Has the potential to be the greatest procedurally generated fantasy sandbox game ever created but is also marred by having the worst user experience I've ever seen in a video game. I spent more time and effort learning how to play this goddamn game than I did for my major. And as infinitely complex as the mechanics are, I still don't think it actually has to be this way. Maybe in a decade or two when the game gets anywhere near the realm of being "finished," the developer will finally have time to add quality of life improvements. Not counting on it, personally.

If you don't mind having to learn the game, it's pretty good though.

The biggest barrier between you and the amazing worlds that Dwarf Fortress creates is, and always will be, usability and tedium. The ASCII art is really not that bad, but menu navigation is clunky and has inconsistent controls, and the world around you happens very slowly. You can amend the slow world pace by playing very greedily (attracting the fun faster than you need to), but the tedious control schemes require mods. And DF requires a massive amount of meta knowledge to really start of right with. It's easy to learn if you've got the wiki, but you still need the wiki.

So, Dwarf Fortress is a really well made game, but most players will need community resources to even try it out at the most basic level. These resources (quality of life mods, tutorials, etc) should really already be in the game itself.

But other than that, everything you've heard about the game is true.

Control a colony of dwarves on the edge of maddness as they try to survive winter, starvation, goblin invasions, and your ineptitude.

The level of simulation going on in this game is intense and overwhelming, which is kind of the point. As you play the game, you build up knowledge of what it takes to help the dwarves survive and thrive, learning from your mistakes and exploring the systems and features of the game.

The UX is terrible and the base graphics are intensely hard to parse, but this is still probably the best colony sim game on the market. Download a graphics pack or wait for buy the updated version on Steam -- you owe it to yourself to play this game, quit in frustration 4 times, and then finally get it and build a massive, multi-level fortress full of drunken, dwarf assholes and the cats who own them.

Dwarf Fortress is awesome.

it's not pretty, it's nigh impenetrable, it's only fun if you make your own fun, it's never gonna be finished, overall it's a mess, but it's so resolutely its own thing and unlike anything else -- and in particular completely unlike the games that keep coming out that try to sell themselves as dwarf fortress knockoffs -- that i can't not love it.

this may sound weird but i genuinely believe if more people had the time and resources to pursue their personal creative projects, this is what a lot of them would look like -- just setting off on a journey in a completely unexplored direction and making something that no one has ever made before. just as an example of that, it's invaluable to me. world heritage stuff

Absolute beast of a game. Makes you realize this is what the game industry should look nowadays, complex games that favor player creativity and simulation of real life.
You can't really write a review on everything on it, but believe me when I tell you that once you get pass the UI (which is frankly terrible, but a price you pay to get to the diamond inside this game) you will discover a world so vast, so rich, so alive and full of posibilities. Words fail to describe the absolute liberty you have in this game, and the complete randomness in which your story will shape.
And example from a fortress I ran a couple of months ago: Everything started nice, made my dwellings by excavating on the floor because I couldn't find a mountain that was sturdy enough. Anyway, after a couple of seasons ingame (2-3 years) I indirectly angered the local rhesus macaque monkey population, which resulted in an invassion by close to 50 monkeys to my hold. What followed was a massacre to the monkey population, with dwarves using them as flails when alive, and then as axes when they splintered their bodies, and finally throwable objects once their limbs got removed. After that, two or three seasons later I got invaded AGAIN but this time by gray langurs. Another massacre ensued, with my dwarfs getting enough bone and leather to craft wealth for the traders to buy.
And then I got invaded by a collection of weremonkey men and werecamel men with dresses full of coins as weapons that completely fucked up my hold and bit the few survivors, guaranteeing a breakout of werecamels and weremonkeys in the zone for generations. And at that point I had to restart.

I don't joke when I say thins: You are missing out your favorite game by not playing this.

Lo de este juego es digno de estudio, en el mejor de los sentidos. Con un equipo compuesto por dos entusiastas de los videojuegos y un desarrollo que se ha extendido a lo largo de casi veinte años, Dwarf Fortress no está ni remotamente cerca de alcanzar su versión final. Lo que aparentemente es un complejo juego de estrategia y gestión con gráficos ASCII va mucho más allá: se trata de un simulador de fantasía con el objetivo de emular cualquier cosa. Sí, sí, CUALQUIER COSA. Climatología, ecosistema, personalidades, eventos históricos, religiones, magia, economía... Una proeza titánica solo posible para un par de hermanos lo suficientemente locos como para seguir adelante durante décadas manteniendo la espectación.

Para que os hagáis una idea, se empieza generando un mundo bajo ciertos parámetros determinados previamente por ti. Tras esto, eliges si quieres jugar como una colonia de enanos en un punto concreto de ese gigantesco plano, o como un aventurero independiente de la misma u otra raza. Cuesta cogerle el tranquillo y el inglés puede suponer una barrera añadida, pero dedicándole el tiempo suficiente se convierte en una experiencia totalmente única.

Actualmente el juego se encuentra aproximadamente a la mitad del desarrollo, y aun así ya tiene una cantidad de contenido y posibilidades ridícula. Merece mucho la pena probarlo, si el aspecto ASCII no te convence hay muchos mods que vuelven el apartado visual mucho más comprensible.

Yes, this game has a learning curve reminiscent of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, but stick with it and you'll have one of the deepest games ever made, NO HYPERBOLE. Ok, maybe a little, but what other game generates entire world histories as well as civilizations, gods, monsters as well as characters with backstories? What other game lets you watch your dwarven comrades slaughter each other over a stinky bedroom? This game has generated so many stories over my years of playing, it's nuts.

Tarn and Zach have been hard at work on this game since the mid-2000s and it makes me so happy to see more and more people at least try it out as its popularity has grown. With the upcoming steam release I'm especially excited to try that new tileset, it just oozes 16-bit charm.

If you're thinking of getting into this game, I would highly recommend the quickstart guide on the dwarf fortress wiki, as well as watching Kruggsmash's excellent tutorial video on youtube, and also checking out one of Vinesauce Joel's streams of it. Just keep one thing in mind while playing: you DON'T have to know every mechanic to play, you only need the fundamentals - how to make food, alcohol, assign jobs, make stockpiles and defend yourself. Once you have that under your belt you can start experimenting with other stuff. Just beware of the clowns. Strike the earth!