A Little Dwarf Fortress Love Never Hurt Anyone

March 27, 2007 4:26 PM | Simon Carless

We actually covered love for PC title Dwarf Fortress before, but I thought it was cool that Toybane has been claiming that the title is the future of games, presenting "...a level of immersion unparalleled in gaming; an almost complete, dynamic world; and created an emotional connection with its characters with absolutely no graphics at all."

Why does Dwarf Fortress matter? The Toybane folks rave: "Whenever was there a game that named close to every landmark above ground and below, populated it with thousands of creatures that each lived persistent lives, created a multi-civilized world history complete with back story, had dynamic weather with fronts and humidity, used a multi-currency economic system, and presented a rich ecosystem of seasons and wildlife?"

In fact, they reference the recent Gamasutra interview with Warren Spector, in which he commented, in characteristically grumpy fashion, that developers should: “Stop building movie sets and make a world we can interact with instead.” Wait, so Dwarf Fortress is the ultimate manifestation of this, despite being ASCII-based? Please feel free to agree or not.

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Categories: PC

10 Comments

Although sometimes the UI is really headscratching (I wouldn't have known how to use the Manager to streamline production, or how to get suspended construction on a road restarted without the DF wiki), it is truly an awesome game. I've been trying to figure out a way I could do an @ Play on it, for it does have some roguelike qualities (the RL mode notwithstanding), but haven't come up with a good angle so far.

John H, | March 27, 2007 8:29 PM

Oh, that's right, the question! Ahem.

I find much of what is considered cool about Dwarf Fortress is the same KIND of thing that people love about roguelikes.

I'm not going to claim that everything good in DW was seen in roguelikes first. That is certainly not true, but it seems to have that same sense of priorities. Tremendous verisimilitude, forcing players to make hard, irreversible choices, creative play (instead of following an invisible track a designer gives you, you must make your own track), modifiable environments, making the most of what is handed to you, and of course the random generation: those are the things they have in common.

John H. | March 27, 2007 8:37 PM

Just to split hairs, "absolutely no graphics at all" isn't accurate... ASCII characters are graphics, they just give you a very high degree of stylization. Well-done stylization enables people to project and use their imagination to fill in the gaps, which is part of what makes Dwarf Fortress interesting.

chmmr | March 28, 2007 9:06 PM

Of coure chmmr. And there's something else at work here too that makes you more right than you may suspect....

Oddly, while Dwarf Fortress may use ASCII characters to represent things, it DOESN'T HAVE TO. It actually generates all its graphics using OpenGL! It just so happens that the graphics it chooses to output are ASCII symbols.

This is how it managed to put little beards on the smiley faces that represent dwarves, and also meant they can put in "real" graphics pretty easily if they choose. But the thing about graphics is, they take time, a lot of time, to make, and a game like Dwarf Fortress, which has many different kinds of things, would require a lot of graphics, and the guys who make it had said they'd rather work on improving the game than making it look nice.

Hey, it's worked for them so far.

John H. | March 29, 2007 1:44 AM

The only thing preventing DF from being an extremely important game is the goddawful interface. As it stands, DF is less about a wonderfully realized world than it is about wading through incomprehensible interface choices. It plays like an alpha, for crying out loud. :)

Capt_Poco | May 13, 2007 12:17 PM

It IS an alpha.

However, the interface choices are only incomprehensible to someone who hasn't learned how to play the game. Before you learn, the game is pretty much pointless, but if you take the trouble to read the DF wiki, it will make plenty of sense.

Once it does make sense, the game is superb, and only going to get better, as you can see in the development log section on the main website.

Savok | June 21, 2007 1:23 PM

It was rough to get into, but losing was enormous fun. The first time I successfully brewed Dwarven Wine, I felt drunk.

The first time I successfully created irrigated farms, I stood up and cheered.

Cibbuano | June 27, 2007 10:25 PM

I actually learned to play by using the hlep files that came with the game. I didnt even think of using wiki!

It's as much about trial and error than anything else. I defy anyone who just reads the game help and plays without any prior knowledge NOT to flood their dungeon or NOT to starve when you ahve 100 dwarves for the first time or not to make any of the countless mistakes possible.

SDu | November 20, 2007 2:56 AM

this game is epic, the only other game that immerses me this much is stalker

chris | July 11, 2008 6:48 PM