Category: contests

Roguetemple’s Fortnight announced!

September 2025 you are challenged to create a traditional roguelike in two weeks! Join the jam now on itch.io so you don’t miss it!

A traditional roguelike?

You are challenged to create a game that features gameplay that is:

  • …turn-based, focusing on strategic thinking over quick reflexes.
  • …run-based, with no meta-progression (the player loses ALL tangible progress after each run).
  • …subject to  permanent consequences (the player cannot freely roll back mistakes)
  • …impacted by Procedural Content Generation in a meaningful way
  • …focused on the development of a character, or a party of characters (no abstract puzzle or “god” games)

This is a list of arbitrary design choices that were picked for this jam, and by no means an effort to define what a roguelike is. 

For this jam it is specifically desired to create games that retain these attributes from the first generation of roguelikes, working within their boundaries to experiment with new gameplay mechanics or thematic adaptations.

Please refer to roguetemple’s traditional roguelike values for more information.

Note: The values described above are not black or white; some innovative gameplay ideas may lie in a grey areas and they are welcome as they can be useful to create fun games, which is the ultimate goal. If in doubt about your ideas, feel free to discuss in the community.

Why traditional roguelikes?

The last fifteen years have seen the roguelike word evolve to encompass a wide variety of games; while it is impossible to stop its adoption to describe games that took some elements from the original roguelikes, (or even from a second, or third generation of roguelike-inspired games), there is value on preserving the knowledge of the original roguelike gameplay and keep it alive in the minds of players and designers, and there is no better way to do this than toying around with new game ideas. 

There is still a lot of uncovered potential on this formula that is worth exploring.

The Rules

  1. Your entry should be a traditional roguelike, as described in the section above
  2. You can work in teams.
  3. You can work in the design for your project before the jam starts, provided you don’t extend your work to create actual content that will be added to the game (i.e detailed list of enemies, spells, items, etc).
  4. You can use pre-existing code and assets for the game, provided they could be used for other projects.
  5. Content that is specific to your game, including assets, code, and data, should be developed within the time frame of the jam.
  6. You can develop post-jam versions of the game, provided you keep a link to the original version
  7. You must add screenshots to your entry page.

FAQ

  • Why two weeks? Seven days should be enough

Completing a game in 7 days is a great exercise on product management, however it may not be enough time to fully develop and polish an interesting gameplay idea at a healthy pace of work.

The Results for the 2018 7DRL Challenge are now available!

Check out all the finished roguelikes for this year’s 7DRL Challenge!

HERE!

Many thanks to the reviewing committee!

  • Xecutor 12.55%
  • irskep 7.45%
  • roaderful 6.67%
  • jere 6.27%
  • rubybliels 6.27%
  • sparr 5.88%
  • 8BitGoggles 5.10%
  • MatthewLacker 4.71%
  • tomtl 4.71%
  • James McNeill 4.31%
  • PNJeffries 4.31%
  • CaptainKraft 3.92%
  • Deevoh 3.92%
  • heroicfisticuffs 3.92%
  • IceBoxr 3.14%
  • Lachlan Kingsford 3.14%
  • keipra 2.75%
  • Wazoo Labs 2.75%
  • AquaTsar 1.96%
  • jmlait 1.96%
  • Vedor 1.57%
  • Fengol 1.18%
  • Starstew 1.18%
  • PyrooL 0.39%

The 2015 7DRL Challenge is almost here!

Everybody get ready! Here are some links courtesy of Mr. Darren Grey

Avast, ye rogues!

It is now days till the 11th Seven Day Roguelike Challenge, being held 7th to 11th March 2015. Here are some links to help you get prepped:
US roguelikers may also be interested in the upcoming International Roguelike Development Conference being held in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 30-31. This is the first time IRDC has been held outside Europe. There will also be a UK-based conference later in the year.
When the challenge begins a registration page will be available at http://7drl.roguetemple.com/.

The 7DRL Challenge 2015 has been announced!

We are set for the eleventh annual 7DRL Challenge. GET READY!

593_screenshot

The challenge will run March 7 to March 15, you are invited to take part and create a roguelike game in 7 days, starting from whatever you want but producing a new, complete, playable game at the end of the week!

The 7DRL challenge breathes new life every year into the roguelike development community, last year we had 248 challengers, don’t miss this opportunity!

In 2005, the roguelike community established a yearly event, the 7DRL Challenge, in which all the world is challenged to create a roguelike in a one-week span.

7DRL Challenges are NOT about being a fast coder, but rather proving you can release a finished, playable roguelike to the world. There is no winner of the challenge, but rather all those who finish are honoured for their work, the criterion is completeness.

You CAN use external libraries, game engines, pre-existing generic code/algorithms, pre-existing generic art, etc. You can even start your game from an existing game, if you are willing to turn it out into something unique, you must however say what resources were reused.

Challengers may use the International Roguelike Registration System to accept the challenge once it starts; you can also check the reviews for last year entries here!

More info

ProcJam and 7DRL week starting tomorrow!

A little reminder for anyone interested who has forgotten / not noticed… Tomorrow is the beginning of the Procedural Generation Jam, and we’re running a 7DRL week in parallel.

Start making your game at any point on Saturday/Sunday and finish 168 hours later. If you’re not interested in making a whole game you can spend your week on a procedural tool or one procedural game element (a map generator or a sprite-modifier or a music engine, for instance).

The ProcJam is kicking off with a series of talks in London, including presentations from Darren Grey, Mark Johnson (Ultima Ratio Regum) and Tanya Short (Shattered Planet). They can be viewed by live stream for anyone that can’t make it in person.

More info:

Let’s join PROCJAM 2014! Rainy November Rifle 7DRL Challenge

It’s been ages since the Orange October Minigun 7DRL Challenge, back when the roguelike renaissance was just beginning. That challenge was joined by not many participants, however it was the inception of Kornel Kisielewicz’s Berserk!, was joined by DarkGod (of ToME fame) and had several interesting entries.

It’s about time we do another 7DRL Challenge before our main March event!  But why play a battle alone, when we can join the war?

PROCJAM14

PROCJAM 2014 is happening next November 7, and I suggest we swarm over it like a band of rabid jackals.

There are two ways to enter:

  • Make a game with procedural generation in it. Maybe a Twine adventure with randomised character personalities? Maybe an action-RPG where each player gets their own procedural theme tune? Maybe an old-fashioned world-generator for a strategy game? Create a game for #procjam using the optional theme (announced at the start of the jam) and include a procedural twist in there somewhere.
  • Make a tool that generates stuff to help game developers. We already have amazing tools like sound effect generator SFXR, music generation like Abundant Music, or random sprite-grabbers like Spritely. What other tools could we make to help people generate cool things for the games they make? Maybe a corporation generator for cyberpunk cities? A tool for generating alien alphabet fonts? A library that automatically generates enemy ships for space shooters?

I thus challenge you all to create a roguelike in 7 days, just along with the PROCJAM’14! Let’s have a lot of fun! Usual 7DRL Challenge rules apply, so read them.