Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Inspired by Maori mythology, Nauwhea is a fairly well put together roguelike and generates some decent content but doesn't feel like it's breaking any new ground. It seems very much like your typical coffeebreak 7DRL except for the Maori theme, which include the monsters, items, and weapons. Other than it, it very much feels like a standard roguelike. I ran into quite a few crashes upon exiting the game, but it still managed to save. Other than the crashing, there were no errors or spelling mistakes that I noticed and the game feels finely tuned and balanced. The console design is minimal and easy to understand, as well as the controls being quite basic and standard for a 7DRL. I really liked the dungeons that were generated in this as they had a mix of big rooms and corridors with some seemingly hidden areas too. The monsters were all very simple though, and would rush you upon seeing you. I would have liked to see more variety in this. There are also items and scrolls present, which add to the depth but seem to be the only initiative for fully exploring the levels. I found Nauwhea to be fun for a few playthroughs, but the strategy for each run was the same and felt too bland to me after a short while. I felt that having to walk over grass and fern multiple times to recover your food points seemed too tedious and ruined the exploratory flow as well. With that being said though, the game is still worth checking out and seems very complete for a 7DRL besides the crashing upon exit.

• A good solid traditional Roguelike which distinguishes itself via an interesting Māori mythology theme and a couple of interesting combat ability upgrades.

  COMPLETENESS
  Seems fairly complete and polished.  No major bugs encountered.  One minor graphical glitch in that certain enemies have a different symbol in the sidebar to on the map.  (Some enemies also share a symbol with other different enemies, though I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that was intentional.)

  AESTHETICS
  Nice clean ASCII, with some neat visual touches such as differing background colours between floors, animated water and so on.  The help menu explains most of the basic concepts of the game well, though there are some omissions (such as where food comes from) and a less experienced player may not be able to find the help menu in the first place.  Could use a 'look' function to help tell what certain things are at a distance.

  FUN
  Good, solid, traditional roguelike gameplay.  The Māori theme adds extra interest over standard Orcs-n-Elves and the special abilities and combo system add a good level of depth to the combat.

  INNOVATION
  Mostly a traditional roguelike, but the theme feels fresh and small touches like the combos and special powers that let you swap places with enemies or cause area damage by hitting walls are fairly novel.

  SCOPE
  A good range of powers, enemies and weapons for a 7DRL.

  ROGUELIKE
  Definitely.

• Very interesting game! One of gems of 7drl 2018! One two complains: First - there is no way to display current list of blessings. If you play several times in a row, it's easy to forget what blessings you took in current run. Second - shrines choices should change on every pick.  Also it would be nice to have some pickup/structure that replenishes significant amount of FP on later levels. Foraging is almost non existent on deeper levels, and if you don't have FP replenishing choice in a shrine, you are completely screwed. Other than that - excellent game, interesting ability choices with synergies and anti-synergies.