At least he’s pretty based for someone in the niche of nerdy ass games. He said BLM during the 2020 protests and during the Palestinian protests in ‘21 he said Free Palestine, that US was backing an apartheid, and gave a bunch of resources to donate to Palestinians. Good guy and you should purchase his game because it’s pretty cool.
I feel like I remember reading somewhere that they quit MIT because they didn’t want to get stuck writing code to power the Epstein Engine
based on the peak player count, I’d estimate Tarn and Zach made well over $600k just in sales of Dwarf Fortress today, minus the 30% that steam takes off the top. that’s not even counting the itch.io sales. I’m so glad that the passion project has finally paid off for the two of them, they deserve every penny and more, imo.
:only-good-gamer:
Is it worth it to buy the steam version over the lazy newb pack? 30 bucks is steep for me and I always tried to get into dwarf fortress but the learning curve was a bit steep for me. I love reading the stories that people wright about there fortress. I always want to get into these crazy open ended games but struggle to figure them out.
I played DF for years with the LNP, it’s probably the best way to get into DF sans steam, especially with the tilesets you get in the LNP. Plus the LNP comes with dwarf therapist, DFhack, other utilities I’m forgetting, and classic is getting all the same updates as the steam/itch version. I’d say absolutely go for it. YouTube is chock full of helpful tutorials, as well.
Remember, your first forts WILL DIE. Often to stupid mistakes or things you didn’t know could happen. but that’s the fun in it all :pika-pickaxe:
haha, I remember the old tagline for dwarf therapist: “it makes dwarf fortress playable, it’s that good!”
It kind of depends, if you don’t mind the older UI, lack of tutorial, and keyboard controls you should try it with Lazy Newb Pack, but if the lack of those things are what’s keeping you from enjoying the game then probably should cop it on steam if it goes on sale.
I’ve been playing DF on and off for about 4 years now and I still learn new stuff all the time lol. Imo the best way to learn is by making a series of concerted bursts of effort over a protracted period of time, that way knowledge builds up over time. Definitely don’t expect to learn everything right off the bat.
Start off by just surviving for several seasons, with only basic industries going -> retire fort, make new one -> survive for a year while exploring new industries -> retire fort… -> survive for several years while exploring new industries and defending against sieges , work your way down to caverns -> retire fort…-> explore caverns and make it to lava levels -> retire fort…-> try playing in new biome, etc
There are a lot of good beginner tutorials if you want to watch and see how it works. Kruggsmash is a really good youtuber who does roleplaythroughs with illustrations. I’ve never seen someone who clicked with the game so well and it might pique your interest to see some of the depth one can get from it.
I would but 30 bucks is a pretty steep asking price for a game I may or may not like
:meow-tableflip:
You can always try the ascii with tilesets and utilities. there’s a super easy to set up bundle called the lazy newb pack that you literally just have to install and run. It can do a lot if you tinker with it, too, but it works out of the box. The interface is byzantine there’s no way around it, the result of decades of adding new features. But you get the hang of it eventually and most of it ends up being pretty quick eventually. Learning the gameplay, will always be a challenge, but that’s absolutely the fun of the game, the interface too.
It’s so fucking satisfying when you build your first pump stack to get freshwater into your cistern so you can build an underground well, or when you successfully set up a militia squad, or even basic metallurgy.
You’ll need the wiki and to search specific problems, but the wiki is very well-maintained and not a fandom one.
And then . . . the caverns await.
Eh, just pirate it and then decide later.
If something’s DRM free, I’ll buy it if I play for more than a few hours.
If you’re interested in it, and can get past the UI, the original version is still free, the steam version is just a lot more user friendly. You can install a tileset to the original, which isn’t quite to the level of the new graphics, but more usable than exclusively ASCII characters lol
Edit: Actually, yeah, just pirating it to try it out is also a great option
