ADOM, or Ancient Domains of Mystery, is now available on Steam with “Deluxe” features including achievements, difficulty level customization, and various play modes (a story mode allowing to save and restore games, a weekly challenge game, an exploration mode, and more).
ADOM was initially released in 1994 and is considered one of the five foundational roguelikes – that is, one of the games that paved the way for the genre. Its creator explains that it’s primarily known for “being the first roguelike to include vibrant towns, NPC dialog, and quests.”
It’s still being maintained to this day by its original creator, Thomas Biskup, but he did take a nine-year hitaus from it. However, upon returning to his game in 2012, Biskup crowdfunded a revitalization of the game, allowing him to offer both its original ASCII look and graphical modes.
ADOM is the kind of game that allows a rich and varied story to evolve each time you play. But it does have an open-ended back story that goes like this: “Deep in the mountainous ranges of the Drakalor Chain, Chaos has broken through into Ancardia and it’s up to you to decide the fate of the entire realm.”
From there, you create your character choosing from a range of skills, classes, and races, and then head out into the treacherous depths of its randomized world where you fight monsters and uncover monsters. Oh, and try not to die, as permadeath will have you restarting over from scratch.
