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[JerryvonKramer]

I've been playing DF many years, in fact for the past few years I've played it in various Masterwork versions.

I've been looking with some interest in new games that seem somewhat DF inspired, but I worry that all I will think when I play these games is "hmm, this isn't DF". Here are some I've just de facto ruled out as being not worth my time at all:

- Gnormia
- Banished
- Towns
- Craft the World

Looking and reading around, I can't see any reason for a DF player to play these games. Agree?

Beyond them, these ones seem of greater interest:

- KeeperRL ... partly this appeals to me through theme. I loved Dungeon Keeper when I was a teenager, I ALWAYS played as the Evil Wizard playing Hero Quest, and this seems to answer that "dream game" scenario.
- Rimwold ... much less interest in the theme, but seems to have good reviews on Steam.
- Stardew Valley ... more towards farming, but this again has outrageous hype on Steam.
- Prison Architect ... I actually own this already, because I bought it as an early release. I never actually played though and see now it has a full release.

Are these worth the time of a hardened DF player in your view? I have one main question:

Do any of these offer something which DF doesn't (beyond grahpics)? What can they do that DF can't?

Finally:

Are there any other games beyond the ones I've listed that should at least be on my radar?

Any and all views on this welcome.

[Flying Dice]

Rimworld, PA, and Stardew Valley are all good games-Rimworld is the only one I'd really compare to DF and it still very much does its own thing. Stardew Valley has nothing to do with DF, IIRC it's like a cross between Harvest Moon and Terraria.

[Frumple]

KeeperRL's ASCII version is actually free and I think mostly/entirely up to date. If you're wondering about it as a purchase, you probably want to give that a whirl. S'on the game's actual website, somewhere or another. Vis a vis comparison, it's smaller focused than DF with less moving parts and (much) less focus on the little stories type thing that is DF's core, but it's also much less hands off with stuff like combat, and involves raiding and whatnot. It's definitely pretty dungeon keeper-y, with some nice added touches. Fairly enjoyable, imo.

Stardew is indeed very much not like DF -- it's a pretty direct spiritual descendent of the Harvest Moon (Well, more directly the Rune Factory stuff) series, not anything resembling DF's style of gameplay. About the only similarities are the story focus (though of a rather different nature from DF's procedural nature) and the fact that farming, fighting, and familymaking are involved. I'd personally recommend it, particularly if you can get it on the cheap, but if you're looking for something similar to DF it very much isn't it. It's also not like terraria pretty much at all, though. More the Rune Factory stuff, harvest moon with a dash of secret of mana (more like evermore, really, iirc) style ARPG combat (just sans multiplayer).

Both of 'em are either a lot more personal/give the player more direct control of a smaller number of critters than DF's primary mode, or more involved than its adventure mode. They both do lots different and offer stuff DF doesn't just by dint of being pretty much entirely different in regards to genre and design ethos, more than I'm willing to attempt to summarize with any more depth than the above, when I've only been awake like ten minutes.

Rimworld and prison architect I haven't played, heh. People seem to like 'em a fair bit, though, and PA's recently-ish started seeing some decent sales, if I'm not mistaken.

All that said, near as I can recall every one of the mentioned games have dedicated threads here in OG, and they've also got LPs floating around youtube with varying degrees of prolificness. If you're actually on the fence/tightly restricted about which of the four to get involved with, you probably want to watch some gameplay vids (maybe not with stardew, since it actually has non-procedural story bits and you can be spoiled if you care about that sort of thing, but the rest don't really have that issue) and skim over the threads in question a bit, see if what folks are talking about appeals to you.

[Starver]

Stardew Valley

[frightlever]

Gnomoria - was fun during development but the finished game is a classic example of catering to your forum. It's dull as ditch water to play, with perfect builds being encouraged. The gnome lack character, and the actual game is regimented with none of the random madness you can get in DF.

Banished - pretty little settlement builder with no combat, but you can mess around with the difficulty settings and make for some pretty bleak embarks. Worth a punt on sale but it has nothing like the breadth of DF.

Towns - I played a lot of this during the alpha/beta but it was never really finished. I'd skip it.

KeeperRL - just bought it, but I'm currently addicted to Call of Chernobyl.

Rimwold - excellent. Lacks much of the simulation aspects of DF but Steam Workshop integration has made for some crazy stuff, from turning your pet dog into a cyborg killing machine, to running cults that worship the elder gods.

Stardew Valley - horrible time sink of a game. 100% grind. Some people love it, but it did nothing for me.

Prison Architect - I buy everything Introversion makes but have yet to enjoy a single one of their games. Defcon came close. I played a chunk of the PA tutorial during Early Access, but lost interest and moved on to something else. I'll go back some day.

You could look at Stonehearth, http://store.steampowered.com/app/253250/ but again it's not even close to being DF. I used to have a folder full of links to DF clones and I tried quite a few (Timber and Stone stands out as one to avoid) and Stonehearth is the best of a bad bunch. It's FAR from being an interesting game right now.

Honestly, as several have said Rimworld is your best bet. I wish there was more of a "dungeon" aspect to it. Pretty much every embark has a hidden ancient room on the map with SOMETHING inside. Now that you can explore the entire world map it would be nice if they did more with this.

[ChairmanPoo]

Agree with the above. Rimworld + mods is an acceptable DF substitute. Not the same depth by far but has its own quirks, and there are several major mods that introduce completely new features to the gameplay. (If I had to make a judgement: When I played DF I did so without any mods whatsoever for the most part, I didn't feel the need for them. I'd probably play it alongside of Rimworld+mods now, and certainly play it INSTEAD of Rimworld-mods, if it wasn't for FPS-death, which is far less prevalent in Rimworld).

Honestly, as several have said Rimworld is your best bet. I wish there was more of a "dungeon" aspect to it. Pretty much every embark has a hidden ancient room on the map with SOMETHING inside. Now that you can explore the entire world map it would be nice if they did more with this.

The Rim of Madness guy plans to introduce features along the lines of what you want, with you being able to mount expeditions to explore Elder Thing cities in the poles, and stuff like that.

[nenjin]

PA will satisfy your inner builder and architect. It falls short of DF as a simulation though, but for what it is trying to do, it does it competently and in detail.

[Rince Wind]

A game you might want to look at is King of Dragon Pass.

[Levi]

Gnomoria is decent.

Banished is incredibly boring.

I haven't tried Towns

Craft the World is kinda neat to look at, but not much too it in the end.

[MrWiggles]

I quite like Banish, but I hate that you cant ever really recover from a starvation spiral. I had town with a ton of population, I think I went close to 1000 folks. Then I took on some immigrants or refugees whatever, the folks that petition to live with you.
And like that extra folks just killed all 1000. I just couldnt contract the city, and concentrate the population.

[Wiles]

In all honesty, if you like the look of Stardew Valley, you might have more fun with Rune Factory 4. Much better game, in my opinion. Depends on you having a 3DS though.

They have quite a different focus and I would heartily disagree that Rune Factory 4 is a much better game. I think they cater to different audiences so I can certainly see why you would prefer one over the other. I like both games myself but if I had to chose between one or the other it would definitely be Stardew Valley.

[EuchreJack]

If you're looking for what Adventure Mode in DF should look like, try Cataclysm DDA or Unrealworld roguelike.

[Girlinhat]

Do not recommend Banished, mostly because of the weird micromanagement you have to handle.  My biggest problem is that when an adult male and female are in the same house, they produce children.  Great, right?  Except they only move into empty houses, and if one spouse dies then no one moves.  Eventually you end up with your whole city as elderly singles, or single children, who could EASILY pair off, but don't.  You have TOO MUCH housing, and have to manually go through and close houses to force them together - which is to order a deconstruct and then suspend it.  Because of this, your population WILDLY fluctuates, with a 'healthy' city doubling in population on each upswing.

There's also quirks like, eating more food types increases health/happy, but you can't organize how food is stored, so all of your dockworkers end up eating only fish because the apple orchard never moves apples beyond the closest food silo.

[Gabeux]

I've tried most of these. Rimworld, Prison Architect and Stardew Valley are the only ones that I still play today, and are part of my "favorite games of all times list".
Gnomoria is decent but I can never play it for longer than an hour, Craft the World felt annoying (and I refunded it, because the Co-Op thing is stupid), haven't tried Towns in ages and after watching a bunch of videos, Banished doesn't seem my cup of tea.

Rimworld is like a game you could be playing on a second monitor as you wait for your dorfs to dig your fortress. Just kidding, but that would be funny.
It provides almost the same level of "wtf" and amazing moments as DF does - when I played yesterday, I was trying to get my character healed from drug addiction..days in withdrawal..and then the storyteller decides it would be funny to drop a crate of coke right on my guy's lawn.
It brings a different survival feeling/experience than DF, which also feels great. The way the storytellers work kind of annoy me, though...DF feels much more natural and 'real'. Being attacked by a dragon, titans or beasts makes sense, when you build near their lairs. Losing in DF was always Fun to me, no matter what. Losing in Rimworld pisses me off because difficulty-related things tend to be too linear and predictable.
What can't DF do that Rimworld can't: since Rimworld has storytellers, it can change the whole environment and force you to completely change your strategy and tactics all of a sudden (i.e. during a nuclear fallout). DF can sometimes do that during sieges, but it's different.

Prison Archiect is amazing, although I'm not sure why. I think it's because of the same reason I love Tropico - if you don't stay aware of what's going on in your game, the game beings will surely bite you in the bottom. I have to play through it again, though..last time I played it was maybe 2 years ago.
What Prison Architect can do that DF cannot: AFAIK, Prisoners can band together in order to be more effective during escape attempts or rebellions. It will be interesting the day dorfs start to rise against your own mayor, which could force you to pick a side. This could also be applied for splinter groups within allied empires. Not sure how it would work or if it would even be a necessary or fun feature.

Stardew Valley is only dorfy in the sandbox, do-your-own-stuff kind of way, but it is limited by all of the conventions existant on the 'social farming simulator' Harvest Moon type of games. I loved the game in my first playthrough on release, and have been playing very casually last month (I'm waiting for the Co-Op).
What can Stardew Valley do that DF cannot: You can't ride a horse while you ride a minecart in DF. Well, technically you can't do that on SV either.
With them being both completely different games, the only thing SV has that DF hasn't is events. The Spring Dance, the Winter Festival (or whatever) and things like that. Being able to setup your own custom holidays for DF would be hilarious, although I think this is mod territory.

[Flying Dice]

Yep, that's pretty much the dealio with Rimworld. It's a slightly less complex DF in a Firefly-like setting with difficulty that feels a lot more artificial. You're gonna die from the same three or four things every single time, barring rare surprises. Also the combat is even more annoying if you're like me and have the urge to micromanage, since your peoples are sometimes even less intelligent than dorfs once they start fighting.

But yeah. Good game, but most of the challenge comes from things that happen pretty predictably. Lightning strikes burn down everything, pirates shell your colony, batteries explode and burn down everything, surgery goes bad, the inevitable collision of bad traits causes infighting and shitty moods, &c. That's one thing I cherished about DF, I never knew quite where the next hit would come from, and it was my own fault often as not. Like, my workshop cells would never have flooded if I'd been more careful planning out my underground power station, that miner wouldn't have broken legs if I hadn't gotten lazy cutting out the scaffolding for a multi-level chamber, so on and so forth.