Let's play ADOM

[barker_s]

Welcome to Let's play ADOM!

I made an effort to create this thread so you lazy asses and graphics-whores could witness the greatness of this maginificent game. Sorry for the shitty quality of the screenshots. Colors actually look better in-game.

Without further ado, let's begin our journey!

Undead packed up and left when I was born? Could I be that ugly?

Here we gotta pick our race. Dark elf seems promising...

Now a profession. A magic user perhaps? Elementalist sounds good enough.

Another screen, another choice. 'Healthy' talent might help us live a little longer so I pick this one.

I heard calling your character Kingcomrade brings you luck. Well, we'll see.

After a few additional character creation screens our hero ends up in Drakalor Chain and arrives to a hamlet called Terinyo.

Here, a tiny girl provides him with his first quest - finding a missing puppy. Sounds easy, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna die trying to complete it. Well, there's only one way to find out...

We take a quick look at the inventory and we're ready to go.

Kingcomrade descends into the terrifying caves, where in total darkness lurks... a dwarven sausage? At least he won't die from starvation.

Our brave protagonist comes across a river and our first opponent. A kobold! He doesn't care about Kingcomrade, but he will soon.

Burning hands spell works wonders. One hit and evil kobold is no more.

Proceeding further into the dungeon we find ourselves in a dead end.

Thanks to Kingcomrade's sharp dark-elven senses we discover a secret door! We open the door, kill two kobolds. Nothing special.

We're in some deep shit now. Our mana is depleted and skeleton doesn't seem to be afraid of KC's dagger. Time to get the fuck outta here!

It's bad. Escaping from the skeleton we ran right into an orc! Another change of plans. Kingcomrade returns to the room he just barely escaped with skeleton still chasing him.

Facing a very serious situation we have to resort to wands... and hope they'll work on this enemy.

WOOOSH! Yeah, that'll teach him. And we gained a level!

We're maxing concentration since mana regeneration relies on it.

Can't a hero get a few minutes for himself? Kingomrade was resting and waiting for his mana to refill when an orc rushed in. We need to teach him a lesson... 3 turns later orc is a toast and we can proceed.

Unfortunately, the only way to get to the lover levels of this dungeon leads through that river and KC is a poor swimmer... but this is where magic comes in handy.

Frost bolt solves our problem. We can cross the river and kill the hobgoblin on the other side. We also advance to level 3.

A jackal and few large bats later we eventually find an entrance to the lower level...

..which leads to a room without doors. Fantastic. But fear not, there has to be secret door somewhere around here.

Not only hidden, but pretty firmly locked too. We have no other choice than to try to kick it open.

Oh, and it was trapped too. Thanks to his quick reactions Kingcomrade avoids being blinded.

We find another stairway in the neighboring room. Good, because, judging from noises, this level is swarming with giant ants and exploring it further might end in KC's death.

Damn, a dark room. Hopefully it's not inhabited by anythin nasty.

Gotta love those 'bolt' spells. They inflict damage on all monsters that happen to be on their way.

We have explored this level, but there's no sign of another stairway...

Bingo!

It's a trap! Luckily we manage to evade it.

After clearing the previous level we descend further. It seems to be some sort of cave complex.

And it's filled with nasty monsters! Thankfully Kingcomrade is a lvl 6 elementalist already, he gained 2 additional spells and has concentration maxed out. Aaand he found the stairway in the adjacent cavern, so he doesn't need to risk his life on this level anymore.

Shit, another river. But the puppy is around here somewhere. KC can sense it.

Yes, doggy is rescued! Or rather he will be rescued if our hero can lead him out of these caverns in one piece. Will he succeed? You'll find out in part two... if there ever is part two .

 

[DarkUnderlord]

If only it had better visual representations of your surroundings and the monsters you're fighting.

 

[barker_s]

Making graphics takes a lot of development time and I'd rather play a game that's interesting and has good gameplay than game with latest pixel shaders but barely counts as an rpg.

Besides, after you've played a little you get used to ascii and it stops being an issue :wink: .

 

[Destroid]

It's only a matter of time before you begin feasting on the flesh of the dead.

 

[The Dude]

Very nice overall, but -1 for missing an obvious set up for a joke about dwarven sexuality.

 

[Heresiarch]

You'll savescum, yes/no?

 

[Destroid]

If he save scums this thread should be retardoed.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Ah the magic of a roguelike.

 

[barker_s]

No way. It's gonna be ironman all the way through.

 

[JarlFrank]

ADOM - the only game where ASCII looks beautiful.

 

[barker_s]

Check my awesome DF fortress from about a year ago and say that again Jarl :wink: .


Here we go, back into the game:

While trying to get puppy out of this place Kingcomrade stumbles upon a spider's web. The creature must be nearby.

Since ripping the webs one by one takes too long, our hero decides to burn his way through with 'Fire bolt' spell. Voila! The corridor is passable again.

Damn, we've been too careless! A large spider jumped on KC from the corridor and bit him!

Luckily for us, one 'Burning hands' spell ends his existence in a matter of seconds.

Oh, what now? Puppy seems to be immobilized by the webs. If it wasn't enough, all this noise attracted a ghul looking for an easy meal. With one well targeted spell we send him back to his grave, saving our little friend.

Daylight at last! Kingcomrade managed to bring the dog back in one piece and, unfortunately, he didn't get rewarded for it (except for that fuzzy, warm feeling inside maybe).


Ok my good readers, now's the time for some interaction. There are 2 quests I can choose now, but they're mutually exclusive. I can go looking for a missing carpenter for the village elder or go kill the evil druid (which will be very difficult considering my character class). Which path should Kingcomrade choose? You decide.

 

[Trash]

Go and kill the druid. Your character has been uncommonly long alive for a roguelike. It's unsettling.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

+1 on the mad carpenter

 

[garren]

Go for the druid since i want to see how you survive that one (tough sonofabitch).
Carpenter is boring, though you get the healer dude.

 

[Monolith]

That thead made me finally give ADOM a try and having see my first three characters die I can say I'm hooked.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Oh, what now? Puppy seems to be immobilized by the webs. If it wasn't enough, all this noise attracted a ghul looking for an easy meal. With one well targeted spell we send him back to his grave, saving our little friend.

That kind of reminds me of my first experience with IVAN. A zombie or something was attacking my dog, a fair distance down the corridor. So, naturally, I fired my wand of lightning at it.
The poor puppy was chunked by my own hand. I cried.

 

[inwoker]

What is what in these screenshots? For one that never launched this game this looks like random dots and # on screen...

 

[Relien]

What is what in these screenshots? For one that never launched this game this looks like random dots and # on screen...

A couple of things to start with:

Dungeons:

#	wall
.	floor
+	closed door
/	opened door
<	stairs up
>	stairs down
=	water
^	trap

Items & other things:

%	food (including corpses)
|	spiderweb

various symbols for weapons and other equipment, I don't remember

World:

^	mountains (the whiter the higher)
~	hills
.	road
&	forest (I think)
o	settlement

Creatures:

@	humanoids (not all of them)

various letters (you can see 'z' for undead, 'o' for orc, 'd' for dog, 't' for towns[wo]man etc.)

... and those green "T"s are trees...

EDIT: And I vote for whatever path you feel is easier, I want this to last a while

 

[garren]

# = walls
. = floor
@ = Protagonist (other letters are monsters and symbols are items)

Those are the more important ones.

then there are something like
/ = door
< = stairs
T = tree

etc..

EDIT: Shit, owned by Relien. Shouldn't have played around with colors :D

 

[Palikka]

ADOM LP! Very nice, one of my favourite games. Good luck with this one.

Go for the Druid, very annyoing guy to kill.

 

[barker_s]

That thead made me finally give ADOM a try and having see my first three characters die I can say I'm hooked.

Get used to this man, 99,9% of your characters will die sooner or later :wink: . That's the charm of this game.

 

[barker_s]

I'll go for the druid then. Although I must warn you that it probably means death for our hero.

Kingcomrade approached Guth'alak, the druid and received a quest. But this time there's a reward!

Before leaving KC visits a store in order to buy some rations, since our last adventure left him with a loaf of bread and nothing more.

We leave Terinyo and eventually arrive at evil druid's hideout entrance.

This level is pretty ordinary. We've slain some monsters, found some gold... and smashed open a trapped door. Don't be afraid, our hero gained 'fire resistance' as a class ability this level...

But, obviously, his cloak didn't. After exploring every nook and cranny of this level we decide to go downstairs.

Hah, another stairway, right in the next room. But we cannot just go down there yet. We need to find something that'll help us defeat the druid, because Kingcomrade's magic might not impress him.

Damn, we've stumbled upon a 'tension room'. It's basically a room filled to the brim with monsters. But don't worry, it isn't as bad as it looks like. Actually it's a pretty good source of experience .

Situation got hot for a second there, Kingcomrade has become flanked by a rabid dog...

But eventually the battle ends up with our victory.

Exploring ancient caves and fighting countless kobolds sometimes makes you hungry. To satiate this hunger our hero ate his last rations. Now we need to find ourselves something to eat... or die [dramatic music]

Ever wondered how orcs taste? Kingcomrade ate one so you don't have to.

We descend even deeper into the dungeon and at last find something useful! It's not some powerful wand or magical artifact that we were hoping for, but a spellcaster isn't complete without his spooky hooded cloak, is he?

I didn't expected this one here since it's pretty rare monster, but we have to explore this cave and it's standing on our way. Ergo, it must die. He seems to be unaffected by magical bolts, therefore we need to fight him at close distance. Once again 'Burning hands' proves to be very useful spell, sending our adversary on a trip to hell.

Another trapped door. Also this time Kingcomrade manages to survive it more or less (I'd say less) unscratched.

De gustibus non est disputandum... but come on, there are some limits KC!

After we consumed whatever there was to consume (and even a few things that weren't) we proceed deeper and once again come across a river.

We won't go any further without resorting to that 'freeze the water' trick again. At least we manage to destroy a skeleton with the same spell, so it's not a terrible waste of mana.

No, nothing interesting here. But hey, at least we found an iron raton and advanced to level 8!

Now this seems to be an interesting room. It contains a key and some kind of tome. Frankly I don't remember if elementalists can learn spells from books, but we can at least try.

Our hero has some serious problems with reading. Next level we should invest into 'Literacy' a little bit.

Another explored level and all we found is a metal cap and some strange scroll. I'm getting bad feelings about that upcoming confrontation with the dark druid.

A doppleganger. It doesn't seem to be hostile at the moment but we'll waste him just to be sure.

No phat loot on this level either.

'Some sinister presence'? Yup, you guessed it, this is our last level in this dungeon. And probably last dungeon ever for KC.

Since we're in druid's dungeon there are animals running all over the place.

Yup, here's Keethrax, greeting our hero wih his glowing balls.

Kingcomrade has closed the door and prepared himself to blast the first thing that comes through with his deadly magic... but time passes and nobody comes. I guess we have to make the first move.

As we have predicted the fucker is practically immune to elemental magic. We need to see if anything in our possesion will work on him.

Argh! He's immune to fire too.

Did I mention that Keethrax can summon magical darkness? Then I do now. The only thing that can save us now is setting our tactics to 'Berserk' and jumping at our opponent with a dagger.

In total darkness our hero falls under dark druid's hits. We're gonna miss you Kingcomrade .

Some last messages before his death.


That's all folks. I hope you enjoyed this little thread.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I did.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

I enjoyed it as well.

 

[Unradscorpion]

I didn't, mostly because ADOM is a rather subpar roguelike comparing to Nethack, Angband(might be nostalgia), Crawl, DF, Incursion, Elona, GearHead... And many more. :wink: