Posted to rec.games.roguelike.adom by Thomas Biskup.

Greetings to ye all!

Let me preface this with the comment 'I know, I said it never would
happen'.  Basically this shows how much I really know ;-)

At the weekend I took at inside look at the Allegro games library
by Shawn Hargreaves and after examining his most excellent product
I really feel compelled to add more visual appeal to ADOM.  Originally
I started to write ADOM to learn new things and have a lot of fun --
and this at least seems to be a way to learn a lot new things since
I've never before done much graphics programming.

The graphics version won't be free but will be shareware (for a
registration fee of about $30 to $40 with free bugfixes and upgrade
fee of about $10 for every major new version -- which would occur but
once or twice per year).

*BUT* there are a couple of requirements that need to be fulfilled
so that this can happen.

First of all I won't be able to do it alone since many graphics have
to be drawn and I'm neither a trained artist nor a natural talent...
and I don't have the time to draw all these pictures.  Thus I need some
helping hands.  I need some willing artists who would not mind spending
some time on drawing pictures for ADOM... for many items and monsters
especially.  What's in for you?  Well, the fame :-)  But not only that.
If the shareware version sells *very* well (say several hundred of them)
I'd also be willing to compensate your efforts with some minor amount
of cash (say $1 per picture or something like that).

Additionally I'd like to have some sound.  I've finished the new
title screen for ADOM this morning and while I love it, it's too silent.
Thus basically there would be need for two types of background music:
one for the title screen and one for the game itself (which you could
turn off if you are annoyed).

Since this obviously needs some coordination (and I don't know whether
there is enough support and help available) I'd first like to receive
email from volunteers so that I could add some coordination to this.

Volunteers should meet some requirements:
* You must be able to draw PCX graphics (LBM, BMP and uncompressed
  TGA also are options but I need to check memory requirements
  first).  Preferrably you are able to use Paintshop Pro in
  the latest version (hell, no I really have to register it :-) _or_
* You are able to create a WAV or MIDI (format 0 or 1) soundtrack.

All graphics will be in 256 colors.  I'm currently targetting a screen
resolution of 800x600 (with no alternatives to keep my sanity).  Sound
will be mono sound.  For now only DOS will be supported although Linux
also might be a choice.  If ADOM gets ported to other systems, maybe
someone will build licensed graphics versions for those systems, too.
The text version of ADOM will always be freely available.

If you are interested in this and would be willing to help, please
contact me and prove that you were really willing to help (this refers
to those people saying that adding graphics is simple and they would
be very willing to help me ;-).

I have also made available my very basic graphical title screen for ADOM
at
       ftp://members.aol.com/ADOMDev/adom-gfx.zip
It only works under DOS and I it requires an SVGA card capable of a
800x600 resoution.  I have not yet tested on anything else but a Pentium
166 :-}  If soneone is able to come up with a dark, moody and dramatic
soundtrack for that screen, I'd be very happy to hear it :-)


Thomas Biskup
ADOM Maintainer