Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jakkarra]

http://www.destructoid.com/indie-nation-47-games-i-do-not-understand-118987.phtml

hehe. he dosent Get us.

[Eidalac]

Not shocking, really.

DF is kinda a beast to get started with.  If it weren't for reading the tale of Boatmurder, I'd have never even attempted to play the game, even if I had found it before.


Hrm.

Makes me think though:

I'd be nice to have a play-by-play from a total novice playing DF with no clue what to do.  That could form the basis for a tutorial that could be more informative than the typical pure instruction type.

[Yanlin]

It already exists somewhere.

[Ohaeri]

Youtube has a great set of tutorials, the wiki has tutorials, and there's a tutorial series for complete noobs up here.

The thing about DF is, you have to learn how to navigate the game first, and that seems really impenetrable. But once you learn it becomes second nature. It's a new way of playing, but once you learn it, it's easy.

[Agdune]

I found Dwarf Fortress to be simple compared to X-com, tbh. The expansion to Z-levels buggered me up for a few months as I was too terrified to even build the most basic fort but I got the hang of that too without too much trouble. I guess though, when I first started playing DF the "your first fortress" partial tutorial was still totally relevant, probably made the first few attempts easier for me. Of course, the words "you can grow mushroom forests underground" and "dungeon keeper" that the game was posted with on those forums helped with the motivational side of things.

[Leafsnail]

You're so evil.  Now I'm going to have to try Toribash.  It looks weirdly amazing.

[andrea]

mm... that link was posted much time ago.

i didn't have many problems with DF... at least there is a list of commands that you can use on every page. that helps a lot.
and about ASCII, after the first hour it is like watching real pictures... at least in my opinion.

[Jude]

Getting into Dwarf Fortress is a fucking job. Don't kid yourselves.

Still, at least the guy appreciates that there's probably a good game behind the godawful mess of an interface. You can hardly expect everybody to get into DF. it's quite the niche market.

[Jreengus]

I take offense at him claiming it's dfs fault for having terrible interface/no tutorial then comparing to portal. I mean come on portal was commerically made by a whole team not just by one guy. It has video tutorials and it's still in alpha so you cant expect it to have a brilliant interface.

[Aqizzar]

Could someone copy over the text?  The page refuses to load for me.  I want to join the dishfest on whoever he is.

[Pillow_Killer]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Since the very first Indie Nation, I've received several requests to highlight two different games: Toribash, a turn-based ragdoll fighter, and Dwarf Fortress, a dungeon keeper/crawler.

Several times over the course of the last year, I have attempted to play both of these games. I have attempted to pierce their confusing interfaces, to work out their complex rules, and to conquer their ridiculous learning curves.

I have failed. Over and over again, I have failed to play these games they way they are meant to be played, whether due to my own idiocy or their ridiculously impenetrable interfaces.   

Still, I've heard so many good things about both games that I'd feel incomplete if I didn't, at the very least, mention them to you.

You can hit the jump for a further explanation of why these games are supposed to be good (and why I wouldn't personally know), or you can just download both of them and find out for yourself. I'll be holding my knees and sobbing loudly while you do so.

Toribash is supposed to be an awesomely complex turn-based fighter where you individually manipulate the joints and muscles of a ragdoll's body in order to make him attack. How complicated is it?

I needed a YouTube tutorial to show me how to throw a punch.


Yeah.

As for Dwarf Fortress, it's supposed to be some sort of incredibly addicting mix of Civilization, Dungeon Keeper, an RTS, and a roguelike that just happens to have the least friendly user interface in history. All the visuals are ASCII, all the commands are mapped to the keyboard -- in cosmetic terms, there's no reason the game couldn't be on an Apple IIe. Mechanically, though, I guess it's insanely complex and full of clever procedural generation and stuff.

I wouldn't know any of this personally, of course, because I'd need to read and study this gargantuan fucking wiki article to even get started with the game.

Here's the question, though: is it my fault for not wanting to put in the requisite time and effort to learn these games, or the game's fault for being so goddamn confusing and impenetrable?

Given how Portal, Braid, and World of Goo gradually taught me how to master their pretty-goddamn-confusing mechanics through steady learning and difficulty curves, not to mention some very friendly (yet seamless) in-game tutorials, I'm leaning toward the latter.

Pretty lame portal anyway. Those people praise commerical games to the point of.. bleh.. A whole lot.

[Broose]

Man, I remember learning Dwarf Fortress. I saw it one day, never having played a roguelike before, and forced myself to play it until I understood it.

Also, Portal? World of Goo? Those were both SIMPLE.

[JoshuaFH]

The only thing I take offense at is the fact that he doesn't mention that it's still in Alpha, way incomplete, but otherwise I'd say his opinion is pretty sound.

[Aqizzar]

I will agree that Dwarf Fortress doesn't have any kind of build-up in it's difficulty.  You're just thrown off a cliff and expected to hit the ground a few times before you learn to fly.

However, getting the game started does not require any special skill, let alone the wiki.

[Enzo]

You're so evil.  Now I'm going to have to try Toribash.  It looks weirdly amazing.

It's not.

But yeah, comparing a freeware game in alpha, produced by a single man to several completed full-dev-team commercial projects is just goddamn ridiculous. But it happens all the time when people are talking about Dwarf Fortress. I guess that could be interpreted as complimentary? Also,

Here's the question, though: is it my fault for not wanting to put in the requisite time and effort to learn these games, or the game's fault for being so goddamn confusing and impenetrable?

Reviewers sometimes forget, I think, that videogames exist precisely for people to waste their time with. Dwarf Fortress just...excels in that particular regard. And I managed to play Fortress Mode before I found the wiki. Not well, but the keys are right there in front of your face.