled with the same three monsters makes it start really slow, and that's on top of the fact that the game is already pretty empty of meaningful decisions. Still, I enjoyed it, and the novelty of a full-auto idler-roguelike caught my interest a bit.

Innovation

2 While nothing is completely new, the battle system adds an interesting twist to the roguelike formula.

2 While I might not have had fun with it, don't think I've seen a roguelike put together with this combination of mechanics before.

1 Nothing really innovative here, just a hack-and-slash. If anything, the innovation is the auto-play mode, which I tried for one game. But auto-explore and auto-battle run way too slowly to be worth doing for a whole game; auto-explore also fights monsters and uses stairs as soon as it sees them instead of exploring the whole level first. And auto-battle is completely obviated by just tapping the "next" key repeatedly when battles came up to make the battle happen, since there's no decisions to make during battle anyway.

Scope

2 The scope seems reasonable, with a fair number of items, characters, and monsters.

2 About what I'd expect for a 7DRL

2 Obviously a lot of polish work and extra content went into this game, which deserves lots of praise. And it's well balanced, but I think you could have sacrificed some depth of content to spend a little more time on making the core gameplay interesting and fun.

Roguelikeness

3 Although the game doens't feature bump-to-attack combat, I still consider it to be a traditional roguelike because it is a turn-based, grid-based dungeon crawler.

2 This didn't really feel like a classic roguelike when playing it, though I'm not sure it's merely because of the modal battles. I think it might be that the lack of enemy movement makes the dungeon play feel pretty flat and at least a little superfluous, and so the game doesn't evoke the kind of decision-making I associate with roguelikes.

3 I'm torn on this one because it has all the trappings of a roguelike, and it feels reasonably roguelike. But there's literally no danger in exploring until you go deliberately into a fight, and when you start a fight it's just random die rolls determining your outcomes based on stats and gear, as far as I can tell-- I can't use items or do anything meaningful in combat that I can see.

Everything around the game is really nice, especially the art. However, the battles make it basically unplayable. Both parties miss over and over and over. I thought that maybe playing a knight would help, but it did not. In addition, the pixel art should be re-sized with "nearest neighbor" interpolation-- the blurriness decreases the quality quite a bit.

Overally, this entry feels underdeveloped to me, like it doesn't quite come together. Both battles and dungeon gameplay feel very flat, though it has at least a little resource management (classic HP potion management). I'm skeptical of the way the modal battles are implemented, but I'd like to see them in the context of a more polished experience.

This is a lovely game, and pretty, and very well polished. But the problem I have with it is that the player seems to be almost entirely superfluous to the game. That's probably why it's so easy for you to have a full auto-play mode; there's no decisions for the player to make that have any real impact on the outcome of the game. Which raises the question: If there's no real reason or need for me to be there at the keyboard directing my character, why am I playing your game at all?

7D Mad Rogue Kart

Completeness

2 Controls work, Stable, a bit rough, but otherwise pretty complete

2 The game runs, doesn't crash, can be won, but very barebone.

3 Worked, ran, and later version played had no bugs encountered

Aesthetics

2 Interesting idea for a racing game

2 The game looks ok. There is one important issue with controls - next move is always selected at the center. But in majority of cases you want to select last move. So a lot of extra key must be pressed during one run.

3 Controlled well enough and could see what was happening

Fun

2 decent fun, "lost" when I should've won but it's a cool idea

1 There is one huge fun killing factor. Some karts are strictly better than others. It is theoretically impossible to win on a slow kart. Also maximum speed must be much higher, so that you must accelerate on stright parts and slow down before turn. Right now it is trivial to win on a fast kart, you just can't fail.

1 Don't really feel there was enough content in the game to have fun with the momentum idea

Innovation

2 unique concept

2 Racing roguelike? Why not. I've seen similar idea in one very old game, but it was pure racing.

2 Momentum based roguelikes aren't new but one stylized after Mario Kart certainly is

Scope

2 decent size for a 7DRL

2 Well, probably ok if tracks are actually random.

1 I kind of feel that you only demonstrated the idea and nothing more really

Roguelikeness

3 good kart roguelike

2 It's turn based. There is a little bit of tactics involved. Tracks seems to be random. Add more weapons, powerups and different karts and it could be the very first true roguelike game :)

1 I wouldn't call Mario Kart a roguelike, this is just stepping towards the genre a bit

An interesting concept, would hope that the developer can spend more time iterating on the idea. I spotted some "easy wins" which might help the gameplay. Is there a difference between karts?

Even as it is there is some odd satisfaction in winning the race. Too bad there is too little in the game.

The idea seemed neat but it didn't seem like there was a whole lot here in terms of items to use or things to encounter on the track. I found that the enemy was not all that great at racing and I was able to just race to the finish with ease for the most part. The track layout also seemed a bit boring and you likely could have done more with hazards and the like on it; there didn't seem to be a restriction with making it circular either so why not have the end point somewhere off in the distance? Overall an interesting experiment to play.

Avalanche

Completeness

3 items sometimes spawned beneath player at the start of a floor, otherwise bugless

2 The game can be finished

3 Worked, didn't have problems while running, didn't seem to be missing anything or feature any bugs

Aesthetics

2 Interface does the job well, but the asset pack could have been used better - also seems a bit confused for what style it wants (Interface is 8 bit, items and characters 16 bit, avalanche effect atari)

2 Decent sprite art. The yeti was especially well done

3 Lovely graphics, simple controls, a little music in the background

Fun

2 Tight gameplay loop, enough mechanics to develop unique strategies, friendly difficulty curve and addictive like an old pre-installed Windows game, especially with the endless mode. However, progress could have been more exciting by changing the background colour every ten floors. Think pacman

1 The game was fine, but there's not a lot to it. Once you figure out how to play and manage resources, it gets a little repetitive, and doesn't seem to scale. My last run ended on level 48, and I only died because I was rushing through the floor and made some mistakes

1 It felt too simple as you strutted down the mountain, also too easy

Innovation

2 Familiar enough to learn quickly, different enough to notice and admire

1 It's fairly standard turn based maze running

3 Having the avalanche act as a Hunger Clock was quite interesting, interesting twists with the items

Scope

2 Exactly what should be made by one person in one week

1 Once you've seen one level, you've kind of experienced everything the game has to offer.

1 It didn't feel like there was enough to manage as I went from Point A to Point B

Roguelikeness

3 Undeniably a roguelike

2 Procedural mazes, turn based gameplay, hs the basic elements of a roguelike

1 Lacking a little in depth and feeling far too close to a simple arcade game

Well done (especially as this appears to be your first game to itch.io)! My high score was 95300 on endless. Just wanted to add, I think the aspect ratio could be better as a square rather than widescreen. I hope you continue making games in future :)

This was a nice little game. It was well polished, and what's there is decent. It feels like a good first step towards a game.

The key word here is more: more to manage, more to deal with, and more depth in either design or complexity. I like what was started with here but I at no time really felt I was challenged. Maybe have situations where you can throw Yuki into a hole and walk over the hole that way as opposed to using a rope? Have to worry about hunger and instead butcher Yuki for food; or find some somewhere? Look to incorporate more to interact with as you descend the mountain.

Eternal Space Rogue

Completeness

2 Controls are okay, but have surprising effects and are very easy to misclick e.g. dropping item instead of switching or accidentally passing the turn resulting in getting swarmed

2 Game ran well, didn't seem to have bugs, and seemed complete, but lacked a bit in its design

2 Seems stable but poorly balanced.

Aesthetics

2 Icons and layout really are compelling. Reminds me of Chip's Challenge and has a lot of good potential. The controls and some lack of visual polish with cropping and item switching make this stick to a 2 for me. No range finder on weapons meant I had to keep trying to eyeball 6 spaces and often just screwed up and died.

2 It looked nice but the controls were a bit tedious to use

2 Not exactly pretty but everything is clear enough to be understandable.

Fun

1 Just massive number of very easy enemies makes trying to even get out of level 1 something I wasn't able to do in over an hour of play. I can see that maybe if you spent lots of time fighting the details of the game, you could make it a fun experience, but the learning curve was a wall for me.

2 When I got to the 'fun', it was fun, but that took a long time to get too

1 Gets repetitive very quickly and the poor balance means it can often be hard to get out of the first room.

Innovation

1 Not much new here other than maybe the movement/action dynamic being separated, but overall it felt like a solid, in-mold roguelike

2 Run & Gun traditional roguelike with its own unique flavor

1 Nothing unusual here.

Scope

2 Didn't get past the first level due to balance issues, but at least there it felt like a pretty standard expection of what a 7DRL should hit.

3 This looked pretty decent for a 7DRL

1 There's the beginning of something here but it seems under-developed even for 7 days.

Roguelikeness

3 Right in the mold of a roguelike.

3 Ticks enough of the important boxes to be considered a roguelike

3 It's a roguelike.

Impossibly difficult? Random spawns with more enemies than you have bullets in the second room. Movement given room size makes kiting nearly impossible given more than 2 enemies. This core concept has some real potential and the level-up mechanics seemed like they would be interesting. The game was just so chaotic and hard that it meant that it was impossible to really experience the vision. In the description it was written that you should expect to die a lot, but this makes Elden Ring seem like it's a fun casual experience.

I found that the levels were maybe too big - I thought for the longest time you only had two enemies present in the entire game, until I got to level 3. When out of combat and enemies weren't moving the movement was really tedious and in combat I found myself fumbling with the keyboard controls too; it might have been a better idea to use the mouse only available to target with when attacking stuff and limit keyboard only to movement, end turn, and weapon switching. I didn't discard weapons so you might want to note you can do that in your pop up help. This criticism aside though I had a blast playing the game; even on the way to level 3. Well Done.

Pretty basic 'walk around killing the same enemy a lot' gameplay. Perk gains upon levelling. There's nothing hugely wrong with it other than needing some balancing, but no real reason to go out of your way to play it either.

Planet Escape: Short Sci-Fi Roguelike

Completeness

2 Pressing '?' gives error, resizing/maximizing causes errors, starting a new game is a convoluted process

2 Worked fine, ran fine, was able to read the instructions in the welcome message; unable to read the in game instructions after that message. Was a bit rough playing since enemies were moving in cardinal directions, but still beatable.

2 Seems feature complete, but it's a little unpolished and the command to show keybindings throws up an error.

Aesthetics

2 Graphics are OK, needing multiple menus to use items is inconvenient

2 Tiles were readable, the controls were clunky

2 Looks fine, but the UI is a little clunky with too many presses needed to do most things.

Fun

1 I didn't find much strategic interest (just choose the equipment with the bigger number) but I didn't win in the time I played so maybe I'm missing something, has grenades and destructible terrain, this is possibly a bug but the fact you can loot stuff thru walls (it's scifi so maybe the player is telekinetic) is a fun quirk

2 I had fun but it felt the sabre alien soldiers could have been more interesting; also a lack of explording barrels to exploit

1 Not bad but doesn't offer anything interesting enough to recommend.

Innovation

1 Standard scifi roguelike

2 It reminds me of the Jupiter Hell experience; but with your character being less of a bad ass

1 Standard dungeon crawl, just set aboard a spacecraft.

Scope

2 Typical

2 Around what I expect content wise

2 Fair for 7 days.

Roguelikeness

3 All the roguelike staples except for RPG leveling

3 Had enough staples to give it full marks for being a roguelike.

3 It's a roguelike.

This is more similar to classic roguelikes like Stone Soup or Nethack than most 7DRLs, so you might want to check it out if that is your thing

I liked the concept here but felt it was a bit shallow gameplay wise. For the most part I just wandered the ship opening doors, killing anything on the other side, looting what was there, and continuing. I liked the idea that I had to dodge out of enemy fire, the dwindling oxygen tank you have to resupply, and that you have glowsticks that you could leave on the ground to light up surroundings. But I don't think this entry was solildly doing anything with all of this in a meaningful way; nor was there any other interesting activities that I had to do besides getting from Point A, to Point B, and back to Point A.

Find the way to exit each floor, picking up equipment and oxygen along the way. Equipment just has better or worse stats as far as I can tell. Aside from the slightly cumbersome interface and the non-functional '?' command, there's nothing wrong with the game. It's fine. It just doesn't do anything to set it apart.

Roguezilla

Completeness

3 Didn't run into any issues.

3 Ran fine, worked fine, and seemed complete enough

2 Complete but end game is very hard needs to improve the difficulty scale.

Aesthetics

2 Mostly clear, though at first it's not apparent which buildings can be destroyed and which can't.

3 Sounded fine, had multiple sets of controls, could tell what I was looking at

2 Good colour

Fun

1 It functions but it's too shallow to sustain interest for more than a few minutes.

2 I had fun enough with it

2 Good mechanics and fun for the scope envisaged

Innovation

1 Very basic.

2 Godzilla meets Roguelike seems novel enough

1 Nothing innovative.

Scope

1 Not a lot here really.

2 Maybe a bit light on content but not by much

2 What you would expect for a 7DRL challenge.

Roguelikeness

2 Turn-based but with no real decisions.

2 A little too close to being an arcade game but roguelike enough

2 Missing a lot of important features to be considered a true RL enemies stats, hero damage...

Walk around at random hoping to find your stolen eggs. Some buildings you can smash, some you can't. Dangers escalate in number but you can heal by hopping back in the sea. With nothing to do other than moving around, and no way to find the eggs other than wandering at random, the game is just too simple and too shallow to be worth playing. I like the concept though.

This was a nice way to blow off a little steam, but not exactly something I would pick up again. There isn't a whole lot here besides just stomping around an island city collecting your eggs. Would have liked it if the water was a bit more protective since objects quickly lose their velocity when shot into water; if not being undetected in it. The Roguezilla was also just a bit generic since he could only stomp; and there were only four enemies that I could see that you had to deal with.

It is an interesting approach. However, the lack of skills or features makes the helicopters really hard to chase and the tanks do too much damage.

RUN

Completeness

2 The game runs, but it so barebone that it's hardly can be called completed.

2 Worked fine; relatively minimal game but not "missing" much. I noticed a bug where sometimes arrows seem to go through enemies, and the sword does not seem to work against some enemies.

3 Looked to be complete and working fine

Aesthetics

2 Combination of pixel art and ascii looks nice. Controls could be better though. Often weapon pointer looks horizontal, but an arrow shoots at an angle. There is no arrow count. Potion silently override each other.

2 Really nice combination of very-low-res pixel graphics and letters for enemies. And cool to see a PICO-8 game! I would like it if some things were visually clearer though, particularly on some levels it is hard to make out where the arrows are, and it is hard to tell which direction I'm aiming in even at close range. Unusual choice of controls for attack direction, I'd prefer something more like a cursor to choose where to target.

2 After I understood the controls they worked fine, the background colors were not that great though

Fun

2 Well, it's quite nice to make a run or two, or dozen, or two dozens... It's somewhat addictive. But once you realize that you don't have to fight, running is much more efficient, some charm disappears. Also levels from 3 are way too long with way too enemies, it becomes tiresome.

3 Frustrating at first but really enjoyable once I got the hang of it.

1 Not exactly a whole lot happening as you go from left to right

Innovation

1 Attempts to make a roguelike game where time moves only when actions are performed were done before. This minimalistic game does not bring anything new to the table.

3 Not your usual dungeon-crawler, but there is a good mix of different kinds of enemies with their own distinct behaviours, and even the simple random enemy placement felt like it created new situations each time.

2 This sort of idea has been explored, although not often, and not with Superhot style controls

Scope

2 A few more monsters wouldn't hurt at all, but more or less about what one might expect from 7drl.

2 Pretty minimal game; I'd give this a 1 except for the fact that you did this largely from scratch, and for the PICO-8, which is kind of ambitious!

1 Honestly seemed a little more then a demo of an idea here

Roguelikeness

2 Way too minimalistic in terms of possible actions and choices to be called a true roguelike. Also levels basically do not exist, the are colored backgrounds with no meaning.

2 It has some of the things that people who play roguelikes are looking for, but it's missing other things. Most notably the lack of grid-based movement and turn-based combat means I lost several runs due to input errors or poor reaction times, which is not what I expect from a roguelike.

1 This is sorely lacking in depth and doesn't really have any meaningful goal

Nice little game with couple interesting ideas. The need to pick up arrows, monsters killing each other. But after some point there is 'more of the same' syndrome which leads to boredom.

I found this game frustrating at first because the controls for attacking weren't very intuitive (holding one key while pressing another doesn't come naturally). But after about 15 minutes I got the hang of that, and it felt really good to fire three arrows at different enemies simultaneously and have them all hit. I also really enjoyed speedrunning through the level, not attacking any enemies and just letting them kill each other - this is actually easier than playing "properly" on the first few levels but it's fun, so I don't think that's a problem. Main complaint is the attack controls, which are a bit difficult to use and that encourages the "run past and dodge the enemies" strategy even though it's probably not what you were going for. There was also noticeable lag if you speed ahead without killing all the enemies, but that's not surprising on the PICO-8 platform.

You might check out Fleeing The Fray (7DRL 2013) for a similar style of game to this. I found this game to be lacking a bit in tactical play as you just ran through enemies without really all that much thinking. Not sure what the G enemies were all about, not really enough enemy types to interact with. I do think there could be promise here if perhaps you had to collect something as you ran along or you had to make a bit more decisions.

Cosmic Corsair

Completeness

2 Didn't encounter any bugs during gameplay, controls are smooth with no issues. Some item and enemy balance seems slightly off, through multiple you could find yourself a high tier weapon that would carry you through the entire game or a high tier enemy with no items for a game over. Game seems feature complete and has a high amount of polish

1 Game runs and doesn't crash, but it doesn't have safety checks - critical one being having enough loot to collect!

Aesthetics

3 The art in this game is fantastic and there is a lot of detail, all characters, items, and effects were easy to understand. There is a lot of polish down to lighting effects on the character as you move through hallways

2 I misclicked once when trying to shoot an enemy and they got several free hits, another time I was shot around the corner with no visual of the enemy. Other then that it sounded good and generally worked fine control wise.

Fun

2 This game is definitely worth a number of playthroughs, the ships make logical sense and are fun to explore, loot feels important and there is some clear progression through the runs. A little more variety in items or abilities would go along way and the ability to sell/buy with the extra loot you might find in a ship would add a lot.

1 I feel that the idea of raiding is fun, but the execution here was not; need more goodies to find, puzzles to solve, something!

Innovation

1 The attention to detail in a lot of areas of the game really shine, would have liked to see some more interesting tie-ins with space or ship to ship mechanics. Ultimately the gameplay feels fairly standard dungeon dive.

2 Looting spaceships has been done, but this was a little more traditional then most of the other roguelikes I've seen

Scope

2 The scope of the art and effects are what really shine in this game and go well above what you'd expect out of 7drl. The only thing holding back the scope would be some more depth in gameplay mechanics

1 What I could see in the first two levels as quite limited.

Roguelikeness

3 Absolutely, 100% a roguelike, theres no doubt about it.

3 You get full marks here

Cosmic Corsair is an intense ship to ship piracy roguelike, you grab your gear and board and unsuspecting ship fighting a number of enemies in welll designed spaces. Balance can be a bit off sometimes, some runs are gold while others feel unwinnable. However the gameplay is certainly fun and the game itself runs very well. The highlight of Cosmic Corsair is the art and attention to detail that really drives the immersion in the game.

I'm rather disapointed that I have to give a traditional roguelike 7DRL such low marks, but I feel it is fully warranted. Maybe enemies dropping loot on top of other items was an issue and thus I got less then the 15 I would need to get past level 2? Perhaps it is as I suspect - not enough loot was present to collect! Outside of that critical issue there was potential promise; you just need to add in more item content to collect, maybe have the stats displayed for weapons, etc.

Dungeon Drawler

Completeness

2 The gameplay loop usually works fine apart from a bug where one of the player characters will get stuck walking and softlock the game. Another glitch stopped the enemies from moving on one level, also softlocking the game. The game also restarts at the last level you died on; whether this is a bug or not I'm not certain. Controls also still feel very rough

2 The game feels complete. I didn't reach the end (if there is one) because I would usually hit bugs after 6 or 7 levels where it wouldn't let me move anymore

Aesthetics

2 Controls make sense, the pixel art and animations are impressive, the screen shake and sound effects are both satisfying. Music wasn't bad either

3 Great art style with a cool visual effect

Fun

2 Hard but fair. The strategy required to move the players around is compelling, though I often felt my positioning from the previous level put me at an instant disadvantage in some levels. Always left wondering whether I could have avoided damage by playing better

2 The levels feel like little puzzles that were fun to try and figure out

Innovation

2 Needs another mechanic or two to make it really stand out from other puzzle roguelikes

1 The game was fun, but there wasn't anything particularly innovative that I saw

Scope

2 Small gameplay scope, but visuals are impressive for time frame

2 There's a full game of content here, but it's fairly limited in scope. There isn't much variety in the monsters or levels

Roguelikeness

1 Roguelite, ends up feeling closer to a puzzle game with fire emblem movement

2 Turn based, procedural levels, tactical gameplay. Doesn't have any realy RPG elements

Well done! I see this is another game similar to your previous work, but to achieve something of this high quality within a week is a huge success. With a few tweaks to difficulty this could essentially be complete. Thank you for adding a toggle for the screen effect :)

This was a fun game with puzzle-like levels that rewarded spending a little time planning. After you've solved a few levels, it does start to feel a little repetitive, though.

Elemental Caverns

Completeness

2 Really good effort here with some issues on gameplay and design

2 It worked but there were noticeable bugs and you couldn't fullscreen it in the browser

Aesthetics

2 A minimal but neat aesthetics for representing the caverns

1 Should have avoided the blue color on black, issues with playing in the browser

Fun

2 I'm sure there's more to get into

1 I might have had fun but I was battling with the browser quite a bit

Innovation

2 Combining the elementals and artifacts is a neat idea

2 The random artefacts with different powers was decent enough to note

Scope

2 A decent size for a 7DRL entry

1 Gameplay was a bit short, could have had more artefact or enemy types

Roguelikeness

3 Turn-based, permadeath and lots of dungeon exploring to do

3 Definitely a roguelike

An interesting idea here. Hopefully can build upon it and fix up some color choices, allow fullscreen and try to avoid the browser window being affected by keyboard arrows. I like the idea of forging here though! Hopefully the dev had a great time!

So issues aside with playing the game, the core concept was interesting enough to explore. I think this would have been a lot better if you mixed finding and empowering the artefacts with a traditional inventory system in terms of getting more complexity out of the game; as opposed to just having the artefacts themselves. Enemies weren't that difficult - I mostly only died because of bugs.

Gun Drops

Completeness

2 Solid game that's playable and had no bugs that I found. Only a 2 for me because it feels like there's some roughness in the mechanics and the "endless" nature doesn't seem like the final result, but it does seem complete.

2 Game runs, no crashes, no win state

Aesthetics

2 The locking of movement felt a little kludgey, but everything else was nice. PICO8 makes it hard to get to a 3 in aesthetics for me, since it's just hard to distinguish some sprites, but it has a good vibe.

2 Controls work; seeing through holes to the next lower floor was confusing at first

Fun

2 Something that is worth a few plays, but not going to be an all-timer since it feels more twitchy than planned out strategy to me at least

2 Fun for a few minutes. Enough threat to be challenging at the start, then gets deadlier as you descend

Innovation

2 The level view-ahead mechanic is very cool and should be explored more. The size of the game makes it hard to have huge innovations beyond that though

2 I liked the frequent downward drops -- strange at first but important to tactics

Scope

2 Solid quick play games with very limited mechanics

2 Typical 7DRL scope

Roguelikeness

2 Would hit 1.5 for me, but I upranked it because it does have some random generation as you go further and has permadeath in spades. Feels more like an action shooter to me.

1 Real-time, procgen levels (not for gear or opponents), maze-like, permadeath

Cool mechanic that has fun replayability, but isn't able to escape the concept of "fast paced action game" to become a highly recommendable roguelike to me. It's cute to show someone, and has legs for sure.

Mine and fall through levels while collecting detonators for points & more destruction. Good game, but I wish it was turn-based and had a win condition

Amulet of Nyrac

Completeness

3 Controls work, game runs flawlessly, fairly polished

2 Worked fine and seemed bugged free, although it lacked polish

2 Game is complete with no bugs but missing a lot of important features, hero does too much damage scale is off.

Aesthetics

3 Beautiful console graphics and game UI

2 Enemies could move/attack diagonally while hero couldn't, graphics looked fine

2 Good colour and aesthetics.

Fun

2 Fairly basic gameplay but the flavor text on items is fantastic and funny

1 Hit stuff, kill stuff, collect stuff, use stuff, equip stuff, descend; not much else but this

2 Worth playing nothing more.

Innovation

1 The usual rogelike mechanics

1 Just your good old traditional roguelike

1 Nothing innovative.

Scope

2 Good size for 7DRL

1 Could have had a bit more enemy progression; perhaps with less levels if you were looking to stretch it out

1 Game seems like a demo, not many features.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

3 Yep, Berlin Interpretation approved

2 Missing enemies stats, hero damage...

Great console graphics and fairly polished but very standard roguelike experience. Could use more variety in the enemies and abilities. The item descriptions are good, I wanted to read them every time I got to something new. I would love to play this more with more character variety!

Just a classic roguelike experience here with no real bells or whistles. It isn't really doing anything special or noteworthy, nor is it very vast or complicated. I sort of feel like this idea could have been fleshed out more with cardinal controls for the enemies, more items and equipment... more or everything really. Walking around in this dungeon was quite the boring experience. Congratulations on learning SadConsole though as that was likely more of your reward here I assume.

This game is very generic, missing important features to be unique. For now, I do not see anything out of the ordinary. It is a good game, but basic.

Window Traveler 2

Completeness

2 So, there doesn't seem to be many bugs, but enemies don't feel engaging, just like resource drains

2 Functional though barebones

2 Ran, seemed to function, was perhaps a bit barebones and had a couple light bugs

Aesthetics

3 Controls are smimple, and the lighting reveals are cool

2 Looks decent, the nonuniform FoV revealing was a cool style and added texture to the caves.

3 Inputs worked well enough, sounded fine

Fun

1 The ideas being mixed here have potential, but this game doesn't really draw that potential out, as it stands

1 Most just moving through caves, I would have liked if it incorporated the level manipulation in a more meaningful way.

1 I liked the idea but didn't feel the game did anything enjoyable with it

Innovation

2 There's some cool ideas here

3 Great in concept, I feel like being able to modify the dungeon itself could allow for some interesting strategies if refined.

2 The idea of building a dungeon has been done, but this seemed unique enough in how it connected things

Scope

1 A tech demo of dragging rooms around and walking through them, without a way to deal with enemies without taking damage that's *very* difficult to recover from

2 Overall its pretty small, most of the focus seems to be on the level gen,

1 This barely passes as a tech demo, very little was here

Roguelikeness

2 This game is *waaaaay* simple in terms of tactics, but there's more than one system a play

3 Tile based, crawling through caves to bump enemies and occassionaly get a potion.

1 It was too simple to call this a roguelike - or a roguelite.

This feels more like a tech demo than a game at this stage. I think the bits of tech that are here could be turned into something fun, but haven't quite cohered into that yet.

I think this concept has alot of potential, though the game design needs more work to make it feel rewarding to use the core mechanic though might be difficult to work out in a jam setting.

The idea of building the dungeon is novel enough, but nothing interesting was really done with it. Some ideas: Make it so that you have to use the tiles that have two entry points - but the entry points aren't connected to each other on the tile (thus you have to find a way to navigate to the other entry point to fully explore it. Give more content besides a single enemy and a single powerup pick up. Have it so that you can flee out of a tile from an enemy; only to be able to come back into said tile from another entry point. etc. Just do something with the idea and you might be able to make an interesting game out of it.

Rogue Space

Completeness

3 Definitely some balancing that could happen, but the core mechanics all work and there are no bugs. The music adds to the vibe nicely

2 You sometimes need to press the “main menu” button twice to restart, when moving at full speed the screen sometimes jumps, seems reasonably complete

2 No bugs and everything seems mostly fine, just maybe a bit rough around the edges.

Aesthetics

3 Feels just like Endless Sky and the other games of this type. Space feels big and enemies feel lethal

2 Graphics and controls are OK

2 All functional.

Fun

2 Doesn't add a ton to the core combat mechanic, but it is nice that different weapons make game play feel dramatically different

2 Trying to survive while getting chased by a bunch of ships was an interesting challenge, zooming around at full speed avoiding crashing into rocks gave me a nice flow state

1 Personally I don't think there's enough going on here to make it worth playing.

Innovation

1 Innovative in that I've not seen this type of game as a roguelike before, but really doesn't add anything new to that genre

2 Asteroids style gameplay

1 It's a pretty standard space shooter, I've played games exactly like this before.

Scope

2 Stays in the wheelhouse of fun and all of the later pieces feel like they are bolted on but are pretty incomplete. The shops are minimal and the enemies feel like natural progressions of each other. Nothing really bounding out of the box here.

2 Has the basics to make a solid game but doesn't have much that I saw (new/upgraded weapons don't change the game much)

2 Reasonable.

Roguelikeness

2 Permadeath and random placement of things, but this is a soft 2 since it is very far away from anything I'd consider traditional

2 Real-time Asteroids style gameplay, random maps and enemy ships, shop upgrades, permadeath

1 Not remotely a roguelike. It's a real-time shooter.

I enjoyed it! The balance made it not particularly replayable since boost is just so overpowered and the world doesn't have very much time to sit and do things like mining, so you're just constantly running if you're playing optimally.

6325 was my best score. I've seen a few of these procgen Asteroids with upgrades games, and this is a solid entry.

An omnidirectional shooter where you blast asteroids for cash, fend off hostile vessels, and buy upgrades. It does all of those things well enough but it's not a roguelike at all, and it doesn't do anything interesting enough to make it worth checking out.

@urora's music box

Completeness

2 This game definitiely feels complete. But a bit of polish and more content, mainly music would go a long way to making this feel like a complete experience.

3 Ran well, was stable, didn't seem to have bugs

Aesthetics

2 The visual style is great, I like the color scheme. The particle fx are a bit chatoic but they did give helpful feedback on when I was attacking. It would help if the enemies were viualized a bit more to match what they are or how they will behave. For example, I didn't realize R was indestructable until reading the description of the game.

3 It controlled fine (since you can adjust the sensitivity) and worked visually; sound was clear which is a big thing too

Fun

1 I think this a a great framework to make a fun game. For me personally, the soundtrack was too chaotic. It was hard to focus on the gameplay. Sometime the generated soundtrack placed the bongos on a weird beat, which I would interpret as the down-beat. This resulted in missing al ot of turns because it wa sjust hard to interpret the beat both visually and audibly.

1 I found it too simplistic

Innovation

2 Though there was a t least one other similar entry this year, I think this a a great twist on the turnbased mechanics.

2 Rhythm based roguelikes aren't new, but aren't heavily explored either

Scope

2 For a seven day game, this is a good scope. It's got the beat based turn timer, a great color scheme, and the beat is hooked up to all of the viual elements. There are also nice UI transitions. I like the variety of enemies. It'd be great to see a few more trick sfor the player to perform. Fore example, ally monsters, different move patternes, temporary invincibility, critical hits.

1 Felt too limited for what I expect out of a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

2 If this entry had more procedural content and more of a world to traverse I think it could be considered a rogulike. But as it is now, it''s much more a music-based timing game.

1 I felt that it was a bit too simplistic in what you can do; just move to dodge and attack enemies as they come to you

Great job on acieving this in sevent days. Though it doesn't exactly fit the genre (in my opinion) it could easily become a fun waiting room game with some more polish and content (and touch controls for mobile!)

This could be interesting if there was little bit more depth to the gameplay. Maybe have it so that items will come down the track or have the rhthym change. As it is right now this really just seems like more a demo of an idea then a game to have fun with when played.

ASCII survivor

Completeness

3 Simple but fairly complete

2 Lacking in polishing department. The screen for upgrades are very minimalist but not in a good way, they all have the same colour and it is difficult to know when you bought something or not.

Aesthetics

2 Simple ASCII graphics; not bad but very simple

2 Controls are fine but with a lack in colour pallete.

Fun

3 More arcade style than RL; fun little game

2 This game is fun and is worth checking it out.

Innovation

2 Game draws from themes from other games that you've seen before

1 Nothing new.

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

1 I dont think this game has many things to offer and it feels like a tech demo.

Roguelikeness

1 Arcade game, not a RL

1 Game is real-time and is lacking a lot of important features to be considered a true-roguelike

Neat little game that is fun to play, just not a RL

Fun game but I would not add this as a roguelike, it is a shoot'em up more or less in which you attack from all directions.

Ancient Rage

Completeness

1 No instructions and controls not intuitive

2 Had some bugs but could play it normally.

Aesthetics

2 Simple but good aesthics

2 Well the controls are intuitive and works, that is about it.

Fun

1 Hard to evaluate; no ability to attack.

1 I did not enjoyed as much as I liked due to the mechanic of having more than three enemies around you to activate the rage status, this led to a very difficult time in which you have to constantly look for enemies to fight around you and sometimes there is only three that is chasing you, and you loose health. The angels are random, the skills are random and even the instructions of the angel are random. Did not enjoyed at all.

Innovation

2 Seems like it is solid game

2 It is interesting and a different approach but it needs rework.

Scope

2 Average sized 7DRL

2 I think this game is ok, it still needs rework and some improvement.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic roguelike feel

2 Classic roguelike, needs some elements to include as a true roguelike. No idea how much damage I can inflict with the rage activated or when angel gives a buff. The damage is only shown afterwards, which I imagine it is constant but should not be... At least add some basic information abou attack and resistance of you char

Hard to evaluate with no ability to attack. No help menu or other guidance. Look and feel of an old school RL

Some issues with this game includes the fact that we are supposing to follow the angel commands but the commands are only left right up and down. However, your character can attack diagonally, so the devs should have added an option that attack up-right is ok as well when the angel invokes the command up, for example to give more breathing option to the player. Additionally, some of the skills do not seem practical, such as the ability to zip away from enemies when the goal is to stay close to them to attack. This skill has a higher chance of success in the first attempt, but can lead to losing rage and ultimately, game over. Overall, the game design feels poorly executed. The mechanic of activating rage after being surrounded by three enemies also poses an issue due to the limited number of enemies in the environment. Finally, the appearance of the angel and the distribution of skills is randomized, leading to a lack of control for the player. Overall, I see potential but it needs improvement.

Avian Vault Clamber

Completeness

2 A few bugs, but overall feels okay for a 7drl. Being able to see stats and info for items, in order to tell exactly what items do and which weapon is better would be a huge improvement, though. It took me a quite a while to figure out what "bird feed" does due to the miniscule amount of healing it gives.

3 Game runs fine (Windows build), no crashes, can be won

Aesthetics

2 Some of the wall sprites seem to be off, but overall the pixel art fits well with the theme and atmosphere.

2 Simple but easy to understand

Fun

1 Alas, the game is quite repetitive. Just stay in corridors, kite enemies, open chests, and smash your face against the keyboard in frustration due to lack of a minimap. It doesn't help that archers seem to bugged (they don't shoot or attack).

1 Repetative. Enemies all fight the same. Loot is either weapon or health. I spent *way* too long to find a ladder on Level 5

Innovation

1 Seems to be a fairly simple hack-and-slash with attacks and weapons. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least on the earlier levels (<8) which I played.

1 Hack, slash, heal, repeat.

Scope

2 Scope seems okay for a 7drl. More interesting enemies wouldn't hurt, though.

1 There just isn't much to do here beyond basic RL fighting, healing, and descending.

Roguelikeness

3 Turn-based, permadeath, procedural generation. Ticks all the boxes.

3 Procedurally generated levels, permadeath (but after learning how to use the controls I couldn't really die), maze-like. Turnbased, simple graphics. Hits the major RL notes.

Seems to be a fairly nice prototype for a hack-and-slash roguelike, but it's missing an interesting mechanic(s) as a "hook". That said, the overall atmosphere and aesthetics were very nice, such as the flavor messages or the "cloud" effect.

This one's not for me. Basic but functional RL. I think it's supposed to be funny but I just didn't get the jokes / references.

ColorRogue

Completeness

2 Stable, and works, but is missing a some features around enemy state

2 ColorRogue runs well but is lacking polish

2 Ran and didn't crash, but sometimes the information wouldn't properly display with actions did what

Aesthetics

2 Nice GB look, but a bit screen-crunchy

3 Wonderful pixel art and 1bit palette

1 Visually it was hard to see what was going on in this game and there was nothing to really tell you what action point you were on and such

Fun

2 Pretty fun after figuring out the basics, but resource management options seem to be lacking

2 Fun the first few runs to get some knowledge of the different abilities

1 Not enjoyable to play

Innovation

2 Pretty effective compacting of StS style mechanics

1 Not much new or unique

1 Wasn't really anything notable here I think

Scope

2

2 Decent size for a 7DRL

2 I liked the idea of the mana system and how you had to build your character based on what you came across; but felt there was little content outside of this

Roguelikeness

2

2 Has some roguelike elements, random abilities and enemies and permadeath

2 I don't feel there was a total lack of roguelike attributes here, but it did feel lacking in some

Neat start on a Slay the Spire sort of game, but the resource management in the combat feels a bit on the stingy side. Not seeing enemy health amounts, or having much interaction with enemies outside of "use a spell" makes for shallow stragtegizing and/or tactical gameplay

A gameplay tutorial woul help a lot with getting started quicker, the controls are simple though so it was ok to figure out after a few runs. Not much variety when you keep getting the same options to upgrade sometimes so the gameplay can get a little stagnant. Overall a fun concept that with more enemy and ability variety and some polish could be very fun and replayable.

I couldn't even tell what type of game this was jumping into it and I wasn't even sure if the game was working initially. After fiddling around with the keys and mouse I finally noticed I could select the options up top. Running through the game it was sometimes hard to see the enemies due to how busy the background was. There was really no rhyme or reason to how upgrades were given and it felt like randomness was too much of a factor. There didn't seem to be anything outside of stat upgrades for the character or new abilities to play with so I grew disinterested in the game quite quickly.

Cyberarctica

Completeness

2 There's a lot here, but quite a few rough edges. I ran into quite a few things that weren't quite working or lacked polish (UI had a lot of quirks, some game systems didn't seem to work)

1 Happens to be able to use cards while even dead. V-Sync should be set up my computer increased the fps to increasing amounts using this game. However, I do think the game is very bad towards optimization due to the big size of each level. The U.I. is messy, your character information on key ^c^ is out of place of the view of the game window and it is not possible to see everything.

Aesthetics

3 I love the card art

1 The tiles and characters, monsters seems a little out of place to the theme. I would change some of them. Tiles presents random squares of water.

Fun

2 It's a really cool idea. I think with a bit more variety in gear and cards would make it a lot of fun

1 It was an interesting experience but a lot of information is missing, such as what does O.C. mean and why do I keep loosing health by a program memmory fragment? I assume is due to use of cards, but why would I loose health and took damage for using them in the first place. The combat feels very generic even with the cards, no special attack or information specific information on the enemy health because we cant see them.

Innovation

3 The card mechanic is great; I liked that my available attacks kept cycling

1 Cards within a roguelike, nothing extraordinary some features are there but cannot make heads or tails of what it is supposed to do.

Scope

2 There's a decent amount of content here for a 7DRL

1 This game seems like a tech demo to me, unfortunately not much has been put into it to state it is what is expected within 7 days.

Roguelikeness

3 Very much a traditional roguelike

2 Missing a lot of important features to be considered a true roguelike, so far I only see cards, not able to check enemy health status or specific damage from weapons.

This was fun, and I really liked the card mechanic for the attacks. Some of the systems were a little confusing (the energy system.) With some more polish and card variety this could be great.

While browsing the itch.io page of this developer, I gathered that this game is intended as an experimental outlet for their concepts and game development. Despite this, I found the game to be quite unremarkable and in need of substantial improvements, including fixing the performance and U.I. glitches, improving the display of enemy status information, providing clearer guidance on the game's interface elements, and offering more detailed information on the consequences of discarding cards.

Entropic Ocean

Completeness

2 Its not easy to design and implement a game in sevent days. I'm not sure what the end goal is of this game and there isn't a strong sense of progression. As in there wasn't anything to discover or change the gameplay as I continued through the areas. But this game does have a sold core loop of arriving in an area, choosing which monsters to dominate, and fight off the others while maintaining healtyh and mana.

1 Overall did not feel complete, there was no victory condition and not much progression to speak of. Also, please include some kind of instructions, even just a .txt file inside the game zip giving a basic explanation would be really appreciated.

Aesthetics

2 The game has some nice particle FX, great monster sprites, and a bunch of nice ability icons. I like the shiny effect of the tile map as well. The way you move players to the next area was really cool! The controls are a bit janky still but could be improved with a few simple changes. I love that most things are right-clickable. This gives you more information about monsters and abilities. However navigation between these menus is not obvious. I'd suggest making this more obvious by changing the cursor to a pointer or highlighting the things that are clickable while the cursor is hovering. I would make these overlays disappear on a click anywhere in the game rather than just on the overlay itself. And perhaps mapping some things to the escape key would be helpful in keeping the player in thflow of the game. For example, I often wanted to cancel an ability but the escape key doesn't work for that. I did encounter a bug that got me stuck in a pop-up window labels "Test". It happend after clicking on the elephant and then clicking on its empty slot. I could never get back out of this window.

3 Extremely pretty. The effects were amazing, the way the clouds disintegrated when you moved area, it was all fantastic.

Fun

1 I think this is a great attempt, but ultimately for me it wasn't super fun after figuring out the first two areas. This is mostly because I had seen all the enemies in the first area and no new enemeis ever appears. One thing that may help is alo to make it more obvious to the player the effect that different types of damage do. I saw void damage, fire damage etc, but I could quite figure out if there was a rock-paper-scissors style damage system or not. I think there's a alot of content in this game to play with. It just needs to be structured differnetly and mad more obvious. Also, adding a sense of progression could be great. Something like allowing the player to pick a new ability or upgrade a current ability after clearing an area.

1 There wasn't that much room for different approaches, and overall the game didn't seem that balanced. My strategy was to just mind control a bunch of guys and watch them fight, which was actually quite fun for a while, but not for very long.

Innovation

1 nothing new here but it's a great start to implementing the systems that many roguelike players love.

2 There isn't a lot of innovation here, apart from looking very nice, which isn't very common for roguelikes.

Scope

2 This game packs a good bit of content in some great ways. There are only 5 player abilties and they never change. But there are a ton of enemy abilities and damage types and attack types (melee, ranged) to be explored. Perhaps simlifying the enemeis and what they can do would go a long way here. I'd give some of these abilties to the player instead. Some of that stuff was cool but all I could do was watch the enemeis use the cool stuff!

2 It's clear a ton of effort has gone into the presentation, and it's clear that the scope was intended to be larger than what was completed.

Roguelikeness

3 it's turn-based, character-centric, has procedural content, and uses a common setting of "this place is full of monsters, let's wipe them out".

2 This is a roguelike, but it's missing a lot of the features I'd expect to see from Roguelikes, like heavily strategic planning, and inventory management

Felt more like a tech demo, but my god is it pretty! Probably the best effects and “juice” that I've ever seen in a 7DRL entry.

Eye of the Goblin Lord: A Knight's Descent into Darkness

Completeness

3 Seems reasonably complete, and I haven't run into anything that seems like a bug at first glance. The boss doesn't seem to have an attack animation, although I suspect that might be intended as part of the challenge, to distinguish it from the mooks who telegraph their attacks.

2 Technically complete with a start and end there seems to be a few erronious features and bugs

Aesthetics

3 Pretty solid visuals, I like the retro-y aesthetic of it overall. Controls are intuitive enough as far as I'm concerned. If I have one complaint, it's that there's no visibility into the game mechanics; I can pick up "The Poison Sword" or "Armor" or whatever item I encounter, and it feels like they're doing SOMETHING for me, but I have no idea what exactly anything except Ham does.

2 Nothing special kind of appealing in a very crunchy ammeture pixel art kind of way final boss was interesting

Fun

2 I found it pretty enjoyable to dodge and slash through for a little while, but I admit I probably won't come back to it after judging, especially since I've beaten the boss.

1 Ive you have played old like punch outesque flash games youve played better than whats going on here

Innovation

1 A game that essentially only has "attack" and "defend" options is obviously gonna be pretty low on the innovation scale, but I do like the way you show the dungeon map so the player can plan his route through the dungeon. It reminds me a little of FTL in that regard and brings that little bit of extra roguelikeyness to a game that is really just a twitchy game for the most part.

1 You have seen all of these features before

Scope

2 You've done a good job with keeping the scope managable here; one small dungeon with a few enemies and a boss, plus some items and shops. It's a small and simple game, but it's nicely put together.

2 Solid scope seems to hit all the boxes, random level paths, a few items, enemies, and pickups

Roguelikeness

2 This is a solid little lunchbreak-size real-time rogue-lite game. It's a little fiddly and needs some polish, but it was a fun way to kill some time.

1 I would usually put this in the 2 as i see the roguelike inspiration but it truly feels like the same game every run and doesnt use any traditional rogue elements being real time and not grid based in any sense

This game has a few quirks I'm not fond of, but overall I like it despite its simplicity. I'd like to see a little more variety in combat, and maybe show some kind of danger level for monster rooms in the map based on how many/how tough the monsters are, so that you can decide to take an easier route or a harder route with more items, etc.

This one feels like a bit of a mismatch for this game jam, I see the more modern roguelike inspiration with the slay the spire style map but overall the game just isnt roguelike in this scope. Runs end up very samey especially when 7 of the 10 items you can find only appear to restore health, the swords just improve your damage(maybe i cant really tell since enemies appear to have randomized health) and the last item is literally the starting sword which seems to do nothing. Most runs feel exaclt the same and I have completed one start to finish without picking up a single item. Some enemies attack patterns feel random as to if they choe to attack over and over again but theres never any realy threat or pressure to engage or memorize thier patterns and every one can be defeated by waiting for them to swing stepping infront swinging back and repeating. Even the final boss falls to this strategy and although I found its desing to actually be quite compelling the fact that it cant move or even fight back really evokes some internesting feeling of discomfort and dossonance from the rest of the game which cudos if thats intentional. Overall I like the ameturish style and idea of the gameplay here but the excecution just ends up falling a little flat which is totally understandable for a 7drl and a solid submission.

Knave's Tales

Completeness

2 Controls work, but ran into a few game ending bugs

2 Ran fine and without issue, though unable to get past the fourth map

Aesthetics

3 A really neat isometric grid idea

2 Has really nice look to it, but sort of hard to understand how potions were used and had a lot of misclicks when attacking enemies

Fun

2 it's VERY close - I feel that a few more iterations on this would amp up the fun level

1 Hack, slash, whatever.

Innovation

2 a good twist on a classic dungeon

1 I suppose the idea here is that you use the left mouse button for everything?

Scope

2 a lot was chopped but decent

1 Little depth in combat and very simple character system

Roguelikeness

3 definitely classic roguelike feel

1 I'm not sure procedural generation was present at all for this game

I really enjoyed this entry and could see myself coming back to it. A good visual twist on the dungeon concept, it just needs a bit more TLC in terms of being able to beat a map and maybe more hints, sound and music?

When I initially looked at this game I couldn't get past the ancient shrine; more direction needs to be given to indicate to the player what they have to do with those altars. Was this game entirely handcrafted? That sort of defeats the purpose of the roguelike genre as you the developer are not suppose to know the answer to all the puzzles; the procedural generation is to make it so that each run is unique and different. Double clicking for attacking led to a lot of misclicks and movement and didn't desire, there doesn't seem to be any safety code to stop you when you are taking hits as you automove too; more could be done to improve this (maybe make use of the right mouse button to attack).

Magicora

Completeness

2 Obvious bugs regarding some generative text and the zoom scroll feature on in the hubworld, but otherwise works fine

3 Looked complete and ran well; issues with taking time to load it

Aesthetics

2 The randomly generated planets and ships both look great, with nice colour combinations. The text scrolls smoothly, the planets and ships move excellently. The music and sound effects worked as well; the music gave exactly the right vibe for a strange, lonely space adventure

3 Played well but was a bit confused with movement and and attacking

Fun

1 Hate to say it, but outside of the mechanics (collecting parts, small random missions) I couldn't find a major objective to get invested in. I might have missed it in my three playthroughs but it feels like the 'space opera' still needs a story

1 Can't say I found this to be fun

Innovation

2 Unusual for a roguelike, but nothing I haven't seen before

1 Didn't seem to be doing anything all that new

Scope

2 Feels bigger than the average roguelike to begin with, but the size is clear after a few playthroughs. That isn't to say the generative visuals, stories, planet names and ship designs aren't seriously impressive

2 Wasn't a whole lot of depth to the combat, but otherwise the content was good

Roguelikeness

2 Sorta? It's missing the obvious gameplay progression that roguelikes usually follow, but otherwise has all the features of a roguelike

1 This doesn't strike me as being a roguelike since you have no real goals

I knew I was going to like this one the moment I read 'space opera'. Admirably ambitious idea, but the execution still needs some work. Seems like you started with the mechanics, visuals and story before you started with the actual gameplay; I've done the same mistake in my own work. Regardless, what's here is a great start, and awe-inspiring for a one-man, one-week effort

Fly through space and take in the beauty of it all? I'm not sure I really saw the point in this game, if there was one. If there was some goal or story then I completely missed it; it looked to be just about journeying about. I found it quite boring to be honest and not featuring anything really interesting.

Mission Improbable Rogue Agent [roguelike]

Completeness

2 The game feels complete to me and I didn't encounter any bugs. But it does lack visual and mechanic polish.

2 It worked well and seemed feature complete, but the game didn't seem to end when all targets were confirmed killed

2 Seems complete and I didn't encounter any bugs but it's very unpolished.

Aesthetics

1 I appreciate the sheer amount of graphic created for the game. It's impressive! but the aesthetic isn't for me personally. I think using polished graphics would serve this game very well. It took me awhile to understand that the crowd wasn't following me around. I understand now that everytime I mov, the people visible to me also changes. This makes sense but perhaps could be made more obvious visually via fog or dimmed tiles.

2 It is a menu based game, but this may have gone overboard

1 The information you need is all there but it takes some time and effort to figure things out, and there are far too many menus for no real reason.

Fun

2 I give this a low two because I think it could be great fun if it was not so difficult to progress. It's fun trying to avoid the agents while following the a person of interest. But it is VERY hard to actually find the targets. It would be cool of gathering secrets also gave hints or updates on a targets location. I love the crazy amount of options I have to interact with the game. There's a lot of discover in terms of actions and reactions. But it would be nice if more of it happend in the context of the movement map. Or if the resources could do more than just give you money and health. It would be cool of gathering secrets also gave hints or updates on a targets location

1 I can't say I had fun with it, I seemed like I could get by as a murder hobo and not really bother with spycraft

1 The idea is interesting but probably needed more time to make it work.

Innovation

2 I'd say the innovation here is the number of options one has to interact with people in this game. It's not at a ll just a bump/attack game. You can hit, kick, stab, shoot, bribe, steal from or insult people.

2 Spy roguelikes aren't new but they aren't usually this expansive

2 Unusual but kind of reminds me of Liberal Crime Squad.

Scope

2 A high two. There are a lot of options in the game. And if they were tied together a bit more I think this would be even better.

3 Maybe a bit beyond what I expected for a 7DRL

2 Executing this idea well would have been a lot for a week. I think in its current state it's reasonable for 7 days.

Roguelikeness

3 Though a lot of gameplay happens inside of menus, I think this is still essentailly a roguelike.

1 It has some roguelike qualities, but this feels like it has taken quite a few steps away from the genre with the heavy menu use and the lack of grid based action

2 Roguelike-adjacent.

I can tell the scope was huge and you pulled off a lot of stuff here. Good job

I like the idea of a spy based roguelike, but I sort of feel that having the game world visibly in front of you hurts this game a bit. Add in a sort of 'local' playfield type of idea for the offensive actions where you have to confront targets or evade government officials; have destinations like hospitals and black market contacts be on the overworld map as opposed to being just part of a menu; etc. I feel like this is more 'managing the player' as opposed to 'playing them'.

The idea is to travel to different cities assassinating targets, and stealing secrets and money so that you can then travel again. A very poorly-funded spy, it seems. It's a fun idea but the excess of needless menus and the total lack of clarity make it a frustrating play. It probably needed more work than could be done on it in a week. I'd play a more developed/refined version though.

Robe

Completeness

2 It worked but there were at least a couple bugs noticeable

2 There are a few different monsters and spells, enough to fill out the levels, However, all levels are the same.

Aesthetics

3 Controlled fine and looked okay

2 Nice art and color choices.

Fun

1 I felt a little too limited in content to have fun with it

1 It's tough to know how to interact with the game because there is no explanation of spells or monsters. It feels that all spells and cantrips just do a certain amount of damage and have no other special effects, making them indestinguishable. Drinking potions in combat did not feel very helpful-- I usually ran out of mana at some point and died. I did get to level 64, because for some reason the floor number doubles every time you go down, but my success on that run was mostly from avoiding enemies.

Innovation

2 Mixing a bit of JRPG magic with roguelikes seems innovative enough

1 I don't think that the game is going for innovation, but rather a specific dungeon crawling kind of experience.

Scope

2 About right for a 7DRL

2 About what I expect from a 7DRL, though it would be nice to see the levels change in some way as you continue.

Roguelikeness

2 More then a few steps removed from roguelikes, but still close enough to them

2 The levels are procedurally generated, there is permadeath, its a dungeon crawler, and there are unidentified potions, which are enough to get a score of 2 from me. It is not grid-based or turn-based, at least not on the map.

I can see this sort of hitting people in the nostalgia nerve, where you need to figure out what spells will do the most damage against the right enemies. Then you just need to figure out what potions do what and when it is worth engaging enemies or not. The game was perhaps a bit too random as you deal in life and death struggles with enemies. It also got a bit repetitive since there didn't seem to be any progression of enemies and they weren't doing anything really different between runs.

Aesthetically I like the style, and I think there could be some cool interactions with the spell/cantrip system, but the spells really need to have unique effects for the player to feel that they are making interesting decisions. Every wizard has the same spells and same cantrips all unlocked at the start of the game, so there is no decision making or character building. It's not a big deal, but I did find that your inventory carried over between runs when activated in combat. Two things stuck out to me as well as being unique-- the floor number doubling when you go into one of the portals, and the potions not being identified when you drank them, requiring you to remember what they are. Overall, I think its close to being a fun game, but just a little more customization, decision making, and explanation.

Rogue Linear 7DRL

Completeness

3 Stable and runs great

2 Didn't find any bugs but the fact that different types of enemy all have the same sprite makes it feel unpolished.

Aesthetics

2 The tiles and FOV are great, good lighting and coloring. The UI was small and a little hard to read and work with. I had trouble picking up items until I realized you click in the UI not on the tile itself.

2 Mostly clear enough, though it would be preferable to have different enemy sprites.

Fun

1 Hack slash run around looting, not much progression or strategy yet

1

Innovation

1

1 Very basic.

Scope

2 Great amount for a 7DRL

1

Roguelikeness

3 Lots of roguelike feature here, plus great tiles.

3

Lots of potential here. Great tiles and FOV lighting. The UI is a little small and font hard to tread which make it hard to get going. With some polish and some more unique features could be really fun.

As the title suggests, it's entirely linear - walk along a corridor until you get killed. There are several enemy types but they all look the same. There are only two kinds of item, weapons and food, so there isn't much strategy or decision making here. Use food when you're low on health, equip the best weapon. The linearity seems to be the gimmick but that just makes it less interesting.

RogueChess

Completeness

3 Seems complete, runs well

2 Somewhat complete game with some bugs - drag-and-drop controls are not very consistent, and the highlighted squares for possible moves aren't always actually possible.

Aesthetics

2 The skins can make the board state hard to read, but the music track is quite good. It'd be nice to have a drop-shadow for where the piece is currently set to drop to

1 Colour palette and wavy background texture makes it hard to read the text or distinguish the sprites. Sometimes hard to tell which side each piece belongs to.

Fun

2 It's a neat idea, though the opposing player isn't very challenging

1 The gameplay is kind of tedious - the AI is dumb and often jumps into pits and ignores easy captures. There is no real challenge, you just have to keep dragging your pieces until all of the enemy pieces are gone. All of the pieces also move quite slowly so it takes time to just get across the board to start capturing.

Innovation

2 Chess, but with move upgrades

2 Seems like you can choose upgrades to allow pieces to move in different ways, so that's nice.

Scope

2

2 Somewhat ambitious project which, if given more work, could be made into a fun game.

Roguelikeness

1 So, it's grid-based, and has stragegy, but there's very little proc gen of the stages, and this is *chess*, not really Rogue.

2 Turn-based, grid-based, choice of upgrades. There seems to be some procedural generation but the game is too easy for this to affect the gameplay much.

It's got a nice music track, and is an interesting variation on chess, but there's almost no rogueness to it

I can't recommend this game for other players. That said, there's a few good ideas in here and with more work it could be made into a nice little procedural puzzle-type game.

SE-2503

Completeness

3 Looks pretty complete, didn't have any real bugs, and worked fine

2 Seems stable, but lacking in polish.

Aesthetics

3 I can certainly dig the tone and theme presented, controls weren't perfect but that actually fits this game

2 UI is quite awkward. Artwork is a tad messy and inconsistent, but generally functional and includes some nice special effects which add to the atmosphere.

Fun

2 I liked it well enough

1 Maybe I'm not understanding the game well, but it's hard to progress and very repetitive, with no clear objective beyond survival and exploration or the pre-defined level.

Innovation

2 Not too different from other horror survival games out there but distinct enough

1 I can't see anything particularly special in the mechanics.

Scope

2 There was enough content here

2 Fairly standard size of game and feature-set.

Roguelikeness

1 Procedural generation doesn't just mean randomized items, I'm pretty sure the map was handcrafted

1 Fixed level layout, real-time.

This could be a really fun gaming experience, but it isn't a roguelike experience. The map layout is always the same, just that the items you find are different. Outside of this obvious flaw this was really well done for seven days work. Look into adding in procedural generation for your map design though.

A horror-themed top-down game where you need to scavenge through a dark environment keeping up health and O2 to survive. You can only see in a limited torch cone of light, and monsters are hard to avoid. It's the same level layout each game, with monsters randomly distributed, leading to quite repetitive play. There seems little in the way of tactics or choices of optimal play. The atmosphere is nice though, and I love the unique style to the monster graphics which add to the horror feel.

Swords With Friends

Completeness

2 Did not experience any bugs during gameplay, everything functioned as expected. Turns resolve a little slow and touch screen functionallity can sometimes lead to queuing multiple moves when not intended. Multiplayer works and I was able to have multiple users play with multiple phones, awesome feature.

2 Game is very, very laggy.

Aesthetics

1 Character icons do a good job of showing monster types and player characters. Otherwise aesthetics are fairly simple, it seems like there are status effects that aren't conveyed well through icons (boot icon for example). I would like to see more types of terrain or map features. Otherwise items and menus are fleshed out as expected.

2 Monsters are easy to identify, walls and roads as well.

Fun

1 The game is a solid roguelike with expected dungeon crawling. I would like to see a little more on the combat side, especially taking advantage of having multiple players. Item availability caused some bottlenecks on having players in a party feel useful.

1 Did not find the fun factor in this game, the items you use does not seem to have an impact when attacking without a proper dialog window to provide context for its usage.

Innovation

3 The multiplayer and phone platform are clearly the driving innovation for this game. Taking full advantage of the phone and multiplayer would have really sold this game. Very pleasently surprised with how well it worked and how easy it was to set up and play.

1 Nothing new. Just mobile RL, which isnt a bad thing.

Scope

2 Like the points for innovation, the scope clearly is centered around phone multiplayer capability. Wish there was more in terms of gameplay and art.

2 It is what you would expect from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike, fits all the criteria you'd expect

2 Missing dialog box, monster health, attack damage, items (poison etc...) each corresponding attack value factor.

Swords with friends is a multiplayer roguelike built for the phone. The multiplayer is seemless with only a small amount of latency in turn resolution. Additionally its very easy to setup and get playing. The art is fairly basic, the icons do a good job of displaying various monsters and the players themselves. More variety would take the game a long way. Gameplay is relatively simple, what you expect out of basic combat, spells, and roguelikes. Ultimately this game would shine if it took full advantage of the multiplayer aspect of the game, I'm sure there are some neat ideas that would shine on a phone as well. For the innovation and scope scores I'd pick 2.5 for both (I split the difference with a 2 and 3) The phone/multiplayer combo really pull the game and its clear (In a very good way) thats where the effort went. Overall it was a technically well done game that needs some features to really take advantage of it.

A simple one designed for mobile, it has potential but it is very very laggy and could not find the usage for some of its items, needs improvement in description of each item.

Lost in the Dark

Completeness

3 Everything works with simple controls.

1 I was able to complete the game a few times, but it felt fairly empty

3 Worked, ran without fail, encountered no bugs

Aesthetics

2 Simple grahpics but nice look

2 Nice pixel art that had a good palette, which worked well with the theme

3 I liked the look and sound of the game

Fun

3 Fun maze wandering type game

1 The gameplay is just wandering around a maze of caverns tryign to find the edge of the map. There isn't much to it, and the mazes themselves aren't that interesting

1 You wander aimlessly around and that's about it

Innovation

3 Different but simple concept.

1 Nothing particularly new here; just trying to get out of a maze

1 Mazes aren't new, nor is forgetting where you have been before

Scope

2 Average sized 7DRL

1 There's not much here other than map generation and walking around

1 Not enough was done here for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

2 Classic RL feel, just no attack or enemies

2 It's turn based with some exploration, and the map generation is decent (although a little repetitive for a maze)

1 There wasn't really any game here, you just wandered a maze until you won or lost

Overall fun. Simple maze concept with a time limit and diminishing light

What's here is reasonably well polished, so nicely done on that. There just isn't much to the game itself, though. It feels more like the first step towards a complete game. It definitely needs something more than just wandering around a maze without any direction.

I'm not sure what to really write here in regards to this game. It was very atmospheric but it is a stretch to call this anywhere close to a roguelike. Maybe add some enemies, items, lore on the skeletons, something! As it is right now there wasn't a whole lot of compelling reason to like this game as it is.

Burglar

Completeness

2 Basic concept is there – push your luck ascending an infinite tower to get as much gold as you can. Unfortunately backtracking to the exit isn't a particularly exciting core loop.

2 Fairly complete, game works fine, no screenshots on itch submission page

3 Worked fine, ran fine, didn't have any bugs, looked to be feature complete

Aesthetics

2 Decent pixel art. Somewhat ruined by the massive UI banner that obscures half the screen.

3 Good controls, stealth lighting was good

1 I had difficulty seeing the stairs, the UI fullscreen would move up your information bar to the middle of the screen, and there was no wait button where there was no reason not to have one

Fun

1 Fun enough for a level or two but too simple to sustain enjoyment past that.

2 Was a neat idea here. I think it's missing a bit more in the design, but the starting concept is good!

1 Far to simple to have fun with

Innovation

1 Nothing particularly new. Although I do like the idea of a turn-based take on Monaco.

2 Pretty basic idea, but executed quite well. Nice!

1 Robbing goodies has been done, and done better then this at that

Scope

2 Fair scope, core loop just needed to be a bit more fun.

2 For a team effort, I was looking for just a touch more

1 There was far too little here for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

2 I'm all for experimenting with pacifist gameplay but there needs to be more interactivity.

3 Turn based, permadeath and procgen. Slam dunk.

1 Far too simple; more needs to be done with interactions with the environment, the guards, your character, etc

Nice looking stealthy rob-em-up. UI scaling bugs blocked a fair amount of the screen, but it was still playable. Gameplay is pretty simple but you could expand on it for sure.

This is a good concept! There are few stealth roguelikes, but it's an idea that has a lot of potential - forcing the player into other options other than combat. Hopefully the team can build on this idea. Thanks for submitting!

The tldr - needs more content. So many 7DRLs just from this year with a similar burgler type theme are great examples to pull on with regards to what you might do; not to mention those from past years. Knock out guards, have alerted guards 'alert' other guards, have the ability to distract guards, etc. Maybe have it so you can actually 'loot' the environment, knock out security cameras to avoid being detected, jump into a vent to circumvent areas, whatever.

Goblin-sino

Completeness

1 This feels bare-bones at this point. I did not encounter any crashing bugs, but some rooms would be generated with no doors, and apparently this can be run-ending. I was never able to actually go down the stairs – not sure if I was doing something wrong. Also feels like it needs some onboarding and some difficulty balancing. I couldn't get off the first floor, let alone down five levels.

1 Contains critical bugs. Sometimes the stairs isn't accessible or seems to not work

2 Worked, ran, but doors to rooms sometimes didn't appear and in one case a stairway failed to work

Aesthetics

2 Loved the minimalistic pixel art; it looked attractive and inviting. The gambling areas felt a little bare-bones and could benefit from some more context as to what was going on with them. There were a few icons I didn't know what they were, like the gold things next to the gargoyles that get a black box on them when you bump them. Still, pretty impressive given the restrictions of the PICO-8 palette and resolution. With some more development, I think it could really shine.

2 I really had a hard time figuring out what I was doing during the betting games. And I'm still not sure how the points are counted. Playing the post-jam version helped a lot on that, though

2 Simple graphics and simple controls, they worked alright but I found myself accidentally using stuff in the inventory

Fun

2 Once I figured out what was going on, it seemed fun. I liked the idea of instead of getting straight loot, you get opportunities to go play another mini-game, and the blackjack and zombie dice games were a good quick choice for that. Unfortunately, the punishing level of difficulty robs the game of fun pretty quickly. Even after playing for quite a while, I felt resigned to never completing the first level; I'd die every time. The casino games gave me some potions every once in a while, and once it gave me a sword that, near as I could tell, was exactly the same as the sword I already had. Maybe if the casino could pay out tangibly powerful things, it would feel better and give players a chance to get down a level before being stymied. But the core gameplay was solid and approachable, with a good tempo to it.

2 Gambling is fun. Go fighting monsters is more of a chore.

1 I find that things weren't very well explained so I had no idea how some aspects of gambling worked or how to weight the combat more in my favor

Innovation

2 The casino mini-games were a nice touch. There wasn't much to them, sadly, and could be more integrated into the gameplay, like choosing one game to boost attack and another to boost defense, or there could be a wider variety of games to play, but it's a clever idea for loot drops I hadn't seen before. The experience of it was marred because I seldom got anything from them, and they ended up feeling underwhelming, but I think with some tweaks to the payouts, it could be a really compelling feature for a more-developed roguelike.

2 A take on the dungeon+X genre. They are quite separate, though. Mechanic-wise, the gambling is little more than a random salesman.

2 Highly chanced based game, both in terms of gameplay as well as gambling

Scope

1 This was not much more than a tech demo, sadly. If you squint, though, there's a cool game in there waiting to be let out! The look, the casino idea, the simple presentation, etc., could be a solid "coffe-break" roguelike if polished up and balanced, and it's already a decent effort for the PICO-8 virtual console. I'd love to see some future versions of this with more of the elements the designer mentions on their game page. It's worth continued work, I think!

2 Fair.

2 I believe there could have been more added, but there was enough for a typical 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike. Has all the hallmarks - procedural dungeons, permadeath, turn-based, grid-based, inventory management, monster fighting, etc. Scratches the itch, even if only briefly.

2 Turn-based, grid, permadeath, light resource management. The procgen doesn't really matter, and no differenciation between runs (no build, same encounters...).

1 Well, you made a boardgame with some roguelike properties; but this seemed to be within your personal aims anyway

I enjoyed this one. My main disappointment is that I can see where it's going, and it's frustrating that it's not there yet. I had some trouble getting started with it because I missed the manual the first time around and had no idea what was going on, but once I read through that, I had some fun. The minimalistic PICO-8 console was a fun choice for this game, and with some added development, I think it could be a strong offering for the platform. I hope to see future versions of this game.

First, I struggled to understand how the minigames work. It is better on the new version, though (and this helped me). Apart from that, the idea of gambling as the central part of the game is interesting. But it didn't feel roguelike to me. More a gambling or an incremental game: traped in a loop of die-rolls and mob farming (which feels like a chore to get the right to play again). It can be fun of itself, but I think I missed some variety, mid/long-term strategic choices, and more interleaving between the gambling and the dungeon parts. Some ideas: - each minigame gives different type of rewards - you can gamble more things (life, items). Things that are not *only* usable for gambling - equipments giving gamble stats (luck...) => I have to balance between combat and gambling progression. - trade luck in gamble mingames for luck in mapgen (stronger enemies, less chests) - or make so that I can influence my luck in minigames by putting myself into danger (>5 enemies at 2 tiles or less...) ... Nice job for a 7DRL nonetheless

It wasn't really all that easy to visually see how things worked in this game, and explanations in the manual only helped so much. I'm not sure how useful the potions were - plus I had a habit of wasting them when I viewed the inventory. As an idea, it might make sense to show if enemies are carrying tokens so players can decide if enemies are worth fighting or leaving alone. I did think the gambling idea was interesting. Good luck with the board game.

(JAM Version) AHAD: Adventuring Heros of the Alternate Dimensions

Completeness

2 Controls work ok, and general gameplay functions and runs well. Enemies don't seem to move so you just run into them to initiate combat. Not really clear on the objective, seems like you just grind to get to higher floors, could use some more incentive, scoring, items, etc.

2 The web page notes several bugs, I ran into the issue with the game lagging when using mouse look or using the stairs, not technically a bug but because characters can have the same name you can get a message like “Billy killed by Billy” which is odd

Aesthetics

2 Your party and the enemies are very cute! Love the random names too, really adds to the cute feeling. The actual environments are very dull, just grey walls, at least for as far as I could get.

2 Graphics are OK, slightly inconvenient controls (having to click every time you leave combat to activate mouse look, moving the mouse back and forth between selecting an attack [even when there is only 1 option] and selecting a target [even when there is only 1 option])

Fun

1 Doesn't feel like a game yet, more like the framework to eventually make a game. First floor is trivially easy, you one-shot everything and can just grind away, but the second floor is a massive enemy power spike that forces you to tediously grind to get anywhere. Game could use more customization or other systems to incentivize killing and exploring other than flat levels and skill unlocks.

1 Combat often only has 1 option and even when not nearly everything kills in 1 hit, there might be some strategy to avoiding fights but I couldn't figure out the exact rules about what triggers fighting

Innovation

1 Not really much to it. The animal theme is a bit innovative, and the 3D nature of the game could be considered an innovation over the more classic Rogue-like.

2 Movement phase and visuals are like FPS movement and visuals, combat is like turn based RPG party combat

Scope

2 It has rooms, random floors, and even random parties and random difficulty! I think to get a 3 you'd need some kind of progression beyond basic levels though.

1 Hard to judge, enemies look different but they almost all die/kill in one hit, your party has different named attacks but again most just kill in one hit

Roguelikeness

3 Definitely a roguelike.

2 Turn based fighting and leveling in a procgen dungeon, FPS movement/visuals and party control, enemies stay still until you approach

Generally a good framework to make a game out of, but doesn't feel like a game yet. Love the cute animals, the 3D environment is nice and easy to navigate too. Balance and party development aren't really there yet, partially due to the random nature of the difficulty curve, all I could really do was grind out kills until I was strong enough to grind out kills on the next floor. I did enjoy having a random party with somewhat random classes/skills though. I think randomizing the difficulty of the game is an interesting idea, but it needs constraints to actually function.

I played the web version. As it is, the game was pretty repetitive, but the first person view is a change up from the traditional roguelike top down view.

Att's Assault (7DRL Challenge Entry)

Completeness

2 Didn't run into bugs but it lacks polish.

2 Need to polish this a bit; browser didn't let me bring up a menu and executable exceeded my screen size

Aesthetics

1 Controls are cumbersome, with some menus using mouse and others keyboard, and it's awkward to use attacks.

1 The items in the inventory were quite small and controlling the game was a bit confusing and bulky

Fun

1 Effort clearly went into this, but it plays too awkwardly to be much fun.

2 I likely would have had more fun with this if the controls were less cumbersome

Innovation

1 All textbook roguelike stuff, nothing novel here.

1 Nothing really new, but that isn't what the drive for this one is

Scope

2 Fair for 7 days.

2 This actually has quite a bit of content to it, with diverse enemies, skills, and items

Roguelikeness

3

3 Definitely a roguelike for sure

A pretty standard 20 floor dungeon crawl, let down by awkward control and lack of polish. Having to keep opening the menu to use attacks is annoying, and the long wait time while all enemies take their turns gets old very quickly. Could be decent with more work done on the playability and implementation.

Not really a fan of Japanese styled roguelikes, which this one obviously is; this being because you have to manage menu's and such, which requires you to have to run through menu's alot. Make that menu clunky to work and hard to quickly find what you want and you'll have a recipe for a game that turns into a major turn off. I suggest making the skills based on hotkeys so players don't have to enter a menu for that and have an inventory hotkey to bring up inventory; leave the menu key for things like exiting to Main Menu or Options. The rest of the game was quite good though, I liked how the elemental idea was used but you kept neutral equipment around as well.

Cat vs Slimes

Completeness

2 Very polished, with lots of small finishing touches. Would otherwise be a 3, but the game seems to have a critical, game-breaking bug where you can never advance beyond level 1, resulting in no enemy scaling at all.

1 Not sure whether it's a bug or an incomplete game, but every level is level 1. You can't progress and it never gets any harder.

Aesthetics

3 Super cute, excellent sprite work, copious animation, and good overall feel. My only critique is that the single music track is short and _rapidly_ becomes annoying (at least you can turn it off)

3 Cute aesthetic, easy to understand and has a simple UI.

Fun

1 Unfortunately the game has very little depth. The player is radically overpowered even on the first level, and there don't seem to be any limits on accumulation of HP. The teleport ability in particular allows one to have simple obvious solutions to engagements. The dice roll ability fails to create interesting decisions. Things would probably be a bit better if both bombs and teleports were limited in number instead of just on cooldowns.

1 Pace is very slow due to delay between turns, and thanks to just repeating level 1 over and over, it gets boring quickly.

Innovation

1 Its pretty much a standard hack-n-slash lacking meaningful twists when you get past the surface.

1 Walk around to find the exit, plus three abilities on cooldown. Nothing groundbreaking.

Scope

1 Moderately small scope. It's quite polished, but from my understanding of the judging criteria that falls under Completeness instead of Scope

2 Gameplay is very basic, seems like most time went on aesthetics.

Roguelikeness

3 Somewhere in-between traditional roguelike and broughlike

2 Close to a roguelike.

While the game looks fantastic, it is very much lacking in gameplay depth or interesting mechanics. After playing for just a bit one finds there is little strategy, mainly due to a combination of being locked at level 1 (presumably enemies would otherwise scale) and unlimited usage of very strong special abilities. I also suspect the dice roll ability needs to be replaced completely, but it would perhaps be functional once other elements were brought into balance.

Very cute game but sadly not all that fun to play. There's quite a long delay after every action, which makes gameplay painfully slow. The other major issue is that however many times you exit the level, the next level remains level 1 and although the layout changes, the challenge and enemy types don't. Play it for a couple of minutes, you've seen the game.

Challenge - Dungeon Skank - 7DRL

Completeness

3 Game runs fine (Windows build), no crashes, I didn't play long enough to win (never died). Help button didn't work.

2 Fairly complete for a 7drl, but lacks visual polish.

Aesthetics

2 Understandable; unfortunately 3D graphics didn't add anything to the gameplay

2 Aesthetics aren't too bad, but it's a 3d game, and I can't say I know anything about 3d games.

Fun

1 Not for me. I want to spend my time in a RL planning and thinking, not waiting several seconds between each turn to attack.

1 I can't say I found the melee combat mechanic fun, i.e. trying to use optimal reflexes to release space in time for a critical hit. The lack of flee option and unintuitive ranged combat exacerbates this. Much more problematic is the artificially slow playing speed -- whereas I can dash across a hallway, explore a room and tab through a group of enemies within half a minute in other roguelikes, this 7drl forces me to wait as my character walks, turns around, and attacks other enemies.

Innovation

1 Hack, slash, pick up the loot. Swing meter for combat but after a couple swings it was easy to time.

2 Fairly unique.

Scope

1 Walk around and fight

2 What you expect from a 7drl.

Roguelikeness

2 Procedurally generated level, don't know if there's permadeath (I never managed to die), maze-like. Cannot flee fights!

2 Roguelike-like.

3D dungeon explorer, game is playable but not much to do

I can see this game eventually developed into a fun experience, but its mechanics will need a major rework for that. Aside from the mentioned slow playing speed, enemies are quite static and don't search for you, making the gameplay experience feel just like a set of goals to be reached and tediously dealt with. The lack of tactical options doesn't help.

Chomper's Dungeon [PROTOTYPE]

Completeness

2 After starting the game pressing the right arrow brings up a black screen, no end goal just scaled enemies

2 The game runs. There is an easy way to crash at the start (trying to see the second ability if I don't have one yet)

Aesthetics

2 Solid visuals, controls

2 Simple UI. A bit raw. I like the animations.

Fun

2 Fun figuring out how to deal with each enemy and optimizing my build, but not much variety and my strategy wasn't very interactive, moving was a little slower than I would prefer

1 Very basic hack&slash. Just wait at the right time to hit first and there is no challenge. I had enough attack to one shot everything I encountered.

Innovation

2 Replacing abilities and enemies that freeze if you move offscreen

1 Standard. The ability steal is not really impactful to make the game feel different

Scope

2 Expected scope

1 Prototype state. No end.

Roguelikeness

2 No major changes from the roguelike formula, tho the random map grid in each room doesn't effect play much

2 Turn-based, grid, permadeath. The procgen doesn't really matter and no real character building or strategy. Every run and floor are played the same way

I had fun during the time I spent playing figuring out how to deal with each enemy. Since this is apparently a prototype maybe more stuff will be added to enhance the variety/depth. Tip for mouse & keyboard players: you can click and drag to move diagonal.

Simple game with a good core idea (ability steal). But it lacks content and interesting choices. It was easy for me to just one-shot everything since I had enough attack. And I didn't use the abilities except maybe to avoid to be hit by the 2-tiles hitting monsters. Priorities to improve: - More interesting combat. The game is very tactical and the small rooms layout doesn't leave much place to variety. - Strategy. Long-term choices. Different synergies between the abilities so that different character builds become possible. - (after the rest) make the floors less samey: with flavour or mechanical theme, bosses, special events. And add the end of course.

Endless Yeti

Completeness

2 I can't help but think more should be here. Is it balanced? Impossible to say because it goes on forever with no goal.

2 The game is complete and runs fine. There isn't much to it, but what's there is easy to read and does what it's supposed to.

Aesthetics

3 I like the simple color palette and there's nothing I can fault with the controls. Lots going on with the UI, but that's fine.

1 I felt like I was missing something the entire time. Like there was a mechanic or control that I didn't know about. The presentation is fine, but the mechanics aren't very well laid out and it's rather unintuitive.

Fun

1 My rating here is purely subjective: I really struggled to get motivation to take the mechanics seriously. I can imagine the player carefully balancing paths to try to optimize each fight with a yeti, but why? I know I'm going to die from madness no matter what I do and I don't have any goal at all.

2 It's fine. I don't know that I'm drawn to go back and play more. There's a fine line between curiosity and fun, and this one straddles that line. I was intrigued by the premise more than I enjoyed playing it, but it's worth trying the game out. I can see the puzzle aspect appealing to some people.

Innovation

2 Fighting enemies in a specific order is somewhat unique. Being punished for revisiting squares you already visited in interesting.

2 The puzzle mechanic was an interesting twist. There could be a little more in the way of instructions in the description. Overall the innovative part is also the most frustrating part.

Scope

2 Very basic, but close enough to the average.

1 There's not much to it. Though it's simplicity is probably one of it's best features.

Roguelikeness

2 Being a broughlike, it's turn and grid based. But the maps are extremely basic.

1 It feels like a roguelike. The turn based, grid movement does a lot in the way of givign it that aesthetic, but it doesn't have the mystery of discovery or the sense of consequence that is inherent in Roguelikes. Also, the lack of a goal detracts from it's rogueyness.

Endless Yetis has a clean tileset and a mildly interesting premise: fight enemies in a certain order and try to avoid revisiting tiles you've already touched while also visiting as many tiles as possible to collect items. For me, it's let down by a lack of any goal and a guaranteed death due to madness. Since I had no goal, I didn't feel compelled to min-max my item collection. Avoiding madness is interesting enough, but I feel it would be far better if there was a way to heal madness and some glimmer of hope to continue forever.

I'm not sure what to make of this game. The mechanics are a little confusing and I think I kept trying out of morbid curiosity instead of enjoyment. There's nothing to differentiate the levels and there's no sense of progression, so starting over feels exactly the same as moving to the next level. The puzzle mechanic could be really good with a little more development, but this game really needs a goal and some sense of progression. It feels very half baked.

King Duck of Cluck Mountain

Completeness

3 Game runs.

3 Worked fine, seemed stable, didn't seem to have any bugs

Aesthetics

2 Er... Well, it's the weirdest one I've seen in a while, but it's misteriously mesmerizing! How some characters are huge, some tiny, tile scale is wrong but works...

3 Controlled fine and sounded nostalgic

Fun

1 I may be missing something but there's not much more than bump against creatures? and look for stairs while trying to keep alive eating herbs? Works for a few minutes :D

1 I can't say I found this a lot of fun to play

Innovation

1 No sorry, not much. Except for the graphical part, which looks certainly experimental to say the least!

1 Not really

Scope

2 Enought for a 7DRL

2 While there was plenty of enemies and zones to go through, there wasn't really much in any other area

Roguelikeness

1 Almost everything says roguelike, but then monsters move in real time (in a grid, but real time). Weird combination!

1 Too simple to really be a roguelike, too much like an arcade game

Ok, this was certainly a weird one, which is to be expected given you are a duck king. But given there was not much more than bumping your beak against rats, works and... owl people? I can't say much more. Still, well done!

I'm not against the concept of a real time roguelike but there wasn't really any depth to the gameplay. You just walk around into stuff and hope it doesn't walk into you. No decisions are really necessary, you can just go on autopilot and blunder around - almost like the enemies you fight.

LiDAR Dungeon

Completeness

3 Works perfectly fine. Not many features but those implemented work nice!

3 Game is complete and seems well balanced.

Aesthetics

2 While simple, the sonar effect and how walls are rendered and forgotten looks very nice

2 A little confusing with the text choice, I would change that, maybe the width between letters. However, pallete colour is very beautiful.

Fun

1 Get a bit repetitive soon, and it's easy to get completely lost! (no minimap or memory or something similar that I know of?) Enemies are a bit basic too.

2 Yes, it is a good game. Had a good time playing it.

Innovation

1 Inspired by the Unfinished Swan, maybe? Not the first twin-stick shooter-like nor the first echo-localization-based game.

2 A neat idea from using sonars.

Scope

1 Maybe falls on the short side, or Iwas unable to find more guns/enemies/zones

2 Expected from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

1 Not a turn-based game.

1 This game is a ship bullet hell. Not a roguelike.

The core idea is fun, but nothing prevents you from keeping both mouse buttons pressed in order to scan and shoot continuously! That basically removes a bit the fun/surprise factor of the echolocation feature, as you basically see in front of you all the time. Still, very nice implementation! Well done!

Very good colours, controls and skill upgrade. I had a lot of fun. However, we cant categorize it as a true roguelike.

Slimes

Completeness

2 Pretty basic. Could use more depth on the Itch page, and hard to tell if it was using any procgen

2 No bugs, but the game is very simplistic. Could have been improved by some weapon variation when mixing slimes colours.

Aesthetics

2 A neat concept with good enough art for what it was

2 I liked the colours used and the visual appearance. The menu and end game could have improved in design a bit.

Fun

2 Everyone loves beating down slimes, just didn't know if there was any other goal (like a Boss Slime)

1 The game is very barebones, the attack animation is too slow and it is hard to attack a slime with the sword slow animation.

Innovation

2 Pretty standard stuff. Could almost just forgo the level design and turn it into a Vampire Survivor with Slimes

2 Yes the crystal insight to kill different slimes is interesting.

Scope

1 Quite a small scope but hope the dev had a fun time with it!

1 Seems more like a tech demo to me, it is still missing a lot of important characteristics for a complete game.

Roguelikeness

2 Permadeath, but felt like a Roguelike. Would get a 3 if it was turn-based

2 Game is real-time and I would not categorize it as RL.

Could become an interesting concept if the dev keeps working on this. Maybe some Boss map levels, some sounds and maybe explaining the different colors of slimes and what they actually did..?

The main idea is there, I can see something interesting that may flow from this game. However, it needs a lot of work, particularly the gem system and the sword attack.

Wolves Of The Mystical Forest

Completeness

2 Gameplay works fine up until a point. Where that point is varies on each playthrough (crash from picking something up, crash from reloading save, crash from selling item)

2 Might be an issue with saving in this game as it crashed twice after loading a save, else it ran fine. Game felt a little empty

Aesthetics

2 Sprites are nice and communicate the items and characters well, though the wolves could look meaner. The music fit the game well, really appreciated the fluid transitions between tracks

1 While the graphics and music were nice, the controls in this game were not; not to mention the enemies can move diagonally while the player cannot

Fun

1 Appears to have many mechanics in place but still needs a clear objective to make the combat and exploration worthwhile

1 I did see what looked to be a ruin, but otherwise I spent the entire time wandering around aimlessly

Innovation

1 Very standard roguelike with Dungeons & Dragons dice mechanics - though it is definitely impressive there are this many systems set up in under a week of work

1 Innovation doesn't seem to be the point for this one

Scope

2 About standard for a roguelike made in seven days, though still missing some crucial aspects

2 Content wise there was likely enough here

Roguelikeness

3 Very much a roguelike, though does have an (albeit broken) save system too

3 Not perfectly in tune with the Berlin Interpretation but close enough

I hate to be so negative in my ratings after being excited by this game's lovely pastoral pixel art and hardcore roguelike elements (all the 7DRL games I'd played so far were roguelites, including my own). Wilderness exploration in a roguelike setting is extremely cool and I'm glad someone had a go at it. It's a shame it's missing a story or fun difficulty curve because there is already so much in place. The various fatal bugs sadly also make the game less satisfying to win, though I can forgive them considering the tiny development time. I suggest for future roguelikes that HP and Mana are placed at one of the far ends of the stat interface, as to make them easier to see, and make sure all usable items stand out from background decorations (e.g the mushroom sprites barely register as different from the flowers). Basically, please keep making games :)

I think the biggest pet peeves I had with this game was the lack of direction given. While the villagers can help point you in the direction you need to go, the map was quite big and finding the ruins was difficult; I only ever saw a farm or a ruin by blundering into them. Experience gain seemed a bit low for how difficult the enemies were, you have to roll for stats (without being able to choose where those dice rolls effect stats) which can be annoying when you are trying to get specific character types, and holding down a key will only move the character one place. Also the fact that the character can't move in cardinal directions while everything else can move in diagonals made no sense to me.

nnRogue - Dream of the Seer

Completeness

2 Looks complete but could have some QoL features like a rest or wait button

2 Main features are there, though could use some better distribution and balancing.

Aesthetics

2 Your standard ASCII traditional roguelike with no bells or whistles

2 Classic roguelike appearance, I feel like some color coding on the enemies and having the inventory visible at all times was needed though.

Fun

1 Nothing new or interesting coupled with a design choice I disliked - enemies with gibberish names

1 Felt fully dependent on randomness with fairly high variance. You could spawn in the middle of 12 enemies with the worst gear, or start with multiple of the best items. It was difficult to make meaningful decisions without being able to gauge how strong enemies were, and felt like it required alot of grinding to make any progress.

Innovation

1 Reinventing the wheel here

1 Mostly the standard roguelike features.

Scope

1 This is quite lacking in content and I'm not even sure this is enough of a base to work off to expand on either.

2 Had working features you would expect, level gen, a few different items, and random enemies.

Roguelikeness

3 No deviation from Berlin Interpretation

3 Roguelike to a T

If someone was looking to see if they could create a roguelike in seven days then I believe they succeeded in that goal. Outside of that there is nothing novel to point out. I'll note that I was turned off quite a bit by the seemingly randomly named enemies; that might work for a lovecraftian themed horror style roguelike but this doens't seem to be one.

A good project for demonstrating roguelike mechanics, though the balance felt prohibitively difficult.

pax per mortem

Completeness

3 Feels pretty polished. I didn't encounter any obvious bugs, though I confess monsters appearing out of nowhere behind me or half-stuck inside of walls occasionally made me think maybe there was some kind of monster noclipping or spawn bug or something like that; I think it may just be that some of the monsters have teleport abilities, though.

2 Needs a little balance, I am having some problems with the controls as well, change direction with the mouse takes a long time, leaving you exposed to a lot of hits fromt the enemies.

Aesthetics

2 Nice aesthetics, but I gotta say: For something that proudly bills itself as a "boomer shooter," movement feels bad here. The most important part of a "boomer shooter" is getting that particular oldschool control scheme "flavor" right, and these controls feel very unresponsive and mushy; plus, when I touch a wall I get stuck to it and can't run along it. That's the biggest problem for me; that being said, The 2.5D rendering is really nice, though the perspective and very low resolution undermines a lot of your graphics work and makes it very hard to read the screen at times. The mousewheel seems to always switch in the wrong direction when I try to switch weapons, but that may just be my personal preference. And the fact that monsters are nonsolid (i.e. you can run straight through them) makes the start of the game a bit frustrating, because you start with only melee weapons, and it's difficult to get close enough to punch without walking through them and then standing there with your back to them waving your fists.

2 The colours and visuals all fits the theme

Fun

2 I did end up getting into this and having a pretty good time. It has the problem of being breakable, though-- Once you get the whole thing sorted in your brain and grind up a ranged weapon, only a few things (the teleporting monsters and occasionally bosses) present any legitimate threat to you, because you can simply kill everything else from outside its aggro range. After defeating my third boss this way, I started playing the game much looser and focusing on how quickly I could complete levels, which made it more enjoyably rush-y. If you wanted to, though, there seems to be little reason you can't just cheese it out more or less forever.

2 There is a fun factor to be had in this game.

Innovation

1 Not a lot of innovation here, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a hack-and-slash FPS with some light procgen elements.

1 This game is a tribute, maybe, to the old wolfenstein game. I didnt see any new approach besides the skill upgrades. Of course no weapons but the magic system is fine.

Scope

2 Pretty good scope-wise. The copy on the submission page and itch page strongly suggest that it's an endless-play score-attack style game; if that's not the case, then I didn't get far enough to beat it, as I only beat three boss levels in the longest run before I started speedrunning and died soon after. You've got decent variety of environments and some interesting monsters with tricky surprises that provide a nice challenge for a good ten levels or so at least.

2 I think this game is well made with a lot of content, so it is very complete.

Roguelikeness

1 This is a good score attack game, but at the end of the day just having random levels and random weapon upgrades is, sadly, not enough roguelikeness to promote it to being a "rogue-lite FPS" IMO. It is a very nice procgen FPS that I found pretty enjoyable with lots of good polish. But it has only minimal tactics, and what few strategic decisions there are rarely seem all that interesting.

1 In my opinion, this game doesn't meet the criteria to be classified as a roguelike, as the only feature it offers is permadeath.

A really solid little game-jam FPS that doesn't really have enough of the roguelikeness "secret sauce" to it. It needs some control upgrades to really reach for that "boomer shooter" claim, and even though you're obviously going for the retro 2.5d aesthetic it could still really use some more pixels in my opinion to show off your graphics. But really what I'd like to see for a "roguelike fps" would be something a little more strategic and cerebral than just "a shooter where you get random upgrades each level".

This is an interesting approach to a DOOM style type of game, had a lot of fun but is missing a lot of important features to be considered a roguelike.

Cavian (7DRL 2023)

Completeness

2 Simple controls, number of eggs collected does not display

1 The game needs a bit of testing and bug fixing; combat and the shop didn't seem to work.

1 Worked and was stable, but looked to have bugs with birds not being dead, the shop not working correctly, collected eggs not being shown

Aesthetics

2 Nice style, simple but pleasant graphics

2 Cute graphics, and I enjoyed the intro story!

3 Controlled fine and could distinguish what was what

Fun

3 Simple but fun concept. Increasing difficulty in a nice linear fashion

1 The bugs make it hard to get much out of the game.

1 Even if this worked properly it would still be too lacking in content to have fun with

Innovation

2 Nice slight twist to a classic RL

1 Not a lot going on, at least not yet.

1 Not at all

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

1 It seems like a fairly simple game.

1 Even if bugs were quashed there was not a lot here for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

3 Variation of a RL

3 Plenty Roguelike for me

1 I've seen arcade games that have more complexity; beyond ironing out the bugs there needs to be more done to make this actually feel like a roguelike

Nifty twist to a RL. Graphics are simple but nice. Overall a nice little game...no tracking of eggs collected which is the whole point of the game. Also health not displayed

Cavian is a cute game; with working combat and shop for upgrades and health restoration I think it could be pretty fun!

With the amount of bugs present and how lacking in content the game was it seems odd to call this a success. Outside of that you really need a lot more done to make the gamelay compelling; whether that be more enemies, items to let you mine through walls, or whatever ideas you can shove in. Perhaps the shop could feature randomized items you can buy as an idea too.

Abyss Knight

Completeness

2 Feels fairly polished. Title screen with instructions etc.

Aesthetics

2 3D environment isn't particularly interesting, most of the rooms look the same. Lighting is kinda buggy – often opening a door just reveals a black void until you walk through it.

Fun

2 Combat involves rushing enemies and frantically clicking. Hard to tell whether you've dodged something or not. Spells help a bit.

Innovation

1 Nothing particularly new

Scope

2 Decent scope

Roguelikeness

1 Proc gen level layout but that's about it.

First person real-time hack 'n slash 'em up. Enemies are kinda tanky and it's easy to get lost in the maze of similar looking box rooms without a minimap.

Back Fire

Completeness

2 Could use some polish on restarting a new run and a delay in being able to choose upgrades

Aesthetics

3 It looks fine and the sound effects work good

Fun

1 Nope! This could be a neat idea but it wasn't fleshed out nearly enough

Innovation

2 The idea of your shots being a double edged sword is definitely creative, I like being able to wrap around the screen with the ship too

Scope

1 If I could rate this a zero I would, needed more to even demonstrate your idea

Roguelikeness

1 This is too far off the beaten path to be considered a roguelike

I only spent 10 minutes reviewing this, and even 'that' strikes me as being too much time to need to review it. This has a neat idea, this has decent enough graphics and sound, but there is literally nothing outside of this. Work on having randomized picks for upgrades, try and do something besides having an empty space map where enemies spawn in, have enemies eventually shoot!

Crypt Shuffle

Completeness

2 Controls work, game complete, occasionally softlocks on attack

2 Not too many bugs but feels very lacking in basic polish.

Aesthetics

3 nice lighting cute graphical style and animations

2 Straightforward mouse control scores it a 2 here. The aesthetic is generic dungeon which is fine but doesn't vary at all.

Fun

1 youve seen the whole game in the first room

1 I can't recommend playing this as it stands.

Innovation

1 Nothing new move and click

1 Rudimentary dungeoning.

Scope

2 Its got rooms and generation

1 Pretty much a tech demo.

Roguelikeness

2 Kind of roguelike kind of tactics game

2 It's not un-roguelike, but it doesn't have any decisions or tactics or other things that contribute to the roguelike experience.

I like this one just wish there was more to be honest, the spell variety of 3 one of which does no damage and just feezes enemies kind of feels like im supposed to have access to all of them over time. Skellies spawning and moving on the same turn means your not really in controll of when you get hit I think spawning them in when you enter the room would fix that.

The main issue with this game is that it's lacking very basic polish. Enemies frequently spawn, move right up to you and attack all in one turn, so you have no chance to do anything about it. As it only takes 3 hits to kill you, that makes for a frustrating experience. The dungeon is a linear series of rooms full of barrels which you can interact with to no effect. There are potions, and supposedly new spells as well, though I never found any of those. There's the core of something here but it needs work to make it worth playing.

Drift or Die!

Completeness

2 A few rough edges (literally) with the map generation but otherwise bugless game

2 No bugs that I could notice.

Aesthetics

2 Everything looked like it should (except the bonus items lying around the map, they look the same as wall squares), the controls were simple to understand

2 Zombies are easy to identify. However, it was difficult to know that I should be smashing boxes in order to be able to obtain the items.

Fun

1 I couldn't get past the first night. Map generation would work fine on a vehicle that didn't have to accelerate up from zero to move. Often got stuck on corners and group of zombies, stopping me completely and often ending the game prematurely. If it was a top down shooter the map and enemies would work way better, but here there's just not the room to do much drifting.

2 A fun experience.

Innovation

1 Oldschool top-down driving gameplay, classic

2 Very nice, it is not novel per se but it is interesting enough to provide an unusual point of view.

Scope

2 I imagine there is much there than I managed to reach, but gameplay wise it seems appropriately sized for a 7 day jam

1 Unfortunately, game is more like a tech demo. No new levels, scenarios, different zombies etc... to provide more than a bunch of 20 minutes of fun.

Roguelikeness

2 Very lightly roguelite

1 I do not think we can categorize this as a roguelike at all.

Cool ass name and idea - a driving oriented roguelike. It's sad that sharp corners of roguelike mazes make it hard to go as fast I want to, ramming down hordes of the undead. I appreciate the experimentation, but I think this still needs some iteration and testing before you have the definitive drift-like. Keep making games :)

The game has an innovative concept. However, the design of the crates was initially confusing as they appeared to be walls. It was later discovered that they provided useful items. Additionally, the size of the map is quite small and it can be easy to get stuck in the environment between corridors, mistakenly thinking that the car would pass through.

Gravity Mage

Completeness

2 The game starts and works, can be won, but there are definitely features missing.

3 Ran fine, seemed stable, didn't notice any bugs

Aesthetics

2 Upscaled DCSS tileset looks nice. But the character is often sticking to the wall when trying to exit the tunnel and immediately move aside. Projectiles move too fast to make meaningful decisions.

3 Controlled fine and tiles were clear

Fun

1 There is cheesy way to win and non-cheesy way to win, both are not fun.

1 Can't say I found it all that fun

Innovation

1 I think the theme of gravity is quite well explored in many games.

2 Certainly an innovative idea of manipulating projectiles

Scope

2 It's very weak 2. It's 2 only for the fact that monsters on first level are actually picking up their axes to throw them again. Very basic dungeon, very few content.

1 Sort of feel this is just shy of the scope needed for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

1 Procedurally generated (yet very basic) dungeon is not enough to be called roguelike. It is realtime, no items, no upgrades, not really tactical.

1 Not a whole lot of depth outside of the gravity mechanic

Gravity magic as main gimmick might work, but need to be very well thought-out. In this game you can simply charge maximum gravity ball, move it over enemy and it will kill itself. No need to shoot, no need to tactially place gravity sources.

I feel that this could have been made more interesting if there was a bit more restrictions put on the gravity magic. I found it easy enough to run around pulling all the projectiles towards an enemy as opposed to using it for deflection or trick shots. Maybe there could have been enemies that could melee you? No items, relics, equipment, or decision making apparatus was here either.

MagiCrimen

Completeness

2 No crashing bugs, and has screenshots. Not sure where procgen was used

2 There seemed to be issues with the third map, but otherwise it worked and ran fine

Aesthetics

2 Interesting artwork and controls were OK if difficult to shoot

2 Camera could be an issue at times when running around high terrain, but it controlled fine

Fun

1 I think future iterations of this concept will be fun. I think the idea of an outdoor roguelike with powerups is cool

1 Can't say it was all that fun

Innovation

2 Pretty basic, but also something that can be built upon

1 Risk of Rain in a top down style more or less

Scope

1 Pretty small scope but everything did work

2 Probably about the amount of work I would expect

Roguelikeness

3 Permadeath even if it felt very arcade-like. You could grab powerups with different abilities

1 Looked to be handcrafted maps with potentially randomly placed treasure; Risk of Rain inspired?

Could definitely be built upon, and I see the dev has released a new iteration already beyond what I could play for judging! Well done! It's a neat idea with the powerups, and hopefully it becomes easier to control the direction and shooting of the player. Thanks for submitting!

I consider it quite important for roguelikes to have procedural map making; else you can make decisions in advance. Initially I blundered into the boss quite quickly which meant I was quite underpowered to fight him. Enemies abruptly spawning on me, clipping through terrain on the third map, issues with the height and projectiles; there is quite a bit to go 'meh' at here. I'm not sure I can say much good with regards to this title.

Nightmare Corridor

Completeness

2 Controls seem simple. Enemies and attack kind of work but not completely.

1 Seems unfinished and certainly lacking basic polish.

Aesthetics

2 Nice classic graphics. Overall look spretty good

1 Really unpleasant control scheme which makes it very awkward to attack.

Fun

2 Fun simple game. Only one level and fairly easy.

1 Not worth playing in its current state.

Innovation

2 Classic RL concept

1 One type of enemy, one type of attack.

Scope

2 good size for 7DRL

1 I wouldn't really consider it to be a game in its current state.

Roguelikeness

3 Classic RL

2 More or less roguelike thanks to being turn-based and grid-based, but no depth or decisions to make.

Overall a good little game. Notes on game screen says it was their first RL. Good job.

Not a finished game. One type of enemy and one attack, which is executed through an awkward mechanism of bringing up an aiming cursor and using a second set of keys to aim. Seems buggy too - sometimes you can walk through enemies, sometimes you can't, sometimes you can't attack for no apparent reason. There's clearly the basic core of a game here but there isn't really anything here to play right now.

Rule Bender

Completeness

2 Looks complete, gameplay is complete but some powerups don't work (invisible, armor, flury attack)

2 The game runs. It lacks some UI info (spell range) and sometimes chests are empty

Aesthetics

2 Everything looks alright, controls are intuitive but a bit tiring (WASD would have been better than clicking to move)

2 Nice sprites. Only mouse controls are a bit cumbersome. Missing range indicator. The fact that spells seem to push the enemies is undocumented.

Fun

1 The difficulty doesn't go anywhere past the first few floors, and once you have all the magic I basically used the same strategy for every room

1 The gameplay is a bit simple. The big damage spell is critical to even be able to beat red slimes (and maybe orange slimes). The temporary effects in chest should last much longer (the whole level, in my opinion), to be attractive.

Innovation

1 Despite it's name, it's very conventional

1 Very classical

Scope

2 Appropriate scope for a one man job

1 A bit on the light side

Roguelikeness

3 Undeniably roguelike but minimal features

2 grid, turn-based, permadeath. Procgen is very light and doesn't impact gameplay. There are too few upgrades and some of them seem mandatory to be strong enough. Thus not much run variety

Not a bad start. Quite fun at the parts where positioning meant life or death. The chests were neat until they ran out of new items and effects, at which point I stuck to using the ice beam, big ice, attack beam and big attack over and over. the gameplay loop works fine, but it clearly needs to be expanded further for things to start getting interesting. Keep making more games :)

A working base, with sadly too few content to be fun. I didn't feel the "rule bending" aspect. I think that if the temporary upgrades lasted for the whole floor, it would be much more interesting. First there could be a choice between long term upgrades, and floor-only upgrades. Second, if the powers are different and powerful enough, each floor would need to be approached very differently. And the rule bending feeling would be there: "This floor, I am invisible. The next one, I can attack twice a turn. The next one, I can go through walls...etc"

Slide N' Dash

Completeness

3 Plays perfectly, didn't find anything wrong.

2 Game is fun but nowhere near complete, enemies are the same and it just keeps increasing in size from what I could gather and skills.

Aesthetics

2 Correct low-poly graphics, but would have been nice to see more room variation? (maybe for a future version!) ;)

2 Game looks fine.

Fun

2 Given that you have unlimmited ammo, there's not much here than... well, Slide'n'dash? But works for a while!

1 I would recommend skipping this game, as it offers nothing extraordinary compared to other FPS games.

Innovation

1 Not much, although some enemies were surprising!

1 Nothing new.

Scope

2 Correct for a 7DFPS. Oh... wait...

2 Game is well made for a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

1 Not a turn based game, sorry.

1 This game is a first-person shooter and not a roguelike. I don't think it belongs in this category.

There's solid gameplay here that could be expanded. It's not a turn-based game, however, and I'm not that good at playing FPS, but FPS players may find it interesting!

Nothing to say about this one besides the fact that this game is from another genre and should not be judged in this competition.

Word Hunt

Completeness

3 The game runs

3 No bugs encountered, runs well.

Aesthetics

2 Clear, raw ASCII interface

2 I really like the aesthetics here, only the font is slightly too small without zooming in.

Fun

1

1 I can see this being reworked into a fun game, maybe, but in its current state the game is just not very fun.

Innovation

1 -

2 Whatever faults this roguelike has, lack of innovation isn't one of them.

Scope

1 -

1 There just isn't much to do here.

Roguelikeness

1

2 I'm giving this a 2 due to a complete lack of appreciable decision-making or strategy.

Not a roguelike. It is a maze game. It still could be fun for children, as maze games are. But the adult version is a bit frustrating. I didn't feel I could do anything to avoid the bad letters, I was just running, praying for the enemies to go the wrong way.

The core idea of building words from items on the ground while fleeing "bad" words is quite interesting, but it'll need a significant rework to become enjoyable. The main issue is the complete lack of consequences for picking up a wrong letter -- finding the correct letter will just replace it, no worries. Not that you need to even worry about bad letters making it into your word, because you can just move into walls to wait for them to come close to you. Plus, letters automatically insert themselves at the correct location, so you don't need to worry about letters coming in out of order. Even for preschoolers this looks to be way too easy.

Yo desarrollo, tu juegas

Completeness

3 No bugs gameplay works just fine, no section is missing anything

2 I couldn't type á í or é. I really missed the ability to correct typos.

Aesthetics

3 Cute interface, nice colours, loads of enemies

1 I had to zoom to be able to read the lesson (fullscreen didn't scale the font). Moving text + moving background + small letters + shadow is very bad for readability

Fun

2 I don't speak Spanish and I've basically learned the simple tense now. The gameplay in Jam Mode was just repetitive enough that you learn the rules pretty quickly. The powerups feature is nice, though I wish you would get HP back more often

1 A typing game can be fun in itself, but I the fact I couldn't enter accented letters and correct typos was frustrating to me

Innovation

1 A lot like other language learning games I've played before, only much harder

1 For me it is mainly a typing game. The upgrades don't change the gameplay

Scope

2 All the tenses, loads of verbs, many writers and randomized gameplay - it's simple but you could play it for hours

2 A fine jam game

Roguelikeness

1 Random elements, but much more an arcade game than a roguelike - the player doesn't make enough decision to make each playthrough unique (but they don't really need to?)

1 There is only "permadeath" and choice of upgrade. That doesn't make it a roguelike to me. Every match-based or tabletop game is not roguelike, even though they have these same traits. It is a typing game with educational purpose.

Absolutely unique for a 7DRL submission, but sadly doesn't really qualify as a roguelike. That aside, you've basically made a great tool for memorizing and practising verb endings, a tricky part of any language. The game is pretty difficult though; not being able to delete letters meant I had to perfect my typing and my endings (maybe keep that in hard mode). I also couldn't get any of the conjugations perfectly because my keyboard doesn't have any of the accents; an on-screen button for those would be handy. Lastly, I would appreciate if the correct answers lasted 1-2 more seconds on the screen before disappearing, as I like to read over my mistakes. Well done!

First, I don't call this a roguelike, because my choices are very limited and don't really change the gameplay. There are no exploration or strategy. I didn't take this into account for rating (except in roguelikeness), but I don't feel it belongs in this jam. I do recognize the 3-upgrade choice thing from modern roguelikes, but it is not sufficient to me. Second, it is a typing game. It tests your capacity to type fast on a keyboard as much if not more than your knowledge of Spanish tenses. It is Ok if you're OK with that. I would just say it gets quite hard very fast for anyone who doesn't type on a keyboard everyday. Which is a lot of people, specially among young people who spend more and more time on a touch screen rather than a computer. Third, since it is a typing game, the typing gameplay should be very polished. I couldn't enter accented letters and couldn't correct typos. While the former is certainly a bug, dependant of the keyboard layout, I feel that the latter is a must-have. I need to type fast. If I make a typo, I can easily lose 10 life because I typed everything with an offset of 1. Lastly, I really found it hard to read the text (moving text + moving background + shadow + (too small)). You should look at accessibility guidelines regarding this, they make games (or webpages) more pleasant for everybody. Anyway, I hope you had fun buiding this game and I hope that my critic is constructive enough. You clearly put love in it and I personally do think that this kind of games can be very helpful.

Abominium

Completeness

1 Very short; just one level, 2/3 of my winning runs were blocked by bugs

3 I got no complaints about completeness here. It may be extremely lightweight, but it's all here and functioning smoothly as far as I can tell.

Aesthetics

2 Nice. Simple, but nice contrast, easy to identify everything.

2 It's cute. Nothing wrong with the graphical presentation or audio or anything like that, but it could use a little more documentation and/or messaging for the control scheme-- I only discovered most of the way through the game I won that pressing spacebar would activate the ARC OF POWER without me having to click it with my mouse.

Fun

1 Fairly simple; not much depth

1 I hate to rate this low because there's nothing wrong with it, and I played it through to completion and enjoyed it enough. But once I killed the titular Abominium it felt like the rest of the monsters were just a tedious mopping-up process. Still, that tedious part is actually where you find the part of this game; the puzzle of "I have to get through all of these monsters with a sword only before I can get the ARC OF POWER, so I need to parcel out the healing potions at appropriate times without alerting other monsters."

Innovation

1 Basic, standard, roguelike gameplay

1 Nothing particularly original here. In my first game everything went fine except that even after reading the instructions I totally failed to internalize the words "Abominium will kill you instantly", so I tried to melee the Abominium. The second game, I didn't make that mistake and won.

Scope

1 Not a lot of variety; one level, three enemy types, no character progression

1 You've done a great job on everything you put in this, but you didn't put a lot in it. I know you said the game was made in a hurry, so I'm guessing something else put time pressure on you.

Roguelikeness

2 It's simple, but it definitely hits the mark as a roguellike

3 This is very much a roguelike. You hit all the main indicators in my book, and I'm pleased by the degree of planning that goes into beating it properly, even if there's not much challenge there.

Very simple, but functional. It's not doing anything incredibly new, and there isn't much depth, but it feels like a good start to a larger game.

Very nicely polished and put together, very roguelike, you get full marks for what you've created here IMO. But while you've inarguably created a roguelike, and done a great job on it, it's still a roguelike that really just desperately wants more meat on its bones to be truly fun. I could see it turning into a really nice little coffeebreak roguelike if you just fill in a bunch more content and add a few classic roguelike accoutrements; maybe FOV restrictions so that you don't have perfect information, some more weapons to play with, more monster types with varied behaviour, and so on.

Blunt Quaternion

Completeness

1 Sorta works, no screenshots, no instructions and no idea what's going on

3 Complete and works fine

Aesthetics

1 Text only which is cool, but could be spruced up a bit on desktop

2 It does what it needs to

Fun

1 I just don't understand what's going on. What does blunt mean?

1 Intriguing idea but not really fun

Innovation

2 I like the text adventure idea

2 The idea of an adventure story is new

Scope

1 pretty minimal 7DRL

1 Doesn't feel like you do more then go into the dungoen, get the thing, and get out

Roguelikeness

3 Did feel roguelike for sure

1 Can you die? I can't say I felt this was anywhere near what roguelikes are.

Was just utterly confused most of the time. I like the idea of a text system like this, I just don't understand what I'm doing when I choose "Blunt" - or if the sidebar is my party health? I haven't watched That 70's Show so maybe that's the key here. I'm sure there's something here with a bit more work and explanation.

I liked the idea behind this game but I didn't really felt my choices mattered at all. I felt like I was just predistined to win in the end with no real chance of dying. I'd like to give more input here but I really don't know what more to say.

Firefighter in Hell

Completeness

2 It worked well enough to give me a jist of what was going on, but bugs were noticeable

2 Game is not balanced because enemies does not attack frequently and the strategy of attacking with cards seems just like a fake trinket. Skills seems needs improvement to be balanced.

Aesthetics

3 Everything looked fine and controls were decent

1 I found some of the cards confusing from their description to their logo. The U.I. to play the cards are not really intuitive as well. The skills applied by the enemy cards are not easy to be seen.

Fun

1 Due to the real time nature of this game I felt I was just mashing keyboards here

1 This game is not fun by the simple fact that combos are not shown, you try to use them and it is ignored because the strategy seems to just click like a maniac until the game ends. No strategy involved and this should have been noticed from the beginning of the tests.

Innovation

1 I don't exactly see anything really innovative in regards to card roguelikes here

2 Yes it is a neat idea but it is poorly executed.

Scope

1 Only enough content here to show off its idea

2 It seems like what you would expect from a 7DRL. All cards have their unique abilities and present some visual element that follows the idea of the cards attack. The path to follow, in the world map, is also well drawn.

Roguelikeness

1 It is a card roguelike that is real time, which seems to lack in decision making when in combat

2 It presents some aspects of roguelike.

The concept here seems fine but the idea needs to be fleshed out better. Having the cards just get thrown into your hand one by one left me spamming my cards more then anything else; as opposed to comboing them like I should. Because of the map glitching I was just blundering around too.

While this game presents a unique approach to the card genre, it falls short in several areas. The gameplay mechanics quickly become tedious, with the ability to mindlessly click through card selections and the lack of a turn-based system. Despite these issues, the game's potential is hindered further by a poor user interface that desperately needs improvement.

Ghost Quest

Completeness

2 The game didn't crash, ghost stepping on you sometimes kills sometimes doesn't, ghosts overlap the same space with no visual indication, probably a bug: you can safely walk onto the ghosts (tho that does work as a funny counterintuitive roguelike tactic)

2 Has some bugs, but otherwise it runs well enough

Aesthetics

2 Nothing visually interesting but nothing hideous either, controls with mouse

2 Nothing fancy here, controls worked fine

Fun

1 Strategy is just to do the obvious move that won't get you killed, no variety in enemies or environments

1 Not enough to play around with here to have fun with

Innovation

1 Deck building roguelike

2 Broughlike + Cards = Distinct enough

Scope

1 Barely any content

1 It felt like too little was done

Roguelikeness

3 Not much content, but does have the roguelike basics

1 Being almost devoid of depth, I can't really say this is much of a roguelike

Not much going on with this one, you could play for a couple minutes and get everything there is to get

I liked the concept here but think the idea could have been fleshed out more. Maybe having a 2 or 3 card means you 'have' to move 2 or 3 moves, as opposed to just moving somewhere within the range. Only one enemy type, only two types of cards, perhaps the 6x6 grid was just a bit too big for the limited amount of content within the playfield one has to deal with. Noticed that all attacks were single target and it might have been nice to have some beam attacks, area of effect attacks, debuff attacks, etc.

MAGIC DUNGEON

Completeness

3 Didn't run into any issues.

2 The game is complete enough to be a stable material.

Aesthetics

2 Mostly clear and the retro aesthetic is appealing, but some of the colours schemes are hard on the eyes. You can turn them off if you prefer, at least.

1 Game colours are not that great, and the colour palette should have been better selected and not given the choice to the player. As I understood, this game feels like a game boy colour scheme. The dev should have got some good palettes and added to the game, besides there is no difference between a player, scenario and a monster. They all have the same colour, which is ok given the direction he chosen but the traps have a weird look and should have been better drawn

Fun

1 Gameplay is pretty shallow and repetitive.

1 Not really enjoyable, the game presents the typical aspect elements of roguelike which would have been nice but it lacks a lot of elements that make a roguelike unique.

Innovation

1 Nothing particularly remarkable here.

1 Nothing new to the genre.

Scope

2 Reasonable scope for 7 days.

1 This game feels like a tech demo even if it states it is complete. Nothing out of the extraordinary.

Roguelikeness

2 Roguelike-adjacent. It's pretty arcadey though, and doesn't have much in the way of decisions to make.

2 Classic roguelike.

The idea seems to be to get to the bottom of the dungeon, made up of 50 pretty large levels. Sadly, the gameplay is too shallow and repetitive to sustain that length. It also suffers from obnoxiously short draw distance, making it too easy to take damage.

Game lacks a lot of important features to be defined as a roguelike game. No stats, no class, limited attack range, and the field of view of your char is so limited you cannot even see one square away what is ahead of you, the char must have some sort of blindness I imagined. The music is not that great but the sound effect is good.

Promoted to Shadow

Completeness

2 I encountered a few bugs, but the game is playable

1 Game is very rough around the edges, had some bugs with enemy sight overlays dissapearing, the balance isn't great as many rooms aren't 'solvable' in any way

Aesthetics

2 It was fine and minimalistic. Although I had trouble identifying some of the pieces by just looking at them

1 The art needs a lot of work, characters were not easy to identify, sight ranges overlap in ways that make it difficult to tell what enemies can see. Items artwork doesn't help to identify their purpose

Fun

1 This game is trying something interesting, but it just wasn't quite engaging.

1 With some of the bugs and the unintutive controls it makes it difficult to find ways to succeed in the game. Items feel underpowered and some rooms can spawn enemies in a way that its nearly impossible to make it across them let alone come back. Additionally the very random nature of unit movement removes most of your ability to plan your way through rooms

Innovation

2 I really like the idea of trying to combine chess and a strategy game

2 The stealth approach combined with chess movement and attacks is a great idea. The concepts need to be followed through a little more. Some other aspects of the game like balance and bugs really stop the idea from shining

Scope

2 There are a decent number of items and enemies to work with here

1 There isn't much depth here in its current state. With a little more variation and variety in rooms and scaling difficulty this game could have great progression

Roguelikeness

2 It has some roguelike elements: turn based gameplay, item based progression. The randomly generated dungeons all tended to feel the same, though, so there didn't feel like a lot of variety

2 It has a lot of solid roguelike elements. Unfortuantely I think each room being chess boards and the balance encourging you to simply skirt around the edge of rooms takes a little away from what little procgen there is.

This was a really interesting game. While I didn't particularly enjoy it, that doesn't mean it's not good. It's trying something fairly different, and any time you take a risk like that, there's a chance it might not work out. There are some really interesting pieces here, though. I think with some more compelling level generation, and possibly more interesting enemy AI (right now I felt like I was just facing mobs of enemies moving at random), I think there could be something here.

Promoted to Shadow is a stealth focused roguelike with a chess flair. As you conduct a heist to steal a key to clear each floor you must evade detection from your enemies. This game tries to take the best elements of chess and turn it into a strong roguelike that requires thought and planning. Unfortunately some important bugs and aesthetic misses take away from that. Additionally some balance issues and design choices hamper the players ability to proberly strategize and move effectively throughout the game board. Ultimately the idea is strong and unqiue, taking a strong core idea of chess and applying roguelike elements proves to be a good base for a game.

Untitled Orb Game

Completeness

3 Worked fine and ran fine, did notice an enemy spawn outside of the wall and sometimes not act but that's about it for bugs

1 The dungeon boss is easier than the rats, because he gets stuck when trying to exit his room and you can shoot him from the corridor safely. Rats and dogs can also get stuck, but less often. Audio glitches for a few seconds whenever you start the game, as it transitions from the main theme to floor theme.

Aesthetics

2 Very nice looking and controlled decently enough, but I felt the orientation of the camera was not great

2 The dynamic lightning from your fire orbs is the main draw, and helps offset the poor enemy animations. Music and SFX are well-chosen, but their volume needs adjustment.

Fun

1 I could see this being fun, if there was a game here to go along with the concept

2 It's a frantic, chaotic mess, where you are helpless up close, it's difficult to hit fast animals charging you, especially when moving, and shooting too much leaves you completely in the dark. For all its bugs and lack of polish, this is a more interesting experience than the typical roguelite submissions.

Innovation

2 Your weapon is also your light source, hot idea

2 It's certainly not a typical hack-and-slash. Fire orbs floating around your head appear inspired by Dark Souls pyromancies, and the difficulties of actually fighting with just that are intriguing, even.

Scope

1 This qualifies as a tech demo

1 One floor consisting of completely featureless rooms, two enemy types (rats and dogs), one boss who gets stuck when trying to chase after you.

Roguelikeness

1 This is an action roguelike, but the main criticism here is the depth of content in all regards

1 Real-time, and though it technically has permadeath and procedurally generated floors, it's also so short, and so featureless, that these lose their meaning.

I liked the idea, your attack also happens to be your light source so attacking at full power will leave you blind. However, everything else was just a barebones skeleton to show off this idea; which competently did so but nothing more

Unfortunately, this submission is barely a roguelite, let alone roguelike, and is just a short tech demo with few features and bugged enemy movement. However, the concept is unusual, and I think that if the creator decides to work on it further, it can be quite promising if the full game fully commits to being magical survival horror.

Veggie Ventures

Completeness

2 I was able to win it (I'm supposed to say something about cucumbers here to prove that :)). It's a fairly short game, though, without a lot of variety or content

2 Runs well, very stable, some clicking seemed off target and the screen scrolling could use a little tweaking.

Aesthetics

2 This has a nice, playful art style.

2 very polished look, but some of the icons were confusing. I played several games before I knew what the lightning bolt was.

Fun

2 The gameplay is fairly simple, but the fact that it gives you all the information about enemies up front means you can intelligently plan your course of action each level. I liked that

2 It's fine, pretty limited, but has enough going on that I was curious enough to keep going.

Innovation

1 Nothing particularlly innovative here; just a solid execution of turn based grid combat

1 Nothing new here, outside of playing as a cucumber

Scope

1 Not a lot of depth or variety in skills or enemies

1 very small levels, very limited interactions, and as far as I can tell a very limited selection of monsters.

Roguelikeness

1 It's turn based, but it plays more like a puzzle game. The randomly generated levels don't have a lot of variety, but there is a bit of RPG like character progression

2 Theme and mechanics right there with mobile puzzle roguelikes.

This was a simple game, and I felt like I saw everything it had to offer after a few playthroughs, but what was there was well done.

There isn't a lot here. The levels are tiny and the procgen is unforgiving. The simple controls and puzzlelike mechanics would make a good, idle, mobile game that would be good for playing on a phone while waiting in line somewhere. Some instructions and some a more reasonable progression in the difficulty would go a long way towards making this a lot more fun.

Volta

Completeness

1 While the game itself was stable, I never experienced any crashes or bugs, it didn't really give off the impression of a finished product. There was no tutorial, or help screen, and it did not feel very balanced.

2 There are a few different monsters and items, along with working basic roguelike mechanics. However, the game is lacking an inventory, a way to use items, and an ending.

Aesthetics

2 The low resolution pixel art was a nice touch, and the dungeons in general looked quite cool.

2 I am a fan of the simple graphical style and minimal color choice.

Fun

1 The lack of balance really made it quite difficult to enjoy the game, as I found myself getting killed by even the starting enemies without much I could do against them, given the lack of inventory management or other escape options.

1 While there is basic roguelike gameplay, which is great, there are really no decisions to make. You can't choose or use your items, all you can do is open every chest and bump top attack.

Innovation

1 Quite a standard rogue like idea, walking around in a dungeon killing mobs.

1 No innovation, but I don't think that innovation is the goal-- just creating a traditional roguelike, which was a success.

Scope

2 Seemed like fairly standard rogue like scope was planned.

1 I have to give a 1 here, because I can't tell if many of the mechanics are implemented. There is no help or explanation or communication with the player. There are only a few levels.

Roguelikeness

2 While it was missing some rogue like elements, such as permadeath and inventory management, it was overall still a rogue like.

3 Grid-based, turn-based, dungeon crawler and bump-to-attack, so definitely a traditional roguelike. Oddly enough, no permadeath.

Congrats on the entry! It definitely could have done with some more polish, the lack of any kind of help or instructions was particularly frustrating, but with a bit more time it could definitely be a solid roguelike.

Seems like a basic implementation of roguelike mechanics, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to make for 7DRL. It would be nice to see an explantation of the items, or the abiility to use them. There is no documenation and pressing random buttons keys had no effect. When I discovered that there is mouse support I was quite happy, since otherwise there is quite a lot of key-pressing required.

struo

Completeness

2 The game runs without bugs, but seems incomplete.

2 It's completely playable, but it's rough around the edges and there are several bugs I encountered (spawning in a wall on a new floor, somehow attacking myself, and a freeze to list a few)

Aesthetics

2 Fine ASCII art. Only HJKL is a bit rough

2 It's pretty standard for an ascii roguelike. Controls are very conventional roguelike controls and the interface is clean. The level generation is aesthetically nice, though a bit limited in variability.

Fun

1 It feels like the game lacks the fun part. It could be a good game basis.

1 It's a standard hack-and-slash sort of game with limited resource management (only hp). Differing base component types seemed mostly superfluous and all that really mattered was the per-building component. The lack of key repeating on such large maps was physically painful to work with. Progression caps out waaay before game completion.

Innovation

1 Very classic crafting system and combat

1 This is pretty much a standard hack-and-slash

Scope

1 Feels uncomplete

1 I wanted to give a 2 here on the basis on the map generation, but there is a very limited selection of enemies and gear (which aren't very strongly differentiated aside from sheer strength). Overall pretty shallow a little more than a tech demo.

Roguelikeness

2 It sure *looks* roguelike. But it lacks choices and variety.

3 Absolutely a classic roguelike, though in it's absolutely most barebones form

It seems a good promise of a roguelike game, without the fun part. Every base features (vision, auto-explore, combat, item-pickup...) works well and is well exposed by the UI. But the game is very repetitive: autoexplore -> kill rats/zombies -> pickup stuff -> repeat The fun part would be more variety in enemies or environment, special rooms, usable items (maybe have the choice between keeping the item as material for crafting, or use it in combat: a bit of a push your luck), and crafted items could give you a permanent upgrade (which could change between runs), that way, each scavenging would feel different. I can feel the real problem here is not enough time to implemment everything. I hope you had fun and learned a lot during this 7drl, so that next year you could spend more time on things like special effects, enemies or upgrades :)

There's overall just too little here to make for a fun game - it needs more development more or less everywhere.

A Rogue's Journey

Completeness

2 There are jumps in between levels, and I had a couple of runs just crash after pausing or after changing full-screen, but for the most part, this works!

Aesthetics

2 Clean controls, simple graphics. This could easily be a 3, but none of the graphics really "wowed" me despite being nice enough. They felt pretty standard.

Fun

1 Not *unfun*, but it's slow-paced, easy, and doesn't have enough variation in runs to justify a high fun rating for me. The upgrades are so incremental that you don't really feel them.

Innovation

1 Really straight-forward.

Scope

1 More of a tech demo than a full game given how similar enemies are and the length of the game.

Roguelikeness

2 Procedural generation and permadeath. Not much variation in runs keeps this from hitting a 3 to me.

Great submission! Manages to hit all the benchmarks of the 7DRL and made a playable game. It didn't reach super far and wasn't a 10/10, but it is always great to see a complete game, especially in real-time.

Clean Clone

Completeness

2 Has a couple of bugs and had to play in the browser as it wouldn't download, but otherwise it ran fine

Aesthetics

2 It presented what was happening well enough but the second biome's colors could have been better

Fun

1 It was very repetitive to say the least

Innovation

2 The concept looks fresh enough that I'd call it innovative

Scope

1 There wasn't a whole lot of depth here as there wasn't really enough content to play with

Roguelikeness

1 It has procedural generation and has permadeath, but it lacks depth to the point that I wouldn't call it a roguelike

You clean the purple infection, cure the infected bad guys, bomb the walls to get to disjointed areas, and that's it! The concept is fine but I was bored out of my mind doing the same thing over and over again. There wasn't enough here to present unique and distinct situations to explore.

Cowball

Completeness

2 The game runs, doesn't crash, can be won, but hardly can be called complete or polished.

Aesthetics

2 Nice black and white aesthetics,nice pixel art, good boss animation, but DAMN, dark grey bullet on a dark grey background? Seriously?

Fun

1 The game is trivial. Jumping mechanics is cumbersome and doesn't feel right.

Innovation

1 A platformer with permanently jumping character isn't exactly new or innovative.

Scope

2 I guess majority of time was eaten by animation of the main character and the boss.

Roguelikeness

1 Realtime platformer with levels randomly picked from the pool of fixed pre-designed levels is definitely not a roguelike.

The game is closer to some kind of puzzle platformer, because shooting in an arcade style is almost impossible, so for each enemy you need to find a safe approach. Unfortunately it's not a roguelike at all.

Goblin's Redempiton

Completeness

2 The game runs, can be won, but hardly can be called completed or polushed. There are numerous bugs.

Aesthetics

2 Some coridors are untextuerd, sword swings are often not connecting, while visually must be. Clicking on UI slots and buttons also causes sword swing. Managing inventory is very strange and not quite intuitive.

Fun

1 The game is very clumsy to control, but easy, except for final boss. Staff of fireball is completely OP as it shoots enemies thru walls and at any range.

Innovation

1 Very generic 3rd person view dungeon crawler.

Scope

2 Couple enemies, a few items, 3 spells and boss. On a weaker side of what you expect from 7drl.

Roguelikeness

1 Realtime 3rd person view dungeon with several rooms connected linearly. 3 spells to choose from 3, so you end up with the same spells every time. Very few items, so you end up with the same items. I'm afraid this game have no relation to roguelikes.

The game is too basic and too generic, the fighting is too clumsy and too bugged. There is nothing to enjoy or to be amazed by.

I Remember... (7DRL Game Jam 2023)

Completeness

2 The game works, doesn't crash, more or less complete, but definitely not polished.

Aesthetics

2 A bit of goofy pixel art is nice, but absence of weapon reload indicator, disappearing health bar and really hard to read item names that disapper almost immediately is not nice.

Fun

1 The game is trivial and boring. Static enemies that pose no threat, but you have to waste your time killing them to advance are especially fun-killing feature.

Innovation

1 Basic platformer with shooting. Nothing new.

Scope

2 It definitely wouldn't hurt to add more veriety of enemies and guns and levels, but as it is the scope is about what you might expect from 7drl, but on a lower side of 2.

Roguelikeness

1 Action platformer with levels composed of pre-fab rooms is hardly a roguelike.

A bit of randomization doesn't automatically make game a roguelike. Making levels out of pre-fab parts is fine as long as you have A LOT of them. Fancy intro is nice, but it's better to have a good game without fancy intro than fancy intro without a good game.

Isles of Madness

Completeness

2 Certainly has a couple of bugs that need to be fleshed out, but was otherwise complete

Aesthetics

3 Looked decent enough and controlled fine, jump could be a bit better

Fun

1 Even if this wasn't buggy it wouldn't be fun to play

Innovation

1 Not really doing anything new here

Scope

1 Not enough content to last more then 5 minutes - if it plays correctly

Roguelikeness

1 It has permadeath and procedural generation, and that's about it

This was a bit of a downer, I was stoked to play a first person shooter roguelike when I saw it, but there was nothing really here. You just run around and shoot some guys, go to the next level to do the same, then down the king and you are done. It should do a bit more then that.

follower RL

Completeness

1 Feels like a lot is missing here, can't tell if it is buggy or working as intended, didn't crash though

Aesthetics

2 Missing controls and I'm not sure I understand what is going on, but it looks fine and the windows are nice

Fun

1 This feels too incomplete and I would likely leave it aside until more work was done on it

Innovation

1 Possibly this is innovative but it isn't complete enough to determine if it is so

Scope

1 If this was complete it might be something resembling a game, but I don't think there is enough content here to enjoy from

Roguelikeness

3 It is a roguelike, albeit a very simple one

I can't say I thought much of this, as I was completely lost as to what the point of the game was the entire time I was playing. I checked the comments on the store page and apparently there are even some controls not listed in the instructions. A lot more effort needs to be put into this one to make it viable.

Operation: Rogue Dungeon

Completeness

2 The game works, doesn't crash, but cannot be called 'polished'. There is a bug in dungeon generator that can make disconnected areas.

1 I can run right through the enemies without being hit (they only seem to hit the frame they move). Sometimes the mapgen creates diagonal path, which I can't take.

Aesthetics

2 Weapon sprites do not have an outline, so it's quite hard to notice them on some floor tiles. 'Low fps' animation of traps and effects looks rather strange.

2 Classic UI.

Fun

1 Way too easy and uninspiring.

1 Not really fun for me.

Innovation

1 Modern military in fantasy environment? There is whole manga/anime about this! Also, modern weapon in the game do not add anything aside visuals to the game. Replace them with fantasy ranged weapons and corresponding ammo and not really much changes,

1 Plays like any arcade shooter

Scope

2 Well, there are quite a few monsters with some logic programmed, probably more or less fine for a 7drl.

2 Fair content

Roguelikeness

1 Well, there is a procedurally generated dungeon. There are a few weapons, that do not change how you play much. But essentially this is realtime arcade game without much tactics or choices.

1 More like an arcade shooter

Modern military in a fantasy world is not very well explored theme, but one must aproach it more methodically, so that arms are not just glorified wands and a grenade isn't some kind of delayed fireball,

The pitch realtime+turn-based got me hooked. But sadly, it is mainly an arcade shooter with enemies jumping around instead of moving. I just mindlessly have to shoot everything and pickup loot. And it is quite easy, since enemies are actually really slow. Mixing realtime and turn-based is hard and the easy advice would be to only choose one: - Full realtime with more dynamic enemies and environment - Full turn-based with some choices to make As for the roguelike aspect, there is only procedural map generation, which is not enough to make a roguelike. The pleasure in roguelikes comes from the exploration, tactical and strategic choices, character building and learning the game system to make the most out of what I have and know (which should be pretty varied between runs). One easy nod in that direction, compatible with real-time gameplay, is having choices between interesting upgrades which highly impact the way I play the game.

(7DRL) The Prison

Completeness

2 Game is completable, but is missing a lot of things

Aesthetics

2 There's some good pixel art on display, and controls are understandable

Fun

1 The combat isn't very engaging, and enemies seem to do between 1 and all of your health in damage

Innovation

1 Turn based combat and very basic ladder+floor movement

Scope

1

Roguelikeness

1 It feels constructed from a description of roguelikes, more than from the genre

The resource distribution feels *super* uneven, and the starting loadout is too stingy. Multiple times I died because of not even having a weapon to speak of. Dying at 90% health to a special attack more than once felt off. That art is pretty cool, IMO

AiQ Dynamics

Completeness

2 Stable and runs reasonably well. There are a few noticable bugs (memory puzzle block rotation appears to have some kind of accumulating floating point error)

Aesthetics

1 Visible dev textures, bad lighting, cobbled-together aesthetic

Fun

1 Needs improvement on puzzle gameplay. Some puzzles are fairly impenetrable, "economy" ends up requiring monotonous grind

Innovation

1 Puzzles don't seem unique and it's hard to judge "twist on typical roguelike mechanics" in a game that departs so strongly from being a roguelike

Scope

2 Reasonable for a single dev in seven days

Roguelikeness

1 This just isn't a roguelike. There's metaprogression and the randomness that exists isn't enough to freshen repeated play. It's also realtime (and timed) as well as not a strategy game.

Puzzle games tend to have problems with puzzles souring on repeat play, though some common puzzles do well in this regard (sodoku for instance). The conflict puzzle is decent at retaining it's freshness. The progression combined with puzzle selection is quite bad. I found myself selecting basic cognition + the block-placing puzzle + whatever was easiest in a tier in order to maximize my data gain. The timed nature doesn't seem to be balanced very well relative to the different puzzles nor matter very much. Though it's emphatically not a roguelike, this is perhaps a decent way to glom a couple of good puzzles together into an overall game.

Bio Reaver

Completeness

1 Need to fix mouse sensitivity, sometimes enemies don't move, otherwise it does work fine

Aesthetics

2 Kind of disliked the dodge and jump, but otherwise controls were fine and it looks decent enough

Fun

1 Having to upgrade my gun to get basic features isn't fun

Innovation

1 Didn't notice anything novel

Scope

2 About the size I would expect

Roguelikeness

1 This is a lot closer to Doom then it is to a roguelike.

The mouse sensitivity certainly needs to be addressed here as I don't think most people playing the game have the ability to adjust their mouse sensitivity on the fly like I do. Rooms could be a bit more diverse and enemies really could have more then just the three styles of attacks present. I really wasn't a fan of 'upgrading' my rifle just to get autofire on it. I noticed that enemies sometimes failed to move which made them easy pickings. I wish I could be more positive here as I can certainly commend the effort that was put in, and everything else certainly played fine, but the bugs and design were big issues.

CyanDreams

Completeness

1 This is another game where the creator did not provided a stable release, had to to compile but even with the clear instructions of make I still needed another library libsdl1.2debian that I needed to install in order to run. Besides, I keep getting map error randomly in game and the text on the right always overlay the ones at the bottom so it is confusing the layout and very bugged for me.

Aesthetics

1 No colours, and even though each symbol is easy to see I could not find the so called hatchery to be able to play the game. No indication on the whole town.

Fun

1 There is no indication as to how to use the items. The right side of the layout on item lits says [a], [b], [c] but pressing proper keys will result in nothing so there is no way to understand how to access the items.

Innovation

2 It could be a great game but it severely undermines due to obscure and unclear instructions.

Scope

1 Feels like a tech demo in its current stage.

Roguelikeness

2 From what I could see so far from the game it feels like a proper roguelike but missing attack damage.

This game has great potential, but it lacks proper instructions on how to play, use inventory items, and access the hatchery to utilize pets for defeating the castle. Without these instructions, the game will require urgent repair.

Grim Arrow

Completeness

2 Seems to be stable and reasonably polished overall, but there's a bit of sanity-checking missing in the random generation-- There are often doors you can't go through because the room on the other side doesn't have a matching door, or because an obstacle has spawned on top of or blocking the door. I don't think this affects the playability of the game, since every room is interchangable anyway. There's also a bit of "pop-in" where obstacles appear out of nowhere when you're walking through a room, and obstacles spawn on top of one another frequently.

2 The game runs. Some bugs with the doors. And it feels a bit unfair.

Aesthetics

2 Personally this isn't my favorite graphical aesthetic, but it's nicely put together; everything is clearly readable on the screen as terrain, obstacle or monster. The controls are reasonably intuitive, and aside from the HUD there's just not that much to discuss aesthetically. If there's a criticism of the aesthetics, it's that the solid background on the HUD takes up a decent percentage of the screen and makes it hard to see things north of you sometimes.

2 I really like the style. But I found it hard to distinguish enemies from the background

Fun

1 I kind of struggled to maintain interest for the time necessary to legitimately judge this game. On my final 23-minute run, I emptied out all of the map that was accessible and ended with full health and a full quiver of arrows. With the abundance of health and ammo pickups, the only part of the game that becomes challenging at all is when monsters randomly spawn in directly on top of you and cause unavoidable damage, which makes it possible to die.

1 Felt unfairly hard and very repetitive

Innovation

1 No innovation to see here, it just feels like a very bare-bones Binding-of-Isaac-like that doesn't have anything except basic combat in it.

1 Classic formula for action shooter

Scope

1 This is basically just a tech demo; I think it's a good start for a game to be built on but there's just not a lot of meat here to dig into. Shoot stuff, don't die, and don't run out of ammo.

1 More like a proof of concept

Roguelikeness

1 If this had a little more to it than simply "shooting things in a random dungeon" it would be a 2 for me, but it just is missing too much to qualify IMO.

1 Only permadeath and minor mapgen. More like an arcade shooter

This is the underlying foundation of a game that could be a fun rogue-lite if More Stuff was added to it, but right now I just don't see this as a full-game experience even for a rogue-lite. There's nothing to do except combat with one of three types of monster, and even that isn't really dangerous at all unless they spawn on top of you. At a minimum it needs more variety; more monsters, maybe some bosses or more dungeon levels to give the game some progression to make you care about dying and losing it; and hopefully something to liven things up beyond just pure combat. I'm guessing you had higher hopes for this game and just didn't get more than the absolute minimum basics done for the 7DRL.

A base of a Binding-of-Isaac-like. Sadly, the game did not cut it for me: - The door are often blocked either by an object, or by an invisible wall. - It would need to at least have varied upgrades to be called a roguelite. For now, it is more an arcade shooter. The fun in action-roguelikes generally comes from the exploration, the run variety and the character building (upgrades). The shooting part is fun too but is far from all. - There is a disconnect between the goal of the game (survive long) and the gameplay. Since enemies spawn only in new rooms, then my optimal play is to wait in the start room. If you want to implement this goal, you need to push the danger to the player, they won't risk their life without reason => Two ideas: an agressive hunger clock, or an arena where monsters spawn continuously. - It felt unfair: > I once got from 10 to 0 in 1s, steamrolled by the whole room of enemies => Add an invicibility window of like two seconds after being hit. > The enemies can spawn and attack you without letting you the time to react => Telegraph the spawn with particles effect, and add a delay to enemy movement on spawn. > I struggled to distinguish the enemies on the same color background. On the positive side, I really like the graphic style and find it consistent. Nice work for a week :)

Grooving in spaceships with no gravity and bad guys!

Completeness

1 Improper hit detection and scoring doesn't work; both of which are critical for this game

Aesthetics

2 The WASD keys didn't work, but the cursors worked fine. Graphics were okay

Fun

1 This was pretty bad with all the bugs

Innovation

2 Rhythm based roguelikes have been done but I think this is touching on new ground

Scope

1 You dodge attacks and survive, that's it.

Roguelikeness

1 This was too simple to be consider a roguelike.

This felt unfinished and with the bugs it was an extreme chore to play. You play this about 15 seconds and you've seen just about all their is to see here. Certainly not what I would call a success.

The Grind

Completeness

2 The game looks fairly complete, but there are a quite a lot of bugs.

Aesthetics

1 I know the author tried hard to make creepy atmosphere, but as a result more or less prolonged attempt to play the game causes sea seakness for me.

Fun

1 Cleaning routine is way way too demanding. It feels like waste of time.

Innovation

1 Well... Horror in the slaughterhouse. What a novel idea!

Scope

2 I must admit, quite a lot of work was done.

Roguelikeness

1 Not even close to roguelikelike.

It's a horror. First person view. With slightly randomized map, which changes nothing and doesn't bring the game closer to roguelikes.

The Last of Dingus

Completeness

1 Pretty buggy and unpolished, in ways that make it borderline impossible to really play. I'm guessing the time got away from you while developing it.

Aesthetics

2 Cute graphics but the controls are generally terrible. The pervasive darkness makes the world around you super tough to read, and conversely the flashlight doesn't seem to have any drawback I can find, so there's no reason to ever turn it off. The inter-level screens don't really explain what you're doing at all.

Fun

1 The extremely limited ammo supply means accurate targeting is essential, yet it's very hard to do that since the targeting crosshairs do not correspond to where you shoot when you press the button. All the monsters know where you are at all times, so every floor begins with either you being mobbed to death by all the monsters at once, or the monsters getting stuck on geometry because of the bad pathing and letting you pick them off one by one.

Innovation

1 This is a really awkward twin-stick shooter, basically. I imagine any innovation present was supposed to be in the interstitial screens, but I found those just plain puzzling– Is there ever any reason to not bring all of the healing items you've acquired into the next level with you? Is there a benefit for ditching some or all of them? If so, it's not messaged to the player.

Scope

2 This is really not much more than a tech demo, but I'll give it a small amount of credit for scope because there's at least a working game here, even if it is a bit on the buggy side of things.

Roguelikeness

1 This is just an unfinished twin-stick shooter game. The layouts of each level appear to always be the same, with only the placement of clutter and item pickups being randomized. I don't really get a lot of roguelikeness off this at all.

Obviously this game is highly unpolished, so I'm guessing the time got away from you. Setting bugs aside: Just dropping random prefabs in the levels isn't enough to make a game a roguelike; you need some more variety and strategic or tactical complexity to chew on. Also you need your story to be more explicitly messaged to provide context; I think it's about blowing up the reactors on top of buildings to kill all the zombies. But then why can I go back to buildings that I've already blown up? Why am I collecting food and water while I do that? Etc.

Twilight Castle

Completeness

1 The game feels like a UE5 tech demo, and a very poorly optimized one at that

Aesthetics

2 The game looks pretty, but the fact that your attacks are ranged is *hard* to tell because you're holding a sword. The game is also a motion-blurry mess on my lower end laptop

Fun

1 The "storm generator" is very bullet spongy, the enemies trap you behind terrain super easily.

Innovation

1 This feels like an very basic FPS horde mode

Scope

2 It's hard to say? I don't know how much of this is baked into Unreal

Roguelikeness

1 This is realtime, it's a horde defense/objective game, and has super minimal, if any, proc gen

The game feels like a basic wave based shooter, and seems to have *very* little to do with Roguelikes

Untitled Hook Game

Completeness

1 The game runs, but there are unplayable slowdowns which is unacceptable for a reflex based games. Console is full of errors.

Aesthetics

2 Very basic 3d, not horrible, but not exactly interesting.

Fun

1 Constant frame drops are killing all potential fun. The game often generates impossible levels.

Innovation

1 There are plenty of much more creative hook games.

Scope

2 There are some drones that are trying to hinder you, physics is not horrible, it barely fits what you might expect from 7drl.

Roguelikeness

1 First person 3d platforming with hook. Nope, not even close to roguelikelike.

3d first person view parkour/platforming is a genre of it's own. Don't know what it has to do with roguelikes.

Layer 88

Completeness

1 The game crashes and hangs constantly.

1 The game was very incomplete. It crashed quite a few times, and there wasn't much there.

Aesthetics

1 This is the case when ASCII is better than graphics. Music is too loud and cannot be turned off.

2 A fairly simple art style, but it works

Fun

1 Some extremely generic unbalanced hack and slash.

1 There isn't much actual gameplay there. It feels more like the first steps towards making a game, but not an actual game.

Innovation

1 Nothing new.

1 There's not much here to make sense of. The idea of cutting through walls seems interesting, so I'd like to see that expanded on.

Scope

1 Hard to tell, it is crashing. But what I see is not quite enough for an average 7drl.

1 There are a few weapons and monsters, but there isn't much here

Roguelikeness

2 Once again, hard to tell. It is turn based. There is some randomly generated level. There are some items. But there is too little game to call it true roguelike.

2 It has the elements of a roguelike; turn based, procgen, some progression (although it seemed buggy to me)

Looks like some kind of technodemo.

There wasn't much game here; it's very incomplete. It seems like it could turn into something. I like the idea of cutting through walls and shrubs, but this game wasn't complete enough to really see that go anywhere.

Slay The Serpent

Completeness

2 While it worked and ran fine, it felt rough

2 Missing a lot of important features, the speed diagonal is faster than going up or down. The attack either with sword or magic slows down the character.

Aesthetics

2 Sounded fine but controlling the character wasn't great because the cursor was hard to see and enemies would fire at me from below, off screen where I couldn't see them

1 The cursor is barely visible in the terrain so it is difficult to shoot. The visual appearance is also not that great.

Fun

1 Not really fun wandering around aimlessly trying to find an objective in a big area

1 Not fun, the attack with sword or magic is too slow and you are normally missing due to the delay in the attacks. I know that for magic there are some upgrades to collect but I havent noticed a single difference in my runs.

Innovation

1 Not sure there was any real innovation here

1 Unfortunately, this game, in its concept, brings nothing new.

Scope

1 Could have done more I think here

1 This feels like a tech demo and it is missing a lot of important features.

Roguelikeness

1 Far too close to an arcade game and it felt like it was lacking in depth

1 I do not believe that this game fits the criteria of a roguelike in any way that I can think of. The weapons, upgrades, and monsters do not provide any statistical information, and the only defining element is permadeath.

An top down twin stick shooter action roguelike, the biggest complaint I would have is being able to place your shots where you want too. It was very easy for me to loose my cursor as it blended in with the background. I also felt I had a huge blindspot below my character as enemies fired projectiles up without me seeing them. At best I lucked out with finding two tablets once, but I felt that it was too luck based wandering around aimlessly trying to blunder into them.

Seems like a demo that appears to require a significant amount of reworking. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly innovative in this game, and even if there were, the laggy game mechanics make it difficult to enjoy. Therefore, I cannot recommend this game.

Stabby Office Wizards

Completeness

1 Heavily bug ridden: inventory persists through games, enemies can spawn on top of you and in walls, and I've been killed by a corpse a few times

1 Very buggy. A lot of stuttering, enemies spawning inside of the walls, strange inventory.

Aesthetics

1 Extremely underdeveloped aesthetics & music quickly becomes annoying

1 There is no sense in attack on cursor keys. Either allow mouse to attack, or use standard bump to attack. Visuals are very bland. 3d do not add anything and mostly off puting.

Fun

1 Bugs heavily interfere with the experience on top of the gameplay itself being extremely basic

1 The game is trivial and way too random. With some luck you can win just by walking into the exit on the opposite side of the starting room on each floor.

Innovation

1 It's a hack and slash without much notable innovation. The mechanic of separate acting/thinking phases for enemies makes it feel vaguely broughlike, but there's not really anything new here

1 Nothing new here.

Scope

1 Very minimal scope

1 Extremely simple floor generation, 1 enemy and no items (knife in inventory do not count) is not enough for a decent 7drl.

Roguelikeness

3 It seems like everything is here: there's procedural map generation and permadeath. It's tile-based and turn based. It's got a bit of resource management

2 Well. It is turn based. There are random levels. But that's all. Not enough to be called true roguelike.

At the very least I can say that this is a complete playable game (that I've managed to get at least one victory on). It's unfortunately very bug-ridden (funny as it may be to be chased down and stabbed by an unkillable corpse), has little to offer in terms of aesthetic, and has underdeveloped gameplay. The thinking/acting distinction could potentially be the foundation to build some interesting almost broughlike strategic decision making on.

I understand what the author tried to make, but it is definitely not there.

MR.failure

Completeness

1 It's a basic platformer.

Aesthetics

2 I think it uses recycled assets from other games, but I guess it looks okay.

Fun

1 Horrible hitboxes, first level didn't seem completable.

Innovation

1 It's a basic platformer

Scope

1 Not really suitable for this jam

Roguelikeness

1 I couldn't discern any roguelike elements

Basic platformer with no proc-gen (as far as I could tell), horrible hit detection and recycled assets. From a quick look at the developer's profile I can see they are 13 years old, so respect for getting this up and running nonetheless!

Minirogue: Alchemic Beginnings

Completeness

1 Though the itch page warns about this, loading takes 2.5 minutes and freezes my entire browser (on a brand new macbook). There is no win condition. There doesn't seem to be much here. Because there are damage numbers I suspect combat was intended, but seems pointless because you can insta-kill enemies with a hammer.

1 Slow to load. Too unoptimized to play on my laptop. Ran OK on my desktop. Missing features -- there isn't really any objective

Aesthetics

1 The keyboard controls are OK, but nothing is mentioned about clicking on items and then onto tiles to use items (took me about 30 minutes to find this). The item interactions are a bit nonsensical: chopping down trees with a hammer, creating fire on water with a flamethrower? The tile selection is hard to get right. I ran into a list of graphic artifacts and issues: tiny damage numbers at the wrong angle, lines between tiles, a inexplicable red box. The colors in the game are very dark and washed out.

1 Keyboad controls OK. Mouse interactions not explained and unclear.

Fun

1 I did not have much fun. I was curious about how the various items might interact but never figured out anything interesting.

1 Slow to load, nothing interesting to explore, no enemies to encounter

Innovation

1 I don't see anything new.

1 Nothing new

Scope

2 Given the various item types, but the single "Monster" type it's just barely a 2.

1 Controls and map implemented but no goal to accomplish

Roguelikeness

2 It checks several boxes, but there seems to be a big lack of hack and slash and nothing to fill its place.

1 "No win condintion"; turn-based, procgen world but little more than random terrain, never died (or enountered any threat), no maze to explore; missing elements but not replacing them with anything else

Feels like a rough tech demo. Unexplained mouse controls, washed out buggy graphics, a very vague goal which I could not make progress towards despite trying. I wandered what seemed like the whole map, tried all combinations of items and tiles I could, and found only 2 "notes" that might help. I think the developer might have put something interesting in here, but if so it's well hidden. One positive thing: the fire tile is pretty cute and starting forest fires was a nice surprise.

Rough, felt like it was the start of a project that did not have most of its features implemented

Olympic Smashdown

Completeness

1 No screenshots, no procgen but the game did run

Aesthetics

2 Giving this solid marks for the banging music score

Fun

1 Sorta fun - I just couldn't deflect any of the projectiles so I didn't last long. Could be turned into a neat idea if developed more

Innovation

1 Reminds me of the old LCD game where you're a fireman holding the trampoline to catch the dudes jumping out of buildings

Scope

1 Small scope for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

1 Felt pretty Arcade-y to me. There WAS permadeath, but didn't notice anything like powerups, etc

Banging musical score aside, I'm not sure this feels like a Roguelike at all. Maybe some additional work here on making some powerups or something? Was a neat idea to explore though! Thanks for submitting an entry!

Troll-y Problem

Completeness

2 It worked but I'm not sure it ran completely as intended

Aesthetics

1 Not the easiest game to look at, the controls were the Q,W,E,A,S,D,Z,X, and C keys as opposed to the Numpad; which didn't work for me

Fun

1 Not really all that interesting

Innovation

1 This is just pushing things into hazards and hoping to get as high a score as possible

Scope

1 There was little here

Roguelikeness

1 Not even complicated enough to call it an arcade game

The quality of the game here reminded me of the many toss away titles I sometimes played in the 90s. Nostalgia aside though, there wasn't really much here for a 7DRL; it didn't even have the same sort of depth as the Trolley Problem that inspires it.

shower of power

Completeness

2 Game works and runs nice. But there's no more than shoot and move here, right?

Aesthetics

1 Correct, but pretty simple

Fun

1 Well, it's nice for a first try, but there's not much game here! Different guns, enemies, maybe obstacles would be nice.

Innovation

1 No, not really :D Just point and shoot.

Scope

1 Not much more than you, an enemy and your bullets here.

Roguelikeness

1 No procedural content, no turn-based game, no roguelike!

Well, it's clearly a 'first time game'! Don't get me wrong, it's great if that's the case, but there's obvioulsy a lot to learn. Still, well done! Go further next time!

Shadowed Realms

Completeness

1 Couldn't replay after death, enemies got stuck on objects, dead enemies blocked doorways, enemies didn't always register hits

1 Many bugs, while corpses, after my first death, becomes stuck in walls or even stand without doing nothing. Attack is very slow and unoptimized.

Aesthetics

2 Controls were instantly understandable, UI stays out of the way, all good there

1 A lot of problems with the controls, particularly with the attack sword animation. The timing for the swing is too slow for it to take an effect if an enemy is approaching you.

Fun

1 Very simple combat and healing, all the enemies have the same behaviour, nothing else to see or do

1 Not fun and a lack of enemy diversity.

Innovation

1 If this had the upgrades, new weapons and randomized maps that you didn't have to time to finish, this could have made for a sort of roguelike-soulslike mix. For now, there's nothing really there, so nothing innovative

1 Nothing new.

Scope

1 Not much is done yet

1 Missing a lot of features to be considered a complete expected game from a 7DRL.

Roguelikeness

1 Has randomized enemies, but isn't roguelike

1 Plays nothing like a roguelike. Perhaps, only fitting is the permadeath attribute.

I don't really want to criticise something this unfinished. Time constraints get to everyone, don't worry. Of what's there, a quicker sword swing would make it instantly more fun. Keep making games!

This game appears to be a mere proof-of-concept and falls short in terms of gameplay. Unfortunately, there are very few redeeming features to highlight. The game is lacking in terms of enemies and riddled with bugs. There is certainly room for significant improvement.

The Cross Master

Completeness

1 Pretty basic. Good Itch page but a bare demo without procgen

Aesthetics

1 Needs some work but the basics were there

Fun

1 Sorta fun? There's already been some further releases, which I could not use for judging that might improve the game concept

Innovation

1 A fairly basic idea of shooting waves of enemies

Scope

1 Quite small scope for a 7DRL

Roguelikeness

1 Sorry, it just didn't feel like a Roguelike - definitely more of an arcade type shooter

If this is the dev's first project, then kudos! I think just sticking with something and releasing it is fantastic. It just didn't feel like a roguelike but an arcade endless shooter game.