Dwarf Fortress

[Sky]

I'd like notch to base minecraft 2 on DF.

[ezrast]

I don't suppose there will ever be a version of this game that doesn't have a fuckstupid UI?  I could see myself losing many years of productivity to this, but damn, that control scheme is awful.

Game's been in development for a decade. If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

[Samwise]

I'm hoping Prison Architect turns out really well and IV's next project after that is a straight up DF clone.

[tgr]

I would need an IV drip to survive if introversion did a straight up DF clone, and made the UI not suck.

[Cadaverine]

Paradox Interactive is making a what looks to be a DF knock off as well.  http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/a-game-of-dwarves.

[Severian]

There is also Towns, an indy project in (playable, purchasable) Alpha and in currently on its last day in the Indie Royale Alpha bundle. I just bought it and spent an unexpected number of hours in just-a-little-more gameplay last night. Survived three sieges, two self-inflicted famines, and outfitted my Townies in spiderite pants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_d2dEbsOE

[bhodi]

And don't forget Goblin Camp. I want graphics, though.

[Xanthippe]

I'm hoping Prison Architect turns out really well and IV's next project after that is a straight up DF clone.

That looks great. I hope it is.

[Slyfeind]

The Lazy Newb pack remaps a lot of keys to be more consistent. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to trying it, I was already used to the inconsistency, so had to go through and change things back to "Sometimes F10 closes, sometimes Space closes, sometimes Esc closes" etc.

Anyway. I must try this. I would love to see lycanthropy run rampant.

[Pagz]

Anyway. I must try this. I would love to see lycanthropy run rampant.

I got a bad case of the Weregecko today. They attack like megabeasts, only I had one attack in the first year with a ten dwarf fort. Good thing it was distracted eating all those bunnies instead of attacking proper, then changed back into a goblin and ran offscreen.

Also: Embarking next to an ocean called "The Unholy Sea" is a bad idea. The undead crab pincers create Fun.

[Furiously]

You probably don't get delicious crab meat either.

[Severian]

Paradox Interactive is making a what looks to be a DF knock off as well.  http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/a-game-of-dwarves.

Here is a new bit of alpha footage of A Game of Dwarves  from the Yogscast.

Obviously it's a complete ripoff.
Of A Game Of Thrones.

[tgr]

Hrm. Still not exactly a fan of the graphics style, but I've seen worse.

[Samwise]

Obviously it's a complete ripoff.
Of A Game Of Thrones.

 

[Ratman_tf]

I'm really looking forward to Game of Dwarves. I love these kinds of sim games, but DF is just so 

[ghost]

I tried putzing around with this today.  I just don't have the patience for this kind of shit anymore, it seems.  I think I would have loved it 10 years ago. 

[Tairnyn]

Every time this post gets bumped I get a small flutter of hope in my heart that Toady is finally overhauling the interface. 

[ghost]

Today wasn't the day.

[Tairnyn]

I found what seems to be the first legitimate play at remaking DF with a graphical interface in mind; Gnomoria. It's still in Alpha (isn't everything these days?) and it's one programmer + one artist but they are cranking out updates at a decent pace (1-2 weeks per patch) and the fundamentals are there. It's currently selling as pre-order/early access for $7.99.

I've read that the interface is slightly awkward, but even the Bay 12 forum junkies have generally nice things to say about it. I grabbed the demo and expect to fall into a gaming trance until 4am tonight.

[Quinton]

I wish Gnomoria would do more with the graphical interface.  The selection interface is clunky and the nested menus are awkward.  Will be watching to see where it goes...

[Samwise]

Rather than make a new thread for Gnomoria I thought I'd bump this one to say I'm playing it and it's highly addictive.  It's still officially prerelease but I haven't hit any terrible bugs; it feels a lot more solid and complete than either Prison Architect or Stonehearth did the last time I played them (might not be a fair current assessment).

For the most part I've been avoiding tutorials and trying to figure the game out through discovery.  This approach has led to a few spectacular failures (like the time I triggered a zombie apocalypse by digging too deep) but the UI is good enough that you can mostly figure out what the fuck you're doing by hunting through menus and experimenting.

It's not QUITE as feature-rich as DF (based on the descriptions I've read of DF anyway) but I've put a fair bit of time into it and not hit the "is that it?" point yet, so I'd say for those who have been looking for a graphical DF this is the one to check out.

[Kail]

Yeah, I really had a good time with Gnomoria.  The one disappointing aspect of it to me is that the dev has a definite final plan involved (as opposed to Dwarf Fortress which just keeps getting bigger and bigger) and as far as I can see, that final plan doesn't have some features I want.  Mostly the ability for Gnomes to have children, since without it, it means your only way to get more Gnomes is by immigration, and the only way for that to happen is for your city's net worth to increase, which makes things a bit one dimensional for me.

Looking at the wiki, it looks like a lot has changed.  I guess they added a bone needle, which relieves much of the massive annoyance I had setting up a millitary early game, since you used to have to make them out of metal.  I should probably reinstall and give it a spin to see what's new.

[Samwise]

I'm not sure bone is any kinder of a gating factor than metal for the early game.  You need to either have a functioning military or a thriving yak herd, and it takes a while to set either of those up.

Although now that I've finally got a good economy humming along, I have more bones than I know what to do with.  And milk.  I've started trading it all for metal just to get rid of it.  Because THAT'S HOW YOU GET MANTS.

[Teleku]

I purchased Gnomoria on a steam sale a long time ago and never installed.  Will have to give it a go!

Anybody know how Game of Dwarves turned out?

Or any of the other DF type games mentioned in this thread for that matter.

[Kail]

Of all the Dwarf Fortress clones I've played, Gnomoria is the most stable and feature complete I've seen (though maybe there have been updates since I've stopped, I haven't touched most of these in months).

Allegedly, Game of Dwarves is pretty terrible.  I haven't played it, but it sounds less like Dwarf Fortress and more like Dungeon Keeper, except with way more handholding/railroading.  Devs aparently went out of business (or abandoned the game) so I'd advise staying away.

The other titles I know about are mostly incomplete or abandoned.  

Spacebase DF-9 is Doublefine's "Dwarf Fortress in spaaaace" attempt.  It's not awful, but at the moment it's pretty content starved.  The first half hour or so is pretty fun, setting up a space station and getting air and other basic necessities up is pretty interesting.  But once you've got ten or so rooms built, there's nothing else to do, no endgame to aspire to, no real threat to your colony.  Game's buggy as hell, too, and Doublefine's spread out over like a million Early Access games, so updates are slow.

Towns, as far as I know, is buggy and crappy and basically a complete trainwreck, though it's been a while since I played it.  I think it was patched last month, so it's only mostly dead.

Dwarfcorp might be worth keeping an eye on, but it's still in alpha.  Same goes for Craft the World and Maia.

[Ingmar]

Stonehearth is a long way away from anything, really, but the initial bits of gameplay are very promising IMO.

[Quinton]

Stonehearth is a long way away from anything, really, but the initial bits of gameplay are very promising IMO.

I checked out Alpha4 last night and you can now customize buildings, etc.  Yeah they've got a long way to go, but they're doing it in style.  Their UI refresh made their already nice looking UI a bit cleaner.

Gnomoria definitely seems the most graphical DF of these various games.  I just wish they would fix their picking UI -- the wireframe box thing just never lines up with the map in a way that I can parse visually.  Seems like they've added a bunch of stuff since I poked at it last. 

DF-9 which has really nice clean menu UI also has issues with the UI for room layout being pretty awkward, and while they've added more stuff, is pretty shallow content-wise.

Clockwork Empires just dropped into Early Access and it certainly looks like it has potential, but wow it is super super rough UI-wise right now.

Timber and Stone seems to be moving forward at a pretty slow rate.  1.5.2 supposedly has an overhaul of pathing/ai that prevents units from getting stuck.

[Ceryse]

I purchased Gnomoria on a steam sale a long time ago and never installed.  Will have to give it a go!

Anybody know how Game of Dwarves turned out?

Or any of the other DF type games mentioned in this thread for that matter.

A Game of Dwarves sucked. It was a really, really bad game. Very shallow, buggy and both hand-holdy and difficult (not in a good way, but because of horrible design; if you chose the wrong way to dig, even on the starting level, you would basically Game Over).

[Samwise]

I'm actually thinking about doing a Gnomoria radicalthon in the general vein of the DF radicalthons since those have historically been popular.  Good idea?  Dumb idea?

[Ingmar]

I vote yes, especially if you include a little bit of how-to-actually-get-started advice.

[Yegolev]

Please do.  I tried to play Gnomoria and it bit my shin.

[Pagz]

NEW RELEASE IS OUT TIME TO PARTY

0.42.02 stuff:
       
    Ability to designate taverns, temples and libraries in the fortress
    Taverns and libraries also exist in adventure mode and world generation
    Tavern keepers can serve drinks in both modes, goblets can be used by dwarves to drink (in taverns or otherwise)
    Performances include stories, poetry, music and dance (you can view activity descriptions from the unit/job list)
    Art forms are randomly generated for each civilization
    Instruments are now all generated, instruments can be used in both modes
    Most instruments are constructed from multiple pieces using different materials
    Personalities and values lead to needs which can be met by various actions in both modes
    The fort has visitors, residency petitions and eventual citizenship, including non-dwarves
    Tavern visitors include mercenaries, monster slayers, bandits, diplomats and performers
    Can set details for clothing/armor jobs to make them for other races that can equip items
    Monster slayers can petition your fortress to go down and fight monsters once you discover the underground
    Performance troupes are active in world generation and into play, visiting the fort, can be formed in adventure mode
    New knowledge system divided into nine branches (though it has very few practical effects so far)
    Fortress scholars can advance knowledge, form master-apprentice relationships and write down their findings
    Fortress scribes can copy works in your library
    Scholars can visit your fortress libraries, bringing knowledge from around the world
    Devoted historical figures can visit your fortress temples
    Three forms of writing material: papyrus sheets, paper sheets and parchment sheets
    Papyrus sheets are made directly from the plant at the farmer's workshop
    Paper is made from pressed slurries (start at the quern/mill, then go to a screw press)
    Parchment is made from hide and milk of lime at the tanner's (bake quicklime at a kiln, then make milk of lime at an ashery)
    Sheets are used to make quires or with rollers to make scrolls -- these are then used for writing
    Quires can be bound into codices with bindings after they contain writing
    Dwarves read books in the library (they don't need to be scholars)
    Values can be passed in writing (both modes) and through adventure mode arguments (uses some conversation skills)
    Animal people are playable as adventurers, arrive as fort visitors and sometimes live in towns in (playable) populations
    Children play with toys now, and they can also play make believe, in both modes
    Personality can be customized/randomized in adventure mode, appearance can be randomized as well
    Temples can be defiled in both modes, dwarf temples can be assigned to particular gods
    Adventurer can rent rooms in inns
    Adventurers can compose new poems, music and dances
    Adventurers can write material down on empty quires or scrolls
    Alcohol causes inebriation, erratic behavior, unconsciousness, death
    Festivals occur in world generation, though we haven't gotten them out of there yet
    Dwarves will wear trinkets again

Major bug fixes

    Fixed some army pathing issues
    Goblins have mounts again
    Fixed long-standing flow bug with unit occupancy
    Stopped some issues with brawls escalating to non-lethal

Other bug fixes/tweaks

    Looking at reaction screen for redded-out reactions in workshop will indicate missing reagents now
    Fixed inversion problem with half of the child/parent conversation thoughts
    Lots of historical figures that weren't around from the beginning didn't have deities when they were supposed to
    Allowed site finder to look for 1x1 sites
    Human civilizations now have randomized values
    Added ability to set invasion wave cap size

Biggest changes is taverns, allowing multi-race forts. When I have time I'll be trying a new radicalthon (although that could start anytime between tomorrow and infinity days) and hopefully start an f13 "world" so we can pass the save around and visit old fortresses past in adventure mode.

[Teleku]

 

Toady really is a crazy fuck.  It's eventually going to take a supercomputer to run this ascii game.

Does make me want to fire it up for the first time in years.  Did he ever put the economy back into it, or is it still on hold?

[Pagz]

Still on hold, I don't think it's on the horizon either. I forget what he has planned for the next few releases, but on his current schedule it'll be another year for a major content release.

[Teleku]

That's to bad, seems like it would tie in very well with the new stuff.  I really enjoyed minting coins of different metals and watching them flood around the fortress.  Also, dwarves unable to pay their rent and thrown out to the street to be hobo dwarves.