Fiddling with the ADOM Deluxe menu screens

Right now I am toying with the new design and interaction workflow for the ADOM Deluxe menu screens - in ASCII mode. Once the dust settles and I am happy with the design (and Team ADOM agrees ;-) ) Krys & Co. will turn the ASCII design into a beautiful graphical layout.

Here we go with the revised Deluxe start screen:

You will note that - instead of just being able to press SPACE - there now are three options:

1. Play the Game (which is like pressing SPACE before - you just get to the next screen; SPACE still works, too, so that nobody has to change old habits)
2. Settings (which will allow to configure overall settings like sound and music volume, full screen at start or not, etc.)
3. Credits (which provides a deserved hall of fame for Team ADOM)

The next screen also has been greatly revised. Here's my current take:

As we are talking about the commercial Deluxe version, several things have disappeared, among them:

• the postcard quest data
• the FAQ
• the request for donations

The newly gained room is being taken up by focussing on several game modes:

1. Tutorial (for learning the game; it's been there for a while and is going to be expanded to make it even easier to get into the game)
2. Restore an old game. (You know about that. Nothing new here.)
3. Repeat last game. (This basically will be the standard [complex] character generation but ADOM will memorize all your past choices except for the name and repeat all those choices; thus if you always want to play a female character with randomly rolled stats, random class and of dwarves origin it will be but one click to do so.)
4. Generate a new character. (The standard character generation procedure with more choices in Deluxe)
5. Challenge of the week. (One special instance of the Infinite Dungeon with special rules that differ for each week. One attempt and hopefully one highscore per week - we still are checking the Steam capabilities here ;-) )
6. Cooperative mode. (Separate highscore. The blame will be easier the more of your Steam friends play ADOM at the same time. And the more friends you have in total the easier it will be)
7. Exploration mode. (Gain a free blessed wand of wishing. No highscore entry in this mode.)

Additionally during character generation you will be able to fine-tune the actual game play by selecting game variants:

• hunger on/off
• corruption on/off
• save & restore allowed (RPG mode)
• maybe more...

Deviating from any of the defaults will lock achievements, result in a separate highscore list and turning hunger/corruption off will greatly reduce your final score in the separate RPG highscore.

The goal of these designs naturally is to

• keep the roguelike spirit alive (by making the defaults and the central highscore focussed on being roguelike).
• offering options to players who more enjoy the RPG aspect instead of the roguelike aspect.

So much for my current thoughts and designs...