# ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 22, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247 "2015-11-22T01:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/1 "2015-11-22T01:04:33Z")
This game has come out in a graphical format on Steam, currently for 10% off. Normal retail price $15. I went ahead and bought it because I played the crap out of it years ago, and if anybody is going to profit from the new trend of actually selling rogue-like games in this new receptive market it ought to be Thomas Biskup. Besides, I never actually did send him the e-mail that was the only payment he asked way back in the day. Basically, the game is Nethack plus. It brought in all the familiar elements of that game (and by extension all the games Nethack was inspired by) and added new gimmicks, memes and gameplay elements. Although I don’t have time to get really into it now, due to Fallout 4, I did buy it and fire it up. It still uses the old keyboard commands but the graphic representation of the scenery is more integral and less seemingly adjunct than that which was added to Nethack years ago. This graphical version is very smoothly integrated with the functionality of the ASCII graphics. And there’s a bunch of new stuff like achievements and daily challenges. I don’t see getting too much into that stuff, but I appreciate that it’s there. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/2 "2015-11-22T06:35:27Z")
The tileset looks pretty good. It would be great to see more classic RLs get spruced up and for the creators to profit. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/3 "2015-11-22T21:15:28Z")
Nethack had a huge team behind it, as I recall, so I don’t know how feasible it would be to make sure they all got a cut. I don’t know what the stories were behind Rogue, Moria, Hack, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/4 "2015-11-23T00:06:08Z")
TOME (or Tales of Maj’Eyal) has a graphical version on Steam as well - not quite as classic as ADOM or Nethack, but it used to be an Angband variant way back so it is at least related to a proper classic. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/5 "2015-11-23T10:29:02Z")
I’d buy the hell out of _Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup_ with halfway decent graphics - something on the level of 1996 \*XCOM \*or the first _Fallout_. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/6 "2015-11-29T18:56:10Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Basically, the game is Nethack plus. It brought in all the familiar elements of that game (and by extension all the games Nethack was inspired by) and added new gimmicks, memes and gameplay elements. While the two share a common ancestor in _Rogue_, is there really any direct relation between _ADOM_ and _NetHack_? The games have many dissimilar elements, and a very different feel. There was a variant called _NetHack+_ in the early 90s, and later ones like _Slash_ and _[Slash’EM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash'EM)_. That part of your description would apply more to them. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adom-ancient-domains-of-mystery/738247/7 "2015-11-29T21:21:14Z")
It’s been now more than a decade since I was playing these games obsessively, but what I recall was that much of the game functioned like Nethack did, with a bunch of other features thrown in. I played a lot more Moria than Rogue, so it could be that a lot of those things that seemed lifted unchanged from Nethack were in fact already present in Rogue. I remember NetHack+ and Slash 'em, but I don’t recall them being as drastically augmented as ADOM, which had overland travel, side quests and wishing pools.