Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:34:00 GMT
39d was released today, bringing with it a host of nice, shiny improvements. There’s also a really good three-part interview with Tarn up on kwanzoo (part 3 goes up tomorrow). The interviewer is Matt Boyd of Three Panel Soul.
Matt: I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but it seems like a friendlier interface might help you by getting a lot more people into the game. It’s pretty daunting.
Tarn: Oh sure, it’s just something I’m going to have to slowly do myself, and I have many dev items along those lines. It’s just not something that I currently think is a good idea to do in a moddable fashion.
One thing I was a bit saddened to hear was that Tarn’s making less from donations now than he was before (EDIT: Tarn meant before, when he was a mathematician). But hell, I want the guy to live comfortably, given how much enjoyment he’s brought me and the internets over the years. If you’re a fan, consider giving a little to toast the new release. And I don’t know how well-known this is, but as a reward for donating you can get some awesome presents: either a short story that’s illustrated with a single line of ASCII art, or a crayon drawing.
And for those of you that are tired of hearing about DF, well, tough plump helmets! But seriously, I imagine this will be the last release for this particular arc. See ya!
Posted in Roguelikes, Community, Interviews | Tags TarnAdams | 34 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:38:00 GMT
For those that really can’t get past the ASCII in Dwarf Fortress but really love graphics and want to try the new release... just thought I’d point out that Ian McConville (Three Panel Soul) has released a pretty sexy character tileset. For information on installing the tileset, or making your own, head over to the official unofficial DF Wiki.
Here’s a bigger version of the screencaps on the left. (Thanks, hroon!)
And definitely keep your eye on the development log, because it looks like there could be a new release tomorrow (and possibly more soon after). The next version will address a few bugs, including a pathfinding issue that caused jobs to be randomly cancelled.
Posted in Roguelikes, Community | Tags IanMcConville, TarnAdams | 46 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:16:00 GMT
Yes! New Dwarf Fortress release. Actually, two releases – the second version (39b) patches up a lot of bugs that were found by players in 39a, including a nasty (and kind of hilarious) bug that caused dwarfs to sleep indefinitely.
The biggest changes to the game are in World Generation. Heroes will duel with heroes, civilizations will wage bloody wars against one another, and megabeasts like titans and dragons will roam the earth, hunting and being hunted… all in savage detail that is readily available to you in Legends mode (see the screenshot above). Jeez. Thousands of yarns spun before the game even starts!
Not only that, but you can create your own worlds using an in-game editor.
Boy, the mind reels at the idea of a fantasy world whose in-game history is enriched by the depth of these “real-life” adventures. It’s nuts. I love it. Be sure to read Tarn’s development journal for more insight into the new features.
TIGdb: Entry for Dwarf Fortress
Posted in Highly Recommended, Roguelikes, Windows, Strategy, Freeware | Tags TarnAdams | 33 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:18:00 GMT
Finally got around to reading this Gamasutra interview with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams (the other half being his brother, Zach). It’s a really great read that covers a lot of Dwarf Fortress’s history and pre-history, and also gets into a lot of geeky stuff like pathfinding and fluid dynamics.
But this is the best part:
What’s left to answer is why’d we be so into doing a fantasy game. That’s probably the same as everybody else: Tolkien, D&D, myths, and of course, the movie
Beastmaster. (We like the part where the evil priest is like, “You’ll be sacrificed to ‘The God of AAaa,’” like they didn’t even bother thinking of a name, just powering through on the power of their badassedness.) But there were all kinds of things like that. In the movies, books, the arcade, PC, consoles, we were surrounded by that sort of thing.
Yes, frickin’ Beastmaster! I love that movie! I love you guys!
The image depicts YADFA (Yet Another Dwarf Fortress Anecdote), from DF forum member goldminer:
Its [sic] pretty fun to capture invaders and then devise crazy ways of getting rid of them. My current method happens to be a gold arena over an active volcano with an enraged bronze colossus. Goblins get dumped in through a hole from above.
Every year or so, the dwarves lower the bridge, re-capture the colossus and ‘clean’ the arena for future use. I had to build walls around the arena because too much precious iron was getting thrown into the magma.
Via this DF forum thread.
Posted in Roguelikes, Community, Interviews | Tags TarnAdams | 7 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:15:00 GMT
I don’t usually post about each new DF release, but I wanted to point your attention to creator Tarn Adams’s post with the release. Recently, he’s been adding infrastructure to support religion for all the races, and he wrote a mini-story about one of his encounters at a goblin temple.
It’s not often that Tarn writes in length about his personal experiences within the game, so… I’ll transcribe it here for you, after the jump. It’s pretty awesome.
Read more...
Posted in Roguelikes, Community, Windows, Freeware | Tags TarnAdams | 12 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:07:00 GMT
I love trawling the Dwarf Fortress forums looking for interesting stories. Given the open-ended nature of the game, you never know what kinds of things will come up. Remember the rat that was killed by spinning vomit?
Here’s a real gem, though:
I hit the adamantine pits prematurely and ended up getting my entire fortress slaughtered… except for one lone baby. The baby was extremely sad and slowly crawled its way through the limbs of his dead mother and father and through the carnage of the fortress.
The baby found its way to a pool of water and proceeded to drown itself. The baby comitted suicide.
Part of a thread titled “The most horrible thing you have seen so far.” Dwarven life is not easy, my friends. Oh no.
Posted in Community | Tags TarnAdams | 18 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:28:00 GMT
Dwarf Fortress player sinoth has developed a great utility called “3dwarf” that lets you rip map data from the popular Roguelike, and then view them in 3d. 3dwarf lets you explore the maps via a floating camera, and has various helpful options for viewing the map, like “height map mode,” which colors each layer based on how high it is.
Now if only there was a “dwarf mode” to let you walk through your fortress FPS-style!
(Image Source: Dorten)
Posted in Roguelikes, Community, Mods / Hacks | Tags TarnAdams | 35 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:27:00 GMT
There’s a great podcast discussion with Tarn Adams on GeekNights. Tarn, as you may or may not know, is one half of the Dwarf Fortress team, and its sole programmer. The other half, Zach (also Tarn’s brother), develops stories which Tarn makes work within Dwarf Fortress’s intimidating game engine.
The podcast focuses on Dwarf Fortress, but Tarn touches on a variety of subjects, from his older games to his thoughts on gaming and game design in general. I found it to be pretty fascinating.
And, I gotta say, for a self-described introvert and the developer behind one of the most insanely detailed games ever made, Tarn is very well-spoken and sounds really down-to-earth. Respect!
Posted in Roguelikes, Community, Interviews | Tags TarnAdams | 11 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:18:00 GMT
For those that missed it, Mike Mayday has compiled various Dwarf Fortress graphics tilesets into a single package that includes the latest release of the game. The tilesets are already linked, so all you need to do is download it and run. So far, this is the easiest way to play DF with graphics, and even though it’s not perfect, it looks pretty darn good!
More screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3
Also, via Chris Hildebrandt, some wishful thinking for you.
Posted in Roguelikes, Community | Tags TarnAdams | 33 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:42:00 GMT
Dwarf Fortress PSA #1: “Vomit Kills. The More You Know!“
The Great Toady One (aka Tarn Adams) has released a new version of the game that (hopefully) fixes a lot of the issues from the last release, including the lag caused by the weather.
Toady is a developer I really admire. Not only for his Herculean work ethic and dedication to craft, but because, as far as I can tell, he’s a genuinely nice fellow who lives simply and earnestly. He also takes serious care to listen to his fans. One in a million, this guy:
In any case, yeah, I did run myself a little thin here. I think what I’m going to do is put up at least one crash/lag fix release sometime soonish, then take a week. I’ll still be doing forums and email since I can’t afford to let pages of posts and pages of inbox to pile up. Of course, as for what I’ll do with that time… probably mess around with other game ideas I’ve been sitting on. Sad, but I don’t have to worry about bugs or responsibility with those projects, so it’s like a vacation.
What a frickin’ machine. From this thread.
I definitely urge anyone who gets a kick out of this game to send some bucks over to show your support! I’m sending over $30 today so that I can see what Dwarf Fortress is like in the year 2017.
(Thanks, Nikica!)
Posted in Roguelikes, Windows, Developers, Freeware | Tags TarnAdams | 14 comments
