Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Overview "Fun little game", except it's not that little. Great exploration feeling. Completeness Complete package, no major bugs encountered, very polished. Aesthetics The graphics style is charming, but a bit unclear and hard on the eyes. Simple and intuitive controls. Fun That's definitely one of the most interesting entries in 2021. It has several mechanics, and while all of them (exploration, farming, combat) are simplistic, the final effect is incredibly captivating. Innovation It's a simple roguelike, with farming and exploration based on digging tunnels and bridge-building. Maybe it's not extraordinarily innovative but definitely feels fresh. Scope Here, I struggled a bit. The scope seems to be big (because I can see that every single mechanics of this game could be used to create a separate 7DRL) and small (simplicity of mechanics, also that's not a big game in terms of raw content) at the same time. Still, when I look at the big picture, Harvest Dungeon delivers even more than I would expect from the 7DRL. Traditional Roguelikeness Yes, traditional roguelike with additional twists.
• I like the aesthetics of the game. It feels like a nice little place to carve out a life for myself. There is something nice about the simple act of picking up and putting down tools to do different tasks, and being able to affect the environment as well. The major issue that I have is the balance of the crop growing mechanic-- specifically, it takes much, much too long to grow crops. It isn't reasonable to expect a new player to figure out how to get crops to grow without dying many times, the timing is just too close, and it was very frustrating. I do appreciate a roguelike that does something unusual, this is like a simplified Dwarf Fortress Adventure mode and Fortress mode combined. Although the mechanics are unusual, the fact that it is turn-based, grid-based, and has some procedural generation, means that it is a traditional roguelike in my opinion. It's a nice base, it would be cool to see it expanded with more base-building and combat mechanics.
• Really fun retro style game. The balance between farming and mining and fighting enemies was interesting. The art style was very low res but well done. The sound effects helped to know when enemies were coming. If I had one complaint, it's that the controls could have been better. I died a few times because I pressed the wrong button. WASD movement with Q/E or Space bar would have been much easier to use, in my opinion.