Dwarf Fortress

[clumber]

Ok, found a game on ages ago on the internet called Dwarf Fortress. Its completely free and can be downloaded here: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

 

Ok, the rest of this message is an edit because for some reason the enter button decided to post rather than go down a line.

 

Anyway, basically there are two modes in the game. One where you build a Dwarf Fortress (hence the name) and attempt to run it. You begin with 7 dwarfs and can choose to either go straight into the game or plan out every detail of what you start with (the second is the best option).

 

The second mode in the game is the Adventurer Mode. In this, you take an adventurer and explore the world. The worlds are rondomly generated, and although they take a long time to generate you then use that world for everything unless you want a new one. So, your forts all go into this world and so do all your adventurers. You can even explore your old forts and try to find your artifacts and things for selling and stuff like that.

 

The main part of the game is the fortress mode, and although the graphics are simplistic (I've avoided posting screenshots thus far in case it scares everyone away) the game is very deep and detailed. You don't control any dwarf directly, instead you assign them jobs and they get around to doing it when they get around to doing it (keep them happy and they spend less time moaning, tantrumming and throwing themselves into lava streams). Also, due to the numerous things in the game that are random/weird there can be some very strange events and other stuff happening. For example, a dwarf going into a strange mood, taking over a workshop and secretly working on an artifact... or a dwarf going mad and ramaging his way through the fort leaving a trail of blood and vomit in his wake.

Or there is the fact that when your dwarves decorate an item or engrave a wall, the image (described in words) is usually connected to the recent history of the fort. For example, I've had a throne room where the walls are engraved with images of travvellers coming, artifacts being created and dwarves getting killed by goblins or trools or drowning and other such stuff.

 

Anyway, I'm trying to describe the game but I'm not doing a good job of it. I'd advise going to the forum on the website and reading some of the stories people tell of there forts and adventurers there. And try not to let the graphics scare you (graphics might be too strong a term...) It is a very good game when you get used to them!

Edited May 2, 2007 by clumber

[AFriendlyFace]

This sounds like a really fun game! I don't think I have time to start playing it right now, but I definitely want to check it out in the future!

 

Actually I much prefer simplistic graphics in games. It was when video games improved their graphics that I lost interest. Thus, SuperNintendo was as advanced as I liked, I tried some of the later incarnations, but they all felt like they had too many bells and whistles. Same with computer games.

 

Anyway thanks for posting this for us, I hope to check it out soon

Kevin

[clumber]

Just thought, if anyone does try this game they'd probably find this wiki guide helpful Not sure why I forgot to put this link in the main post... I'd just been searching all over this guide to try and find out what types of map you get elephants in... Elephants are probably one of the most dangerous things you'll ever face in the game. A dragon is one thing... but an heard of Elephants determined to crush every last dwarf on the map is another matter entirely. The fact that if I remember rightly they can open doors makes it even worse... you can't even lock them out!

 

EDIT: forgot to put in the actual link...

 

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

Edited May 3, 2007 by clumber

[clumber]

Just wondering... is there anybody here thats actually tried playing this game? If there is I'd like to hear some of the things that've happened to you or something. If not, oh well.

[Graeme]

I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my "to-do" list. But then so is reading quite a few stories that have been recommended to me....

[clumber]

Anyway, nothing better to do so I thought I'd post some of the stories I have to tell about events that have happened to me in Dawrf Fortress. Someone might even read them.

 

Please remember that the game, while having Symbol graphics or whatever you want to call them, is still very indepth in the amount of detial you can get. For example, every single dwarf in one of your forts will have their own needs, preferences and things that they hate. They also have a full list of all the wounds they've got, ranging from light bruising to brkon bones, missing limbs and organs such as eyes. Then theres the descriptions of items, engravings... all sorts. So please remember when you read these that pretty much all the things I say happened DID happen in the game... I'm not making up details to make it sound more dramatic. Its already dramatic enough.

 

Oh, and some of you might already know these stories... mainly from me playing the game, getting annoyed and ranting about it to whoever gets clicked on first in the MSN contacts list

 

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1. The Great Unicorn War

 

I had started a fortress in what I thought would be an ideal location. The climate wasn't too hot or cold, there were plenty of tree's to fuel my forges until I could use magma and there was a lot of natural berries growing in the forest for brewing some of the more unusual drinks that my dwarfs might want (a massive miner who's built like a brick shit-house but prefers to drink strawberry wine...)

 

Anyway, the fort started well. I began carving out the entrance from the massive cliff face of the mountain but since I knew that it would take a long time to be done I set most of my workshops outside. For a long time the only indoor work area was the farms, and thats because Dwarven crops can only grow in underground mud. And so just outside the entrance to my 'fort' (re: hole in ground) there was a large area of workshops as my dwarfs worked on necesaties such as beds, tables and preparing the fich caught in the river outside while the numerous dogs I had brought with me for protection wondered around. However, as I watched my carpenter/lumberjack go out to cut some more tree's I noticed some Unicorns on the opposite bank of the river. They seemed to be just hanging around there. Not mucb of a threat. I thought they were unusual, but then I remembered that te area I had chosen for the fort was known to be peaceful and there were a large number of Elf settlements just south of the valley I was in. I decided that I would just ignore these Unicorns.. after all, what were they going to do? Attack me?

 

Well, the fort was going well. I had moved all of my food production inside the fort and several more dwarfs had arrived but I had cut down pretty much all of the tree's on my side of the river. The Unicorns haden't come to my side and I haden't gone to there's. Well, I sent my carpenter to go over the river to cut down some tree's there. My carpenter went across, cut down a tree and all at once every single Unicorn in that group raced at him. He just about moved out of the way as they charged across the bridge, trampling a dwarf as they went. They then stampeded through the working area just outside my gate and it was utter mayhem. 6 Dogs got killed, and the only other surviving dog got a broken leg. Another dqarf got injured in this as well. The Unicorns then continued right past and away before I could get my dwarfs fighting back. It seemed they weren't as harmless as I thought. It also seemed that they didn't take kindly to having their forest cut down.

 

Well, I was furious with this. I found a dwarf who was a hunter. He was unskilled so I haden't sent him out hunting as I thought he would be much more valuable helping to carry things in my fort. Well, I thought I should get my own back on the Unicorns and so I sent out this dwarf with a crossbow and a load of Iron Bolts. I didn't think the unicorns would stand a chance.

 

He came across a group and fired... killing one...

 

The Unicorns were cruel. They didn't even kill him. They charged at him, knocked him to the floor, broke one of his legs and then stabbed out his eyes. Then they left him. Some of my dwarfs got to him before he bled to death and carried him to the fort. He was put in a bed and treated, but it was obvious that he wouldn't be working again after that.

 

I worked at getting my fort back in working order, but the 3 serious injuroes had had a massive effect on my fort. This was to be expected, considereing my population was less than 20. Well, I continued building up, with moving indoors a major priority, but my fort existed in constant fear of the Unicorns. My dwarfs were unhappy, many of them had lost pets to the Unicorn attack, and their friends were injured. I mention the pets because although it may seem insignificant when there is a small number of people in a stange land trying to scrape a living from the rocks having a dog can mean quite a lot.

 

Well, wood became short again. Again I had to go into Unicorn toeeritory for it and again they attack. No caualties this time as many of my dwarfs were inside the fort behind the gates but still, it was clear to me that I couldn't keep this going. Wood was needed to survive and it was becoming to short. I decided there was only one option left. I would have to gather all my dwarfs and attack the unicorns with my full strength. Even if I lost all but one of my dwarfs, I could still continue. Most of the population is immigrants who have heard of the fort and come seeking adventure/wealth as it is.

 

Firsth though... there were the injured dwarfs. I couldn't support them. I didn't want to do this... but if I didn't then they would in all likelyhood starve to death anyway. So I picked them up and put them in the underground field.

Perhaps at this point I should explain, the dwarf farms work as follows. There is a large cave for the plants. Using a floodgate I can flood them at will, completely filling the cave with water. This provides the mud which is then used for putting the plants in.

Anyway, as I was saying. I put the dwarfs in the underground field, locked the door and flooded it, drowning them. I didn't want to, but they would have starved to death anyway and it was the quickest way of killing them. The only other way I could think of would be to put them in the wilderness and hope the unicorns finish them off quickly but aftet what they did to the hunter I could hardly rely on them being merciful. So I drowned them. It was hard to do but there was no other option.

 

I then prepared my dwarfs to attack the unicorns. They were mostly unarmed, as the only things I had for weapons were the crossbow, my miners pick and my woodcutters axe. My dwarfs charged out and met the unicorns in battle. The first unicorns fled, most likely shocked by this sudden counter-strike by my dwarfs but all too soon the Unicorns began fighting back. There was blood everywhere. My dwarfs fought bravely but they just couldn't win. It was clear that I was going to lose. Eventually the Unicorns left my dwarfs. You could say they retreated, but you'd be stupid of they did. It was clear they had won. Some of my dwarfs were dead but most were just wounded to the point where they couldn't move. The ones who could mave attempted to crawl away but they kept passing out from the pain of their injuries. I never checked the injuries of many of my dwarfs, but it was clear that they were serious. I had been soundly defeated, and my surviving dwarfs couldn't even crawl away, and so I admitted defeat and abandoned the fortress.

 

Sometime though I am determined to return to this fortress with some true warriors and defeat those Unicorns.

 

 

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Ok, that ended up being longer than I expected, Still, it shows the amount of detail in the game and also how you can get some very interesting stories from the things that happen. Especially with some of the things like the Unicorns blinding the Hunter and the fact that the Unicorns didn't attack me until I crossed the river and began cutting down tree's. I'll post the story of the death of one of my heroes from the adventure mode sometime. I was going to do it now but that Unicorn war story ended up being longer than I thought. Still, if you are reading this congratualtion, you had the patience to read what happened to my fort (unless you've just skipped the actual story in which case your cheating ).

[Graeme]

Now, I REALLY need to find the time to play this game....

[clumber]

Just thought I'd give this topic a bump on the extremely small chance that someone decides to play the game.

 

There as recently bee a big update (the game is actually nowhere near finished, but still great to play) and now that the bugs have been mostly cleared from this version I thought I'd post a link because...well...might as well.

 

Main Page (has download link): http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

 

Forums (advise reading to pick up hints that are required for any degree of success): http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi

 

The Wiki (very useful for finding out what it was that you did wrong that caused the entire mountain to sink 8 foot and then explode): http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

 

 

 

Its a fun game if you give it a chance, Although admittedly it is hard to get into at first. The graphics might put some people off but it is still a very detailed game, and if you use your imagination then the graphics are as good as you want them to be (just the like special effects in a book ).

 

Oh, and being bad at the game is no reason to give up... it is designed so that success is pretty much impossible (depending on what you consider success to be, of course). Your fortress might be the strongest that you have ever had and it might seem that nothing can go wrong, and then one tiny incodent can bring the entire thing down around your ears (my latest fort failed because a masterful meal prepared by my best chef went rotten. He was so affronted by this that he went on a rampage, killing dogs, cats, cows and babies. This caused everyone else to go mad and within a minute the entire fort and broken down into utter madness).

Edited November 25, 2007 by clumber