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Dwarf Fortress review: the legendary colony sim gets a welcome facelift for SteamHigh score or ho-hum?
High score or ho-hum?
The good news is that this new version of Dwarf Fortress released on Steam does an admirable job of making the game considerably more approachable. I was apprehensive at first, but then something clicked and I lost the first of what would be many afternoons over the past fortnight, safe in the knowledge that when I eventually stepped away from this goliath, I’d be able to come back without feeling overwhelmed and have to start all over again. It’s still good ol’ Dwarf Fortress, but this is the most accessible the game has ever been while still being deep, demanding and a legend worthy of being inscribed on a mudstone goblet.
Rock Paper Shotgun presents: Let’s Destroy a Dwarf FortressWatch on YouTube
Rock Paper Shotgun presents: Let’s Destroy a Dwarf Fortress
Thankfully, this new Steam release of Dwarf Fortress is far more approachable. The charming pixel dwarves and chums, as well as the caverns they inhabit, are much easier to parse at first glance, with only a simple mouseover required to tell you exactly what you’re looking at. Combined with a proper point and click interface and menus you can browse through at your leisure, that first barrier to entry is thoroughly smashed.
No longer having to decipher abstract code like you’re looking at the Matrix makes the early stages of the game something that you can just throw yourself into. Your dwarves are going to need food, beds, places to meet and work. It can still be a bit fiddly at times, but its improved tutorials go a long way to easing you in gently. You can figure out that a dwarf needs a bed, and building one and digging a room to put it in is a cinch. There’s still room for improvement, admittedly (how to actually designate and assign bedrooms isn’t nearly so obvious), but it’s a very welcome step in the right direction.
Making the game so much more accessible also reveals what an odd beast it is. Without the struggle of figuring out how to accomplish the most basic tasks, it turns out that survival in Dwarf Fortress isn’t particularly difficult. The game makes a big deal about making it through your first winter, but short of digging into a river and flooding your whole fortress or something (which I have never done, honestly,), doing so is a breeze.
It doesn’t help that this is where the game’s complexity and frequent obtuseness really hits you, even now. While the tutorial covers the basics and there are some in-game help files that provide a little more detail, it can still be really tricky to figure out how to accomplish a lot of tasks. This is going to be the make or break moment for most players, I feel. It won’t be long before you come across something that you don’t know how to do and, despite clicking through all the menus and help text, you’re stumped. Once again, your only option is to fire up your search engine of choice and consult its extensive network of wikis - and the speed and rate at which you’ll find yourself diving into them is almost certainly going to be off putting for the majority of Dwarf Fortress newcomers.
It was brilliant.
I suddenly had demands placed upon me. Dwarves wanted temples and guildhalls. I was asked to select a baron, who immediately required a fancier bedroom and his own tomb and started mandating the construction of certain goods. It hit me thatthiswas what I was supposed to have spent my first 12 hours preparing for, instead of scrambling to build ten things at once. Of course, I’d know better next time, and thanks to this new Steam release, I know there willdefinitelybe a next time now. Despite the humble origins of your settlement, Dwarf Fortress is really a game about managing a bustling subterranean metropolis with hundreds of residents. Survival is easy; the challenge is in achieving prosperity. I’m still a long way from getting there, but I’m excited to try. I’m still spending half my time reading the wiki, but it’s because I want to learn all the ins and outs of the game’s systems, not because I don’t know how to get something as simple as sand anymore.
