Dwarf Fortress

[Safe-Keeper]

Anyone else here play Dwarf Fortress? For those who haven't hear of it, it's an incredibly deep game focusing on content and realism rather than graphics. People say the original Silent Hunter is way better than III-5, because even though it lacked good graphics, it was filled to the brim with content. Dwarf Fortress, the work of a single man who's worked on it for seven years thus far, takes this philosophy to the extreme. It uses only square BMP tiles for graphics, and the default tileset is comprised of colour-coded ASCII characters (ya rly). What it delivers, in the place of visuals, is content and, above all, depth.

The game is comprised of three parts -- a realistic world generator that handles such things as politics, erosion and road-building, a Rogue-like RPG mode where you walk around in the world, and the titular Dwarf Fortress Mode, where you pick a site in the world and travel there with a team of seven dwarves and a wagon and build a fortress. You'll mine, "terraform", trade, hunt and fish, fend off goblin sieges, and build "mega-projects" -- huge prestige projects that take skill and time to accomplish, but which look great when finished.

Examples of how deep this game is:

• You need to build living quarters away from workshops, or your dwarves won't be able to sleep well, which will result in unhappiness.
• You can choose freely which jobs individual dwarves can do, and if you feel like micro-managing, you can choose to give dwarves jobs by preferences -- for example, a dwarf that enjoys helping others can become a nurse, a dwarf that loves a good thrill and has a fascination for weapons can be drafted into your army.
• You need to be careful digging and building, as a rudimentary cave-in and collapse system resides in the game and will gleefully punish you for the mistakes you make.
• In Age of Empires II, resources are magically stored in drop-off buildings and new structures are built by hitting the foundation with a hammer for two minutes. In DF, you need to actually define stockpiles, where goods are stored, and workers will then carry goods to where they're needed to build something.
• Refuse and bodies will generate miasma, which in turn will generate unhappy thoughts, if you don't designate a garbage dump outside of your fortress.
• There are no hit points -- various kinds of damage is dealt to body parts, with effects based on the wound and body part.

People interested in the game should at the very least read the famous after-action report, Boatmurdered. It's of an early version, and the screenshots are of the base ASCII graphics set, but it's an hilarious read and will give you a good idea of what the game is like. As will this play-along tutorial. If you want more... try downloading the game itself at the Bay 12 site.

[Ubergeek87]

YES! I love Dwarf Fortress. Isn't there supposed to be a rather large update coming soon?

Dwarf Fortress is indeed the best game in the world. AND ITS DONATIONWARE.

I mean it when I say its the best, its better then EVERY SINGLE MAINSTREAM GAME IN THE WORLD.

Don't let its graphics fool you, its better.

Oh and not to mention, Tarn Adams, the developer has such an awesome free game that he quit his job to live off the donations.

[Ubergeek87]

Originally Posted by Rilder

Don't let its graphics fool you

[kiwi_2005]

I can't find the download link on that site i see one but its 2008 is that the latest?

I see on his page the donations hes getting Man im in the wrong job.

February Donations: $1452.57
January Donations: $2291.50
December Donations: $4762.98
November Donations: $5122.29
October Donations: $1759.27

[Safe-Keeper]

As for the download... here you go, should have linked to the site itself right away.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/838...ixfortress.jpg

Soooo true!

I can't find the download link on that site i see one but its 2008 is that the latest?

Yeah, he's been working on a huge rework since then, scheduled to be released Any Time Now (he's basically mopping up bug fixes and whatnot, it'll probably be out in weeks or a month or two). There's 40d16, then there's 17-19 which are basically tiny graphics fixes or something.

I see on his page the donations hes getting Man im in the wrong job.

February Donations: $1452.57
January Donations: $2291.50
December Donations: $4762.98
November Donations: $5122.29
October Donations: $1759.27

ya i no rite?

Oh and not to mention, Tarn Adams, the developer has such an awesome free game that he quit his job to live off the donations.

I was wondering about that -- whether he had a day job on the side. I actually really like that he's done that, it'll make him far more likely to keep working on it.

If there's one feature I really like (other than the incredibly kind of black humour you develop from the game's brutality and the crazy things it does because of its alpha state), it's the fact that the game, and its residents, keep track of history. There's a mode called "Legends" which lists every notable event and person in the game, but more intriguing is the engraving system. You can smooth natural walls to make them more attractive and increase room value, generating happy thoughts, but you can also engrave them -- and dwarves engrave walls the same way humans did 3000 years ago: they tell stories. Sure, there's random images of mountains and mushrooms and lizards and whatnot (though even these are based on the engraver's experiences, and likes/dislikes), but predominately, engravings are used to record events before and during the fortress' existence. Click on one wall portion and it'll say something like "This is an image of a dwarf and dwarves. The image represents the dwarf [name here]'s rise to power in the civilization [name] in the year 102". Your dwarves have a big fight with goblin invaders? Expect engravings of dwarves and goblins fighting. This way, you can actually, if you want to, download another player's fortress save and get a rough sense of what it's been through by looking at its walls.

Just a pity there isn't a visualizer that actually lets you walk around in the fortress, with decent graphics. Nothing wrong with Stonesense and VisualFortress (or for that matter being able to visit your own fortress as an adventurer in the "roguelike mode"), but just hovering through the place with a magic camera isn't as immersing as actually "being there".

[Ubergeek87]

You can get the latest version HERE or HERE

edit:bah, too slow

[kiwi_2005]

thanks guys will try this out.

[Safe-Keeper]

I'm currently reading the Boatmurdered AAR.

Just wait 'til you get to part 12 or so, when StarkRavingMad and whoever it is start writing. Laughs aplenty.

[Oberon]

Sankis the Beardless's descent into madness was just epic.

[Lionclaw]

There were some hilarious parts in the AAR.

Update 16 by StarkRavingMad is quite funny, especially about the engravings in the new dining room.


"Engraved on the wall is a superiourly designed image of a elephant by 'Torret Doge' Regunib. The elephant is in a fetal position."


"Engraved on the wall is a finely-designed image of a dwarf by 'Torret Doge' Regunib. The dwarf is dead."

[Safe-Keeper]

Yeah, Boatmurdered, product of the Something Awful forums, is famous for its humour. I think StarkRavingMad's introduction sums it up nicely:

Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words:

What

The

****.

Another memorable paragraph from StarkRavingMad's turn:

Kind of ironic, considering my nickname and all. At least I have that craftshop back.
A frogman jumped out of a well and surprised Sibruk, one of the military dwarves. He killed the froggie pretty easily, but then he somehow got stuck in the well. So now little Timmy there is dying of thirst because he can't drink from the well that his fat ass is stuck in. His friends don't seem to have any trouble drinking around him. I guess they brought straws or something.

I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
And I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.
Can you feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns, It burns.

Well if you told me the fort was flooding, I would not save the nobles.
I've seen your ears before, you elf, but I don't know if I want your cloth
Well I was there and I saw what you demand, I saw it with my beard and axe.
So you can wipe off that vomit, I know your an elf.
It's all been a river of carp

And I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
And I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.
And I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
And I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.

Well I remember, I remember, don't worry, how could I ever forget
It's the first time, the last time you gave us a mandate,
But I know the reason why you keep your fey mood up, oh no you don't fool me
Well the Adamantine don't show, but the fort still grows
It's no Hidden-fun-stuff to you and me

I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
Well I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.
I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
Well I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.
I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
Well I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.
I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
Well I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns.

I can feel the magma in the fort tonight, It burns, It burns, It burns, It burns,
And I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns, It burns, It burns,
And I can feel the magma flooding through the fort tonight, It burns.
And I've been waiting to pull this lever for all my life, It burns, It burns

Originally Posted by Devlog

The current situation is that I expect a (buggy!) Windows release in about a week,

It comes.

[Safe-Keeper]

It comes.

Edit: I have just decided that the feature I want the most from Dwarf Fortress 2010 is burrows, the ability to designate specific areas for specific dwarves and tell them to stay there. I just came back from a Dig Deeper* fortress that I had gotten to 45 dwarves through several oversized migrant waves. I have four soldiers, who have only leather armour as I don't expect any large-scale attacks and haven't been able to get my hands on better armour anyhow. I'm new to Dig Deeper and don't expect large-scale attacks until I have 60-80 dwarves or so.

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere come orcs. I'm relieved to find it's only a single squad, comprised of only ten of the monsters, but having heard horrific tales of orcs from other DD players, I'm still anxious. I get my four soldiers prepared for battle and draft a couple more, namely my miners (who have gained plenty strength from mining with picks) and my axe-wielding woodcutters, and order everyone but civilians inside. I mass my military just inside the front doors, so that the orcs will have to come at my combined force with a limited number of units at a time. I also order the catapult at the end of the hallway to be manned.

My makeshift army is butchered. I don't know if a single orc is slain. Ahead of them lie a three tiles wide hallway and a deadly catapult, probably more than capable of ripping them all to shreds. Occupying the hallway... is a small army of civilians and animals, milling about and refusing to stay in the safety of the depths. First the catapult can't fire because it'd hit friendlies*, then when the civilians are all dead, no one dares go near it because of fast approaching orcs. Result:

Inline note: yes, the oversized two-legged cows with the huge boobs and glowing laser eyes -- or perhaps it's red sunglasses -- are the orcs. I'm using an... otherwise more than decent custom tileset.

Fortress population went first from 45 or so to 15, as the orcs cleared the entrance floor. Then about half a dozen, as I tried to arm and rally the few survivors downstairs and get a "last-ditch" catapult at the end of another "catapult hallway" manned. Then, after a very brief last battle (no one got around to man the catapult until it was too late -- a single orc came running down the hallway ahead of the others and caused the civvie manning the weapon to flee in fear), one; a bedridden hunter with a wounded leg, who lay in his chambers with a crossbow, awaiting the inevitable as a horse ran around in the hallways outside, maiming two orcs and breaking the leg of another before finally succumbing when about a dozen orcs joined the three that had gone down first.

As a side note (and speck of light in the tragedy), I love how the persistent world you generate keeps going after you're killed, so that you can do things like explore the ruins of your fortress in adventure mode or even do a "Reclaim", which to you outsiders means showing up at the gates of the fortress with an army and trying to kick the invaders out and start anew.

*For those who don't know, Dig Deeper is a kind of "GWX for DF", a mod that adds lots of stuff and even some features I didn't know were already in DF, such as enemies emptying cages and pulling levers. It also adds plenty to difficulty -- no regular enemy in DF can kill its own weight in dwarves.

**I don't know how this inconsistency came about, but catapults currently can't hurt friendlies, and as such the rock would just have stopped and been shattered when it hit the first dwarf or animal. Had it been a ballista, I think I would've fired it out of desperation. Stupid civilians were gonna die anyway.

Also of interest is the Dig Deeper mod that sometimes makes whole squads unable to arm themselves. They'll walk over to their desired weapon, try to pick it up, decide that they for some reason cannot, walk two tiles away, and repeat endlessly until the weapon is forbidden. Especially Fun when coupled with the fact that DD is chock-full of mean hostiles.