ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)

I want to like it because it does incredibly well on resource management and it makes you feel like an adventurer learning more about how to survive as one. Wearing cloaks to protect armor from rain, keeping a spare weapon in case your main weapon gets damaged or disarmed, keeping spellbooks and scrolls protected, it does all this really well. Unfortunately it's a exercise in frustration. So many times you die you had no way to stop it without knowing ahead of time, or not getting the required gear even if you did. Nothing is explained, so if you cast a lightning bolt and dont play dnd you dont know it bounces off walls back to you, dont know a rust monster destroys your precious sword (Unless its made of something nice). Using a guide is basically required and then you'll probably still die anyway. Im fine with experimentation but this is a game about resource management. I dont wanna waste all my gear trying stuff out and hoping it works out. Ive read a lot about people playing this for over a decade and not beating it, I cant rationalize that kind of gameplay. Shops are random unless they're themed and then it only spawns those types of items. If I have a torch but no flint and steel along with some tinder im not exploring the dark part of a dungeon, and no one will lend me one. Those cloaks for the rain? Better run into the horrible dungeon and hope to find one. Everyone talks about how great the lore is and im sure its fine but the world itself is bland. there's really not a lot going on with the overworld, everything is in the background of your adventure while you pitter patter over all the corpses of your last character. Its fine if you have time to kill but dont expect a grand adventure, honestly I think it'd be better to just remove all the fat and throw you into the Cave of Chaos from the start and just let you explore it and go from there. Everything else feels tacked on. Hard to recommend

In a basic summary, beneath the graphical flair, ADOM has the problem that while it has the pretty graphics, the instant you go anywhere below surface layer, the interface becomes a jarringly old world mix of awkward keybinds and text only interfaces. Many projects as old as ADOM have this issue; some old grognard refuses to let go of a feature that would let it modernize; such as support for systems so niche and dead as to make the Amiga look commonplace. Even entering the tutorial serves to exemplify the jank that is incurred upon the player; you'll be told to pick up an item and then get thrown into a pure text (albiet mouse driven) interface. No pretty icons or GUI. Perhaps I've been spoiled by games of today, such as Exile: Escape from the Pit (1995). Jeff Vogel is not a master of art or interface crafting, but even as a fledgling dev, there were things he was doing right that ADOM has somehow failed. Things as simple as an inventory window or just the general layout of the screen leave much to be desired. And now, with a sequel in the works, you've got this idea of "Maybe they'll fix it then", leaving the fate of the original ADOM unknown. The interface needs a serious tidy. Maybe then I'd have been willing to give ADOM more than a surface deep analysis. But it was a terrible first impression.

Here's just a small reason this game is hard to review: In the video, it says "264 character types." I'd say you'd have to at least triple that, depending on alignment and where you want that character to go. There are several win-conditions that alter how you play the entire experience. Modern gaming is shying away from D&D's class system in order to provide "freedom," but really all it's usually for is streamlining dev processes to give the most robust experience to the playstyles that they know 90% of the playerbase is going to assume is the default. ADOM is from a time before that thinking caught on and radically embraces class and race to have impacts on the minutest decisions. If you love character customization, this game ticks every box except for maybe aesthetic (YMMV). If you're familiar with rogue-likes but not ADOM, I would recommend it because of its dedication to the genre without ignoring what is fun about RPGs. Other roguelikes I've played either avoid or circumvent the need for RPG depth and number-crunch. The only exception I know is TOME, but TOME's problem is ballooning power-creep. Unless played specifically to undermine its leveling mechanics, ADOM is a stable experience throughout -- it won't feel that way when you get your ass kicked, but on later plays you will see just what you did wrong and get a second chance. My one complaint is that some of the best things in the game are locked behind wildly time-consuming games of chance that are overwhelmingly stacked against the player. I have received the best weapon in the game, Justifier, just twice. Those situations are uncommon, but still annoying. I know it is not the first and many may reasonably say not the best, but it is certainly the best at what it does to the point that I cannot play other roguelikes without referring back to ADOM as the definition of the genre.

The only way you're completing all of ADOM in 2,000 hours is if you learn every spoiler then play really well. I've played ADOM spoiler-free since 1998, off-and-on, and while I've uncovered hundreds of interesting mysteries -- there's a lot I have not completed! Such as becoming a Chaos God, it's a tough life, everyone hates chaotic characters. ADOM let's you have your own playstyle, but you'll die lots if you don't play smart. One game I decided to try really hard to survive, but not care about "doing the right thing" or "being good". I was going to play it pretty Neutral, so I picked a Druid and natural animals wouldn't attack me. I got the idea to earn gold using a colony of ants to mine for me. I beat the carpenter quest for cheap food prices, then loaded up on food, went to the puppy cave, and just stood around eating snacks while the ants cleared the entire level of stone. I walked around picking up the dropped ores, rocks, and other items. After almost the entire level was disintegrated, I would lure the ants down the stairs, one at a time, then repeat the process. I sold it all to the outlaw town, which offers you terrible prices -- but, for rocks and sticks and other garbage, they still give you at least 1 gold piece! So I just brought backpack loads full of ores and rocks to the shop. By the time I left for the Caves Of Chaos, I already had over 2,500 gold and was Strained! by a backpack full of food. All without doing anything dangerous, like actually beating the puppy quest! Endless fond memories and stories of ADOM adventures over the years. As for the modern graphical port, music and sound are great, but Thomas Biskup didn't match the aspect ratio of the text mode characters (9x15 vertical rectangles), instead opting for graphical tiles that are square. This forces me to play in ASCII mode in order to comfortably see the whole board. It's like chess, you must see every square! They recently added a stretch tile mode, but it's ugly.

I originally played this a long time ago. I have thoroughly enjoyed replaying. It is as described in the site notes. It is essentially an ASCII based Rogue like RPG. Your character moves from square to square by turn, there are cleverer dynamics where if fast or weapon proficient you get X turns to every Y your foes get (could be more or less). If you want an RPG to be something that lets you develop your hero over the full course of the game and enforces significantly different game progression based on decisions made then this is the game. The decisions which effect outcomes start from the word go, what weapons shall I specialise in (spend days playing the game progressing your bow skills to pick up a ridiculously powerful artifact sling). Invest lots of effort praising one God only to find some game characters won't give you the time of day (changing the quests available and the rewards). Your race and gender effect costs when trading. It is exactly these very different game progressions that make this thoroughly replayable (which I have always felt is the true top accolade for an RPG).