Yahtzee Crowshaw-
Hello, and let me start by saying that I've been a fan since 7 Days a Skeptic was recommended to me. "Indie game" developer that you are, I think you'll appreciate this one. I can't imagine I'm the first person to suggest a Zero Punctuation review of this game, and I'm sure I won't be the last, but I'll try anyway.
First, I should say that Dwarf Fortress (full title - Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress) is a freeware game, still in ongoing development, produced entirely by two brothers, Tarn and Zach Adams, Tarn doing all the programming. For his ease, the game is presented entirely in ASCII graphics - I doubt a keen gamer like you would be turned off by something like that, but it certainly scares away a lot of newcomers. For better or worse, it is a defining aspect of DF, and the power of descriptive text and imagination gives it a visual style all it's own.
It's hard to describe the gameplay of DF without actually demonstrating it, but as the name would suggest, the player takes the role of omniscient director of a dwarven settlement in a hard-fantasy world. The standard line is that it's like an extra gory, detached combination of Dungeon Keeper and The Sims. It plays as a real-time strategy game, with very little abstraction. Each workshop must be built, each piece of furniture put in place, each peasant given work orders, and each soldier forged equipment. Every dwarf has their own moods and preferences, every object has it's uses, every action has an observable cause and effect, and every problem has multiple solutions - another defining aspect of DF is the sheer detail, though this goes along with quite a bit of micromanagement.
Some of DF's biggest draws are it's atmosphere and truly open-ended scale. It would take far too long to list all the notable ways these features combine, but for one example - A popular hobby among players is to devise elaborate and spectacular ways to destroy healthy fortresses once they've lost their appeal. Flooding with water or magma is common, and the afore mentioned imagination-powered graphics make such catastrophes entertaining on a whole new level. But sometimes a fort will destroy itself easy enough. The dwaves' moods and reactions are unpredictable, and they can form wide webs of relationships. If a siege, accident, or other hardship claims some popular residents, their friends might go on a violent rampage, which angers anyone they cross, which draws the guards into the fight, whose injuries inspire riots, until the fortress has crumbled to a quick and bloody end.
Though strictly single-player, a popular activity in the community is running shared forts, either handed from player to player, or run as an ongoing narrative. Most rise and fall quickly, but by far the most famous was Boatmurdered, still used as an advertisement of sorts to show the game to new players. It was run in an older version of the program, so is not a great example of the modern gameplay, but is quite entertaining and very evocative of DF's personality.
There are other metagame features as well. DF also sports a free-form rogue-like Adventure Mode, that while engrossing in it's own right, has not received as much attention as Fortress Mode. The next round of updates will likely deal with this area the most. There's also Legends Mode. The latest version greatly expanded the power and scope of the random world-generation process - with a little more tweaking, Legends Mode will effectively become an automatic high-fantasy novel writer. Finally, it would be remiss not to mention DF's near endless customizability. Nearly all of the raw data can be easily modded, letting the player run civilized octopi, a world hot enough to melt iron, or an adaptation of any conceivable fantasy milieu.
Dwarf Fortress is not without it's faults of course. As it's still in development, every release is very much an alpha test, and bugs are quite common. That said, the programmer is quite dedicated to cleaning them out, and the program is very stable. The graphics (or lack of) and extensive micromanagement I've already mentioned. The learning curve is near vertical, but any player who has taken the plunge will tell you the effort was worth it.
Of course, reviewing an incomplete, indie ASCII game likely isn't the most appealing activity to you, and certainly not to the Escapist. But it's a project that could always use more press. At any rate, I highly recommend it to any gamer, especially one with an appreciation for detail and effort, and if only for yourself I suggest you pick it up once. And whatever your opinion, feel free to visit us at the forum. We're always glad to welcome another conversationalist.
-Aqizzar
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.phphttp://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/
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Topic: Zero Punctuation- DF. (Read 17476 times)