Ben

Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector This post is part 0 of a 6 part series. See the bottom of the post you are reading right now for links to the other parts. Dwarf Fortress is one of the small handful of games that I have essentially a life-debt to. A lot of games draw inspiration from Dwarf Fortress, from Minecraft to Prison Architect to references in nearly every MMO I’ve ever played. But I wouldn’t say it’s strictly accurate to call Dwarf Fortress a “game”. There’s no win condition (“Losing is Fun”), no objectives, and no overarching story. At its core, it’s a very complex simulation of a fantasy world with some video game-like interactive controls. A fantasy world that you are a tiny, insignificant part of that will continue to exist until you (Armok: God of Blood) get bored and delete it. That hasn’t stopped many game developers from trying to turn Dwarf Fortress into a video game, however. Just add some difficulty options, replace the complex simulation that was built over 25 years (and is still being built) with some kind of fast-paced “story generator”, and add graphics, right? So what’s this all about? I’m not here just to talk about games where the developer “dug too deep” like the dwarf in the animated intro, though. In this series, I’m going to discuss my experiences with many of the management-simulation games I’ve played, some of which succeeded at their goals, and others which are pale imitations (and not just of Dwarf Fortress). I’m not accusing any of these games (except where explicitly specified) of being “imitations”, nor am I being reductive about the vast amount of work that goes into making a video game. (Believe me, I know how hard it is to make a game, let alone a good one.) This is mostly just a fun framing device for me to talk about games I’ve played and for me to practice writing. The Series! Links and actual titles will be added as the parts are released. Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 1 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 2 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 3 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 4 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 5 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 6 of 6Dwarf Fortress but with a difficulty selector… Part 7 of 6 #DwarfFortress