At a time when game developers seem intent on handling players with kid gloves and are quick to laud trivial accomplishments as achievements (“You took 10 whole steps in the right direction! Go you!”), it scarcely seems conceivable a complex time-consuming game with no victory condition could possibly exist. Yet that’s precisely how Dwarf Fortress is designed. Players are simply expected to lose and the Dwarf Fortress experience is fundamentally about how you lose. To lessen the sting, the game’s creators promise losing is fun.

It is not.

To play Dwarf Fortress in its primary Fortress Mode is to attempt to build something in a hostile environment. It’s an extraordinarily–detailed simulation requiring huge amounts of micromanagement in the beginning, lulling the unwary into believing they have full control over proceedings before viciously disabusing them of that notion. The endgame is always about witnessing that creation succumb to disaster. The stones may still stand, the constructions may remain intact yet the intrepid community that is the heartbeat of every fortress will be destroyed.

The grim final days of a dwarven colony are always a desperate struggle to stave off an unavoidable tragedy. Will the player’s avaricious dwarves, blinded by the promise of subterranean riches, be overrun by hordes of vile goblins or massacred by some ancient behemoth? Or will they instead suffer a less bloody if no less horrifying end, slowly dying of thirst and hunger as their stockpiles run out? It matters little how they meet their final doom, watching it unfold is never fun in the “whee” sense of the word.
Continued…

I set this tale down on parchment to caution future generations for I fear legends of Stakudgur and its riches still enthrall the young and may tempt them to folly. It is my hope that this record, which I have pieced together and verified as best as I could, might give them pause.

Stakudgur was founded in the spring of 1052 by an expedition of seven led by Adil Nosingsakzul. They struck the earth at the bottom of a hill by a brook then dug down. They had chosen their site well and there were soon ample stockpiles of wood, stone and uncut gems for the crafter, the mason and the jeweller to work on.

That first year was not without its trials, however. The little outpost was heavily dependent on food supplies brought by caravans before Stakudgur’s farmers, fisherdwarves and hunters made it self-sufficient and there were days when the workers toiled in hunger and thirst.

Seasons passed and the outpost rapidly expanded as migrants were drawn to it by stories of its growing prosperity. The annual trade with Stibbomrovod and the humans from Mong Conu proved particularly lucrative. The traders coveted the wooden masterpieces effortlessly produced by Domas Ikthagmuthkat and the crafter’s legend soon spread far and wide. The traders spoke admiringly, too, of wondrous artifacts which were not for sale no matter how beseechingly they pled or how much they offered. The pride of Stakudgur was said to be Zanegkasith, a cow bone cage painstakingly handcrafted by Cog Athelakgos, a precocious child of prodigious skill.

At its height in the summer of 1056, Stakudgur was a bustling metropolis of over 150 souls and it must have had every reason to believe its future was bright indeed.
Continued…

Iton Vudtharlibash, expedition leader is throwing a tantrum! Iton Vudtharlibash, expedition leader has calmed down.

Iton Vudtharlibash, Glassmaker cancels Drink: Went insane. Iton Vudtharlibash, Glassmaker has gone berserk!

Alath Thakcatten, Fisherdwarf cancels Drink: Interrupted by Glassmaker.

Continued…

When others play Dwarf Fortress, it usually results in epic tales of tragedy recalling Balin’s ill-fated attempt to retake Moria. When I play Dwarf Fortress, it generates surreal Beat poetry about animal abuse.