There are very few games that fundamentally alter the player’s understanding of what a video game is. It is a simple truth that, in most cases, a developing studio must stick to the confines of a traditional definition of “video game” to achieve any sort of widespread, commercial success. When developers shirk the goal of commercial success altogether to create something different, strange and beautiful, incomprehensibly mountainous games like “Dwarf Fortress” emerge from the woodwork.
It should be immediately stated that “Dwarf Fortress” is an extremely frustrating game. The controls make no sense, the logic for much of the User Interface (UI) is completely nonsensical and some game mechanics simply break sometimes. There is no way to spin these quirks; they are a result of ignorance on the part of the two-man developing team as they focus on the more creative side of game development. For my money, efforts towards accessibility are much needed compared to implementing wizards into the game, but I am a broke internet addict writing in a college newspaper and not a game developer, so what would I know? I just work here.
If you are willing to spend time learning to overcome these accessibility hurdles, there are thousands of hours of emergent storytelling waiting for you on the other side. “Dwarf Fortress” is a game that has been actively developed by Zach and Tarn Adams for almost twenty-five years. These two men sought to make a game that layered so many interlocking systems on top of one another in such a chaotic, yet intricate way that the simple observance of the generated world in action generates enough content to write a thousand short stories. The detail with which this game simulates a virtual world is unprecedented, so much so that it was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art in 2012.
The general concept of “Dwarf Fortress” is reasonably easy to understand. After selecting an embark location in the world you have just generated, along with roughly one hundred years of simulated history, because the game was not detailed enough as is, you start with seven dwarves and a wagon of supplies and are tasked with building a flourishing underground fortress. That is it. You will find yourself getting sidetracked with different goals as the game throws random happenings in your general direction, such as fifteen guests who all want to go to the caverns to slay monsters, or the wrath of six different goblin pits that all simultaneously keep sending thieves to steal your children and large ogres with battering rams. The fun is not in success, the fun is in trying new things and inevitably failing spectacularly. As fans of the game often say, “Losing is fun!”
You may be peacefully attempting to build a tavern for your dwarves to reside in and get a notification that one of your pet dogs got into a fight with a barn owl because it was grouchy about getting caught in the rain. If that is not enough detail for you, you can click on a log for the fight and mentally replay the entire second-by-second encounter, with information down to the specific tendons torn in each participant during the altercation. You may click on a dwarf’s “Relations” tab, looking for their spouse, only to realize that they have fathered upwards of twenty-five children with three different women across their 62-year lifespan. You might get a notification that the cavern you dug into three months ago is now housing a dangerous snake creature that shoots webs from its mouth. When you attempt to attack it with the military that you have been training for two years, you find that said webs are shockingly lethal as your entire squadron gets wiped out by this beast, along with a third of your fort, including the aforementioned dwarf and twelve of his children. If it was not obvious, all of these things have happened to me while playing this game.
I hesitate to call “Dwarf Fortress” a game because it feels more like an experience. When I finish a playthrough, I have a compulsion to go and tell all my friends about the beautiful stories of heroism and tragic tales of dwarven ineptitude that befell my fortress. The beauty in this game lies in its potential, and any devout gamer seeking an innovative and irreplaceable experience should give this title a try.
