I feel pretty confident that ToME is firmly one of major roguelikes. I am assuming we have players here. My favorite roguelike has been dungeon crawl stone soup, but now I am stepping into ToME in a big way. I don’t personally mind a few minor spoilers in the way of tactics or class unlocks. I’ve known of ToME since V2 when it really was Tolkien based but never had devoted a lot to it. Version 4 is entirely different.
For those unfamiliar, ToME could be described as a typical fantasy roguelike. A pretty boring description that does a great disservice to the amount of development and effort that has gone into it over the years. Unfortunately the world is inundated with quite a few unremarkable typical fantasy roguelikes ToME has a lot of craft that makes it very noteworthy and ToME stands proudly with the likes of Nethack, ADOM, and Crawl.
The shear volume of content in ToME and its UI efforts is what intrigues me so far. I am curious what other players find interesting.
I guess I failed the first test, knowing what to do with this .bz2 file. I thought to extract it, but it’s just a .tar file inside. I extracted THAT and it’s a collection of files and folders, I don’t see an .exe. There seem to be no instructions on the page on how to actually PLAY the game, that I could find, either.
EDIT - Ah, I didn’t even see the “download installer” button above the sea of other download links. Pulling that down now.
I really love the classes, which are distinct, powerful, and creative. And I love that you unlock many of the trickier ones as you play more and more of the game.
I got this through a bundle a while back. It’s pretty solid. I like seeing the online updates of other people dying.
Other than that, I don’t think this is better Roguelike than others. Just another that has some different ideas than I’m used to. For example, playing as a dwarf and having a companion fight with you was pretty fun.
Yea, the classes are great. I don’t know how bad to feel about this minor spoiler but hearing about the chronomancer was fantastic. They have spells that do crazy things. A remove from existence spell creates a fork of the game state with you and your target as the only inhabitants. If you can kill the target it returns you to the original game state less the target. Sorry if it spoiled anything but that’s an example of the innovation in the game.
While playing a little more last night I have come up with a few more reasons to consider ToME. There are some very modern WoW and GW2 sensibilities stuffed in here. There is an action bar that is there for more than just convenience. ToME has all the classes managing abilities and cool down is a very important tactical consideration. There is a very deep rabbit hole here and even if you’re not into the other roguelikes if you’re a MMO aficionado or maybe if you like 4th edition D&D you may fund something here.
I’ve been a huge fan of ToME. since I rediscovered it shortly after .37 or .38 debuted (a couple of years ago now). The character building is excellent. My biggest qualm is that there is an account unlock (not a class or skill tree, though) that eliminates an area of tedium that requires considerable effort to obtain. I really wish it had been made more accessible.
Also, if you’ve already donated (or if you bought TOME on Indieroyale/Desura/etc, though you’ll have to get your unlock key from those services) all you have to do to get the Steam version added is to link your donator account with your Steam profile.
One thing I liked about ToME when I first played it was that even melee classes have more gameplay than just bumping into the next monster. Often in roguelikes or ARPGS or whatever, warriors or fighters are kind of boring, but all the fighter classes in ToME have pretty interesting and thematic abilities.
I picked this up, completed the tutorial (yay achievement #1) and promptly started a ‘normal’ difficulty game with ‘roguelike’ lives. ToME isn’t easy out of the gate! Geez! I BARELY held on past the first map. Fun game, though there’s a little too much interface.
I finally pushed a character past level 11 before he was treated most unkindly by a large pile of monsters and destroyed. The game is challenging, but I truly deserved to die when I did.
I had progressed to the point where I was feeling pretty powerful. I kicked down the door to a boss level at the bottom of a dungeon and charged in, thinking my Human Cormac Bullwark would just stack the monster corpses around him like cordwood. Next thing I know I’m being simultaneously pinned, stunned, blinded, range attacked, spell attacked, and burned.
I died, and a friendly angel asked me if I wished to respawn on the spot and try again or be restored at a nearby peaceful place. Peaceful place? Bah! I’m ready now. Of course, three turns later I was dead again, and this time the angel let me stay that way. Yet another stupid death, as they say…
The stunning, pinning, and blinding can be dealt with by using a wild physical infusion. They do not cost a turn to activate if memory serves, and can’t be rendered inaccessible the way normal talents are (by way of example stunning puts 4 random talents on cooldown, and nothing else actively cools down while stunned; this does not apply to infusions or runes however).
Nothing like a wild physical infusion to get those juices flowing in the morning!
I am enjoying how the game seems to crack open unlocks every so often as I progress. Now if they could just fix the issue that seems to be keeping Steam from tracking achievements.
