It looks like a SIMS variant played in "ASCII".
Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
111–120 of 186 posts
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe he just wants to make his game, perhaps not a game for you or many other people - but his game. For him. Not everything has to be simplified and dumbed down. We have plenty of those kinds of games. Also, I'm confused by your shock that an ASCII game can bring an 8 core desktop to a crawl. Just because most games spend most of the system resources on displaying pretty graphics, doesn't mean that DF has to as wel…
I'm sure he does just want to make his game. I'm also free to criticize the glaring shortcomings. There is VAST room for improvements without dumbing anything down. A perfect example of this is the fact there are two ways to draw rectangles for designating areas for trash vs mining. What on earth could be the reasoning behind that and how would fixing that be 'dumbing' it down? What about the nonesense up/down stairs…
First make it work. Then make it elegant. Then make it fast.
DF is at stage 1 now, and I think it's very reasonable to postpone ui polishing and optimisations till all the features are in place. Otherways he would need to constantly rewrite optimizations and the structures that allows speeding the game up, to kep up with new features. Which will take much longer in the end, and could kill his enthusiasm, ending the project.
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the current UI, you'd have all the excuse you need. I gave it an honest shot but I just can't get too invested in a game that requires a few hours of reading wikis and watching YouTube.
Playing DF, is roughly analogous to reading the Illiad, or a similarly complex work of Literature. Now DF isn't the Illiad of the gaming world, yet. But the experience of parsing it, generally ends up expanding your perspective of what games should be, and how they should be played. Its pretty much the serious gamer's game.
I'm by no means saying I want the game spoonfed to its players with "press X to win" cutscenes, but I do think it could take some steps toward usability, that's all.
Also, what is a "serious gamer"? What does that even mean?
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#114What would be the best way to play DF on a not-so-powerful machine? It seems that rendering the ASCII art is a serious CPU dwell...
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#115I really like this article. The phrasing is so good that I can imagine myself sitting at the computer and staring at the weird ASCII characters.
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
now, this confirms my opinion that the game has been really fun to program, much more than to play. Simulating inch by inch damage is a fun thing to think, model and develop, but in the end the player gets a bunch of chars and some description that could have been well picked up randomly with no impact on the gameplay
It is very fun to play. Fortress mode at least (where you control whole fortress of dwarves). It feels like herding cats and delaying the inevitable doom. And the doom always comes because of you missing one of the small details. Like - one of the dwarfs went insane, cause you forgot to give him proper bed, and when he wanted to make some artifact there were no forge available for a long time. Then he goes berserk an…
You forgot to mention the vampire dwarf who arrives as a migrant and ends up killing your Militia commander in his sleep. Oh, and the fact that finding out who the vampire is is an exercise in detective work (and pure luck).
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure he does just want to make his game. I'm also free to criticize the glaring shortcomings. There is VAST room for improvements without dumbing anything down. A perfect example of this is the fact there are two ways to draw rectangles for designating areas for trash vs mining. What on earth could be the reasoning behind that and how would fixing that be 'dumbing' it down? What about the nonesense up/down stairs…
First make it work. Then make it elegant. Then make it fast. DF is at stage 1 now, and I think it's very reasonable to postpone ui polishing and optimisations till all the features are in place. Otherways he would need to constantly rewrite optimizations and the structures that allows speeding the game up, to kep up with new features. Which will take much longer in the end, and could kill his enthusiasm, ending the p…
Isn't the game 11 years old? What is a reasonable amount of time to spend before moving to stage 2?
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the weird-but-essential moves such as castling and en passant will not be apparent to you even after hours of playing like that.
I definitely wouldn’t call castling and en passant “essential”. I just now played a game of chess against the computer on the lowest difficulty, and won easily without using either of those moves. And during the game, the computer itself castled, which might have helped me to learn the move if I hadn’t known it.
Castling is incredible essential. You might go 50 games before you see any need for En Passant, but castling is crucial in any real play.
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
First make it work. Then make it elegant. Then make it fast. DF is at stage 1 now, and I think it's very reasonable to postpone ui polishing and optimisations till all the features are in place. Otherways he would need to constantly rewrite optimizations and the structures that allows speeding the game up, to kep up with new features. Which will take much longer in the end, and could kill his enthusiasm, ending the p…
Isn't the game 11 years old? What is a reasonable amount of time to spend before moving to stage 2?
As long as he wants - it's his project.
Re: Dwarf Fortress: Ten hours with the most inscrutable video game of all time
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UI in Dwarf Fortress is completely indefensible. Even when you do understand how to play the game it's a kludge. Let alone the fact that AN ASCII GAME CAN BRING AN 8 CORE DESKTOP TO A CRAWL. (The ASCII is actually rendered in OPENGL for performance which is a joke in and of itself because 99% of the system resources are spent poorly simulating stagnant blocks of air rock and dirt with nothing happening to them).…
There is (was?) actually an isometric add-on. It really only makes things slower and more confusing as far as I can see. The UI isn't the part bringing one's computer to its knees, rather the very detailed simulation going on (and a whole lot of pathfinding over ever-changing maps). His goal has always been a sort of "fantasy world simulator" which is anything but simple. I should know... I helped find a ton of physi…
I didn't play it, but when I watched some videos of adventure mode (yeah I know, that's missing ALL of it, but the simulation is the same, yes?) on youtube I couldn't help but notice silly things like breaking bones and "bruising the brain" by throwing snow at things, or that dude who killed a bunch of wolves by repeatedly throwing a dead wolf. I am sure there is a lot of simulation going on, but how realistic is it?