ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Ancient Domains of Mystery… what a name. Truth be told, of all games I have played on my PC in the last 15 years, ADOM has surely been the one I keep returning to most often. And if there’s anything that hasn’t changed since the first time is that, whenever I do start up a new character, I can hardly keep myself off the game until the character dies… or until I win. Today the game is officially released on Steam, and the least I can do to repay ADOM and its team for hundreds upon hundreds of hours of fun is to review it.
– Real player with 1030.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best CRPG Perma Death Games.
There’s a lot I could say about ADOM but I’ll try to keep this brief:
Positives
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The fact that the base ASCII game is, and always will be, free (it’s included in the Steam version, but you can download it stand-alone from the official website)
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The new graphics update makes it much easier to see what’s going on and control your movements compared to the base game (i.e. if a monster is hostile to you, health bars, dots above sprites denoting status effects, the ability to click on things is especially helpful in your inventory,
– Real player with 660.7 hrs in game
Fractalis
I rarely write superlatives, but this game is the worst thing happened to me since I’ve lost a degree to Angband 20 years ago. I’m hooked. Yes, controls could be more polished, but I do not mind. I love it.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best CRPG Perma Death Games.
While fun at a very reasonable price, I found myself wanting a bit more in the world above the dungeon. The world seems like a small cross section or single screen of what at first feels like a larger continent or Island. It was disappointing to walk to the edg and find out that there was no continuation to this forest or path as it is simply a jarring invisible edge to the ‘world’. A minor thing, but it did make the game seem smaller and restrictive to be sure.
My main concern (and maybe I missed something) was this: Each type of item/weapon/etc has its own store NPCs vendors and they will not purchase equipment that is not part of their store. For example, you cant sell pole arms to a sword store. Even the ‘general’ store has very specific items that they deal in and will not buy anything from you that is not specifically tied to that store. Not a thing. While this seems completely reasonable at first glance, the problem I found was that there is no guarantees as to which NPCs will be generated in the town each time a world is generated. You could end up with 3 vendors in the generated town and 2 of them are swords only and one general vendor. Good luck looting anything of value that you can make any profit off of. So I either end up with a bag full of equipment that I cant sell at all, or I just end up with piles of items laying on the ground because they’re of no use what so ever. A more fleshed out town/world would go a long way and help alleviate the feeling of the game feeling smaller than it is.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Hyper Dungeon Crawler
This is the groundwork for a really nice little game, and I did quite enjoy it for what it was, which is why I give this a positive review, but it is rather rough around the edges. Some things that would need to be ironed out before I can really recommend it:
- The inventory limitations are quite frustrating without adding much depth to the game itself, and with a full inventory you can’t even dig through walls properly which makes this extra infuriating. The many different foodstuffs especially seem to be just designed to clog up your inventory.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best CRPG Turn-Based Tactics Games.
Fun little game. Fairly challenging. My only gripe is that some stuff isn’t explained. I see things that I feel like I should be able to interact with but I can’t.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
Dawn of the Mexica
A deeply tactical and challenging roguelike that leads you through the Aztec underworld to the realms of the gods.
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Fascinating mythology and stone-age combat aesthetic
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Multiple viable combat and survival strategies.
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Highly lethal combat system that may be frustrating for the casual gamer. Most deaths past the very beginning will occur from incapacitating crits (and sometimes critical fumbles); successful strategies will revolve around mitigating risk and/or playing rocket tag with certain enemies so they can’t fight back. Unlike many other games, hit points or health is a very poor measure of character survivability - in comparison with defensive skills, armor, etc. Control of distance, visibility, light levels, and cover are very important. Personally, I like it; but not for everyone.
– Real player with 173.9 hrs in game
A very well-researched Mesoamerican roguelike that delves into a setting rarely explored in gaming mediums. The combat descriptions are quite nice, and there are a variety of different skills and classes to unlock. It’s quite enjoyable to try some utility skills to round out your character, things like swimming, liquid identification, and others can all be of service.
The main negative is that deaths can be nearly instantaneous. This makes for a game of planning, of thinking, “Hey, I’m a caster, maybe some perception will keep me from getting mauled around the next corner.” However, as the game is approachable for new runs, this isn’t much of an issue (though there are times when I’m wondering how to improve). It’s a whole lot better than TOME 4’s instadeaths 15+ hours into the campaign.
– Real player with 19.4 hrs in game
CELLAR | Rags and Knife
This is an odd little roguelike. It’s a very zoomed in map that is on screen and the aesthetic is very lofi pixelart with letters for the monsters. It’s kind of ASCII plus but barely plus. There’s some cool music that sounds like it came from a niche 1970s horror film.
I’m not sure how much procedural generation there is in the levels. There seems at least to be several set areas like the start and an area later with a fight in progress before you get there.
There’s different weapons to pick up and armour- just one armour for the whole body like “hoody” or “rags”. The weapons break. When you kill stuff you get xp and when you level up you can pick one of two skills.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
As far as weird games goes it definitely up there. It’s very simple and easy to play,
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Golden Krone Hotel
Latest (Experimental) Update Review
The updates for this game have elevated this game to the status of roguelike gem in my eyes. Before, I would have recommended this to anyone who is interested in roguelikes. Now, I would say it is an absolute must-play for any roguelike fan as well as point to it as THE quintessential introductory roguelike. I would say it is certainly better than the standard introductory roguelike recommendations (Brogue and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup) because of its streamlined controls, well-implemented mouse control (you can do everything there is to do in the game with a mouse), well-designed menus (best menus in any roguelike I can think of), high customizability (can play with 4 directional or 8 directional movement, with mouse+keyboard or controller, with tiles or ASCII), rebindable controls (surprisingly not common in roguelikes), gameplay that isn’t dependant on spoilers (lots of roguelikes require spoilers to progress), difficulty settings (so a new player can actually see the end of the game and learn of mechanics that would otherwise kill them), great visuals (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has static and admittedly subpar tiles while Brogue has ASCII that Golden Krone Hotel simply beats with animated 8-bit tiles), music and sound (once again, not common in other roguelikes), and just the fact that it presents interesting mechanics and gameplay to players much sooner than any other roguelike typically does (a common complaint with Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is that the game isn’t interesting until you reach Lair).
– Real player with 85.8 hrs in game
Disclaimer: This review is for version 1.8 of the game which is the only one that I played. My understanding is that the game has improved significantly since its release and some of the features that I talk about here have been added after the original release (for example controller support).
Pros:
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The music is great and fits well with the vampire theme of the game.
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I love the controller support. This is very uncommon for rogue-like games and allowed me to play the game exclusively on my tv.
– Real player with 63.9 hrs in game
Hieroglyphika
I wish I could say I like this game. I really do. It’s pretty, runs well and has a lot of potential.
But it’s frustrating as all hell.
I can get over the overly stylised interface and obtuse item descriptions. It’s actually kind of rewarding to figure out what the symbols and descriptions without words mean. You’ll do several runs so you’ll have plenty of time to get accuainted with the items. It also sounds good and is a truly beautiful game.
The biggest problem I have—which I share with most people complaining in their reviews—is how frustratingly slow it is. This is coupled with the fact that you as the player have one single action. You can move, attack, shield, use a skill or simply wait. Forget moving and attacking on the same turn or anything like that. Meanwhile there are enemies in this game who can move two tiles, position themselves perfectly and then attack you, doing massive damage.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
I like this game a lot, it is challenging and fun, but I have found it disheartening at deeper levels.
It seems like the game is balanced with three things in mind:
1. Player Knowledge
2. Strategy
3. Random chance on loot
With the game being permadeath, and loot drops being random out of a wide selection, it can actually depend a lot on the loot as to how far you get in the game. If you don’t have the right armour, or abilities to counteract some enemies, you are at a vast disadvantage no matter how skilled you are. The only knowledge-gain players get for playing better is a mouse-over description of one mob for each level you have completed in the dungeon, and that doesn’t really give you as great as advantage as you might think.
– Real player with 11.7 hrs in game
Legend of You
Demons, dragons, kings and all sorts of creatures live together in a world brimming with conflict. Secrets of the forgotten past still urge to be found by pirates and cultists. The language of the arcade slowly dies as the wizards distance themselves from men. Intrigues, desires, hearts and dreams are all tangled in this living world.
You find yourself among all this.
A young male human studying the arcane. Or perhaps a female orc wielding a giant’s club; or even a high elf set to complete his elemental jewel collection.
As you journey across marshes and dungeons, frozen peaks and fiery depths; you will make friends and enemies, fight with powerful creatures, unravel royal conspiracies, find long-lost blueprints and craft items not seen for a generation and discover secrets that will forever change your game.
Your story will be unique.
Will you serve at the king’s desire; or murder him in plain sight? Follow each quest’s prescribed path, or push the boundaries of what can be done and come up with a unique way to play the game?
You are free to kill, talk to, help, hinder, trade, serve, betray and starve anyone in the world. But be wary, your actions will have deep consequences on how each character will interact with you.
Key Features
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Open World: A deep handcrafted world where every character lives their lives and pursue their desires: from finding what to eat tomorrow; to destroying every elf in the world.
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Sandbox: Play with and combine every mechanic at your disposal; discover emergent behavior and bend the simulation to your will.
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RPG: Items, stats, skills and dialog parsers are all at your hand to role play different characters and builds.
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Character Customization: You can be whoever you want: Human, Orc, Elf, Dwarf and much more. Change their color, hair, outfit, backstory and goal to make each character your own.
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Crafting: From baking bread to forging a dragon-slaying hammer, the world is full of materials and blueprints for you to discover and craft with.
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Turn-Based: With a Traditional Roguelike movement and combat, you will be able to make meaningful combat decisions. As you expand your skills, you will create more strategies to slay whoever stands in your way.
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Survival: One does not simply walk into the freezing Crystal Lance without preparation. Learn to survive the most adverse conditions, keeping your moral and physical conditions high as enemies and locations hurt your body, mind and soul.
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Story: Meet and talk to different characters in the world, from scheming peasants, to long-dead conquerors. Help them or stop them; every choice you make will write your story.
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Pixel Graphics: Combining the look of the golden age of CRPGs with our own modern take, your story will be vividly rendered with beautiful pixel art.
You have already experienced the legend of several heroes.
Now it is time to make your own in Legend of You.
Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos
Update 8/26/2021: The game has reached version 1.0, and it’s still not fun.
Overall performance and stability have improved somewhat. There tends to be less lag when moving around, and autoexplore is quite fast. On the other hand, inventory performance has gotten worse. Opening the inventory screen can take a few seconds and switching equipment a second.
With the introduction of continuous buff spells, this is possibly the easiest version yet. Most buff spells now last forever at the cost of reducing maximum PP by a percentage. For casters this doesn’t matter too much since PP growth seems to have gone through the roof. For non-casters this doesn’t matter too much since they are killing things without spells.
– Real player with 92.1 hrs in game
Update: 04/23/21
Updated the Video showing off the current state of the game, as of Version 0.8.0.
Updated Gameplay! In-Progress Let’s Play video here: https://youtu.be/VRrMxf8hV-0
I record my playthroughs with Ultimate ADOM if you prefer a more visual format; take a look if you like.
I like Ultimate ADOM. I liked it during the Alpha, and I like it even more now. Much progress has been made, as more and more options are opening up, options like Limb Grafting! I shall be a Grafting God!
– Real player with 48.2 hrs in game
Low Magic Age
TL;DR: The game is a fun grind, but it is not well balanced.
I have about 90 hours in the arena and about 10 in the adventure mode. I have raised a party to around level 100 in the arena. I am recommending this game with some suggestions for the devs. I hope the devs will implement some change so the player feels like they are growing more powerful as they level up, instead of feeling like they are barely holding on and crawling towards the inevitable moment when they will no longer be able to beat a single encounter.
– Real player with 136.4 hrs in game
Well as of the date of this review we are still awaiting the Campaign Mode to be implemented. I am hopeful from what the developers have shown recently that it will be at least released sometime this summer. It might even be close to Fall before we see the full game come to be. Even so for $6 I still recommend this game.
Right now we have what is called “Arena Mode”. You take a pre-made party or create a custom party to be placed (by the game) as a group on a random map to fight one wave of monsters at a time. These waves are chosen by you as the player and can contain random kinds and numbers of mobs. The waves range from easy to difficult. You get to choose what difficulty you are comfortable fighting against which is nice. After each battle, if your party prevails, you get a certain amount of gold based on how your characters did in the battle. If no one in your party dies you get bonus gold. You also may get a piece of loot or two. After each battle you are also given a chance to buy and upgrade equipment for your party, which is randomly generated, if you have enough gold. You can also level your characters once they have achieved enough XP to do so. The rules mainly try to follow the 3.x DnD ruleset. And it does a pretty decent job of doing so. With each of your characters gaining higher Feats and Talents as they progress. The magic system is different as there is no mana involved for any spells that are cast. Instead you have a cooldown period for each spell. Some do not like the way this mana-less sytem plays but I love it personally. There will also eventually be crafting available which is nice.
– Real player with 64.0 hrs in game