There are a few games inspired in Dwarf Fortress, such as Gnomeria and Rimworld, for audiences that are a more casual.
Dwarf Fortress is hard to master.
2006: Dwarf Fortress
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Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#12> The heights to which that complexity has now reached are evidenced by two famous bugs: one involved too low a melting point for the fat layer of dwarven skin, and the other saw cats getting wildly drunk from licking their paws after walking over tavern floors sticky with spilled beer.
These are the ones that always get mentioned, but over the game's whole history there are too many great bugs to name. One infamous one that I recall from the early days had to do with the lethality of carp. You see, Dwarf Fortress features character progression. Your dwarves have not just skills (armorsmith, record keeper, surgeon, conversationalist, cheese maker, etc.), but also basic stats: strength, agility, toughness. The way that you increase your stats is by exercising your skills. And of course every entity in the world is simulated in the same way, because why wouldn't it be? So what made carp so dangerous? Well, every game tick every carp on the map had to make a swim check to stay afloat... and swimming is a skill! So shortly after loading a map for the first time, your carp will have leveled up into legendarily tough, fast, and strong terrors. And because world generation often populates maps with tiny disconnected pools, and then places carp in those pools, the carp AI considered itself perpetually cornered, making them extremely aggressive! Thus the result is that any dwarf walking adjacent to a pool (which they often will of their own accord, to drink or (ironically) fish) will find themselves being bitten by a hulking super-carp and wrestled beneath the surface of the water to drown.
So what do you do against this existential threat? Well, you wait for the first winter, at which point the map freezes over and all the carp asphyxiate. Fun!
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#13> The heights to which that complexity has now reached are evidenced by two famous bugs: one involved too low a melting point for the fat layer of dwarven skin, and the other saw cats getting wildly drunk from licking their paws after walking over tavern floors sticky with spilled beer. These are the ones that always get mentioned, but over the game's whole history there are too many great bugs to name. One infamous…
Another case of "The Simpsons predicted it" ;)
"No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#14The fact that dwarf fortress generates lores and story, makes me feel like I need to try out this game. But it always seems hard to get into
You can go through and read the lore of a world without having to play.
Speaking of this, I've yet to play the game for more than five minutes, but there are some great YouTubers that let you get into the game through lets play without having to master it: https://www.youtube.com/user/kruggsmash
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#15It is important, when contemplating Dwarf Fortress, to realise a couple of things. Firstly, and most obviously, the game is clearly some sort of work of art. The exact nature of the art is a bit difficult to pin down - certainly isn't an exercise in graphics and the plot is inconsistent between playthroughs - but nevertheless. The second thing to observe is it appears to be a life's work. A lifetime has not actually…
Although I'm usually a bazaar man when it comes to talking about the Cathedral and Bazaar, in theory there can be some awesome cathedrals, too. A digital equivalent to La Sagrada Familia, if you will.
On the other hand, digital cathedrals are theoretically vulnerable to operating systems changes in a way physical cathedrals don't have to wrestle with as much (I guess maybe changing building code could be the closest analog?)
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#16What's the situation regarding Dwarf fortress and Macs with the Apple M1 silicon? Last time i checked it didn't work (crashed during world generation) after Apple released macOS 11.1.
I sure would like to give it a try!
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#17The obligatory greatest bug report ever. Dwarf Fortress developer gets in depth about it. So great. The complexity of this game is mind boggling.
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#18> The heights to which that complexity has now reached are evidenced by two famous bugs: one involved too low a melting point for the fat layer of dwarven skin, and the other saw cats getting wildly drunk from licking their paws after walking over tavern floors sticky with spilled beer. These are the ones that always get mentioned, but over the game's whole history there are too many great bugs to name. One infamous…
Thankyou! So many playthroughs full of messages about fighting carp suddenly all make sense!
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#19It is important, when contemplating Dwarf Fortress, to realise a couple of things. Firstly, and most obviously, the game is clearly some sort of work of art. The exact nature of the art is a bit difficult to pin down - certainly isn't an exercise in graphics and the plot is inconsistent between playthroughs - but nevertheless. The second thing to observe is it appears to be a life's work. A lifetime has not actually…
In 2121, NetHack will be approaching a 4.0 release candidate.
Re: 2006: Dwarf Fortress
#20It is important, when contemplating Dwarf Fortress, to realise a couple of things. Firstly, and most obviously, the game is clearly some sort of work of art. The exact nature of the art is a bit difficult to pin down - certainly isn't an exercise in graphics and the plot is inconsistent between playthroughs - but nevertheless. The second thing to observe is it appears to be a life's work. A lifetime has not actually…
Although I'm usually a bazaar man when it comes to talking about the Cathedral and Bazaar, in theory there can be some awesome cathedrals, too. A digital equivalent to La Sagrada Familia, if you will. On the other hand, digital cathedrals are theoretically vulnerable to operating systems changes in a way physical cathedrals don't have to wrestle with as much (I guess maybe changing building code could be the closest…
I worked (technically still work) with a fellow who was a real long term thinker, and kept bringing up La Sagrada Familia. He kept saying "I just want to build a software equivalent."
I showed him the demo 8088MPH, which took seven years to complete. He said, "Okay, that's the software equivalent of La Sagrada Familia".