New Dwarf Fortress version out.

[Aquillion]

Here (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/). It's been out for a few days, actually. You can now build dwarf fortresses along the Z-axis, so you can make dwarf towers or something if you want.

For those who don't know what Dwarf Fortress is, it's sort of like an ASCII dungeon keeper where you recreate the Mines of Moria, controlling a bunch of dwarves, having them dig out caverns, mine for metals, produce weapons, armors, works of art, things like that... it's a very addictive game, although the graphics (or lack thereof) may take some getting used to if you're not used to ASCII games.

[Hankosha]

Heh. Dwarf Fortress is awesome. I especially enjoyed Something Awful's Succession thread. (Link to it here (http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html))

And I found a fun new way to kill fire imps: Dropping Elephants on them.:smallbiggrin:

[Fuum Bango]

I hate to say anything bad about the game, yesterday I had two solid hours of fun with this new version, thats longer than I usually have the computer switched on for!
Then it got boring. Fast.
The problem with Dwarf Fortress is once you build a great fort it pretty much looks after itself, and I can't last the next four hours needed for a dragon to find my fort.

[Khosan]

This might just be a problem I have with ASCII games, but I found getting started in general very difficult. For a new player, it basically sets up your world and then tells you, "Right, we're going to show you a ton of professions, but not tell you what a lot of them do. We're just gonna let you rummage around through the manual and let you figure it out." Common sense told me I should stick to professions like Mining and everything on that 'page', but it still wasn't exactly clear whether or not I'd need certain things, and the purpose of certain things (i.e. Wood Burner and Building Designer) made me worried that at some point I would be limited by my dwarves' inability to light a proper fire or build a rectangular room.

May just be me. I'm more of a "jump in, scan the manual" kind of guy.

[Aquillion]

This might just be a problem I have with ASCII games, but I found getting started in general very difficult. For a new player, it basically sets up your world and then tells you, "Right, we're going to show you a ton of professions, but not tell you what a lot of them do. We're just gonna let you rummage around through the manual and let you figure it out." Common sense told me I should stick to professions like Mining and everything on that 'page', but it still wasn't exactly clear whether or not I'd need certain things, and the purpose of certain things (i.e. Wood Burner and Building Designer) made me worried that at some point I would be limited by my dwarves' inability to light a proper fire or build a rectangular room.

May just be me. I'm more of a "jump in, scan the manual" kind of guy.It's not a problem. Dwarves can do all right at jobs even unskilled, and they pick skills up fast. Plus, as the game continues you'll get new immigrants with skills of their own... you're not expected to use your first seven dwarves for everything.

In general, three key skills you might want to invest in for your starting dwarves are farming, cooking, and brewing, with farming being the most important. High cooking skill lets you do more with less food and keeps dwarves happy, while high brewing skill lets you brew more faster, keeps dwarves happy, and also keeps them working quickly... naturally, a better farmer gets better crops, more of them, plants and harvests faster, etc.

Of course, mining, wood cutting, and so on are all also useful to start with and will speed things up. But mostly your initial concern is putting together a steady source of food and booze.

It isn't the end of the world if you choose bad skills, though. People have had no problem starting with no skills at all.

[NEO|Phyte]

Mmm, Dwarf Fortress.

I'm currently rocking a surface settlement named Mysterylanced. I can count the amount of stone it uses on my fingers (8 mechanisms and a millstone), and there's something like 1600 logs being used for my houses.

[Driderman]

An interesting game, to say the least. I've gotten the hang of the controls, now I just need to figure out how to actually get my starting area to be placed near some wood. Harder than I would've imagined, it seems...

[Fishies]

Is there anything new for Adventurer mode?

[NEO|Phyte]

Lo, from the wonderful work of Markavian, I bring you Mysterylanced (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1346-mysterylanced-region1)!
Map of Paintbanners will follow once I get it uploaded.
Paintbanners (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-1347-paintbanners-region2)!

[beholder]

does the new version still support the custom tilesets?
the ascii got too ugly for me...

[Malek]

Dwarf Fortress, Dwarf Fortress... hmmm... strange thing, even though I'm into roguelikes in general I always seemed to put DF away for some reason before even checking it. Time to change that - anything I should know/read before starting?:smallbiggrin:

[NEO|Phyte]

does the new version still support the custom tilesets?
the ascii got too ugly for me...

yeah it does.