Dwarf Fortress

[Rilder]

One of the best games tbh.

Link: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Wiki: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page

Short Description: You start out with 7 dwarves, lead your dwarves to build a mighty fortress!

Tip: READ THE BLOODY WIKI.

It has a bit of a learning curve and the wiki helps alot.

[GlobalExplorer]

Well I also heard about this game. Not that I am hardcore enough to play, or even recommend it, but the hardcore guys I talked to are really loving it and say it is the best rpg period. So I guess it must be good.

Well this is what it looks like. Seriously, mustn't the gameplay be kind of extraordinary if people enjoy it in spite of that mess?

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/images/b/b0/FortressLocation_fd2f10.png

[stabiz]

:huh:

[GlobalExplorer]

gameplay, man!

[Robsoie]

I never ever could stand ASCII "graphics", fortunately rogues like evolved to a point it was possible to improve a very lot the visual aspect and hide those horrible ASCII "art" by sometime very nice 2D graphics, like you can see in some screenshots from this page (http://www.slashem.org/)

Now DF is definitively not as tile friendly as the other rogue likes, graphics can be (just a bit slightly) improved with some very rough tiles , but at least it is always better than the default "thing form a past i hoped forgotten" that ASCII is.
A list can be found here (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/List_of_user_graphics_sets) or there (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/List_of_user_character_sets)

I played DF for a month, completing a whole year of Dwarf lives in their doomed fortress, as most of them ended dying from either animals assault, drown by a sudden water flood after piercing a rock hiding it and the moral was always very low with the horrible violet smoke created by several decaying corpses the dwarf never bothered to remove from inside their fortress.

In term of features, Dwarf Fortress is plain awesome, basically there is no commercial products that get as much features as Dwarf Fortress, there is just no contest.

Now for the gameplay, it is a problem because you know DF is a jewel, but it is plagued by one of the most user unfriendly interface i ever saw.

Early Rogue-likes never good interfaces and out of some exception have even very bad ones, but they did not have as much things to do as in Dwarf Fortress.
I believe that's why the user interface is even worse in DF, because there is a lot more depth and things to do, and the interface really shows how clunky it is when you use it.

Some more recent rogue-like work developers managed by tons of work to create decent interfaces for their rogue like, like Falcon's Eye (http://users.tkk.fi/~jtpelto2/nhfeatures.html) or Vulture's eye/claw (http://clivecrous.lighthouseapp.com/projects/11282/home)

I strongly hope at some points of the future the developer will try to make a better user interface, because it is the only weak point of Dwarf Fortress. Graphics can always be improved a bit by tiles to a point they can do a good job after you get used to it, but the user interface is just not good enough.

[Rilder]

I use the Mike Mayday grapics set: http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.htm

Believe me a good graphics set really makes it playable.

Also on that site it says that it requires a 1280 horizontle screen rez but I have no problems using 1000x405

Btw, I don't really have a problem with the interface, its a bit clunky sometimes but once you get used to it, it ain't bad.

Edit: the mike mayday version is on 39D, just find dwarf transplant and you can install the mikemayday pack onto the new version.

[Robsoie]

The mayday pack is set to 0.28.181.39e if i look into the release notes of the latest version on his site.

Dwarf Fortress is currently version 0.28.181.39f very freshly released
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=22634.0

Anyways, there are some funny challenges (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Game_goals) you can set for yourself while playing Dwarf Fortress.