ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)

Since the roguelike genre has come to include a rather wide variety of games, like FTL, Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells, it's important to note that ADOM is a 'true' roguelike. No unlocks. No progress carried over between games. No second chances. Just you and a gigantic maze of random numbers to navigate. In terms of gameplay I feel ADOM is close to Tales of Maj'Eyal, but perhaps even more unforgiving. There's a large variety of monsters and traps, but even your inventory is full of risks. A single wrong click can doom your character. Which is exactly what most people look for in a roguelike: a huge amount of variables with multiple strategies for dealing with them. The biggest downside to ADOM is the constant crashes. For some reason there is no autosave between floors or anything. I've lost like five charactes to crashes after five hours of gametime, truly absurd.

ADOM is a game that goes way back. Back further. Yes further... you've gone too far! Setting the scene, circa sometime in the dark ages of the 1990's. Might and Magic 6 and Baldur's Gate had yet to be released. The mighty Commodore has fallen to massive management incompetence. Amiga is dead. Atari is dead; the Falcon and Jaguar marketplace failures. Micheal Jordan was dominating the courts, and the squared circle had tales of Four Horsemen and the NWO, Stone Cold and the Undertaker. Frasier was on the air. Yes, I'm listening. During these days, I gained access to the wonderful, weird, and wide world web, or the internet. Via anti-American terrorist organization AOL, but that's another topic. And I wanted GAMES! Roguelikes, being complex and challenging little RPGs that generally can be obtained freely, were right up my alley, and ADOM was the cream of the crop. Complex, detailed, with an interesting batch of mechanics that most games, even AAA ones, lacked even a fraction of the quality. ADOM has been a mainstay on my computers since, joining Heroes of Might and Magic 1, 2, and 3, Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8, Dwarf Fortress, and Sim City 2000 among others. It's something I hop into regularly, sending numerous would be heroes to their inevitable dooms. Well worth the purchase, just to pay back all those years of entertainment.

It's a nice game to just drop in when I need a light distraction. I've only played for a few hours in short bursts, but I'm appreciating it more as I go. It's kind of like techno music. It seems repetitive up front, but it pulls me in slowly and steadily with subtle variation. I originally tried the ascii version last year, but I found the interface too overwhelming to be able to commit for more than a few days. The graphic version is much friendlier. It reminds me of The Dungeon Revealed.

I think is nice. But crashes a lot.

Quite good when you keep in mind when it was originally released.