Dwarf fortress

[Umbra]

Quite possibly the most detailed and complex game ever made, with a legendary learning curve, a marvelous community, and meticulous attention to even the most minute of details. The world you play in and all its characters, monsters and history is completely randomly generated promising an endless supply of fun.

Probably the best way to motivate a new player to try Dwarf fortress would be reading one of the, now legendary, stories that this game can produce: The story that made me try it is the story of Boatmurdered, a long read but well worth it. For something shorter and more ilustrated try Bronzemurder . You can also read a story i wrote of a massive goblin siege and the battle that followed, backed with a multitude of screenshots. (OP and continued in the top comment)

If you are intrigued with what you have read check: Lazy newb pack (note - download the advanced version) for an easy install and start. (Also, there are a lot of useful tools included, among them a couple of costum graphic sets, if you cant handle the ASCII)
Also the extensive wiki is something you will be using heavily. Almost everything in the game is explained in detail there and this will be your most usefull tool. If you got a question, search it here first.
Dwarf foretress has one of the best and most helpful communites i have encountered so far, so you can also use the forum or reddit for any advice/questions.
Or ask here, ill be happy to answer. 

[Andy]

An excelent game, but it has my personal met peve in it. You can't shut it down quickly. You can't alt+f4 out, you can't just click the X in the upper right corner. To close the game window, you have to navigate through some menues. Don't get me wrong, it's an excelent game. It's just that 1 part of it that has always... erked me.

[Umbra]

DFhack my friend, it comes with the Lazy newb pack and solves A LOT of my own pet peve-s. The name might be DF"hack" but it is not a cheat tool if you use it just for issues. Its just a console window, and if you type: "die" at any point it immediately shuts everything down.

Other things i use it for:
- removing temperature calculations for improving FPS
- fixing human and elven diplomats
- cleaning excess blood and items
- enforcing the population cap
- exploratory digging designations
- vein digging designations
- automated production for less micromanagment
- fixing military draft unhappy thoughts

and more!

I cant imagine playing without it 

 

[Moncho]

Oh, the fun potential, I still remember my first fun spiral, I did not even know what the hell was happening and suddenly 80% of my dwarves were dead.

Also regarding the wiki, it took me 4-5 days just to finish the "basic" tutorial back when I started...

But yeah, very good game, especially with a couple of visual mods, dwarf therapist and a couple other tools

[Vibe]

http://forum.meleegaming.com/and-all-the-other-things-floating-around-out-there/dwarf-fortress-11718/ <-

[Overdriven]

Tried it and decided I do not have the time atm to commit to this. Not helped by the fact I was learning from a youtube vid that wouldn't buffer fast enough (bad internet). Deffo seems like one of those games that is worth learning though.

[Dezilagel]

Dwarf foretress

foretress

foretress


Played lots of this, and I still love it.

[Berserkadin]

The story of Boatmurdered is the best read I've had in years.

[Umbra]

Fixed, mea culpa 

[Vodner]

I was going to get back into this, but I'm now holding off playing until this incredibly annoying bug is addressed.

[Umbra]

Yep happens sometimes, escpecialy on wall edges. Denostructing and constructing again fixes it.

[Vodner]

Yep happens sometimes, escpecialy on wall edges. Denostructing and constructing again fixes it.

Unfortunately, if there are stairs or ramps nearby, deconstructing and reconstructing doesn't always fix the problem. I was hit with the bug twice, and in both situations the only workarounds were very tedious (removing the nearby stairs/ramps, or designating the wall as a low-traffic zone).

[Kafein]

DF AARs are dadaistic.

[Umbra]

Id say its l'dwarf pour l'dwarfistic

[Leesin]

I love this game but I have not played it in so long as it does require alot of time to really 'get into' a game, sometimes I do feel like downloading it and spending half a day playing it but I imagine I have probably forgotten how to do half of the stuff lol. Having your fortress attacked by a Giant Ass monster is funny, even though I'm sure by Ass it meant like a Donkey or whatever but I decided it was funnier to imagine a giant ass squashing all my dwarves.