Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Bad Dreams & Sad Memories I don't want to spoil this too much for the reader, but this is a game worth playing. It takes a roguelike mechanic and applies it to a protagonist's bad dreams and mixed memories in trying to deal with depression/anxiety. As you wander your dreamscape, your goal is to discover the mixed or good memories that bring you calm rather than dread, so as to wake up peacefully rather than in a cold sweat. I'm not a doctor and can't speak to the exact "soundness" of everything therein, but as a game, this is interesting, strange, sad and wonderful all in its own way. It feels a bit "rogue-lite puzzle" overall, but I'm not certain this game needs to go full roguelike; I personally kind of like the weird hybrid that it is. Completeness: This is a pretty stable game, with the one minor bug now quashed in a post-7DRL release. It's not super-polished or balanced, unfortunately, leaving it at middle-of-the-road marks here. Aesthetics: The game is aesthetically fitted for what it is; everything seems muted by a fairly consistent grey background, and is mostly functional. Controls for examining the things in your dreamspace at things (a huge mechanic of the game), and might not ever be my thing, but they're not *bad*. The writing is pretty good. Fun: This game is really compelling to play. You wander your dreams, going from room to room, usually in a disjointed way that seems (at least in my experience) to somewhat approximate the mismatched way things interact in dreams. And when you read, you want to learn and discover more about the life of this little @ symbol. But it's made less engaging and a little more frustrating that there's a good chance of spawning into a series of death-rooms at the start, with little hope of waking up well after. Mechanically, it's a simple and somewhat luck-based game, once you know where the good and bad memories are found, but compelling in concept and for the most part in execution. Innovation: This is a neat twist on a combat-less formula that seems to serve well. Perhaps some procedural generation to the items/people you encounter and the memories associated would have done it better in this regard. Scope: This is about what one expects from seven days of work; there's a lot of quality writing here! Roguelikeness: I think this one feels a bit more "lite", though certain elements are definitely there; in tone the game's more of an artsy puzzle than a tactical or strategic situation, and while there are definite randomized elements, winning the game is likely to be a matter of meta-progression for most players. More procedural generation of areas and area types, or ability to avoid or subdue the eponymous bad dreams, tactically or strategically, would probably increase the roguelikeness factor. That said, I think those things could maybe be done for balance or challenge reasons (especially tactical avoidance of bad dreams) but I'm not certain this game needs to go full roguelike; I kind of like the weird hybrid that it is.
• Warning: Writing really lives up to it's title. Explores an interesting idea here on how to theme consumable items.
• The game itself feels rather like a skeleton than a real game. There is clear idea, but some mechanics just doesn't work as I would expect, and most of them is not explained. Given the topic and atmosphere I may belive that it's by design... But it doesn't work well. For example I wasn't able to target anything manually, I had to rely on autotarget. "Remembering" mechanics also isn't explained. It's hard to judge aesthetics. On the one hand it's just... not good (except for not readable enough font, it looks just generic), but I really like the colors (maybe black could be a bit more... eerie) and it somehow manages to create disturbing atmosphere. Lack of completeness affects the fun - it's hard to play even simple game when the mechanics are not explained. On the other hand, game is simple enough to allow player figuring out the rules. Other than that, game is rather hard - it's rather easy to flee from the monsters, but "t"argeting system doesn't help with learning about surroundings (and again, it may be by design, but it doesn't work well) and the game punished the mistakes. While I wasn't really enjoying playing BDSM (...just found out that abbreviation - I wonder if that's intentional?), the atmosphere is suggestive and I was running around in panick like in bad dream often. Bad Dreams & Sad Memories hardly brings something new to the roguelike table, but there is definitely not enough horror roguelikes here.