My last game of Ancients Domains of Mystery, better known as ADOM, ended with my character surrounded by fast-reproducing oozes as he prayed, unsuccessfully, to the chaos gods. Even though this sad moment transpired many, many years ago, I remember it vividly — ADOM was one of a few games that inspired me to get into games development and build endless roguelikes of my own in QBASIC. So understandably, I’m happy its graphical reboot is kicking goals on Greenlight.
Like most roguelikes, Thomas Biskup’s ADOM is a fairly brutal experience, where progress is measured, paradoxically, in your willingness to start again with a fresh character. Can I enter this location without a fireproof blanket? Does this dungeon really go on forever? What is this damnable “Si” thing in my inventory and how can I get rid of it?
And just how many of these oozes are there?
It’s also presented in glorious ASCII, leaving it up to your imagination to fill the gaps. This isn’t the case with the reboot, which features a cartoon-flavoured tile set. It’s not one I’m enamoured by — in fact I think it does the game a disservice — but I’m sure it’s appealing to the right crowd, judging by its Greenlight success.
Speaking of Greenlight, the game is a certainty to make it onto Steam when Valve does its next round of approvals, having recently breached the system’s top 10.
I wish the game all the best but something has definitely been lost in the translation from this:
To this:
Either that, or I’m getting old.
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery) [Steam Greenlight, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
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