Seven day roguelike
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A Seven day roguelike (7DRL) is a roguelike game made in seven days; these are mostly created during the so called Seven Day Roguelike Challenges, a friendly contest among roguelike developers to make a playable roguelike in the 7 day timespan of a designated week, where the developers start coding at roughly the same time. There is no specific winner in such a contest — everyone who manages to finish a roguelike is a winner.
Generally, all challengers in a particular challenge must begin within the same 2-day period (usually a weekend). Each participant must announce his or her beginning time, and must declare victory, or admit defeat, within 168 hours of that time.
This is radically different from the standard development model of roguelikes, in which they are developed for many years and commonly never actually finished. The games themselves differ significantly from traditional roguelikes as well. Often they are an adaptation of some classic game (like Bomberman or Castlevania with CastlevaniaRL), or include some very experimental design elements. Gameplay and controls are often simplified in comparison with traditional roguelikes.
[edit] Contests
The first such contest was started on March 5, 2005 with 15 participants, of which 10 succeeded. It was an immediate success with games like DiabloRL by Kornel Kisielewicz and You Only Live Once by Jeff Lait being praised for innovative use of the roguelike medium, as well as the first releases of games like CastlevaniaRL which continued evolving after the contest.
The second contest started on February 25, 2006. It featured 20 participants, of which 12 succeeded. One of the highlights was Letter Hunt by Jeff Lait, which featured an innovative concept that combined roguelike with a Scrabble-like word game.
The third contest was off the schedule, and was called the Orange October Minigun 7DRL. It began on October 15, 2006 and ended on October 22, 2006 with 7 out of 12 participants succeeding. Notable entries include Ali Baba's Cave - The Roguelike by Frederic Back, Berserk! by Kornel Kisielewicz, and MetroidRL by Santiago Zapata.
The Seven-Day Roguelike contest held between March 10 and March 18, 2007 had 22 challengers, representing several different countries including Russia, Poland, Finland, Germany, Britain, Australia, Colombia, and the United States. Nine of the participants successfully completed the challenge. [1]
