DwarfFortress
posted 09 Oct 2011
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I was hoping to have something interesting to say about my game this week but sadly I’ve grown completely addicted to Dwarf Fortress.
If you don’t know what Dwarf Fortress is, I’ll try to explain it. Although it’s technically a game, the level of detail makes it more like a Dwarf Simulator. My favourite level of detail is the combat. Dwarves can lose finger, have organs bruised and ruptured and can even (rarely) have their eyelids torn off by the many horrible beasts in Dwarf Fortress.
The main explanation I see of Dwarf Fortress is the sheer depth. In the screenshot, all the menus on the right have multiple sub menus and some have hundreds upon hundreds of configurable options and decisions. The game is micromanagement at it’s best. No telling a group what to do, you have to instruct individual dwarves what tasks you need done. This gets a little bit crazy when you have more than 50 dwarves, so I’d recommend the Dwarf Therapist tool, it just makes sorting out your Dwarves preferred jobs much, much easier.
The fact that a game needs a tool to actually configure the damn thing just shows the complexity involved. I really love this game as I’m a huge RTS and management type game fan. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 and Sim City 4 are probably two of my favourite games ever. Simply managing a city/theme park/etc is immensely enjoyable to me.
Once you get over the complexity of Dwarf Fortress and get your first fortress running, there aren’t too many tasks to keep yourself overly occupied. (Always, always cehck you have booze and food). But every few in-game months, some kind of creature or goblin ambush will come along and threaten your fort, so you need to build defences and hope that your military can defeat the giany eyeless magpie that spits ice at you (Yes, I had to fight one of these, a poor Dwarf was strangled by it).
A lot of people though don’t like playing Dwarf Fortress but like listening to stories about it. I don’t have anything very interesting to say about my current playthough, but might keep a better diary of my next playthrough as I grow tired of my current fortress.
I should be bored of Dwarf Fortress by the end of this week, so will hopefully get some more game development done, or even start another little project I have in mind.
And remember, Losing is Fun