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Hey everyone!

This’ll be my first 7DRL challenge and I’m a little conscious that I don’t have much experience playing roguelikes (I’m mostly familiar with Qud and Michael Brough’s work). I’d love to cram a little before the exam, does anyone have recommendations for what they consider to be “essential” entries in the canon? I’d especially love to try some games from previous 7DRL challenges.

Appreciate any pointers, thank you!!

That's a great UX suggestion about clearing the sonar, a couple other people have mentioned similar issues so it'd be a big improvement. I reckon it could be squeezed into a v1.1 without too much trouble!

The procedural generation was really fun but SO token hungry! I'd love to revisit the idea in a different engine to explore more ways that the levels can overlap - obstructing some areas, giving you spaces that you can look into but not drill into, going up and down between two floors (kind of like what you suggested on bluesky!).

I really appreciate you taking the time to play the game and leave such a thoughtful comment, thank you!

Thank you! This worked for me

Have been excited to play this since I first saw it! I've only been able to get up to 2-3 so far but it's very addictive so I don't think I'll be able to put it down for very long lol. 

I was surprised at how puzzly it ended up feeling. Trying to route to the tenants without getting pinned in by the zombies was really engaging, especially as the layout of the levels got more intricate. Some of the seemingly obvious decisions have a lot of depth to them also, at some points I would spend a life over a bullet because the respawn gave me a better chance of getting where I was going for fewer resources. That tradeoff felt cool.

It goes without saying, but the presentation is just incredible. The music is gonna be stuck in my head (:

This is really firing on all cylinders, really remarkable that you were able to squeeze this out of PICO-8!

The boss design is great. The 3 bosses each felt like they were focused on different styles of combat (AOE, ranged, dueling) and yet they each also progressed some larger ideas that were woven between them (AOE attacks by Dhriti, followed by AOE attacks across little islands by Shriv). The difficulty was tuned to perfectly match the scope of the game. Each boss took me 2-3 attempts as I learnt the patterns and developed some strategies, it felt really good.

The writing was great too. There's only a handful of lines but they manage to imbue the world and the characters with a lot of substance, and the ending is very cathartic. The sparseness that is required for a PICO-8 game is turned into a strength of the storytelling.

Really really enjoyed this, thank you for making it.

Tysm!! Really admire your work so that means a lot :) 

I really love this!

The theming of building the constellations is super comfy, I can't believe how much heavy lifting the background stars do in portraying the night sky lol.

The system is great too. The early puzzles have such a limited range of choices that you pick up the rules really quickly, and then all of the more interesting properties unfold nice and naturally over the course of the game. The subtle restrictions around line of sight, jump distance, and intersecting lines build up to some fun surprises that you surface really well in the puzzles. I especially like the puzzles that iterate on the same constellation but move the green stars around.

It has that magic property where you can build intuition with the system just by messing around, and then the intuition eventually drops a solution in your lap. Feels so good!

Really cool game!!

Link to Adam's talk!

This is so sick!! I'm not much of a shoot-em-up player so I haven't been able to beat it yet but its so much fun that I'm determined to try.

The enemy variety is great, especially when they start combining their movement patterns in interesting ways. Great work on the presentation too, the clouds are really pretty :)

Great game, I love how much agency the design gives you. Balancing the risk reward of basically every tile at once is super addictive, and its so cool how the objective slowly tips from "maximise the score of every blue" to "don't get boxed in by the reds" without the rules ever changing.

Tysm!

It's a little unintuitive at first, but the cursor can only move around the border of the grid. That might've been the problem you were bumping into!

Thanks for the heads up, I'll see if there's anything I can do to improve the UX.  

Thanks bossman!

Latching on at the sides was a pretty late addition but it opened up waaaay more puzzles, really happy I stumbled across it.

That's interesting about level 9! I think it asks you to compose like 3-4 ideas in a row, which is a much bigger ask than any of the others before it. Specifically, visualising a structure in one location that you have to build in another is a big step up.

It still takes me like 10 mins to solve the last level lol.

Congrats, thats so exciting! I'll be sure to check it out :)

Thank you for all of these kind words!!

Really great feedback too. Will definitely include a visual indicator and do some thinking about giving more player agency over upgrade placement :)

Thanks for sharing the vod! That was a lot of fun, and really helpful to see someone’s first impressions. I’ll make sure to visit the stream in the future!

You have a great memory! That helps a lot, thank you. I'll track those down to fix after the jam.

Great point on the dice feedback to! Especially in contrast to the feedback from hovering over the dice its not very noticeable. Definitely worth improving :)

WHAT. A. BANGER. It is satisfying to move, its satisfying to shoot, somehow its even satisfying to get hit. I love the take on the theme too, attaching attacks to movement makes the game so frenetic and showing the whole thing on a big loop lets you strategise about position and timing. Those worked together to keep me locked in 100% of the time. The loop feels like it has so much combo potential, I would love to see where you guys take it if you ever continue development!

Really cool entry, polished to perfection. Thank you for making it!!

Such a cool entry!! "staying in the loop" with gossip is a really clever take on theme and there were a lot of unique ideas that I haven't really seen in a game before. Jarbling the text based on how close you were was a great way to simulate eavesdropping, and it made it very fun and challenging to try and pull out the details I needed. Perfectly captured that feeling of snooping around!

Thank you for making it!

Woah, this is an incredible entry!! The presentation is obviously gorgeous and the level and game design just blew me away. It was really clever to just keep pairs of levels that you have to solve, each one is a really compelling and deep puzzle that wouldn't have worked if they were all together. The way that the mechanics are taught in the first handful of levels, by letting fail, retry, and improve felt so much more satisfying than a regular tutorial. I'm struggling to imaging the galaxy brain it must have taken to design the level lol.

Such a cool entry, thank you for making it!!

Woah, this is gorgeous!! I haven't seen that kind of angular line art in a game before and it works so well! Really striking. The theme and the world are really distinct - I love how all of the characters have likes and dislikes, how you're trying to save your camel instead of getting the most money, and how you slowly progress through the loop while the wistful music plays. It gives such a unique to the experience. The take on the concept is clever too, going around the loop lets you get invested into the world and rewards you for paying attention!

Relentry, thank you for making it!!

Very cool entry! Having the movement be turn based makes this a an interesting take on theme. Ensuring that you are timed up with your past selves becomes more of a puzzle than a flurry of execution and it gives the game a relaxing and thoughtful vibe.  The art is gorgeous too, you manage to get so much texture out of the 1 bit style, its really impressive.

Great entry, thanks for making it!!

Really cool entry! Thats the first time I've seen the top down view that rotates with the player and once I got used to it it was very sick, makes the whole game feel really dynamic and impactful. The attention to detail really sells it too, the way the camera zooms in and out based on speed, and how the bike noises respond to player input. I'm also gonna have to keep it in my bookmarks so I have instant access to the wilhelm scream button lol. Great entry, thanks for making it!

Thank you for playing and for taking the time to leave some kind words! If you're able to remember what the bugs were I'd love to hear em, it'll help me get them fixed after the jam :)

Such a moving piece, probably the most cohesive vision I've seen so far. The looping mechanic is implemented so well with such tight feedback that it became a tool of expression while I was playing, more like a paintbrush than a mouse. Having the visuals and music crescendo as you progress draws you further and further in. The sense of motion is so strong, which really nailed how electrifying a few moments of stillness can be. It was really cool to see that portrayed here, I don't think I've really felt that in a work of art before.

Really really wonderful entry, thank you so much for making it :)

Woah, this thing is firing on all cylinders!! What an incredible design for an RPG combat system. It is so concise and effective, hitting that perfect balance between planning, execution, and tactile feedback. Having a system like this in a pokemon or dragon quest style RPG would bring those style of games back to life for me. And the presentation too! A variety of beautifully animated enemies, super snappy UI transitions, interesting decision that are presented with crystal clarity. I'm really really into this, incredible work!!

p.s. I had that menu issue that you mentioned but zooming out a bit in my browser resolved the issue :)

Hahaha this is actually an incredibly entry. The premise seems almost hostile so I kept telling myself that I was gonna quit but then right when I was about to do it something weird showed up and hooked me right back in. The mechanics with the rocks and the ice are really great additions that add some tactile joy and skill to the experience. I kept yelling KOBE while I tried to hit the buttons from afar. The sound design is really satisfying too, you wanna press the buttons just to hear em again.

Just a really funny and cool experience, really masterful control of pacing. Great entry, thank you for making it!!

Nothing gets me going like a lil royal eugenics 😎

Really enjoyed this, it is so stunningly presented. I had to double take on almost every face that popped up - they're all busted in totally unique ways it is SO compelling haha. Mixing and matching them was really fun and I love seeing the fellas that popped out.

Great entry! Thank you for making it :) 

Oh my goodness the presentation here is just stunning!! The characters are engaging and unsettling, the textures are gorgeous and painterly, and I love the old-timey gentleman carnival thing that's going on. It really reinforces that classical board game idea too. Really nailed the theme, there's a lot of interesting decisions when trying to allocate the moves to the different pieces. I love that you don't have all the information on your turn, I find it really engaging to feel out the probabilities and best moves.

Gorgeous entry! Thank you for making it :)

Thank you for taking the time to play, I really appreciate such thoughtful feedback!

I spent a lot of time trying to strike a balance between randomness and determinism, trying to encourage a reactive play style but allow for more elaborate long-term plans. Definitely a chance that its too swingy at the minute, once the jam is over I'll spend some more time testing which knobs can be handed over to the player :D

Thats an interesting point about the outer loop taking longer too! On one hand I find it really interesting that you have to try to sync up the different phases of the pawns, but towards the ends of rounds the outer loop can become a bit of a non-factor. Tbh I bet that's something that can be solved with a couple new movement-based upgrades!!

Thanks again for your thoughts, if you have any more feedback or ideas for where to take it I'd love to hear em!

Ooo this is so satisfying to play! That exponential growth tickles my brain and the sound design feeds back into it really well. The upgrades were interesting and I had to spend some time building out my loop properly. 

Very cool entry, thank you for making it :))

Ah I love this! The art is so adorable and I love the setting of the dogshow too, its like the perfect low stakes competition haha. The take on the theme was really cool, having to make it back to your tail gives a bit of strategy to planning your route through the map and the timing of the jumps was right in the difficulty sweet spot where I found them really engaging.

Just a great entry, thank you for making it!

p.s. I would die for the dog

Holy, this is really great!! I love the interpretation of the theme, really slow and precise with a lot of cool discoveries. I found the game design to be really thoughtful - quick resets, level skips, and a really gentle difficulty curve that welcomes you into the game. Once you get into it the design of puzzles is so clever, they're incredibly satisfying to crack. Gooorgeous art too. The palette is understated but the accents of colour make it pop like crazy.

Incredible entry, thank you all for making it!!

Such a cool entry! Really interesting take on the theme. I loved how the complexity slowly built up as I was getting better at the game so it always felt challenging. The cutscenes between the battles are really funny too, the boss is so charming lol. I think with all the feedback... it might finally be better than sans. 

Great entry, thank you all for making it!!

Ooooo what a sensory delight!! Feels so good to play, especially once you get a really big flock and you can just sic em onto the enemies. All the feedback is great, the hitstop, the trail behind the bird, the music, it all kept me locked in from the get go.  I really like the combination of looping mechanic with the flying, it makes you feel incredible doing all those barrel rolls.

Sick entry, thank you for making it!!

Oh my gosh, I'm a little head over heels for this game. Where to even start! Your artwork is incredible, such lovely textures and soft colors that create a really comforting atmosphere. It reminds me of my favourite picture books I had when I was a kid. The concept was so much fun, it was really nice to track the misses but never fail the player - feels like it reinforces the themes the game is getting at. Such a genius use of classical music too, how have I never seen that before!? The way you coordinate the gameplay with the music was so emotionally moving, in all directions! I was delighted, and then busting up, and then a talking dog made me tear up a lil bit.

Just so so good! Thank you very much for making it :))

Really cool stuff! I absolutely adore the artwork. I haven't seen another isometric game in the jam so far and this was so refreshing :) The tilesets are gorgeous and the 8 direction walk cycle is so smooth! Makes it really satisfying to just walk around. It was an interesting take on the concept, I liked that it reset at a steady rhythm as it let me take in the music and enjoy it as more of a relaxing experience than a competitive one. Just like the library!

Great entry y'all, thanks for making it!

Oooh the controls on this are so tight, just zipping around the track feels incredible. I had been driving on my own for a while when a hoard of copies arrived and beat the shit out of me, I had a very good laugh lol. Really cool take on the concept, it naturally cranks up the progression over time which gives it a really exciting feeling of building tension. Love the homage to the delorean too.

Great entry all round, thank you for making it! 

I know you felt that you ran out of time but this is honestly one of the most unique movement systems I've come across in the jam - imo the time was well spent making something that hasn't existed before!! I love how the loop has lots of really interesting properties to play with, how its movement is different when its all bunched up vs spread out, how you need to alternate between gung-ho flicks and careful adjustments. It is very satisfying to interact with and has basically no janky which is impressive for this kind of procedural animation!

I had a lot of fun playing. Great entry, thank you for making it!

(p.s. love to see another Godot head out there 🫡)

This was really cool!! Vibes are impeccable. The narration and music set such a nice intimate tone, and the fireflies give the whole thing a cozy twilight atmosphere. Just a really nice space to just hang out in. The concept was cool too, super satisfying to slowly build my way out of the level.

 Great entry, thank y'all for making it!