Welp, the games out. You can download it on the eShop if you want, its been there since midnight. I don't have my copy just yet, plan to get it physically. But if my internets up to it, and you ever want to play with me, add my code from Chase's FC topic and/or tell me you added me so I can add you back.
Perhaps some of you have heard of it before, but I feel it is my duty as one who has experienced the glory that is Dwarf Fortress to spread the love to those uninitiated. I was wondering if anyone would have any interest in playing DF, and possibly participating in a succession game (where one person plays for a few hours/days/weeks then sends the map off to the next, etc).
Warning: Wall of text incoming! If you dont want to read it all, at least scroll down to the Hall of Fame section and read the illustrated stories there.
What is Dwarf Fortress?
Full title: Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress
DF is a part roguelike, part city-building game set in a procedurally-generated high fantasy universe in which the player takes control of a group of dwarves and attempts to construct a successful and wealthy mountainhome.
At its core, DF is a game about losing. Regardless of what you do, your fortress will eventually fall, and since the game embraces permadeath, thats it. There is no overarching goal other than making your own fun and creating a narrative through the incredible depth of the game.
Though it only renders as 2D, ASCII graphics, there is so much being simulated in the background that it becomes very cpu-intensive to load a large map. The picture below is how the default interface looks, but unless you have masochistic tendencies, you can just use a tileset that makes it look more like oldschool 8-bit nintendo graphics.
You get used to it ... I don't ... I don't even see the ASCII any more.
Additionally, there are 3D viewers that will live render your world side-by-side as you play. (This screenshot also includes a tileset on the left)
Dwarf Fortress is a very challenging game, not only because of the incredibly, ridiculously complicated interface, but because of the inherent random nature of the game. Shit will hit the fan eventually, and bad stuff will happen, and thats what makes it fun!
Hey, you just got a new wave of migrants and one of them eventually became the mayor of your fort. Well it turns out that he was a vampire all along and now your entire fort is undead.
Or maybe your fortress has a booming fishing industry and a refuse pile full of discarded fish bones. Well you're in luck, because a necromancer from a nearby tower decided to visit and now you are under siege by hundreds of reanimated fish skeletons from within your own walls (this one actually happened to me).
Or maybe your miners forgot to dig stairs when making a mineshaft down to caves and starved to death at the bottom of a hole, forever losing your only two pickaxes and forcing you to abandon the fort (happened to a friend).
When generating a world, one can choose to simulate thousands of years of previous history, which often takes 20 minutes or more on older worlds. The generator will create civilizations of humans, elves, goblins, and dwarves that go to war, create masterpieces of art, produce legendary heroes on the battlefield, trade with each other, and ultimately fall. While playing, you might unearth artifacts from ancient civilizations or unleash the forgotten beasts that destroyed them.
Here is a screenshot of an average-sized (ha) world (larger image here):
Each tile in the world translates to a region of 16x16 more tiles when you zoom in, and you pick maybe a 3x3 or more area out of that for your fort, which then translates down into 48x48 tiles per region tile in-game. So yeah, its pretty massive.
Hall of Fame:
Dwarf Fortress has been out since 2006 and in development since 2002 (though the game still receives constant updates, most recently last June) and thus has spawned many stories and comics about particularly epic succession games and fortresses that experienced a great amount of "Fun".
If you dont read anything else in this post, at least read these:
Bronzemurder
Oilfurnace
'Fun' in DF
Boatmurdered (A succession game from an older version before there were z-levels) (Warning: very long!)
Various other stories compiled on the DF forums
How to Play(TBD):
I'll maybe write a little just to help people along with getting started later, but for now here are some video tutorials and various other links:
Lazy Newb Pack (Comes with a laucher, tilesets, 3D viewer, job manager, various other tools, and Dwarf Fortress of course). <---YOU WANT THIS
(My personal favorite series, it also covers setting up Lazy Newb Pack)
DF Wiki Quickstart Guide (Also a very good resource if you don't have time to watch a video)
Dwarf Fortress Wiki (Very helpful and comprehensive)
Dwarf Fortress Forums
Dwarf Fortress Reddit
Feel free to ask me about anything, though I dont promise I can answer everything.
And lastly and most importantly:
Remember, LOSING IS FUN!
I know a fair few people here have xbox 360s and Gamertags are far easier to track than friend codes, because the same one is used for every game, so post your gamertags here and the games you play so some of us hyrule.net members can join up online for some awesomefests
My gamertag is Gingerink, if you're going to add me, post on here too, because I get a lot of random requests, so I need to know who you are.
normally I'm on:
Halo
Halo Wars
GRiD
End War (which I REALLY suck at)
PGR 4
Banjo Kazooie
Lulz an obsession has been formed around it. XD Sooo awesome (but I think I'm already close to the end, so its so short as well. ;_
CG, hey! Guitar Hero, eh? Lol yeah, that game stays addicting for quite awhile (I still want to play Guitar Hero 4 World Tour on my Xbox 360, but my brother took it to his house 5 days after Christmas. ALONG WITH THE DVDs!!! *cue Episode III Darth Vader, "NOOOOO!" scream* XD)
