What is Dwarf Fortress?
Dwarf Fortress is more than one game: You do not 'play' a strategy, rpg or sims: the bloody and medieval edition, what you play is a world. The game for you begins by generating world in which you play. Its geography, nations, everything to get you a lively fantasy world. What you get is your own experience: The world you play in is truly unique, the stories you see unfold did not, and will not, happen for any other player.
Quite a simple story, something you could read about in a b-grade fantasy novel. Maybe it's the background for a minor side character? What makes it real is the fact that you can actually meet those people. Take a trip to the relevant town as an adventurer and have a chat with Uda. Maybe you can construct a mighty dwarven fortress and provoke a war with humans. Once they come to siege you, maybe Iki will be there, nervous and afraid of dying in a battle far away from her farm and children.
Everyone you meet has a personal history, was born somewhere to someone. Maybe they have lost a close friend or loved one to a monster you can now defeat. Or perhaps they've already had their revenge. You, as the player can impact this greatly. Embark on a bloody rampage through the human capital as an adventurer and see the kingdom crumble to pieces. Build a new capital for the dwarves in a suitable location and see their empire prosper.
The game contains an incredible amount of detail attached to everything. From this, complex behaviour comes to life. Worlds that can breathe. Worlds you can influence. Worlds of your own personal Epics and Legends.
I have seen the legendary artifact Abbokem created, and its creator Archacted being upset by its theft a few months later. The pursuit of Tlakala who miraclously escaped through a rain of crossbow bolts. Someone, somewhere could find a necklace made of rocksalt that does not dissolve in water. Does this sound like gibberish? It is because it happened only to me. No other player could have experienced it.
So, how can I actually play it?
The game has two modes. Dwarf Fortress mode, which is basically a city-builder type strategy game. You embark with a group of dwarves and your goal is to build a fortress. Fight off goblins, create wealth, build a dam. Have fun.
How do you go about that? Generally, you start farming to produce food, cut down trees and build log cabins or dig rooms in stone to give dwarves place to live in. As you would expect from starting a new settlement. Maybe produce some crafts and trade them away. If you are successfull, you will attract migrants and your numbers will grow, you will have enough manpower to start an industry (an industry of, say, harvesting mermaids for their bones) and military. Soon, goblins will learn of your location and start doing something about your presence (that is, they will try to kill everybody.).
It is important to note that you have nearly complete freedom in what you build. Making giant, water-powered Babage-like computers out of stones and gears is possible and a popular pass-time.
Thing is, your units are not just anonymous blank faces. They have likes, dislikes. They form relationships and if you are not carefull, they can become quite unhappy. With disastrous results. A dwarf that had his wife killed by elves and had to spend years sleeping on the ground in the rain because you did not bother making a room for him... Well, that dwarf can just flip out and actually kill someone who he thinks is responsible. Or maybe he will be the quiet type and just get depressed and stop eating ... and starve to death.
That still does not give you image of the gameplay. There is this ugly secret. The game is played mostly by keyboard and it does not have fancy graphics. The game does not exactly have great a graphics engine...
So, how the hell does it look? Well, it is played in text mode. Ascii. With the keyboard. Uhm. Well, look at it this way, no graphics team can really keep up with game engine features and level of detail. It turns out that just using glyphs and ascii symbols is the way to go, describe what happens to player and let him see it. It is like playing a book (Hence, those stories).
Well, that was our ugly secret. Do not worry, it is actually quite easy, just watch a tutorial. Maybe read a tutorial. If you still have quiestions, read the wiki.
Also, it is understood that not mentioning the story of boatmurdered is a crime. I can only hope I mentioned it early enough to prevent my hammering. Remember, not reading it is aslo, a crime.
Ahem, second mode?
It is called the adventurer mode. It is basically an RPG, you take controll of an adventurer and go ahead to do whatever you want. Set trees on fire? Kill dragons? Die horribly to Giant Cave Spiders? Be sick a psycho?
I will not say more, really. You have to watch a video to see what it is all about. I suck at explaining adventurer mode, sorry!
Oh yes, and one thing about the author
You might be interested on how this game is made. Well, it is the work of only one author. Someone decided to write game that he wants to play, did it and actually is set out to finish it. This makes the game a lot more impressive since it is something that huge teams did not actually manage to do.
And of course, there are grand plans. Basically, the goal is so that there are mechanics that allow various stroies to actually happen in game naturally (that is, not be scripted in any way.). Just consider this feature list for one release.
But then again, there is the modding community, right?
Right! Of course there is modding. What kind of sandbox would it be if there were no mods? From Fallout to Elder Scrolls, there are many interesting small additions as well as total conversions. Since making new graphics for new content is not really an issue, modders can be pretty wild in what they create.
The game is built so that modding is quite easy. Most of the data files are in plaintext format, easily editable. They contain pretty much everything you might want to change.
You can pretty much change anything you want: new civilizations, minerals, items, buildings, beasts...
Footer image by Balathustrius