Topic: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips. (Read 4667 times)

Tofu · « **on:** December 26, 2011, 09:10:05 am »

Always anxious when starting a new topic. Like I'd be lynched or something if I said something dumb enough. I'm glad I have a lot of room for error on this one.

Well, this evening I delved into the initial hurdle of teaching my younger brother how to play Dwarf Fortress. He's 10 years old, and he just came up to me at random asking me to teach him how to play "that game with Dwarves," that I was always playing. I obliged this time, with heavy encouragement from my dad, and so far my brother seems to grasp the concepts pretty fast(though not perfectly of course). I think I'll be able to teach him a lot about the game pretty quickly (at least enough for him to stay alive). Only problem related to the game is that he has to remember a lot of keys to do specific things, but I'm trying to solve that by telling him some of the logic behind the things he's doing in game. He's very enthusiastic about it, which makes me happy.

There are a couple of problems though ,and while I will try to solve them through sheer perseverance and a helpful attitude, I thought that getting a couple tips from you guys would by no means hurt.

First problem is the obvious fact that he doesn't have any good comprehension of the English language, aside from a couple sentences and words here and there. We're both native to Norway, and we of course both live here, so that is the reason for that. He's good at school and many other things, but for some reason he seems to have some problems with both Norwegian and English as subjects, I don't know why, but it's beside the point (I hope to teach him some English while I try to teach him the game, and thus far it's going better than expected. He's a clever kid). I don't quite know what you could help with regarding that, but any tips to help make things less harsh would of course be great!

The second is that, well, he's fucking 10 years old. He's smart for his age, by all means, but I'm afraid that some things cannot be taught until he reaches an older age. Some way for me to make him learning things easier? He learns a lot of the concepts pretty quickly, but not all of them are easy(as we all know). Are there any charts or pictures to explain things that I can use? Something like that?

And lastly, the third, is that I don't actually live here with my dad and him. He lives in Bergen, and I live near Oslo. That's 10 hours by car, so the distance could be a problem. I've already hooked him up to the ol' magmawiki and Google translate if he has any general troubles(he can manage), but is there any way that I can somehow this can be made easier. I'm going to stay here for a couple more days, but still, I don't have the time to be with him all the time.

It's just that he's gotten a lot of great presents this Christmas, among them great games, but he is still more interested in learning about Dwarf Fortress from me than playing those games or doing anything else. Normally I'd dismiss him, and his attempt at learning the game until he'll become older, but I could not resist those fucking Bambi-esque eyes of his.
I've seen him play Minecraft with his friends, and it's pretty hard to deny the creativity that it sparks in him, and the joy that stems from those experiences. If I can give him the bliss that is Dwarf fortress then I will try my darndest to make it happen.

So, any tips or other things that can help me are all greatly appreciated.

Also;Merry Dwarfmas to all of you !

bobbylantine · « **Reply #1 on:** December 26, 2011, 09:43:49 am »

Hey that's pretty cool that your brother has shown interest in Dwarf Fortress and even cooler that you're helping him. My suggestion would be to sit down with him and play through a basic fortress with him, showing him all the designations, general controls, and basic objectives of a fortress(stockpiles, food, booze, etc). He seems pretty intelligent so from learning the basics he should easily be able to learn through trial and error and experience.

I'm not sure how much English he understands but YouTube user 51ppycup has some great tutorial videos for Dwarf Fortress. You could even make some tutorial videos of your own in Norwegian to help your brother and maybe others that might find it useful.

ansontan2000 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 26, 2011, 10:14:30 am »

Hah, your little bro sounds like me learning games.
But anyways,
Yeah. Try and take it one subject at a time. It took me one heck of a long time to get used to DF's hotkeys. Teaching him the logic is a great approach. Just carry on. That he decides to play a game like DF at such a young age is inspiring!

SirFellfire · « **Reply #3 on:** December 27, 2011, 03:12:55 pm »

i would think that having a player explain you the basics of df interface and the early pitfalls and noob-killing twists of the game is better than anyone could hope for, even with access to such excellent sources as the wiki and this forums. if i were you i would show him how to set up most of the basic industries (especially farming). if you get to play the game together you might want to handle some few situations for him while telling him how you do it, like making sure no nasties are near while you are chopping trees on the surface, or when you open the walled section you'll have told him to build in order to let wildlife out of your place. some mass designations would also be in order i think, it took me a long while to get those figured out. and of course you might want to toogle some of the !!FUN!!niest suff of while he learns how to make enough barrels for both food and brewing, such as sieges or even caverns and ambushes.

Loud Whispers · « **Reply #4 on:** December 27, 2011, 04:02:57 pm »

Show him the basics, and help him do what he wants to do.

(Hopefully, a few hundred awe inspiring feats of madness).

Azure · « **Reply #5 on:** December 27, 2011, 06:44:42 pm »

Use skype irc or w/e to chat with him and a webcam/screenshots so you can see whats up.

Have him get dfhack and use DFLAIR right away so he doesn't have to deal with rehauling everything as well as reclaiming the socks on the skeletal elk and the diamonds on the forgotten beasts deadly blood.

point him to the wiki to learn stuff the forums to lurk on. Have him read the following articles:
Fortress Mode - http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Dwarf_fortress_mode
Fortress Mode Quickstart - http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Quickstart_guide
Fortress Mode Reference -
A Non-Dwarf's Guide to Rock - http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:The_Non-Dwarf%27s_Guide_to_Rock
All of the design articles
How to dig a channel and put up both retracting and raising bridges.
Farming. Particularly in relation to milling and lavish roasts.
Wells, water pressure, and how not to flood everything you ever loved.
All of the military articles as well as the armor article so he knows how permit and all that works as well as complete uniforms.
You'll want to find and give him that one thread on how to pierce any number of aquifers using pumps.
Probably want to increase the number of z-levels before cavern 1 and/or teach him all about FB Syndromes, quarantine, decontamination and you.
Stone pots are good. Very Good!

For his first fort teach him how to dig a ditch, have him embark to a non- freezing, evil, and aquifer area. Strawberries and plump helmets will keep him from starving. Use a 3-bridges entrance design

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

. This'll let him lockdown if things get feisty. Load up cage traps on the back end so if anything ever does get through there's nothing to worry about. If he's uncomfortable with setting up underground tree farms for charcoal/getting to magma forges ASAP then bone crossbows and trading roasts for crappy weapons should keep him safe while he gets the hang of things. You'll probably want a 40-50 dwarf pop cap so you can get established before siege related fun unless that's what you want.

For his military, melee slaps wildlife/prisoners with training weapons until 5,6,7ish. Then spars in squads of 3. Use Training uniforms and squad uniforms for minimal effort. Put all haulers, processors, furnace ops, philosophers, etc. into markswarf squads(Give them whatever crappy leftovers are available.). These are you reserve troops. Keep assigned ammo low if your supplies are low and only have 2-5ish on training. (Don't worry they train up nice during Goblin Christmas.[Don't forget to reassign them more ammo or they'll try to bash gobbos instead]) Congrats you now have melee troops on the way to legendary status and later trainer status as well as 30-50 hauler Reservists.

Hopefully he'll survive, get a handle on things, start a gobbo gladiator championship, maybe get the urge to embark to more dangerous areas.

Here's an old file i had lying around. May or may not be useful but save in a word doc and improve if you want. Mostly a collection of wiki links.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Tofu · « **Reply #6 on:** December 27, 2011, 08:59:28 pm »

Thanks for all the replies!

I've managed to teach him how to do a lot of things, apparently. He's been off for the better part of a day just digging around and doing stuff. SO, he knows about the basic mechanics of the game, though nothing more than that.
I'll be leaving in like, I don't know, 8 hours ( I should be sleeping, but I could not care less).
Needless to say, I obviously can't teach him more right now, and skype or irc is out of the question. He has no knowledge of any of these things and I can with absolute certainty that at ten years of age I don't think he will care much for it.

I have a solution though, a kind of hilarious one: I got my dad to try to go through "The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress" with him while I'm not here. I've set everything up, and my dad will try to walk him through every step, a little by little, til I get back. I think that'll probably teach him a little more English, seeing as I'm a horrible teacher.

anyways, thanks for the input! Continue if you want to add tips or something, since I'll undoubtedly need it.

Loud Whispers · « **Reply #7 on:** December 27, 2011, 09:47:59 pm »

Tried bribing him?

I.e. if you can do x, you get y?

rephikul · « **Reply #8 on:** December 27, 2011, 09:59:06 pm »

Teach him to save scum. That's very important as he'd lose to things very often. Whenever he lose, explain how he got into that situation and see if an ealier save can help. A 10 years old arent gonna memorize everything at once. Teach them from experience.

Pzike1 · « **Reply #9 on:** December 27, 2011, 10:57:27 pm »

Sound's like when i was trying to play Baldur's gate when i was year 3 - 4 (in england so about 7-9)
(and i can thank that game for learning to read, it gave me an insentive and proved to me that reading wasnt as boring as the books they give you in primary school XD)

But the great thing about being young is that you learn things very fast, (just how the brain works) so if you offer him an incentive to achieve a certain goal, then he will proberly try his hardest to get there. (even if the reward is you showing him how to do that task easier.)
also possibly make a cheat sheet for him? just a note pad where you/he can right down little tips and tricks on how to do certain tasks.

King DZA · « **Reply #10 on:** December 27, 2011, 11:15:52 pm »

Your little brother wants to learn to play dwarf Fortress? That's awesome. Mine just gets pissed off when he sees me play it.

Anyway, you're never going to teach him everything. There's a lot he'll simply have to discover on his own. so as long as he knows the basics of the game I think he'll be able to get a grip on the rest, in time.

If it's anything more than just a passing interest, he'll stick with it(or at least come back too it later, after ragequitting), even after a few healthy doses of Fun.

GreatWyrmGold · « **Reply #11 on:** December 28, 2011, 11:45:16 am »

It's going to be hard, not being close. However, I advise that you connect him with a tutorial and be ready to answer questions. E-mail is useful.

BigD145 · « **Reply #12 on:** December 28, 2011, 12:49:21 pm »

Skype or some other video conferencing software would be good. You'll be able to show him things in real time.

Ignore the DF languages and words. If your brother has trouble with English then "Dwarvish" is only going to confuse things. Just downplay all the made-up words. Do encourage him to be creative in making names in the word generator and explain the English.

eeviac · « **Reply #13 on:** December 28, 2011, 01:10:05 pm »

I'd recommend starting your games together, with the same world/location/dwarves. You can send him screenshots of 'this is what I did, and how I did it'

Protomith · « **Reply #14 on:** December 31, 2011, 07:06:51 pm »

Skype's screen sharing feature could help a lot when you aren't near him.

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Author Topic: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips. (Read 4667 times)

Tofu

Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

bobbylantine

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

ansontan2000

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

SirFellfire

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Loud Whispers

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Azure

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Tofu

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Loud Whispers

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

rephikul

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Pzike1

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

King DZA

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

GreatWyrmGold

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

BigD145

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

eeviac

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.

Protomith

Re: Starting to teach my lil' bro the game, on his request. Could need some Tips.