The 7DRL Challenge Thread

[Slash]

So, the 7DRL Challenge is coming... It is been 3 years now...

I still remember when I started working on CastlevaniaRL.... ah, the old times... it was basically turning out a working framework into my first game, whatever its quality was. I felt proud! I finally had a working roguelike! The fact that monster spawning was absolutely flawed (After 400 turns 20 monsters would spawn each turn, something like that) didn't take anything out of it.

I remember working on ANT: The roguelike, only to scrap it the last day in favour of Mt. Drash... it was a full work (satur)day working on it at the office.

I should probably retake that scrapped project, some day..

I remember trying to work on MetroidRL while having a release date for a project at work, and working in one girlfriend's project at the same time (you can tell that in the lack of quality of the project ), the nice thing about this project, and the think I am proud the most, is the procedurally generated prize/barrier system, implemented for the suit upgrades (I remember seeing it months later on the 300 gameplay ideas from Squidi.net)

I remember the last minutes before releasing ZeldaRL... I delayed a trip for about two hours, they were waiting for me! Also, I discovered amidst the trip that I had left all magic spells activated by default.. ouch It was also my first 7DRL to sport a full overworld, amongst with the cool looking dungeon generation...

...meh, I should be a full-time roguelike developer... my life would be happier!

What to expect from this 7DRL? Post your thought about the challenges, actual and former, in this thread!

[stu]

Ive started making notes on my entry; I did a blog post on my site, but I will copy and paste just for you slash ^_^

So the week has been chosen and its March 8 - March 16.

I had plans and ideas but really I dont forsee any time to implement anything. I might keep jotting down ideas and plans and we will see how things pan out.

The initial cut is titled “Den of Iniquity”, in it you will play a thief and there will really be only 1 main map, which would be a large sprawling city complete with gardens and walled areas. There would be a more traiditional roguelike map underneath being the sewers that link the city, and how you can get in and out of certain places.

The aim is to rob as many houses as you can. Each place would have a gold drop. But also in each place might be some wandering NPC’s, guards, townsfolk etc.

If you kill anyone on the street, the guards will be alerted and come looking (you can still escape). You need to remain unnoticed (aka nobody enters your FOV) for a set period of time for the guards to go out of hunt-you-down mode.

The two maps layers will be created in paint program and a generic bitmap. Different ‘colours’ will represent the areas that can contain a treasure and I’ll not a rectangle of co-ords and say for colour X, pick a co-ord inside this rectangle, if it matches colour X, place a treasure here. Go on to next colour.

This way I can randomly place booty and loot on the map with relative easy. I can then make several rooms the same colour so it could be any any end of the house or on upper levels.

Advancement will be via the thieves guild hidden in the sewers, and will being more hitpoints, increased skill in lockpick etc. You will still need to buy lockpicks, maybe scrolls of unlock or disarm traps as well as better equipment. Gaining each level of advancement will require beating one of the Guilds tests (ie: spring JoJo from the towns prison, which would require you to pick the lock and escape, which would also mean probably having to kill a guard or two), etc.

I was planning on using Cracks and Crevices as the base of the game, I think a game like this would be nice to have CnC’s directional LOS and timing.

The real task will be creating the maps and populating the towns.

The win condition will be finding the 10 treasures scattered around the place.

That was last nights first rough cut idea. Since the core (CnC) code mostly exists sans proper magic engine, most of my dev till will be new maps, npcs and doing extra work like guards patrolling around on marked paths. etc. I may work on randomly generating the town map from pieces, but I think the base layout will be preset. I dunno.  Since its using CnC its still got the facing FOV/LOS and so too the mosnters will have it..

Right now its a battle of family vs time My programming time is spent on CnC and Fishguts... not sure If I want to add another 1 week game to my list.

[JoshuaSmyth]

Thinking about it - I'd like to give it a go, but I dunno - sounds pretty scary.

Luckily I've got a reasonably good framework in the form of Caverns of Underkeep. I think I'd like to make a more coffee-break roguelike. I was planning on doing a sort of sequal to CoU anyway, I guess the 7DRL challenge would allow me to at least get started

[Robson]

I'm thinking about an idea, which I will describe after this beautiful concept art... made in ms paint.



Note that this is side on, not top-down.

+ = Metal doors
W = Lift/Elevator
- = Lift/Elevator track
@ = Spider
| = Spider web-string-stuff
% = Water
* = Fire
# (white) = Walls
# (red) = Extremely hot walls
# (pink) = Switches, that open nearby doors

Here's the idea:

-------------------------------------

Story

You are a spider living in a water storage building. A fire breaks out and all the staff escape. You must make it out alive!

How It Works

The game is divided into levels. Each level contains one or more rooms, which have doors/platforms/lifts/etc. These rooms will have a combination of fire and water in them. To get through the rooms you must avoid the fire (instant death from burning) and avoid the water (little spider gets killed from being hit by loads of water).

Water moves around realistically and will build up if it's been adding to. Fire will spread if wooden walls or furniture move next to it.

You have two spider abilities. The first is that you are able to walk on walls and ceilings. The second is that when you're on a ceiling, you can use web-string-stuff to abseil down to the floor or platforms below. Like the picture.

The other method for escaping is the environment. You can push buttons to redirect water. You can direct water onto fire to put it out. You can use lifts to get places. You can open/close doors with buttons. You can use fire to destroy wooden walls.

I wont have enough time to create a random level generator, because the levels need to be carefully put together. So I'll create a ton of levels and then the game will pick random ones for each game. This way the game is different everytime.

-------------------------------------

This is rather more ambitious than last year, so I've booked the Tuesday and Wednesday off to give me a few more precious hours.

[Adral]

I always like checking out new 7DRLs, they have nice new gameplay ideas. I hope I can review some of the games this year for the Roguetemple, we will see how much time do I have on that week!

Also, we should do a poll on other thread once the results are over, so more people feel intrigued with those RLs.

[Gamer_2k4]

Well, looks like I'm scheduled to make the third game in my miniseries.  The first, Magic Monsters, was a successful 7DRL entry about a year and a half ago.  The second, Ancient Artificers, had a good core concept but the scope was too vast and I didn't set aside enough time to work on it.  As of right now, it is incomplete.

But the third game...

Mechanized Monsters will use my patent pending 1HRL engine.  1HRL stands for "One Handed Roguelike," and uses the number pad exclusively.  More details can be found here and here.
The point of Mechanized Monsters is to build a magical bodysuit from pieces lying around and gleaned from your defeated enemies.  Eventually you'll be powerful enough to be the big bad, the king foozle, whatever you want to call it.

[corremn]

My problem is I dont think I can do a better job this year that I did last time. 
I have no cool ideas this year round but I will try to produce something, just so I can get another shiny 7drl medal.  Last year I was playing a lot of Blood Bowl so I got inspiration for sewerjacks.  This year, what to do, what to do??

I do most of my work during lunch and morning/afternoon tea breaks during work hours.  This really stresses my time but so far so good. (well I have a 50% success rate at 7drl. - 2 failures and 2 successes, warlock of firetop mountain and sewerjacks)

For all budding 7DRLers think simple and have a very clear goal before the start.  Design your mechanics and monsters on paper before you start.  7DRLs dont have to unique to be good.  One of my favourites is Jeff Laits You Only Live Once.  Download it and look at it. It is simple but has a lot of character.

Good Luck

[purestrain]

Hello,

I hope i'll find some time for the contest. Currently i'm building a framework for a roguelike, and since i'm programming for a handheld, it will also feature a different way of interaction and of course graphics mode; but only 320x240.

To be honest, i'm a first time roguelike developer so it will probably have lots of mistakes.

good luck everyone

[stu]

hey purestrain, 320x240 would fit perfectly on a GP2X

[purestrain]

yeah; you guessed what my target requirements are ;-)

[stu]

do you hang out on gp32x.com/board/ ?? Im working on a gp2x crpg much like ultima 3 (top down) with a goldbox combat engine (pool of radiance style). i should be able to automatically support the gp2x/craigx/psp + pc at same time.

[purestrain]

No, i don't. I'm usually on gp2x.de forum and in IRC, irc.prison.net #gp2x.de / #gp2xdev... and of course #rln :-)

[Robson]

I'm thinking about an idea [...]

Actually, ignore all that The idea wasn't roguelike enough.

I've decided on a new idea for the challenge, which is in the early stages of thinkingness at the moment.

[beam]

This is going to be my first 7DRL. Right now my only problem is selecting my development environment. 

[Krice]

Started today, because I realized I could be in surgery some time during march. I have a great idea for the game, but I don't think it's going to be possible to make in 7 days. Maybe I can plan the game in 7 days.