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[Philosophical Gamer]

I posted this 'essay' on my blog, philosophicalgamer.com, I know people here would be interested in it, here it is in its entirety:

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Among all of the games that have ever been made, I would venture to say that Dwarf Fortress is unparalleled by any other game in terms of its ability to allow the player total freedom to create something of their own within the framework of the gameworld.  There is no other game which allows you as a player to flex your creative muscle within the framework of a gameworld to such an extent, while also having defined, set rules and having a well-defined overall goal to pursue.

I wouldn’t call it a sandbox game;  I’ve heard the definition of a sandbox game to be a game with no set goal, in which the player is free to do what they choose within the game.  Dwarf Fortress is close, but it does have a goal - to keep your dwarves alive and well, and to build a thriving fortress for them to live in.  It is within the context of this overall goal that the player is unleashed to create what they will within the world.

A Million Choices

In the beginning of a Dwarf Fortress game, you start with 7 dwarves, standing in the middle of a landscape, usually with a dangerous creature or 30 around to kick the game into high gear.  The first goal is digging out a fortress for them to call home, a place where they can be safe and can begin to form a thriving dwarven colony.

Most games give you a few different choices at any given time, kind of like a multiple choice quiz, and they require the player to choose only one or two of them in order to win.  The player is essentially herded down a set path, with ‘wrong turns’ along the way, and one specific avenue of success.

DF on the other hand gives you a landscape in which to make whatever choice you damn well please.  Don’t want to dig out a fortress?  Okay, you can start chopping down trees and build a fortified compound on the surface, complete with arrow slits and ballistas lining every wall.  There are myriad of choices to make along the way in DF, and the beauty of it is that you get to decide what strategy you will use, and the consequence or payoff of each choice is always unique and compelling.  The range of choice at any given point in time is literally without limit.

Players have invented innovative new ways to send their enemies to their doom in DF, including lava traps, flinging them far into the horizon on retractable drawbridges, freezing them to death with a water trap, or letting the dragon that they captured earlier in the game go free as a mob of goblins approaches their fortress.

Unleash your Creativity within the World

The beauty part of it is that this all came from the players’ minds, the game didn’t tell them that they could send a dragon after a goblin siege, they simply made the choice to do so.  Any choice that you make in DF ultimately results in some expected or unexpected result.  There is so much to do in the game that you will literally find yourself playing it for months at a time.

I feel like this is Dwarf Fortress’s best asset, its ability to give the player a giant playground within which they can make anything happen.  It’s all up to the player’s creative will, to make of the game whatever they please.

The game seems to draw a certain creative, innovative sort of player.  Some players have even talked about designing calculators and computers in the game through the use of fluid mechanics and pressure plates.  Browsing the DF forums, it’s surprising to see level of intelligence and innovation of the playerbase.  This game really does draw creative people to it.

No other game has this quality, as far as I know.  Perhaps Second Life,  but I don’t know much about that game so I can’t make an informed opinion on it.
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Anybody agree?  I think that this is DF's best quality, giving the player a gameworld with a real goal, but also total freedom to exercise creative control of everything within the game.

[Tormy]

Yeah, this is a nice objective review. [Except the "quality part" of your review, that is subjective of course, but since you've posted this on your own website, that is totally acceptable. You ain't writing for an online mag afterall.  ] Good work. 

[Karlito]

Yeah, I guess you're right.  I never thought about it before, but even looking at the future development goals you can see they're all geared towards giving the player more options.

[Philosophical Gamer]

I've been trying to think of games which comes close to the same level of freedom of choice & creativity, I can think of Simcity 4,  but that is really about it.

I like too about DF that Toady took the sheer fun of the "miner" type games where you dig into the ground for gems and avoid cave-ins and aquifers, and managed to insert that whole miner meta-game into a whole other game with 15 other awesome pieces to it.  I always loved the miner games, and half the fun of DF is digging into the ground to see what you find.

Once the army arc goes in I'm going to be hooked for a year probably, trying to decimate the goblins or the elves (or humans) on every map.  Toady is sheer genious.

[Eldin]

I agree.

Creativity is not just a benefit for DF, I think, but a necessity. Once your fortress can handle itself, then what? Gamers that only enjoy games with set goals are up the proverbial creek, then. And once they beat the glacier with an aquifer of undead carp or what have you, they've "beaten" it.

We, however, begin making whatever we want. Man-Made Volcano? Okay. Want to remake the Hanging Gardens, the Colossus, the Library of Alexandria? Good Luck.

Creativity is the soul of this game.

[Creamcorn]

I agree.

Creativity is not just a benefit for DF, I think, but a necessity. Once your fortress can handle itself, then what? Gamers that only enjoy games with set goals are up the proverbial creek, then. And once they beat the glacier with an aquifer of undead carp or what have you, they've "beaten" it.

We, however, begin making whatever we want. Man-Made Volcano? Okay. Want to remake the Hanging Gardens, the Colossus, the Library of Alexandria? Good Luck.

Creativity is the soul of this game.

Most of the time I try to survive, though that's only because I choose evil biomes. I really enjoy the game when it's a struggle to survive, maybe I should try the mad butcher challenge in my next fort.

[Draco18s]

This stuff is exactly what Spore doesn't have.

[LegoLord]

Wonderful essay thar'

This stuff is exactly what Spore doesn't have.

Please drop the subject of Spore before this turns into another argument.  I've seen it happen so many times on the Spore forum  I stopped checking that forum after about a week and a half.

[forsaken1111]

Wonderful essay thar'

This stuff is exactly what Spore doesn't have.

Please drop the subject of Spore before this turns into another argument.  I've seen it happen so many times on the Spore forum  I stopped checking that forum after about a week and a half.

People can't talk about spore here because you're afraid it might become an argument because of something you saw on another forum?


On Topic: It was a good read, and serves well as a game review. Not sure if thats what you were going for.

[Tormy]

Wonderful essay thar'

This stuff is exactly what Spore doesn't have.

Please drop the subject of Spore before this turns into another argument.  I've seen it happen so many times on the Spore forum  I stopped checking that forum after about a week and a half.

People can't talk about spore here because you're afraid it might become an argument because of something you saw on another forum?

Eh, he has a valid point..take a look at the Spore topic [Other Games subforum]...

[Philosophical Gamer]

Wonderful essay thar'

This stuff is exactly what Spore doesn't have.

Please drop the subject of Spore before this turns into another argument.  I've seen it happen so many times on the Spore forum  I stopped checking that forum after about a week and a half.

People can't talk about spore here because you're afraid it might become an argument because of something you saw on another forum?


On Topic: It was a good read, and serves well as a game review. Not sure if thats what you were going for.

It wasn't so much intended as a review as more kind of an assessment of this particular aspect of DF, and how it relates to game making in general.  After playing DF for awhile I recognized that it had something to it which no other game seems to have, I wanted to figure out what it was, and this is what it turned out to be.

The thing I like about DF is that while it has a real, compelling goal, it's also a sort of virtual creative space in which a player can go about the game however they wish to.

I don't think that this would be possible without the genious of Toady's decision to have so many intricate variables involved in every aspect of the game.  Essentially it's almost like he's creating the basic groundrules for a whole new universe, rather than a game which "plays like one reads a book", with a set path to follow.

[Warlord255]

Once we get outworld-exploring invasions via the Army Arc, the possibilities will really be infinite.