
Dwarf Fortress 0.40.01 - Audiophilip
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/index.html
======
KVFinn
DF has a reputation for being impenetrable. Like it requires weeks or months
of work or study to get anything out of it. Not true! You can start from
scratch and have a crazy little adventure in minutes. Really.

Dwarf Fortress: The Detailed Roguelike That’s Easy To Play

[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/16/dwarf-fortress-
th...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/16/dwarf-fortress-the-detailed-
roguelike-thats-easy-to-play/)

>Dwarf Fortress is famous for producing anecdotes by the minute. The two-man,
twelve-year, donation-funded indie project weaves together procedurally
generated geography, civilizations and histories to create a rich fantasy
world. It simulates its characters – standard fare like dwarves, elves,
goblins, etc. – down to the most minute detail, and when all its systems
combine, the results are often hilarious, occasionally tragic, and always
surprising.

>It’s also blissfully easy to play. The game is free to download and easy to
install, the UI comes with a detailed and handy help system, and there’s a
community wiki full of guides – not that you’ll need them. I started from
scratch last night and was having fun immediately.

>This whole experience has taken around twenty minutes, and while it’s a shame
Akan Seasonveiled didn’t get to see more of her homeland, the experience
encapsulated much of what I love about Dwarf Fortress. I discovered a town,
talked to people and formed a posse. I went on a dynamically generated fantasy
adventure and slayed a grim beast. I discovered a camp of travellers out in
the wilds, had a tense and hard-fought combat encounter, and finally met my
own grisly end. It was exciting! It was just a tiny taste of this world, but
I’m itching to go explore more.

I actually enjoy simply generating worlds and looking through the history
afterwords... even easier.

~~~
vacri
The ASCII interface is already a huge stumbling block for anyone not used to
it. For anyone that is used to roguelikes, then Adventure mode is 'Just
Another Roguelike'. Dwarf mode, where you have to build a home, has a huge
number of pitfalls.

Try figuring out the military system on the first read-through, for example
(or even without a read-through!). It's flexible and makes sense... _after_
you've come to grips with it... and there are a lot of moving parts and tweaks
for any kind of military deployment. DF in 'Dwarf mode' is one of the poster-
children for games with steep learning curves.

~~~
otikik
For me the problem is not the fact that the interface is ASCII, but the fact
that is inconsistent. Each menu has its own little quirks to navigate it.
Moving the focus from one part of a menu to the other takes different
keypresses on each screen.

I was never able to decipher the military config screen. I rely on traps and
animals (once I managed to have tigers!) to repel the first small invasions.
Then I have Fun.

~~~
fournm
For the most part, the quirks are consistent, though.

I mean, it's not intuitively consistent, but basically there are navigation
controls with or without having a selection cursor on the main screen (which
is usually where the difference is, since navigation and some of the selection
keys overlap).

If you look through the keybindings, there are "move selector / cursor"
options and then secondary options for all of those, and that's more or less
what they map to.

------
logfromblammo
This game is like what the Sims should have been all along. If you think
building a dream home, getting slapped by a neighbor for an ill-timed kiss,
and drowning your characters in their own swimming pool were interesting,
imagine how you would feel if you could make your house a 100-story skyscraper
built from obsidian and glass, with subbasements that pierce three separate
underworlds before breaching Hell, witness a tantrum that ends in broken
bones, severed limbs, and execution by hammering, and kill your characters by
sending them on a rollercoaster ride that ends with their minecart smashing
into a mountainside and falling into a volcano.

All of EA can produce a game where the tiny people pee their pants instead of
using their own toilet. Two guys at Bay12 can produce a game where tiny people
can have both arms snipped off by a monster with crab claws and still kill it
by choking it out with their legs and then biting its head off.

The Sims let you train your stats with mirrors and home gyms and bookshelves.
DF lets you train stats by stabbing people with lever-operated spear traps,
dropping live puppies onto their heads, forcing them to drown for short
intervals, and making them wrestle with naked goblins.

And all it costs is a voluntary donation to support a grand total of two
people.

------
Natsu
Little known fact: it's only due to DF that you can find the solid density for
Saguaro wood online.

It's ~430 kg/m^3 dry and this was determined empirically by players.

EDIT: Fixed units.

~~~
mkl
kg/m^3, actually. Even gold is only 19.3 g/cm^3 :-D

~~~
patmcguire
Ah, yeah. Saguaro wood probably floats, and the cutoff for that is below 1
g/cm

~~~
Natsu
There is at least one wood that does not float: ironwood.

It's only thanks to DF that I know things like this.

~~~
jacobolus
“Ironwood” is a name used for a whole bunch of different unrelated tree
species.

I believe lignum vitae is just about the densest commercially available wood.
Definitely sinks.

~~~
Natsu
The nice thing about the DF raws is that they now list the actual species used
as a basis. A lot of research went on some time ago to add correct, sourced
information to the raws. There are probably still a few wonky things, as some
of the properties in there make more sense for metals than things like wood,
but the players care about even strange details like that.

------
amfeng
My favorite explanation of DF:

[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png)

------
GuiA
For those who don't know what Dwarf Fortress is, and want to read about the
marvelous story behind Dwarf Fortress and its creators:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of..).

~~~
ttflee
Sorry but I just hit a Page Not Found.

Is there a typo in the hyperlink?

~~~
plorg
If a cursory googling is any indication, it's probably the following link:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-
fortress.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
hudibras
Some additional googling turned up this follow-on story about how the Times
made the ascii art in the original article.

[http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/the-fine-art-
of...](http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/the-fine-art-of-dwarf-
fortress/)

------
BoppreH
I always find amazing what one can accomplish when the scope is reduced
enough. I don't think Dwarf Fortress would have a fraction of its features if
it had sprites, non-tiled graphics, multiple visible layers, sound effects or
a sane UI.

By taking those sacrifices we now have a game to behold.

I'm excited to try the new features.

~~~
ANTSANTS
I don't think "limited scope" is a phrase that accurately describes Dwarf
Fortress at all.

~~~
JimmyM
It has an extremely limited scope in particular carefully chosen ways,
enabling an incredibly expansive scope in other much more important ways.

------
patmcguire
Urist McProgrammer has created Dwarf Fortress 0.40, a luminous C++ program.

~~~
logfromblammo
All the code is of the highest quality. It is studded with ASCII character
cabochons and menaces with spikes of attention to detail. It is engraved with
an image of Toadyone surrounded by dwarves. The dwarves are battling an
invasion of new bugs.

------
NDizzle
A friend of mine put it best - "The work of a lunatic, but possibly the best
game of our generation."

~~~
galfarragem
I completely agree, if I had to choose one computer game to survive some kind
of natural disaster I would choose this one.

Instead of "our generation", I would say "spectrum" generation (people born
from early 70's to early 80's). I wish I had this work of art when I had the
time to play computer games.

As a metaphor I would compare this game to high-cuisine and a 3D intensive
game to fast-food.

------
cryoshon
Absolutely can't wait to go home and try out the latest version of DF, which
has been two years in the making if I'm correct.

Apparently the entire dwarf motivation system has been redone, so almost every
aspect of the game will be changed. I am looking forward to all of the bugs,
especially the ones relating to trying to wash difficult to reach areas with
globs of sentient-fat soap.

I highly encourage anyone who likes extreme detail and gaming to check out DF.
DF is probably one of the most creative and most fantastic games ever made,
and certainly one of my top five games of all time. The learning curve is easy
enough to climb if you watch a series of youtube tutorials and have a mentor
to ask questions to. Once you've got the basics down and can build a fort
without flooding it or having a tantrum spiral due to not enough rum, then the
Fun really begins. The minute to minute can also be very entertaining. I
laughed really hard when one of my elite militia captains went into a martial
trance while fighting off an invasion of goblins and promptly gave birth to a
boy while still swinging her axe.

------
jplur
If you don't see yourself playing this game, consider following the dev blog.
It's rare for someone to devote themselves to a lifelong project, and Tarn has
been going strong for a decade now. The updates are fun, especially his
narrative descriptions of glitches in the world.

------
nn3
"They cannot yet realize their dreams of taking over the world."

Sums it up I think.

------
Grue3
Wow, I totally didn't expect to see this headline. This version has been in
the works for years and the updates have been infrequent as of late.

I remember waiting for the very first version of Dwarf Fortress. I think it
wasn't even known as Dwarf Fortress back then, just "the dwarf game". Bay 12
Games was virtually unknown, with several quirky games to its name, and a
dozen or so fans on the forum. There was a thread where screenshots and videos
of the upcoming game were posted. The full scope of the game wasn't revealed
back then: the fact that adventure mode even existed was a total surprise, and
so was the fact that it's a sequel to Slaves to Armok. The first announcement
was posted on Usenet. Good times.

~~~
ryanklee
>the updates have been infrequent as of late.

If you're referring to updates on the state of development, this is
resoundingly untrue.

Toady makes multiple entries every week, commenting on things happening, bugs
found, and havoc discovered. He's done this consistently since I started
following DF, around 6 years ago.

[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/](http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/)

Edit: I should also point out that the brothers are also active on the bay12
forums, conducting monthly Q&A sessions about DF's future, as well as posting
monthly donation numbers. There is a DF podcast on which they appear
frequently to boot. I mention all of this only to stress that despite DF's
odd, irregular development cycle, the Adams brothers are among the most
communicative and forthright of dev teams out there.

Edit edit: The above takes into consideration that the devs' communications,
updates, changelogs, etc., are just as unorthodox, non-standard and charming
as DF itself, and often make for as much entertainment.

------
owyn
Dwarf fortress is one of many games that I enjoy following but can't really
play... I just like that OTHER people play it. I've grown up on games just
like any other form of entertainment (movies, tv etc) and it's great that I
can still get some feeling of keeping up on things by watching 5 minute videos
or reading summaries of some other much better player's creative output
instead of having to invest 50 hours that I don't have...

------
Lockyy
Guess it's time to update talesfromthefortress.com to include the new version
number.

------
andretti1977
It remembers me of the beautiful ADOM (ancient domain of mistery)...i think
they got a lot of inspiration from it

~~~
FreezerburnV
If you like ADOM, you should note that it got crowdfunded a while back to
create a sequel. I believe they even released some public "betas" recently.
(figured I'd mention it in case you hadn't heard :)

