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A Column Covering Interactive Fiction and Other Nongraphical Adventure Games

Adventurer vs. Red Dragon
by Simon de Vet
(click to enlarge)

By Erik Reckase

Part Five: Ancient Domains of Mystery

This is the first game that I'm covering in this column that I had not played before at some point in my gaming career. During my research into Rogue-like games for Rogue and NetHack (see parts one and three), I came across Ancient Domains of Mystery, a large and complex RPG written by Thomas Biskup.

Thomas became interested in Rogue-like games in 1988, when he first played Hack on his Amiga. Unfortunately, the save games for Hack took up so much space on his single disk drive that he had to give it up. Three years later, inspired by Wasteland and the Bard's Tale series, and feeling unsatisfied with the NetHack experience, he set out to write his own game. This game would become ADOM, and it eventually reached the top spot on the Internet Worldcharts of Free Downloadable Games (now defunct) in 1997. To give you an idea of this game's recent popularity, the game's homepage (listed below) has registered almost 1.3 million hits over the last two years--pretty significant by anyone's standards.

The title screen of Ancient Domains of Mystery
(click to enlarge)

The following plot summary is from the ADOM manual:

For 6000 years, the world of Ancardia was left untouched by the incursions of Chaos, but finally the sinister forces of evil and darkness have found this young and teeming world. In a remote mountain complex, huge dungeons were formed by great magical powers. They seem to contain some kind of dimensional gate which allows terrors from unknown dimensions to enter the world of Ancardia and wreak havoc.
For years, nobody understood the true cause of sudden ambushes by evil monsters, incursions by hideous monster armies, and the rising tide of Chaos. Finally Khelavaster, the great sage, uncovered an ancient prophecy foretelling the Coming of Chaos--a dark and sinister time when the skill, power and valor of a single hero would determine the future of the world. The ancient scrolls of prophecy hinted at a remote mountain range--the Drakalor Chain--which was destined to be the final battle ground for an epic fight between Chaos and Order. Khelavaster quickly made this known to all the intelligent races of Ancardia.
Within weeks, many heroes set out to find the source of the chaotic forces and destroy it. Khelavaster was among the first to enter those dungeons. Many heroes have followed him since then but no one has ever returned from the dungeons. Thus the forces of Chaos continue their conquest and threaten to defile Ancardia ...
You are one of those young heroes willing to risk your life to defeat the forces of Chaos, gain fame, fortune, power, and ultimately save your world and your people. After weeks of arduous travel, you have finally reached the center of the Drakalor Chain and now face the entrance to those dungeons of mystery which must contain a means to save your world.

As I mentioned before, ADOM is a very complex game; this goes for the character generation process as well as the actual gameplay. When starting a new game, your birthday is randomly generated by the game--depending on the month that you were born, you have certain inherent traits that may lend themselves to certain classes (occupations) better than others. For example, if your character was born in the month of the Dragon, you would be automatically given a Strength and Toughness bonus, which may be beneficial to a Fighter or Barbarian. There are ten different races and twenty different classes (professions) to choose from, making just about every character unique in one way or another. After your sex, race, and class are chosen, the game creates a background for your character, adding some depth to the already detailed description.

My character, Manny the Monk, comes across two bats and a goblin while
exploring the first level of the dungeon southeast of Terinyo
(click to enlarge)

If that's not complex enough for you, consider that every character has a set of skills that he/she can use while attempting to reach his/her goals. Some of these skills, like Swimming, are given to every character at the beginning of the game. Other skills are only available to certain classes--for example, Alchemy is only available to Assassins, Necromancers, and Wizards. Still other skills, like Courage, must be learned within the game itself and are not initially available to any character. Each skill is developed during the game; when your character gains an experience level, your character may increase a few of the available skills. These skill values can be interpreted as percentages, so a Pick Locks skill of 50 would mean that your character would have a base chance of unlocking a door of 50 percent.

Once your character has been generated, you begin the game on a "wilderness" map. This is very different from NetHack, when all levels and areas were reached by going up and down in the Mazes of Menace--in ADOM, your character moves about a particular area of the world, exploring towns, caves, and dungeons. Entering different areas zooms in on them, but they are still contained in the greater world map. If you're having trouble getting through a particular area, you can always go back up to the surface and try somewhere else--ADOM is fairly nonlinear.

Manny goes shopping for food in the village of Terinyo
(click to enlarge)

Gameplay in ADOM is very similar to all of the other Rogue-like games. Your character, represented by an "@" symbol, is moved around the game using the arrow or numeric keypad keys. Conveniently, many of the familiar characters from NetHack represent the same items in ADOM--"=" are rings, "!" are potions, letters represent different kinds of monsters, etc. Commands are fairly intuitive once you get used to them, although I have a command summary open in another window while playing to minimize checking the online help for a rarely used key sequence. There are also many nice features in ADOM that NetHack did not have, like an audible beep when your hit points drop below a certain level.

ADOM is very hard. It took me on the order of twenty games or so to get past the first quest, and I promptly died while starting the next one--but that does not mean that it's not fun. In fact, it's great fun and will keep you coming back for months to come. Here are some links to download areas and strategy pages, and remember, ADOM is free, so go grab a copy! (Actually, ADOM is not absolutely free--the author requests that if you truly enjoy the game, please send him a postcard letting him know that you appreciate his efforts.)

Ancient Domains of Mystery Home Page: This is the official home of ADOM by Thomas Biskup. Downloads, the history of the game, and bug reports can be found at this very classy site.

Drakalor Chain Board of Tourism: Maintained by Richard Fowler, this site contains searchable FAQs and spoiler guides to ADOM, as well as an interactive hint guide.

The ADOM Strategy Guide: This thorough guide by Matt Chatterly gives, among other things, tips and tactics for each character class.

The ADOM Guidebook: Written by Andy Williams, this guide to ADOM is very detailed and has tons of great information.