After more than 16 years in a public alpha phase, Dwarf Fortress was published a few weeks ago on Steam and Itch.io. The dwarven management survival simulation game had a cult following at the time, influencing classic indie games like Minecraft and Rimworld. In 2012, it was even admitted into the Museum of Modern Art for its exhibit on the history of video games. So having a commercial release was a massive thing for Dwarf Fortress.
The relationships between different dwarves and the environment in the game are so intricate that it would be difficult to explain them without utilising many pages. Instead, I’ll let the Steam reviews speak for themselves in order to give you an idea of what Dwarf Fortress is all about.
“Two giant boars wandered in and ate a bunch of children,” one reviewer writes. “They then killed and ate three dwarfs who attempted to help the children. My mayor then walked up to the giant boars and killed them with bare hands. She has now won six straight elections in a row.”
Another assessment is a little harsher but still very accurate in terms of what to anticipate: “My dwarf got ambushed by a giant bat within an inch of his life, and had his spinal cord severed so he couldn’t walk minutes away from death, he became creatively inspired, dragged his half-lifeless corpse up thirty flights of stairs, crafted a masterwork coffin, and claimed it as a family heirloom. Then he died, I threw his body in a pit, and sold his coffin for several thousand dollars.”
Dwarf Fortress employed ASCII art (essentially simply colourful text symbols) as a placeholder before publishing on Steam with accurate visuals. Due to the game’s lengthy development, many fans fell in love with the ASCII graphics style and actually despised the animated tiles that emerged with the game’s complete release. Thankfully, developer Bay 12 Games is listening to its customers and has issued a new update that enables players to select between modern(ish) visuals and vintage ASCII art in the graphics settings through a new toggle.
