For those of you who have escaped my latest round of proselytizing: My recent obsession is from a genre which is woefully under represented in the current marketplace: the ASCII based, single player RTS.
If you can get past the at first utterly inscrutable display and learn to appreciate the quirky interface, this is a game that is full of awesome moments, and very interesting logistical / optimization problems.
If you ever want to claim the high ground in a Graphics vs. Gameplay debate, this is a game that you must love.
The Wikipedia article.
(Read the reviews linked at the bottom if you want to get excited)
Dwarf Fortress
5 comments:
When I started playing Dwarf Fortress last Wednesday, I thought to myself, there goes any chance of getting an A in Calculus.
It's so good. I'm not sure I can describe how good it is. Imagine the best thing ever. Now imagine that dipped in chocolate syrup. And encoded into ASCII.
See? I can't even describe how good it is.
I played a game through the winter for the first time today. I had been abandoning things fairly quickly to get a fresh start, but I finally got a decent layout going for my fortress. I knew things might not be great because I figured out farming too late in the autumn and only managed to harvest a couple Plump Helmet mushrooms before winter came and my farms dried up.
I expected some starvation, but hoped I'd get lucky and keep my essential guys. That did not happen. I lost my only miner, my only farmer, and a couple others.
I didn't have a graveyard set up at that time, I thought they might put the body on the refuse pile. When the corpse started to smell and fill the room with purple miasma, I figured out that I needed to do something else.
My metalsmith then started to go crazy, what with the starvation and death of his friends and all. He started breaking down doors and destroying beds.
Spring came soon after that. I held on for a little while with everyone in the fortress going crazy and having to hunt rats for food. I was hoping I might get some immigrants with farming skills, but it didn't happen.
I abandoned the fortress and began again, this time with a custom start for the first time.
I've approached it a little differently than Dock- I'm still struggling with my first settlement. They're currently suffering through their second winter. My philosophy is that after your settlement dies completely, you just go out into the same world as it has been changed by your previous settlements. So, I'm not afraid of failiure. In fact, I embrace it.
I started out with a custom team. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how hard it was for the little bastards to branch out on the skill tree and didn't take anyone with any farming skill.
Also, I didn't realize that all the turtles the fisher fished out of the river would spoil long before winter even came if I didn't have enough barrels. Which I didn't.
My Dwarf closest to being a farmer (the one with animal handling skills) didn't even make it to the winter. He went berserk and ran off into the woods where he rampaged until he got killed by a gorilla.
The dwarves spent most of the winter hunting vermin for food and starting fistfights with each other. Oh yeah, and starving to death. I had just set the last dwarf (the carpenter) to building his own casket when spring came and 11 new settlers showed up. After a busy season, and the establishment of a proper dining room, they're spending the winter occupied in industry. I've a feeling, however, things are going to get a lot worse before spring comes and they get better.
Guys, my friend saw your post, downloaded the game and stayed up so late that he missed a class.
Keep up the good work.
Some one in this group owes me a ton of time.
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