Dwarf Fortress is legendary for its depth and complexity, and it's probably safe to say that no other game has reached the level of sophistication that brothers Tarn and Zach Adams achieved with their ASCII roguelike management sim. With that unparalleled complexity comes a proportionally difficult challenge: making the game's systems approachable enough to appreciate without utterly overwhelming newer players. The first major leap was its recent Steam release featuring actual graphics, while this upcoming update entering beta on April 17 will be bringing over the more focused Adventure Mode from the original version.
In contrast to the head-spinning learning curve juggling countless responsibilities and systems in Fortress Mode's civilization management sim, Adventure Mode distills things down to manual control of a single character and optionally a crew of party members, mounts, and pets. With procedurally generated worlds where even the pantheon of deities is different each time, it's easy to see how Dwarf Fortress is the perfect setting for a party-based RPG. Although it would take us hundreds or thousands of hours to explore every possibility, The Best War Games got an early look at how Adventure Mode looks and feels in the new Steam version.
Dwarf Fortress Arrives on Steam After 20 Years of Development
Dwarf Fortress has inspired a generation of games with its innovations, and its Steam release is the culmination of decades of work.
Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode Is Extremely Immersive
To kick things off, we started Adventure Mode in an existing world where we already knew of a fortress to visit. This ability to drop into an existing world is one of Adventure Mode's strengths, as it allows players to interact with their civilizations from a new perspective and will also be the basis for many player-made scenarios and dungeon crawls. When creating new characters, we inhabit and then modify an entity that already exists somewhere in the simulation, so it’s possible that certain creatures may not be playable if they don’t exist at all in that save.
Character customization is, like the rest of Dwarf Fortress, extensive. First, we determine a background, which determines some base skills and relationships and the initial availability of some quests. Our character’s appearance is generated based on genetic inheritance from their surrounding population, and this is reflected in the new procedural portraits and again in the character’s description. Based on the difficulty chosen, a varying budget of attribute and skill points can be spent on hundreds of choices including Memory, Social Awareness, Musicality, or Biting. While many are self-explanatory, unfamiliar players may need to consult a wiki or other resource to determine use cases for some of these stats when creating their characters.
Each character’s personality can also be generated here, though full manual customization is unavailable in the current beta build. The personality consists of their needs for certain things, such as having a strong need to argue, acquire objects, or admire art. A lengthy biography of the character is generated accordingly, and it’s a lot of fun to read about each unique character. Lastly, we have a budget that’s shared between equipment, mount, and pet choices, with enough points for us to set out in full iron armor atop a horse and with our trusty pet worm perched on our shoulder.
Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode Is Easier to Get Into
Our adventure begins with the party assembled in one of the towns we chose near our target fortress. There's little in the way of tutorialization, but that's practically a given in Dwarf Fortress' massive sandbox. Instead, players will mostly determine their own goals like "steal shiny things," "find and slay a dragon," or perhaps "master necromancy and assemble an army of undead," so long as the character has points in the Reading skill sufficient to comprehend a necromancy tome.
The UI in Dwarf Fortress has never been a great strength, but Adventure Mode’s UI is straightforward enough that it feels quite playable even for newcomers. Navigation is done either through the mouse, arrow keys, or number pad, and we're provided with typical Dwarf Fortress-style granular control over every aspect of our characters such as our stance, walking pace, and sheathing or unsheathing weapons. Right-clicking pulls up context menus in most situations that should handle most tasks players need to perform.
Adventure Mode does a solid job at making players feel like they’re part of Dwarf Fortress’ living, breathing world, with intricate dialogue trees available to communicate with NPCs or to simply allow the player to groan about the cold weather to nobody in particular. NPCs even have procedurally generated ambient dialogue, and it’s amusing to eavesdrop on a pair of goblins trading jokes or complimenting each other’s clothes. On Hero difficulty and above, NPCs will also be granted a bit more knowledge about the world around them, so asking a townsperson about rumors won’t result in “I have no idea and I don’t know a single person who does.”
Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode Combat Can Be Simple or Complex
Combat in Adventure Mode can span from simple single-click interactions to one-on-one fights that take several minutes due to the ways players can approach the system. The simplest approach is to click or move onto a hostile entity’s tile, which will trigger a random attack on the player’s part, and players can weigh their character’s preferences for certain types of attacks. NPC companions will act on their own accord based on their weaponry and demeanor.
On the other end of the complexity spectrum, players can enter tactical mode and take individual control over their party’s actions, and combat actions are mind-bogglingly diverse. While most actions can be boiled down to weapon strikes or wrestling moves, combat gets much deeper than that. For example, we can thrust our sword into an enemy’s lower body, causing guts to fall out. In the next turn, we can grip said guts with our right hand and squeeze, causing bits to fly off in an arc. We could then grab those bits and throw them at a nearby enemy, blinding them. Individual fingers and toes can be targeted, and attacks may break bones, sever arteries, bruise flesh, or any combination of those. The visceral descriptiveness of the combat log kept us strangely invested in a brutal but otherwise simple one-on-one fight with a kobold that lasted several minutes.
While Adventure Mode is probably the best place to start for new players due to having fewer things to worry about, there’s simply no getting around the fact that Dwarf Fortress takes commitment to learn and enjoy. Hopefully, with a smoother start thanks to this more accessible mode, more players may be encouraged to press onward and discover why Dwarf Fortress is one of the most beloved indie games of the past two decades. Adventure Mode is releasing in an early beta state, so players can expect plenty of improvements and additional features as Bay 12 gathers player feedback.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 90 /100 Critics Rec: 90%
- Released
- August 8, 2006
- Developer(s)
- Bay 12 Games
- Publisher(s)
- Bay 12 Games, Kitfox Games
- Engine
- Simple DirectMedia Layer, OpenGL
WHERE TO PLAY
In this complex construction/management/roguelike simulation, every generated world brings a unique challenge, whether it’s dwarves with their own simulated personalities or aquifers. Observe what makes your civilization fall into eventual decline, and learn for next time… until something else inevitably goes wrong.
The combat model includes skills, body parts, material properties, aimed attacks, wrestling, pain, nausea, various poison effects, and much more.
It’s difficult to convey the depth of the generation. Hundreds of animals and monsters, many of which are randomly created for each world, as well as generated poetry, musical forms, instruments, and dances for your dwarves to practice and perform. A dynamic weather model tracks wind, humidity, and air masses to create fronts, clouds, storms, and blizzards. Over two hundred rock and mineral types can appear, in their proper geological environments.
Remember: Losing is fun!
Nothing substantial is new or changed, under the hood. It’s still good old Dwarf Fortress, but with graphics support and music by default. A few bells and whistles won’t change that.
- Genre(s)
- Roguelike, Strategy, Simulation
