Stonesense: Isometric Dwarf Fortress Visualizer
If you ever wished that Dwarf Fortress looked like FarmVille, or if you could just never get into the massive PC game because of its ASCII graphics, Stonesense could be the solution that will get you to finally appreciate the cult favorite title (or appreciate it even more, if you're already a fan of the roguelike/sim).
Currently available with a third alpha release, Stonesense is a third-party "retro isometric visualizer" developed by Jonas Ask and Solifuge. The open source project tilts Dwarf Fortress and replaces its flat, spartan graphics with cute sprites that better approximate the game's creatures, environments, etc.
Dwarf Fortress already has several graphic sets that you can apply, but I like that this turns the game into what looks like a mix of Populous and Harvest Moon. You can follow Stonesense's development here. I've also embedded a video and several screenshots of the visualizer after the break:
Comments
Wowie zowie! I think I need to make a box that runs random fully built fortresses and views them this way, and does nothing else. Like, dwarves in a box.
Grahhhhhh, so addictive the dwarvies.
Posted by: harry | November 3, 2009 6:03 PM
Impressive effort, but I don't know why you'd want to run something that drags down your frame rate even more than vanilla DF.
Also, given the type of tasks and area designations that you do in DF, isometric doesn't make much sense--would you try to draw a house's floorplan in that perspective? Tiles are still the way to go, but this does give you a nice idea of what your fortress looks like.
Posted by: Dervish | November 4, 2009 9:08 AM
I dunno, I could definitely see myself playing the game this way. I've certainly played more than enough building games in isometric view.
The downside though, as a visualizer, you don't actually play the game through this isometric viewpoint, eh? It just runs alongside your fortress showing it off, right? If that's really the case then it'd be much more of a charming side program and not really a solution for people who have trouble playing the game due to the ascii graphics.
Posted by: P.F. | November 4, 2009 10:54 AM
If the game would look like Stonesense and had user friendly interface, the game would rock even harder.
Posted by: Temposaur | January 2, 2010 4:32 PM