ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)

I can't say what's wrong with ADOM exactly, because everything seems being there for the first glance: character development depth, multitude of enemies, items and so on. But it never hooked me just as Angband, DCSS, Epilogue, Caves of Qud, The Curse of Yendor, Cogmind or The Pit do. Maybe it's just the cartoonish esthetics and overall lightweight atmosphere. Anyway, you'd better try the free version from ADOM site first (especially if you are die-hard classic roguelikes fan, like me).

The game brings a lot of memories. A lot of screaming as your PC meets untimely end ( usually caused by your stupidity, hubris or just bad luck ). Some deaths are more amusing than others.. Anyway, I have a steam edition ( I played a lot of the free version and I believe the author should be rewarded ). The game can be frustrating and learning curve is demanding, but a win feels like a true win. When you take out shadow wyrm, you feel a sense of accomplishment. The alighment is more than simply creating weak good/bad choice system. The characters will may not talk to you if you are chaotic, but they may present you with an artifact if you happen to be lawful. The classes are interesting ( some unique to ADOM ); Gods listen and will be annoyed if you pester them too much. If you wish for a million wishes.. point is, there are tons of those little things that make this world seem more real than many other games of its time ( and frankly, of today ). Which is pretty impressive given that the game is all about magic, fantastic creatures, quests and saving the world.. I never beat it. I still have a save somewhere of a dwarven priest ready to storm the final level, but I just do not want to risk it. Maybe one day.. Try the free version and see if you like it. There is a reason it is a classic.

You are dropped in Ancardia's Drakalor Chain. Something horrible has happened in some deep deep corner underneath the earth and world is descending into chaos. Being a true hero (or villain), It's your destiny to figure out what happened and affect the fate of the world. If you don't have experience in old gaming (90s and earlier) and decide to jump into this adventure be warned: this game is OLD and really janky in our present world of gaming. As such there are a lot of things that will result annoying or cumbersome at a first glance, but be patient it will be worth your while. The game CAN be played with mouse, but really you want to learn to play it with the keyboard. It will take some getting used to it, but consult the in-game manual regulary and eventually you will come to feel this kind of experience has a certain charm to it. The game won't hold your hand, it's full of cryptic clues and hidden knowledge. You will die. You will die a lot. But if you persist and learn from your mistakes, you will get further and further until one day (maybe years from the first time you picked up the game) you will beat it and it will be sweet. Knowledge is your best weapon in this game. If you feel lost, there are a lot of guides out there that can help you. Also, last but not least, the art is great, both visuals and audio.

... and I never got to the good stuff. In theory, this is a rich game with lots of classes and skills and spells and whatnot. In practice, at least while you are learning to play well, you will go through the same starter dungeons and quests again and again. If there was more variety in the early game, I would not mind having to start over so often. As it is, I gave up on it as too boring. I know this is heresy for a roguelike, but I really wished for the option to reload an earlier savegame, just to avoid having to do the quest for little girl's puppy again.

https://www.gog.com/forum/adom_ancient_domains_of_mystery/problem_launching_version_334_on_ubuntu_2004/page1 known issue since at least nov 2020, uses packages that don't exist in ubuntu 20.x start script doesn't correctly link provided libs, even if it does dependencies can still be broken ubuntu 20.x LTS almost 2 years old now, that's long enough to fix this