Ancient Domains of Mystery Review

I’ve been keeping an eye open for a solid review of Ancient Domains of Mystery since the latest version of the long-running roguelike was released on Steam back in November, but there really haven’t been any official critiques – or at least not until this week when Game Industry News wrangled up this review and handed the game an overall score of 4.5/5. Their concluding paragraphs:

Back when ADOM originally released in 1994, there were a ton of keybinds. Some made sense, like K to kick something or D to drink. It becomes more obfuscated, however, when you consider that there are tons of incredibly specific keybinds that may be helpful to know (activate a trap in front of you is Control plus T, for example), though veterans of ADOM would find no issue with this. Newcomers may be pleased to find out that the game can be controlled nearly exclusively using the mouse, and while it may be a deal slower, it does have the advantage of displaying the keybindings as you click on the squares and choose actions, so you can slowly adapt the keystrokes in while playing with just the mouse, if you so choose.

So, ADOM is a tough, tough game. Some people who have been playing every so often for over a decade may yet to have seen the endings, yet they keep returning because ADOM is an incredibly rich and complex experience. Players who need a fancy user interface or intuitive keybindings may dislike ADOM greatly, while those who prefer hard-as-nails RPG experiences may enjoy ADOM thoroughly and not put it down for an extremely long time. This game is an acquired taste the beginning of the game, the first village and its surrounding area, is known for being quite harsh and that is unchanged even in this release. Those willing to stick with the game, even after a few unlikely deaths, will undoubtedly discover a deep roguelike experience underneath the paperdoll surface (or letter surface, should you decide to go with the old school ASCII visuals).