Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII game which includes both a roguelike adventure mode, and the more popular Dwarf Fortress Mode, which focuses on the creation and survival of a small dwarven settlement. It has a very steep learning curve, partly due to its ASCII graphics, but also due to the fact that it is one of the most complex games ever released. Dwarf Fortress is completely free.
Before you play, you must generate a world to play in, which persists until you create a new one. World generation can be time consuming, even on modern computers, but be patient. It's worth it.
Dwarf Fortress has three major game modes and a fourth non-game mode:
- Dwarf Fortress Mode: In this mode you manage a number of dwarves whose task is to create a fortress.
- Reclaim Fortress: Once you have created and abandoned or lost a fortress, you can take a band of military dwarves to fight the monsters that now inhabit it. If you succeed, the fortress is yours to play in once more, just like in the standard dwarf fortress mode.
- Adventure Mode: In this mode you explore the world in a fashion similar to Rogue, NetHack, or Angband, completing quests and killing monsters. In adventure mode you can uncover details about your world's legends.
- Legends: In the fourth mode you can read more about the legends of your world, provided you've discovered them through adventuring.
An important part of Dwarf Fortress is that it creates a randomly generated, persistent world for you to play in. (The world is only "on" when you are actually playing in it, however.) When you die in either the adventure or fortress modes, your next game will be in the same world, albeit a few days later. You can visit your old fortress, or get revenge on the monster that killed your adventurer. If your fortress or your adventurer had done anything of particular note, there's a chance that the game will generate a legend for them, which you can read about in the legends section. (Provided you've discovered enough information about the legend.)
The first alpha version of Dwarf Fortress was released on the 8th of August 2006 after nearly 4 years of development. (Which started in October of 2002)
Note that while Dwarf Fortress is technically still in the alpha stage of development, it is fully playable, and definitely enjoyable.
If you are interested in the history of the development of the game you can look at the development log.
Now, that's a big mouthful. Here's the deal.
Yes, it's very complex, yes it's complicated. And yes, it's rewarding to watch your dwarves dig deep into the mountain, creating rooms your designed, growing food, harvesting, cooking, mining, forging, building furniture, etc etc...
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for that's just a simple version of events. You can find water pools underground, lava rivers and vents (which can heat your forges so you don't need to go outside and chop wood to keep the fires stoked)
The possibilities are endless. The amazingly cool part of this is you can die (and yes, another game where you WILL die, multiple times while you learn) is that you can play in the same world, but in different locations. Creating multiple fortresses across the world.
And then, when you tire of Dwarf Fortress Mode, you can play as an Adventurer, (Though I haven't tried it yet), and travel the same world, discovering your fortresses as you explore. In order words, the world is solid (you can regenerate a new one if you like) but you can just keep playing the same world over and over and I doubt you'll ever find everything out about the world, it's just too big.
Well, that's all for today on this review, my verdict. Try this game. It's free, and given time, it's definitely fun. Plus, if you find it too hard to play with just ASCII graphics, then check out the Dwarf Fortress Wiki and get a graphical set and Mod the game so you can play with graphics.
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