Wondering if anyone could recommend any Dwarf Fortress clones out there that might be a good entry point into the genre before tackling the insanity of the real thing. I saw there is something called Dwarfs!? on steam but I don't know if that is similar or any good.

@SiN13 said:

Wondering if anyone could recommend any Dwarf Fortress clones out there that might be a good entry point into the genre before tackling the insanity of the real thing. I saw there is something called Dwarfs!? on steam but I don't know if that is similar or any good.

Dawrfs!? is not all a good comparison.

Mine craft and Gnomoria are the closest.

Gnomoria is very close, supposedly simpler however it will cost you some money. While DF is still free and funded with Donations. There is a demo. I have not touched any of it. So this is just from new info from the last day.

Dwarf Fortress like games are not realy done. Gnomoria I can only think came around due to how successful DF was. Aside from that I dont know anything other than DF.

Dwarfs!? is the arcade to Dwarf Fortress' simulator. It also kind of sucks, in my opinion. Also it uses 'dwarfs' as the plural, which is unacceptable.

I don't know much about Gnomoria, so I can't give my opinion on that.

But I think Dwarf Fortress is really a one-of-a-kind game. The only thing that can prepare you for it is knowledge of the game itself. Since you're looking for ways to make breaking into it easier, though, I'll go ahead and recommend the Dwarf Fortress wiki as a good place to start: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

There are plenty of good tutorials and first fortress guides with minimal poking around. I learned most of what I know through the Youtube 51ppycup tutorials, but they might be outdated now. Besides, poking around is most of the fun of post-beginner Dwarf Fortress. Strike the earth.

Also it uses 'dwarfs' as the plural, which is unacceptable.

@MikeGosot said:

@Zombie_Shakespeare said:

Also it uses 'dwarfs' as the plural, which is unacceptable.

I thought the "Dwarves" thing was made up by Token because Dwarfs sounds dumb, or something.

That is correct. There was a very interesting preface in the 50th anniversary Lord of the Rings book about the difficulties faced in publishing and in-between separate editions of the books. Apparently, it went back and forth between 'dwarfs' and 'dwarves' for quite some time. Well. It was interesting to me.

I just think 'dwarfs' looks dumb. Its 'dwarves' or 'dorfs'. If you're playing Dwarf Fortress, it's 'dorfs'.

@MikeGosot said:

@Zombie_Shakespeare said:

Also it uses 'dwarfs' as the plural, which is unacceptable.

I thought the "Dwarves" thing was made up by Token because Dwarfs sounds dumb, or something.

That is correct. There was a very interesting preface in the 25th anniversary Lord of the Rings book about the difficulties faced in publishing and in-between separate editions of the books. Apparently, it went back and forth between 'dwarfs' and 'dwarves' for quite some time. Well. It was interesting to me.

I just think 'dwarfs' looks dumb. Its 'dwarves' or 'dorfs'. If you're playing Dwarf Fortress, it's 'dorfs'.

Just try DF, it's not that difficult if you have basic learning skills, just read this. and download this launcher which includes the game. The launcher has a tileset and some other little stuff that can make it much easier to get into.

No just play Dwarf Fortress. If you must, get a tileset to make the transition a bit easier. But really it's no harder to learn than any sim game. Just go for it for an afternoon or two and you'll have it down before you know it.

Dwarves all the way.

I think Dwarfs!? is a good game, but it's more comparable to Lemmings than DF. Think of it like a tower defense game, where your tower gets bigger and bigger (because the dwarves keep digging and expanding) and there's no real goal other than see how long your dwarves can survive. Again, I like it, but it's nowhere even close to DF.

Ahhh Dwarf Fortress, the ultimate autism simulation.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

http://www.townsgame.com/ Ive heard some good stuff about that.

I can definitely recommend that, very similar to DF but with a modern, simple interface. It's also got some dungeon keeper-style gameplay mixed in it. It's still in its beta (or alpha?) but can give you hours of fun anyways.

@SathingtonWaltz said:

Ahhh Dwarf Fortress, the ultimate autism simulation.

0/10

I suggest you start with Dwarf Fortress adventurer mode, it will get you aquainted with the way you'll work the menus and whatnot, because the biggest barrier in my opinion is the GUI the game uses, once you get the rang of that the rest is not that dauting.
 
Plus you can disable invasions for your fist embark in fortress mode to take your time and learn the basics, the wiki has all the info you'll ever need.

Maybe settlers has some similarities to df?

@Onno10 said:

@SathingtonWaltz said:

Ahhh Dwarf Fortress, the ultimate autism simulation.

0/10

Aww c'mon it was funny!

Just came here to say that Gnomoria is EXACTLY like Dwarf Fortress in its early days (there are a metric fuck-ton of different mechanics in DF) except it actually has graphics and a mouse based gui.

It is essentially Dwarf Fortress Lite at this point. The funny thing is that in all honesty, its pretty involved, but coming from dwarf fortress its a cake walk. I've done a few days in it. Enough to know that I actually prefer the keyboard based commands as they are a heck of a lot quicker once you memorize them. its just the hunting for the right keys, and inconsistency sometimes that is annoying.

@Mikemcn said:

Just try DF, it's not that difficult if you have basic learning skills, just read this. and download this launcher which includes the game. The launcher has a tileset and some other little stuff that can make it much easier to get into.

I played DF every day since Dave's livestream. I think's it's a great game and would probably play it religiously if it wasn't for the controls. Even if you know exactly what you want to do your biggest hurdle is to navigate all those inconsistant menus with the keyboard. It came to a point that the more I knew about the game, the more frustrated I got that I couldn't do it faster.

I haven't tried Gnomoria, but from what I've heard, it sounds much more approachable.