User:Mixtrak/What is Dwarf Fortress?

Dwarf Fortress (DF) is a (free) game with the full, revealingly hefty name “Slaves to Armok, God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress”, (in)famous for its viciously protracted learning curve.

What kind of game? A game like no other. You could call it a dungeon-master type strategy game in a low fantasy setting, with complex economies and wonderfully horrific combat, and you’d be right - but also just scratching the surface. A bit like the matrix, noone can be told how complex DF is - you have to see it for yourself. I attempt to give a taster below so you know what you’re getting yourself into, but you won’t truly understand it until you’re much deeper down the rabbit hole. DF is the (ongoing) life’s work of Tarn Adams (Toady One), who designs and programs the game, and his brother Zach Adams (Threetoe), who writes stories and contributes to design elements.

It’s probably more accurate to call it a fantasy world simulator (while not being anywhere near as dry as that sounds), with richly-detailed, randomly generated worlds that are formed complete with unbelievably detailed histories - histories which are connected to your actual game, and affect the goings-on in your fortress in bizarre and alarming ways. As of the latest update, the inverse is also true: the world outside your (not so) little fortress’s map region has been ‘activated’, and while your fortress is struggling along and time is passing in-game, history is still happening right outside your doorstep. Civilizations (including your own) and towns will be waxing and waning, Trogdor-like beasties will be burninating the countryside (occasionally knocking on your fortress door), and your actions feed back into this randomized, chaotic dance. If you wipe out a civilization, or an animal’s breeding population, poof; it’s really gone from the game, with who-knows-what ramifications as the decades spin onward? Your fortress could turn the tide of history.

Furthermore, if things go pear-shaped or you simply get bored, you can abandon your fortress and sally forth with a fresh group of migrants to either reclaim it (by force, if necessary) or found a new fortress, as if one wasn’t enough to keep you busy. This next game happens at a later calendar date in the game, and all the in-world changes wrought along the way are persistent. Continuing the above example, you needn’t worry about dealing with that civilization or animal population a second time around - your dwarfy forbears dealt with that already, in the first game. But who knows? Maybe that just made space for something even worse…

But it’s not all big-picture stuff, by any means. The dwarves are not clones, but are realized in absurd detail - they have unique mental and physical traits, down to the styling of their beards and the occasional lost limb. Nor are they mindless drones; each dwarf comes with their own preferences, temperament and history. Some will arrive at your fortress with glorious martial reputations and impressive kill lists, and skills to boot. Some will come with families, or having endured their loss. Some come with pets. And all this really happened as part of the world generation and ongoing history. Within the fortress, too, they will form relationships as they work, drink and fight alongside one another: friends, partners, children, grudges. They throw parties and mourn for lost friends. You don’t tell them what to do, but instead create the environment and tasks that steer them in that direction while trying to keep them happy (or at least from chucking a wobbly and with it a chair, potentially braining a co-worker, who in turn becomes unhappy…), and it’s a very, very imperfect science. The dwarves have minds of their own which makes them by turns endearing, frustrating, hilarious, heroic and tragic. It’s like a soap opera or the Sims, but with much, much more alcohol-fuelled violence.

The economy is also very detailed (noticing a pattern here?) and includes a range of industries which I won’t get into, but I'll just note you even have to make your own soap. Suffice to say that each site within the world brings its own resource profile, which means you have to play to your strengths and plug your weaknesses to grow your fortress differently every time. On the subject of violence, it is ubiquitous and viscerally (hah) simulated, down to the breaking of pinky fingers and their subsequent splinting and mending. Or not - they might get infected and kill the dwarf, or there might be permanent nerve damage and that hand is now grip-impaired. Expect a just-slightly-overwhelming variety of foes with whom to trade disembowelment, dismemberment, beheading, vomiting, berserking, maiming and bleeding. So much bleeding.

Between fortresses, you can even enter “Adventurer Mode” and experience the same world from a first-person perspective (with history still going on). This includes any fortresses you may have previously abandoned or failed to defend. As an adventurer you can do battle with whatever nasty things evicted you, raid your treasury and emerge victorious. Then go and start another fortress and have that adventurer’s deeds be part of the history. You can also explore the world, its sites, stories and characters in Legends mode. Then there’s the intricate physics, the politics, the justice system, health system, ambushes, the undead, sieges, animals, raids, contraptions, legendary creatures…

So why haven’t you heard of it? Well, it’s not exactly user-friendly. The graphics are text-based, but this is not a big deal once you get used to it, and there are texture packs if you insist on disappointing your parents and bringing shame upon your ancestors. The game is still very much in alpha - it’s a bit quirky and buggy (though still thoroughly playable) and the Toady One has an implausibly long features list which he doesn’t expect to complete for twenty years or so. Add to this the extreme difficulty and you have a recipe that only appeals to a certain type of gamer. The obsessive, spreadsheet-making one. The masochistic one, or the sadistically inventive one. The one who sees the possibilities and enormity of this absorbingly-featured sandbox, and is fine with losing. In fact, one for whom losing is fun, because you learn - and that’s the motto of the game. So remember, losing is fun, and expect to endure copious fun in many flavours before you feel competent. But the fun never really ends.