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FYI, Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII-only roguelike, and the learning curve is as steep as the graphics are primitive. But the emergent gameplay is amazing. If the

FYI, Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII-only roguelike, and the learning curve is as steep as the graphics are primitive. But the emergent gameplay is amazing. If the inconsistent UI or graphics give you pause, I'd suggest taking a look at Rimworld, currently in Early Access on Steam (or available directly from the developer's site). It has some of the deep qualities of DF but is a bit more forgiving.

dahart 10y ago
Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Rimworld too! Primitive graphics are no barrier at all. I am a graphics programmer and graphics lover through and through. But I can say with some confidence that graphics only matter sometimes, and even then are only a part of what makes any game good. I saw a great talk at GDC many years ago that had a study of what makes good games good and "realistic", and graphics was 7th or 8th on the list. The number one item on the list was how well players understood their own identity in the game, whether they felt like they fit in and knew what to do. Such an interesting and important and IMO underrated piece of gaming psychology.
- dvtv75 10y ago
  Rimworld has chewed up hundreds of hours of my time. I frequently play it for 10 hours at a stretch - when I finally got frustrated with that sadistic RNG, I threw in a mod ("The Martian"). So many productive hours lost because I can't stop managing the little sods...
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
DF isn't a rogulike. It has a roguelike in it, though. DF is (primarily) a fortress management game, akin to something like SimCity. But with vastly more depth. The first time you play DF, the game will generate a world. It will attempt realistic simulations of a variety of properties to try to create realistic landmasses, and randomly generate wars between random civilizations, create random historical figures, and generally wreak havoc on your CPU. Then you embark with a party of Dwarfs (yes, dwarfs), and journey into the wilderness to start a new colony. Each of your dwarfs has specialties, a personality, opinions, and an incredibly complex body model, keeping track of everything from broken bones to strained tendons (I'm not exaggerating). But it goes further because everything else in the game is just as elaborately simulated, down to waterflow, the densities of various woods. There is no win condition: Your fortress will collapse. The unofficial motto of the game is "losing is fun" The game is still in alpha (0.42, meaning it's 42% feature complete), it's programmed by one guy, and the eventual goal is to simulate existance (or at least, the narratively interesting parts), and allow people to create their own stories. At least, better than it already is.
zeveb 10y ago
> FYI, Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII-only roguelike Well, it's Unicode actually — displayed by OpenGL! — and not really a roguelike (although IIRC there is a roguelike adventure mode). It's incredibly difficult not so much due to the graphics but rather to the fantastically complex world, and also the control interface, which is … baroque.

dahart 10y ago

Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Rimworld too! Primitive graphics are no barrier at all. I am a graphics programmer and graphics lover through and through. But I can say with some confidence that graphics only matter sometimes, and even then are only a part of what makes any game good. I saw a great talk at GDC many years ago that had a study of what makes good games good and "realistic", and graphics was 7th or 8th on the list. The number one item on the list was how well players understood their own identity in the game, whether they felt like they fit in and knew what to do. Such an interesting and important and IMO underrated piece of gaming psychology.

dvtv75 10y ago
Rimworld has chewed up hundreds of hours of my time. I frequently play it for 10 hours at a stretch - when I finally got frustrated with that sadistic RNG, I threw in a mod ("The Martian"). So many productive hours lost because I can't stop managing the little sods...

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

DF isn't a rogulike. It has a roguelike in it, though. DF is (primarily) a fortress management game, akin to something like SimCity. But with vastly more depth. The first time you play DF, the game will generate a world. It will attempt realistic simulations of a variety of properties to try to create realistic landmasses, and randomly generate wars between random civilizations, create random historical figures, and generally wreak havoc on your CPU. Then you embark with a party of Dwarfs (yes, dwarfs), and journey into the wilderness to start a new colony. Each of your dwarfs has specialties, a personality, opinions, and an incredibly complex body model, keeping track of everything from broken bones to strained tendons (I'm not exaggerating). But it goes further because everything else in the game is just as elaborately simulated, down to waterflow, the densities of various woods. There is no win condition: Your fortress will collapse. The unofficial motto of the game is "losing is fun" The game is still in alpha (0.42, meaning it's 42% feature complete), it's programmed by one guy, and the eventual goal is to simulate existance (or at least, the narratively interesting parts), and allow people to create their own stories. At least, better than it already is.

zeveb 10y ago

> FYI, Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII-only roguelike Well, it's Unicode actually — displayed by OpenGL! — and not really a roguelike (although IIRC there is a roguelike adventure mode). It's incredibly difficult not so much due to the graphics but rather to the fantastically complex world, and also the control interface, which is … baroque.