Doman: Grzechy Ardana
| Industry | Video game development |
|---|---|
| Founder | Mariusz Pawluk (artist and designer) |
| Headquarters | Poland |
| Products | Doman: Grzechy Ardana, Franko: The Crazy Revenge, Draggy & Croco |
Doman: Grzechy Ardana (translated as Doman: Sins of Ardan) is a side-scrolling hack and slash beat 'em up title created by the Polish developer World Software, released on the Amiga platform in 1995. Drawing inspiration from sword and sorcery motifs akin to those found in Conan The Barbarian, it acts as a spiritual follow-up to World Software’s previous game, Franko: The Crazy Revenge. The narrative is adapted from an unpublished short story by artist Mariusz Pawluk, who also played a significant role in the game’s artistic and design aspects. Doman represents World Software’s last Amiga project; although they later produced the family-oriented Draggy & Croco, its nearly finished version was never commercially distributed due to publisher issues.
Gameplay
In the vein of Franko, Doman offers arcade-style hack 'n' slash beat 'em up action. Players assume control of either Doman, a barbarian, or Baurus, a Nordic fighter, with an option for cooperative multiplayer. The objective involves battling Ardan and his minions through five distinct levels. The starting weapon is a sword, but players may encounter NPCs who provide healing or alternative weapons; however, some technical constraints cause weapon inventories to reset in specific areas. An innovative mini-game interrupts the main campaign where players must awaken the protagonist to defend against an assassin.
The controls utilize directional inputs combined with a single attack button, a common scheme for Amiga games. Combat mechanics include a low-damage jump slash that also serves as an evasive move, a standard slash that can transition into throws, an overhead slash inflicting moderate damage, and a heavy attack varying with the equipped weapon. Additionally, players have the ability to stab enemies when they are downed.
Development
Contrasting with the more humorous tone of Franko, Doman was designed with a more serious atmosphere, incorporating comedic elements sparingly—such as a cameo appearance by Franko in cut-scenes and an Kalashnikov cheat code.
The entire codebase for Doman was rebuilt from the ground up over several months, reflecting the artist’s preference against reusing existing code. Initially, character sprites were divided into upper and lower segments to allow independent weapon depiction and reduce disk usage. Nonetheless, synchronization problems led to adopting full sprites for each weapon variant, which resulted in swamp levels defaulting players back to the basic sword. Unlike Franko, where enemy corpses remained painted onto backgrounds indefinitely, Doman implemented fading corpses for enhanced realism.
Mirage Interactive, a Polish firm, legally distributed approximately 60 classic Polish games—including Doman—through their Retroattack! website aimed at Atari, Amiga, and PC audiences.
The soundtrack sought to capture the essence of Conan the Barbarian themes; however, the composer later expressed doubts about how well this was achieved. Visual assets were produced using Deluxe Paint.
Reception
According to AmigaOS reviews, Doman appeared more carefully crafted and developed compared to its predecessor. PPE highlighted that this title contained even greater levels of violence than Franko.
Although both games generated sufficient revenue, the development team found it challenging to compensate themselves adequately and pursued new publishing partners for upcoming projects.