This is what happens when your one man team has a programmer doing User Experience design, haha
Yes but that was usually because a chicken died in your dining hall and made evryone sick, and you didnt notice because there was no “Your pops are sick!” Or “There is rot in the kitchen!” alerts. Add those in and the game is easier.
So I read up on some of the specific UI and gameplay changes coming, and ho-ly-crap, do they solve a lot of the previously mentioned issues.
For example, the bar at the top of the sceeen now shows how many dwarfs you have, and how many fall into each happiness category. You can easily navigate to lists of dwarfs who are unhappy, easily find out why, and solve the issue with just a few clicks. It sounds absolutely amazing.
I’ve been playing lots of Oxygen Not Included lately, which is in many ways a similar game, though of course the things you manage are very different. It has put me back into the Colony Sim mood, and I am beyond pumped that SteamDF is coming out in just a few days.
The game is out! I messed around with the world generator for a bit on my lunch, but I won’t have time to play until late tonight.
I can’t decide what sort of fort I want to go for… there are so many options in this game. I am so pumped.
Yeah, I’ve had Kruggsmash (Dwarf Fortress youtuber) on in the background all day while working, looking forward to trying it out as soon as I get finished for the day. He’s been streaming it for 9.5 hours so far, and seems to be enjoying it!
I think I caught a bit of him, just ten minutes or so, he was building a fortress out of ice on a glacier in an evil biome with undead yetis running around.
How my first fort is going:
Those are giant hoary marmots, my expedition leader is dead, and a human lasher who was passing by is killing all the marmots
Ha, nice. I haven’t got to play as much as I’d like yet; I did run through the tutorial last night. I think that will be very helpful for new players.
I did notice that world creation is MUCH faster than classic DF. 500 years of history in a medium sized world took a fraction of the time it took normally. And the mouse control is great (though I would like to reverse z-up and z-down on the mouse wheel, which doesn’t seem to be easily done).
This can be done from the keybinding menu - switch Mouse 4 and Mouse 5.
I ran through the tutorial. The restarted a custom run. But It’s a mess because I didn’t remember the bin thing, and have a massive,now useless hall full of giant storage areas, dug out to store each item separately.
I went ahead and bought on release day but haven’t done anything yet. Been busy in Elite Dangerous during my free time.
I’ve been playing it for the past couple of days, and it has lived up to its reputation of complexity. There’s a lot to know immediately. Unlike other games like this where more complex elements reveal themselves over time, in DF you need to hit the ground sprinting.
I’ve been playing a lot now. Had to restart 3 or so time to get a thriving fortress. Population over 200, but, In honesty, I’ve started scum saving to skirt the maximum FUN* stuff. Still things I am figuring out though, there have been many changes in the 8 or so years since I stopped playing, and a few thing that are mindbogglingly not user friendly. Like adding to the military has no sort by name at all, default is by order into the fortress. I know programming, and it would be an hour at most, to add a button and the logic to sort by name.
Still, amazing game.
I intend to at least buy it and try it. In part because, for whatever reason, I want games like this to exist even if I end up failing to enjoy them fully.
Bumping because Adventure Mode has been announced for April.
It’s late October and still no adventure mode.
After years of playing free downloads, I bought a copy on Steam shortly after it was released. Then, it just sat there on my computer for a long time. About a month ago I fired it up, went through the tutorial once or twice, then started playing.
Right now I’m just playing a fortress for a year or two, then I scrap it and start another one, usually focusing on some particular aspects of the game, like learning how to coordinate work orders and automate production, or building a temple or hospital, or (successfully!) building a well or getting through an aquifer without drowning everyone. Currently I’m trying to figure out how to build and train a military, which still seems to be as perplexing as ever.
I like that it’s pretty much completely mouse driven at this point. You can still use the hot key shortcuts, if you remember them, but you’re not forced to.
Menus, building, placing objects etc is much more intuitive now and information is generally easier to find than before. (Two things I haven’t been able to find and have to be sure to write down: any trade agreements you make with the outpost liaison; and if the mayor wants a temple built, which deity it’s for.)
The game doesn’t automatically pause the way it used to for new migrants or a strange mood or other events, but you can set that in the game settings.
I also like that world generation seems to be a lot faster now, and the “play now” option gives you a much better group of dwarves and equipment than it used to. (I always found having to build and equip my party the most tedious part of starting a game.)
Anyway I thought I’d give the thread a bump since I started playing again, and see what comments others had.
I played a bit of it after its steam release, and despite the graphics and UI improvements it’s still a very difficult nut to crack.
I’m waiting on adventurer mode to dive back in (though I think it’s live on the test branch if you really want to play it).
I want to like this game, but haven’t really figured it out. I approach it like The Sims, where the sims more or less take care of themselves on a daily basis, and the player takes care of big picture guidance. But the dwarves have little autonomy and swiftly die. The gameplay loop seems to be start a colony, watch them die, restart it, watch them die, and so on.
I know the game could be fun, but the gap between starting the game and having fun is too large for me at the moment.
Have you played Rimworld? It’s highly complex in its own right, but at its core it’s a much more accessible take on the formula that dwarf fortress created.
The Dwarf Fortress motto is “Losing is fun!” If you’re running a successful fortress, you’re not playing it right. 