I’ve been engrossed in a game called Dwarf Fortress lately. It’s a kind of single player exploration game within a runtime-generated world. I’m sure that sounds familiar; a lot like Minecraft, right? Well, it’s not quite. Just take one look at the screenshot, and I’m sure you can tell why.
Yes, that’s right - ASCII graphics, in the manner of a roguelike. It’s similar to Minecraft in many ways. The goals are similar - build as much cool stuff as you can without dying. You dig a lot, for precious metals, and forge them into weapons and other cool stuff. But that’s where the similarity ends.
In Dwarf Fortress, you control a group of dwarves, setting out to found a new fortress in the name of some civilization or another. To accomplish this, you must dig. Dwarves, after all, live underground; many dwarves will get nauseated when they contact the sun. After you dig a nice home, you must worry about food. Your first goal in the game is to survive the winter. There are several ways to get food; you can order your dwarves to hunt. You can grow crops, both aboveground and below ground. You can train some fishermen. “Whether by plow, bolt, or hook, provide for your dwarves,” the game says, and this you must do to ensure a successful fortress. After that, you must build. You can order construction of anything from rock crafts to adamantite statues; whatever keeps the dwarves happy. The complexity of running a smooth fortress is absolutely daunting.
But that’s not where the game ends. Once you have a fortress running, stocked well with drinks, food, statues and happy dwarves, you will be attacked. Goblins, kobolds, and macaque monkeys are just a few of the things you might encounter. You will have to build traps, train a militia and construct weapons to protect your fortress. The danger won’t only come from aboveground, it will also come from belowground. At some point, you might encounter the undead, and finally, maybe even demons and other strange monsters. I don’t want to spoil it for you, like I did unknowingly for some people when I asked for help about a mysterious sword found underground - that story is still continuing here, now spoiler-tagged. After all, Dwarf Fortress, is all about mystery and fun. And by fun, I mean losing.
Oh yes, didn’t I mention? Dwarf Fortress’ tagline is “Losing is Fun,” because you will lose. Whether by starvation, tantrum spirals, or forgotten beasts, you have to lose. There is no winning Dwarf Fortress, no ultimate goal save the one you set for yourself. You might challenge yourself to use no wood, or to start your fortress in a desert or tundra, or to never brew alcohol for your dwarves - Dwarves get very unhappy without booze. Completing your own challenges is the only objective in the game.