Dwarf Fortress

[Sock]

Anyone ever play Dwarf Fortress?

If you don't know what it is:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress (usually shortened to Dwarf Fortress) is a part roguelike, part city-building freeware video game set in a procedurally-generated high fantasy universe in which the player takes control of a group of dwarves and attempts to construct a successful and wealthy mountainhome. Along the way the player must face off with the dangers of their environment, invaders and sieges, vampires and other night creatures, and the occasional rampant megabeast, all while keeping their dwarves happy and their fortress alive. A second game mode, adventurer mode, places the player in the shoes of an adventurer as they wander the world and do battle with various creatures.

Dwarf Fortress is modeled on a complex physics engine and is presented in text-only Code page 437 graphics. Every world is generated completely from scratch, and historical events and figures are documented and recorded as game lore, including any and all sentient characters. The game is programmed solely by Tarn Adams, with input from his brother Zach Adams. Work began in 2002, the first alpha was released in August 2006, and development is ongoing. Tarn Adams has declared it his life's work, expecting 20 years before it is complete; development is supported solely through donations, and contributors receive either short stories or crayon drawings as thank yous from the developers.

The game has accumulated much praise for its rich content and deep gameplay, and holds a small but devoted fanbase. On the other hand, reviewers have pointed out its extremely steep learning curve, which makes picking up the game especially challenging, and mastering it even more so. As there is no way to expressly win the game, every fortress, no matter how successful, is bound to be destroyed somehow; this has prompted the trademark phrase of the community: "Losing is fun."

A much better explanation with pictures can be found here.



If you want to know why it's awesome read this(It'll only take two minutes) and this(Much longer than two minutes). Both are true stories of actual in game events.



The game is really complicated and doesn't have any kind of tutorial, so if you feel like trying it out(It's free) then I suggest going here. It's a simple step-by-step guide that comes with a pre-generated world to play in(And has a graphics pack installed to make things easier).



The above tutorial is for an older versions of Dwarf Fortress, so if you finish it I suggest downloading this for an updated version of the game(Don't do this until you understand the basics though).

[Yodaking]

How long can a game take? Can you save the game and come back to it later?

[Sock]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

How long can a game take? Can you save the game and come back to it later?

It's a lot like Minecraft(which was actually inspired by this game, according to Wikipedia) there's no real 'win condition', so games can last indefinitely. What you actually do is up to you - you could make a giant gold statue of yourself that spouts lava and is engraved with the history of your fortress, create a thriving metropolis before abandoning it and recovering all the artifacts in Adventure mode, or completely seal the entrance to your fortress, slowly starving to death in the darkness as bloodthirsty elephants wait outside to ambush those who step out. None of that is hyperbole - everything I just mentioned can and has been done in the game(Yes, Elephants hate dwarves).

There's almost infinite replayability because everything is randomly generated - Geography, history, civilizations, lineages, and the thoughts and preferences of each individual character.

But I should mention that the majority of people won't like this game. You can do some amazing stuff once you figure out how everything works, but that will take a very long time. The User Interface is pretty confusing, and the learning curve is very, very steep. The biggest downside is the graphics, which uses ASCII characters by default. Which means your game will look like this:

(In case your wondering, that's a goblin warband camped out near a river)

Although most people install graphics packs to make it look like this, which is marginally better:






EDIT: Totally forgot to answer your question Yes, you can save the game whenever you want.

[Heroscaper Guy]

Hey sock, where can I get the graphic's packs at? I downloaded it and it looks interesting but I'd like it to look marginally better at least.

[Sock]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper Guy

Hey sock, where can I get the graphic's packs at? I downloaded it and it looks interesting but I'd like it to look marginally better at least.

This is currently the best online tutorial, and it comes with a texture pack installed. Just follow the link, scroll down to Set Up, and download the game from either FileDropper or Mediafire. Unzip the folder wherever you want and type 'dwarfort' into the start menu(The big green button on the bottom left of your screen). Click on the 'dwarfort' application to run it.

Just follow the tutorial from there and your all set

The tutorial doesn't have the current version of the game, but is basically the same for gameplay purposes. I don't recommend it, but if you really feel like skipping the tutorial(Or if you complete it) then you could try downloading a pre-textured version of the game Here(*Warning* This is a direct download link. Don't freak out when it starts downloading.)