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ADOM

ADOM (short for Ancient Domains of Mystery) is a roguelike game in which your aim is to stop the forces of Chaos which are invading the world of Ancardia. You can choose any of ten races and twenty classes for your character, giving 200 possible combinations requiring widely varying playing styles.

For example, a High Elven Wizard would annihilate their enemies by slinging spells at them from afar, while a Trollish Barbarian would have great difficulty learning spells and would be better off smashing everything in melee combat. During your adventures you are likely to explore many different dungeons and complete multiple quests - which quests you choose will likely depend on your character and on whether you are lawful or chaotic.

One feature of ADOM which greatly enhances its replay value is the availability of multiple endings. The standard way to defeat the forces of Chaos is to close the Chaos Gate, but if you've won the game this way and want a challenge, you can try to pass through the gate and defeat Andor Drakon, the Elder Chaos God. This will make you an Avatar of Order or Balance or an (Ultimate) Chaos God. (Yes, you can win ADOM as an evil character who defeats the lord of Chaos only to become a more powerful one.)

ADOM was written by Thomas Biskup[?], is currently at version 1.1.1 and can be downloaded from http://www.adom.de/. Detailed spoilers can be found in the ADOM Guidebook at http://www.andywlms.com/adom/. Although it does not cost any money to download ADOM, its source code is not available. Most roguelikes have freely available source. Thomas Biskup didn't release the source because:

  1. he wants to keep a level of mystery regarding exactly what the game does,
  2. he doesn't want lots of unsanctioned variants spread around, like with Angband,
  3. he plans to someday release a commercial version of ADOM.

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump