Dwarf Fortress Review (Tree(moos))
When I was thirteen years old I heard about Dwarf Fortress. Even at that age I had a fondness for the black and green text of old school style command line interfaces and mainframes. To me, getting closer to the computer's hardware is like getting closer to some sort of truth. Naturally the ASCII art style and very low level programming style of the game tickled this fancy.
I donated to Tarn and Zach at a young age with money I made working a part time job in high school. In return they sent me a drawing of a Velociraptor riding on the back of a rocket, firing an AK-47, in space, several UFO's floated about the page and they even had sparkly blue crayon hulls. I think that's what my teenage brain asked for them to draw but I can't remember. Unfortunately, I loved the game but, like many others, found it to be so obtuse to play compared to other games I had at my fingertips, but always in the back of my mind, I knew there was so much potential if I just sat down and learned the damn thing.
With the release however, that is all changing. This is the version that anyone can play. The art style strikes a perfect balance between visual appeal and psuedo-nostalgia. It's like the game has sprung into life. There is enough graphical representation for you to understand the world, but not enough to rob you of an opportunity to use your own mind's eye and creativity to form stories and scenes of what is happening on the screen before you. While there is a wealth of information, there is still plenty of space for you to draw your own conclusions. These dworf worship a God - 'The Submerged' that represents Rivers, and they want you to build them a temple, so why not fill it with statues of otters, fish and waterfowl, and place it submerged underneath the bed of a river? Intrinsically there is not a difference between this and a 4x4 square with a masterwork level decorated throne. But extrinsically, it is everything.
Easy comparisons to this game are right in front of us: Kenshi, Rimworld, Going Medieval, Factorio etc. All with various levels of 'game-mechanics'. But Dwarf Fortress is really a unique experience. Rimworld is a challenging game where you have to pay special attention to colonists needs and there are many pitfalls that end runs. You research new technology, engage actively in combat systems, and have several win conditions. DF gives you everything at the start, there is no win condition, and you mainly engage in combat through interacting with your Fortress, not your dworf. When you lose, the first thought isn't, dang I suck, it is, well, there is not perfect fortress, and all fortress must end, and now I get to make a new one, with all of the experience and knowledge I have now, this one will be the best one yet, hmmm... I think I will try to settle near a Necromancers tower this time, and see what that is like.
The point I am making is that Dwarf Fortress is not a game. Dwarf Fortress is a canvas. Sure, your fortress can fail, but it is much easier to NOT fail. The game gives you room to learn and grow and experiment, and is not so focused on winning and losing. The engagement I feel working on a fort is unlike any other solo game I have played. You learn your dwarves and they develop a history that only you know. In my current fort, I have a warrior who was heavily wounded in combat and as such is very slow and unable to fight, and has now retired to live near the duchess' tower and crafts all of the stone statues throughout my fort. I have a dworf who is not injured, but still as slow, because they have on around 20 crowns. Is that a bug? Or is that dwarf just enthralled with crowns? Time to read about their personality to find out.
I kept finding clothes all over the floor of dwarves bedrooms. I read that a cabinet in their bedroom will solve that, as dwarves will put their old clothes in there. But I still found that a couple dwarves were still leaving their clothes everywhere. I was frustrated by this, until later that day, I walked into MY bedroom, and what do I find? Clothes all over the floor next to my cabinet. That was the moment that I fell in love. Dwarf Fortress is not a game, Dwarf Fortress is alive.
Dwarf Fortress is the closest you will ever come to communicating with Armok himself.
STRIKE THE EARTH!