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Perimeter

Friday, 14th March 2025 7DRL   Game jams  

This marks the fifth year that I enter 7drl, a yearly game jam in which participants create a roguelike in 7 days. My entry is Perimeter:

I'd wanted to make a monopoly roguelike for some time. I envisioned a game in which you complete circuits of a board, picking up items and fighting monsters as you do so.

Somehow, the game which came out of the jam looks very similar to initial mock-up I made...and yet doesn't at all feel how I thought it would. The game I had in my mind was a slower-paced game in which you collected coins to spend on buying the items you wanted. Perimeter is fast, and you cycle through piles of items in no time at all.

This year, I purchased a subscription from CraftPix giving me access to a bunch of really nice assets to use for the jam. This meant I had a pretty complete playable demo after half my time was up, and the remaining time I invested into playtesting and balancing the game. It's not perfect, but all told I'm happy with the end result.

As has been the case every year, I am unbelieving of the fact people are playing and enjoying the game. And that there are so many scores being submitted. A huge thank you to all the players, you make me very happy!

Some elements I like:

• Elegance of decision. The only input from the player is choosing which square to travel to. I love that all of the gameplay stems from this one choice. There are no activated abilities (Escorial) or upgrade choices (Magpie). This was actually one of the "axioms" I chose at the start of the jam.
• Item activations. I like the how the rings, potions and shields all activate under the same conditions. It means once you've played a little, if you pick up a potion, you might not remember exactly what it does, but will know it activates on a 1. Also, I managed to include the kind of "pun" I love: rings activate when you complete a loop. I had hoped to add trousers and tops which do things with the bottom and top half of the board, but alas I couldn't come up with any good effects.
• Enemy traits. The enemies can have trait icons appended after their health bar. That is all the information you need to know how an enemy behaves, there are no complicated rules. This was inspired by Mage Knight. In addition, the image of the enemy also indicates exactly what traits they have. Red enemies always deal extra damage. Plant enemies always gain 1 hp each time you complete a loop. And flying enemies, well, fly.