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Dwarf Fortress is getting even more incredible

April 10th 2008 09:20
I'm still mental over Dwarf Fortress (it's running as I'm typing this), the incredible ASCII-looking video game from Tarn Adams, but I'm way beyond this post, where I was stuck with the 2D version.

Since then. they've come out with a release that allows building a fortress in 3-dimensions, making for a lot more complexity, but an incredible amount of freedom,

Download Dwarf Fortress now!

Some players have created intricate structures, unusual fortresses, or just let their dwarves sit around, doing nothing.


A player created a tool to produce beautiful 3D images of the ASCII game:

Dwarf Fortress 3D visualizer beautiful fortress


What I'm really interested in, naturally, is where the game is going. Most of the fan base is rabidly supportive of Adams work, especially since he posts regular updates, and the direction the game is going is well-documented and discussed.

For example, the next release will see the world be created with races, fighting for territory over time, building roads and most importantly, relationships between races.

What am I talking about? Let's go to the current development page and see what's in store:


"Currently working on more reasons for [races] to be upset with each other... The civilizations only have specific tags referring to different moral structures (respect for trees/animals, baby snatching, etc.), so I might generalize ethical frameworks with a new system of tags so it's not just checking special cases.

Right now, dwarves and goblins would sometimes be chatty because dwarves don't care about torture and they often worship fire, which the goblin's demon is aligned with... If humans attack goblins because they have glowing red eyes and sharp teeth and oddly-colored skin and pointy ears, we'll be at a good place, but I don't have most of those variables yet.

I don't suppose elves would be put off by sharp teeth, specifically, since they like wild animals. All of these aesthetics will tie into images of loved/feared deities later... but none of that for now -- just some simple moral generalities."

Hey-sus! Can you imagine a game that calculates whether or not humans and goblins will get along with each other? Based on glowing red eyes? And a dislike for torture? This is a game that I've got to play.

In fact, just looking at the repaired bugs shows how deep the game is:

" - allowed important historical figures to have personalities during world gen

- stopped aerial births

- stopped snow from being generated at the bottom of the ocean

- allowed entities at peace with wildlife to settle in savage areas"

Wonderful...absolutely wonderful. I want to play a game that mistakenly puts snow at the bottom of the ocean and has aerial births... then fixes them, announcing the mistake.



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Comments
4 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Jarrah

April 11th 2008 00:05
I've actually never heard of it.
Put it on the list...

- Jarrah

Back to the Eighties
www.backtotheeighties.net

Comment by Cibbuano

April 11th 2008 01:34
it's flying under the radar a bit, but it's definitely got massive indie support. The creator, Tarn Adams, is living off donations from the game, which puts him fulltime into it.

the image is NOT from the game. The game is ASCII-based, using your imagination to paint a vivid picture.


Comment by Pat

May 2nd 2008 00:04
I wish I had more time to play this game. I haven't touched it since it was 2D and even then it was enough of a drain of my computer. So it looks like I'll have to upgrade my computer... to play an ASCII game.

Comment by Cibbuano

May 2nd 2008 00:18
Pat - I found that the new version can be slow, but I turned off temperature and weather and it runs very smoothly, now...

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