Game News Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Assemble Entertainment; Team ADOM; Thomas Biskup; Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos

Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos, the dungeon crawling sequel to classic roguelike ADOM, was released today after six months in Early Access. The game's final update is called the "Update of the Living Dead" and includes several new necromancy-related features among other things. Here's its extremely silly launch trailer and accompanying press release:

Wiesbaden, Germany 25th August, 2021. Publisher Assemble Entertainment and developer Team ADOM are excited to announce that Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos — the classic-meets-modern hardcore roguelike — is available today for Windows PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam for £17.49 / €19.99 with a 30% launch discount!. And that’s not all! The title also today receives the “Update of the Living Dead”, which includes a brand new class — the Necromancer — along with three new magical skill trees, for a total of 68 new skills, 19 new spells, and more than 20 new monsters to slay!

A sequel 25 years in the making, Ultimate ADOM takes everything players love about traditional roguelikes — procedurally generated levels, random encounters, tons of skills, and a ridiculous amount of build varieties and play styles — and adds in modern sensibilities like multiple graphics options, intuitive controls, and a slick presentation.

“We love working with a developer as passionate about their titles as Team ADOM, who are always working on adding new content to the game and fixing issues,” said Assemble Entertainment CEO Stefan Marcinek. “With a full release that also includes a massive new update, players have a wealth of content to explore in a title already bursting with depth and value.”

“We couldn’t be happier to announce the full release of Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos, '' said Thomas Biskup, Creator of ADOM. “We listened closely to player feedback during the Early Access phase and are constantly working to add more content and improve the experience for our fans, so adding the Update of the Living Dead to the full release was a no-brainer.”

Update of the Living Dead Features:

• The Necromancer Class: A master of death magic and grafting, the Necromancer can utilize the dark powers of Lichcraft to transform himself into a powerful undead beast.
• 68 new Skills, 19 new Spells: The addition of three new skill trees — Death Mastery, Summoning Evil Spirits, and Death Magic — opens up whole new approaches to combat.
• 20 New Monsters: New beasts to slay are now present across all levels, including the Kobold Wizards who can learn all the spells you know.
• Factions Now Reward Loyalty: Each faction now provides unique starting equipment and stat boosts, and playing for the same faction repeatedly will grant powerful boons.
• Custom Characters: Players can now fully customize their character’s appearance, as well as the inventory screen and how items appear on the ground.
• And Much More: The new update comes with visual enhancements to spells, biomes, and wall decorations, better scaling for spells at high levels, and plenty of re-balancing, UI improvements, bug fixes and stability improvements

Since the events of the first game, the big bad known as Andor Drakon has been seemingly vanquished and Ancardia is still struggling with the cataclysmic aftermath of Andor’s defeat. Unfortunately, power abhors a vacuum, and seven factions are now scrambling to be the new top dog. While they bicker with each other, however, a new evil begins to stir below the surface. It’s up to you to head down into the aptly named Caverns of Chaos to investigate these ominous rumblings and keep things from getting out of hand. Dust off your spellbook, grab your favorite cloak, and maybe graft a new arm to your body so you can hold another weapon — you’re going to need it.

Key Features of Ultimate ADOM Include:

• Every Run is Different: Thanks to a staggering variety of skills, spells, classes, and factions, players can enjoy the challenge of Ultimate ADOM with a nearly-endless selection of build combinations.
  
• Read the Limb Loaning Agreement: Let nothing go to waste! Collect the severed body parts of your defeated foes and graft them onto your own body. As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one — especially when they’re attached to the same body!
  
• Multiple Methods for Magic Mastery: Swords are fun, but summoning demons, flinging balls of fiery death, animating the very walls of the dungeon to crush your enemies is even better. is even better. With more than 80 spells available spread throughout several different schools of magic, aspiring sorcerers have their work cut out for them.
  
• Keep Things Old School: Hardcore genre purists will be pleased to know that Ultimate ADOM can be played in classic ASCII format, and can even toggle between 3D mode and top-down view

Ultimate ADOM - Caverns of Chaos is now available on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam for £17.49 / €19.99. The game is currently available in English with German, French, Russian and Simplified Chinese subtitles. For more on the game, visit the official site at https -//www.ultimate-adom.com.
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In a statement published in late June responding to complaints from angry fans of the original ADOM, Thomas Biskup admitted that with Caverns of Chaos he was trying to reach a "more mainstream audience" in order to fund further development with the Ultimate ADOM engine. I really don't think that's going to work, but if you're at all interested, the game is available on Steam and GOG for $20 with a hefty 30% launch discount until next week.

 

[thesheeep]

Ah, yes, the famously large cross-section of mainstream gamers and hardcore roguelike aficionados.

 

[Tacgnol]

Biskup has always had questionable judgement and a rather large ego, before he made that post he was getting very butthurt and defensive IIRC.

If he wants money that bad he should just do another kickstarter for an ADOM sequel. He did well enough on the one for continued ADOM development.

 

[thesheeep]

He could have made something completely decoupled using just the engine.

But using the ADOM name and then doing something that is more similar to Dungeons Of Dredmor... I don't think that's the best course of action.
Although even DOD has more variance in its levels, doesn't it?

 

[Sacibengala]

From reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/pb8u4z/ultimate_adom_cavern_of_chaos_now_out_of_early/

"We intentionally so far have not lined out the details of the future roadmap (because we want to get out of the "monthly milestone hamster wheel" and back into creative mode). The general outline is:

• more UI optimizations
  
  
• more races and classes (all the stuff from ADOM, the new Mindcrafter will blow your mind once it's there)
  
  
• a lot more skills (specifically mundane skills, spell skill trees and secret skill trees that unlock once you master combinations of other skill trees)
  
  
• a lot more story content and quests
  
  
• more monsters
  
  
• eventually a surface world (but we need to tackle the other things first)

Our plan really is to work on features based on (a) player feedback ("what do you feel should be tackled most - except for the surface world which has to wait because it requires so much effort) and what is most fun to work on at the moment (because that was the key to success for ADOM Classic). The past couple of years really have been a race and there always is the danger of drying out creativity. We can't allow that to happen so future releases will be a combination of planned additions based on feature request and "wild & wahoo creativity" (because the underlying engine is done and it can do so many crazy things - we are still scratching the surface and need to show more of our muscles).

Updates also will come at more varying intervals (probably between 2 weeks and 3 months - mostly based on when enough exciting new stuff is done and stable). Patches will happen inbetween (as we do now... already today we will drop patch level 1 which will adjust various settings for better balance, remove some newly discovered loopholes and fix some bugs).

That's the current plan."

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hmmmmm.... ???

Spoiler

????? what is it ???

So is it finished or maybe they'll add something else. The steam update indicates DONE! The reddit, for what it is [its fucking reddit], leaves one to believe they might squeeze in something else.

SLURRRRRRRPPPPP!!! Da moneh!

Spoiler

I bet massive levels of trees was cut! And that's all i was looking forward too.

meh!

note: so few posts. Not surprising at all.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I have played and enjoyed a number of roguelikes, and I bounced off adom every time I tried it. Also the creator really rubs me the wrong way... I know a lot of people supposedly like it.

But reading more about it, it's not adom anyway? I dunno, I don't really get it.

 

[Trojan_generic]

Trailer was perhaps silly, but it was more informative about the actual content than any trailer I've seen during the last 20 years or so.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

That's because everyone spends all their time making huge cinematic trailers. The actual games are still on paper or napkins... or toilet paper.

 

[SerratedBiz]

ADOM was good back 20 years ago or whenever it was that I played it. How much longer can you milk the same cow?

Our plan really is to work on features based on (a) player feedback ("what do you feel should be tackled most

Might as well say "I don't even know what I'm doing anymore so why don't you just tell me what to waste time on".

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ask blizzard.