You can read more about the 7DRLPC at
http://groups.google.co.nz/group/rec.games.roguelike.misc/browse_frm/...

If you want to participate, reply to this thread...

Let this be the official thread for members of the 7DRLPC Competition.

To gain 7DRLPC points, post your reviews, YAVPs, and bug reports here.
(Reviews should be constructive writeups of at least 25 words, bug
reports should be reproducible.)

Further info at http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.development/browse...

For my, and possibly others', convenience I put up the text from the
first thread in RogueBasin.

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=7DRLPC

Also I've put up stub articles for all the successful and out of
challenge 7DRLs
on RogueBasin.  I encourage people to add more detail to them if
they're doing
reviews anyway. ;-)  They are all linked from the 7DRL Contest 2009
and
2009 Out of Challenge 7DRLs pages.

Tomb of Rawdin is an 'out of challenge' 7DRL completed before the
official 2009 season started.

Technical: 9 out of 10

No bugs found, things did pretty much what I expected them to do. A
few more messages would have been nice and any sort of sound at all.

The facility I missed most at first was the ability to run, but I got
used to going on the (fast) key repeat for straight lines.

Gameplay: 6 out of 10

The 'realtime-ish' aspect was difficult for me to cope with.  Turn-
based gaming is the primary reason I like roguelikes so this was a
real minus for me.  The maps were nice, they really looked like there
should be secret doors in a few places, but I guess not ;-).

Maybe I suck, or maybe the RNG was just unkind to me but after dying
five times in a row rather quickly I'm afraid I lost patience.  Decent
equipment makes a real difference, but with no(?) HP
regeneration and no heal potions found dying was just a matter of
time.

Monster and item density on a level was sensible (I wasn't swarmed). A
traditional mix of familiar names on both accounts, which I was quite
happy with. I'm not sure if the difficulty was supposed to
go up as I went down levels as I only got to dlvl 2 half the time.

http://kooneiform.wordpress.com/?s=7drl+2009

I CAN HAS WINZ!

Congratulations, you won!

More important, you'll be able to show off with Alena tomorrow ! But
this is another story...

Score : 1408

creatures killed : 1688
spells casted : 3398
fireball : 3321
fire burst : 75
incancescence : 1
health potions used : 28
distance traveled : 11182

*******************************

And now the review.

This was another out of challenge period 7DRL.

Technical 9 out of 10

This sooo could have used a little sound.  Just a 'bib' when you cast
fireball would have made all the difference.  Full screen mode caused
the mouse cursor to disappear which made playing impractical in that
mode.

Otherwise very smooth, nice graphics and I really liked the cave
generation - very natural looking.

Gameplay 8 out of 10

But it plays like an (old school) arcade game.  Maybe a tiny bit like
being a mage in Diablo. I found it difficult to get used to the
controls at first and nearly ended up getting killed in the first
level or two.  When I got the used to using the correct mouse button
(instead of walking where I meant to be firing ...) it got a lot
easier.

The fact that I won in first attempt shows that the difficulty must be
pretty low.  Possibly there was just a few too many levels before you
get to the boss.

The 'spell progression' idea was nice, but really the first spell you
start with is by far and away the best.  I wonder whether it even
needs power boosting either.  The only time the other spells came in
useful was in the final encounter.  Nicely ominous 'mist' graphics
there as well, by the way.

I have to give this game credit for the longest name.  This is another
'out of challenge time' 7DRL, started and finished late.

Technical 6 out of 10

Graphics are interesting (zoom in!), world generation with multiple
local maps. There was some 'theming' going on with the map generation
(to the extent of foresty areas you can't see far in vs few trees
areas). There seems to be all sorts of stuff going on on the screen.
Unfortunately the font was not very readable.

Gameplay 4 out of 10

7DRL by Ed Kolis.

Technical 8 out of 10.

Nice big easy to see numbers and layout.  Very easy to read font. A
little sound would have improved things. (Sound familiar? ;-)

Gameplay 8 out of 10

Biggest disappointment was that it was too easy.  Although I usually
dislike real-time games that approach would probably have worked well
here to add a little urgency to your calculations.  You could also
have had several 'levels' with the speed increasing slightly at each
one.

That aside the instructions (readme.txt) were very clear and the game
worked well, with one exception.  I would recommend it for younger
players who would find the maths a little more challenging (although
you'd need to reword 'modulus' as something easier to understand like
'last number').

BUG REPORT

The readme specifies that on killing a number you get back half the HP
you've lost.  This does not happen.  Instead you get back quite a bit
more than half to the extent that when I finished I have 200 HP of a
maximum 100.

It's zero hero day!
He stands alone today!
Tah rah rah boom de ay!
*** CONGRATULATIONS! You Win! ***

7DRL by Florian Diebold.

Technical 9 out of 10.

No borders around the edge of the map and a readme would have helped
but otherwise a pretty smooth implementation.

Gameplay 7 out of 10.

Nice maps, and a good traditional concept.  I'm not sure what (if
anything) could be done with the goblin corpses I sometimes picked
up.  Maybe if I'd lived long enough I'd have found out.  As it was,
after about six tries without getting past level 3 I gave up. (Weak
sauce, I know).

Gaining a level each time you go down a dungeon level is a nice idea,
but although I got ability bonuses this way I didn't seem to get the
hit points and that's what I really needed.  An encounter with a
goblin warrior is pretty much going to be an 'instakill' in my
(limited) experience and they can't all be avoided.

7DRLs are about experimenting, so my conclusion is that such a system
doesnt seem to add a lot for dungeon based roguelikes, the furtherst I
could go was level 3, where I was quickly destroyed every time by
quickly running orcs, whom reminded me of my worst times playing
Ultima 7 (Whose battle system was BAD)

Victory Post
=========
Couldnt "win"

Bug Report
=========
None found

Tupp the assassin was stricken with grief and swore revenge on all
concerned.
He lasted 12641 turns.
Difficulty: Easy

He found 15 of 15 plot items.

He killed 247 creatures
54 ferrets
22 rats
21 goblins
18 spiders
22 orcs
8 orc shamen
7 bugbears
11 goblin witch
38 zombies
31 skeleton
6 skeletal archers
8 necromancer
1 lich

Though I wonder if this is a victory -- maybe there's a better ending
than being stricken with grief.

2009 7DRLPC - DungeonMinder

DungeonMinder is a very engaging roguelike with a twist on how the
player interacts with the environment. The player's job is to control,
not the adventurer, but a fairy in charge of ensuring that the
adventurer is able to make his way through the dungeon safely. This is
a bit of a challenge, as our hero isn't the brightest bulb in the
pack. He's apt to swing his sword at anything he sees both near and
far. In between his slashing and posing, he just needs to open two
treasure chests, which are randomly located on each level. Once these
chests have been opened and pilfered (oh, and the treasure
stinks...but don't dare tell our hero), the hero will hopefully find
the exit to the next level where new dangers await.

So how does our fine fairy keep that brave, yet clueless, hero alive?
By mastering a total of nine spells that either directly affect our
hero, his foul targets, or the dungeon itself. There are three
different spell buckets, each controlled by a different mana type.
There is plenty of strategy to be had here...enough, for sure, to keep
the replayability at a high level.

One word of warning: This game is difficult. Initial reports on rgrd
indicated this was the case and it seems they were dead on, but the
game is winnable. Don't let the difficulty level keep you away from
this fine roguelike.

The game has been released under the BSD licence and receives extra
points for having both a Windows and Linux download available and also
for supporting vi/vim key commands.

The hope is that the developer, Adam Gatt, will continue development
on this title. It would really be worth the effort because this RL has
so much to offer already. Some ideas for enhancement would be the
inclusion of additional spells and mana types, varying levels of
difficulty, and additional mob types.

2009 7DRLPC - Fruits of the Forest

I must admit, the more I play Fruits of the Forest the more I like it.
Initially, I had some issues getting it to run on my main RL playing
machine, a Samsung NC10 netbook running Fedora 10, but all seems to be
working fine now.

FotF is really a nice and enjoyable roguelike. And challenging too.
I'm still amazed that fully functioning games can be written in a mere
7 days.

Things I Like:
- Ability to run on Linux & Windows using the same executable, thanks
to Java
- vi/vim key controls
- Challenging gameplay around the simple idea of: collect berries,
kill bandits, feed villagers, repeat

Things I Don't Like So Much:
- There is a delay between when a directional key is pressed and when
the character moves. This could be due to some issue with my system or
just an issue with Java. Slightly annoying, but does not kill the
gameplay experience.

- My NC10 has a funky display resolution (1024 x 600) and I need to
<Alt> 'cursor move' the window upward after starting each game in
order to see the messaging at the bottom of the screen.

- If there are no Healberries near the starting location, you are
pretty much hosed and don't have much of a chance in getting very far.
This imbalance seems to exist in most of the games I've played so far.

Thus start my reviews with:

Exciteable Digger!  I played version 1.1.  I really liked the setup of
this game, the abandonment of all usual hack and slash for a simple
digging adventure.  The digging interface was thus nice and clean -
bump to dig.

Fortunately I had read another review so knew to hit > to build a
slope downwards to get to level two.  Here I discovered the neat
feature of the status line that gives you the floor and ceiling rock
types, really giving you a sense of 3d space.

The "Zero Hero" chant reminds me of a Ultima Online drinking game
where you have to get 0 mana to succeed.

I do like the mechanics, the idea of the behaviour of the numbers
changes as you change their value.

I was disappointed that things like + and * only apply to each number
independently, before reading the help I sort of expected the goal
would be to have to combine different numbers together.  As such the
strategy became a straightforward divide and conquer.  Also, the
technique to use on the creatures was pretty straightforward, with /
and - being the usual brain dead approach that worked.

The screen size is a bit big for 768 line screens that also have a
double height windows task bar which is frustrating as it is dead
space that sends it over, I'd encourage a more wide screen layout.

Running a game of the numpad is very cool.  But please, please, always
support normal keys in this case!  If you can be played solely by the
numpad, there really is no excuse not to happily support vi-keys and
arrow keys.  And if you are going to have + as an attack, having shift-
= work as + is rather expected for US style keyboards.

The rationality made no sense to me.  I had thought it would decrease,
but I seemed to swiftly grow over my original 100 as I killed things.

This is a game which I really want to get back to.

First impressions was that this was designed for the Vaio P - an
extremely wide screen.  The smoothness of UI on startup is very nice,
I really appreciate how many 7drls nonetheless come across extremely
polished.   I know this has driven me to increase the polish of my
entries every year.

The info text that comes up when you bump into new areas is a nice way
to bring in the plot without overwhelming.

I'm a big fan of attacks being triggered by movement sequences.  My
objection, however, is the lack of feedback when I'm engaging the
attack.  I never really got the proper open ground to do an open
ground attack, but I did manage some stunning sphere attacks.  The
only effect being "Stunning Sphere" on the screen was somewhat
anticlimatic.

I really appreciate the opening movie.  However, it doesn't work if
you have your terminal set with a white background because it doesn't
clear to black to start with.

Flavour text for bunny smashing was well done.  I appreciate the cerr
<< getName() << endl;, nice to know my time on IRC was not wasted.
Alternating the colours for the history text worked surprisingly well,
I could see new text and not get confused where the new separates from
the old.

The little dead bunny counter was very cute too.

Won with 17.25/100, which I think is better than the official 15%.

I fell into mythology building when I wondered if the 'd' bunnies were
different from the 'b' bunnies - I figured the 'd' bunnies were the
unkillable while the 'b' were safe and you had to somehow avoid
getting them.  If more gameplay is ever desired, perhaps having the
left and right facing bunnies in the status screen post different odds
for the player to discover.

I like the idea of having a splashscreen for the tech, a sort of
NVidia logo for a text game.

"You have no rights" - cute.

Smooth fades and nice text bars for windows are nice UI features.

It is very strange for my first action in game be to gain a level.
I've not done anything yet.  I also have absolutely no idea what these
stats are, so my choice is very arbitrary.  It was also somewhat
disappointing to be faced with an old-school sdcp interface when we
had seen nice >><< selectors for previous menus, would expect a >><<
selector with left/right be used for adding/removing points.  Sure,
keep sdcp.

The welcome to the village screen doesn't clear the keyboard buffer.
I thus hit a key when faced with it thinking it was waiting for one,
but ended up wiping out the intro screen, forcing me to restart to see
it.  When I restarted and got the info screen, I saw a nice scroll bar
on the side.  I know, I know, this is a text game, but I see a scroll
bar, my mouse goes over and drags it and gets me disappointed.

I then found some weird input bugs.  The right arrow didn't work for
me, leading me to think the game was frozen for a long time since that
is the first direction you want to go.  Fortunately l works so I can
switch to vi-keys.  I then started to complain about the lack of key
list, since ? did nothing for me, but the readme suggests that ?
should be help, it just is my keyboard isn't having anything of it.
Shift-/ is ? on my keyboard, incidentally.

Heading to the village I found some mysterious blockers that stopped
FOV and my movement.  I couldn't see anything in those squares, they
may have just been too low contrast - everything was dark and hard to
perceive.  Entering the well lit tavern I was momentarily confused by
the hobbits and Ogres, but came to love the rendition of chairs and
tables.

I then was confused by the drunk.  I wanted to talk to him.  c gave
"There is no door nearby" popping out of my head.  Which I then
attributed to be what I was trying to tell the grey @ sign.  I figured
I was explaining that I couldn't find the entrance to the cave, took a
while before I realized this was just the close command firing.  Which
brings me to the other rant - if you have NPCs, use bump to chat.

Thanks to my door skills, I found some strange LOS bugs when you
opened and closed doors.  The FOV would go all funny, like half black,
and only restore after you move.

"There is no way up here" is a cruel message when you try to climb a <
which is "inaccessible".  Instead, please say "You cannot climb these
stairs as they are blocked", I was doubting my sanity at seeing a <
sign.

I'm quite a sucker for this sort of combination puzzle game.
Fortunately, I had read another review so knew that 'c'ombine only
worked on the top two items in your inventory.

I liked the introduction to the game, the integrated presentation of
the name entry and the challenge level.

While making notes I was frustrated that the screen would not repaint
when occluded by another window, I'd have to move the @ to force a
redraw.

Not being able to drop from the inventory screen was very frustrating,
I kept selecting my item and wanting to hit 'd' for it to drop.

I found 5 items I could build from recipies, which from reading
the .exe I think has everything for someone who never saw a deer.  My
best adventure got to a lake of clear water only to drown.  The dying
from trees falling or drowning were what did me in, it felt very much
like just a 1/100 chance of dying every turn.

Once again, pure numberpad games are not fair to laptop users.
Similarly, if the console is white, you may want to clear the screen.

I did manage to figure out that numpad 0 was insert, so could use
insert for my flower picking.

I do like the 40x24 screen res, it gives a nice 8bit aesthetic and
avoids the super-widescreen feel of the 80x24 games.

I failed to read the documentation properly, so I knew that numpad 0
was to pick a flower, but did not know it was to climb staircases, I
kept trying >.

The multihue flower was nice - especially since I had thought for some
reason I had to pick a pink flower so kept waiting for it to cycle
properly before moving and picking it.