Dwarf Fortress you sick temptress, you!

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Ok, so a couple days ago Bill Harris says that he might be playing the game of the year and it is an obscure title. Well, today he comes out with it. The game is Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress. The catch is it's an ASCII game and it was developed by a single person. Bill has a much better write up on it and he got me to give it a shot. Here is a quick quote:

Bill wrote:

Now there is a third, one of the most complex and demanding games I've ever played. It has infinite variation, the learning curve is tremendously difficult, and the level of world detail is absolutely unparalleled.

...

Let me just warn you now: this game will take you 5-10 hours to learn. The ASCII graphics are disorienting at first, there are a huge number of options available (and associated menus to learn to access the commands), and it seems totally overwhelming.

Trust me, it's not. It just takes time. After a few hours, you'll start translating the ASCII you see into a "real" world very easily, and along with that, the menus will become more familiar. You'll also stop trying to play it like a "game" and start thinking, because this game rewards thinking as much as almost any game I've ever played.

Like Bill said, it is devilishly confusing when you first jump in. He points to several guides and such and I suggest you use them all if you consider playing. Also, be prepared to be hopelessly lost for the first 45 minutes of actual gameplay. Even as I am writing this down it seems absurd that anyone would want to play a game under these conditions. However, this is perhaps the most complex game I have ever played. The amount of detail and variety in the game continues to shock me. Seriously.

The main game has you starting off with a team of seven dwarven pioneers who endeavor to start a new mountain colony. You tunnel into the mountain to construct your new home. You cut down trees and catch fish and basically do anything that you can imagine a group of dwarves might do when starting a settlement. I am just starting to get around the initial learning curve and bizarre interface and the game is digging it's teeth in. Suffice to say that I can already feel that I am going to be dreaming about this game tonight.

For anyone who has ever enjoyed a strategy game, I suggest you make your way over Bill's place and read his review. You are not going to want to miss out on what seems to be the most intellectually engaging game this year. Trust me.

I played this when it was released, and I have two advices,

- Run it in windowed mode, and read this guide for first steps.

- Disable sound, is done editing a init/something.ini is a text file that says SOUND=ON

The game is great, need to put a lot of time on it, and if you were never into roguelikes probably dont like this.

I'm totally enamored with DF since Bill Harris dropped hte bomb yesterday. I tried it last night and I can definitely see potential, as long as one has the determination to get past the initial hump of the learning curve. This game looks HUGE. I will post more details when/if I have time to really delve in further. If an ASCII game tore me away from WoW it would be such poetic justice...

The concept sounds truly amazing but I can't get past the ASCII graphics. I'll be all over it once it gets a facelift!

I don't like strategy games, but even if I did I don't think I could tolerate the graphics. I'm not a stickler for the latest and greatest by any means (I recently started a game of Fallout 2, and its graphics are jurassic by today's standards), but I insist on graphics that tell me what it is that I am doing. I don't have to, say, have animations for every possible action, like drinking a health potion or bandaging myself, etc., but I do have to be able to determine what is supposed to be happening on the screen.

That said, this does sound like a fabulous herculean effort by one man, and I doubt that his long-term dream is to make games with ASCII graphics. Good luck to him.

Well, to be fair, it is a graphical game. Each character and item is represented by an ASCII character, and after a while you start to forget that you are playing an ASCII game. The rivers flow beautifully, your caverns take on shape and personality, and your smiling dwarves become quite endearing. Don't get me wrong, much like the steep learning curve of the gameplay, the graphics take some time to get used to (especially for someone like me who has never played a roguelike before.) I would have never thought that you could make such a beautiful game using ASCII before I played this.

I've been hearing talk about this game over the past couple of weeks. Looked interesting, but I sadly admit the ASCII graphics turned me off. Also, it sounds like more of a time sink than I'm willing to commit to right now.

Are there any pics for the game around?

I downloaded it a couple of weeks ago and played around for about an hour. The depth is pretty amazing, far more so than a lot of commercial games I've seen. I'd never played an ASCII game or roguelike bfore, but I'm definitely intriged enough to go back to it and give it a decent attempt. As soon as I wean myself off of GalCiv 2 and Diablo 2 (I have absolutely no idea how I've gotten myself re-addicted to a 6-year-old game).

Also, it might have the most graphic combat engine ever. I played around with adventure mode and got attacked by a couger. Bare-handed, I was literally ripping apart limbs, and being ripped apart. I finally died after his brother slashed my aorta. It's extremely detailed.

However, the game DID inspire me to install an actuall roguelike - Moria - on my PDA. No clue what I'm doing but it's pretty interesting.

Added: There's also a HUGE thread over at the Quarter to Three forums with screenshots and strategies etc. etc.

WTH is a roguelike?

Duffman wrote:

However, the game DID inspire me to install an actuall roguelike - Moria - on my PDA. No clue what I'm doing but it's pretty interesting.

Palm? I couldn't find a PPC version.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

WTH is a roguelike?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Wiki is your friend. A roguelike is a game that has similar qualities to the game Rogue released in 1980. Nethack is probably the most famous example.

EDIT: I hate you, Aetius.

I love wikipedia, and even as I typed that message, I thought, "They're just going to direct me to wikipedia." But sometimes, I'm lazy.

After having played around with Moria a bit, I am astounded at just how much Diablo 2 and it's endless stream of progeny (Titan Quest, BG:Dark Alliance etc.) are basically Roguelikes with purty graphics.

Moria? Come on .. Best Roguelike Game ever hands down is ADOM, that one sucks 10 hours of me daily some years ago..

I reach a state where I see a capital letter B and I think in a Giant Bat, and the good meat that its corpse leave behind to cook..

I found the game log from my earlier combat. I'll include so you might sample the combat discriptions:

You counterstrike!
You punch The leopard in the right rear leg with your right hand!
It is bruised!
The leopard charges at You!
The leopard bites You in the right lower leg!
It is badly ripped!
The leopard collides with You!
You are knocked over!
The leopard bites You in the left lower leg!
The shot glances away.
The leopard bites You in the left upper leg!
It is torn!
The leopard latches on firmly!
You breaks the grip of The leopard's head on Your left upper leg.
You attack The leopard but She jumps away!
The leopard bites You in the right lower leg!
It is broken!
The leopard latches on firmly!
You are unable to break the grip of The leopard's head on Your right lower leg!
You breaks the grip of The leopard's head on Your right lower leg.
The leopard bites You in the right lower arm!
It is badly ripped!
The leopard latches on firmly!
The leopard shakes You around by the right lower arm!
A chunk is torn away!
The leopard lets the human Chunk drop away as She attacks.
The leopard bites You in the upper body!
It is torn!
The leopard latches on firmly!
The leopard shakes You around by the upper body!
A chunk is torn away!
The leopard lets the human Chunk drop away as She attacks.
The leopard bites You in the lower body!
The shot glances away.
You miss The leopard!
The leopard counterstrikes!
The leopard bites You in the left upper arm!
The shot glances away.
The leopard bites You in the lower body!
The shot glances away.
The leopard bites You in the left upper arm!
It is badly ripped!
The leopard latches on firmly!
The leopard shakes You around by the left upper arm!
A chunk is torn away!
You punch The leopard in the head with your left hand!
It is bruised!
The leopard has been knocked unconscious!
The leopard falls over.
You grab The leopard by the right ear with your left lower leg!
You release the grip of Your left lower leg on The leopard's right ear.
You grab The leopard by the human Chunk with your right upper leg!
You release the grip of Your right upper leg on The leopard's human Chunk.
You punch The leopard in the right front leg with your left hand!
It is bruised!
You give into pain.
You regain consciousness.
You punch The leopard in the upper body with your left hand!
It is battered!
The leopard's liver has been broken!
You are no longer stunned.
You punch The leopard in the lower body with your left hand!
It is battered!
You punch The leopard in the right rear leg with your left hand!
It is battered!
The leopard regains consciousness.
The leopard spits out the human Chunk.
You punch The leopard in the left rear leg with your left hand!
It is bruised!
The leopard stands up.
You punch The leopard in the right rear leg with your left hand!
It is broken!
The leopard bites You in the lower body!
It is badly ripped!
The leopard latches on firmly!
You punch The leopard in the left front leg with your left hand!
It is bruised!
The leopard is no longer stunned.
The leopard shakes You around by the lower body!
It is broken!
You punch The leopard in the upper body with your left hand!
It is broken!
The leopard shakes You around by the lower body!
It is mangled!
The leopard shakes You around by the lower body!
It is mangled!
You punch The leopard in the left rear leg with your left hand!
It is battered!
The leopard shakes You around by the lower body!
The lower body is ripped away and remains in The leopard's mouth!
You have been struck down.
The leopard spits out the Rimara Capic"šwi's lower body.
The leopard gives into pain.
The leopard falls over.

Every fight is like this. Awesome.

You broke his liver! How awesome is that?

You grab The leopard by the right ear with your left lower leg!
You grab The leopard by the human Chunk with your right upper leg!

Hehe

CodexMatt wrote:

The concept sounds truly amazing but I can't get past the ASCII graphics. I'll be all over it once it gets a facelift!

Strangely (Bill mentioned this and I just hit this point), about an hour, maybe an hour and half in, the graphics just clicked for me. It's like in the Matrix: "I don't even see the code anymore, all I see is blonde, brunette, redhead..." Suddenly it was a real place, with guys working all around and sleeping on the floor wherever they fell, exhausted. I felt bad that I hadn't made them all beds yet. It was a really bizzare moment, let me tell you.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
CodexMatt wrote:

The concept sounds truly amazing but I can't get past the ASCII graphics. I'll be all over it once it gets a facelift!

Strangely (Bill mentioned this and I just hit this point), about an hour, maybe an hour and half in, the graphics just clicked for me. It's like in the Matrix: "I don't even see the code anymore, all I see is blonde, brunette, redhead..." Suddenly it was a real place, with guys working all around and sleeping on the floor wherever they fell, exhausted. I felt bad that I hadn't made them all beds yet. It was a really bizzare moment, let me tell you.

Well said. I had a near identical experience.

This is the first time DF is popping up over here? Really? Huh.

Well, anyway I've digging on this one too but I haven't gotten too far into it yet. The wiki is an absolute must and this beginners guide is a good idea as well. Don't let the ASCII graphics turn you off to this one. I can't help but find this screenshot pretty darn impressive.

I to have been trying this game recently. The learning curve is terrifying, but the gameplay underneth is amzaing.

I occationally go back to playing nethack and I've played some MUDs off and on for a bit. (Discworld in particular) and one thing keeps coming back to me. If you remove the graphics and the expense associated with that shiney packaging you end up seeing games that have far more depth to them. Discworld in particular is basically a 10 year old MMORPG that has an infinite leveling system and is absolutly huge. It's also free and run by the players. The world is something rediculous like a million tiles that you can visit. The main city itself has more to do in it than most most modern MMOs.

I just keep thinking if you could take the gameplay from these games and slowly (ever so slowly) add some graphics to take the edge off the learning/memorization involved in playing there would be some amazing experiances to be had!

Al wrote:

Don't let the ASCII graphics turn you off to this one. I can't help but find this screenshot pretty darn impressive.

OMG! I cant think the ammount of time needed to do that!

kabutor wrote:
Al wrote:

Don't let the ASCII graphics turn you off to this one. I can't help but find this screenshot pretty darn impressive.

OMG! I cant think the ammount of time needed to do that!

A *heck* of a lot less time than it would to create it in 3D. The thing is, you could do this in 3D. You just need a good toolkit. The text characters are just objects - you could convert each tile into a 3D construction (years and years, heh). So far, the best one that's come around is Neverwinter Nights, but that's a little too specific. Dugeon Keeper was pretty good too, and also Evil Genius - but the effort that went into their packaging was mostly wasted because the tools were never released.

Aetius, I'm assuming he was speaking as a player, saying that he can't imagine the playtime involved in building a Dwarf Fortress of that magnitude. But I could be totally, ass-backwards mistaken.

You are right Fedaykin98, I have played the game, and I did something like 5 - 6 rooms, a small farming zone and some doors, wich tooks me a _lot_ of time, but the fortress in the screenshot is the real Moria itself.

Let me just warn you now: this game will take you 5-10 hours to learn. The ASCII graphics are disorienting at first, there are a huge number of options available (and associated menus to learn to access the commands), and it seems totally overwhelming.

The learning curve is the fun. Neat game.

ASCII made me think it would run on the old laptop I pack around for word processing and playing Fallout. No dice, have to wait 'til I get home to my desktop. With my interest in MUD's, I think this one would be right up my alley. Bring on the complexity!

Druidpeak wrote:

ASCII made me think it would run on the old laptop I pack around for word processing and playing Fallout.

At first blush it appears to run on my PIII-850 w/512MB laptop. I haven't gotten past the starting phases though.

I am loving Dwarf Fortess so far. I am a big fan of Nethack, and this has so much more depth. I was floored when 3 of my dwarves mourned the mule they just butchered for food. I also had one dwarf throwing tantrums and breaking every statue in sight.

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