‘Dwarf Fortress’: It's Not That Hard
Dwarf Fortress Title Screen. Image Source: Bay 12 Games
In 2002, a pair of brothers named Zach and Tarn Adams began the development of a computer game called Slaves to Armok: God of Blood. The game itself was an isometric, fantasy roleplaying game, which emphasized combat, exploration, and three-dimensional graphics.
As the game’s development progressed, Adams began to start up various side projects, such as Mutant Miner, influenced by classic Roguelikes that focus on simple ASCII graphics and exploration. While never publically released outside of a few screenshots, the project continued to gain Adams’ attention, expanding more on the design and gameplay. Such decisions included being able to control more than one miner, changing the gameplay to act in real-time (as opposed to the turn-based nature of RPGs at the time), and modifying the 'mutants' into 'dwarves'.
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Image Source: Bay 12 Games
Realizing that they could add more features in a less constrictive manner, the brothers soon changed their main project from Slaves to Armok to Dwarf Fortress (also known by its more 'official' name, Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress).
Since then, Dwarf Fortress has grown into a cult classic, with development continuing and features constantly being added and worked on to this day. With such popularity, however, there never seems to be too big of a presence of the game in online spaces. You see, Dwarf Fortress also gained the infamous reputation of being one of the most notoriously difficult video games to ever be made.
Gameplay
At its core, Dwarf Fortress acts as a fantasy world/sandbox generator, allowing everything inhabiting the map to interact with the environment. With such simple graphics, the game can provide the player with an entire world at their disposal, with the bonus of being randomly generated with each new save file. Terrain, minerals, civilizations, religions, important figures, invasions, and other historical events are some of the few things randomly peppered on the land.
Image Source: Bay 12 Games View of a world map.
To become a part of history, however, one must first interact with it. Dwarf Fortress provides three game modes: Fortress mode, Adventure mode, and Legends mode. Legends mode acts as a timeline for the world, keeping track of every event and creature that is noteworthy. Adventure mode allows you the opportunity to take control of a single character of their design, whether they're a human, dwarf... or an anthropomorphic crab person. The mission? Whatever your heart desires! Treasure? Adventure? Death? All right around the corner.
Of course, the steak and potatoes of the game come in the form of Fortress mode, where the player is tasked with leading a group of hard-working, needy alcoholic dwarves into a small area of the world. Using the resources at hand, it is up to the player to make sure the dwarves work together to build their numbers up, trade and grow economically with nearby civilizations, and not perish at the hands of a siege of undead, Necromancer monsters. Easier said than done.
Image Source: Bay 12 Games An outside view of a fortress. Ignore the dead bodies.
As more and more dwarves move into your fortress for shelter, food, booze, and work, the realization hits that there are many things to keep track of. Much like other sandbox games, such as Minecraft or Terraria, there are many different ways to create industry and products. Aside from mining, dwarves can craft (carpentry, masonry, smithing), brew alcohol, cook meals, tend to farms and animals, train in fighting, hunt, fish, build, sew, write, sing, and teach themselves mechanics and engineering, healthcare, and leadership. With more dwarves comes the need for bedrooms, storage rooms, temples dedicated to a mish-mash of deities, and a tavern to make sure everyone stays full and inebriated. All while attempting to protect your fortress from outside (and inside) forces.
At first, the user interface may seem confusing, especially to those who haven't figured out what each selection will lead to. Despite this, it helps to understand that commands are fairly straightforward, and any viable action that can be taken will not be hidden from the player. Taking the time to fool around with the menus and seeing what leads where helps solidify shortcuts, such as seeing a list of all of your dwarves, or seeing what each workshop is completing.
Because of the nature of Dwarf Fortress, it's almost impossible to cover absolutely everything that can be done promptly. Fortunately, the game itself has a dedicated wiki page, as well as an entire forum on the Bay 12 website to answer any questions or share the hilarious antics of Urist Skullhead, who made a helmet out of the skull of his best friend.
Graphics
The one aspect of Dwarf Fortress that seems to give newer players cold feet is the fact that the graphics are essentially non-existent. Since its development, the vanilla version of Dwarf Fortress has kept true to its roguelike roots and uses a simple ASCII tile set to establish where everything is. Fortunately, there are multiple ways for players to understand what they’re even looking at.
Image Source: Bay 12 Games Inside a fortress
Those who are patient and determined to understand the text-based graphics will soon realize one major takeaway: letters and symbols that move are living creatures while just about anything stationary is furniture, weaponry, and other objects. Dwarves, in particular, are assigned smiley faces, with different colors to differentiate their numerous career choices.
While seemingly simple at first, Dwarf Fortress generates different personalities and appearances, among other things. When one takes a closer look at the little symbols, the player will be met with a fairly hefty description of any individual of their choosing.
Image Source: Bay 12 Games A description of a dwarf.
If you're still on the fence about adjusting to strange, archaic text-based graphics, have no fear. As with every other game, there exists a hefty amount of mods, some of which include different tilesets that make the game more palatable to the untrained eye.
Story
Dwarf Fortress, like most fantasy adjacent properties, is heavy in the lore that it carries over from world to world. However, as with most life simulators, such as The Sims or Civilization, there is no set 'story', leaving players to watch different events unfold in front of them, leaving them to interpret a story from the happenings.
Infamous for its wild stories, there's never a shortage of what could happen in Dwarf Fortress. For example, one time in a fortress, one of my dwarves was caught stealing a valuable artifact for some random goblin that had arrived in my tavern. Despite being caught, the dwarf refused to comply. Therefore, he was punished with a public beating.
Unfortunately, the hammerer sent out to do the beating got a little too overzealous and bit his lips off. She soon earned the appropriate nickname, 'Lip Biter', and the now lipless Dwarf was left with no teeth and a trip to the hospital.
Another time, in a different world, a goblin siege had come to raze my fortress. Already dealing with an enormous graveyard of bodies, we knew to start building more gravestones, in preparation. However, as a group of trolls began to knock over previous headstones, the ghosts of those deceased dwarves got mad and decided to drop all of the trolls from the sky, letting them splatter onto our inverted pyramid building into a mangled mess. So at least we didn't need to expend any military for any of them.
Pros And Cons
It would be easier to start with the cons, as the game itself isn't perfect. The lack of graphics could be seen as a turn-off to newer players, and the user interface can be quite confusing at times, even to veterans of the game. Not just that, but because the game is heavily reliant on your computer processor, larger worlds and fortress might bring your whole game to a crawl, or even a standstill. Not just that, but the game, especially in its earlier builds, is known for being somewhat buggy.
The pros, however, that keep the game popular is the fact that just about anything and everything can happen. Even in the game's obscurity, the community and support that many fans have for Dwarf Fortress are still active and strong. In fact, Tarn and Zach Adams have teamed up with Kitfox Games to help develop a version to release on Steam.
While the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress won't be free to download like its parent counterpart, the game's graphics will be updated, adding more sprites for those who prefer to keep things visual. They also plan to adjust the UI so that it's much more digestible and easy to navigate. They're even working on adding a tutorial to the game, which the vanilla version of the game lacks.
Image Source: Steam
While the release date is yet to be determined, development continues for both the Steam release and the original Dwarf Fortress.
Verdict
Dwarf Fortress truly is not that hard. With enough patience, humility, and interest in the events that unfold, you too will be sharing your own stories with your friends. Even with a steep learning curve, many resources will always be at your disposal, with a Steam release on the horizon. There will always be something that will shock and surprise you, and quick thinking (or a lack thereof) on the players’ part will only add to the entertainment factor. My final advice: don’t feel discouraged if your fortress (inevitably) fails, or if you lose your Fortress to a group of undead elves and oversized maggots. After all, as the game (and its fans) love to say, “Losing is fun!”
Rating: 10/10
Developer: Bay 12 Games; Publisher: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox Games; Players: 1; Released: August 8, 2006 (Bay 12)/TBA (Steam); ESRB: Unrated; $FREE (Bay 12)/$TBA (Steam)
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Source(s): Bay 12 Games, Steam