The Present (ADOM II)

Every adventurer needs a mission and as ADOM II (powered by JADE) is my personal adventure here is my mission with ADOM II:

To build the most flexible and most interesting single-player computer fantasy roleplaying game ever.

What does this mean?

ADOM II is all about flexibility. I strongly believe that the replayability of a game is highly determined by the flexibility it allows in the ways a player can approach the game. Specifically for ADOM II this means that

• large parts of the game are randomly created anew each time you start to play. This minimzes repetitiveness and maximizes replay value as each game will be different from the last.
• random parts and predetermined events are used in a healthy mixture. This provides for a familiar game background that people can share, defines fix points that can be used as goals for the individual player and permits players to evolve different strategies.
• highly different approaches to tackling the game exist. In the end you will be able to use a combat-heavy approach, try your luck with skillful approaches, engage in intense magical studies or try all at once. Additionally you can try to make heavy use of resources for building stuff or simply try to move ahead as fast as possible Whatever your personal preference... ADOM II should offer a venue to experience it to the fullest.

ADOM II should be interesting. This means that there should be surprises lurking around every corner and I want to have enough content that people after years of playing still will be able to discover new stuff and be amazed by the depth of the game. The venerable game Wasteland here is my deepest source of inspiration - never have I seen a game that was as detailed and as imaginative, especially for its tiny size compared to todays games.
At the same time ADOM II should not fall into the trap of other overly complex games that require weeks of hard learning before you can get anywhere. While in my humble opinion it's perfectly ok to require years to master and win a game, you effortlessly should be able to enjoy the early game and have more than enough alternatives ahead of you to avoid any kind of frustration.

One side aspect of "interest" to me is that ADOM II must be a roguelike game. The most compelling feature (besides randomness) of roguelike games for me is permadeath - when your character dies, he's dead and (usually) won't come back. Especially not just because you might be able to restore an older save point in the game. Permadeath adds a peculiar edge to a game where the player has reason to fear for his character with each new challenge... this is vastly different from the endless repetitiveness so prevalent in many modern game "designs" (IMHO repetitiveness not design but rather anti-design - if you force your players to repeat certain parts of a game again and again without any real new challenge this is boredom and not good design... try harder!).

ADOM II is single player. I yet have to see a decent multi-player design for roguelike games and also am not much of a fan of MMORPGs so ADOM II is for all you out there who feel like me. You should be able to play ADOM II all on your own and get endless hours of entertainment out of it.

ADOM II is a fantasy game. I love fantasy, I breathe fantasy and I very strongly believe in a coherent, strong and unified background story that helps to ground the player in the game. No chainsaws here (except maybe if at some point a time trip gets implemented ;-) ).

ADOM II is a roleplaying game and as such it is all about the main character which means that you should be able to build a highly detailed character if you so are inclined. On the other hand the design challenge here is to find a way that allows casual players to quickly get into the game without being overwhelmed by miniscule details.

So here we go... this is what drives me in my quest with ADOM II. If you share these ideals and like these goals maybe we'll together manage to make ADOM II the most successful computer RPG ever... but that would be the sugar coating on the cake and not a goal in itself ;-)

See ya in Ancardia - Axes high!