Stonesense – Dwarf Fortress Visualizer

By: Derek Yu

On: November 3rd, 2009

Now this is a dream coming true right here! Stonesense (alpha) is an open source isometric visualizer for Dwarf Fortress, created by jonask and Solifuge. It can run side-by-side with the venerable roguelike/sim to provide a graphical view of the game. The sprites are being contributed by various members of the DF community.

Here’a video of the mod in action:

Thanks, Michael Komalarajun, for the heads-up!

Posted in Mods / Hacks, Roguelikes, Sim, Videos

jonte

wow
this is really cool looking .. never got iunto the game cuz of the graphics .. this is a try
jonte

wow
this is really cool looking .. never got iunto the game cuz of the graphics .. this is a try
nihilocrat

Neat client.

You people who weren’t interested in the game until now because “the graphics”: Go read a book.

I’m more bothered by the job system than interface or graphics. Often there are emergency situations and it’s very hard to get a dwarf to actually do what you want it to because it’s too busy trying to do something very stupid.
Michael “Kael” K

@nihilocrat: If you haven’t already, this may be of use to you
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39229.0
Dwarf Therapist, following in the footsteps of Dwarf Manager/Foreman: it’s a GUI for adjusting the professions of your dwarves en masse and more. Saves much time as you can have profiles and apply them to immigrants or easily tweak job preferences instead of scrolling through menus.
Anthony Flack

“You people who werenâ€™t interested in the game until now because â€œthe graphicsâ€: Go read a book.”

Yeah, go read a book that uses a mass of ascii characters to substitute for words and sentences.
Ian

â€œYou people who werenâ€™t interested in the game until now because â€œthe graphicsâ€: Go read a book.â€

Some people simply can’t get in to the game because they have too hard of a time understanding what everything stands for. I fail to see how more people now being able to play this, thus supporting Tarn’s work, is a bad thing.
literary critic

â€œYou people who werenâ€™t interested in the game until now because â€œthe graphicsâ€: Go read a book.â€

You know, I really hope Toady One doesn’t _actually_ think like this.

I both played DF intensively and read many, many books. Yet I hate… _HATE_ the interface. It’s like someone snoring while you’re trying to get some sleep. Like accidentally clicking “don’t save” after you’ve written on a paper for 5 hours. Like driving an airplane with a Super Nintendo game pad. Like finding a dead mouse in your strawberry yogurt… after you’ve already eaten half of it. Like… well, let’s just say that the millions of seconds I wasted using the arrow keys instead of a mouse click (for every fucking single thing!) must make up months, combined.
weirdguy

So, uh….what happens if you try to depict the ULTIMATE EPIC MONUMENT?
Derek

What do ASCII graphics have to do with roguelikes at all?
Why should I give my name to a machine?!

Holy christ’s balls!

It’s not confusing as hell!
The Monster King Ren

well most roguelikes i played, or at least tried to play had ASCII graphics, and most games I played that had ASCII graphics were roguelikes and then there were some visualisations and whatnot, but yeah there’s a lot of graphic tile things and there’s spelunky of course mr Derek but don’t you think the main character sort of looks like an @ if you squint

maybe it’s just my personal experience, or maybe it’s an elaborate conspiracy

also you never answered my e-mail but i’ll assume you never got it
Nektonico

Neo : Is that…

Cypher : Dwarf Fortress? Yeah.

Neo : Do you always look at it encoded?

Cypher : Well, you have to. The image translators work for the construct program. But there’s way too much information to decode Dwarf Fortress. You get used to it… I, I don’t even see
the code. All I see is… miner, mason, brewer…
madrain

ha! nice, @62!

My only problem with this is that isometric view. It’s so godawfully ugly. I won’t play DF without tilesets and character graphics, but I’d rather play ASCII than an isometric view of that sort.
Alex May

The projection lets you view structure and layers though – with a straight top-down view you’ve got no way of showing depth really.
Carl Nixon

Reminds me of the other classic 80’s game Ant Attack on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (ask a grown up LOL)
Th. Ang

Oh no, DF is becoming casual!
literary critic

@nukeedit
Nektonico: Epic win!
Trotim

Still didn’t help me get into the game! I swear, I try. It just doesn’t… click.
I am

YOu know, you players that see this as a bad thing: why, exactly? It certainly doesn’t impede your ability to continue using the classic ASCII. All it means is that more people will be playing.
http://zachanima.net/ zach

1. This doesn’t help make the game that much more accessible, as most people have far greater problems with the interface than the visual representation (the latter which can be helped a bit with graphical tilesets).

2. Stonesense is very awesome, but nowhere near usable yet. It runs well on my system with 100+ dwarves, but most of the tile graphics that would make this useful (stockpiles, for example) are still missing. That, and it keeps crashing.

3. Nektonico <3
http://www.eobet.com/ eobet

Extremely impressive.

This shot was amazing, I think:

http://pix.sparky-s.ie/images/42164853370715316874.png

How the authors of Dwarf Fortress could envision that in plain 2D ascii is difficult to understand.

Now, if someone only would do the same for the interface…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulmyst/ SoulMyst

FINA BLOODY LEEEE!!!!! omw I must be dreaming and when I wake up tomorrow this will be gone O_o

Looks awesome and cannot wait to play DF with this!
Phasma Felis

@I am: It’s plain elitism. “If you don’t like ANSI, you must not be *smart enough* to appreciate Dwarf Fortress. Not like me!”
xxxxxx)

Am I the only one to notice this mod looks exactly like a 2d MineCraft?
Blue Slime

So when’s Derek gonna make a custom sprite set?
Consumatopia

> Like driving an airplane with a Super Nintendo game pad.

Yeah, Pilotwings was great.
CosmicMaher

This is awesome. Thanks.
Narushima

Ewww, I don’t think I’ll ever use it.
Ugly…