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[Funburns]

I tried to explain Dwarf Fortress to my friends, they didn't understand, so I printed a picture of my fort, and they said to quote, "Ew, what the fuck is that shit?!  Why don't you buy Black Ops and play a decent game?"  I printed a screen shot of some combat records of a war tiger ripping an elf's throat out, they now won't stop talking about it.

This hints at a deep, important aspect to Dwarf Fortress.

In dwarf mode, the game paints its action in two complementary ways. The first is a spatial representation of the fantasy world, painted in symbols; the second is a descriptive text or combat report: procedurally generated, utilitarian verse.

On one screen, a fight between an army of dwarves and a siege of goblins bloodily unfolds in a near-incomprehensible, rosy mess, an alphabet soup with tomato base, noodles run amok. On another, the same battle is a near-interminable, prosy mass of horrific combat reports -- a War and Peace of gore and pieces.

The magic lies in the synthesis. How much fun would Dwarf Fortress be to learn if it had no written explanations, or if it was wholly restricted to them? Through heroic efforts studying dense screens of code and connecting it to richly written descriptions, the player not only begins to understand, they begin to imagine. A unique world arises in the player's mind, functional and recreative, borne on both the game's graphics and text, unlike either.

The phenomenon of any person's Dwarf Fortress comes within a stone's throw of a boundary beyond both picture art and literature, combining the two in a way only Roguelikes can. This is by way of a fantastic alchemie that is only in its least parts contained in the game itself. It is an ephemeral form of, an opportunity for, art that even a film critic couldn't imagine. Tarn and company can fit through the eye of a needle larger game developers have spent years running away from.

If someone is turned off of Dwarf Fortress by the ASCII graphics, it is because they did not actually see the game.

[Sandrew]

I tried to explain Dwarf Fortress to my friends, they didn't understand, so I printed a picture of my fort, and they said to quote, "Ew, what the fuck is that shit?!  Why don't you buy Black Ops and play a decent game?"  I printed a screen shot of some combat records of a war tiger ripping an elf's throat out, they now won't stop talking about it.

This hints at a deep, important aspect to Dwarf Fortress.

In dwarf mode, the game paints its action in two complementary ways. The first is a spatial representation of the fantasy world, painted in symbols; the second is a descriptive text or combat report: procedurally generated, utilitarian verse.

On one screen, a fight between an army of dwarves and a siege of goblins bloodily unfolds in a near-incomprehensible, rosy mess, an alphabet soup with tomato base, noodles run amok. On another, the same battle is a near-interminable, prosy mass of horrific combat reports -- a War and Peace of gore and pieces.

The magic lies in the synthesis. How much fun would Dwarf Fortress be to learn if it had no written explanations, or if it was wholly restricted to them? Through heroic efforts studying dense screens of code and connecting it to richly written descriptions, the player not only begins to understand, they begin to imagine. A unique world arises in the player's mind, functional and recreative, borne on both the game's graphics and text, unlike either.

The phenomenon of any person's Dwarf Fortress comes within a stone's throw of a boundary beyond both picture art and literature, combining the two in a way only Roguelikes can. This is by way of a fantastic alchemie that is only in its least parts contained in the game itself. It is an ephemeral form of, an opportunity for, art that even a film critic couldn't imagine. Tarn and company can fit through the eye of a needle larger game developers have spent years running away from.

If someone is turned off of Dwarf Fortress by the ASCII graphics, it is because they did not actually see the game.

I quote this because it is incredibly quoteable, and probably the best possible description of the Dwarf Fortress Experience.

[Megaman3321]

Hmm, I tried to get a friend to try it once. He ended up deleting it from his computer, stating that he couldn't understand the UI.

All the cool gamers go to my sisters school (MIU), where apparently about 50% of the graphic design students play df.

[TolyK]

I've introduced my neighbor to it.

And friends too.
((I haven't read the whole thread.))

I made sure to use the Lazy Newb Pack. Plus I accidentally got him to waste spend $20 on a 3-hour phone call. then we realized it would work on skype. *facepalm*

[The Merchant Of Menace]

I had the ingame help and my girlfriends teachings and I got into it just fine.

[TolyK]

oh yeah, the "Shift-?" help.
...
I learned that around 3 weeks ago and have been playing for quite a while.  ... ...

[Jingles]

oh yeah, the "Shift-?" help.
...
I learned that around 3 weeks ago and have been playing for quite a while.  ... ...

Really?  I hit the thing all the time by accident when going up or down levels with the lights off...

@Topic, I've tried introducing friends to it but they didn't take to it

[TheyTarget]

I'm the only person I have physical contact with who knows about/plays dwarf fort. I think once you fully understand that there is no option but losing, you really start to enjoy it. Which most people dont get.

[Berserkenstein]

I just tell people that this game is a super-advanced version of sudoku.  They usually think "Oh! Sudoku! I've heard of that."

[Uristisdying]

I tried to explain Dwarf Fortress to my friends, they didn't understand, so I printed a picture of my fort, and they said to quote, "Ew, what the fuck is that shit?!  Why don't you buy Black Ops and play a decent game?"  I printed a screen shot of some combat records of a war tiger ripping an elf's throat out, they now won't stop talking about it.

This hints at a deep, important aspect to Dwarf Fortress.

In dwarf mode, the game paints its action in two complementary ways. The first is a spatial representation of the fantasy world, painted in symbols; the second is a descriptive text or combat report: procedurally generated, utilitarian verse.

On one screen, a fight between an army of dwarves and a siege of goblins bloodily unfolds in a near-incomprehensible, rosy mess, an alphabet soup with tomato base, noodles run amok. On another, the same battle is a near-interminable, prosy mass of horrific combat reports -- a War and Peace of gore and pieces.

The magic lies in the synthesis. How much fun would Dwarf Fortress be to learn if it had no written explanations, or if it was wholly restricted to them? Through heroic efforts studying dense screens of code and connecting it to richly written descriptions, the player not only begins to understand, they begin to imagine. A unique world arises in the player's mind, functional and recreative, borne on both the game's graphics and text, unlike either.

The phenomenon of any person's Dwarf Fortress comes within a stone's throw of a boundary beyond both picture art and literature, combining the two in a way only Roguelikes can. This is by way of a fantastic alchemie that is only in its least parts contained in the game itself. It is an ephemeral form of, an opportunity for, art that even a film critic couldn't imagine. Tarn and company can fit through the eye of a needle larger game developers have spent years running away from.

If someone is turned off of Dwarf Fortress by the ASCII graphics, it is because they did not actually see the game.

I have nothing to add. While writing is what I do for a living, your post is admirable, cuddly, and simply thread-destroying. I salute you. 

[NSQuote]

I think I've successfully converted one of my more... dwarven friends.

I gave him the Lazy Newb Pack (and the vanilla) on a flash drive (he's got terrible internet), and he was incredibly happy about it, talking about it all day and asking a bunch of questions. He was then mysteriously absent the next day.

He seems like the type who would enjoy a good !!elf genocide!!.

[BigD145]

I tried to explain Dwarf Fortress to my friends, they didn't understand, so I printed a picture of my fort, and they said to quote, "Ew, what the fuck is that shit?!  Why don't you buy Black Ops and play a decent game?"  I printed a screen shot of some combat records of a war tiger ripping an elf's throat out, they now won't stop talking about it.

I've had the same hurdle when showing younger people Darwinia.

[TolyK]

just got another one. I told him that it was like CivCity which was waay more complex and had waay worse graphics.

I got him the LNP and he was like.... holy shit this is hard.
I think what saved him was that he played actual Konsole (i.e. Command Prompt) games in linux.

[Girlinhat]

I tried to introduce a friend to DF.  She was using Mayday's graphics, so it wasn't a horribly view, but she was undone by the act of placing stairs and changing the Z-level, and also unpausing.  She kept IM'ing me "nothing's happening" and I'd ask "Is it still paused?"  Funny, she plays Sim City like it's going out of style, but DF eludes her.  It almost eluded me, with the way that the various controls are different.  Like, to cancel a command in a workshop, you hit "c" for cancel, but in the manager window you hit "r" for remove.  There's stuff like that around the game that makes it look like a dozen different people each made a line of code and then it collected together like some magma-bloated singularity, and DF exploded out.  I prefer to call it "quirky" though, now that I've gotten a bit of a handle on the basic UI.

[Voyager]

I got cross-linked in from Penny Arcade to the Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial.  That and the graphics pack are exceptionally handy for making sense of DF.