Dwarf Fortress

[Docpepper]

Dwarf Fortress Wiki

Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII game which includes both a roguelike adventure mode, and the more popular Dwarf Fortress Mode, which focuses on the creation and survival of a small dwarven settlement. It has a very steep learning curve, partly due to its ASCII graphics, but also due to the fact that it is one of the most complex games ever released. Dwarf Fortress is completely free.

Before you play, you must generate a world to play in, which persists until you create a new one. World generation can be time consuming, even on modern computers, but be patient. It's worth it.

Dwarf Fortress has three major game modes and a fourth non-game mode:

* Dwarf Fortress Mode: In this mode you manage a number of dwarves whose task is to create a fortress.

* Reclaim Fortress: Once you have created and abandoned or lost a fortress, you can take a band of military dwarves to fight the monsters that now inhabit it. If you succeed, the fortress is yours to play in once more, just like in the standard dwarf fortress mode.

* Adventure Mode: In this mode you explore the world in a fashion similar to Rogue, NetHack, or Angband, completing quests and killing monsters. In adventure mode you can uncover details about your world's legends.

* Legends: In the fourth mode you can read more about the legends of your world, provided you've discovered them through adventuring.

An important part of Dwarf Fortress is that it creates a randomly generated, persistent world for you to play in. (The world is only "on" when you are actually playing in it, however.) When you die in either the adventure or fortress modes, your next game will be in the same world, albeit a few days later. You can visit your old fortress, or get revenge on the monster that killed your adventurer. If your fortress or your adventurer had done anything of particular note, there's a chance that the game will generate a legend for them, which you can read about in the legends section. (Provided you've discovered enough information about the legend.)

This game has blown my mind. I have absolutely no idea how to do most things but I keep coming back to play it again and again