Reviews

DEAD FACE

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

3 4 4

Fun

4 3 4

Innovation

4 4 4

Scope

4 4 4

Roguelikeness

4 3 3

I went into this not knowing what to expect. Often with hacking games I get frustrated quickly, not understanding fast enough what I'm meant to do with usually dire consequences. This one however, took me a couple of goes to understand and once I got it, I found I loved it. It doesn't detract from the rest of the game at all, adding a great layer of gameplay to what seems like a typical roguelike on the surface. I didn't get control of mechs very often, but what I did play I loved as well for sheer strategy and intriguing mech-layout. I found when I wanted an easy playthrough, I'd just stealth it up and occasionally hack data points for the thrill of it, but if I wanted a challenge I'd happily take on a mech and pilot it very badly. The only time I won was through stealth, but that's not a surprise - it's the easy way. Aesthetically, it's the typical roguelike but with extra UTF characters and a good use of colour - for something cyberpunk-inclined, it's a perfect style. The terminal screen is clear and easy to use, though I got annoyed I couldn't scroll up to repeat my previous command - but that's just because I use terminals regularly and I expect that functionality. Overall, I absolutely loved it - and would be glad to see a post 7DRL version if one was ever planned. Completeness I gave you a 4, which is the highest score we're "supposed" to give. This feels like a basically complete set of mechanics. I couldn't help but feel like something was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on it, so I didn't dock you points for it. It's missing some gameplay glue somewhere. But that's high-level criticism for a 7-day roguelike. Aesthetics This game is REALLY PRETTY. But I knocked off a point because I couldn't always tell why things were happening. I would take some damage, or the alert level would go up, or I would lose the game, and I would just have NO IDEA WHY. It was really frustrating. According to the scoring rubric, UI is part of Aesthetics, so 3/5 for you. Edit: Then I came back later and put it back up at 4/5 because this is the prettiest game in 7DRL, easy. It wouldn't be fair not to acknowledge that. Fun I agonized over this one, but in the end I had to go with my subjective experience: I loved the hacking minigame, and I avoided mech combat as much as possible. It always felt like getting into a gunfight was a bad idea. The times I tried it, it ended badly due to alert level explosion. The alert level mechanic felt a lot like it was kicking me while I was down - it would get up a bit, and then the fact that I was in a mech would make it shoot right up to 5 so there was no way for me to get out of a gunfight once I got in it. So I went for a 3/5 instead of 4/5 for feeling like I had to avoid a huge part of the game to do well. Innovation 4/5 obviously. Excellent ideas. This is what 7DRL is for. Scope Solid scope from a 7DRL. Nice variety to pickups, mechanics, enemies, parts, and flavor. 4/5. Roguelikishness Had to do a 3/5 here because the hacking minigame is realtime. For me, a roguelike is all turn based, all the time, as a core requirement. A really impressive 7DRL. The hacking mini-game is really really fun. I found the other elements to be a little dense and/or too difficult but will definitely return to up my game. It's easy to see how much thought and effort went into this entry - the controls are simple and the display is flawlessly integrated into the game. This is a must-play from this batch.

Meters Below the Ground

Completeness

4 3 4

Aesthetics

4 4 4

Fun

4 4 4

Innovation

3 4 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

I enjoyed this game a lot. It's clever, well thought-out, and feels very complete. The different special abilities feel nicely balanced (with the exception of the medkit, which seems more powerful than the rest), and I also liked how well progress meters were incorporated into everything. I also like the cleverness of the title and the variable ways of playing given the different missions and abilities. All of this suggests, to me, a score of 4 for completeness and fun. The game is short, though sufficiently difficult that it's possible to play several rounds of the game in a very short period of time (I think I got through about 12 games in 30 minutes, but I was pretty bad at it). This seems like a standard scope for a 7DRL, so a score of 3 seems appropriate. There is no question about this being a RogueLike though (score of 4), though I feel like most of the mechanics here are already present in other RogueLikes; the innovation this game brings is in how those mechanics are tied together quickly and neatly, and their connection to the progress bars. This seems more like an innovation score of 3. Potentially more could have been added (more content, more complex or unusual abilities / mechanics, etc.), but given how polished and stable the game is I think what was developed here is still very good. Although ASCII graphics were used, it was very clear what the different objects were, how to move around, the character's status, and so on. In other words, the graphics were simple but pretty and clear (definitely a score of 4). Overall, this was one of my favorite (if not my most favorite) entry for this game jam. Excellent work! A small, neat Roguelike with an A+ pun-tastic name and great gameplay with lots of nice touches that tie into its 'meters'-based theme well. COMPLETENESS Seems complete and polished. No bugs encountered (other than the enemies, who are literal bugs). Balance could do with improvement - the early game is much harder than the late game and some abilities (such as the Medkit) are vastly more essential than others. AESTHETICS Nice clean ASCII, with some nice functional touches like enemies turning red when near death. Controls are simple and easy to grasp, though perhaps oversimplified for those used to traditional roguelike control schemes - you automatically go down stairs just by touching them and pick up items automatically, even when the relevant meter is already full, wasting the resource. FUN A variety of small mechanics combine together well to provide some interesting tactical gameplay. In particular, the metamophosing enemies add some time pressure but with interesting means of managing it. The sub-objectives on each floor are also a nice addition that help to provide some variety. The deterministic combat means that you need to plan ahead and make clever use of your abilities to avoid the attrition of trading blows, but makes healing items paramount and (ironically) can make you highly succeptable to RNG in the early game, where you may simply not have the tools you need to survive. Despite this, I found it highly enjoyable. INNOVATION The game features a number of small twists on traditional mechanics which work together well and add up to an experience which is fairly unique. SCOPE About what I would expect from a 7DRL; a reasonable number of abilities, enemies and objectives. Once you have seen all the different objective types there is not a huge amount of variety between levels, but to its credit the game limits itself to a mere 6 levels to avoid outstaying its welcome. ROGUELIKE Yes. Congratulations on making an excellent game. This is a standout entry to me. You should be proud. Completeness Polished, balanced, bug free. No apparent rough edges. 4/5, the highest score I am supposed to give. Aesthetics Your fonts and tiles look perfect even though they're simple. It's unique and appealing in a way I can't put my finger on. And the UI is exactly what this game needs. 4/5 Fun At first I thought the spiders were unfair and OP and couldn't get much past level 1. I put the game down and forgot about it. Then it came up in my judging queue and I spent another 30 minutes on it, and won! I now see that I was being a giant baby before. I'm happy with the balance in this game. In fact, it might be the best-balanced game in the whole event this year. Certainly not too easy! Innovative The scoring rubric says a 3/5 is "a neat twist on the usual mechanics," which I think fits this game. There's nothing head-exploding here, just a few well-chosen ideas. Scope The scope is what I'd expect from a good 7DRL, so I gave you a 3/5 here. Four enemy types (larva, arachnid, beetoid, queen), six-ish abilities, small levels...it makes sense together, it's just not "OMG how is there this much content." Roguelikeness Is a roguelike. 4/5.

Arcane Seeds

Completeness

3 4 4

Aesthetics

3 3 3

Fun

4 4 4

Innovation

4 4 3

Scope

3 4 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

This game was a lot of fun. I wish it was a bit longer though! Some play throughs seem unwinnable, others seem to have the exit two rooms away. I beat the game about 10 times in 30 or 45 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed it. I rated it 3 in completeness instead of 4 because I feel like there needed to be a bit more of it. Most of my wins were under 2 minutes, even the ones that were in the furthest away room possible. What was there was great though. Aesthetics are pretty minimal and mostly easy to understand. I think the idea itself is really cool and would totally play a more robust game that focuses on this idea. Overall a great 7DRL! For a 7 day entry, this felt quite "complete" and solid. Well done. No random crashes, etc. Input keys made "sense". I liked the good use of colors, and the "seed" of the idea behind these was definitely and interesting and unique. I'd suggest perhaps adding some sound effects, maybe a bit of background music. Maybe once you die, you post how many moves they lasted..? I really liked this game. It feels very self contained- it does not appear to be missing anything or possessing any extraneous elements. This game was a lot of fun to play, and I can see myself opening it up again in the future, or showing it to other people. I found it to be very difficult but I was able to get a few lucky runs with sustenance and invincibility seeds Premise of the game is a pretty good roguelike joke- Simple gameplay but a lot of care needs to be put into both short and long term planning Delightfully cruel (tfw you starve to death because you’re levitating) Some runs are impossible, but this didn't bother me because average run is only a few minutes Graphics are clear and effective. You can win while levitating

Artifex gladii

Completeness

3 4 4

Aesthetics

3 4 4

Fun

3 3 4

Innovation

3 4 3

Scope

4 3 4

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

Very nice game! I can't say I really dig the combat system, but probably it's a good game design when even without understanding of all niceties you still can win. There is even a secret ending! Unfortunately there are a few bugs in the game. Sometimes first level have no exit at all. And HP of your characters are only displayed under the character and hard to track when there are several enemies around. Inventory might randomly stop working. But other than that it's a very nice experience. A very interesting and fun mechanic - uses positioning as a mechanic rather than simple brute bump-to-attack. There is quite a curve to learn the tactics, but they make for a fun experience once you figure things out. The art is really well integrated into the game and story. I didn't notice too much of a difference between easy and normal, but it's nice to have options. The upgrades also are surprisingly fleshed out for a 7DRL - nicely done. Definitely recommend setting some time aside to dig into this one - it's a mechanic that would be a lot of fun baked into a full game. An impressive, complete experience. I was particularly pleased with the movement-centric momentum?-centric combat, and with the intelligence of the enemies. It strongly punished just going full assault. There were a few small bugs here and there, but nothing of great significance. The 1.1 release provided significant improvement. Being able to see the swords and modifiers was super helpful, and provided me the feedback I needed to get a standard win. Scope was good for a 7DRL - tough, enough to explore, enough to require multiple plays to win, but not long enough that I got bored. I'm glad that I played it.

Shift Stack

Completeness

4 4

Aesthetics

4 4

Fun

3 3

Innovation

4 3

Scope

4 3

Roguelikeness

3 4

I liked the graphical style and creativity behind this idea for sure. Technically it was solid - no crashes, input did what it was supposed to 100% of the time, no glitchy sound effects. Would probably do pretty well on game portals - kudos! I only scored it 3/5 on the "Roguelike meter" because it felt more like an arcade game then a roguelike (to me). Great piece of work for 7 days though. Took me awhile to figure this one out but once I did I was able to really appreciate it. Quite difficult at first but I feel I can consistently beat it now, which I interpret as it being well balanced. I think this game really captures the rogue-likey feel of having to think quite carefully each individual move while still requiring some long term planning. Graphics are extremely well done. They do a great job of wrapping the mechanics in an appropriate theme. I am a big fan of the bird enemy. The sound effects are a nice touch.Even though they are simplistic they make the entire game feel more complete. All in all I think this is a great entry

Arcana

Completeness

3 4 3

Aesthetics

4 4 4

Fun

3 3 4

Innovation

3 3 4

Scope

3 4 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

This game looks amazing! It's so unfortunate that it is incomplete. I was so excited at first, but there is only basic framework setup and very little actual content. But potential is there and amount of work put into it is quite amazing for a 7drl. Excellent work, really enjoyed playing it. Showing the controls at the beginning may help the player experience. I liked the scope, mechanics and overall execution. An essential part of roguelikes is the single modal interface. So usually party-based roguelikes fail, devolving into micromanagement or multi-level combat. Aracana shows how party based roguelikes can be done right, giving hope for the whole genre. Completeness: The game is stable and performant; but it is clear there are several cut-back decisions no doubt due to hitting time limits. I am very impressed that the author scaled back smoothly; keeping the game stable and intact. But "Continue" with no way to save? And the Death screen being the only time "Quit" shows up? I would be more impressed if your comrades attempted to cart you back to town while you watched, giving you a chance for resurrection if you have enough $$. Aesthetics: I, as usual, have a list of nit picks. But it is important to underline everything done right. Nice crisp font, good choice of colour. I love the rivers; but would argue the palette is a bit harsh, a more subtle set of blues would look nicer. Sliding on diagonal walls is most awesome, a feature I believe every roguelike should have. And vi-keys are most appreciated. Using the same letter to dismiss pop-ups as to raise them is also an excellent touch. Messages are colour coded nicely, as is the difficulty of quests. The F1 hint at start is well placed. When quests complete, there is sadly just quick message. I think as a central mechanic they should have a pop-up to alert you, and a special turn-in screen when you return to town. On the hiring screens giving the price of the hire would save jumping into a subscreen. Fun: Combat seems balanced, perhaps rewarding ranged too much. My main objection is the opaqueness of the system. One knows not if a warpick is better than a flail, other than relying on ancient D&D knowledge. This is very '80s RPG style, but frustrating when trying to equip a full party and unsure what is an upgrade. Likewise, one knows not how mana works for spell recharging, or how equipment affects or doesn't affect spells. Individual inventory is a useful idea for being on the main map, but in the town it is very tiresome to transfer items to re-equip. Some opaqueness I'm fine with (stuff like sleeping to trigger level up, etc), but I think this goes too far. The use of $$ to gate level up is a nice way to keep one hungry for gold as the game advances. Innovation: I am very impressed at how smooth the party based play occurs. The AI felt strong enough I was not annoyed with their behaviour. I liked that there is no "orders" or "direct control" required. It lets it still feel like a normal roguelike, just with some allies on hand. Scope: This is an excellent well-balanced scope for a 7drl. It might be higher than this, but the opaqueness makes it hard to tell if all the items/monsters are just chrome or represent additional mechanics. Roguelikeness: 100% roguelike. A definitive example of a party-based roguelike that is true to the roguelike spirit.

Patient Rogue

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

4 4 4

Fun

4 4 4

Innovation

3 4 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

3 3 3

Out of all the 7DRL's I've reviewed and played, Patient Rogue easily takes the crown for my most favourite game. The runs are very fun to play and I'd love to see this game expanded on in the future. This card-based 7DRL relies on luck but also some strategy in which cards to pick or ignore as you progress further. I found myself to be starving quite often in each run as food didn't seem plentiful enough, but I enjoyed how it made things and each choice more difficult. I'd rather it be that way than easy to win all the time though, as that feels more like the true nature of a roguelike. Patient Rogue feels very fresh and new with a light Slay the Spire feel to it, but doesn't seem like your traditional roguelike as lots of those elements aren't there. This is certainly not a bad thing at all though, as it innovates and has a bunch of new, well-tuned mechanics that work well with the flow of the game. I enjoyed the clean and simple aesthetic with the pixel-y vibe to it. The minimal sound effects do the job and suit the feel of the game as well. I mostly played this on an Android phone which it worked wonderfully on. I tried it on my desktop's browser, which it scaled and worked properly as well. I didn't encounter a single crash or bug either. A standalone mobile app would be really great to have and I'm sure there would be some demand for it as this is quite an enjoyable game. I played version 0.0.2. Get the amulet of yendor (depth 11/12) to win. I beat it (~50% win rate). Defeat 3 enemies to level up (heals 1 health). Revealing an enemy also reveals adjacent enemies. Completeness 4 Charmed monsters do damage depending on the difference between the current dungeon level and the current character level, not the damage their card says. Aesthetics 4 Nice pixel art graphics. Mouse controls are OK. Shift click shows the card description. Fun 4 Very fun. Good level of difficulty. Pleasingly brutal hunger clock. Each game goes differently depending on which cards you find. The dearth of food cards makes it funnier when you get 3 food on in the same level. Innovation 4 Card game with roguelike theming. Scope 3 Decent number of cards. Roguelikeness 3 Turn based Random cards Permafailure RPG stats and abilities Tactics/strategy Doesn't simulate a physical space I'm so conflicted about this one. I love the look and feel of this game, I love the concept of a solitaire roguelike, I love the idea that it could be played as a physical card game. But I felt frustrated by the RNG. It seemed like if I happened to turn over the correct cards in the correct order I would be capable of winning, but it never worked out that way for me. In most situations I think knew what the best decision to make was, but often times my situation was so bad that the run was unsalvageable. As a 7DRL this is pretty darn good, and I think with a little bit of tweaking it could be excellent. I just noticed the link the new version but haven’t gotten a chance to play it much, but I am really looking forward to it.

POLYBOT-7

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

4 4 3

Fun

4 4 2

Innovation

4 3 3

Scope

3 3 4

Roguelikeness

3 4 4

POLYBOT-7 Is a delightful game that takes the unique character building aspects of COGMIND and turns it up to 11. It is very complete and polished. I bumped into a few issues when running windowed on linux (mouse cursor missing, couldn't get map panning to work particularly well) but it was otherwise just fine. As always, the attention to detail in the UI was quite nice. The box drawing characters for walls was an interesting touch but had the unfortunate side effect of leaking information about where other non-visible walls were somewhat unappealing artifacts. I don't think this is a huge deal overall but actually made that part of the game feel a bit less polished than it actually was. I struggled a bit figuring out how to rate POLYBOT-7, as a 7DRL, w/ regards to innovation/scope considering it's starting point. I decided to mark it 3s due to it's striking similarity to COGMIND. That's not to say I think it is bad in any way. While I do think POLYBOT-7 is great, I found the tractor beaming a bit frustrating. I almost won a few times but found most of my runs ended up taking a nose dive when running into a parts drought and ending up with insufficient propulsion. I guess I'm not very good at it yet, but after about 90 minutes I felt like I usually just got jammed up :( A great spin-off of cogmind. Changes the core game by making your character a magnet for whatever utilities and weapons happen to be nearby. The purge mechanic is interesting - you can occasionally purge and toss off half your equipment and hope to grab something better. Otherwise you are left running with what you have - which at some level does relieve some of the pressure cogmind has in terms of the sheer number of choices. So, a nice choice for a 7DRL. Certainly worth spending a lot of time on this one. As to be expected from this author, the interface is top-notch and the graphics are perfect (ASCII mode for the win). Sounds effects are just the right amount - not too little and not too much. Polybot-7 was overwhelming for me. I had a hard time figuring out what was going on, even with a readme, a manual, and a dev diary. The game is attractive but tends toward sensory overload. The very first thing I see upon starting is a flashing "MATTER WARNING." What is it trying to tell me? What are the C, E, M, CORR, TEMP, and SPEE meters? The help screen expands on the names; I'm still not sure what they do though. The manual does not cover this. Hovering the mouse over some of the items in the world displays both a tooltip next to the cursor, and a line of details in the lower right corner of the screen. The tooltip goes away when you mouse off but the details remain, which is a bit confusing because they're right under the inventory, which makes it seem like maybe something in your inventory. Once you pick up the same item, hovering over it in your inventory does not show the same details in the lower right. Instead, you have to right-click on the item, at which point you have an entire half screen of other stats to contend with. After examining all of the blue icons surrounding me I think I'd like to pick up a leg. So I move over it, but I seem to have picked up some light armor instead? This seems to be a pattern: I never pick up the item I move onto. I keep moving around and eventually manage to pick up all of the items, at which point I get a flashing "ENERGY WARNING" message. What does this mean? So I start off down the corridor, at which point all of the items in my inventory do a dance and reorder themselves. I have no idea what happened or why. Do the letters next to my inventory items correspond to keys to press to use them? No, apparently not. I don't know what the letters are for. Having read the dev diary I understand a bit more about what is being attempted; something about having a cloud of potential equipment following you around. It's an interesting idea. I love the look of the dungeon, with the line walls and the doors that open up when you approach them. However, there are detailed-looking but non-functional (I think?) things on the map, which can be confusing. Likewise, when you get damaged, there are full-screen effects (random letter glitches) that make it hard to see what the important things were that happened. Messages show up in the upper left and then disappear, and simultaneously the items in the inventory flash and then disappear, at the same time as weapon effects in the main screen. Meanwhile various numbers and graphs on the right are changing, so it is hard to know where to look to figure out what just happened. There are numerous tactical overlays that can be toggled, and a half dozen versions of the inventory display. Despite all this I have a hard time knowing what I need to do to get good. I'm sure that if I devoted enough time to learning this I might be able to come to grips with it, although I had a similar experience with its parent game Cogmind. So I suspect I may just not be a very good player.

Purge Persist and Profit

Completeness

4

Aesthetics

3

Fun

4

Innovation

3

Scope

4

Roguelikeness

3

In Purge Persist & Profit , you fight alien bugs while trying not to run out of oxygen, ammo, and health. The oxygen acts a hunger clock and makes the game very tense. Combat is fairly simple, but there is an interesting mechanic where the aggression of enemies varies and they sometimes swarm you all at once. I ran into one bug where stats are sometimes not fully replenished at the end of a level (I think having to do with which input method you use). Not starting with full stats essentially makes those levels a death sentence. The sprites, sounds, and music are all great, but the aesthetics are really dragged down by 80% of the game on desktop being taken up by a grey background and a mobile interface. I did check out the game on Android and it was better there of course, but oddly enough there's still a grey wrapper around the game proper. I would much prefer movement be handled with swipes. Let the cool art take center stage! PP&P features an upgrade system where you get money from two sources: previous runs and global player activity. I found both ideas to be interesting and would possibly work to make the game more addictive, but they also make it much less roguelike. Gathering money seemed to be at odds with progressing and I didn't like having to choose between the two. On the whole, the game is great fun and there appears to be enough levels to keep you busy for a while. It's nice that it's playable on both desktop and mobile. The alien planet theme and resource management combine to make something worth checking out.

Dimlit

Completeness

4 4 3

Aesthetics

3 3 4

Fun

3 4 4

Innovation

3 3 4

Scope

4 3 4

Roguelikeness

2 4 4

This game is very original defense/base building game. But not quite roguelike. Being text and turn based doesn't make a game roguelike. This game could be much more fun if starting 'safe' period would be longer. Even easy difficulty do not give enough time to explore "info" tree. Most of the time grues are starting to invade lit area before I could build something defensive. Dimlit is really interesting entry. Although it doesn't feature fancy graphics with tiles and animations, it looks elegant and stylish. It's ASCII power, I think . UI is simple and easy to use. The base of the gameplay is lightning mechanics - player has to survive in ever-darkness plane, filled with dangerous grues. With use of glowsuit, PC needs to collect crystals, to build structures that emit light that helps to deal with enemies. Simple, yet innovative (a bit, for a roguelike genre), and very pleasant. Dimlit is a very interesting game. It hews to the roguelike requirement of tactical decision making; but rather than tactics being determined by a level generator; they are determined by the world you've assembled out of darkness. After a bit of a learning curve you swiftly get to the point where you feel the adrenaline rush of venturing into the dark in search of crystals, risking all for a chance at a new structure.... Completeness: The game is steady and seems bug free. For a game with a survival theme, however, some form of high score list would make an excellent addition to let one see how much better one has done. The right hand of the screen is strangely unused, as if it were designed for a narrower window. I'd recommend resizing the console to better fit the area used (Which is why i put this under completeness, not aesthetics) At one point a dark tower was damaged by a grue (!). When I tried to destroy it, it wanted me first to repair it! I'm also not sure sentry towers work as I had plenty of grues wandering about them, and never saw a fire. And the harvester I built seemed to generate bonus crystals only back at my base, not where it was. Aesthetics: What a brave choice! Black and white in 2018? The opening screen art raises little hope of an aesthetically pleasing game. But, to my shock, the author pulls this off in the game-proper. With only Inversion as the signifier, a large number of different states and situations are expressed. I would have used more shades of grey, which would let you tell true-black from black, and maybe feather the edge of the light. But this would have been unwise. The sharp cut off makes it 100% clear where you escape the realm of darkness, an essential thing to track. The lack of true-black makes finding dark towers a bit more interesting as you need to find where your beams can't light up. Meanwhile, controls support vi-keys and arrows, and usability is all space + bump. The menus are easy to flow through, and the lack of named monsters makes the tech-buildings have nice clear glyphs. Fun: Balance is remarkably well done. It is not too harsh on the easy level to let you start to gain a feeling before bad stuff starts happening; and the slow ramp up leads to an increasingly hopeless fight against the dark. It avoids the risk of being too easy and boring; there is always a dark storm about to mess with all your careful plans. (This is how it rewards tactics; how you react to to situations, over strategy; how you prepare. And thus why it is a roguelike) I do object to 4-way movement. I believe 8-way movement would make it more interesting how to move to fetch crystals, 4-way makes little interest in optimizing path finding. Also, it would be easier to repair advance techs surrounded by power if I could bump diagonally - I had to demolish power to do so. Innovation: As a base-building roguelike that doesn't even feel overmuch like a base-building game, I think this is very innovative. Scope: The tech tree alone, with careful help and stats provided for everything, is a start. But as you progress farther and encounter dark towers, etc, one begins to appreciate how much is actually in this game. Roguelikeness: Single modal interface, focused on the player. Tactical grid-based action. And lots of RNG to keep the planning horizon short. Very much a roguelike!

TouretteQuest

Completeness

3 4 4

Aesthetics

4 3 4

Fun

3 3 4

Innovation

4 4 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3 4

The "tic" mechanic is an interesting take on the "hunger clock". I enjoyed that, and the clean aesthetic of the game. I liked the "content" cues at the entrance of each room. Enemy AI and map generation would would probably have benefitted from longer than a week of development -- they're distractingly simple. Tourette Quest sets out to model the experience of sufferers of Tourette syndrom and Narcolepsy and succeeds at opening an interesting and clever window into that world while simultaneously providing (literally) compelling gameplay. This is done via introducing a 'stress' resource which exacerbates various negative effects and is increased and decreased through various actions. COMPLETENESS Seems fairly complete. No bugs encountered. AESTHETICS The monochrome mixture of MSPaint and photos is not the most attractive graphical style, but does its job. Controls and menus are clear and easy to understand. FUN The game succeeds in blending its message into entertaining gameplay with the various symptoms having interesting effects and requiring you to manage stress to mitigate their effects. The main negative is that engaging with these systems isn't really necessary to win the game - as all the enemies move randomly it's easier to dodge them all and simply escape to the exit. INNOVATION Games which explore autobiographical mental health issues are pretty rare (the only other example I can think of is Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia). The various symptoms of Tourettes and Narcolepsy are expressed as game mechanics in a novel and interesting way. SCOPE A reasonable scope for a 7DRL, with a number of different effects and item types. ROGUELIKE Has many ingredients of a roguelike, though the combat system is modal and menu-based more alike a JRPG and consequently the gameplay is very different to a standard roguelike. This is a great example of “show don’t tell” being used successfully in a game. I enjoyed the strategy of having to choose between the action that I wanted and the action that I was compelled to choose - but I really enjoyed knowing that this decision factored into a larger experience that the developer was trying to convey. Graphically very clean and effective. I think the art for the enemies was great. The battle screen vs the F-150 is screenshot worthy. I ultimately won by avoiding as many enemies as possible, which is fairly interesting because it’s literally stress/trigger avoidance as a game mechanic. Interesting premise, supported by relevant mechanics with a substantial amount of polish. This is a solid entry for sure.

Piratical

Completeness

3 4 3

Aesthetics

3 3 4

Fun

3 3 4

Innovation

3 3 4

Scope

4 3 4

Roguelikeness

3 4 4

It's a very nice game, but a bit grindy. Well... Not a bit. The grinding is real here. You must purchase certain abilities to progress. But earnings from runs are relatively low. You are more or less safe on most runs, as you can always return to your guide and get back to town. And there are no very damaging enemies. So you slowly grind for better weapon. Then slowly grind for lungs, to be able to dive better. Then explore sunk ship. Not always it is possible to explore whole ship. So you repeat this several times until you find everything required. I liked the atmosphere. I liked presence of a plot. I understand that for a 7drl it's already quite good. But IMO either earning could be buffed or prices reduced to make experience less boring. Ideally combat should be more varied and have some risk/reward choices. Piratical's world feels alive, which is a hard thing to achieve in any game, let alone one made in a week. I struggled to achieve much in the game (never managing to scrape together enough money to even buy a lowly cutlass), but I did enjoy my time hiking around the caves and swamps of Louisiana. Maybe a little too unforgiving, but maybe I'm missing something. What a different yet creative rogue like adventure! It's a great mix of storytelling with rogue like gameplay to find and track down the dreaded dread Bloodbeard. Despite only having the 7 day deadline, the experience of "interviewing" some of the local townspeople to put together a plan for where to look for Bloodbeard was a lot of fun. Being a web developer myself, it was awesome to read through the actual history researched and recorded in the source code. Next level cool! While extremely minor, I only had 2 suggestions - maybe a sound effect or background music track, and perhaps a banner or something that slides into view once you die (to remind you to hit "refresh" to try again or whatever). Again, really minor things. Fun game, and I'll be playing more times for sure.

65 Million Years Ago

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

4 4 3

Fun

3 4 2

Innovation

3 3 2

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

65 Million Years Ago is a treasure hunt that takes place in the Cretaceous period. Naturally, that means dinosaurs are hunting you, but they're also hunting each other! The combat is, surprisingly, roguelike enough but fairly simple. I was shocked to find out that a handful of dinosaurs are weak enough to fight in melee combat. There's several delightful small touches here: the dinosaurs fighting each other, the collectible mosquitoes, the humorous intro text. The tiles are pleasantly consistent. The UI and controls are solid. If I have one complaint, it's that the lack of a hunger clock makes it too easy to sit in a corner and rest out the night time. This is a perfectly scoped game for 7DRL. Not too ambitious, but does its thing well. And it's a great theme of course. Fun little game about surviving for a couple of nights as a time traveler to the Cretaceous period. Attractive graphics and smooth, playable interface. There is a nice day/night cycle which affects when your time machine and stun gun will recharge (they're both solar-powered). The various types of terrain don't have an effect that I could see other than blocking movement. My most successful strategy seems to be to hide in a corner overnight and let the dinosaurs drive each other extinct, then go around and collect their remains. The dinosaurs have emoticons that appear over them which I think communicates their mental state (angry, generally). They tend to get locked into battles to the death with each other. You can stun one dinosaur a day, roughly, and you can bludgeon some of them to death if they're stunned. Not a recommended strategy for T-rexes. I like that you can choose how ambitious to be in chasing a high score. It's not too difficult to finish the game if all you care about is staying alive, but the temptation is to try to get more dino-souvenirs to take back with you. Escape in the teleporter to win. I beat it (score = 1010). Completeness 4 No bugs found. If a mosquito is on the same tile as a dinosaur only the mosquito is visible. Aesthetics 3 Tiles are OK. Numpad or qweasdzxc to move. Space is used for both the stun gun and picking up loot, so when standing on loot you cannot use the stun gun. Fun 2 The only helpful tactics I found were tedious to use. Innovation 2 Enemies fight each other. Player is significantly weaker than most enemies. Scope 3 A few different enemy types, a few different loot types. Roguelikeness 4 Turn/grid based Random maps Permafailure

Nauwhea (7DRL)

Completeness

3 4 4

Aesthetics

3 3 3

Fun

4 3 4

Innovation

3 2 3

Scope

4 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

Very interesting game! One of gems of 7drl 2018! One two complains: First - there is no way to display current list of blessings. If you play several times in a row, it's easy to forget what blessings you took in current run. Second - shrines choices should change on every pick. Also it would be nice to have some pickup/structure that replenishes significant amount of FP on later levels. Foraging is almost non existent on deeper levels, and if you don't have FP replenishing choice in a shrine, you are completely screwed. Other than that - excellent game, interesting ability choices with synergies and anti-synergies. Inspired by Maori mythology, Nauwhea is a fairly well put together roguelike and generates some decent content but doesn't feel like it's breaking any new ground. It seems very much like your typical coffeebreak 7DRL except for the Maori theme, which include the monsters, items, and weapons. Other than it, it very much feels like a standard roguelike. I ran into quite a few crashes upon exiting the game, but it still managed to save. Other than the crashing, there were no errors or spelling mistakes that I noticed and the game feels finely tuned and balanced. The console design is minimal and easy to understand, as well as the controls being quite basic and standard for a 7DRL. I really liked the dungeons that were generated in this as they had a mix of big rooms and corridors with some seemingly hidden areas too. The monsters were all very simple though, and would rush you upon seeing you. I would have liked to see more variety in this. There are also items and scrolls present, which add to the depth but seem to be the only initiative for fully exploring the levels. I found Nauwhea to be fun for a few playthroughs, but the strategy for each run was the same and felt too bland to me after a short while. I felt that having to walk over grass and fern multiple times to recover your food points seemed too tedious and ruined the exploratory flow as well. With that being said though, the game is still worth checking out and seems very complete for a 7DRL besides the crashing upon exit. A good solid traditional Roguelike which distinguishes itself via an interesting Māori mythology theme and a couple of interesting combat ability upgrades. COMPLETENESS Seems fairly complete and polished. No major bugs encountered. One minor graphical glitch in that certain enemies have a different symbol in the sidebar to on the map. (Some enemies also share a symbol with other different enemies, though I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that was intentional.) AESTHETICS Nice clean ASCII, with some neat visual touches such as differing background colours between floors, animated water and so on. The help menu explains most of the basic concepts of the game well, though there are some omissions (such as where food comes from) and a less experienced player may not be able to find the help menu in the first place. Could use a 'look' function to help tell what certain things are at a distance. FUN Good, solid, traditional roguelike gameplay. The Māori theme adds extra interest over standard Orcs-n-Elves and the special abilities and combo system add a good level of depth to the combat. INNOVATION Mostly a traditional roguelike, but the theme feels fresh and small touches like the combos and special powers that let you swap places with enemies or cause area damage by hitting walls are fairly novel. SCOPE A good range of powers, enemies and weapons for a 7DRL. ROGUELIKE Definitely.

Snek Trek

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

3 4 4

Fun

3 3 3

Innovation

3 4 3

Scope

2 3 2

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

Completeness: Snek definitely seems to be a complete and honorable homage to the classic real-time version of itself. A very faithful reproduction, that was completely bug-free and as polished as you could hope for in a roguelike version of the arcade game Aesthetics The first impression was very fun, engaging and somehow nostalgic, even though Caribbean steel drums were never a part of the original snake game, as far as i'm aware. The ascii was cute and each playfield/level had just enough texture to it that it stayed interesting. Fun Easily a few orders of magnitude more fun than it's arcade-cousin. The addition of abilities to the snek that allow for actual strategy and tactics to come into your apple-collecting endeavors was a very clever addition. I would've liked to see just a bit more added to the "goal" side of the game. Merely collecting Lvl x 10 apples per floor as a goal got daunting and repetitive pretty quickly, though that might not be a totally fair criticism considering how much MORE repetitive the actual Snake game was! Innovation Nothing too crazy in terms of innovation to the genre as a whole, but in terms of innovating the "snake collects apples" genre, it is a masterpiece! Scope: At base level i was about to give this 2 stars, as the core of the game doesn't do too much that seems crazy for a 7 day challenge. But in looking at the animation for the wriggling snakes, and the inclusion of music and sound effects, I bumped up the score by one. The game is very complete in it's current state and though i wasn't quite able to get to the end (level 6 was my furthest), it seems to accomplish exactly what it set out to do Roguelikeness Tis a roguelike, i declare! This is a fun and cute little game. I like the cleanness of the user interface, and although the graphics are simple they work very well. My only complaint with the game is that the difficulty ramp is slow. I didn't find the game challenging until around level 5. Before that point, the levels felt about the same in difficulty, while after level 5 they were noticeably more difficult. However, I didn't feel like the game was unfairly difficult, but this slower ramp is why I gave the fun factor a score of 3 instead of 4. It also seems as though the difficulty increase does not involve new content but larger levels and more enemies (consistent with how the game Snake functions). This is good, but I felt it only warranted an average scope score (3). I didn't complete the game, nor could I tell if there was an ending point to it, but regardless the game feels complete and polished. Also, I really like the idea of taking a non-roguelike game (Snake in this case) and turning it into a roguelike. In this case, Snek Trek is a very good roguelike version of Snake, following what I would consider all the necessary criteria of a roguelike (hence a score of 4) and also being quite innovative as a 7DRL (also score of 4). Snake meets Rogue in this 7DRL where you play as a snake competing against others to eat fruit and grow longer. COMPLETENESS High level of polish. No bugs encountered. AESTHETICS Very attractive animated ASCII-esque tiles and appropriate music. Clear UI and instructions. FUN The Snake/Roguelike mashup is interesting to play and quite fun for a while, but the parts borrowed from snake turn out to be fairly superficial in that you can flip direction whenever you want and rarely have to worry about trapping yourself. Managing enemy aggro is the most interesting part of the game. There is not a great deal of variety and it can become fairly repetetive after a few levels. INNOVATION A novel combination of Snake and Roguelike gameplay. SCOPE Fairly limited content, only really the bare minimum necessary to successfully explore the central concept. ROGUELIKE Has a more arcade feel than most Roguelikes, but I would say it qualifies.

Cunning Rogue

Completeness

3 4

Aesthetics

2 3

Fun

3 3

Innovation

3 3

Scope

4 4

Roguelikeness

4 4

A fantastic effort. It feels a lot like Rogue in a way many rogue-likes do not. Examples include the type of combat, the bestiary, the tone, the use of items (particularly single use). I particularly enjoyed the use of movement and 'dancing' with multiple goblins, zombies or bats to get hits in without getting hit. The interface could really do with some work. I've got a big screen, and ended up having to magnify the screen in order to see the elements - particularly when combined with the font. The messages showed no obvious way of seeing recent messages which proved particularly difficult with inventory management. A resizable window, and more streamlined inventory management would do a world of good to this game. For the record - After about an hour, I got about a quarter of the way down the dungeon before dying to hubris: another very traditional roguelike trait. This was a far more complete experience then I was expecting, and it felt balanced and tough. In the best possible ways, it felt like a Roguelike. A mighty effort - really well done. This is a really impressive entry. Huge diversity of enemies with unique and thematic movesets. Fairly large variety of weapons and items as well. You created quite a large and long game in 7 days. The attack prediction mechanic is very cool and works wonderfully with all other aspects of the game. The graphics are effective. Initially I had some trouble reading the font (something about the spacing seems weird) but I got over that eventually. I had some weird UI confusion around using/equipping items and confirming/cancelling attacks but after a bit of time playing your system felt natural. The different colored squares for attack prediction were pretty confusing but I think that is part of the fun. I am not 100% clear on the yellow and pink squares. All in all this feels like a great, classic, roguelike. It feels complete beyond what I would expect from a 7 day project. Nice!

Dealing with Demons

Completeness

4 4

Aesthetics

4 4

Fun

3 3

Innovation

3 3

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

3 3

Dealing with Demons is action roguelite about wielding a huge sword and signing contracts with demonic characters. Most roguelites focus on ranged weapons, but interestingly your only attack here is swinging around your sword (which starts huge and can be swapped for an even bigger one). The combat feels pretty good after you get the hang of it, but there's not much there: two abilities and two types of enemies. The titular mechanic is an upgrade option every 5 levels, which also has a drawback. It's your choice whether to take the option (sign the contract) or not. Sometimes the upgrade and drawback cancel each other out, but usually the upgrades are absolutely worth taking. The balance is a little scattered. One upgrade let's you kill enemies in one hit and that makes things way easy. My favorite part of DWD is the art. It's low fi, but chock-full of character. The title and win screens are really well done. Looking at the colorful art, listening to the catchy music, and swinging around my colossal sword felt great . I just wish there was more. Pretty nice, I liked the concept. Got too OP too quick but the weight of making the contracts is a nice addition to the roguelikeness of the game. Looking forward for further improvements after the Jam.

Murky

Completeness

4 4

Aesthetics

4 3

Fun

3 3

Innovation

3 3

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

3 4

The use of the limited colours and usable keys on the PICO-8 is wonderful - the graphics are well designed and clear, though with some things until I tried interacting with them I wasn't sure if I could walk through them or they were going to bite me in the face - namely what I think are ghosts in the Lair area. The combat mechanics are great, giving multiple tactics to the player other than the usual "stab in the face and hope for the best" - I spent a few games messing around with different strategies. It's a good short roguelike, with solid gameplay and surprising level of depth in combat for a limited environment. Loved it! Murky provides a good 30-60 minutes of entertainment, which is great for a 7DRL. I was able to beat the spider queen on my sixth or seventh run, by using my elven speed and a large collection of arrows. I like the sense of progression through zones, and that they're all directly connected (as opposed to the floors in a typical Roguelike). The enemies are fairly simple in their behaviors but ensure you have to use a combination of kicking, elven speed, and shooting to defeat them without getting hurt. Health and arrow pickups add an incentive for exploring, and dangerous mushrooms a low-level obstacle to look out for. I felt like the terrain could have been a little more interesting; often it seemed like there was a single pathway carved out of the forest or the rock, and the boundary between zones was very linear. But for a 7DRL it is a solid game.

Temporus: Rogue

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

4 4 4

Fun

3 3 3

Innovation

3 3 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3 4

In Temporus: Rogue , you're flying a spaceship around to different locations and then going on missions to collect artifacts. The thing that stands out immediately is the art: a mix of super low resolution pixel art tiles, non pixel-art effects, and awesome color choices. Keep in mind this is an update to a prototype that seems to have been made about one year ago, but it sounds like a good bit of effort went into the changes this year. The game feels a bit incomplete considering how long it's been worked on in total. There's a Help button on the main screen, but it only tells you there is no in-game help! I ran into several cases where my character became unable to move and then several other freezes. I couldn't make heads or tails of how to properly and repeatedly use the melee/range attacks. I couldn't figure out a way to progress beyond a single infinitely repeating mission to "Find the artifact", but I would guess that is all there is currently. Perhaps I've just done a poor job of understanding the game, so take all of this with a grain of salt. In spite of that, there's some interesting ideas at play here. You can set down drones to fight for you. I was confused why the drones didn't move, but it made more sense once each mission shifted into a time survival mode and you had to fight off waves of enemies. When I say "waves" though it was usually just 1 or 2 enemies. The difficulty is undertuned. Outside of the waves, the primary enemy only seems to attack when you do (and there's no need to kill them). There are also enemies (or friends?) trapped in "stasis fields". Supposedly they can be freed in some way, but I could only ever destroy them. Stylistically, this game is quite excellent, in both title graphics and actual game graphics. In terms of controls, it's okay - I tried the touch controls for a while and then switched over to the keyboard for movement, a step up on PC. I assume it plays better on Android, considering it's designed for it more than PC play. (If I had more room on my phone I would have played it - alas, no room). In gameplay, I found it quite fun - though I wasn't sure if the interface scrambling on the first location intentional or not. It was nice to have a goal beyond "murder everything" and the drones added an extra layer of strategy when at an artifact with multiple moving monsters. My only major drawback in playing was on one point returning to the ship, after my third artifact, the game unexpectedly crashed. I love the look and feel of this game. Definitely a roguelike. I like the drones. I wanted to like this game a lot more, but it took a really long time to figure out what was going on without any instruction or obvious way to start the game. (It's the matter transporter) I also ran into a number of bugs where I just froze and could not move. Also ran into trouble when placing drones and ended up blocking myself in - this could be a feature I guess (?) but it's really frustrating. The style and music is great. I love the tactical positioning of drones - this is a really interesting feature. For example, using a block barrier to push an enemy into the direct XY-line of your Dv2 drone is a great feeling. Also getting an enemy stuck right in the intersection of two Dv1 drone firing circles is very satisfying. These types of mechanics can be the backbone of a really great and interesting game. One note - it's hard to tell but it seems like a lot of this game was developed previously - it could be clearer what the difference is from the previous game, if any, or if this is a brand new game made for the 7DRL challenge. (-1 in scope)

The Sky and Depths of Kobrade Hills

Completeness

3 3 3

Aesthetics

3 3 4

Fun

4 4 3

Innovation

4 3 4

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3 3

The world of Kobrade Hills exists on a single screen, but offers much more to explore than first meets the eye. If you want to get the most out of the game you will need to be stubbornly curious. I'm going to call Kobrade Hills a Roguelike Platformer. Now, when you hear those words you will probably imagine something like Spelunky or Vagante, but in this case you would be mistaken. Kobrade Hills takes the essence of a platform game and applies it to a world very much rooted in the Roguelike tradition. It can be difficult at first to parse the visual information required to make informed decisions about your leaps, but the developer has blessed you with permalife, so there is ample opportunity to learn from your mistakes. There is a small minimap overlay that shows you information about the tiles directly above you. It's worth paying attention to this once you start trying to navigate your way up the limbs of a tree. There are a few wonderful surprises that await you if you persevere, but I won't spoil them here. The Sky and Depths of Kobrade Hills is roguelike inspired by Dwarf Fortress' approach to 3D environment. And it features a lot of jumping, as main gameplay element, alongside exploration. Starting in the depths, player needs to *jump/climb* his way up and find a way to enter locked church. What's next? I don't want to spoil it - game is confusing sometimes, but also full of revealing moments. Jumping mechanics are intuitive and pleasant to use, but linked UI elements could be more polished. Also, even if game offers help with backtracking, it's not easy yet boring. In the lower floors of church, I encountered some graphics glitches - it seems that some symbols are not displayed correctly by included font file. To sum up, TSaDoKH is good roguelike that'd use more polish. The Sky and Depths of Kobrade Hills makes an impressive attempt at providing a proper 3d roguelike experience. This is not merely different levels, but actual proper layered topography. It takes a while to get used to the iconography, but once you figure it out it is surprisingly effective. Completeness: One of the first games I figured out the jumping mechanic was sadly a game I'm pretty sure the tree was placed too far from the church to make the leap, forcing a rebuild. This is one downside of permalife - an errors in level generation will be found. I'm also not sure there is a win condition. I felt I completed the quest I assigned myself on returning the bones to the altar, but nothing happened. Aesthetics: I am impressed with the portrait mode layout, a nice change from the usual wide-screen format. Mouse over tooltips are a nice bonus and integrate well on the terrain. Lack of vi-keys, especially with diagonal support, is frustrating. People without keypads need these. Further, 1-9 do not work. Fortunately page up/page down/home/end do work, so I could progress, as diagonals are important in this game. I was initially quite confused by the - and = icons; but after some work it becomes quite easy to parse and understand. I would love to see how far this could progress with a game with combat. Fun: Leaping around and discovering the different holes was a quite enjoyable. I enjoyed the different types of terrain and interesting level generation, and appreciated the winged boots at the bottom to allow return. But it was hard to explore enough to be confident I didn't miss secrets as they are so easy to hide in this system. Innovation: This goes without saying. It is not just a true 3d grid roguelike, but one done well. Scope: Impressive variety of level generators, but the game itself is very much a toy to explore them. Roguelikeness: The exploration pillar of roguelikes is well satisfied, but it needs some combat I feel to truly be one.

Demon Bathhouse RL

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

4 4 3

Fun

3 3 3

Innovation

3 3 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3 4

The voxel style graphics are appealing, especially with the addition of lighting effects. The key-based map exploration can be frustrating with Metroid-era levels of backtracking. A bit more variety in enemies and terrain would really take this up a notch. Visually wonderful - the fact you made a 3D roguelike in 7DRL conditions, even a simple 4 direction voxel graphics one is something to be commended. That as well the aesthetic looks good in such a limited graphics set, with effects of the steam off the bath just makes it more excellent. The gameplay is standard roguelike affair of walking into enemies, though the fact you have to strategize - hitting monsters side on to avoid damage and taking them through the springs to weaken them to blue added an extra element of thought to encounters. Wasn't able to find the ability to take out the laser enemies, but I liked you could hear the beginning of the sound effect the step before they fired - a good warning sign. I didn't progress particularly far in most of my runs as I kept getting distracted by the scenery and getting killed, or missing boxes and therefore keys, but I still enjoyed it. Escaping from a location is a good varient to the standard roguelike go deeper for loot, which I also appreciated. Good job on this! The lack of animations severely decreased my enjoyment of your game because I couldn't really tell what was going on a lot of the time, but it would definitely be fun with a little more polish. Completeness: 3. (Scale is 2-4 for all categories.) The only thing keeping this from a 4 is the lack of title/game over screens and animations, or some other way for the player to figure out the rules better. Aesthetics: Very pretty! But 3, not 4, due to the lack of visual feedback for anything, and the way-too-small text. Fun: 3. The mechanics mostly work well together, but a few things brought it down for me: Once you pick a direction, half the keys become useless because they only let you backtrack without increasing your score It's way too easy to die without knowing why; deaths in roguelikes ought to teach you something about the game "get as far as you can" is not super compelling to me; it's the same set of concerns the whole way through until you die Innovation: Neat twist on the usual mechanics. 3 Scope: Pretty much what you expect from a 7DRL. 3 Roguelikeness: Is definitely a roguelike! 4

My turn to pew

Completeness

3 3 3

Aesthetics

4 3 3

Fun

3 4 2

Innovation

4 4 4

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3 3

Going to mix up my format a bit, for in case the person reading this has read any previous reviews. Short snippet followed by the "The Good" and "What could've been Better": Summary : This was a surprisingly wonderful little game with a well thought-out set of mechanics, pleasant art and a song that both fit AND didn't get irritating. The player inches their way through a turn-based SHMUP (Shoot 'Em Up) style game where the action plays out in little "real-time" snippets, thought the player doesn't have any actual control during the real-time moments. The game DOES have an end, though it doesn't come in any sort of climactic form, the game just kind of ends after cycling through the same area a few times. The Good Excellent and innovative gameplay. I just picked up a game on steam that does a turn-based SHMUP style, but haven't tried it yet so this game was my first experience with it. Great art and catchy, non-irritating tune. Fun upgrades that had a meaningful impact on gameplay. Never tried "slow" engines, though, seems like faster would always be better Good variety of enemies, no feel of same-ness among them What Could've Been Better The controls were a bit wonky. You got used to it eventually, and perhaps it was meant as a skill component, but the player always needed to adjust where they actually clicked to account for the screen's forceful march forward. This resulted in many unintentional and unwanted collisions early on while the muscle memory developed Enemies would semi-frequently just disappear in a bit of a buggy way. The ending was a bit confusing. I just saw the rocks that spelled "End" 3 times and then the game just closed (or crashed?) A great idea and reasonably good implementation. I've always wanted a way to turn an action game into a turn based game by automatically pausing at intervals, and this game gives me precisely that. I would buy this game if it had more depth/content. An interesting experiment in combining turn-based roguelike gameplay with a side-scrolling shoot-em-up, but an awkward control system and a failure to exploit the turn-based mechanics for any new gameplay mean that it ends up being a not entirely successful blend. COMPLETENESS Seems to be reasonably complete, but not a great deal of polish (no title or game over screen, slightly weird formatting on menus). No bugs encountered. AESTHETICS Nice graphics (although its fairly difficult to tell what many things are supposed to be) and music, but really suffers on its control scheme, which is clunky and painful to use, requiring you to either use an awkward number-keys and mouse combo or select from a menu every single move. FUN There is potential for a fun experience here, but in implementation the combination of side-scrolling shooter and roguelike ends up stripping all of the enjoyment out of both of them. The chief culprit is the control scheme, which turns even simple movement into a repetitive slog and - because the point you click isn't the point you'll move to, it's the point on the screen you will be at after scrolling - makes evading obstacles far more irritatingly difficult than it needs to be. Ultimately making the game turn-based adds nothing and I ended up wishing it were just a straightforward real-time shooter! INNOVATION Shoot-em-up Roguelikes have been done before, but are still fairly rare and the precise implementation details here are quite novel. SCOPE About what I'd expect from a 7DRL - a reasonable variety of enemies and upgrades. ROGUELIKE Takes some limited roguelike elements, but is really more of a straightforward shooter made turn-based. Even the procedural generation is quite limited, recycling the same pre-built chunks of level over and over again.

Time To Die

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

3 3 3

Fun

3 2 3

Innovation

3 3 4

Scope

3 4 4

Roguelikeness

4 3 4

The game have a very interesting mechanics in theory, but quite boring in practice, unfortunately. At least first level is such a drag. Enemies that spawn enemies that spawn enemies? C'mon! Enemies that move you around? Ok... 5 at once on the starting screen? C'mon!!! Also there are quite some minor bugs here and there, like unkillable enemies (I know the trick! I killed several enemies of that type, but one of them decided not to die), mouse controls near bombs icons is very strange. And one (somewhat) major bug - victory is broken. Also, once you unlocked several bombs and accumulated some noticeable amount, killing final bosses is as easy as pausing time and placing 6 bombs... While I understand that somewhat limited and wonky mouse support is most likely limitation of the T-Engine, but... I'm a player, right? And ... well... mouse support is limited and wonky! On some maps it's really hard to see enemies weakness points, especially when time is paused. The moment when you take damage could be visualized or somehow highlighted better. Many many times I was completely clueless what and how hit me. And it would help learn the game mechanics better. Cons I found while playing: Didn't heard the audio Game start at full screen (not necessarily bad though, but I prefer to be asked first) Not enough feedback while playing, to know whether what I'm doing is effective. Pros: Sprites and visuals are pretty good, and look very feature complete for a jam game. Definitely this is an ambitious and well put together entry for a 7DRL. The portal selection was a great idea, along with each different type of world (my boys underscored that with "It's a Mega Man Roguelike dad!"). I gave this one quite a bit of time, and my only real gripe is the hex-based system threw me more then a few times. The aim / shielding system didn't always seem to work, and once I was in melee range of a mob my gun didn't work at all (I did a quick scan of the help to see if that's a known bug / design choice / etc but didn't see one). Apart from that, everything gameplay based and animations seemed real solid - throw in some audio and booya!

Catalot

Completeness

4 4

Aesthetics

3 4

Fun

3 4

Innovation

2 2

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3

Surprising variety of weapons and item abilities, and challenging enemies. Fun little hack and slash with some strategic options. Catalot excels in feeling feature-complete and being fun with decent controls that support a fluid feel to it. The aesthetic look to it is pixel-y and simple, but works well and looks cute with a cat being your character. Another thing to really enjoy is the variety and abundance of items, although those who don't care for inventory management may not like how there's so many to pick and choose from. Managing your items takes a few minutes to get used to since all you use to control this are numbers. It doesn't take too long to learn and go through the motions quite quickly though and because of this, I didn't mind the management at all and was quickly diving deeper in dungeons without the abundance of items feeling tedious. There's also an abundance of enemy types with ranged, healing, and respawning ones (damn Overseers!). Catalot's dungeons have multiple ways to go and forks to take, some ending up as dead-ends, which added to the depth and fun as well. The game feels very much feels your usual 7DRL and I didn't find anything too fresh or new besides the cat character. I would have liked to see better dungeon generation with more corridors too. I was going to recommend different classes in a post-challenge version as well, but there's actually enough variety in the weapons and items you pick up that each build still feels fairly unique. I can highly recommend anyone to check Catalot out for just simply being fun, and it's one of my favourites that I've reviewed in this jam.

Coffee Brogue

Completeness

3 3

Aesthetics

3 3

Fun

3 4

Innovation

3 3

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4

Overall I thought this was pretty fun but I felt like it suffered from a lack of balance. Perhaps I am just not good enough at the original game but I felt like I was at the extreme mercy of the RNG. I did have a blast firing off super powered staves and stuff but it also felt like I was one level without a pit away from just getting obliterated. I was unable to win in about an hour of playing and almost all of my games ended due to having to take RNG down stairs and getting two shot. On further reflection, I think trying to compress a very well balanced game like Brogue is probably a pretty difficult task. I feel like the balance fell short of hitting the mark but still made for fun, but often frustrating, experience. My biggest point of struggle was actually the game interface itself. I prefer to play brogue in its graphical build but you only shipped a term binary. The interface overall feels less responsive and less capable (I couldn't get inspection to work, for example) and suffered what seemed like a lot of bizarre color artifacts. I tried trouble shooting this with multiple terms, color schemes, and other settings but could not overcome it. To your credit, I did start up official brogue in term mode and it had the same issues as well. A graphical build would have helped me a lot. To be honest, I thought I was going to be bored with this because "why not just play Brogue?!" The quicker dive, ridiculous items, and the ability to immediately see late-game content was quite interesting. I wouldn't say the game was super innovative, but it's a glimpse at a cool twist on Brogue. Fun game.

Dr. Hallervorden

Completeness

4 3

Aesthetics

4 3

Fun

3 3

Innovation

3 2

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4

Dr. Hallervorden is a fun, technically well made game. It has good balance and a clean attractive interface. I love the different floors and how they each have a different theme and the generated levels do a good job of capturing that. I enjoy the flavor descriptions for the various rooms, it helps bring the game alive. Sometimes I feel like there's a bit too much going on in the combat system (which then bleeds into the interface). There are a lot of values and things to consider while fighting and a lot of the time it feels like it doesn't matter that much, because as long as you don't die you can just rest to full. And if things go sideways you usually have tons of healing and stim potions to get you out trouble. As a result the UI, while very clean and nicely presented, can feel a bit dense and overwhelming until you really learn what to look at and what to ignore. Overall, I'm impressed with the depth and polish of this game and think it is quite excellent! Great job getting all this done during the challenge. It is a solid game. It was a bit easy, although maybe not for a 7drl. The UI is great, other than a few minor niggles (eg S vs nspect). I liked how well the game was themed. It felt like I was in an institution.

H.V.N.T.R.S.

Completeness

4 3

Aesthetics

3 4

Fun

3 3

Innovation

2 3

Scope

4 3

Roguelikeness

3 4

The game looks very cool and atmospheric. But, unfortunately, minimalistic art often makes it very hard to understand if terrain is passable or not. Double escape to quit is honestly horrible decision. I closed the game twice by trying to cancel crossbow aiming! The game view scrolls when the character is way too close to the edge of the screen. It's easy to find a monster breathing into your face or even take a hit by a projectile that was fired by off-screen monster. Frankly speaking combat system is quite easy to abuse which makes more or less safe, but quite boring gameplay. Only 3 inventory slots and absence of ability to drink a potion from the ground makes drinking said potion somewhat cumbersome. I wasn't able to test how it plays with a friend, but controlling several characters is very confusing. There are many starting options, but I couldn't find any value in most of them. Overall it feels more like turn based adventure game than a true roguelike. I really enjoyed the Commodore-64 art style, especially the 1-bit art for the ground, walls and pits. The music is very evocative and, while I'm no expert, feels at home in the same, limit, early 80's range. The RNG could be improved because a couple of times I started a game only to be swamped with monsters and bullets flying everywhere. I feel like some polish could be added to the inventory management and using special abilities. It took me a couple of attempts and re-reading the readme to understand it properly. If I have any negative criticism its that the story could be simplified and made more available through the environment, monsters and items. It feels a bit like a wall of text that can easily be skipped in favour of just playing the game. It's difficult to give feedback on a game that hits all the right spots and feels like it was only time that limited the polish that could be applied to this fun roguelike. Well done!

Space Dungeon Pew Pew

Completeness

3 4

Aesthetics

3 3

Fun

3 4

Innovation

2 2

Scope

3 4

Roguelikeness

4 4

Nice little game. Very simple and without any twists to more or less traditional roguelike mechanics, but fun enough to win it once or twice. Turrets near staircases seems a bit unfair, but roguelikes are generally not very fair. Inventory could be more friendly. Looking into stats to figure out equipment details is not very convenient. Completeness This is a pretty polished experience. It felt like a Real Game. And that's hard to pull off in 7 days! 4/5. Aesthetics The UI is pretty good, and I would have given a 4/5 here, but I was frustrated at not being able to compare weapons and armor on the fly. I had to equip it, check my stats, and maybe switch back. It was very frustrating. And the rest of the look is very bare-bones rot.js style. So, 3/5. Fun Good balance of enemies, armor, weapons, and items. The levels are pretty samey but the generator does rooms-and-corridors about as well as you can do with rooms-and-corridors. The game felt short but polished. A complete set of ideas. I did get slightly bored eventually, but it felt worth my time. I would give you a 3/5 here for fun because it did kind of get old after 30 minutes, but having played a bunch of other games, it's definitely in the top 30% for fun. So you get a 4/5 from me. Innovation Every mechanic in this game felt conventional. It's not a bad thing to have a traditional but themed roguelike (it was still fun to play), but because the mechanics are so simple and conventional I have to give a 2/5 here. Please do not take this as me saying this game is not good though! Scope The turrets and enemy variety bumped this from a 3/5 to a 4/5 from me. I felt like there were multiple approaches to most situations, and it didn't feel samey until I had basically beaten the game. Roguelikeness This is a roguelike. 4/5.

StarFarer

Completeness

3 3

Aesthetics

3 4

Fun

3 2

Innovation

4 3

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4

What I loved Very clever control scheme. Though at times it felt difficulty to control this unwieldy and speedy space-ship, it was very reasonable and an interesting way to control the game. I think separating the accel/decel controls from the heading would've made it much more intuitive. When things were diagonal it was hard to tell, at times, if i was really slowing down or not Aesthetics were a win, for me. As far as roguelike graphics go, it felt very space-themed and the animations were a very nice touch. The tactics of space combat were also quite satisying. The UI did a good enough job of showing the enemy's stats that choosing which weapon to fire with wasn't a trivial choice and you could see the impact of it clearly. What I WOULD have Loved The game was only a touch buggy, i noticed that the UI didn't scale properly on different monitors. Also the end game was somewhat lackluster. I got a prompt informing me that I'd won but nothing else, the game just kept going. The mechanics around shops and money felt a little inaccessible given the length of the game. It was hard to make enough money (past the starting 25) to really do much of anything, but when I WAS able to do something, I had a great time doing it and wish i could've done more Tough to do in a 7drl because this game already had quite a big going on, but a little more depth to the star systems would've been great. Maybe some asteroids flitting about and other such space debris. This game feels great to play. Ship movement is well communicated and energy management creates interesting situations. The planets and stars look nice. The graphics and UI elements feel very “space-y”, and the music really ties it together to create a nice sense of immersion. The quest for the Orbitron Device was a little frustrating, most of the clues as to its location were not particularly helpful unless I had already been to the solar system that it is in. Winning or losing felt like it was a little too strongly influenced by rng; I won games where the macguffin was on a planet in the starting system, and I lost games where the starting system was completely over run by pirates. The ship combat was very difficult, and I found that a more successful strategy was to avoid the pirates altogether, put my money into energy improvements, and focus on exploration. It seems like all the systems are in place, it just needs a bit of tuning to be a really nice space exploration roguelike.

Aqua Cats

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

3 4 4

Fun

3 3 3

Innovation

3 3 3

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

3 3 4

As a concept, it's great - taking the two usual key movement controls and making it into two controllable characters aiming for one goal is a good twist, as is guiding the submarine. I got very frustrated with the controls very quickly - the submarine moves too slowly for me in its current gameplay state, even with the speed option. If the movement system was changed to real time, and standing on an arrow kept it moving until moving off, I feel it would make a better, less frustrating time. I did enjoy letting off torpedoes into the scenery and literally anything that moved. The sonar was a nice way of showing obstacles without standard vision. Great concept, I sincerely hope that it gets built upon after the jam. Aqua Cats is a fun little subaquatic management/navigation game. You have two cats who you need to assign to a variety of actions/vantage points on the vessel. As you descend the light fades and you must rely on your sonar to detect hazards, and use your torpedo to blow through the rock formations if necessary. The world is nicely rendered and the functions of your sub are intuitive and fun to use. The game is not particularly challenging nor does it offer much replay value, but it's enjoyable to play to conclusion. I can see the premise being expanded into a more complex and rewarding experience. The potential for local cooperative multiplayer is novel and would work well if there were more time-based hazards to overcome. Playing Aqua Cats is very pleasant experience. It's polished and mostly bug-free roguelike with nice set of tiles, and even simple animations. Gameplay feels fresh, combining turn-based gameplay with real-time cannon aiming. Definitely interesting mechanics, but game is slow paced and using 'jikl' control scheme is not intuitive at all. Still, it's very solid jam entry.

DeliveryRL

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

3 3 4

Fun

3 3 4

Innovation

2 3 3

Scope

3 3 4

Roguelikeness

3 3 4

Nice little game, but a little bit too random and too simple. And lack of the main menu with ability to start new game after the loss is a bit irritating. While it's nice to win the game once, replay value is very low. All runs are very samey. Roguelikes where fighting monsters gives you nothing and generally should be avoided were done before and pizza temperature, while thematically interesting, but not really original as a game mechanic. I'm too used to and expect at this point, to wade into monsters and waste them. Not so here and it took me a while to come around to -not- laying waste to the environs and all that dwell within. It took me longer than I'd admit to stop trying to smash through everything and actually start lobbing items to distract/confuse/slow mobs, but once I got into actually thinking about my moves I had a lot of fun with the game. Still smashed every rat I saw, accidentally ran into numerous goblins and orcs accidentally and dying on low health. As of this review, I've got to floor 4 at most. Completeness The scoring rubric says 4/5 is "polished, balanced, practically bug-free," which your game is. Aesthetics It's an ASCII game with a fully realized UI. Pretty much as good as it gets for 7DRLs. Solid choices here. 4/5 Fun Great theme, well chosen mechanics, appropriate item and enemy variety, well-tuned difficulty. I really had fun with it, over many runs. 4/5 Innovative Nothing earth-shaking here, just appropriate application of a theme to the genre. "A neat twist on the usual mechanics." 3/5 Scope I was about to give you a 3/5, but then I thought back to the other 7DRLs I've played, and they all have smaller scope than this one. So you get a 4/5. Roguelikeness Obviously a roguelike. 4/5

Zombie Rogue

Completeness

3 3 3

Aesthetics

2 4 4

Fun

3 4 4

Innovation

3 4 3

Scope

3 2 2

Roguelikeness

3 4 4

I'd like to see it have more big bosses in the early levels to surprise the player, but anyway, great job. Wow - a great and surprisingly deep game. It's hard to believe that it was done in seven days! The infection mechanic is fun - similar to golden krone hotel, you can change forms to access different strategies and player characteristics. I with the game supported keyboard but the mouse control is very well done and about as convenient as can be asked for. A surprising depth of items, weapons, upgrades, etc. Definitely the most robust 7DRL I have played yet. This is a really slick, playable game; way more than I'd expect to see in a seven-day Roguelike! It looks like it has been under development for quite a while before the 7DRL so that makes sense. The graphics and animation are attractive and more importantly the interface does a very good job of explaining what things are. I haven't completely figured out the how the zombie/human team system works yet but it seems like there are quite a few possibilities there. The couple of times I tried escorting someone it was a bit awkward; we ended up on top of each other, or I had to wait for them to get out of the way before I could move. Otherwise though things worked like I expected.

@rcus

Completeness

3 3 4

Aesthetics

4 4 4

Fun

3 2 4

Innovation

3 2 3

Scope

3 2 4

Roguelikeness

3 3 3

I -adore- the style used in this game - the characters look like "what would Finn the Human look like if they had Jake's transformation powers" and "was in a roguelike" mashed in a good way. Enemies are distinct, everything is clear as to what it is, and the drawing of the bow interface is simple and clear. Unlimited arrows help, especially when I forget to read enemy movement patterns and fire off a square away from a slime's death. On time of writing, I've only got as far as the underground forest, but I'm absolutely adoring it. (Also, dad needs to sort himself out if he has to be saved -every year-) I played three games. The first two, I died on level 1. The third, I won with almost 5,000 gold (100% of the gold from every level). The aesthetics are promising. It looks great until the water level. It would be nice if the message log scaled to the user's resolution. If you're rendering to the DOM, maybe use percentage font sizes instead of points. In terms of fun and gameplay, it felt very shallow. I would rather have had half as many levels with more variety in enemy movement, enemy attacks, environmental characteristics. At some point I started to be able to predict the enemy movement based on which direction they prioritize, which was a little bit fun, but not enough. The levels are so large that wandering around felt like a chore. Once I understood the rules, the game was very easy. I never took any damage during my entire winning game until I spawned right next to a snek. I never felt like I had to deal with crowd control with enemies because there were so few per level, spaced very far apart, even near the end of the game. It's clear you put a lot of love into the title and intro, and you did a really good job with the theme and feel. Next time, I suggest making one or two really interesting levels rather than seven basic levels. And if there's no reason to have big maps, then have small maps. This game might have worked better if the maps were more like 20x20 instead of 100x100. More claustrophobic and high-stakes for each move. The current level size leaves the player too much room to escape. Completeness: feels polished until you get to level 3-4, where the emptiness makes it feel unfinished. 3/5 Aesthetics: Is pretty, controls make sense. 4/5 Fun: Not fun after first couple of levels. 2/5 Innovation: Move, shoot, collect coins. 2/5 Scope: Enemy variety is almost all cosmetic. Levels all feel the same. 2/5 Roguelikeness: Not enough mechanics to attain "roguelike" status. 3/5 I really enjoyed it, great work, nice music, the aesthetics are adorable. Point to improve: maybe implementing a store, I'm not sure what do you spend the money on.

Ana's Eight Armed Alien Arena

Completeness

3 3

Aesthetics

3 3

Fun

2 3

Innovation

4 4

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3

A neat concept, especially the variety of monsters and their death effects. Got a little repetitive, but I can see that problem going away with a bit more development. This game introduces some interesting tactical decision-making. I like the changing environment and the amount of different kinds of situations you find yourself in. Pretty good.

Day Star

Completeness

3 4

Aesthetics

3 4

Fun

3 2

Innovation

3 3

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 3

Day Star was very tough for me. I died dozens of times without ever getting off the first level. Even managing to kill any monster but the trilobytes was a hit-or-miss feat. It's very much a learn-by-dying sort of game. Even with repeated experimentation, though, I never did figure out what some of the items did. (The gold cross doohickey, for instance, or the maximum-umbra spell.) I like the "ruined library" aesthetic. Making turning cost a move is an interesting idea. Coupled with the lack of a "wait" key, though, it means I am regularly in situations where I know I will unavoidably die within the next few turns. This game is beautiful and I loved what I saw of the world, but I really struggled with the combat. Changing direction take a turn and one hit from any enemy will kill you. Thus combat is very much based around positioning, but I couldn't figure out a way to get a hit and retreat from enemies that took more than one hit to kill. There are some spells that you can acquire but none of them added much to my longevity.

Deathcall

Completeness

4 4 4

Aesthetics

3 3 3

Fun

3 3 3

Innovation

2 2 2

Scope

3 3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4 4

Death Call is a roguelike about killing summoners. Each floor has one "caller", which can bring forth unlimited numbers of henchmen. The balance seems a little bumpy here. A late game spell takes away about half your health. Wizards can hit you from like 20 tiles away and vice versa. Clearing out enemies then becomes really straightforward if you're willing to cast lightning on them one by one and wait in between for your cooldown. I personally did not have the patience (but did see the end after stumbling upon a debug command which grants 10,000 HP). Monster pathfinding could use some work, as enemies can't seem to navigate around corners (or each other). One glaring issue is that Escape both toggles targeting modes and otherwise closes the game. I lost count of the number of times I accidentally exited, totally wiping out all progress without warning. Having said all that, Death Call is a fully functional, if basic roguelike that has its moments. It really shines when you get swarmed by monsters, have to make a mad dash to the stairs, and are forced to utilize all your abilities. The ASCII looks good in this game. There are sounds, though the sound choices are a bit odd. There's 10 levels, but also an infinite mode. You can even train your stats. Great work for 40 hours! Seems like you had a really great 7DRL run this year. I played this game in WINE on macOS and it ran great. Completeness: 4. no bugs that I could find and the UI all makes sense and works. I once spawned in a cell with walls on every side, even diagonals, but I had Phase Door so I was able to escape. Aesthetics: 3. not the most beautiful thing I've ever seen but solid and easy to understand. Fun: 3. It just felt a little too simplistic for me compared to other 7DRLs. There's definitely enough here to have replay value, but I save my 4s for the ones I really love, and this one didn't quite make the cut. Maybe some variety in the environments, or stranger enemies and abilities, would have bumped this up to a 4 for me. Innovation: 2. This game is a solid recombination of standard roguelike game mechanics. That doesn't mean it's not a good game, this just isn't your strongest category. Scope: 3, pretty much what you'd expect from a 7DRL. Enough abilities and stats to make it interesting, not above and beyond. Roguelikeness: 4. Definitely a roguelike! Get to the end of 10 levels. I beat it on my first try. My best score is 1398 turns. Completeness 4 No bugs found. Has a win condition or optional endless mode. Difficulty of each level boils down to whether you find the caller quickly or not. Aesthetics 3 ASCII is OK. Numpad controls are OK. Arrow keys can be used without too much disadvantage. The map scrolls when you get near the edge. Fun 3 Easy, although I did have some close calls. The biggest danger is carelessness, since the enemies are sparse until you approach the caller and some enemies can attack from offscreen. Some choices about what to train and which abilities to keep. Sight range is much larger than the screen size, so playing to win involves looking way offscreen (very slow). Targeting enemies in the huge sight range takes a long time. Innovation 2 You have stamina (I never ran out). Scope 3 A few enemies/abilities. Roguelikeness 4 Turn/grid based ASCII Randomness Permafailure A little tactics/strategy RPG stats Recharging abilities

Dungeon Penetrator 2018 (Pico-8)

Completeness

4 3

Aesthetics

4 3

Fun

3 3

Innovation

2 2

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

4 4

This is a really slick (albeit fairly standard) Roguelike. It has quite a lot of stuff in it: dungeon, monsters, weapons, armor, stats, keys to open locked doors, potions, fog of war, gold, pet-type creatures, etc. It even has a title screen with a song. Controls are streamlined: move, pick up stuff, bump to attack. The monsters do not path toward me; they seem to mostly hit me accidentally, which undercuts the tension somewhat. There also seems to be no reward for killing them, so dodging around them is mostly what I end up doing. The graphics are really charming though. I'm impressed with how much was accomplished! Dungeon Penetrator I played this game while hanging out with some friends when the review session opened, and what I found was a cute lil roguelikey crawler that boiled down to a really simplistic gameplay loop that, while seemingly unable to offer much new content as the game went on, was genuinely fun to kick back and enjoy. Judging is on a scale of 2-4, with 1 and 5 reserved for fringe cases and requiring permission from the competition leaders. With that out of the way, here are my scores. Completeness: 3/5 This was a hard category to judge (as was Scope, which is tied really closely with this one). There are a lot of good ideas going around in this one. Not only is the title/splash screen really nice looking, dungeon generation is really awesome and there are a decent amount of objects to find, even if they act similarly. I see a lot of things that can be added/worked on, even just from the gifs you posted on the itch page. I see a minimap being pulled up, and yet there's no keybind for that. This is especially necessary with the size of the dungeons (one of my favorite parts of this game!), as sometimes I got lost in the corridors. Furthermore, I grabbed a bunch of potions and couldn't figure out how to use them. EDIT: I have updated my score in this category after reviewing the standards for completeness. I've had 0 bugs or crashes which is great, but on the other hand there aren't TONS of features to support it. Aesthetics: 3/5 I'm really happy with how this game looks. The monster animations add just the right amount of liveliness to an otherwise static dungeon, and all the sprites do a good job communicating what they are. I like the thematic Famicon-esque sound effects, although they get annoying to play at volume. I've already mentioned the splash screen looking great, nice and simplistic, and even though the aesthetic of the rest of the game is entirely different, it wasn't disappointing. Why does it say press X though? I assume it's purely just to fit the retro/console theme, but I mashed x until I scrolled down and read that I actually had to hit z. Fun: 3/5 Exploring the dungeons is really fun! However, until I figured out that x was to use potions, I often just went into a cycle of avoiding combat completely, since there is no enemy AI, and I could make it down several levels like that! Either way, this is crawling in its purest form, for better or for worse, and I kept coming back. Innovation: 2/5 I'm not too sure what to put here. There aren't any new mechanics that set this apart from other roguelikes, however I think it's well done and is a solid game. Scope: 3/5 The way I look at it, this game takes a small scope and executes within it decently. There really isn't a whole lot going on in this game, but it is a cozy game, for lack of a better word, and that shows to me that you understand what you wanted to create and just did it. That's enough for me to rate this positively. Roguelikeness: 4/5 Darren will get mad at me for this, but based off of the Berlin Interpretation, this is a full roguelike! Random environment generation, Check. I love the dungeons here. Permadeath, Check. I got one-shotted several times to be honest, walking around at half-health can be brutal. Turn-based, grid-based, non-modal combat and actions, Check, Check, Check. It's also very favorable to exploration, since there's always one more thing to find, and you definitely have to hack and slash through plenty of monsters to get around. One more category, Monsters Similar to Player, particularly stood out. As far as I can tell, monsters have the same stats as the player, which makes them quite a challenge. The only difference is they wander aimlessly.

Greedy Warlock

Completeness

3 4

Aesthetics

3 4

Fun

2 4

Innovation

3 4

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

2 3

Took me a couple tries to understand what to do. For a Jam game is not bad at all, but still needs a lot of polish to be fun to play. Get gold (score) and escape up the depth 1 stairs to score. I "beat" the game. Lower depths give more gold. If you have less attack than an enemy then attacking it loses health, otherwise you gain the reward. Completeness 4 No bugs found. In the online version clicking on the leaderboard button loads the leaderboard page in the same tab which previously had the game open, forcing you to reload the game if you want to play again. Aesthetics 4 Nice pixel art graphics. Mouse controls are OK. Fun 4 Very fun. Lots of different strategies to explore (how far to dive, whether to concentrate on attack/movement/mana, which cards to prioritize, etc.) The cramped maps lead to some interesting choices of which path to take. The leaderboard suggests score totals to aim for. Innovation 4 Deck building with roguelike style grid movement. Scope 3 Decent number of cards and enemy types. Roguelikeness 3 Turn/grid based Random maps/enemies Permafailure RPG stats and cards Tactics/strategy Deck building focus

One Way Out [7drl]

Completeness

3 4

Aesthetics

3 3

Fun

3 3

Innovation

2 4

Scope

3 3

Roguelikeness

3 4

Infinite defense is an interesting subgenere and not very well explored as a roguelike. But infinite defense is only interesting when there is an infinite progression of defender vs infinite strengthening of attackers. In this game neither defender nor attackers are evolving. Once you find and enter the loop, it's only a matter of patience and luck. Each cycle is the same. And it looks like author didn't planned for a possibility of near infinite defense. The game slows down with each cycle up to unplayable state. Yes, the game overwhelms with number of enemies and scale of spells, but IMO it would be much better if these numbers and strength of spell would grow over time, instead of being like this right from the start. A very cool concept. Player is a wizard making a last stand against a seemingly unstoppable horde of enemies. A useful selection of spells makes for interesting tactical decisions, and resource management is key. Damaging and killing enemies gets you much-needed mana for spells, but you can very quickly be surrounded in melee combat. Wounds do not merely do damage, but cause the player to bleed more and more over time, so they must be managed. Taking a turn to pick an arrow out of yourself is a fun concept. Gameplay is brutally hard, but persistence reveals threads of hope as viable strategies and combinations of spells become apparent. Very good work for a 7DRL and specially good for a first-ever roguelike. I expect a lot more from this developer in the future. One tip - I would love if the spells were bound to keys like 1-5. It would make gameplay a bit quicker. Fly you fools!!

Townsfolk Are Tasty

Completeness

4 3

Aesthetics

4 3

Fun

3 2

Innovation

3 3

Scope

2 3

Roguelikeness

4 4

Townsfolk Are Tasty is exactly what is says: you're a "night terror" who goes around eating townsfolk. Importantly, it's a 1HP game. There are 4 types of enemies and the 2 that are aggressive can kill in one hit. One of those types, the Priest, is in fact immune to your attack. You'll die a lot. There's a chess vibe here. It's very easy to