Early coverage

86856527, Bump (Free Indie Gam.es, Metafilter), Sunk Coast, 24 Killers

More to come. And feel free to follow the results at 7drl.org and hit up Adam Smith on twitter if you want RPS to check out your 7DRL contribution.

Sidelines

Num­ber of entries for 7DRLC 2012 (last year’s chal­lenge): 100.
Num­ber of entries for 7DRLC 2013 (this year’s chal­lenge): 253 (so far). [Edit for the history books: 357 entries, at least 139 successes].

I feel like I should be handing out polystyrene cups full of water and cheering people on.

Time for the postmortem

Björn Ritzl has put together a list of the 7DRL successes and failures here. I've played only one so far (Ido Yehieli, Tom Whetnall and John Cleary's Fuel) - there's a big list to get through.

Good luck

To everyone participating in the 7DRL this year. Google Plus page, Facebook page Facebook event, Twitter #7DRL2012, 7drl.org community blog, rec.games.roguelike.development, TIG source thread, Roguelike Radio episodes, Rogue Basin page, Temple of the Roguelike thread. Feel free to contribute other links or discussion.

Dwarf Fortress 2 open beta coming soon (design notes - part ten)

I've got plenty more design notes, but I think you should just get over to the official announcement where you can register your interest.

When the infinite well-springs of the Internet run dry, and you wish to quench your thirst

There is an unfeasibly large number of roguelikes being developed this year for the 7 day roguelike challenge - 84 at last count.

For more coverage, see Temple of the Roguelike, TIGSource and rec.games.roguelike.development.

For everyone in their final coding hours, I wish you good luck and salute you!

7DRL Competition 2009

The 7 day roguelike competition is over for another year. I've not even had a chance to follow development of any of the attempts this year: but for completionists amongst you, you may want to see the list of 25 successful entries, as well as Cymon's Games attempt to review them all.

Fatherhood and Moorcock

Following the review of the 7 day roguelike Fatherhood on Play This Thing Jeff Lait has written up his design notes of the philosophy behind the game. It is well worth reading for to see how he uses simple mechanics to reflect real world behaviour and how those translated into the game.

And off-topic from roguelikes, but interesting nonetheless, I've been enjoying Chris Bateman's series on the works of Michael Moorcock. I immensely enjoy Moorcock's approach to fantasy writing as opposed to the staid generic fantasy worlds of so many other authors. You definitely have to start with his earlier work to build up to the incomprehensibility of some of his later novels and get a feel for his rhythm of writing and ideas behind the worlds.

It always pays to ask nicely

Kieron Gillen's just written up a short article on the 7 Day Roguelike Competition results for Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Results of 'Are you writing a 7DRL this year?'; new poll

Thanks to the 51 of you who voted. The results, as well as the roguelikes themselves are in.

Yes	3 (5%)
No	25 (49%)
Maybe	11 (21%)
I don't have a spare 168 hours	12 (23%)
I've written one already this year	0 (0%)

I'm going to mix the poll format up just a little. Go to Temple of the Roguelikes ultimate coverage of the 7DRL here. Download and play as many of the completed 7 day roguelikes as you want to. This poll you'll vote to let everyone know which ones you have played. Then next week, you vote on which one(s) is you favourite.

I realise the point of the 7DRL is not a popularity contest. But let's pretend awhile.

Busy week for many

As you may have guessed from the lack of posts, it's been a busy week for me. Unfortunately, I'm not secretly working on a 7 day roguelike - the company I'm working for have just done a major software release and I've been busy with support. Fortunately, there are plenty of people working on the 7DRL competition. I point you in the direction of Temple of the Roguelike's 2 part coverage of announced entries.

Poll results for 'How much time do you spend?'; new poll

With 54 votes, the results are:

Playing roguelikes: less than 1 hour per week	12 (22%)
Playing roguelikes: 1 - 2 hours per week	10 (18%)
Playing roguelikes: 3 - 5 hours per week	14 (25%)
Playing roguelikes: 6 - 10 hours per week	8 (14%)
Playing roguelikes: 11 - 20 hours per week	3 (5%)
Playing roguelikes: more than 20 hours per week	5 (9%)
Playing other computer games: less than 1 hour per week	6 (11%)
Playing other computer games: 1 - 2 hours per week	7 (12%)
Playing other computer games: 3 - 5 hours per week	10 (18%)
Playing other computer games: 6 - 10 hours per week	11 (20%)
Playing other computer games: 11 - 20 hours per week	8 (14%)
Playing other computer games: more than 20 hours per week	3 (5%)

I'm sure that a nicer bar chart view of the above would be more interesting, but that'd take time. Next poll - with the 7 day roguelike competition coming up, I should really be giving it more coverage.

7 Day Roguelike Challenge dates are set

Temple of the Roguelike has the details.

Who's thinking about entering this year? I've got a little caught up with the new job, so I'm not so sure at this stage. I'm trying to organise a little extra publicity, and will be running some relevant polls closer to the date, as well as cheering from the sidelines and providing support if I don't end up competing.

I'm open to suggestions about articles to write to help would be developers out as well.

Seven Day Roguelike 2008: Call For Dates

Jeff Lait has just issued the call for dates for the 4th annual 7 Day Roguelike Challenge. This involves deciding which of three weeks the 7DRL challenge will be run on. See the announcement post for the suggested dates and reply to indicate your availability.

For more details on the history of Seven Day Roguelikes, check the article on 7 day roguelikes on RogueBasin. You can also read my brief teaser reviews of 6 of the best from previous challenges.

The seven day roguelike challenge is a great programming exercise to test your ability to design and code with the best. For anyone out there who thinks they have what it takes on the game design front, you're more than welcome to enter. You have 168 hours...

(The medal above is from the 2006 7DRL challenge and was issued to the people who completed the challenge. The 7DRL 2006 Contest Medal was designed by Paula Agudelo.)