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[dirkzen]

So here I am, sitting at my pc in the wee hours of the morning.
I've got the day off,  so I can spend all of it sitting right here, playing nearly any game I wish.

At my fingertips is Portal 2,  Dragon Age,  Fallout New Vegas, Oblivion, Aion, and many others that i've quite literally spent hundreds of dollars on,  not to mention my obscene stack of PS3 games.

But still..  even with all that glitz and glamor,  polished, shiny graphics and all the time i've sank into each one..   I still come back to my fortress.
My home.

I don't know what it is about this game.
This simple, unpolished, cruel, evil mistress of a game.
Honestly... the only game i've ever felt humbled to in my entire gaming life.

I love games that feed me with a silver spoon.  Games that pat me on the back and award me with shiny medals and badges for completing them.  Games that give me breathtaking views and visuals,  and push my pc to its graphical limits.
...but at the end of the day, after basking in all that glory..  I still find myself crawling back on my knees to this humble program of ASCII and text.

There are no goals.  There are no medals.  No one is there to pat me on my back.  Nothing is just 'given' to me.  The only silver I ever get to see is from the goblets and arrows that I forge with my own bare dwarven hands.

This game laughs in my face at the mention of 'easy mode'  or 'guides to winning'.    Lazyness is rewarded with swift, brutal death.  Every feeling of triumph and pride is met with a swift boot to the stomach as I watch my carefully planned fortresses fall to hordes of creatures.
I've quickly learned to realize there is no 'winning' here.   
That isn't the point.
This game is about the thrill of digging deep below the surface of the world,  uncovering untold treasures and coming face to face with beasts older than the world itself.
This game is about carving out a fortress more epic than anything you've ever read about or seen in any movie that hollywood could ever create.
Its about amassing piles of riches, tons and tons of beautiful, delicately carved jewels..  and then selling them off in order to have enough food to survive the winter.
This game is about patience. 
Humility.
Learning that not everything in life is going to be easy.

This game..
This beautiful.. simple.. wonderful game..

I believe it's changed my life.

[Waterbreath]

Well said!

[NW_Kohaku]

I find it amusing that you continually call something like Dwarf Fortress "simple" in comparison to a game like Portal.

(Wait, you buy your food?  Maybe that's why you find this game hard...)

[Indricotherium]

Hear hear to the OP of the OP!

[Befenismor]

Well said!

Indeed.

[MonkeyHead]

Today I have been a lttle bored. So i tried Aurora. I regret doing so. I appreciate its complexity, but it isnt fun in the way DF is. I felt dirty cheating on it.

[Roflcopter5000]

Development studios take note:
Millions of dollars spent in production isn't what gets you a high quality game. It is the passion of the people who are working on the game, and their dedication to the quality of that product, that will get you a good game.
EA can spend hundreds of millions to pump out crappy games year after year, and they will never release anything that has even a tenth of the potential that Dwarf Fortress has.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

OP:  I want to put that on a T-Shirt.

[ililiilliillliii]

Well said dude.  You should rewrite it in iambic pentameter though, maybe as a sonnet.  It's halfway there already.

[laovel]

Except for the owning any console games < > I'm in total agreement.