ToME 2

Tales of Middle-earth: Angband with everything added

Date of birth1998 PernAngband 2.9.9a, 24 Oct 1998; renamed T.o.M.E. 1.0.0 on 5 May 2002

CreatorDarkGod (Nicolas Casalini) now maintained by Bardur Arantsson

LanguageC + Lua ~214,000 lines of C

PlatformUnix, Windows, DOS, Mac X11, GTK, SDL, curses

Lineage

Angband → Zangband → PernAngband (1998, a Zangband with dragons of Pern) → T.o.M.E. (2002). DarkGod dropped the Pern material and moved the game to Tolkien’s Middle-earth. After 2.3.5 (2008) he left to write the unrelated ToME 4, Tales of Maj’Eyal. See the family tree.

Played here: ToME 2.3.11-ah, the community branch by Bardur Arantsson on GitHub, with the Theme module included.

Credits

DarkGod (Nicolas Casalini)	Author of PernAngband and ToME
Bardur Arantsson	Maintainer of the 2.3.x “ah” branch
Chris Weisiger	Vaults, a magic realm, special levels
Andreas Koch	The tiles and the graphics editor
Kusunose Toru, pelpel, Improv, Mef, Furiosity (Theme) …	Fixes, docs, modules (see `credits.txt`)

Screenshots

Module choice — Start: pick the module, ToME or Theme.

First steps: a Human Warrior in Bree, the starting town.

Blue worm mass — A fight: a warrior missing a blue worm mass twice in the streets of Bree.

Inventory: food, torches, chain mail, a broad sword, a ring of Fear Resistance and the Adventurer’s Guide.

Trivia

The Pern roots: PernAngband 3.0 “changed some artifacts / unique monsters to be more pernish”. (changes.old, Nov 1998)
From 2.0.0 the splash screen randomly says “Tales of Middle Earth” or “Troubles of Middle Earth”. (changes.old, Jul 2002)
Releases had names: 1.0.0 was “Between the Darkness and the Light”, 2.0.0 “Point of No Return”, 2.1.0 “No Surrender, No Retreat”. (changes.old)
2.1.0 added modules: whole games written on top of the engine. Theme, by Furiosity, is one, playable here. (changes.txt)
The name lives on in the unrelated Tales of Maj’Eyal (ToME 4).

What's unique

Skills instead of fixed classes: 58 skills; your class only sets starting points and multipliers.
Race, subrace and class: a Vampire Dunadan Necromancer is a valid character.
Gods: worship Eru, Manwë, Tulkas, Melkor or Yavanna, with piety and favours.
A wilderness map with towns (Bree, Gondolin, Minas Anor, Lothlórien, Khazad-dûm) and many dungeons.
Possession, symbiosis with monsters, mimicry, runecraft, alchemy, sentient weapons that gain levels.

Code dive

C, about 214,000 lines in 125 source files, plus Lua (tolua bindings) for spells and quests. Built with CMake.
Data in text files (lib/edit/*_info.txt), levels as .map files, a whole second game in lib/mods/theme.
This port: compiled to WebAssembly with a canvas frontend, tiles, sound and music, plus auto-explore (X), an Enter command menu and an inventory cursor.

Stats

Thing	Count	Notable ones
Races	22	Beorning (turns into a bear), Ent, Maia, Thunderlord (rides an eagle), Death Mold (cannot move)
Subraces	8	Vampire, Skeleton, Zombie, Spectre, Lost Soul, Barbarian, Hermit
Classes	32	In 6 groups: Possessor, Symbiant, Mimic, Runecrafter, Unbeliever (hates magic), Geomancer, Bard
Skills	58	Weaponmastery, Necromancy, Possession, Symbiosis, Boulder-throwing, Bearform-combat
Abilities	11	Bought with ability points
Monsters	~1,077	Sauron, Morgoth, the Nazgûl, Glaurung
Object kinds	675	plus 188 ego types, 201 artifacts, 4 sets
Dungeons	28	Barrow-downs, Mirkwood, Moria, Dol Guldur, Angband, Mount Doom, the Void

Manual

The full in-game help (races, classes, magic schools, gods, spoilers, FAQ) is on the site: read the manual. In the game, ? opens it.

Getting started

Open the game and pick a (ToME).
Make a character: a Human or Dunadan Warrior is simplest; Priest or Mage are harder.
Wear your gear (w), read the Adventurer’s Guide, buy potions of Cure Light Wounds and a Scroll of Word of Recall in Bree.
Your first quest is in Bree; your goal is Dol Guldur. Ctrl+Q shows the quest log.
Leave town to the wilderness and enter the Barrow-downs or Mirkwood.

Help

No full walkthrough exists. The help has a spoiler-free FAQ, a dungeon list and a newbie guide (? → newbie). Tips:

Put skill points into your weapon mastery and Combat first.
Use Enter for the command menu if you forget a key.
Dungeons have a recommended level; the list is in the help under Dungeons.

Cheats

Debug mode is built in: press Ctrl+A and answer y. The game is then not scored. Useful keys: W wish, x XP boost, c create object, j jump to level, s/n summon monster, m map. All listed in the help (Debug). Used here for the fight screenshot.