I'm actually not entirely sure.
In the Internet circles I frequented, you always heard little mentions of it here and there: people would talk in whispers about the difficulties or majesties of Dwarf Fortress, while others would say they wish they could play. Still others would talk about how it was the best game they'd ever played, but they were always brief, nondescriptive comments that didn't really leave me hungering for more. Finally, I found it on the Minecraft entry in Wikipedia, noted as a game Notch supposedly tried to copy when he made Minecraft - but failed. As anyone who knows of Notch's work knows, the man has never made an original thing in his life, so for there to be something he had
unsuccessfully tried to create... that had my attention.
Unfortunately, not for long. I downloaded the game, started it up, and was beset by what seemed a psychedelic array of random colors and symbols (ASCII), and I couldn't make one thing from the next. As a result, I became convinced that it was just an inside joke and not actually a "modern game", abandoning the attempt. (Ironically, when I first played Minecraft, I also thought I was being pranked, that it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen, and abandoned it for a year or so until prompted by someone to give it a second shot. Now I'm back to thinking it's pretty dumb.
)
Later, however...
Something brought me to Boatmurdered. I don't know what it was, I don't know where it was, and I don't know
who it was, or if there even
was a "who". I began skeptically: "Oh, this is
that game, the one that's the inside joke, but who cares, I'm bored and don't really have anything else to do." And as anyone who's read Boatmurdered knows... it leaves you wanting to play the game.
So I did.
Cue digging into a murky pool from the side because I thought it was some sort of gems and didn't understand z-levels, which then turned out to be water. I was convinced my dwarves were drowning to death and abandoned the attempt in panic. This was followed by a "mighty" year-old fortress in the "sky" (read: on a hilly plateau with 2z+ slopes) that was eventually swarmed by goblins (read: they went up the slopes I'd built my walls around because I didn't understand z-levels). My third fort lasted longer, primarily because I'd finally adopted a graphics pack and had discovered z-levels and how to use them to my advantage... and from there, as I drafted everyone sloppily into a military to fend off a goblin ambush, and died a horrible, horrible death from a tantrum spiral... I was hooked.
so... I'm one of the few people who learned to play by throwing themselves into it, rather than the wiki, forums, or tutorials.
It was a bloody mess.
And it was glorious.Step Six: Look back on how boring Minecraft was.
Aye. That it was.