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Dwarf Fortress is maybe one of the most complex video games ever, but if you can get past the user interface and the initial learning curve, it's also one of the most fun, deep and rewarding ones.
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Gameplay
World Generation
The game is a full fantasy world simulator: You start by generating a world randomly. The game creates a map with landmasses, seas, rivers, forests, mountains, different climates depending on lattitude, everything. It then starts simulating the history of the world. Civilizations rise and fall and wage wars against each others, historical figures are born, some die, some become heroes, etc.
Once the generation ends, you can start actually playing one of the two main game modes the game offers:
Dwarf Fortress Mode
This mode is the "standard" mode, you pick a location on the world map and embark with 7 dwarves with the mission to found a fortress. You have to design your fortress and manage all its aspects, from food production to military defense. Eventually you fortress will attract migrants and grow, you'll get attacked by goblins, merchants will come to trade etc.
All the different workshops you can build can produce an endless list of things from primary materials like wood/stone/metal ore/plants etc. that you can in turn combine to create an infinity of items to create complex systems and mechanisms.
Defense systems fortifications, drawbridges, traps? Sure you can. But you can also pour magma onto the invaders! or throw minecarts at them!
You can create irrigation systems for your farms. You can sheer sheeps and goats to produce wool or make thread out of plants to create cloth, but you can also tame giant cave spider to create a silk farm.
Possibilities are endless.
Adventure Mode
Adventure Mode is pretty much a standard open-world roguelike where you create a character (not necessarily a dwarf) and explore the world, fight off creatures, hire mercenaries, complete quests etc.
One fun thing to do is to explore the ruins of your fallen fortresses. I haven't played much in adventure mode though so I can't say much more about it.
Legends Mode
There is also a third mode called Legends Mode, which allows you to explore the history of the generated world, with its historical figures and events.
Getting started
Dwarf Fortress is a complex game and you probably wont get very far without a tutorial. The Quickstart Guide on the wiki is a good starting point.
The rest of the wiki is very well made (it has 1835 articles!!), and remains extremely useful even after hundreds of hours of play.
Downloading the game
I'd recommend to download and use PeridexisErrant's Starter Pack.
This pack regroups the latest version of the game (0.40.13) and various fan-made utilities including the indispensable Dwarf Therapist, a program that allows to manage the professions and tasks of your dwarves (which is really messy in the default game UI).
The pack also includes multiple graphic packs which allows to replace the default ASCII graphics with easier-on-the-eyes drawings.
Previous Version: DF 0.40 is now reaching a mostly stable state after numerous bugfix releases and you should probably use it. That said, If you wish you can still get v0.34.11 here as there may be some mods/utilities that have not been ported to 0.40 (most important ones have been though).
Cool/Useful Links
- The official website
- The official forums
- The wiki (This one is probably the single most important link !!)
- Boatmurdered - A legendary let's play of a succession fort from the Something Awful forums. The read is quite long but it's well worth it and incredibly funny, probably the best Dwarf Fortress story ever. It's quite old and as such uses an old Dwarf fortress version where the game was taking place on a single z-level.
Dwarf Fortress is a game developped by Tarn Adams and designed by him and his brother Zach. They started working on it in 2002 and the first version has beed released in 2006. The game is in perpetual developpement and the last version (0.40) has been just been released after two years of developpement!
Since 2007, Tarn works full time on the game so if you enjoy it please support them!
+ Show Spoiler [Old OP by Zeto] +
What's Dwarf Fortress?
Dwarf Fortress is a unique game -- seriously -- there's no other game like it. It's been in development since 2002. It comes close to being something like Sim City and an RPG in one, but... no. It's a funny, violent, and just plain FUN game.
There are two modes in DF. The first is "Dwarf Mode" where the "objective" if you can call it that is, by using the dwarves you settle with, build a fortress for them to survive the winter and beyond; and eventually attract more dwarves to work.
There are a plethora of items, required and not for you to build, and seperate items that you put together into different configurations to make something big. You can make irrigation systems for farming, bridges, set up defenses to fight off goblin raids, make prisons, a throne room, a town hall. Really, the list is endless. There is just so much detail the guys working on this put into the game.
Then there's "Adventure Mode" where you basically just micro one of your dwarves and explore your fortress or the world outside. To be honest, I haven't played in this mode very much. For now, it's mainly about Dwarf Mode.
That sounds fun. Where do I get it?
Here! Please note that this is a new version that came out after almost 11 months of daily game development. There might be some lag and some bugs, but they fix them quickly.
WTF? this has ASCII graphics!
To be accurate, it's a tileset, not exactly ASCII. Yes, the graphics aren't pretty, but bear in mind that almost all of the effort put into this game has gone into gameplay code.
There are options! If you really just cannot stand the dafault tileset, one of these might be more to your liking.
How to I do x?
The DF wiki is here. Again, note that since this is a whole new version of the game, the wiki is constantly being updated.
Trust me, just this once. Learning the hotkeys and basic gameplay is tough at first, but it's worth it. Give it a chance and I'm sure you'll have a tremendous amount of fun playing this.
If you have specific questions, or just want to hear from other Dwarf lords, there's an irc channel. irc.synirc.com #df
Other useful links!
Graphical Tilesets
Pregenerated worlds
(Place in data/save folder)
NEW! In-depth tutorial for beginners!
Dwarf Fortress is a unique game -- seriously -- there's no other game like it. It's been in development since 2002. It comes close to being something like Sim City and an RPG in one, but... no. It's a funny, violent, and just plain FUN game.
There are two modes in DF. The first is "Dwarf Mode" where the "objective" if you can call it that is, by using the dwarves you settle with, build a fortress for them to survive the winter and beyond; and eventually attract more dwarves to work.
There are a plethora of items, required and not for you to build, and seperate items that you put together into different configurations to make something big. You can make irrigation systems for farming, bridges, set up defenses to fight off goblin raids, make prisons, a throne room, a town hall. Really, the list is endless. There is just so much detail the guys working on this put into the game.
Then there's "Adventure Mode" where you basically just micro one of your dwarves and explore your fortress or the world outside. To be honest, I haven't played in this mode very much. For now, it's mainly about Dwarf Mode.
That sounds fun. Where do I get it?
Here! Please note that this is a new version that came out after almost 11 months of daily game development. There might be some lag and some bugs, but they fix them quickly.
WTF? this has ASCII graphics!
To be accurate, it's a tileset, not exactly ASCII. Yes, the graphics aren't pretty, but bear in mind that almost all of the effort put into this game has gone into gameplay code.
There are options! If you really just cannot stand the dafault tileset, one of these might be more to your liking.
How to I do x?
The DF wiki is here. Again, note that since this is a whole new version of the game, the wiki is constantly being updated.
Trust me, just this once. Learning the hotkeys and basic gameplay is tough at first, but it's worth it. Give it a chance and I'm sure you'll have a tremendous amount of fun playing this.
If you have specific questions, or just want to hear from other Dwarf lords, there's an irc channel. irc.synirc.com #df
Other useful links!
Graphical Tilesets
Pregenerated worlds
(Place in data/save folder)
NEW! In-depth tutorial for beginners!
