TL;DR
It's an awesome game and you should try it, even if the graphics suck and the learning curve is ridiculous.
After Furburt shared his story about a Dwarf Fortress mishap, I decided to message him to find out exactly what this miraculous game was.
He told me, and I downloaded it.
The first impression:
"OH GOD! MY EYES! WHAT HAVE THESE TERRIBLE ASCII GRAPHICS DONE TO MY EYES?!"
You can say that it's an acquired taste. Luckily, for those of us with refined graphical taste buds (yes they exist, why would you ever question such a thing?) there are several graphics enhancers and patches for Dwarf Fortress.
I downloaded one immediately. In fact, I couldn't have downloaded it faster. I'm no graphics whore, I swear; the graphics of Dwarf were literally making me want to cry.
But I got along that barrier just fine, and I soon found myself in an amazing world. A unique world, probably the best feature of the game is that the world generator (which you have to use in order to play the game) will create a fully unique world with randomized deposits of gems, stone, ore, etc. As well as randomized lakes, rivers, streams, oceans and even volcanoes and magma pockets beneath the world's crust.
And then (this is best part, especially for someone like me who glazes their pants at the mere thought of in-game history) the world will create an entire history that spans about 1050 years, and like the rest of the world, is completely unique and different every time. Fucking. Awesome.
There are so many things in this game and about this game that I could explain, but I would need page upon page of text and hours to do so, and even then I wouldn't be able to explain all of it. It's just a fantastic game.
A fantastic game if you can get over the three main hurdles that is.
The first hurdle? As I explained the graphics, which you can either just get used to, or download a graphics enhancer for.
The second hurdle? The 90 degree angle slope of a learning curve. This ain't no lightweight game, it took me about 24 hours of playing and experimenting before I finally was able to create a semi functional fort, and even then there's still a lot I have to learn. Thankfully, there are tutorials all over the internet, and a wiki as well. A game this huge deserves nothing less than a huge wiki.
Third hurdle? Learning how to overcome your addiction to this game. Someone on the random internetz once said something to this effect
"I play Dwarf Fortress. I wish I were a meth addict."
All in all it's great fun, and if you've never heard of it or have been wanting to try it, do it NOW.
For those of you who play the game, share some of your crazy stories. We all know that Furburt's wins the thread automatically, but there's bound to still be some good ones.
A personal favorite from my own experiences was when I discovered FUCKING MASSIVE deposits of at least a dozen minerals after one layer of digging. Seriously, I didn't even need to chop any wood, I literally just made a massive fort from stone right off the bat.
Of course, staying true the game's mantra "Losing is fun!" one of my dwarves went into a tantrum after not having what he wanted to create an artifact, he killed about seven of my 50 dwarves, who then went all melancholy/murderous with insanity.
This lasted until there were less than ten dwarves left. Then the goblins came, killing three. I eventually said "Fuck it." and abandoned fort.
And so ends the epic story of the fort I named "Angel's Anus".
It's an awesome game and you should try it, even if the graphics suck and the learning curve is ridiculous.
After Furburt shared his story about a Dwarf Fortress mishap, I decided to message him to find out exactly what this miraculous game was.
He told me, and I downloaded it.
The first impression:
"OH GOD! MY EYES! WHAT HAVE THESE TERRIBLE ASCII GRAPHICS DONE TO MY EYES?!"
You can say that it's an acquired taste. Luckily, for those of us with refined graphical taste buds (yes they exist, why would you ever question such a thing?) there are several graphics enhancers and patches for Dwarf Fortress.
I downloaded one immediately. In fact, I couldn't have downloaded it faster. I'm no graphics whore, I swear; the graphics of Dwarf were literally making me want to cry.
But I got along that barrier just fine, and I soon found myself in an amazing world. A unique world, probably the best feature of the game is that the world generator (which you have to use in order to play the game) will create a fully unique world with randomized deposits of gems, stone, ore, etc. As well as randomized lakes, rivers, streams, oceans and even volcanoes and magma pockets beneath the world's crust.
And then (this is best part, especially for someone like me who glazes their pants at the mere thought of in-game history) the world will create an entire history that spans about 1050 years, and like the rest of the world, is completely unique and different every time. Fucking. Awesome.
There are so many things in this game and about this game that I could explain, but I would need page upon page of text and hours to do so, and even then I wouldn't be able to explain all of it. It's just a fantastic game.
A fantastic game if you can get over the three main hurdles that is.
The first hurdle? As I explained the graphics, which you can either just get used to, or download a graphics enhancer for.
The second hurdle? The 90 degree angle slope of a learning curve. This ain't no lightweight game, it took me about 24 hours of playing and experimenting before I finally was able to create a semi functional fort, and even then there's still a lot I have to learn. Thankfully, there are tutorials all over the internet, and a wiki as well. A game this huge deserves nothing less than a huge wiki.
Third hurdle? Learning how to overcome your addiction to this game. Someone on the random internetz once said something to this effect
"I play Dwarf Fortress. I wish I were a meth addict."
All in all it's great fun, and if you've never heard of it or have been wanting to try it, do it NOW.
For those of you who play the game, share some of your crazy stories. We all know that Furburt's wins the thread automatically, but there's bound to still be some good ones.
A personal favorite from my own experiences was when I discovered FUCKING MASSIVE deposits of at least a dozen minerals after one layer of digging. Seriously, I didn't even need to chop any wood, I literally just made a massive fort from stone right off the bat.
Of course, staying true the game's mantra "Losing is fun!" one of my dwarves went into a tantrum after not having what he wanted to create an artifact, he killed about seven of my 50 dwarves, who then went all melancholy/murderous with insanity.
This lasted until there were less than ten dwarves left. Then the goblins came, killing three. I eventually said "Fuck it." and abandoned fort.
And so ends the epic story of the fort I named "Angel's Anus".
