Dwarf Fortress Review

Dwarf Fortress is an extremely complex ASCII drawn simulation game with both real-time strategy and roleplaying modes to play; the roleplaying mode is known as Adventure Mode, and the real-time strategy mode is known as Fortress Mode. Dwarf Fortress is completely free to play and download, and is still in development, relying on player donations to continue. After 4 years of development, the game's first alpha release was on 8th August 2006, and has been in continual development since.

Before you can start playing, you must create a world using the game's extensive world generator. The world generator creates the physical map as well as political and social history, non-playable characters of varying importance including enemies and allies, as well as religions, 'forgotten beasts' and other various creatures.

In Adventure Mode, you take control of a single character, creating them before you enter the world. You can choose their race, skills, starting city and personality traits before entering the world and beginning to explore it. While playing, many different options are available to you dependent on your location and skills, for example if in a merchants house or stall you can buy and sell items, if your attacking enemies from afar you can pick up small wildlife and throw them (see this topic) or while running from enemies you can swim into oceans or rivers.

In Fortress Mode however, you take control of several Dwarves as a god-like figure, similar to traditional real-time strategy games, and give them instructions to carry out within a certain physical area. You can create deeply dug caverns for your dwarves to live in, carve an inspiring or intimidating castle into a mountainside, or even create a massive above ground fortress. Whatever you choose, your dwarves are at your disposal...to a certain degree. Every dwarf has a personality, their own unique appearance, different relationships, family, clothing, armour and weaponry. You can choose to turn them into soldiers, farmers, fisherdwarves, masons, carpenters, engineers, the list goes on. Meanwhile, as you train and improve your fortress, the enemy builds up its own armies in preparation to attack. Some fortresses only have small thieves and raiders coming to 'visit', while others have invading armies on their doorstep almost constantly (makes diplomacy quite difficult), and some don't ever have visitors because they might be on an island with no other civilization, enemy or otherwise.

Personally, I love this game. From it's game mechanics (see the bit about throwing wildlife) to it's quite interesting fanbase of players, this game is unique in the way it is played, appreciated and adored. While some can't stand it's ASCII graphics, and others can't quite grasp how to get their first farm started, once you get into really playing the game, it's fan-made motto starts to make a lot of sense: 

Losing is Fun.

And you'll be doing a lot of losing.

Personal Ratings:

Graphics: 7/10 

Some of the ASCII is a little un-intuitive. Personally I use a graphics tile-replacement set.
Sound: 5/10 
Written and created by Toady One, the accompanying sound files are a little lacking. I recommend using Soundsense, a third-party sound engine specifically designed to enhance the game.
Gamplay: 8/10
Once you get past the learning curve, and it does take a while, this game is amazing to play. However, the UI is still very much lacking and part of the reason the learning curve is so difficult. Keybindings across different sections of the UI are not the same/similar, so unless your familiar with the setup, it will take a while before you can build that wall to stop the enemy is less than 30 seconds...
Overall: 8/10
For what it's worth, this game is great. Just don't take everything the fanbased community has to say to heart and you'll be fine. (Hint: Avoid the elephants!)


Go here to find out more about this game and download it for yourself!