Dwarf Fortress - The World's Most Diverse Drunk Midget Simulator!
Most recent v. - 34.06
Game's site here.
Mike Mayday's MayGreen Graphics Pack, this graphics and tileset comes with the game here.
(I'm actually using ironhand or whatever it is atm. But I'll leave this here. There's loads of others. But yeah.)
Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII .exe game in an alpha stage. Best described by the DF wiki description:
Dwarf Fortress is a game for Windows, Linux and Mac, developed by Bay 12 Games featuring two modes of play, as well as distinct, randomly-generated worlds (complete with terrain, wildlife and legends), gruesome combat mechanics and ubiquitous alcohol dependency.
It features fortress mode, where you get dwarves, dig a fortress, build stuff, make money, do silly megaprojects, and generally make sure everyone has enough beer, an adventure mode... where you can dig a fortress, build stuff, make money, do silly quests, and generally make sure you have enough beer. Anyway.
It features ale, rooms, beer, trap systems, gear systems, alcohol, mechanism systems, mining, water, lava, rum, seas, wine, rivers, volcanos, goblins, ale, alcohol, demons, hell... erm... rock... alcohol, magma, beer, scary caves, titans, alcohol, wine, food, parties, trading, rum... and fun! Did I mention alcohol?
A More Indepth Explanation
Ok, to make it a bit more understandable... you control an adventurer or a fortress of dwarves through a persistant fantasy world with terribly accurate combinations of real life and fantasy. Geology and geopgraphy and almost totally accurate, using real life terms and generation, same goes for animals and plants, combined with fantasy creatures (Classic Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Goblins combo. Also featuring Kobolds too. Don't forget the little dude!)
The combat and injury system is... unique. And hugely realistic. All materials use mechanical physics to determine effects, and every creature can be realistically torn limb from limb, with blood loss, bones and organs, pain, nerve/ligament/tendom damage etc. all taking into account.
The game is shown in a 2D plane, using (def.) shift > and < to look up and down levels. All graphics in the default game are ASCII, though it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. d for dog, e for elf, etc.
Playing Fortress mode allows you to choose an area to embark, which becomes the actual play screen, and build your fort there. You've got to pay attention to where you are, embarking in a boiling desert may kill all your dwarves, same in a freezing glacier. You may find you have no wood, or coal, or metals. In which case you're in trouble.
Then you've got to be concerned about who or what's near you. Will you get Elven trading caravans, or Goblin raiding parties!?
As an adventurer you can choose some of your stats, then go and and basically kill stuff for people. It's fun, although you know your eventualy death will come stupidly by some lucky crossbow bolt to the face, or someone lopping your foot odd and you fall over. This side of the game is a little empty at the moment, but features are supposedly planned so everything your dwarves can do in fortress mode you can do in adventurer!
Dwarf mode has also lost some things too, it seems the dwarf economy, where dwarves have to pay rent and buy their food and such, hardly if ever initiates, but trading and such is getting an overhaul at the moment so this may be changing...
Recent Features, ie. I've not played DF for a few months, what have I missed
34.06 has added better animal training and removed the old Dungeon Master for ever. It's also fixed some serious issues, especially with clothing, which is nice.
Noob Fortress, ie. What the ☺☼▒█╫╙⌡♣▲ does ☺☼▒█╫╙⌡♣▲ mean!?
Ok, so you want to play? Firstly... good luck. Now, here's what you need to do.
1. Get the game with or without a graphical tileset. If you've played an ASCII game before, you'll be able to cope no doubt. But it's all about personal pref. I may also suggest you click previous versions and download _18, as it has less bugs until _20 is out to fix _19. XD
2. Read through the init. and d_init. files after extracting the game. There may be settings you want to change in the init file, resolution and graphical and such. In the d_init file I would strongly suggest turning INVADERS off. So you can get the hang of the basics.
3. Open up the game, create a new world, to learn the basics I'd suggest a small world, give it a reasonable history. Not 5 years, not 1000 years. Give it plenty of civilizations etc. Megabeasts and savagery is probably fine as they are on default.
4. Generate the world! You'll see it generating the actual world then running through pregenerated history.
5. Go to Start and choose your world. There are now 3 options, adventurer, dwarf fortress and legends. (the latter being just history and other notes on the world)
6. Choose your game mode and you're off! I can hardly explain everything. Or anything. It's so complicated. It's much easier if you just post your questions. 
If You Wanted To Convince Me In One Paragraph, What Would It Be
Bay12 Website Game Features wrote:•The combat model uses skills, body parts, individual tissues, material properties, aimed attacks, wrestling, one-time opportunities, charging and dodging between squares, bleeding, pain, nausea, various poison effects and much more.
And remember, Losing is fun! [/quote]
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I'm Jon. I'm mostly not around any more. If you want to talk, please message me! It's cool.
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