Dave Fortress - Part 01

the ideas of this game excite me, trying to play it though terrifies me. I'll give it a try and see what happens, but i doubt i'll get anywhere.

101% the kind of content that keeps me subscribing.

@Wandering_Idiot said:

@TwoLines said:

Played it for a week a couple of months ago. I had to watch two two hour videos on youtube as a tutorial. Pretty damn nuts.

I do believe this COULD be an easy game to manage, but the interface is abysmal. Absolutely horrid. In every way possible. I stuck with it because the game is amazing, but yeah, it's idiotic how badly designed the UI is.

That's pretty much my impression, it seems like a potentially great game with a horrible interface. The fact that so much time is spent designating bounding boxes yet you can't do it with a mouse seems nonsensical,

Uh, you can. You can make designations with the mouse.

Dave is either using an old build (which he isn't, since there are wheelbarrows in his version) or his book is bad.

I love that Vinny can say so much with only eye-shifting and shoulder-shrugging.

Love the Caravella.

Vinny looked like he was in pain but i loved watching this.

Amazing stuff!!

Having played DF once like two years ago helped watching this video. Absolutely want to see more, please! :)

@MAD_JIHAD said:

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I concur.

Why the entrance is three tiles wide:

1. Wagons. Wagons are three tiles wide. If the hallway was one tile wide, trade wagons wouldn't be able to reach the trade depot, and trading is essential to gaining migrants later on.

2. Pathing. If one dwarf enters a one-tile-wide hallway and another dwarf decides he wants to walk down that same hallway, he gets confused. Now imagine there are a hundred dwarves needing to walk down that same hallway. The game comes to a screeching halt. I usually make my hallways five tiles wide, just in case.

I played Dwarf Fortress for a little while, enough to kind of understand remotely what was going on. Then I was all lik, "Why am I playing a strategy game? I hate strategy games because I am FUCKING TERRIBLE at them! (except Civ)"

And then I totally stopped playing.

That was the worst story ever.

Had never ever heard of this game until this video. Had/have no idea that this is supposed to be popular.

Aquafyre is my favorite brand of absinthe.

I'm having an uncontrollable giggling fit watching this. This game is insane.

Here's some fun trivia: The reason this game runs so slowly at times is that, in addition to the A.I. being advanced, the game can only utilize a single CPU core. That's what happens when you build a game in 2002 and just iterate on it nonstop.

wow, they're just filling their pack and I'm already sold.

This game seems crazy! Makes me want to play it

Moard DF Videos!

Clearly a game made by crazy people for crazy people, neat.

Is this the replacement for Random PC Game? I'd be okay with that.

"I don't endorse the book, other than to say that I read it and think it's awesome."

-__-

@dvorak said:

@NoelVeiga said:

@Flacracker said:

@HowDire said:

An hour 35 minutes in:

Vinny - "This is starting to get silly"

I am fascinated at how complex this game is. Imagine games in the future with this kind of scope and up to date graphics. Crazy.

Except games are going in a different direction. Up to date graphics but with less scope and less systems/complexity.

Yeeeeah, no, not really.

...I honestly believe Crusader Kings II is probably on par with Dwarf Fortress in terms of complexity...

You may or may not have ever played Dwarf Fortress, but regardless, you are very wrong. CKII is definietly less complex than some other Paradox games, and DF is still way more complicated. In fact it's so fucking stupidly complex and there is so much going on behind the scenes, I really doubt there's any game that could compete with how functionally complex it is.

Whether that's a good or bad thing is really up to the user.

I have actually, and I extremely regret saying that now...

...because, even though it's true, it was a throwaway line in an otherwise interesting argument that everybody is latching on to and will surely derail the whole thing now.

So I won't discuss this. I refer everyone who felt the need to snort, push up their glasses and single out that one line to go back to my original post and decide whether or not they want to talk about that.

Just want to drop a big thank you to Dave for all his hard work both with this and with the site. I don't think we say it enough. Thanks man!

looks cool if not a bit tedious so far. (kind of an understatement) but hey I look forward to the progress dave makes.

Oh shit... this seems all kinds of awesome, but i doubt i will have the patience to actually learn to play this game. Very interesting and entertaining watch guys, looking forward to the next episode!

Fascinating, fun, and borderline insane. Thanks for this, Dave!

This seems like a giant step for AI development in video games...

Of course, it's in a game that I would never be able to understand enough to play.

This game is crazy. It's interesting in some ways but it's for crazy people.

Love this, will never play this game but I love this!!!!!

cant wait for the second episode of chicken fight

this game reminds me more of Dungeon Keeper 2 than Minecraft.

Btw i'm loving the start of this (hopefully) series!

@DaPinkTerrorist said:

looks cool if not a bit tedious so far. (kind of an understatement) but hey I look forward to the progress dave makes.

They make it seem way more tedious than it is.

Well, maybe not "way" more, but still. It really isn't like "Oh, I have to take three cats when I embark, or I am fucked!" You'll be fine. In fact, it's not really the case that you'll more than likely die three seconds into every embark, unless you embark in a Haunted place or if you happen to embark in a place where some huge mythical troll has set up shop or something. People are just anal about making mistakes in games, like they want to make their first session with a game flawless or something.

The first time I played, nothing happened until several seasons passed.

I don't even care about the game, but the fact that it's Dave with Vinny and Drew means I'm going to watch it and have a good time.

I stayed in Saturday and caught up with my GB videos and watched my niece. I regret nothing. This series is going to be awesome!

"I do not need to know, if a cock is wet."

-Vinny, 2012

I'm so happy to see this on here. Can't wait to see more.

Also, would be fun to see you guys play minecraft for an hour or two.

Good thing we know how wet these chickens are.

This was strangely entertaining. Calming, even.

@deerokus said:

The closest thing I've played to an accessible DF is Towns. http://www.townsgame.com/

Not even remotely as complex, it has actual graphics and is pretty fun.

If Dwarf fortress seems interesting but you do not think you can get past the graphics, I think deerokus is pointing out a good middle ground game.

This might also be the gateway drug game to make Dwarf fortress more appealing to those that cant stand the graphics.

Towns has many menus and shiny buttons and a lot in common without the chicken-knee-moisture level depth craziness of DF.

BEWARE CARP. Seriously, they will murder you in that game. Fishing seems like a great idea until the carp kill your guys.

@dvorak said:

You may or may not have ever played Dwarf Fortress, but regardless, you are very wrong. CKII is definietly less complex than some other Paradox games, and DF is still way more complicated. In fact it's so fucking stupidly complex and there is so much going on behind the scenes, I really doubt there's any game that could compete with how functionally complex it is.

Whether that's a good or bad thing is really up to the user.

I really can't agree with this statement. Having played most PI games from HoI II through CK II, I think CK II is one of the most complicated games to get into. Sure, a lot of the systems in the game are technically optional for several hours if you don't want to do it "Perfectly" but the same is true of Dwarf fortress.

The point being, there are still very complicated games coming out, maybe not getting more so, but they're out there.

I'd heard of DF ages ago, but never really had the desire to try to and actually play it. It actually looks a lot more fun than I would have expected, but there is still no way I would be able to get into it with the horrible controls. If there was a mouse-driven GUI then I would definitely give it a shot.

I'd like to see someone like Jeff pop in from time to time.

"So what's going on over here? .... The fuck are you guys doing??"

Edit: Ok, yeah, so almost that exact thing happens, lol.

Several interesting things happened while I watched this:

- I hear the term "autistic" being thrown around as insults for games, but never had it had a truer meaning than for Dwarf Fortress. I kept thinking about the crazy persons who made this and put in stuff that takes account for wet chicken knees, but a have a completely unoptimized UI.

- Watching the Giantbomb staff play anything is always entertaining

- I was watching it on my TV that kept blacking out into powersave since it thought that nothing was going on on the screen

- I am NEVER EVER going to play Dwarf Fortress myself

Looking forward to part 2!

So awesome! Always glad to have more Vinny, Dave, and Drew.

Hahaha! It rains because you're crying. Vinny just cracks me up and i love how Dave just ignored him.:) Great stuff,guys.

I'm extremely excited about this series. Wanted to play DF for a long time, but couldn't figure it out at all. They are explaining everything so well, and I was also able to realize that the map in the beginning is not the game. This game is pretty cool.

I think I feel the same way most here do. This is entertaining to watch, but I don't think I could (or want to) penetrate the game myself. So, thank you Dave and company for putting this on the internet.

If you can't even remember the name of your dwarf team, this is never gonna work.

@BeachThunder: idk TEAM-fortress is kinda cool!

@hydrotherion said:

Hahaha! It rains because you're crying. Vinny just cracks me up and i love how Dave just ignored him.:) Great stuff,guys.

Really? I thought it was terrible that Dave didn't answer most of Vinny's questions, it became very clear that Vinny absolutely hated being there. He wasn't able to understand practically any of it and Dave didn't really do a great job of explaining. If I were sitting on the couch watching a tiny screen and unable to make out anything(not to mention be red/green colorblind, which is what a lot of DF seems to be made of), I'd be frustrated too.

I honestly don't know where this series will go from here, or who will continue sitting in with Dave.