Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• As I understand main goal is exploration. Player try go as deep as he can. There are very few explanations, even lack of controls info at the start, especially how to close observing mode after "C" command (and there is no "?" command with help). 

  Gameplay is simple. Visuals are nice and interesting theme. Zombies walk and attack, flies bites, cats meow. It is nice looking stable little game, but rules of this world are confusing.

• Completeness:

  A few display and gameplay bugs. The text log acts weirdly, but maybe that's part of the theme.
  Occasional crashes (for example at assets/api.lua:91).

  Game window: First tried the game on Win10. What do you mean it doesn't fit my 10" tablet screen? The window is strangely shaped at a 3 to 1 ratio. It just overflows on both sides of the screen. How do I zoom back? Ok, let's try it on linux. Eh better but now the characters are super small. I just wish it had the ability to scale the window.

  Aesthetics:

  The ascii aesthetics is quite good. With nice color and character choices. I would have loved to be able to see through the tanks. 'Stairs' rooms could have been a bit decorated (but what a relief when you identify them).
  

  The game assets contain gorgeous tiles which were create ?prior? to the jam. Too bad @arachonteur did not end up using them. 

  Z is an omnipresent control which reinforces the zombie atmosphere.

  Fun:
  
  The game loads while showing very relevant messages to justify for its covered activity. Or is it just waiting for the zombie infection to propagate? 

  Controls: Z is for starting the game, C is for inspecting tiles. How do I get back from inspecting tiles? Ok restart game (found out later a working combination with Z and X). 

  First play: I am in a upside-down T-shaped room. Assuming the yellow @ is myself. My FOV shows a couple of environments from outside the room. One is green with lots of Ps, Rs... The other one is dark. There are greek letters in the room. Are they bad guys? No, concrete. I must be missing a zombie reference. Too bad that's not my epoch.
  Walking to the other room. What is this blinking thing following me. Oh no, an explosion. Then I find a room with a button. Trigger it! A specimen falls from a broken tank. Am I in a lab where they conducted experimentation? Freeing a specimen costs hearts from a gauge called DC. Collecting Ws restores that bar. I am not sure to understand what that is. Ok, made it to level 2. And ran for my life to level 3.

  I love the bombs, they start slow and accelerate, following you. The explosion radius is so large that that you have to be very careful not to get hit. Hitting zombies and flies is not always straightforward. Sometimes you walk through them. Is it a feature? It makes it difficult to understand when you will get hit and when you will make your way through. There are mushrooms in the forest-themed rooms. They create a spore cloud on touch. It engulfs you without hurting, more like blinding you for a while. The effect is well balanced. Does it also affect other critters?

  I die often, but somehow keep playing. The bombs and zombie runs really induce a believable notion of time. That, combined with simple controls, make the game an action roguelike although it is turn based. 

  Innovation:

  YAZRL? Maybe but we love them. As for the mushroom theme, I am not sure to see the connection with zombies but that is innovative. The gameplay elements brought by bombs and mushrooms are very interesting and well designed.

  Scope:

  The game feels like it was created with a small set of well-thought mechanics. There seemed to be various sorts of zombies but at the time of writing this review, I did not reach a deep-enough level to state that I have seen it all. 

  Roguelikeness:

  Definitely in the genre.

• I enjoyed this entry, thanks a lot for submitting it!

  The exploding mushrooms with an area effect was a really neat touch, and I liked the overall layouts of the levels. I thought the exploration / inspection tool with the cursor was another neat effect and added some extra "flavor text" to the levels.

  I urge the developer to keep adding to this entry and have some more fun with it. Hopefully you enjoyed participating in the 7DRL!