Tales of Maj'Eyal and the ToME family
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ASCII illustration
A long family history, followed by a new beginning.
1998: PernAngband roots; 2009: new codebase; 2012: Maj’Eyal 1.0.
By Nicolas “DarkGod” Casalini and collaborators.
The ToME name covers more than one game. Casalini’s work began with PernAngband in 1998 and continued through Tales of Middle Earth. Tales of Maj’Eyal was a new project begun in 2009, with a new codebase and eventually its own setting. Version 1.0 arrived on 31 December 2012.
The distinction matters. Maj’Eyal is a successor to that earlier work, not simply an Angband variant with a newer title.
Its battles revolve around character builds and abilities with cooldowns. A turn may be spent preparing, disabling an enemy or escaping, with the knowledge that an ability used now will not be ready immediately afterwards. The larger campaign gives those decisions room to develop across many encounters.
Casalini’s account of replacing the old implementation is unusually useful historical evidence. The change was driven partly by the difficulty of making an inherited codebase support the game he wanted. The resulting independence was creative as well as technical: the setting of Eyal could grow around new classes and ideas.
Sources
Casalini on the first nine years of the new codebase
Official press kit and release date