Dwarf Fortress: Very Ambitious Roguelike

well now I feel bad for laughing along with racist kids, thanks ;/

I told my kid years ago about this ASCII game that was amazing and she tried it for, like, 20 seconds and gave up. I’m super excited for this and will try and get her back into it now that she is more into retro stuff and now that it’s not ASCII anymore.

Yeah, I feel a little bad that I find his stuff actually kinda funny. Though I have a feeling that’s because I’m old enough that I’m not catching half of the memes and subliminal clips that are the actual ‘bad’ parts.

Really useful tutorial:

Did you mean to link Episode 3? Is this the best starting point, or should I start with EP1?

I linked ep 3 because the guest on this episode gives better explanations, you should start with EP1. But don’t worry too much if you don’t quite follow the first two. She basically fills in the gaps from those episodes here.

Perfect, thanks!

This was like one grandmother teaching another grandmother how to play. I’m no doubt going to find tutorials like this helpful one day.

Some light history while we wait, because losing is fun: Fall of Civilizations

There are also chronological and audio-only playlists of the same content.

Rakust Locuntun — a talented carpenter. She’s furnished the entire fortress with beds, tables, chairs — you name it. An odd quirk of her characteristics made it so that she seemed to produce almost exclusively masterwork items. Despite her skill, she finds work unsatisfying.

Reading her thoughts, a story began accumulating in my head: the master craftswoman who feels nothing for her work. Day in and day out, she makes fine goods that delight her fellow dwarves, but she herself takes no pleasure in their creation. She goes through the motions, because she is depended upon. Besides, what else is she supposed to do? She has found her calling, even if it does not feed her soul. She is useful, even if she is not happy.

I felt sad when thinking about her, a feeling that only worsened when I discovered her personality tab. Among the many gutting sentences contained therein included: “She has a great kinesthetic sense, great creativity, a great deal of patience, a very good sense of empathy and a sharp intellect, but she has a little difficulty with words and a large deficit of willpower.” And if that wasn’t devastating enough: “She needs alcohol to get through the working day.” Then finally: “She doesn’t really care about anything anymore.”

Well that’s a little too close to home.

Looking forward to finally playing this. Is there a tutorial? Do I need to start watching YT tutorials?

Yes.5

That was wonderful!

I’m really excited to finally have a version of this game I can purchase and dig into, for years I bounced off the free version as seemingly impenetrable, but here I can support the devs and get something closer to a game I’m more likely to roll up my sleeves to try and learn. And I’m happy to do so, sight unseen, just on the tales (like this one) I’ve read over the years. Unfortunately, I have THREE big games on my plate at the moment, and that’s already like 1 too many, so I’ll buy it but I won’t be digging into it immediately.

I’m going to be following this thread with great interest, however, so I hope everyone writes up their experiences and tales!

I know Dwarf Fortress is the granddaddy of them all, but how does it compare to something like RimWorld at this stage of both games’ development?

I held off buying DF until it comes to Steam. I swear it feels like I made that decision like a decade ago now, haha. The time is finally arriving.

DF has been in continuous development for almost 20 years, so if you’re looking for depth and a crazy meticulous simulation of emergent systems, DF has that in spades.

Rimworld is great, but it doesn’t come close to the kind of detail simulated by DF.

Rimworld is icing on the cake. Dwarf Fortress is the whole cake, along with a recipe book on the art of cake design.

Godamn US launch times! It’s the 6th in Oz already, but I gotta wait another 21 hours!!

Looking in from the outside it looks intimidating and a lot of work to get to terms with. I just want to eat the cake.

You can use the extra time shoring up your spider defenses or something, I’m sure!

I, like most people who have sampled DF over the years, have started countless games and fizzled out when I got tired of fighting the interface or trying to decipher what was going on. I am excited to try this release which, from everything I can see so far, seems to sand down a lot of the sharp edges.