I miss the cinematic intro.
I have succumb to this - awesome tip to get the Steam key via itch.io.
I suspect this will ruin my forward progress in both Cyberpunk and the latest Distant Worlds 2 beta. Both are great… but this has claws.
Spikes, actually. It menaces with them.
Kruggsmash does some great stories for DF.
How is that going?
I’m a big fan, but can only do it for spells of a week or two before needing to switch to something else. It does keep drawing me back in every big update.
So I had my first “Strange Mood” occur and unfortunately the dwarf in question went insane because I was unable to get him some “stacked cloth.” Luckily, he just went melancholy insane instead of violently insane.
I watched as he puttered about, despairing, not eating or drinking of course. Finally, Avuz Melbilubbul, recent immigrant and father of two, passed away at the young age of 50 outside by the trade depot, horrifying the broker and ending the on going trade negotiations (I think, its unclear if they went through).
His corpse was quickly picked up and having a tomb and coffin all ready for him, I assumed that would be his destination. Instead, the hauler took him to the refuse dump and ignobly thru his corpse there. Double checking, I specifically assigned the tomb I made for Avuz to ensure he would be properly buried.
The next individual assigned to haul the deceased to their final resting place is 9 year old Kulet Ibrukoddom, Dwarven Child.
She has some thoughts:
So, a 9 year old dwarf is tasked with burying an insane dwarf in a snow storm. Other than that, my 3 year old fortress has been running pretty smoothly!
EDIT: I scoured through her relations and could not figure out who the hell Muthkat Inchlances was. But there may be a hint:
Do the dwarven children have make believe friends?
So the common saying is that DF is much more complex than Rimworld.
Yet in DF there is no concept of light, dwarves can operate in pitch black environments, whereas Rimworld has a full lighting system. Is this the exception that proves the rule or are there a bunch of things that happen to be more fully developed in Rimworld?
Dwarves - Duh, Infravision!
:P
Some of the complexity was just in the obtuseness of the prior UI. DF is more in-depth as far as in-world modeling of… everything. But it also requires that you dig deeper for that stuff, because it isn’t just there on the surface.
Um, so to speak.
Well, I can live without lighting anyway (as can these dwarves apparently). Really enjoying the game generally, it feels like a gem, but the sound design can be very subpar.
With the soundtrack, you could be rocking along to a good tune and then suddenly the next track plays with 15 seconds of high pitch sharp tinnitus sound digging into your eardrum. The sound design is the same. It is hard to object to hearing birdsong 10 levels below the surface, even though it makes little sense, but then you can hear this PCKAWWWW bird sound at random intervals.
I haven’t been following this too closely, so basic question: have you played DF before? (Not intended to be snarky, it’s had a long history and I sure as hell can’t track who’s been in and out of the game.)
I’ve played DF a fair amount probably a decade ago, and RimWorld a fair amount several years ago. I’m not the best person to answer this because it’s been several years, but here goes: Yes. DF is much more complex than RimWorld, some examples:
- Combat–RimWorld has (IIRC) a pretty good damage system where entities get hit in various body parts and they stop working and then you get bionics to replace them, and so on. DF has this to the next level; there’s a meme about “bruising the fat” for a reason. And it ties in to things like the procgen horrors where if a horror has seven tentacles they will each be modeled separately and you’ll see combat logs like “Urist attacks the fourth tentacle with a sword and chops it off. The fifth tentacle grabs Urist’s arm.” And the materials for the weapons (and creatures) have weight values that impact how hard they hit in different situations (as a mace vs as a sword).
- Backstory / legends. The world generation for DF is of course totally nuts, and you can interact with the legends (or their remnants) to some degree in the game.
- Variety of… stuff. DF has a huge variety of everything. For example, there is an unnecessarily large number of types of rock in the game. And a dwarf might have a favorite type of rock (or wood, or food) and their mood will be slightly affected if they’re sitting on a granite stool vs a schist stool. RimWorld has this sort of thing too, of course, but the scope in DF is much larger.
Now, an absolutely fair question is: does this actually matter to the gameplay? I think in 90% of the cases the answer is no. RimWorld is, in all honesty, probably a better game, because that’s what it’s trying to do. In DF, you have to enjoy the simulation for what it is.
Edit: that said, I 100% believe there are more examples than just lighting where RimWorld has implemented something DF lacks.
It would be crazy hard to implement something like lighting in DF due to the original ASCII graphics. How would you show a lit floor versus a dark floor? A dwarf walking though a lit area versus a dark area? I think lighting would be a great addition to the game, but it would probably take years to implement correctly.
On the flipside, DF models and shows z-level whereas Rimworld does not. They each have their strengths.
I wish I could hire someone to sit with me for like 5 hours to get the hang of something like this. I tend to get more joy out of reading peoples recaps than I do playing as I just fumble around like an idiot. My daughter sat with me to learn the ropes of Rim World and it was so much easier. I may just buy it anyway as I don’t mind tossing them money for all the work they have done. I could never get into the older version as the interface was well you know the interface.
I’d stick with Rim World, but I only have the base game and all the extra DLC is like 900 million dollars combined and I always feel like I’m missing out if I don’t have everything. ;)
This is done very effectively in Brogue. Check it out if you haven’t. GitHub - tmewett/BrogueCE: Brogue: Community Edition - a community-lead fork of the much-loved minimalist roguelike game
Yes, but Brogue is also a modeling a lot less overall.
You don’t have to buy it all in one go, if they’re something you’re interested in. Set aside $5 a month and buy a DLC every 4 months or so. You’ll have them all around this time next year.
I like it for the final part:
"You win when something that’s so funny or interesting or just plain weird happens that you have to tell a real life person about it. "
In which vein, by mid-winter my most recent Dwarven trade caravan hasn’t made it more than 60 yards from my fort after leaving in Autumn.
Firstly they got attacked by a Kea and everyone stood around while one Dorf with a crossbow tried to shoot it down. He fired 40+ crossbow bolts at it before finally killing it. At which point everyone turned to move on and got about ten paces before they were attacked by a Giant Wolverine.
Everyone broke out the camp chairs to sit and watch this happen and right now an Axe dwarf is punching the Wolverine to a pulp. He’s not using his axe because it’s stuck in the Wolverine’s back.
I’m secretly rooting for the Wolverine so I can take all the dead caravaners’ gear.
I know the feeling, but trust me the base game for Rimworld is a complete experience and you absolutely do not need the DLCs to enjoy it fully.
It’s great to see Gita Jackson’s byline in the Washington Post. Love their games writing.