Ancient Domains of Mystery

Posted by Robert Janelle Apr 9, 2007

Originally, it was the late-March launch of roguelike magazine that inspired me to write about the genre.

But it became much more interesting to me a few nights ago when my roommate insisted I play a game called Ancient Domains of Mystery (known as ADOM, for short.)

"Ah, a roguelike," I exclaimed upon seeing a screenshot on the game's website.

ADOM was created in 1994 by Germany-based programmer Thomas Biskup. The system requirements: A PC running on a 386 processor or better and a whopping four megabytes of RAM.

The game is available as a free download, but Biskup does have a small request. On the site, he asks that anyone whose been enjoying the game send him a postcard.

I was curious about playing, but after surviving the somewhat lengthy process of creating a new character and was in the game, I was hooked.

Maybe it's a bit of nostalgia. Admittedly, I'm too young to have played the original Rogue, but ASCII interface reminds me of the old door games on bulletin board systems (Remember those? Before EVERYONE had an internet connection and you were king because of your 28.8bps modem?)

Or maybe it's because of how different it is from what I've become accustomed to. ADOM makes use of every key on the keyboard, versus console games where you have four main buttons and four on the back of the controller and that's it.

Either way, there's definitely the same addictive quality as any RPG with 3D graphics, with one difference.

While a Final Fantasy game might keep you busy for 25 hours, I've been told to expect to spend a few years on this one.