Dwarf Fortress

0 words

16 entries. 14,433 words.

January, 2019

  • My Brief Dwarf Fortress Time. 2019-01-11 2:18 PM.
    • Reviews
    • RPG
    • Single-Player

    I saw @Stargrace and some other folks talking about Dwarf Fortress in the blogosphere and on Twitter. It’s that game that has that reputation for being the greatest game ever, and also the most impossible to actually play, that I’ve been hearing about for the last ten years. I think I first heard about it on the Gamers With Jobs podcast years and years ago. It dawned on me that I’ve always heard it’s a game that sounds similar to RimWorld, and I love RimWorld, so therefore by the transitive property I should also love Dwarf Fortress. A bunch of people on the Reddits actually recommend Dwarf Fortress if you like RimWorld. Those people are insane, as we’ll soon see. (But insanity is a requirement for using Reddit, zing bang boom, hey-oh, har har.) Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see it for myself. 1,749 words.
  • Building vs. Simulation – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-01-15 2:43 PM.
    • Musings
    • RPG
    • Single-Player

    So a weird thing happened. I played more Dwarf Fortress. And then a little more. And I kind of started liking it. “It’s really not that hard once you learn it.” This is Bekarlogem, my third fortress. Bekarlogem apparently means "Dippedpainted" which makes me giggle every time for some reason. Ha! Just kidding. It’s still super hard. Every screen has a different method of navigating the menus. Sometimes it’s arrow keys. Sometimes it’s tab. Sometimes it’s the + and - keys. Sometimes it’s the * and / keys. I’m not kidding about any of that. Every single thing on the screen leads to the question, “What does *that* mean?” As in, “What does it mean when that dwarf is blinking like that? What does it mean when those letters pop up in the corner of the screen there? What does it mean when this guy’s name is blinking in this list?” 839 words.
  • The Fall of Bekarlogem – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-01-20 12:56 AM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Stories

    I imagine if you draw a Venn diagram of “people who play Dwarf Fortress” and “people who are programmers,” the two circles would overlap quite a bit. Unfortunately for me, I’m a programmer, so I think I’m more vulnerable to this DF sickness than most people. Playing the game is quite a bit like using a text editor, considering how much you use the arrow keys to select things in rhythmic patterns. Anyway… 764 words.
  • The Fall of Guzilingiz – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-01-23 3:11 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player

    There’s supposed to be a diacritic or something on one of those vowels in Guzilingiz, but who can be bothered with such things. I started another fortress in Dwarf Fortress. Guess what? If you guessed “werelizards destroyed the whole fortress again” you’d be exactly right. Yeah it's another scene of unspeakable carnage and horror. So much gore splashed on the walls here it couldn't even get an R-rating if it were a movie. 542 words.
  • Gusilingiz: The Videos. 2019-01-24 3:00 PM.
    • RPG
    • Single-Player
    • Videos

    This post is about the boring inside baseball minutia of audios and videos and scripting, so beware. I uploaded the four videos comprising the entire brief lifespan of my Gusilingiz fortress to my YouTube channel. Since I did some experimental stuff in those videos, I thought I would document it all here, because I love this stuff and you can’t stop me. By the way, I spelled Gusilingiz wrong in my last post, in case you’re an expert on the dwarven language and noticed that glaring error. And I know, I know, the diacritic is still missing. 2,417 words.

February, 2019

  • Games Played – January 2019. 2019-02-01 3:30 PM.
    • Roundup

    January has been a PC simulation game month, continuing from December. The big oval room is a bustling tavern in my most-recent fortress, Amostitdun. Dwarf Fortress, 69 hours. Yeah, I kinda still play Dwarf Fortress. It’s really not that bad once you learn it. No, really! I mean, if you’re a programmer, that is, who’s spent decades using programming text editors, moving cursors around and learning keyboard shortcuts. And also someone who’s played a month and a half of RimWorld beforehand to get the hang of this specific kind of game. If nothing else, it’s a very intellectually stimulating game, and there is no shortage of new things to experience and learn. It’s a giant brain teaser puzzle. RimWorld, 41 hours. I have to sheepishly admit I haven’t played any RimWorld since I started playing Dwarf Fortress. Subnautica, 11 hours. I started out playing a half hour a day in January, but one day I forgot to play and I haven’t been back since. I reached a point where I didn’t know where to go or what to do next, and the whole routine of “wander around until you find the next thing to do” gets old pretty quick for me. Guild Wars 2, 3 hours. This was the brief time I played Living World Season 4, Episode 5, All or Nothing. No PlayStation 4 games were played. I didn’t pick up a controller all month. 266 words.
  • Amostitdun – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-02-06 3:30 PM.
    • RPG

    Amostitdun turned out to be kind of a boring fortress. Everything just kind of worked fine and the dwarves went about their lives. They had plenty of food and drink and housing and most everyone seemed happy, except a few pesky killjoys. I got tired of managing them when they reached the population cap of 200. Just like RimWorld, it’s just not fun for me to play this kind of game unless I’m reacting to some kind of threat or obstacle. When everything is going fine and there’s nothing to do but build stuff, it’s less fun for me. 829 words.
  • Avuzestel – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-02-09 3:30 PM.
    • RPG

    I created a new world called Emeecamo, “The Eternal Universes.” I used all the default settings except I set the mineral occurrence to “Frequent” because I’m a filthy casual and I don’t like looking all over creation for metals. Unlike my last world, which was dominated by humans, Emeecamo has a fairly balanced population between all the races, and almost all of them are at war with the goblins. All but the dwarves, oddly enough. 644 words.
  • Dastotdeg – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-02-18 4:30 PM.
    • RPG

    One of the interesting things about Dwarf Fortress is that your “save game file” (which is actually a huge directory of tiny files) contains not just your fortress, but the entire world around your fortress, including all of the other AI-controlled fortresses and civilizations on the map. In RimWorld, if you get an itch to try something different, you simply save your game and start a new game with a new colony. If you don’t like it, you load up the old game and resume the old colony where you left off. 1,665 words.

March, 2019

  • Gatiztun – Dwarf Fortress. 2019-03-01 3:30 PM.
    • RPG

    I think I’m getting a little weary of Dwarf Fortress. I’m starting to detect some repetition in how each game plays out. The outcomes aren’t exactly the same, but the events that happen along the way are starting to feel a bit routine. There’s always artifacts, there’s always a cavern system, there’s always goblin invasions, there’s always forgotten beasts and titans and ettins, there’s always unhappy dwarves, etc. It feels a little like if I build the same fortress plan every time, I’ll get the same outcome every time. If I prepare for goblins using *this* method, I’ll always be able to handle them. If I put *these* things in my fortress, I’ll always be able to make my dwarves happy. If I approach the caverns *this* way, I’ll never have a problem with them. 1,676 words.
  • Games Played – February 2019. 2019-03-08 8:25 PM.
    • Roundup

    Oops it’s over a week into March and this post is still sitting here waiting for me to attach a picture to it. Hey guess what? I played Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress, 118 hours. ANTHEM Open Demo, 1 hour. I don’t think I turned on my PS4 at any point either. Why did I buy that contraption again? Well, there was a sale. And it’s the only way to play Bloodborne. And oh yeah, because I didn’t realize the PS4 controller was a thumb-destroying device that I’m now actively frightened to touch. 92 words.

April, 2019

  • Complicated Character Creation. 2019-04-30 8:59 PM.
    • MMORPG

    MassivelyOP asks: “How obsessively do you plan your characters?” At first I thought they meant the *appearance* of your character. So I tweeted my usual I-can-say-everything-that-needs-to-be-said-about-MMOs-in-one-sentence-and-hoo-boy-does-that-make-blogging-hard response to most discussion topics: Honestly these days I just click randomize a bunch of times and then "Enter Game" … I've been burned so, so many times spending an hour in character creation only to find that everyone looks exactly the same from the back. 797 words.

August, 2022

  • Dwarf Fortress Again. 2022-08-12 6:34 PM.
    • Gaming

    Okay, yes, fine, I downloaded Dwarf Fortress again. 639 words.
  • Dwarf Fortress - Limulitred. 2022-08-17 8:02 PM.
    • Gaming

    A brief recounting of the dwarf fortress of Limulitred, “Goldbuff,” in the world of The Eternal Everseeing Dimensions. Updated with illustrations by DALL-E. 453 words.
  • Kruggsmash Dwarf Fortress Videos. 2022-08-18 6:22 PM.
    • Gaming

    It’s creator appreciation week here in Blaugust, and by coincidence, I just happen to have one to mention. 291 words.
  • Dwarf Fortress - Otinsthinthäd. 2022-08-27 6:33 PM.
    • Gaming

    The tale of Otinstinthäd. 770 words.