Forget Silent Hill or Fatal Frame. You know a game that's terrifying? Bay12's Slaves to Armok: God of Blood: Dwarf Fortress II, colloquially shortened to simply Dwarf Fortress. If being one of Armok's slaves wasn't bad enough (it isn't), consider that the game's visuals are totally in ASCII, that there's no user interface to speak of, and that all of commands are mapped to the keyboard.
In case you're not hip to frustratingly opaque indie games, Dwarf Fortress is a mix of city-building "God game," real-time strategy, and roguelike, all wrapped up in a procedurally generated bow. Wonderful things can happen as you build your eponymous Dwarf fortress (it can be flooded by lava, for example), but trying to figure out how it works is like trying to dig a hole to China with toothpicks. That've been jammed into your eyes.
Luckily, developers Jonask and Solifuge have addressed at least one of the barriers to entry into Dwarf Fortress: enter Stonesense, an isometric visualizer that runs alongside the game, ostensibly providing the player with some visual orientation that's easier to handle than the original ASCII. The open-source project is currently in alpha (whatever that means), and the DF community has been contributing sprites.
You can download the file here (.zip), and check out a video of Stonesense in action in the video embedded above.
Maybe I've been spoiled by modern standards for aesthetics, but the impenetrable graphics surely aren't helping Dwarf Fortress win the hearts and minds of any but the most dedicated gamer. Stonesense makes another attempt at Dwarf Fortress tempting, but I'm still not sure that, even with the facelift, I'll ever be able to wrap my brain around the deep calculus at work here: that sounds like a fool's errand to me.
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Big fan of DF. It really has that old shareware feel to it - a sense of belonging in another age altogether. Liking the mod, which again makes me remember stuff like X-Com, and Spiderweb's Exile series. Good show!
Balls...I meant to add, anyone wanting to learn the game you cant go wrong with Captnducks video tutorials, he explains it really well and you can get the jist pretty quickly even with the ascii graphics hes using.
The graphics weren't the problem with that piece. I actually love ascii graphics, and they were what drew me to dwarf fortress.
The ridiculous menu system that makes absolutely no sense combined with the lack of instructions is what holds this "game" back. Seriously, I don't think it's possible to design a worse user interface. Even once you figure it all out, it's a pain in the ass to use.
I've always been interested in Dwarf Fortress, but not enough to get myself over the extremely high barrier to entry. This new addition doesn't change that.
One other complaint I had about dwarf fortress was that there is way to much micro management. I found the game interesting, but ultimately not actually fun. This is a personal preference though, and I probably would have looooooved it fifteen years ago.
Dwarf Fortress is one of my favorite games. It took me a month of restarting to survive my first winter. I love it for the same reason I love Demons Souls: if I die its my fault and learning from my mistakes is rewarding.
Plus its always fun to see a dwarf go insane, drag another dwarf into the butcher shop and come out wearing a pair of legendary dwarf leather gauntlets and then going on a killing spree.
I'm a long time DF player and I just find that stonesense, in it's current state, takes away from actually being able to play - you have to look between and move 2 separate windows instead of one now, woo!
I looooove Dwarf Fortress. I will be a fan for life. This tool is cute, and I look forward to using it, but I'll agree with Derek. The ASCII graphics are a breeze to get used to after a short while, and the tilesets available make a huge difference in aesthetics. All and all it's super fun.
PS. Couldn't you get a reviewer who actually likes/plays/is smart enough to understand the game to write this article? It leaves a lot to be desired :P
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6:00 AM on 11.05.2009
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Although i was using a tileset that made things look ok.
I tried some add-ons to assist with the graphics, but I prefered the ASCII graphics over what the community made.
The ridiculous menu system that makes absolutely no sense combined with the lack of instructions is what holds this "game" back. Seriously, I don't think it's possible to design a worse user interface. Even once you figure it all out, it's a pain in the ass to use.
I have work to do! Don't suck my life away, Dwarf Fortress!
Plus its always fun to see a dwarf go insane, drag another dwarf into the butcher shop and come out wearing a pair of legendary dwarf leather gauntlets and then going on a killing spree.
PS. Couldn't you get a reviewer who actually likes/plays/is smart enough to understand the game to write this article? It leaves a lot to be desired :P