I have discovered what might be the best videogame ever made -- Dwarf Fortress. I started playing this game about a week ago and I can't let go. It's so addictive that I found myself playing it for seven straight hours the other night. It's one of those games where you look at the clock and it says 11pm, then you look again "ten minutes later" and it's 2am
The game has an incredibly steep learning curve until you figure out the interface, and the graphics are quite archaic (the interface is 100% ASCII with a bitmap graphic overlay, aka 16-bit sprites) but if you can come to grips with those two factors, it's probably the most rewarding gaming experience you will ever encounter. And the game is totally free to boot!
If you want to learn more about the game, you can get information and the latest version from here, but don't download the latest version just yet:
http://bay12games.com/dwarves/Instead, check out this excellent beginner's guide first:
http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/The above beginner's guide is an awesome resource for new DF players. It will explain the finer points of the game and how to use the interface. It will also tell you how to get your first fortress started. There is a download link for the guide's version of the game. It's one of the '40d' versions, which are now deprecated. The new versions are called DF2010 and use a different version scheme altogether -- but more on that later. The zip file in the tutorial includes the game itself with a good font set and a good graphics set already installed. It is ready to play. It also includes a save file with an already-generated world and fortress site for the purposes of the tutorial. This means that you can jump right in to playing with the tutorial version of the game, whereas with the newer versions you first have to have your world generated, set up an embark location and profile, and a few other misc. things.
Although the version used in the guide is an older version, pretty much all of the game's gameplay features and mechanics are there. The newer versions were built with a new graphics method (so to speak) and are mainly bug-fix and performance enhancing releases. This means that once you get the basic ideas down and you figure out how the game works, you can go to the newer version without much hassle.
One thing I will tell you beforehand -- the guide pack of the game comes with a pre-set screen resolution of 1280x800. If you want to change the resolution to something else, please consult me first. In this game, you can't just pick a different resolution from a menu; instead, you have to change a few lines in the init file and figure out what your grid size should be. It's actually very confusing until you understand how it works, and then it's easy as pie.
If you have any further questions, you can ask me or you can consult the DF wiki, which can be found here:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Main_PageIf (when) you feel ready to move up to the newer versions and to bigger and better font and graphic sets, let me know. I'll point you in the right direction and tell you how to set this stuff up. It's actually really easy once you understand it all.
