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Dwarf Fortress

Developer / Publisher: Bay 12 Games
08 August 2006
Dwarf Fortress - cover art
Glitchwave rating
4.16 / 5.0
0.5
5.0
 
 
398 Ratings / 4 Reviews
#72 All-time
#2 for 2006
A dense, complex colony management game about surly, terminally-alcoholic dwarves struggling to survive against a hostile world and even more hostile neighbors.
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No review could do this game justice. It is a product of a lifelong ambition to create one of the deepest, most all-encompassing colony management simulation games, with all manner of bells and whistles and quirks and unnecessary detail that only a labour of love could produce. I've sunk hundreds and hundreds of hours and I have barely scratched the surface of the surface of this beast.

Now that the 2022 Steam Release, adding graphics and a sane(r) UI exists, there is no better time than ever to pick this up.

Even if this is not the game I have sunk time into the most (there are many alternate universes where I sell my soul exclusively to this game), it is certainly the most artistically ambitious game I have ever seen, and I struggle to see how it could be ever topped in the near-distant future, and the game is still nowhere near "done".
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Jackrb 2023-03-06T21:58:38Z
2023-03-06T21:58:38Z
5.0
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An incredible sandbox game, only held back by its frustrating UX. Once they figure out how to incorporate some of the QOL items this game desperately needs in order to actually manage and automate a colony of dwarves at a reasonable scale, I'll be coming back to dwarf fortress.
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jtpavlock 2023-08-18T21:25:56Z
2023-08-18T21:25:56Z
3.5
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Just Incredible
This game fills me with pure awe. Generating entire worlds from scratch, reading about the world's storied history and traditions, starting a fortress, planning out logistics and layouts, building megastructures, staging bloody battles and sacrifices, watching as your fortress hilariously implodes, opening up legends mode and reading about your favorite dwarves and what they got up to after the fortress went to shit, looking at the world map and realizing holy shit, all these places actually exist in the game world and i can go into adventure mode to visit them, sack them, or sneak in, dig a hidey-hole and live off stolen food... this game, to me, is the epitome of a sandbox. You have the whole game world at your disposal, and the only constraints on what you can do are your creativity (and sadism).
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remote_viewer 2021-10-31T05:22:09Z
2021-10-31T05:22:09Z
5.0
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Great fun, if you've learned it once you've learned it for life. I learned back in 2011 and was able to jump right back in a couple years ago just googling hotkeys now and then.

Playing in ASCII in public makes you seem very mysterious in public, which may be a good thing
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the_socks 2021-10-30T18:59:03Z
2021-10-30T18:59:03Z
4.5
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A life consuming project which is currently under construction.
This game has already stolen thousands of hours from my life, and even more from my friends' lives. It is designed to be an all-encompassing simulation of a fantasy world down to procedurally-generated event-shaped personalities, dungeons, stories, interwoven relationships, battles, and the brutal merciless murder of elves. If there's anything that the countless hours have taught me in this game, it's that anything can happen and will happen, as well as can shape personalities.
It's the potential that this game will be hailed worldwide as one of the highest works of art ever made for a computer, if it does become finished.

In order to understand how rightfully MASSIVE this game's mostly-original engine is, you must first understand how it was made: by two men, the brothers Tarn and Zach Adams. Zach mostly contributed through conceptualizations and storytelling, while Tarn programmed from 2006 to present. (12 years of Dwarf Fortress!!)
Secondly, in order to understand it fully, you must experience it. There is a bunch of footage of Dwarf Fortress in action on several Youtube and Twitch pages, and many of these people who make the footage either have a tutorial or describe what to look for in the Dwarfish sea of ASCII/tiles (eugh). As well, you can actually play the game. For free.

The game is rich with potential stories to tell and in my experience will only get better.
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grinphox 2018-10-20T14:35:12Z
2018-10-20T14:35:12Z
4.0
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Catalog

misaki_nakahara Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-25T05:13:17Z
2023-09-25T05:13:17Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
dummyaccounts Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-23T22:28:50Z
2023-09-23T22:28:50Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Manygodsnomasters Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-23T05:53:46Z
2023-09-23T05:53:46Z
4.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Ocab Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-18T06:50:12Z
2023-09-18T06:50:12Z
3.0
1
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Tinysalmon4 Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-17T22:23:24Z
2023-09-17T22:23:24Z
4.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
minmio Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-16T13:41:23Z
2023-09-16T13:41:23Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
narrowwaif Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-15T10:21:57Z
2023-09-15T10:21:57Z
4.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Dagiron Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-14T23:54:10Z
Windows
2023-09-14T23:54:10Z
4.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
grapesinacake Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-11T19:22:08Z
Windows
2023-09-11T19:22:08Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
owned unrated
BeatthemRingdem Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-11T03:36:09Z
2023-09-11T03:36:09Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Walkthrough
Ankleton Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-09T18:08:18Z
2023-09-09T18:08:18Z
5.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
TheSilentH Dwarf Fortress 2023-09-07T13:50:19Z
2023-09-07T13:50:19Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Player modes
Single-player
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Also known as
  • Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II - Dwarf Fortress
  • View all [1] Hide

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  • Previous comments (34) Loading...
  • FarioMerreira 2022-12-08 02:49:56.58494+00
    a dwarf fortress sweep has been going on lately huh
    reply
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  • AGUMorbidD00d 2022-12-18 07:02:27.271938+00
    Well, I'll be damned. Adventure mode (classic version) is making this game click with me the hardest a game has done in years.

    Every action is an adventure in and of itself. It's raw, uncut, quadruple-distilled wonder.
    reply
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  • JGar40 2022-12-19 18:17:45.155181+00
    devs really did their 25 year grind to become millionaires
    reply
    • prenton 2022-12-19 19:12:13.469594+00
      Funnily enough the only reason they ever made it paid because one of them got cancer and it’s America so there’s no state healthcare and they had to fund his cancer treatment.

      Of all the people in the gaming industry who genuinely deserve the financial windfall, Tarn and Zach deserve it most, when you think of all the massive games DF has heavily influenced and they barely made much from it previously
    • More replies New replies ) Loading...
  • ... 2023-03-09 12:43:17.42528+00
    лазуритный гном
    reply
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  • swan_swan 2023-03-26 01:15:15.187792+00
    when i learn how to play this again ill rate it a 5
    reply
    • entryexittransition 2023-07-24 11:30:13.067166+00
      this is my favorite comment in this site
    • More replies New replies ) Loading...
  • flims239 2023-04-23 22:53:33.019258+00
    one of the only fun games
    reply
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