6 ms·

What Dwarf Fortress Taught Me About Startups

74 points by pigs 10y ago

patmcguire 10y ago
What's great about this analogy is that Unicorns are officially Bad News for dwarfs, and will frequently gore and trample everyone in your fortress to death.
- Natsu 10y ago
  They're also valuable. "Unicorn products are worth four times as much as domestic animals, making unicorn genocide in the name of profit an attractive proposition." - DF Wiki http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Unicorn http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Unicorn
outworlder 10y ago
Interesting analogy. I'd guess that the average Dwarf Fortress erm, Fortress, and the average startup fail at about the same rate. For, basically, the same reasons: too many unknowns, random events and morale.
vinceguidry 10y ago
> and the gameplay is brutally difficult. Dwarf Fortress is not particularly difficult once you figure out the obtuse interface. It's only a little bit more difficult than Minecraft without the boss fights. I got bored in a few months. Admittedly, much of this was the tendency of the game to slow my machine to a dead crawl. Once you're proficient at avoiding the pitfalls, the only really interesting thing to do is to keep growing the fortress. Sadly, the performance cliff is steep.
- dunstad 10y ago
  There is of course a certain extent to which you can adjust how difficult the game will be for you, such as where you embark or just restricting your playstyle, but ultimately coming up with goals is necessary to keep enjoying the game. I never last very long myself...
  - jtolmar 10y ago
    The problem with embark locations is that they mostly just increase the size of the initial difficulty cliff. The game still settles down to more or less the same amount of challenge once you've dug in. Maybe your migrant waves are smaller after wading through the river full of zombie hippos, but once the survivors get indoors they're as safe as anywhere else.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Almost all single-player games are easy once you've had sufficient practice. That doesn't mean they're actually easy by any normal standard.
vonkow 10y ago
I'm really surprised that the author didn't get into one of the main ways a fortress fails. It's humming along smoothly and then suddenly the population doubles in size when a group of settlers (VC cash) arrives and the whole place goes to hell from disorganization and growing pains.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Would love to hear honest story telling from really successful startup including FB, Dropbox and even some of the smaller players on this. Would it make sense to just go full hacker culture like FB from the beginning without any serious management layer and goes small team instead of big team?
  - smaddox 10y ago
    A bit of duplicated effort due to inadequate communication is far better than subgroups being forced to use outside systems that they can't modify to automate common tasks.
  - patmcguire 10y ago
    Best you're going to get is a Rashomon-style retelling. Anybody early on has retold the story so many times - pitching new hires, onboarding the next wave of employees, and then the next wave, and then the next wave - that they probably don't really remember the real thing very clearly anymore. Then there's also the pressure to agree to a similar narrative, not necessarily in a bad way, just like any couple has agreed on a how they met story, they've been telling it for so long and had the arguments about "did that happen?" that the story has been set. Who knows what happened. You'd have to assemble a collage of The Official Story, some of the weirder first interviews the group gave in the press, early non-hires who interviewed and caught a glimpse of a weird snapshot, the inevitable disgruntled folk (who may not inevitably wrong). Aside from that, I do like http://justinkan.com/three-stories http://justinkan.com/three-stories , it's a good series of disasters.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Jamie Zawinski describes it as how a few people who want to work to make a company successful eventually attract a whole bunch of people who want to work for a successful company.
rhizome 10y ago
OT, but for those of use who know kids into Minecraft, is DF a good thing for them to graduate to? KSP maybe better? Seems like there's a family of games here that have a progression of sophistication.
- vonkow 10y ago
  Depends if they like starting at ASCII. KSP has a much more familiar interface and would probably be the better route to go.
  - dunstad 10y ago
    There are actually a surprising number of detailed graphics mods you can get for Dwarf Fortress (although not wanting to fiddle with modding the game is entirely understandable).
    - vonkow 10y ago
      Very true, but even with graphics mods the difference in ease of use between DF and KSP's interfaces is vast.
    - Natsu 10y ago
      The Lazy Newb Pack more or less takes care of the difficulty of doing that, though.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Would you say DF could be a graduation up from KSP, or am I just barking up the wrong tree thinking they're related more than they are (never played MC, DF or KSP)?
    - Joof 10y ago
      Barking up the wrong tree. They are different games with different goals and all 3 can be incredibly complex.
supernintendo 10y ago
Fun analogy. One of my favorite mechanics in Dwarf Fortress is stress. Dwarves have thoughts which are contingent upon outside influences (fatigue, other dwarves, etc.) [1]. Failure to keep your dwarves happy results in a loss of productivity. Left untreated, your dwarves can eventually go insane and destroy everything you've built [2]. Fortunately, I've never seen this manifest in a startup before my own eyes (at least in an extreme way), but I'm sure someone else has a story to share. [1] http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Thought http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Thought [2] http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Insanity http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Insanity
- restalis 10y ago
  "Fortunately, I've never seen this manifest in a startup before my own eyes (at least in an extreme way)" That's because, however tough the entrepreneurship may seem, the businesses are part of the larger society which is collectively protected to a high degree from many society-devastating causes. I've mentioned this before¹: "The world around you and your loved ones is relatively safe thanks to multitude of operating services that make sure that the individuals roaming free are not that crazy, not that malevolent, not that contagious, and in short will not have that much of a negative impact on society at large (which includes you)." Of course, the environment of the Dwarf Fortress does not promise you that kind of protection. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150147
triggercut 10y ago
There's no Fun that good old fashioned Risk Management can't ruin.
kazagistar 10y ago
1) Name everything silly random things. 2) Have a super complex UI. 3) Cats will end the world. 4) Kill the rich nobles (management) asap.

74 points by pigs 10y ago

What's great about this analogy is that Unicorns are officially Bad News for dwarfs, and will frequently gore and trample everyone in your fortress to death.

Natsu 10y ago
They're also valuable. "Unicorn products are worth four times as much as domestic animals, making unicorn genocide in the name of profit an attractive proposition." - DF Wiki http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Unicorn http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Unicorn

outworlder 10y ago

Interesting analogy. I'd guess that the average Dwarf Fortress erm, Fortress, and the average startup fail at about the same rate. For, basically, the same reasons: too many unknowns, random events and morale.

vinceguidry 10y ago

> and the gameplay is brutally difficult. Dwarf Fortress is not particularly difficult once you figure out the obtuse interface. It's only a little bit more difficult than Minecraft without the boss fights. I got bored in a few months. Admittedly, much of this was the tendency of the game to slow my machine to a dead crawl. Once you're proficient at avoiding the pitfalls, the only really interesting thing to do is to keep growing the fortress. Sadly, the performance cliff is steep.

dunstad 10y ago
There is of course a certain extent to which you can adjust how difficult the game will be for you, such as where you embark or just restricting your playstyle, but ultimately coming up with goals is necessary to keep enjoying the game. I never last very long myself...
- jtolmar 10y ago
  The problem with embark locations is that they mostly just increase the size of the initial difficulty cliff. The game still settles down to more or less the same amount of challenge once you've dug in. Maybe your migrant waves are smaller after wading through the river full of zombie hippos, but once the survivors get indoors they're as safe as anywhere else.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Almost all single-player games are easy once you've had sufficient practice. That doesn't mean they're actually easy by any normal standard.

vonkow 10y ago

I'm really surprised that the author didn't get into one of the main ways a fortress fails. It's humming along smoothly and then suddenly the population doubles in size when a group of settlers (VC cash) arrives and the whole place goes to hell from disorganization and growing pains.

yeukhon 10y ago
Would love to hear honest story telling from really successful startup including FB, Dropbox and even some of the smaller players on this. Would it make sense to just go full hacker culture like FB from the beginning without any serious management layer and goes small team instead of big team?
- smaddox 10y ago
  A bit of duplicated effort due to inadequate communication is far better than subgroups being forced to use outside systems that they can't modify to automate common tasks.
- patmcguire 10y ago
  Best you're going to get is a Rashomon-style retelling. Anybody early on has retold the story so many times - pitching new hires, onboarding the next wave of employees, and then the next wave, and then the next wave - that they probably don't really remember the real thing very clearly anymore. Then there's also the pressure to agree to a similar narrative, not necessarily in a bad way, just like any couple has agreed on a how they met story, they've been telling it for so long and had the arguments about "did that happen?" that the story has been set. Who knows what happened. You'd have to assemble a collage of The Official Story, some of the weirder first interviews the group gave in the press, early non-hires who interviewed and caught a glimpse of a weird snapshot, the inevitable disgruntled folk (who may not inevitably wrong). Aside from that, I do like http://justinkan.com/three-stories http://justinkan.com/three-stories , it's a good series of disasters.
DonHopkins 10y ago
Jamie Zawinski describes it as how a few people who want to work to make a company successful eventually attract a whole bunch of people who want to work for a successful company.

rhizome 10y ago

OT, but for those of use who know kids into Minecraft, is DF a good thing for them to graduate to? KSP maybe better? Seems like there's a family of games here that have a progression of sophistication.

vonkow 10y ago
Depends if they like starting at ASCII. KSP has a much more familiar interface and would probably be the better route to go.
- dunstad 10y ago
  There are actually a surprising number of detailed graphics mods you can get for Dwarf Fortress (although not wanting to fiddle with modding the game is entirely understandable).
  - vonkow 10y ago
    Very true, but even with graphics mods the difference in ease of use between DF and KSP's interfaces is vast.
  - Natsu 10y ago
    The Lazy Newb Pack more or less takes care of the difficulty of doing that, though.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Would you say DF could be a graduation up from KSP, or am I just barking up the wrong tree thinking they're related more than they are (never played MC, DF or KSP)?
  - Joof 10y ago
    Barking up the wrong tree. They are different games with different goals and all 3 can be incredibly complex.

supernintendo 10y ago

Fun analogy. One of my favorite mechanics in Dwarf Fortress is stress. Dwarves have thoughts which are contingent upon outside influences (fatigue, other dwarves, etc.) [1]. Failure to keep your dwarves happy results in a loss of productivity. Left untreated, your dwarves can eventually go insane and destroy everything you've built [2]. Fortunately, I've never seen this manifest in a startup before my own eyes (at least in an extreme way), but I'm sure someone else has a story to share. [1] http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Thought http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Thought [2] http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Insanity http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Insanity

restalis 10y ago
"Fortunately, I've never seen this manifest in a startup before my own eyes (at least in an extreme way)" That's because, however tough the entrepreneurship may seem, the businesses are part of the larger society which is collectively protected to a high degree from many society-devastating causes. I've mentioned this before¹: "The world around you and your loved ones is relatively safe thanks to multitude of operating services that make sure that the individuals roaming free are not that crazy, not that malevolent, not that contagious, and in short will not have that much of a negative impact on society at large (which includes you)." Of course, the environment of the Dwarf Fortress does not promise you that kind of protection. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150147

triggercut 10y ago

There's no Fun that good old fashioned Risk Management can't ruin.

kazagistar 10y ago

1) Name everything silly random things. 2) Have a super complex UI. 3) Cats will end the world. 4) Kill the rich nobles (management) asap.