For anyone who is thinking about giving it a spin for the first time, do yourself a favor and don't get this .01 version. Either wait for a few patches or download the far more stable and mature 0.40.24 (<a href="http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/older_versions.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/older_versions.html</a>)<p>Dwarf Fortress is basically a perpetual beta with lots of major bugs as it is, but especially brand new major versions like this one usually have multiple game-breaking bugs, including crashes, corrupted saves, etc. It would be a shame if people willing to give it a try would give it up due to the poor quality of the initial release of a new major version.<p>Dwarf Fortress is a truly unique game and really worth putting in the effort to learn simply due to the stories it generates as you play.<p>Here's an example of a story that happened to me. <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1mb0cw/the_sad_story_of_môsom/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1mb0cw/the_s...</a> Note this story is in no way embellished by me. Everything described there was actually simulated within the game.
Does anyone know enough about how this game works internally to know if alternative interfaces and presentations are possible?<p>I'm blind, and have wanted to play this game ever since I heard of it years ago. I used to play console-based roguelikes, and while they were a bit slow to interact with, RLs were a refreshing tactical change from text-based IF.<p>Reading lots of DF stories would suggest that there's some sort of internal eventbus-style system by which the characters themselves interpret their surroundings, and if you could hook into that, you could describe the world textually to some extent. You might even add audio cues for certain events to increase the non-visual fidelity of the UI.<p>I see in some of the below comments that there's a text-based mode. Might give that a try to see if it's playable on the same scale as Nethack/Angband were for me.
This is why text-based games are king. One dot release and we're seeing a mountain of new features.<p>I've always dreamed of getting together a big budget to make a text adventure (e.g. Zork) of incredible scope, both in depth and "interactibility" -- a complex object typologies system, bring in learning chat bots for NPCs, and a system where users can add new objects, rooms and descriptions while they play, a complete object relational system (so it can tell "on", from "next to", from "above"), a very complete state system and so on.<p>Perhaps an "adjectives system", so it knows a huge amount of adjectives relating to any one object, and can generate simple novel sentences about that object on repeat views.<p>I think that at some point someone will be crazy enough to do it, and it's going to be most excellent.
Dwarf Fortress is a truly special endeavor. The gameplay is unique and engrossing. And completely maddening, in a the best way. The quirky bitmap graphics are mesmerizing. Each time you start a new game, it's a new world with new areas to explore and new chances to make your kingdom last longer than the last one. But the music! Amazing! Honestly the music is my favorite part.<p>In a lot of ways DF is similar to the early days Minecraft. It was just "special". You can get lost in it for hours on end.<p>Girlfriend - "You want to go out tonight?"
Me - "Nah I'm good. I am just going to play Dwarf Fortress for 10 hours..."
Girlfriend - "Well I am going to go to Dim Sum Garden!"
Me "Iiee decisions, decisions!"
If you'd like to learn to play the game, it's not easy. I've created a multipart video tutorial to help you sort of find your feet, learn a few of the keybinds, and get a checklist of things you need. It also talks about how to get better graphics and an isometric view.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBrdUj1adIBD-vgUodaaxebcdqQ4oEWtg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBrdUj1adIBD-vgUodaax...</a><p>Enjoy all the fun. Dwarf Fortress is one of the only single player games that has held my attention consistently over the years. I suspect you might find it engaging as well.
I admire the forever project, and the dedication of the brothers. I've played the game way too much in the past, but I grew increasingly frustrated with the single threaded model combined with their disinterest in fixing it.<p>Building an expansive fortress and number of dwarfs is a lot of fun (honestly, probably the most fun I've had with a game since Dungeon Keeper and Settlers way back) but then FPS starts dropping and you find yourself doing dumb things to counteract that. The fun bits fade away and it gets tedious.<p>To me, DF is best looked at and enjoyed as an amazing art project and an inspiration for other game devs.
>First time playing dorf<p>>Make a nice, tidy fort, everything is going great<p>>Out of booze and it’s winter<p>>”Oh well, the farm’s still working”
>suddenly<p>>”Urist McFarmer has gone berserk!”
>and, soon after<p>>”New migrants have arrived.”<p>>there are like 3 children with them<p>>they are on the entrance, where there’s a gigantic moat and a bridge<p>>Urist McFarmer is on the other side<p>>he pulls the lever to the bridge<p>>all of the children are on the bridge<p>>they fall down<p>>they are all still alive, they fell like 12 z-levels though<p>>the moat is almost completely red<p>>they’re crawling around, everything is broken oh god<p>>Urist McFarmer is finally put down by one of the miners<p>>children aren’t even starving or dehydrating, they’re just crawling there<p>>have to lock up the non-important people in a room so that they don’t diminish the food reserves<p>>the nobles are sad now, the miasma is getting to them<p>>dump the corpses in the moat, including urist mcfarmer<p>>the children are puking and still crawling, not even starving or dehydrating, just endless agony<p>>the migrants are still on the other side, they die too<p>>the only people left alive are a few miners and a farmer<p>>and the children<p>>they never die<p>via <a href="http://dfstories.com/" rel="nofollow">http://dfstories.com/</a>
It is unfortunate that a game as famous as Dwarf Fortress only makes so little in money: <a href="http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=152358.0" rel="nofollow">http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=152358.0</a>
The only thing that is frustrating for me about DF (well ex-game frustration, not in-game) is that getting visualizations and interface changes in is gated by Toady. I dearly wish that this part could be taken over by the open source community; it would let him keep writing the simulator, and we would get some amazing VR-friendly worlds on top of the simulator.<p>I know that he doesn't want to support an open developer community because he, you know, wants to write his simulator and make it even more incredibly awesome than it is, but if only there were a way to get that code unlinked and into an API, it would make millions of people very happy.
I tried to play this game, and I think that the interface is a complete bottleneck. Once you have more than 12 dwarves, which you are completely intended to do, it's tedious and difficult to access them, organize them, and generally, the interface to the simulator you have is like drinking through a straw. I think the fun would be massively improved with making it easier to interact with the simulator.
Summary of the maddening complexity of Dwarf Fortress: <a href="http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png" rel="nofollow">http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png</a>
Home of the best bug tracker ticket titles evar:<p>"Lye in wood barrels can't be used for making soap"<p>"Dwarves upset from not seeing family not in fort"<p>"Zombies start conversation with necromancer adventurer who tries to sleep in their house"
Anyone else compare every other game they play to Dwarf Fortress? The only game I've ever played that even comes close (IMHO) is The Long Dark, and that's only because I know the studio pours their heart and soul into the game.<p>So glad this is still going. I hope development never stops!
Word to those who want to begin their DF journey: counter to what you might expect for a text-based game, DF can chew a lot of CPU cycles. I always pick small world size and very short world history at worldgen, bc the larger/longer worlds have a lot more stuff for the game to keep track of and can slow it down, IME.<p>Strike the earth!
What language is Dwarf Fortress written in?<p>It is closed source, isn't it? I assume it is, like ADOM, to keep the secrets. Though there is an obvious solution: you could separate the game data from the engine, and open-source the engine, for public benefit and participation.