Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• (Review of v.1.02) A very traditional roguelike in an untraditional setting. It is very stripped-down as well, since there is no levelling, and the only items are jellybeans, which are equivalent to potions, so the only progression is through consuming the stat-increasing jellybeans. There are a few jellybeans with standard malignant effects too (confusion, paralysis and enfeebleness), and you can toss them at the enemies...but this only does physical damage without inflicting the status effect, and usually does not even destroy the jellybean. While that decision is unusual, the one design choice which defines the entire gameplay is the lack of health regeneration or healing from descending floor, with the rarest type of jellybean being the only way to restore HP. However, this is offset with player's health being ludicrously high: it begins at 500 HP, and by the time I finished the game (in a single run), it was 1400 - all while the starting toys deal about 5 damage with their attacks, and even the most powerful ones, Nutcrackers, are limited to 15. Having said that, while you are never in an immediate danger from the toys, they are capable of draining down quite a lot of HP over time and are refreshingly distinct from each other. Army Men shoot AND retreat from you until backed into a corner: RC cars move much faster than you are; Matryoshkas spawn Sub- and Subsubmatryoshkas. Most notably, there's a chess-styled room where the only enemies are Knights, which really do move in L-shaped patterns only. This enemy variety, along with the good choice of tiles (which even have brief attack animations) and music (but no sound) help make ToyboxRL worth playing in spite of its limitations. One last note: after beating the game, you are offered to "reset", but this ends up equivalent to NG+, as you retain your stats from the end of the last run, and your memory of jelly bean properties. This is likely a bug, since challenge does not increase proportionally.
• It looks like this game was a way to learn Godot, which is awesome. It has the basic roguelike elements and monsters with unique attacks. Content appears to be missing, as the player is shown their damage and evasion stats, but there is no way to change them. There are no items and the jelly beans don't appear to have an effect. It's a 7DRL, so it's understandable. The only item that needs to be picked up is the final super bean. While the lack of character progression means that there isn't much for the player to do other than search for the stairs, it does become interesting to learn the different enemy attacks and do your best to avoid getting in fights. The theme is nice and has lots of potential. The chess rooms with knights are great. You can imagine all sorts of childhood toys and their potential attacks.
• I love playing a meat-and-potatoes 7DRL like this one. It's unambiguously a roguelike and is a nice combination of careful design and made-in-just-7-days limitations. The theming is very on point (though the music did get repetitive after a while...thanks for providing a toggle). The different enemies are very easy to tell apart, and the puzzle piece background is a nice touch. It's a bit on the easy side. I won on my first try, using tactics similar to what I would use in Brogue, staying out of sight and only picking fights I could win. The game felt pretty generous with the buff items once I identified them. The final "boss" was very easy. It was a little hard to tell what was going on with the army men. I wish there were a clearer indication I was being shot at. Overall, this is a really good entry, especially for someone learning a new game engine, and I'm glad I played it.