Just ASCII + 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.