6 ms·

To quote myself from the last time I commented on an article about DF: I will continue to have no interest in Dwarf Fortress until it has an actual UI instead

• Natsu 12y ago
  It's on par with using vi, but once you get over the speed bump it actually feels natural and you go through the menus without even thinking about it. Granted, this isn't easy for everyone.
• presidentender 12y ago
  You're missing out. I mean, I assume that you're doing other things with your time and enjoying them instead, but Dwarf Fortress is a unique experience well worth a few hours every couple of years.
  • jeremysmyth 12y ago
    A few hours every couple of years? I admire your discipline. If I wait a couple of years to play, I end up losing a weekend or two to a few forts. I have to get my fix by spending a day or two every few months. No other game does that to me.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
• grimgrin 12y ago
  At least many of these "insane random combinations of controls" follow a pretty OK mnemonic naming convention. b>c to build a chair b>d to build a door b>w>l to build a still (type of workshop, many other things under b>w)
  • coolp_jim 12y ago
    Exactly. Which is exactly like games like Starcraft or Warcraft, where there are any number of things you can "do" as a player. No one complained about those games' UI. DF has this and more. Therefore, the UI becomes more involved. I think what this really boils down to is "I haven't played the game and everyone says it's really hard, so I guess I won't try. Instead I'll go online and complain about the UI I've never used."
    • seanflyon 12y ago
      This is the first time I have heard someone suggest that DF has UI design of comparable quality to Starcraft or Warcraft (or any other major game for that matter).
  • philsnow 12y ago
    This is the kind of stuff that always trips me up: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Controls#Building_Placement http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Controls#Building... Several different sets of keys to use depending on what you're manipulating, even though they all have to do with direction. I can never remember and always have to use the in-game help. Whereas, when I play nethack or DCSS or brogue, 99% of the things my fingers do, they do without needing to consult their external memory (my brain). The interface is so simple (okay, nethack's is not, but I started playing it at an early age, so it's baked in to my fingers now) that it's a joy to operate the game. Once your brain doesn't have to drive your fingers, the interface becomes an extension of you and you achieve a kind of flow where you're interacting with the (game) world without thinking about it. Anybody who has learned to drive stick shift (especially if you already knew how to drive an automatic) knows this feeling.
    • bhickey 12y ago
      We place a strong emphasis on usability and interface in crawl. For example, we actively avoid putting items in the inventory slot corresponding to using them: potions shouldn't land on 'q', food on 'e', etc. Another advantage is that we're dealing with a simpler game. Brogue takes this one step further and I think does a fabulous job. For example, there are no inventory stacks on the floor. Either there's an item or there isn't. Adding stacks would impose a complexity cost without improving gameplay. Back in 2009-2010 on DCSS we were very fortunate to have one of our developers organized a usability study. The usability study ran over several months and produced a ton of feedback. Since the core team is around 30, we actually had the throughput to act on these recommendations.
• hibikir 12y ago
  There's an entire subgenre of games trying to make less ambitious, prettier versions of Dwarf Fortress. Banished, for instance. You could argue that even Minecraft attempts to be a 3d dwarf fortress, where you control your one dwarf. The extra effort in the UI tends to leave far worse games than Dwarf Fortress though.
  • glittershark 12y ago
    Minecraft was actually started as an explicit DF clone and then deviated from there
    • EvenThisAcronym 12y ago
      Minecraft was started as a clone of Infiniminer.
      • Kiro 12y ago
        Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress.
    • boomlinde 12y ago
      I don't know what definition of "clone" you use, but in my eyes you are using the word too liberally here. Was there any stage of Minecraft development that was even remotely similar to Dwarf Fortress in concept? When I started playing it it lacked, say, crafting, and the only concept it really shared with Dwarf Fortress was the idea of generating terrain procedurally; a concept shared by many games, and one that makes Minecraft compare to Dwarf Fortress like a propeller beanie compares to a wind turbine.
      • intended 12y ago
        Notch has said so himself.
        • boomlinde 12y ago
• myrmidon 12y ago
  In that case, you might want to give http://gnomoria.com/ http://gnomoria.com/ a try, which is similar to dwarf fortress, but significantly less complex, easier to control, and looks decent out-of-the-box. You might also be interested in https://www.factorio.com/ https://www.factorio.com/ which is a game about building factories (free world, 2d isometric). Aside from being addictive, it is also performant, looks good, has a decent soundtrack and comes with all of it's ingame-stats conveniently embedded in Lua-sourcefiles (which you don't even have to parse-- just run them through the interpreter if you want to start modding/theorycrafting). Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with those games in any way, just promoting them because they're awesome (best entertainment/price ratio of anything I ever paid for).
  • zyxley 12y ago
    I'm already a big fan of both, actually.
  • patio11 12y ago
    I loved Factorio, but had to give it up because it gave me worse eye strain than any program ever has.