
The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress (2011) - 0wl3x
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html
======
kibwen
One of the things that I find interesting about Dwarf Fortress is that (to use
programming jargon) it's sort of a declarative game rather than an imperative
game. In e.g. StarCraft you select an individual unit and demand that it move
to a specific point on the map; in Dwarf Fortress you configure which dwarves
are allowed to perform certain tasks, then you place a task in a queue, and
some dwarf somewhere will (eventually (hopefully)) take care of it (until they
get distracted by a party, or decide to go fishing, or get hungry and wander
off to the dining hall, or fall asleep in a stockpile, or drop anything
they're carrying and run screaming from the forgotten beast hurtling down the
hallway at them). It's a fascinating difference in paradigm, and I wish more
games would explore the idea of actors in the world being chaotic/free agents
which will only somewhat prioritize your wishes.

~~~
aero142
There is a great and popular game called
Rimworld[[http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/)]
that does this. It's a colony management game where the default mode is
colonists acting according to priorities and rules you set. You can override
if you want but you quickly realize this is only for rare situations. It's
really a fun game and a much easier learning curve than Dwarf Fortress.

~~~
y4mi
now that is an expensive 2d game. holy shit.

~~~
1_player
I downvoted you.

£23 for a game actively developed, with great replayability, tons of mods, a
passionate fan base and community? Holy shit, that's a bargain.

~~~
InitialLastName
$30 for a game that's early access, may never be finished.

I think GP is also potentially balking at the $300 DLC pack (what could be
worth $300 from a game that isn't finished?)

~~~
ajford
Those DLC packs are actually more like Kickstarter rewards. The text of the
Pirate King DLC is this:

> This DLC gives you the right to enter a name and character backstory into
> the game, with skills, appearance, and special work requirements. In
> addition, your character will appear as the leader of another faction!

and follows with a note that says it does not affect game play, only gives you
the right to add your desired content to the game.

~~~
mikeash
Sure would be nice if people would look at what the DLC actually is before
complaining about it....

~~~
InitialLastName
I'd like to note that I wasn't complaining about it, just noting that at a
glance it makes the game look expensive.

------
datruth29
Dwarf Fortress is an example of how a great idea can be held back by a
horrible user experience. The UI is a nightmare, and the performance worsens
as the game gets bigger.

I've recently started playing Rim World, which is essentially a Dwarf Fortress
light. I'm enjoying it way more than I enjoyed Dwarf Fortress despite being a
less complex (relatively speaking) game because it offers a FAR superior
interface and presents it's mechanics in a friendlier way.

~~~
Sevrene
Honestly I feel the opposite.

I agree Dwarf Fortress is quite hard to learn and the UI plays a large part of
that as it's completely keyboard based and requires a lot of upfront effort to
learn, but once you do you become much faster than you would otherwise (much
like text editors).

People often complain about Dwarf Fortress's graphics in the same vain and
breath as the UI, but I think these are parts of the charm and instead of
being weaknesses they are leveraged as strengths.

For instance, the lack of fidelity of the game allows any new character to be
added in 2 seconds, yet Rimworld needs a considerable amount of time and
effort developing each texture. To an extent I think the 'horrible' user
experience cannot be divorced from Dwarf Fortress. Losing is fun, after all.

I think what you consider a 'horrible' user experience cannot be divorced from
what we know as Dwarf Fortress today. Losing is fun after all. I love Rimworld
and Dwarf Fortress, but they occupy different spaces within a similar genre in
my mind.

~~~
boomlinde
I don't think that the criticism is that easily dismissible.

It's not so much that it's keyboard controlled (that's great for the reasons
you mention) or that it's hard (that's ultimately part of its charm). It's
that the interface is inconsistent with itself. A great example (from when I
last spent any comsiderable time with it) is that different menus use
different controls and mechanisms for selecting a menu item. Some have you
type a single character, while others have you scroll through them with
varying pairs of keys for no obvious reason. It's a natural result of organic
growth and IMO outweighed by a great game, but the cognitive load of using the
interface definitely isn't its charm for me.

~~~
wmil
The jeweller's workshop UI is a weird disaster. You need to specify specific a
task to cut a specific type of gem. You can make it repeat, but the task will
erase if that gem type is unavailable.

Then you need to create a task with a specific type of gem to encrust, again
the task will delete if that gem type is unavailable.

Finally the encruster will select an item in your fortress at random to
encrust with that type of gem.

~~~
logfromblammo
There should really be an option to handle gemstones by value rather than
mineral type, which would require (and exercise) the appraisal skill.

So if you want to cut semiprecious stones, queue a task for cut gemstone,
worth ¤1 to ¤5. It would also be nice if you could specify the type of cut,
since the game engine already randomly produces cabochons and baguettes and
cushions and such.

The encrusting randomness can be controlled by locking the jeweler in a room
with only one encrustable item, but I shouldn't have to. If I want a
masterwork silver hammer encrusted with small jade cabochons, I want to be
able to specify that.

Also, building multi-part instruments is just insane.

------
chairmanwow
Dwarf Fortress was one of the first computer games that I really ever got
into. I was a little 15 year old that had a shitty desktop computer that
wasn't always connected to the internet and DF has provided me with many tens
of hours of entertainment. I remember the depth and realism included in game
caused me to want to learn to program myself. I wish the UI was better, but
honestly I think the engagement with the keyboard in DF is it's strongest
selling point. Every game action can literally be performed with the keyboard,
and this means that I don't need to wait for the text on menus to mentally
register, move a mouse, click. I can essentially type the commands at speed.

TLDR: DF is a great game that shaped my childhood and motivated me to become a
programmer.

~~~
digi_owl
> Every game action can literally be performed with the keyboard, and this
> means that I don't need to wait for the text on menus to mentally register,
> move a mouse, click. I can essentially type the commands at speed.

This is a sentiment that crops up again and again. In particular as long time
users of a terminal ui (not necessarily CLI but using ASCII/ANSI to draw the
interface, and keyboard for input) when they transition to a GUI replacement.

The thing about keyboards is that they are designed to be used without
looking. Special keys have special shapes to make them stand out. Every key is
in a fixed location. And certain ones are marked but a bump or similar to make
them easy to find by touch and thus use as navigational aides.

Yes, mouse and touch screens make it easier and faster to localize and develop
a UI. But we humans are quite capable of doing repetitive tasks with our hands
without looking.

I think that in RTS and MMORPG circles there is a certain degree of disdain
for "clickers". People that operate the game mostly via mouse. This because it
is slower and thus limits how quickly they can react to in-game events.

~~~
macintux
> And certain ones are marked but a bump or similar to make them easy to find
> by touch and thus use as navigational aides.

Completely off-topic, but there are two keyboard changes over time that
absolutely drive me bonkers.

First, caps lock replacing control on the left, but that's not what prompted
this post, but I'm still grumpy at Sun and Apple for surrendering to the idiot
PC world on that.

Second, moving the bumps from "d" and "k" to "f" and "h". Pretty sure Apple
also had that right originally.

When the bumps are supposed on the 2nd finger, you _always_ feel them, even if
your fingers are offset by 1. Feeling the bump on the wrong finger is great
feedback to fix your hand position.

When the bumps are now in the 1st finger, if your fingers are offset by 1 you
don't feel it at all, and it's much harder to notice the absence of something
than it is to notice the presence of the bump on the wrong finger.

Bad designers, bad bad.

~~~
imdsm
Bumps on my MBP late '13 are now F & J for what it's worth.

~~~
macintux
Meant f/j. d/k is better for the reasons I outlined.

------
sshagent
As someone who has wasted far too many hours in games, i believe that DF to be
simply the best game ever made. The UI is rather horrific but something you
can get used to. Admitedly it took so many efforts to figure out the game but
that becomes half the 'fun'. Anyone wanting to play, find a lets play video
(for the current version) and just follow along. Sounds silly, but thats how i
finally got it.

------
strainer
This winter a player has documented seemingly the greatest game ever to be
played out on Dwarf Fortess. A lyrically narrated 320 year Saga, culminating
in the construction of a glass fortress... in Hell.

Archcrystal - 320 years in a fortress (w/spoilers read 37592 times)

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.0](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.0)

~~~
lmitchell
Oh lord well there goes a good hour of my time.

I'm a sucker for a good DF story... :P

------
a3n
A very touching story about the two brothers. I especially enjoyed the idea
that they send drawings and stories to donors. I hope they're still doing
well.

I dl'd it and started it up. I'm now wondering what I'm looking at. Not being
a gamer, I don't have the visual vocabulary or expectations, so I'm glad
there's a wiki; the in-game manual doesn't fully work. EDIT: My reading
comprehension is not fully functional, the manual works.

> “Water’s not doing it for me these days,” he said. “I know it’s bad, but the
> sugar goes right into programming the game. If I don’t drink soda now, I get
> a headache and can’t do any work.”

I feel bad that he's sacrificing his health for our pleasure.

> He’d enrolled at the University of Washington, ... Tarn moved into a string
> of “dingy one-bedrooms” with “bad moisture problems” — in one, he discovered
> a shelf fungus growing behind his couch.

I probably lived in one of those when I was at UW. It was a "World's Fair"
apartment building, garden level, the only window facing north and looking up
an outside stairwell into the alley. Google maps shows me that much of all
that has been scraped and replaced.

------
mmanfrin
Very strange timing -- I spent about an hour last night looking in to DF and
other games since I like that type of 'emergent' or 'declarative' (as another
comment here put it) gameplay.

Other games I have played of a similar vein: Rimworld (great), Prison
Architect (great), Banished (great, needs mods to add more content),
Planetbase (EA, good, light on content after 2~ hours).

Others I found were: Stonehearth, Gnomoria, Town, Kingdoms and Castles (not
out yet), Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 (kinda) / War for the Overworld (fan remake
of DK, essentially).

~~~
ssunstruck
Rimworld and Prison Architect are practically training for DF. Now that you
know you like the style of gameplay you will probably love DF

------
laurent123456
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615)

~~~
ythn
Wow, the creator of Dwarf Fortress doesn't use version control? I don't even
know what to say about that. It's like when I heard the creator of KeePass
doesn't use version control either... why are people so resistant to VCS?

~~~
mikekchar
I've been trying to understand how the author of DF does development. My
impression is that he doesn't really add features the way most of us add
features. Instead he'll rewrite large portions of the game, or he'll write
some stand alone test application and then integrate it into the mainline
code. Apart from safety (I really hope he has backups), there probably isn't
that much use in VCS because he intends to simply rewrite everything every
time. He also does not like to have anyone touch his code. He allowed a few
people to improve the performance of his display code once and has since sworn
off it. While the performance improved as promised, he says that he can't
understand any of the code and now never touches it again.

Not the way I would do my work, but when you are your own boss you get to do
whatever you want ;-)

~~~
gbersac
I heard once that he is burning the code on discs once in a while.

------
ghotli
One of the central questions of our time may become whether or not it's
ethical to turn off dwarf fortress.

~~~
escape_goat
It is probably, in a limited sense, ethical to suspend (save) the game, but
not ethical to destroy the saved game file. When the game is off, the dwarves
do not experience an interruption of continuity to their time. So on the face
of it, there is no harm done to the dwarves if there is an existential
interruption from the perspective of some external context.

However, the abstraction of the dwarven universe from the universe in which it
is being simulated is hardly complete.

By suspending the game and keeping it in storage for several days, for
instance, you are placing the dwarves at greater and greater risk that some
external-universe course of events will prevent their universe from ever
resuming. Furthermore, as the cycles of time which can occur in the universe
ultimately face a limit with respect to the rate of the processor and the
cycles of time available in the external universe, so in a very real sense you
are causing a sort of existential damage to their universe.

This, in fact, raises the question of ethics with respect to the resources
devoted to the simulation. Is it ethical to run dwarf fortress on a consumer-
grade general purpose computing device? Should not the dwarven reality be
given the strongest underpinnings we can provide it, with equivalent respect
given between an internal universe subjective & sentient existence an external
universe subjective & sentient existence? In fact, given our moral debt as the
creators of the dwarven universe, do we not actually owe them more than we owe
each other?

~~~
pixl97
Heh, falling into the void of never executing again is a much better outcome
than normally occurs when I'm playing. Such as building stairs and ramps in
the wrong place.

------
eduren
Got to meet Tarn Adams a few years ago when I was into Dwarf Fortress and the
community. Really cool guy, you can tell he loves what he does.

------
inetknght
I've never played Dwarf Fortress (something I hope to rectify in the nearish
future). However, friends have told me that it's somewhat similar to Factorio,
which is a game that I highly recommend programmers to play.

~~~
and0
I finally cracked open Factorio again over this weekend and sunk way too many
hours in. It's quite literally Engineering: The Game.

~~~
inetknght
I made the mistake of introducing some friends and team members to the game.
Their productivity has gone to shit.

Of course, it's only a corollary that they now spend too much time playing
Factorio. Their productivity was liable to go to shit anyway; I simply gave a
purpose to it haha

------
dri_ft
Here's a question about Dwarf Fortress: I play a lot of roguelikes, which are
a genre of similar games, insofar as they're relatively complex, keyboard-and-
ASCII oriented games made by geeks for geeks. Like Dwarf Fortress, these tend
to have accumulated a lot of developer-hours, and like Dwarf Fortress, these
developer-hours tend to get channeled into adding complexity to the game
rather than superficial polish, like graphics and interface.

But they vary in terms of their approach this complexity: some seem to always
want to add more, seeing more complicatedness as always better, and end up
feeling like they contain everything but the kitchen sink - complexity for
complexity's sake. (Nethack, I'm looking at you.) Others add it only where
it's justified by producing interesting gameplay decisions. (Brogue and Sil
are rigorous about stripping out unneeded complexity and getting the maximum
amount of subtlety and nuance from a stripped-back set of mechanics. Dungeon
Crawl Stone Soup is more complex, but seems aware of the trade-offs around
complexity, and is known for removing features as often as it adds them.)

Which of these camps does Dwarf Fortress fall into? There's a lot of
complexity, features and mechanics there. Is it all justified, in terms of
adding interest to gameplay? Or is just for complexity's sake?

~~~
Declanomous
I think Dwarf Fortress falls squarely on the Nethack side of things. The motto
of Dwarf Fortress is 'Losing is !FUN!' (exclamation points on either side of
an item indicating it is currently on fire, a common occurrence in DF.) The
fun and the !FUN! in Dwarf Fortress is because of complexity, not in spite of
it.

------
wyldfire
Semi-related: Don't Starve is a great indie game with a different theme but
IMO similarly complex world simulation. [1] [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve)

[2]
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/)

~~~
Freaky
More relevant, their latest game:
[https://www.kleientertainment.com/games/oxygen-not-
included](https://www.kleientertainment.com/games/oxygen-not-included)

System-driven space colony simulation, with a particular emphasis on
maintaining breathable air.

~~~
samstave
> __ _space colony simulation, with a particular emphasis on maintaining
> breathable air._ __

Seems only logical...

------
jrpt
How did Dwarf Fortress become popular?

~~~
wmil
The complexity allows a lot of emergent gameplay.

For instance in one game a dragon attacked my fort. NBD. Everyone got inside
and I was planning to catch it in a cage trap. Then use it as a decoration.

However there was a group of Human traders at my Trade Depot. They decided to
run over and fight the dragon. Now the dragon is running around breathing
fire. Which started a forest fire. Which destroyed my wooden bridges and
doors.

Completely unscripted fun, just a result of the game simulation.

Also the game manages to make you hate goblins and elves through your
interactions with them.

In evil regions eyeballs grow out of the ground, blinking at passing dwarves.
However cattle will happily graze on them.

If you "delve too greedily and too deep" you'll unleash horrors of the
underworld.

There's just a lot of neat stuff there.

~~~
jayrobin
I never understood the appeal of Dwarf Fortress until a good few hours into my
first game I had just finished following a detailed tutorial and was starting
to get a hang of the interface. I decided to start work on my first big
construction project - a deep pit to keep the regularly attacking trolls away
and a gargantuan drawbridge to lead over it. It's probably child's play by any
non-noob player's standards, but I was so proud of it. All of the noble
dwarves came to the grand opening of the drawbridge - the mayor, the sheriff,
the captain of the guard and all of the highest ranking military dwarves in
their bright shining armor. They all stood at the base to witness the first
lowering of the grand drawbridge. It was lowered and with a mighty crash,
flattened the gathered nobles and military elite...Because I had placed it
facing the wrong way.

The fortress didn't last too long after that. I tried my best to clean things
up, making a nice new dining hall and brewery, but the remaining dwarves took
it pretty hard - one of them ended up losing his mind while drunk and
slaughtered most of the rest in the great dining hall, the rest died of
disease because nobody wanted to clean up the mess. I was so proud of my
towering (and first!) fortress, and I lost it all because of one stupid
mistake, but it's definitely the most fun I've ever had losing a game.

------
cadu2
How hard DF is compared to Nethack? I've ascended on Nethack and it is always
a very tricky business... this game seems on a whole new level.

~~~
setr
Well for one, there's no victory condition. At best, its do so well that you
try to see how well you can survive is the face of stupid decisions/goals

------
erikb
> His expenses are low — $860 a month in rent, $750 a month to Zach for his
> help and a few hundred dollars for utilities and food

Uh. The US... sorry, but if you spend like $1600 before food that is not "low
expenses". If you can get below $1300 WITH food then I'd say that's low. Some
people have to live with much less than $1000/month altogether.

~~~
Trundle
$750 of that is an employee.

------
rhlala
The DF adventure mod have a very very potencial, Imagine skyrim in 2d,
multiply it by 1000 in terms of gameplay/content

------
partycoder
Dwarf Fortress is incredibly hard to learn.

Gnomoria and Rim World might be simpler games to learn. However not as deep or
complex.

~~~
jmcdiesel
I don't think "incredibly hard" is a good term.

In more development terms, to me, "incredibly hard" is embedded assembly
programming (im probably not even using the right term for this) ...

The level of hard i would put DF at is "learning VIM"... which I think is apt,
because 1) its a steep but rather short learning curve to get around, 2) over
a while you naturally get better at navigating/commanding/etc and 3) there are
plugins and "distributions" just like vim, to make it easier for a beginner,
etc.

Now that I write this out, im thinking VIM is the perfect analog for DF :)

[NOTE] I'm a DF n00b. I have less than 5 hours playing. I'd say it took me
about 30 minutes to "get it" though, and now I'm actually playing what I would
consider "normally"

~~~
thefifthsetpin
I like your analogy, but what's missing is that the vim interface is much
(much!) more powerful than the DF interface.

Any number of DF players who are also UI designers (hey, there have gotta be a
lot of 'em) could propose a dozen minor interface changes that would make DF
feel more consistent, and easier to learn without even changing any of the
mechanics of the game. You couldn't say that about vim. (Or, if you could, I'd
love to hear your interface change proposals for vim!)

~~~
LanceH
Move the default movement keys to the home position -- shift them right by
one. Right now I have to choose between shifting my hand off the home position
or my index finger doing double duty. JKL; is very comfortable to move around
with.

~~~
dagenleg
But that's totally possible with a slight change in .vimrc. I would argue that
since you can change it in .vimrc your proposed rebinding is still part of the
vim "interface".

------
gbersac
Winning go and poker ? Easy, I'll believe in IA when it will be able to handle
dwarf fortress !

------
kuharich
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2793615)

------
zach
Just yesterday I was looking up how to recommend someone for a MacArthur grant
specifically for the Adams brothers. Sadly, the nomination committee is
anonymous and does not accept recommendations. It's a shame because this seems
like the ideal case for their grant.

------
Globz
Only in DF you can talk about turtle reproduction....

here's a bug related to turtle pond going extinct :

[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2780](http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2780)

"Since turtles were my only source of shells, which are ever so important for
moods, I am keenly feeling their absence after a few years. I went ahead and
modded my world so that hoofs and horns can be used also for shells, (which is
actually very cool btw, its awesome to have an artifact decorated with Elk
Bird horn.)

However, my ponds were filled with turtles early on, and I accumulated many
shells that unfortunately rotted away. It seems like fish populations are
regenerating, but turtles are not among those, and since I found that odd I
decided to report it."

"Pond turtles lay eggs, which might contribute why they will only breed in off
site statistics if that's any relevance.

DF structures used for dfhack only implies that eggs that are hatched go into
certain classes, and entity ID is one of them for intelligent species (crow
men eggs layed and hatched on site belong to you etc., underground egg laying
races have been in constant decline since they were added because of this
until recently)

Egg layers have always had a hard time repopulating due to dependency on a
object to breed which limited and stagnated them in world gen (made easier by
spontaneous population regeneration in world-gen recently). I cannot recollect
if its possible to offer pet pond turtles nestboxes to use by pitting or
pasturing enough of them in a contained area as a alternative or even if they
have additional orientation/marriage barriers to overcome we are not aware of.

All gendered vermin breed (or apparently breed, they have the prequesite
animal tags but its uncertain whether they become pregnant whilst in the game
world before leaving for the site population tally and being replaced with a
new generated creature in their momentary existances, or even if they do
become pregnant at all with child/adult born states) hermaphrodital or non-
gender typical vermin are usually accounted for by being virtually innumerable
to compensate for no breeding on site. Technically if the female pond turtle
could get off the map by dissapearing and being replaced whilst pregnant it
could spawn additional turtles slowly.

Fish are very visible with ASCII symbols and can be seen in murky ponds and
rivers for periods of time if a example is needed, if they are close together
they are in the capacity to breed and keep the numbers up. Drop a sizable
amount of caught vermin fish into a empty pool and it should sustain the fish
in theory as they repopulate with compatible mates in that area.

Similar designs have been used with isolated cave spider rooms with wild
vermin which appear to be self sustainable and harvested with burrowed animal
trappers & web collectors. "

