http://roguetemple.com/7drl/2015/

Games were awarded a score of 1-3 in categories of Completeness, Aesthetics, Fun, Innovation, Scope and Roguelikeness. Most games got at least 2 reviews, and the top 50+ games got 3 reviews each.

Note that the process isn’t perfect, and is not used to select a “winner”, but more helps separate the top and bottom half of the field whilst giving useful feedback to the developers. If a game got a score of 2 or higher than it’s likely well worth your time to go play it!

ShroomArts has written an interesting analysis of the art direction of RoyaLe and the creative process which produced the end goal.

Here’s the build: https://mega.co.nz/#!5843gJiK!Ntlg2QG1rkwxOV6DZNFZaiKuOuIzW_MsHCnttoQ-Y-k

Here’s the source: https://github.com/Df458/To-the-West

0. General instructions.
Machines can be interacted by bumping into them.
Power cables can be ‘b’uilt. Enable ‘p’ower overlay mode to see cables.
If many cables/walls/pipes are to be built, use ‘B’atch build mode.
Use ‘c’onfigure to change cables and pipes connections.
If you want ‘easy mode’, restart till you get forest.
Forest means that there is oxygen and temperature is moderate.
In case of cold/hot planet do not forget to ‘c’lose doors when you leave the ship.
Be sure to use functions of the suite to keep you alive outdoors.
Use internal air in case of low/no oxygen and use thermocontrol in case of cold/hot environment.
Use scanner to detect ores direction.
Don’t forget to refill air and recharge suite’s battery when you return to ship.

1. There are shelves with iron and copper chunks in room with machines.
Spend iron carefully to make sure that you make at least drill and smelter.
Ideally you need item servo and crate. But there is item servo behind fuel feed and a box in the bedroom.
It can be used the same way as crate.
2. There are food and water in the ‘fridge’. Room in front of the bedroom.
In current version there is no inventory limit, so it’s better to pick it all.
3. As mentioned in 1. there is a box in the bedroom. There are tools in the box.
Use axe to chop down trees that are in the way and pickaxe to mine stones. Watch for fatigue.
Also you can dismantle one bed and carry it with you to rest.
Fatigue increases when you build. If you are too fatigued, you wob’t
4. Everything can be ‘d’ismantled. As well as batteries in a room next to reactor. But be careful with power connections.
If you disconnect air regenerator, you might die of suffocation.
5. To mine ore place a miner on an ore patch. Place an item servo next to the miner. And a crate or a box next to the item servo.
‘c’onfigure the item servo to pull items from the miner and push to the crate/box.
Connect the item servo and the miner to the power (‘b’uild a battery and a power cable to connect).
Bump into the miner and the servo to turn them on. This should start mining.
Crate with or can be ‘d’ismantled without loosing contents.
Use smelting in a similar way (crate -> servo -> smelter -> servo -> crate).
6. By bumping into ship’s console you will what you need to do to repair the ship.
You can calculate how much ores required to avoid mining more then needed.
Watch recipes in the ‘l’ist.

p.s. HTS can be downloaded here: https://sites.google.com/site/tetrogue/downloads/7drl-2015—high-tech-survival

And here it is:

http://triplevisiongames.itch.io/evig-vinter

Short description is: Evig Vinter is a game about surviving at the end of the world.

Explore and take supplies from the bodies of ex-survivors while your friends at the shelter try to build a radio and find a way out of here.

A game in which you learn by dieing.

Good luck.

p.s – controls are numpad and/or mouse

You’ve launched an assault against an rival wizard’s tower.  The two of you stand toe to toe, locked in combat.  Claim territory and pool magic, then fire off spells and summon monsters in order to defeat your enemy.

The game can almost entirely be played using the keyboard or the mouse. ( i forgot include a way to walk using just the keyboard.  Luckily, it should be seldom used action)

• WASD to move.
• Q to exit a menu /dialogue window
• CLICK on a grid space to open details/action menu for that space.
• E to switch to cursor mode, then WASD to navigate the cursor around the map;
• SPACE open details/action menu about the currently selected space

Open your character’s details/actions menu to get a list of spells you can currently use.

First tip, try not to walk anywhere. You can jump (teleport) around the map for free, which also claims territory.  Claimed spaces cost less for you to jump to, and prevent/reduce the enemy’s ability to attack you.

Second tip, you can perform more than one action per turn.  There are three types of actions: minor, major, and full.  You can perform any 2 minor actions on one turn.  Performing a major action will end your turn, but can be done after a minor action.  Performing a full action will end your turn and cannot be done after a minor action.  The following is a list of action sequences possible in a single turn.

• minor, minor
• minor, major
• major
• full

On your HUD, next to the turn counter you will see ’00’ if you haven’t taken an action so far this turn and ‘ 0-‘ if you’ve performed a minor action already this turn.  Certain action’s cost changes based on context, if this case the menu will show -m or -M for minor or major respectively.  Walking is a minor action.  Spells are major actions.

Third tip, start a bunch of pools so you’ll have a reserve of magic to draw from.  When you first create a pool, it will be arcane typed and contain one charge. Each turn every pool gains one charge.  You can convert an arcane pool into another element, but it will reduce the pool’s charge by 1.  Once you have a built up a pool you can tap it, and use the charges in the pool to cast spells/summon monsters.  At the start of a game you are assigned a random primary element, either fire, water, or plant.  You then have access to 2 sub-elements based, based on your primary element.  They are determined by taking the sub-element to left and right of your primary element in the following sequence:

• –> fire –> (acid) –> water  –> (ice) –> plant –> (earth) –>

Each element has 3 spells, and one summon.  Summons convert the pool into the summon creature. Spells vary in their range, attack pattern and effects which include: damaging enemies, claiming spaces, leaving behind items, and reducing an enemy’s claim.

Here is a link to the 7DRL version: http://www.crabpotgames.com/p/knockdowndragout.html

Link to a version I intend to update: http://www.crabpotgames.com/p/kddo.html

Known code bugs:

• Summoning a snowman crashes the game (incorrectly named function)
• When your element is fire, the proper sub-elements are not choosen
• Occasional crash on enemy death

Known game logic bugs:

• More a deficiency, than a bug: the AI for the enemy wizard is too simplistic and too random. I really ran out of time to refine this area.
• You can create a pool in enemy territory
• Enemy can jump into your territory

Follow us and watch Alan thread down this road to ruin on YouTube in true roguelike fashion as we try to make a game in seven days!

Previous reports from Void Sanctum, 7DRL 2015:

Hellion v1.0.1

This update does not add any new content, but it brings the benefit of some more playtesting time to balance, bugfix and tweak some things to give a slightly better experience.  Of course, the good old 7-day version is still available.

In other news: ahead of the official judging process (in which I am also taking part) I have just posted a set of quickie mini-reviews of some of the other 7DRLs that I’ve played so far:

Some Quickie 7DRL Reviews

There’s still a lot more games to check out…

Changed in v1.01:

• Added new Wait key for turn-based Roguelike mode, default is Numpad key 5
• High score is now stored
• Toyed a bit with the level generator parameters, although the changes are probably too minor to be really noticeable
• Fixed crash when pressing R in main menu when there was no game to Resume
• Added About option to main menu
• Various minor corrections and enhancements that have to do with redefining keys

Refer to the CHANGELOG.TXT included in the ZIP file for full details.

You can download both this new v1.01 version and the original 7DRL v1.00 release here.

Avast, ye rogues!

It is now days till the 11th Seven Day Roguelike Challenge, being held 7th to 11th March 2015. Here are some links to help you get prepped:

• Roguelike Radio episode on How to Make a 7DRL, and other 7DRL-related Roguelike Radio episodes
• Unity Pro 1 month trial for participants, and their new 2D roguelike tutorial
• libtcod, the dedicated roguelike library, and its excellent Python tutorial
• T-Engine, the lua-based roguelike game engine
• rot.js, the roguelike toolkit in javascript
• Reviews of the 2014 7DRLs
• 7DRL blog, where developers can share their struggles and successes

US roguelikers may also be interested in the upcoming International Roguelike Development Conference being held in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 30-31. This is the first time IRDC has been held outside Europe. There will also be a UK-based conference later in the year.

When the challenge begins a registration page will be available at http://7drl.roguetemple.com/.

Remember you can also check the detailed reviews at the International Roguelike Registration System, which will soon be activated for the 2015 challenge and evaluation.

May be we won’t take as much time this year :)

The challenge will run March 7 to March 15, you are invited to take part and create a roguelike game in 7 days, starting from whatever you want but producing a new, complete, playable game at the end of the week!

The 7DRL challenge breathes new life every year into the roguelike development community, last year we had 248 challengers, don’t miss this opportunity!

In 2005, the roguelike community established a yearly event, the 7DRL Challenge, in which all the world is challenged to create a roguelike in a one-week span.

7DRL Challenges are NOT about being a fast coder, but rather proving you can release a finished, playable roguelike to the world. There is no winner of the challenge, but rather all those who finish are honoured for their work, the criterion is completeness.

You CAN use external libraries, game engines, pre-existing generic code/algorithms, pre-existing generic art, etc. You can even start your game from an existing game, if you are willing to turn it out into something unique, you must however say what resources were reused.

Challengers may use the International Roguelike Registration System to accept the challenge once it starts; you can also check the reviews for last year entries here!

More info

• Roguebasin entry for 7DRL 2015
• Roguebasin entry for the 7DRL Challenge

Start making your game at any point on Saturday/Sunday and finish 168 hours later. If you’re not interested in making a whole game you can spend your week on a procedural tool or one procedural game element (a map generator or a sprite-modifier or a music engine, for instance).

The ProcJam is kicking off with a series of talks in London, including presentations from Darren Grey, Mark Johnson (Ultima Ratio Regum) and Tanya Short (Shattered Planet). They can be viewed by live stream for anyone that can’t make it in person.

More info:

• ProcJam details
• ProcJam posts on Tumblr (lots of handy links and articles)
• Details of the day of talks
• Twitch channel for watching the talks remotely

Spellbind Studios has launched a crowdfunding campaign to develop a pretty good looking roguelike.

Fully intending to design a game that works seamlessly on both a touch screen and desktop, a hybrid turn based design was created to keep combat fast and visceral while eliminating frantic button mashing and awkward touch screen controls.

Check out their campaign!

Rogue Wizards

It’s about time we do another 7DRL Challenge before our main March event!  But why play a battle alone, when we can join the war?

PROCJAM 2014 is happening next November 7, and I suggest we swarm over it like a band of rabid jackals.

There are two ways to enter:

• Make a game with procedural generation in it. Maybe a Twine adventure with randomised character personalities? Maybe an action-RPG where each player gets their own procedural theme tune? Maybe an old-fashioned world-generator for a strategy game? Create a game for #procjam using the optional theme (announced at the start of the jam) and include a procedural twist in there somewhere.
• Make a tool that generates stuff to help game developers. We already have amazing tools like sound effect generator SFXR, music generation like Abundant Music, or random sprite-grabbers like Spritely. What other tools could we make to help people generate cool things for the games they make? Maybe a corporation generator for cyberpunk cities? A tool for generating alien alphabet fonts? A library that automatically generates enemy ships for space shooters?

I thus challenge you all to create a roguelike in 7 days, just along with the PROCJAM’14! Let’s have a lot of fun! Usual 7DRL Challenge rules apply, so read them.

“What is a roguelike?” is a long standing question with no single answer; there are many perspectives you could apply to understand what “roguelike” refers to, starting from strictly historical ascendance, passing through aesthetics or even focusing on a single feature such as procedural content or permanent death.

For a long time, I have refrained from providing a single definition, and went instead for a way to evaluate the “roguelikeness” of a game. This I did to encourage experimentation outside the bounds of the classics, but the world has changed.

Over the years there has been a resurgence of the term “roguelike”, where it has been applied to games that differ so much from the originals that the term is losing its meaning every time. Having that in mind, I have decided to share my own interpretation of what I call a Classic Roguelike, with the sole intention of preserving the original nature and identity of the genre; this doesn’t mean roguetemple is only intended to cover the development of classic roguelikes; we are equally interested in games that utilize some of the mechanics from roguelikes and complement them with other genres.

The most important perspective for me when considering if a game is a roguelike are its game design features. Note however that my interpretation is not limited to the features of the original “Rogue”, nor am I listing all of its features to be required; this list is derived from my experience over the years on what makes a roguelike, i.e. which features from the good old roguelikes are critical to conserve the spirit of the genre.

So, for a game to be considered a Classic Roguelike by this interpretation, it should comply with ALL of the following features:

• Turn based: The player interacts in turns; for every turn the player gets to decide what action to take. After he decides the game simulates the turns for the rest of the entities in the game world and them prompts the player back for action. The player can pass its turn but it’s done manually as an explicit action.
• Grid based: (Which could be implied from being “Turn based”) There is an underlying orthogonal or hexagonal grid where the entities of the world are placed. Movement occurs from one cell to another close cell.
• Permanent Failure: Encouraging the player to take responsibility for the risks he takes. Games can be persisted to support interrupted play sessions but players cannot reload a game for the sake of experimenting or to “retry” a fight or seek a better outcome on a random event.
• Procedural environments: Most of the game world is generated by the game for every new gameplay session. This is meant to encourage replayability and complements permanent failure.
• Random conflict outcomes: The main conflict action between entities in the game (commonly, attacking an enemy or casting a spell) has a random outcome. For example, for most of times you can’t know for certain in advance how many hitpoints your attack will reduce from the enemy (Although the player has a reference range and variability that should allow him to make tactical choices).
• Inventory: There are items the player can pick up and use and inventory space is limited, the player should decide strategically what items are best to keep to survive and win the game.
• Single Character: The player is represented by a single character inside the game world.

Use this interpretation at your own risk. Some games could be considered roguelikes and don’t have all these features. You might also want to check other roguelike definitions attempts:

• The Berlin Interpretation
• Roguetemple’s original Roguelikeness Criteria
• Roguebasin definition

We are looking forward to review cool and promising roguelikes, please send us out information about your project, including a set of screenshots and if possible a gameplay video, so we can learn about it and write an article!

You can post your information at the Roguetemple spotlight thread on the forums.

Roguebase is a blog/news aggregator that has been running for quite a long time now; be sure to check it out! They recently added us and Slashland as news sources too. It’s currently aggregating 53 news sources and provides a feed of its own.