7DRL 2012 Ends!

7DRL, the 8th annual challenge to make a complete roguelike (aka dungeon crawler) game in just 7 days is over now.  There were no places or prizes awarded.  Possible e-fame and a sense of accomplishment were the only real prizes.

There still isn't an official tally of the total number of entries, winners and not-so-winners as announcements are still being made and some are crawling out of the woodworks.  However, Björn Ritzl has posted a nearly complete list of entries, successes and failures over at the Peeks and Pokes blog.

There's a number of interesting (and FREE!) games to check out and for those that didn't quite make the deadline there are still some promising titles that will continue to be developed in hopes of a late release.

Check out the latest news at the official 7DRL page.

7DRL 2012 nears 50 entries with 3 days left!

With 3 days and some change left in 7DRL's 8th Annual challenge to make a Roguelike game in 7 days, competition entries are nearing 50!

I suspect we'll see some more Roguelikes pop up by or before the compo ends on the 18th. There are already what look to be some unique and interesting entries in the competition as well as a fair number of first timers to the competition.

To recap, there are no official prizes or places for 7DRL. If an entrant completes their game with the 7 days, then they have "won". There is only e-pride and e-fame at stake here but either way the outcome is fun and brings with it a ton of new Roguelike games and open source code sharing which is great for both players and developers.

Stay tuned to 7DRL news when on Sunday we find out, which games make the cut and who gets crowned as the next...IRON CHEF!
(Sorry, the wife was watching the Food Network last night.)

MarioRL: But our princess is in another castle!

I'm working on MarioRL right now as my entry in the annual 7DRL contest.  7DRL is a programming competition that takes place annually.  The goal is to make a finished, playable Roguelike (aka dungeon crawler) game in 7 days.

There aren't any actual prizes or places.  If you finish your game in the allotted 7 days, you're a winner basically.

There are a lot of great roguelikes based on other games such as DoomRL, CastlevaniaRL, ZeldaRL and so on.  I realize a Mario themed anything isn't incredibly original but it hit me this weekend that no one has ever made a roguelike based on Super Mario Bros, a game ripe for rogueliking.  I mean, you travel through various dungeons, fighting monsters trying to rescue a princess.  A little cliche sure but perfect!

I'm using GM:HTML5 which I just purchased last week so I'm not sure how great of an idea that was but I'm rapidly learning the GML scripting language.  GM:HTML5 does have drag and drop game creation but for something like a roguelike game you definitely have to use the scripting language.

It's similar to Java or C++ in a way and while I'm no expert in either, I'm picking it up fairly quickly.

With any luck, I'll have a playable game by the contest's deadline and once that's over, I'll take my tune polishing and fine-tuning it.

And of course, here are some screenshots:

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7DRL Approaches! 10 - 18 March 2012

The annual 7DRL competition is nearly upon us.  For the uninitiated, 7DRL is an annual competition to make a finished, playable roguelike game in 7 days.

This year's 7DRL will run from Saturday, March 10th to Sunday, March 18th.

There are no places, medals or prizes save for bragging rights and interwebs fame.  The goal of the contest is simply to make a finished game within the time frame.  If you achieve that then you can consider yourself a winner.

You can find out more about 7DRL and it's history here and at their official site.

The folks at 7DRL have posted some contest ideas here and there's also a discussion here if you'd like to join in.