Jarhyn
Wizard
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2010
- Messages
- 14,691
- Gender
- Androgyne; they/them
- Basic Beliefs
- Natural Philosophy, Game Theoretic Ethicist
So, after more than a decade, Dwarf Fortress has finally been released on Steam and has been given the graphical overhaul of a lifetime, with a completely new interface and sensible sprites.
Really more of an interactive storytelling machine, Dwarf Fortress focuses on the fate of a new dwarven settlement on the frontier, and building a place where they can thrive with food, drink, safety, and work aplenty.
Getting to that point in a harsh world full of warring goblins, greedy megabeasts, eco-terrorist elves, and opportunistic humans, and the occasional evil necromancer can get daunting though, especially when the only power you have as the player is to manage from "behind the scenes": You can say what you want done, but it is up to you to figure out how to get your often suicidal little dwarves to actually do it.
This does not stop you from seeing amazing structures built. You can even have them build a Turing complete computer if you really want, assuming you are willing to ask your dwarves to pay the cost in effort, limited resources, and lives lost to the inevitable stupid mistakes you will make.
With a rich and expansive community of folks on both reddit and the DF community BBS, as well as numerous streamers and what may be the best wiki on the internet short of wikipedia, there are plenty of folks and resources ready to help with the learning curve.
Even so, the learning curve is still pretty steep, because the game has a vast variety of screens and interactions you can make with your world, everything from tracking stocks of goods, to current task lists, to military uniforms, there is a lot to learn.
Anyway, I highly recommend it, as a game that will quite possibly never get "old", maybe because it's been in constant and will continue to be in constant development for and for another 20 years.
Really more of an interactive storytelling machine, Dwarf Fortress focuses on the fate of a new dwarven settlement on the frontier, and building a place where they can thrive with food, drink, safety, and work aplenty.
Getting to that point in a harsh world full of warring goblins, greedy megabeasts, eco-terrorist elves, and opportunistic humans, and the occasional evil necromancer can get daunting though, especially when the only power you have as the player is to manage from "behind the scenes": You can say what you want done, but it is up to you to figure out how to get your often suicidal little dwarves to actually do it.
This does not stop you from seeing amazing structures built. You can even have them build a Turing complete computer if you really want, assuming you are willing to ask your dwarves to pay the cost in effort, limited resources, and lives lost to the inevitable stupid mistakes you will make.
With a rich and expansive community of folks on both reddit and the DF community BBS, as well as numerous streamers and what may be the best wiki on the internet short of wikipedia, there are plenty of folks and resources ready to help with the learning curve.
Even so, the learning curve is still pretty steep, because the game has a vast variety of screens and interactions you can make with your world, everything from tracking stocks of goods, to current task lists, to military uniforms, there is a lot to learn.
Anyway, I highly recommend it, as a game that will quite possibly never get "old", maybe because it's been in constant and will continue to be in constant development for and for another 20 years.