Dwarf Fortress facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Dwarf Fortress |
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| Developer(s) | Bay 12 Games |
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| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux |
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| Genre(s) | Construction and management simulation, roguelike, survival |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Dwarf Fortress is a unique indie video game where you build and manage a dwarf colony. It also has a roguelike mode where you play as an adventurer. Created by Bay 12 Games, it started as a free game in 2006. The game became well-known because it was made by just two brothers, Tarn and Zach Adams, and relied on donations.
The game creates a new fantasy world every time you play. This world has its own creatures, characters, and history. You can lead a group of dwarves building a fortress, or explore the world as a single adventurer. Players love the game for its deep and complex systems.
Tarn Adams sees Dwarf Fortress as his life's work. He has said that the game might not be "finished" for many more years, but he plans to keep working on it even after that. In 2022, a paid version with better graphics and music was released on Steam and Itch.io.
Critics praise the game for its complex and surprising gameplay. However, they also note that it can be very difficult. Dwarf Fortress has inspired other popular games like Minecraft and RimWorld. In 2012, it was even shown in the Museum of Modern Art to highlight the history of video games. The game has a dedicated fan base with a famous motto: "Losing is Fun!" This means that even when your fortress falls, you can learn from it and enjoy the story.
Contents
How to Play Dwarf Fortress
Game Modes and What They Do
Dwarf Fortress has three main ways to play. All of them happen in worlds that the game creates randomly for you.
- Fortress mode: Here, you manage a colony of dwarves. There are no specific goals. You decide how to build your fortress and interact with the world. It's an open-ended game, like a sandbox. The game only ends when your colony is completely defeated, or you decide to leave it.
- Adventure mode: In this mode, you play as a single adventurer. It's a turn-based game where you explore the world and go on quests.
- Legends mode: This mode lets you look at maps and read the history of the world. You can see what different civilizations and important figures have done. Any big achievements you make in Fortress or Adventure mode are saved here.
- Object testing arena: This is a special area where you can make different units fight. It's also used to test mods, which are changes made by players.
The game originally used letters, numbers, and symbols to show everything. For example, a dwarf looked like a `☺` symbol. The paid version now has pixel art pictures, but you can still switch back to the classic look.
Creating Your World
The first step in Dwarf Fortress is to create a new world. You can choose how big it is, how wild, how many minerals it has, and how long its history will be. The game then builds the world, showing you roads, hills, towns, and cities.
The world-building process creates things like mountains, rivers, and different types of land. For example, a rainy area with poor drainage might become a swamp. These areas are called biomes, and they have their own plants and animals. Rivers are formed from mountains to oceans or lakes. The game also names these places in different languages, like dwarven or elven.
After the world is made, the game fills it with civilizations and lets its history unfold. Wars happen, and populations grow or shrink. Once the history reaches the years you chose, you can save the world and start playing in any game mode. If your fortress falls or your adventurer retires, the world keeps going, and you can start a new game in the same world.
Fortress Mode: Building Your Home
Getting Started with Your Dwarves
When you start Fortress mode, you pick a spot on the world map for your fortress. You need to think about the environment, like mountains, soil types, and minerals. These choices can make building your fortress easier or harder. You can customize your starting supplies and animals, but your dwarves' personalities and skills are random. Each dwarf has unique looks, thoughts, and even relationships with others.
You start with seven dwarves, their animals, and supplies. You don't control them directly. Instead, you tell them what tasks to do, and they will work on them. Dwarves can be assigned to different jobs like stone-working, farming, or crafting. They get better at tasks the more they do them. You'll build workshops, like a still for brewing drinks or a metal industry for making weapons and armor.
How the Game Works
You see your fortress from a top-down view. You can switch between different levels, from the surface down into the ground. If you want to dig, you mark where you want stairs and rooms to be, and your dwarves will dig them out.
The game has realistic geology. You can dig up rocks like olivine and find minerals and gems. Water also acts realistically, filling up spaces. There's even a temperature system, so fires can spread. The game has four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
You can mine ores and smelt them into metal bars. Different metals can be alloyed together to make stronger materials, like steel. Deep underground, you might find adamantine, a very light but super strong material for weapons and armor.
Growing Your Fortress
Underground farming lets you grow special crops, like "plump helmet" mushrooms, which can be used to make dwarven wine. As your fortress gets bigger, more dwarves will come to live there. Trading caravans from other civilizations will visit yearly, bringing supplies you might need. You can assign dwarves to be a bookkeeper, manager, or broker to help run things. Making crafts is a good way to get items for trading.
Dwarves need food and drink, mostly alcohol. They don't like drinking plain water or the same drink all the time, so you need to grow different crops for variety. Dwarves can get upset if they don't have their own bedroom or if their clothes are bad. Losing pets, friends, or family can also make them sad. If a dwarf gets too stressed, they might break things or even attack others. If they stay stressed, they can go insane. To keep them happy, give them nice bedrooms, good food, and medical care. One unhappy dwarf can sometimes cause a chain reaction, making everyone else upset.
As your fortress grows, some dwarves might become nobles. Nobles need fancy rooms and will make demands. The game also has a justice system for punishing criminals. Sometimes, a vampire dwarf might secretly join your fortress and start harming others.
Sometimes, a dwarf will enter a "Strange Mood." They will take over a workshop and look for materials to create a special artifact. If they can't find the materials, they will wait and eventually go insane. But if they succeed, they create a legendary item that is worth a lot and becomes part of the world's history.
Dangers and Defenses
The first year in the game usually brings kobold thieves and goblin snatchers. Thieves try to steal, and snatchers try to kidnap dwarf children to turn them into soldiers. Goblin and kobold groups nearby are always enemies. Wild animals are usually harmless, but some areas might have dangerous elephants, bears, or giant spiders. Richer fortresses will attract bigger attacks and sieges from enemy civilizations.
Very successful fortresses might even attract "megabeasts" like hydras, titans, or dragons. There are also unique "Forgotten Beasts" with random powers. Undead creatures attack in evil areas or if a Necromancer Tower is nearby. Undead are tough because they can reanimate even after being defeated.
You can create military squads, train them, and give them weapons and armor. You can also build crossbows for ranged attacks. Walls can be turned into fortifications for archers. Training areas can be made for war animals like dogs. Traps are also useful, using mechanisms to build things like spikes or cages.
The combat system is very detailed. When fighting, the game describes exactly where weapons hit, like specific body parts or organs. Dwarves can get injured, lose limbs, or even vomit. Injuries can be permanent. You can set up a hospital with crutches, bandages, and soap to help dwarves heal and prevent infection.
Digging deeper often leads to magma, which is a great fuel source. It means you don't need to rely on coal or wood. You might also find rare minerals or gems. Near the magma, you can find adamantine. These columns can be broken, leading to the underworld, which is full of dangerous creatures that can destroy your fortress.
Adventurer Mode: Explore the World
In Adventurer mode, you control just one character. You choose their name, gender, race, and personality. You also pick skills and abilities like strength. Like in Fortress mode, your skills get better as you use them. You play in the same worlds created by the game, and time passes just like in Fortress mode. You start in a town and can talk to other characters. They might tell you about the area or offer to join you. You can get quests by hearing rumors or by serving a leader. Your character can also write poems, books, and music. You can even build a small site using materials you find. There's a quick travel mode to move around the map faster.
Your character needs to eat, drink, and sleep to survive. You also need to find shelter at night because scary creatures like bogeymen come out. In combat, you can choose which body parts to hit. You can even visit your old fortresses from Fortress mode, whether they were successful or ruined. Instead of quitting, you can retire your character, and their life story will be saved in Legends mode.
Legends Mode: Read the History
Legends mode is a way to look at the history of your generated world. It lists important events, historical figures, towns, fortresses, and civilizations. You can also see a "historical map" that shows conflicts between different groups. The game describes actions of characters and important events. It also lists notable kills, powerful creatures, and who was friends or enemies.
You can export the world's history as an XML file or detailed maps. This lets you view the world and its history using other programs, which can make it easier to understand.
History of Dwarf Fortress
How It Started (2002–2006)
Tarn Adams and his brother Zach started making games a long time ago. One of their first games was a text based adventure game called dragslay, which was like Dungeons & Dragons. This game later influenced Dwarf Fortress. Tarn Adams learned to program in high school and kept making games.
Before starting graduate school, Tarn began working on a game called Slaves to Armok: God of Blood. It was a fantasy role-playing game. He later took a break from Armok to work on smaller projects. One of these, Mutant Miner, gave him the idea for Dwarf Fortress. He realized he wanted to make a game where you managed many miners (dwarves) in real-time, digging for minerals and building workshops. He also wanted to keep detailed records of each game.
Tarn Adams started working on Dwarf Fortress in October 2002. He thought it would only take two months! But he paused it to finish Armok. The Adams brothers then started their company, Bay 12 Games, and put their games online. Armok became too hard to manage, so in 2004, Tarn decided to focus on Dwarf Fortress as his main project. He announced it would be a simulation game about dwarves, but kept the Adventurer mode a secret until release. Fans started to grow, and they asked for a way to donate.
In 2006, Tarn Adams decided to work on Dwarf Fortress full-time. He turned down a job offer to focus on his game. On August 8, 2006, the first version of Dwarf Fortress (version 0.21.93.19a) was released. Donations started coming in, allowing him to support himself by relying only on donations.
Growing the Game (2007–Present)
Tarn Adams writes Dwarf Fortress using a mix of C and C++ programming languages. He chose not to use 3D graphics because it made development harder. He liked the text-based graphics of other roguelike games. The idea for generating stories came from his earlier games. Zach Adams, his brother, helps with the game's story and history.
Games like Hack and the Ultima series inspired Tarn. He liked how Hack had random levels and detailed systems. The Ultima series inspired his idea of generated worlds. The detailed body part and wound system was inspired by the game Cyberpunk 2020. He prefers to model individual parts rather than whole systems to create more realistic outcomes.
In 2007, a big change happened: the game added a "z-axis." This meant players could dig deep underground, not just into a mountainside. This was a huge step, but also made things like fluid mechanics (how water flows) and cave-ins much harder to program. Later, in 2012, features like vampires, werewolves, and necromancers were added.
Tarn Adams is happy relying on donations because it means people truly value his work. He has turned down big job offers and licensing deals because he prefers to work on his own. In 2015, Bay 12 Games started a Patreon account to help with funding.
Steam and Itch.io Release (2022)
In March 2019, the Adams brothers announced a paid version of Dwarf Fortress would be released on Steam and Itch.io. This version would have new graphics and music. They said this wouldn't stop the free version from continuing. They needed another way to earn money because of family situations and lower Patreon income. The Steam version also lets users easily add modifications to the game. It was released on December 6, 2022.
The game sold incredibly well. It was expected to sell about 160,000 copies in two months, but it reached that goal on the first day! It became the best-selling game on Steam right away. Many players who had played the free version for years were excited to finally pay for it.
After the successful release, the Adams brothers added a third person to their team, a community member named Putnam, to help with development. In February 2023, they announced that their income from the game in January 2023 was over $7.2 million, a huge increase from before the Steam release.
Future Updates
As of March 2024, the game is still being updated. The developers now use a new version numbering system. Tarn Adams and his brother have a long list of features they want to add before the game reaches version 1.0. He says he stays focused by working on different parts of the game. He sees game development as a journey of exploring and learning. Some of the game's bug fixes have even been funny, like a dwarf farmer planting his own bed, or an executioner biting off limbs because his arms were broken!
Tarn Adams believes Dwarf Fortress is his life's work. He doesn't expect version 1.0 for at least another twenty years, and he plans to keep updating it even after that. He calls his game a "story generator." He doesn't plan to make the game's code public because it could cause financial problems. However, he would consider it if he couldn't maintain it anymore. He doesn't mind player-made modifications as long as they don't hurt his finances.
For version 1.0, Adams imagines Adventurer mode becoming a full role-playing game with changing plots. Fortress mode would have stronger ties to the outside world through wars and trade. He also hopes to add magic, a tutorial, and a better interface. He says that playing a new Dwarf Fortress world in the future will be like reading a new fantasy book, but with all the extra fun of a video game.
Community and Fans
Dwarf Fortress has a strong and dedicated fan base. Because most fortresses eventually fall, the game's unofficial slogan is "Losing is fun!" This idea helps players feel okay with their fortresses being destroyed. Another popular phrase is 'strike the earth', used in marketing and by fans. Tarn and Zach Adams answer questions from players on their official podcast, "Dwarf Fortress Talk." People who donate money sometimes receive special crayon drawings or short stories from Tarn Adams.
Players often share creative stories about what happens in their games. They make diaries, videos, comics, and audio. Besides testing the game and donating, fans also suggest ideas, help new players, and share information on the Bay 12 Games forums. They even maintain a special wiki just for the game. In 2006, a famous story called Boatmurdered spread online. In this story, fans took turns playing the same fortress, leading to a wild and destructive end. This helped the game become very popular. There are many tutorials on YouTube and written guides to help new players learn the game. A book called Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress was also released in 2012.
Tarn Adams says the community is the reason he can work on the game full-time. He loves when players share their stories because it shows that the game is doing what he intended: creating narratives. He's even surprised by some of the things fans have done, like one player who built a working 8-bit computer inside the game using dwarves!
Fans also create useful tools and mods. "Dwarf Therapist" helps players manage their dwarves' jobs. "Stonesense" lets you see the game in a 3D view. There's even a tool that converts your Dwarf Fortress maps into Minecraft structures. Adams supports these fan-made tools.
In 2016, an event called Dwarfmoot was held to celebrate the game's ten-year anniversary. The Adams brothers attended, and even Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering, sent a video message.
Game's Influence
Dwarf Fortress greatly influenced Minecraft, which many people see as a simpler version of Dwarf Fortress. Tarn Adams is grateful that Minecraft developers mentioned his game, as it brought more players to Dwarf Fortress.
Tynan Sylvester, the creator of RimWorld, said he was amazed by the stories that came from Dwarf Fortress. He wanted to create a game that also made great stories, but in a way that was easier to play.
When Dwarf Fortress came to Steam, many other indie game developers praised it and said it influenced their own games. These include the creators of Terraria, Caves of Qud, Prison Architect, and Project Zomboid. You can even find nods to Dwarf Fortress in World of Warcraft.
In March 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City showed Dwarf Fortress as part of an exhibit on the history of video games. The museum even downloads and saves every new update of the game. The curator was impressed by the game's "beautiful aesthetics" and amazing complexity. In 2014, Dwarf Fortress won a poll for the "Most Beautiful Game," even though it uses simple graphics. Justin Ma, a developer of FTL: Faster Than Light, said that the game's simple graphics allow it to have many complex systems that other games don't.
Game designer Craig Ellsworth said Dwarf Fortress has a unique ability to stay popular for a long time. He believes no other game will replace it because its unique style can't be made "flashier." He thinks the game's popularity will reach its highest point when it's finally "finished."
Images for kids
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Excerpt of Dwarf Fortress world map by Aaron A. Reed for the 50 Years of Text Games project
See also
In Spanish: Dwarf Fortress para niños
