Octopus Overlords

I'm surprised there's no thread for it yet.

Dwarf Fortress

After generating a world (or downloading a premade one), there are two modes to choose from. The actual roguelike mode is nothing special, as far as I can tell. You do a bunch of quests with a party of dwarves.

Fortress mode, on the other hand, has Game of the Year potential, although the whole thing is still in Alpha. It plays like mixture of Dungeon Keeper and The Settlers. Starting with 6 settlers and a wagon, you build up a gigantic underground empire. There's an incredible amount of detail in this game. Perform mining operations and smelt steel. Farm mushrooms by irrigating your fields with a network of floodgates and channels. Carve items to trade with caravans. Breed and train pets for various tasks. Try to satisfy your nobles with luxurious quarters (and underground zoos, apparently). Brew beer so that your dwarves can throw a party in your legendary dining room. Or, more likely, suffer yet another stupid catastophe as your dwarves starve, drown or a ripped to pieces by gruesome monsters.

My first experimental fortress just entered its first winter. My plan was to make enough craftwork to buy all food from the first caravan, but I didn't move the stockpiles indoors fast enough, and half of my jewelry was stolen by racoons. I quickly drafted a dwarf to chase them, but they were too fast. I trained a hunting dog for my miner and sent him hunting. He killed some deer, but then was eaten by a named wolf and his pack. Too late I noticed that I hadn't assigned any weapons to my hunter. Apparently he had to wrestle the deer to catch them. I'm now awfully low on food. The dwarves are already complaining, and one of my two fisherdwarves was ambushed by frogmen. My intricate farming system with levers and floodgates finally went online, but I fear it's going to be too late. I'd send someone outside to gather berries, but the wolfpack is lurking in sight of the gate. They can smell our desperation.

Sounds cool. I've always wanted to build my own Thorbardin.

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Too busy right now (in life, not this moment) to try this, but it's getting bumped to the top of a list.

Argh, this is 2006 could these guys at least draw a few graphics?? I mean 2D is fine even, but ASCII text? Oooo look out it's a big scary @!

I know, I know, use your imagination or something.

This game looks absolutely facinating, check out some of the AAR in this thread on QT3..

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk ... hp?t=28415[/url]

The game is oddly addictive. I was going to start a thread but I was too busy playing. Although the more I play, the more I'd like a more graphical GUI and mouse support.

For help getting started, the wiki helps.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

qp wrote:Argh, this is 2006 could these guys at least draw a few graphics?? I mean 2D is fine even, but ASCII text? Oooo look out it's a big scary @!

I know, I know, use your imagination or something.

I like the ascii generally speaking, except that it makes the interface a touch clunkier. As such, I'd love roguelikes with a true GUI and ascii tiles. I know you could run some of the *band_tk varians like that if you had that special graphical pack installed.

Someone make sure to let me know about this later. This sounds like it is totally up my alley.

There are public domain tilesets for roguelikes, RLTiles for example. Anyone know what would be involved to make them work with this game?

EDIT: Answering my own question - Source code, which I guess he's not releasing. Probably not much hope for getting graphics any time soon. This comment in the Development section makes it pretty clear he thinks ascii is sufficient, "If I do go over to graphical tiles and a mouse-based interface, it would be because I'm firmly convinced that a text display cannot support a game of this complexity."

LordMortis wrote:Someone make sure to let me know about this later. This sounds like it is totally up my alley.

The fortress mode is actually very playable right now, and I've yet to see much in the way of bugs.

I imagine it gets pretty micromanagement intensive as your fortress gets bigger though.

What a crazy game. Its like a weird RTS (Fortress Mode that is) with all the depth of a RL game. There can be a million things going on because they don't have to animate or do graphics for any of it. Very playable and strangely addictive.

yossar wrote:I imagine it gets pretty micromanagement intensive as your fortress gets bigger though.

That's where the Nobles are supposed to come in. Once you have a Manager, you can use him to schedule global tasks.

New Version released today

I tried it last night. I don't know if I didn' t understand the manual/wiki/keys for the game or they didn't understant me but I didn't have the patience to try and learn the most basic stuff. I might try again later when I guess I will have to be somehow be in a more clear frame of mind.

The game feels like I am trying to run a 3270 application with out any training at all.

It appears more oblique than it really is. It took me a few times of starting it and quitting after 2 minutes before I could get my head around it, but its pretty interesting once you start to scratch the surface. Take it a bit at a time, and the next things will naturally draw you further.

Looks neat, but the fundamental aspect of gameplay seems to be eluding me: How do you make anybody DO anything?

I can VIEW all sorts of things. I can select people, wagons, pack animals, the map, whatever. I know am missing what should be completely obvious and is probably right in front of me in blinky text.

I want Thugar (who is currently a jobless peasant) to be a miner. How (exactly, in baby steps with explanations, please) do I go about accomplishing this lofty goal?

killbot737 wrote:Looks neat, but the fundamental aspect of gameplay seems to be eluding me: How do you make anybody DO anything?

I can VIEW all sorts of things. I can select people, wagons, pack animals, the map, whatever. I know am missing what should be completely obvious and is probably right in front of me in blinky text.

I want Thugar (who is currently a jobless peasant) to be a miner. How (exactly, in baby steps with explanations, please) do I go about accomplishing this lofty goal?

I got frustrated before I learned anything but you pretty much have to go their wiki as their in game instructions are not only useless, but frustrating until you rehotkey them, but not knowing what to hot key adds to the frustration...

In short, the interface and you means for getting to know it sucks ass.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

(The main page for the wiki)

Go to Starting Builds and Surviving Winter to get a start.

killbot737 wrote:Looks neat, but the fundamental aspect of gameplay seems to be eluding me: How do you make anybody DO anything?

I can VIEW all sorts of things. I can select people, wagons, pack animals, the map, whatever. I know am missing what should be completely obvious and is probably right in front of me in blinky text.

I want Thugar (who is currently a jobless peasant) to be a miner. How (exactly, in baby steps with explanations, please) do I go about accomplishing this lofty goal?

Initially your miners are limited by the number of picks you have, since you wont be able to make new ones at first. If you did quickstart you probably only have one, and its probably in the inventory of your 'miner' dwarf. to get him to start digging you hit 'd' for 'designate' and then use the enter key to begin a selection, the arrow keys to drag it out, and then enter again to finalize. Miners will automatically try to dig out any areas you have specified.

The game is a lot more like Startopia, Dungeonkeeper, or Evil Genius in that you arent really giving orders, you are doing the meta management and the dwarves decide when they are gonna do your bidding.

Chesspieceface wrote:

killbot737 wrote:Looks neat, but the fundamental aspect of gameplay seems to be eluding me: How do you make anybody DO anything?

I can VIEW all sorts of things. I can select people, wagons, pack animals, the map, whatever. I know am missing what should be completely obvious and is probably right in front of me in blinky text.

I want Thugar (who is currently a jobless peasant) to be a miner. How (exactly, in baby steps with explanations, please) do I go about accomplishing this lofty goal?

Initially your miners are limited by the number of picks you have, since you wont be able to make new ones at first. If you did quickstart you probably only have one, and its probably in the inventory of your 'miner' dwarf. to get him to start digging you hit 'd' for 'designate' and then use the enter key to begin a selection, the arrow keys to drag it out, and then enter again to finalize. Miners will automatically try to dig out any areas you have specified.

The game is a lot more like Startopia, Dungeonkeeper, or Evil Genius in that you arent really giving orders, you are doing the meta management and the dwarves decide when they are gonna do your bidding.

Which then begs for an answer, how the hell do you tell what each character mean?

I assume you mean each ASCII character, the answer to that would be by hittinh 'k' you get a 'look around' cursor which allows you to scroll around the map and identify things you dont recognize or need more info on.

I'd like to say I'm not a graphics whore, but omg, I can't wrap my mind around the ascii display. As fun as the game sounds (and it sounds like a lot of fun!) I'm gonna have to pass on it.

This might not help those who are altogether opposed to ASCII, but there's an option to significantly reduce the clutter. In data\init\init.txt, Varied_Ground_Tiles can be turned off. I think that makes it much easier to see what's going on.

I keep checking this thread because it sound very interesting. But the ASCII is holding me back too. I even went to the website and checked screenshots to nudge myself past that issue. But the pix didn't help.

I might eventually check it out, but the graphics are going to be an obstacle for me.

If I hadn't spent many many many hours playing roguelikes growing up, the graphics would surely be a no-go for me as well. It certainly feels weird to play this when I've got a hundred other slick 3d titles to enjoy. But sometimes its just about the game I guess. This one is pretty fun, but REALLY not for everyone.

BTW this thread at SA Forums (link from the QT3 thread) has a great little intro tutorial and explains the essentials of the interface in just a few paragraphs.

It sounds like great but, but ASCII...

I might give it a try, but not even 2d graphics with simple cardboard icons? I don't know if I can handle that.

Come on now, it's a Rogue-like!

This is Rogue:



This is Dwarf Fortress:



It's graphics, I would say, are not unlike Rogue.

I wish there was a Linux version. I'll have to try playing it with WINE.

Seeing as how I have no idea WTF Rogue is.... so what?

Huw the Poo wrote:I wish there was a Linux version. I'll have to try playing it with WINE.

From the wiki FAQ:
WINEDEBUG="-all" wine dwarfort.exe

Works flawlessly at work:
"What are you doing?"
"Compiling."
"Why are the letters jumping around, and why did a cat just adopt your program?"
"It's complicated. Go away."

This thing seriously sucks you in. Its gotta be the most unlikely timesink in a long time. I just made it through my first full year, and just before I saved mid-spring year two , 5 new immigrants showed up. With the two that showed the prior Summer, that brings my kingdom up to 14 dwarves, this next year will be crazy; time to build more bedrooms . I royally screwed my first opportunity with the trade caravan, but luckily I'd stockpiled enough food to make it through Winter with a surplus going into Spring.

While its true that some basic 2d tileset might be nice if it was crisp, I don't really see how it would differ from teh ASCII. Its primitive sure, but everything is easily identifyable and the lack of graphics allows for a diversity of gameplay you just dont see in commercial games.

This thing is really pretty fun, it sure keeps you focused. About the only time something isnt happening is in the early game when all the dwarves still sleep at the same time.

EDIT: Holy crap I just loaded that game up again, and its not 5 immigrants... its 22! This is gonna be nuts, time to build a barracks I guess.

Trying to play this on my laptop is a pain though without a keypad.

Killbot - lol, thanks very much!

Man this thing just kills hours. Once you get going time just disappears, wacky. Thanks for bringing this to our attention D'Arcy, I sure wouldn't have seen this any other way, at least not any time soon. Its ridiculously fun.

I managed to get my 19 new immigrants situated and put them all to work. They spent a couple nights on the floor while I mined out a new barracks and constructed enough beds, wood was already tight so this was quite a challenge. Luckily amongst the peasants and fisherman there were actually a few skilled craftsman who I was able to install at workshops I;d already built but couldn't keep manned fulltime.

With the group of immigrants were two trapper/hunters both decked out in full armor with crossbows. I just let them do there thing and for a bit it was all dandy as they crushed the local warthog population. I'm not sure what exactly happened but somehow one of them got a head injury and now spends all his time laying on a cot in the barracks waiting for people to bring him stuff. The healthcare workers were complaining there was no spare bucket to bring him water in. Guess I should layout a graveyard and build some spare coffins just in case.

I've not been attacked by anything yet, but I suppose its time to start building up an army. I've found a ton of tin and copper which I've been slowly smelting into bronze which should make a good industrial base. My original Metalsmith awoke in the middle of the night in a 'fey mood' left his wife in bed and announced to me that he had a vision. He ran to a disorganized mining pile and pulled out some copper, then ran to the forge and claimed it his, cancelling any thing else going on. He sat there working for a while, and then forged some legendary copper boots artifact, which he immediately put on and I doubt he will be taking off. Well that knocked him back to sanity and he just went on back to bed after that. But the whole experience promoted him from soso to Legendary Armorsmith, he is apparently now famous across the world for his super duper boots.

What a crazy game.

I've been playing three or four days straight now (besides working of course)

In fall of the second year. Been attacked by lizardmen and frogmen so far. Drove them both back but suffered 3 or 4 casualties. I have an army of one but he's depressed because he doesn't have a bedroom, I think. Just about to start making bronze armor.

Oh and I had one guy go into a strange mood, hijack the metalsmithing workshop and eventually go insane and die of thirst

This sounds absolutely fascinating. I've got to find time to look into it.

Loaded it up and it looks interesting but there's a steep learning curve at first. I haven't even figured out how to assign jobs or, for that matter, how to exit the game without using ctr+alt+del

Gryndyl wrote:Loaded it up and it looks interesting but there's a steep learning curve at first. I haven't even figured out how to assign jobs or, for that matter, how to exit the game without using ctr+alt+del

Escape, and then using only the + and - keys on your number pad to get to the main menu and then use them again to quit IIRC. However, sometimes you use space to make a selection. Sometimes you can use eithter enter key and sometimes you can only use the enter key on the number pad.

Kelric wrote:Seeing as how I have no idea WTF Rogue is.... so what?

lol, Rogue is the game that roguelike games are like.