Creator Thomas Biskup announces new title and crowdfunding completion at Roguelike Celebration.
SAN FRANCISCO – Nov. 13, 2017 – Legendary roguelike ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery) is being reborn as Ultimate ADOM – sporting all-new graphics, infinitely customizable characters, and native support for gamepads and touch screens. ADOM creator Thomas Biskup made this momentous announcement during the Roguelike Celebration in San Francisco November 11-12.
ADOM, also known as Ancient Domains of Mystery is an ASCII roguelike first developed between 1994 and 2002. Thanks to a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign it's in development again since 2012, and I have the pleasure of being lead artist on the development team. Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) is one of the most successful roguelike games of all time. It was released in 1994, and still has a solid number of active players. At the start, as in other games of this genre, you have to create and customize your character, choosing from among various races (elf, human, dwarf, orc, troll, etc.) and classes.
Based on Unity, Ultimate ADOM will still have the Universal ADOM engine running underneath –ensuring that gameplay stays faithful to the classic game players know and love. Currently in development, Ultimate ADOM is due in Q4 2018.
ADOM fans will be able to save their progress across multiple devices for the first time, including desktop operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux), current game consoles (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One), and mobile operating systems (iOS, Android). The new engine will also make it possible for players to experiment with detailed crafting and modding systems and also learn a vastly more flexible magic system. Possession, cloning, grafting body parts, and animating inanimate items like swords (and even walls and other in-world objects) are all viable strategies.
“Time and time again, I considered writing a true successor to ADOM. However, its 25-year-old codebase – with a rather complex internal architecture – usually got in the way of a straightforward sequel,”says Dr.-Ing. Thomas Biskup of Team ADOM.
“And so the idea for Ultimate ADOM was born – the most recent attempt to create the ultimate roguelike RPG based on Unity / C#. With a truly multi-platform programming environment – including support for all modern platforms and a customized Entity-Component-Architecture that I developed over the past 12 months – Ultimate ADOM will be based around one generic game/rules engine with ultimate customizability for different platforms and play styles.”
In development since 1994, ADOM is one of the most successful roguelikes ever created – boasting a brilliant mix of story, RPG, exploration, and intensely strategic and flexible combat. The Steam version introduced various Deluxe features like achievements, difficulty level customization, and various play modes (e.g., story mode allowing players to save and restore games, weekly challenge game, exploration mode). ADOM was revitalized in 2012 with an immensely successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo – allowing Team ADOM to offer the game in both ASCII and graphical modes. During the Roguelike Celebration, Thomas Biskup announced that all rewards and stretch goals have been fulfilled.
ADOM: The Story So Far
For many generations, the world lived in peace and harmony – disturbed only by whatever petty struggles troubled the various races. Many centuries after those ancient events, Chaos once again arose and gathered dark forces – attempting a second incursion into the world. Dark times seemed to lie ahead. Sages even suspected that Gaethra the Creator might be awakening…
How did Chaos come into being if everything is Gaethra’s dream? Just a passing nightmare? Or a sign of madness…? Adventurers started to wander through the known lands, challenging the forces of Chaos and sometimes falling to their lure. Battles ensued, and finally a Champion of the free people arose to defeat the overlord known as Andor Drakon. Equipped with mighty artifacts, the champion challenged Andor Drakon to a final decisive battle and then something went awry. Exactly what is left to speculation. Maybe the champion fell to a trick of Chaos. Maybe an artifact caused a cosmic chain reaction. Maybe Gaethra awoke. We probably will never know for sure.
Where there once was but one Ancardia, now there are limitless variants of Ancardia co-existing in space and time. Powerful mana wielders have even discovered ways to connect to souls in these other realities – even for but a brief moment. The unifying element seems to be the continuing struggle between Order and Chaos – once limited to Ancardia, now a grim reality on countless worlds very similar to each other. Before you, the entrance to the ultimate ancient domains of mystery loom. Are you brave enough to step in?
Key Features: ADOM
– Choose from 12 star signs, 12 races, and 22 classes to create your character.
– Explore a vast randomized world with endless options: hundreds of dungeons, over 460 monsters, more than 840 base item types with infinite variations, 47 spells, 41 skills, and 100 talents!
– Dive into a deep storyline about the battle between Order and Chaos – and discover a multitude of endings.
– Grapple with corruption: Special mutations make you more powerful but also bring you closer to your end; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
– Be part of 25 years of development – and immerse yourself in an unprecedented level of depth and detail.
– Play the game with both ASCII and tiled graphics + audio (with 61 hand-crafted musical scores at the time of this writing).
– Partake in a fantastic and lively community.
– Enjoy the fruits of a full-time development team’s labor.
Additional Features: Ultimate ADOM
– Experience the world of ADOM with brand-new graphics and visuals in a much richer, bigger, and more flexible environment build.
– Immerse yourself in the endless ADOM multiverse in a variety of games customized for different styles of play – ranging from a highly flexible RPG system on desktop computers and slightly more casual location-based experience on mobile devices to additional action-oriented variations on consoles and handhelds.
– Tinker and experiment with updated magic, crafting, and modification systems.
– Mix and match more character customizations than those offered in classic ADOM.
Pricing & Availability
ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) [Deluxe] is available on Steam (Windows, Mac, Linux) for $14.99. Ultimate ADOM is currently in development with an expected release window of Q4 2018.
ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) [Classic] is available for Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10), OSX (10.5 and later), and several Linux distributions (Ubuntu and Debian). The ASCII version supports a huge variety of operating systems – going as far back as NetBSD 5.1.2 and AmigaOS 3.x!
About Thomas Biskup & Team ADOM
As a student in Witten, Germany, Thomas Biskup wanted to learn C programming and needed a project. He had always loved roguelikes for their randomness, and he realized that programming his own game from scratch might be a lot of fun – so he began working on ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) in 1992. The first version was released on Usenet in 1994. Over the next couple of versions, the community grew from zero to tens of thousands as more and more folks discovered Usenet (and the Internet in general). Between 1996 and 1998, ADOM was voted as the most successful downloadable game of 1997 – beating all AAA titles at that time.
(Some releases yielded more than a million downloads!) In 2012, Team ADOM (a five-member development team) was established and ran a very successful Indiegogo campaign that received more than $90,000 in funding. Now, at the end of 2017, Team ADOM has fulfilled all its crowdfunding promises and is looking forward to continuing development on both ADOM and Ultimate ADOM. To learn more about ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) and Team ADOM, please visit http://www.adom.de.
Jonas “O.J” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround
More by Jonas Ek:
Tags:Ancient Domains of Mystery, Indie games, PC games, Roguelike, Thomas Biskup, Ultimate ADOM
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External Links[edit]
Is it really necessary to have three different ADOM MobyGames links? Lochok 23:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Nope.Mule Man 09:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
What do you think about add one more link - link to Polish ADoM's forum (http://adom.phx.pl/forum/? This forum exist over 2 years, have over 200 members (more than 30 is active) and over 30k posts. I think that this link should be add :P Therendil
Neutrality... (re: Significant Features)[edit]
Right now, the article doesn't seem very neutral to me, especially the 'some significant features' section. It might also need some cleanup... Torte 12:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- I've toned down the 'Significant features' section to include what seem to be somewhat significant features. Ideally, someone(s) should pitch in to remove this whole section, as it's still nothing but a collection of bullet-points with no substantiation of significance. For those items that truly are significant to the game (and I'm not saying that includes the list as it stands now), it might be best to work it into the gameplay section (which, itself, requires work). D. Brodale 06:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
History section[edit]
I removed the useless history section which was an exact copy from the ADOM's homepage. IMHO a link to the history page would suffice instead of copypasting the page here. Arsestar 14:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Vaporware[edit]
The official webpage discusses working on the Jade release as recently as 12/24/06. Is there any standard length of time for what is labeled 'Vaporware?'
That term is rather pejorative, and seems to be more opinion or interpetation than objective fact.ThomasLB 23:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
- It might be pejorative, but JADE has been considered such for years now (certainly far before 2007), with little to no real-world pay off (as can be gleaned from its brief intro as 'based on hot Java-Technology' and the state of its subsite). The entire JADE write-up within the main article seems tacked on and irrelevant to ADOM as a whole. It was Thomas's 'new' project almost a decade ago and by now doesn't look to become anything at all. Can someone explain the rationale for its inclusion here, being nothing more than a stillborn project with limited connection to the article's topic? D.brodale 04:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
- I removed the JADE section from this article, on the grounds of tangential relation to the main topic (ADOM, remember?) and limited notability. I hope no one minds. Judging from the lack of discussion here, it doesn't seem like it will be an issue moving forward. D. Brodale 06:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
References in other games[edit]
Really, should that simply be accepted as a fact? 'Eternium' isn't such a creative word that those folks at Bli$$ard couldn't have made it up themselves without even ever having heard of ADoM, so I'd really like to see some references for that or have it removed --84.186.236.251 01:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
- It's funny, but the exact same thought crossed my mind as I skimmed over this throw-away remark in the ADOM article. Can anyone provide a reference for this at all? As noted, without such, it comes across as a coincidence misconstrued as bare fact without the least bit of basis. D.brodale 05:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
- I've flagged this section with a call for citation of the relation between ADOM and WoW. I see someone piled on more WoW detail since July, but still there's no informed basis that one use of Eternium (ADOM) inspired the other (WoW). D. Brodale 06:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- I've removed the following 'Cultural References' block as per the above discussion. I can't turn up a source for the claim, and it's been in need of such since July.
(begin)
- In World of Warcraft, in the high-level dungeon 'Blackrock Spire' there is an uncommon loot named an 'Eternium Lockbox'. In its expansion Burning Crusade, Eternium is an Outland-based, mineable metal used to make rare and epic items. Eternium is a craftable metal introduced in ADOM.
(end)
Adom (ancient Domains Of Mystery) Download Pdf
D. Brodale 05:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Commercial Intent[edit]
I think that the information on the ADoM 'licensing' page (http://www.adom.de/adom/licensing.php3) more than qualifies as a citation for Thomas' possible commercial intent for the game. From the author's mouth: 'ADOM has been very successful in the past two years and I strongly believe that ADOM - pepped up with some additional stuff - could be a very successful commercial game.' and 'If you can provide the artists and designers to create a great look, we probably have the hot-seller of the next summer lying before us.' It would make sense that if he thinks of ADoM as a possible commercial hit that he would not release the source code, even if it is only one of several reasons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandemicennui (talk • contribs) 15:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- Commercial intent may be there, but it doesn't follow automatically that it was a requirement or motivation for closing the source of the game. This is the issue in need of citation. Open source software may allow for commerical licensing. This is what I meant in the edit comment that you are/were reading too much into a license. Earlier citation of the FAQ offers the same authorial willingness to license the property commercially, but it also discusses alongside that an existing desire to open source the title if not for lack of control over variants and a desire to retain some mystery about gameplay. Within that FAQ, commercialization isn't discussed as a reason to close the source, and until someone can find a statement that it factored into a decision to close the game off through source retention, the statement that it was one of three reasons for source closure remains dubious. I don't want to read between the lines, either, but the offer of possible commercial licensing alone isn't enough to satisfy a claim that it's a reason for a closed source nature. Especially given that Biskup spends three paragraphs in the FAQ explaining why the game is closed source and doesn't mention this at all. D. Brodale 16:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- Understood. Maybe this idea of commercial intent should be moved or discussed in a different context. I've not been able to find any resource that relates commercial intent to the protection of the source, but the idea of commercial intent still seems relevant to the project. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandemicennui (talk • contribs) 18:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- I agree. I'm inclined to drop this third reason from the article (as written now) as unsourced, yet add to the 'Development' section some remark that Biskup is open to commercialization as a route for future development by a third party. D. Brodale 18:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- I've reworked the 'Development' section in light of the above discusion, including mention of possible commerical ventures, which we both agree are a significant point to mention. D. Brodale 05:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Are Primary Sources Bad?[edit]
It puzzles me how anyone possibly can provide more information on a non-commercial low-profile solo-written game then its author... I suggest the removal of this unreasonable claim, because it cannot be fulfilled. What's your opinion?
Llewelyn MT (talk) 19:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Removed {{Primary sources}}[edit]
I checked the history, and there are secondary sources cited in the article, many of which were added since the template was added in December 2007. If anyone believes that there are insufficient sources, feel free to add the template back in. I would just ask that you either add it to the section(s) that do not have sufficient secondary sources, or drop a note here to make it clear where the unsourced material is. Joshua Scott (talk) 14:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Still under development[edit]
I think it is pretty clear at this point that ADoM (at least, non-iADoM) is not being developed anymore. The Development section should probably be amended to make note of this. 173.67.243.204 (talk) 01:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
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