Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you actually play it? I'm a bit the same about reading about it, yet I have never once played it for myself!
I tried playing it like a decade or two ago. Couldn’t get past the ridiculous learning curve.
How Dwarf Fortress is built
41–50 of 407 posts
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#42To me what was most surprising about Dwarf Fortress, given the complexity, is that Tad didn’t use git or any other code repository until more recently.
I mean using SCM became the norm in maybe last 10-15 years ? When this was started I don't think using SCM was as ubiquitous as it is today, not to mention on a solo project. If you've been hammering away since then I can see how you might have missed it.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#43Dwarf Fortress consumed hundreds of hours of my life in high school, I have so many fond memories of it. Every year or so I come back to it and I'm always surprised that they've managed to add another mechanic or feature that just makes the game feel even more like its own little universe. After enough time in the game there really is a moment like that scene in the Matrix - "I don't even see the ASCII anymore. All I…
Passion project? It is the sole source of his income.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#44Df is just like OpenTTD. Both are like Chess, easy to start, fun to play casually but it takes years to master. Great games, complex if you want to and a time sink if you don't keep an eye on it. Have had many hundreds of fun hours in both games
I'm hopeful that the upcoming Kitfox Games version makes it very accessible to lots more people.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#45Dwarf Fortress consumed hundreds of hours of my life in high school, I have so many fond memories of it. Every year or so I come back to it and I'm always surprised that they've managed to add another mechanic or feature that just makes the game feel even more like its own little universe. After enough time in the game there really is a moment like that scene in the Matrix - "I don't even see the ASCII anymore. All I…
Passion project? It is the sole source of his income.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would that be surprising? For a single programmer working alone Git is an incredibly complicated tool. P.S.: A lot of you are confusing "complicated" with "difficult".
While Git is not without it's complexities, but as a developer who must use it with teams anyways, I find there are very simple workflows with almost no cognitive load that I'm able to use for my personal projects. Not only does this give me snapshots of my projects from any point in time, but backups as well since I use a free GitLab account as well.
There's really no reason to be surprised at all about this unless you're the kind of person who never did any programming before, like, 2010 and lack the imagination or knowledge to understand how programming could be done without it.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#47IMO that's one of the best ways a single programmer can spend his career. No weird requirements, no deadlines, no nothing, nada. Just one's passion and a product. Whether it is successful is irrelevant. Kudos Mr. Adams for making the achievement and moves gaming history. Going back to the interview, I found this line (and the logic attached) interesting: >Making the item system polymorphic was ultimately a mistake, b…
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#48Dwarf Fortress consumed hundreds of hours of my life in high school, I have so many fond memories of it. Every year or so I come back to it and I'm always surprised that they've managed to add another mechanic or feature that just makes the game feel even more like its own little universe. After enough time in the game there really is a moment like that scene in the Matrix - "I don't even see the ASCII anymore. All I…
Once you get absorted at night by imagining your surroudings upon reading the game actions, the game feels scarier and more "real" than any current 3D adventure game.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#49To me what was most surprising about Dwarf Fortress, given the complexity, is that Tad didn’t use git or any other code repository until more recently.
Re: How Dwarf Fortress is built
#50This is a little bit of a hijack but if I wanted to start coding games as a side project, where would I start? Which platform? Mobile, PC, console? Any good introductions on the subject of solo game development? I know I can google this, but I trust HN users more than the Google algo.