Dwarf Fortress Creator Explains its Complexity & Origins | Noclip Interview

Seems like Kenshi was inspired by the Slaves to Armok game (and by Dwarf Fortress, tbh)

I recently made a world that was too hot, so all of my dwarves (after spending hours before launching) melted on contact with existence. Tge first heatwave killed every animal except a bull and all but two dwarves (who saw their friends get annihilated in front of them), while the second killed the remaining two. Oddly enough, that bull (with all its fat melted off) survived indefinetily, presumably due to its charred flesh acting as an insulator.

I've only tried Dwarf Fortress once will again now. This dude is a absolute legend

Why are his eyes closed? Does he have a condition?

I would argue Mario 64 is orders of magnitude more "complex" than this game. The "complexity" of this game just isn't that complex in terms of what the user experiences. Yes, there may be these calculations and interconnected systems that are causing the cats to die but that's just it... it's still just either a dead cat or an alive cat, a binary state of being. Just like with the battle system, sure you can read all these chat logs about how the RNG and attacks of a battle were calculated but it still just boils down to either victory or defeat. I feel it's just like pseudo-complexity. Complexity is not inherently interesting or fun anyway. Game's have graphics and animations for a reason. What makes games interesting is the emergent systems that spontaneously arise from a user's interaction with a gameplay system. It's all just 1's and 0's and a bunch of numbers in the end, what's interesting isn't the number of variables, it's the way those variables interact with the systems of the game. Making things with endless lists of variables doesn't inherently make something interesting nor complex I would argue.

After two of my dwarven kids got shotgunned to death by giraffe teeth when they mishandled the trash compactor, I have to say, this game is probably the biggest piece of art in the genre of video games.

this guy is crazy smart, not only as a game developer but as a human

I really want to try this game but I know that I'm too stupid to actually play it.

There are inhuman entities (spiritual,) pulling the strings. Seriously… think about it. How the hell do people completely ignore the existence of AI? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, to understand the capabilities of AI… Can people not add 333 and 333? How?! HOW!!

Not funny

Well yeah... Everybody's got eyelids

One of the Goats

Even beer is complex in DF.

Just genuinely curious, is there a particular reason he talks so much with his eyes closed?

Can't wait for the dish washing update

So they're programming thought?
What if one day you wake up and learn you've been living in a dwarf fortress simulation this whole time?

Ah, so there's Satan... Got Dwarf Fortress on Steam a few weeks ago, and now after playing for nearly 2 weeks straight(possibly 3? It's hard to tell), with 5 failed fortresses, I'm on my 13th year in my current fortress and now have a basic understanding of the game.
The amount of sheer insanity in this game is unreal, and every time you think things are starting to go well, some new catastrophe strikes. On top of that is the biggest issue, which is the lazy, stupid, batsh*t crazy dwarfs who seem to constantly be trying to kill themselves and other dwarfs. These dwarfs haunt me. I do everything for them; give them lavish meals, give them golden jewelry and silks to wear, give them entertainment and endless rivers of booze, and STILL they are not happy, and refuse to build the 1 piece of wall I need to prevent the Eldrich Horror from rising up from the depths to murder them all and ruin my 150+ hours of work.
But seriously this game is going to get me fired. This isn't a video game it's a drug.

Talking with his eyes closed is killing me.

Why do you com.......... plexity

Pretending that the ascii is part of why eh game is so good is HILARIOUSLY false. Its just easier to make a game like this that way. It was not for aesthetics.

Tarn got eyelids too. They show 😛

This guy is a hero... I mean, he has my dream job, the one that i started making when i was 11yo but failed to achiev soo far. Look, i live in brazil, here is not only medical stuff that get us hard. Actually i have this really shitty health issue of diabetics type one, and this not sounds too crazzy, but the cheap meds for type 1 get me in shaking and sweeping all day long, the free ones are even worst, not matter if my glucose are okay, i felt soo bad using that stuff. I need to get high prices one. I spend more than a minimum payment on meds each month, and due to this issue, more the fact that gamedev are a not profitable job here. When i was entering college i opted to go for programming. This let me in a path where i can afford everything for me needs, but can't afford my own happinness. Mean while, i dream with game dev my entire live, since my first modification of tibia otserv i made when i was 11yo and shift the loot of a random monster, then try do duplicate it and spawn on game, after that i was decompiling C server executer to add a new ammo type that not work properly, because i need to remove one in use to configure the new sprite i added after decompiling the client itself, all running in my own personal computer with no-ip to everyone access... after that i decided to make games from scratch, i tried rpgmaker but that not works for me, is too visual, soo i deep into java language, look in that time i not even have any formal knowledge of programming, all i got from internet. Soo i build one space ship game, and make it work in any computer with java, that works! But i need more, i did a client to client connection and even server to client connection and it worked! but i not have even time to code a lot in that time. I got formal programming education on highschool professional class stuff, and followed the same place to college (university? not sure how it is called in others countries, but get a degree). I love soo much games that my teachers and even advicers let me make a huge task of show off how games are in fact using all technologies that has in the grade, and i did and they aprrove a special authorization to my first real game as a TCC, in fact i need to put soo much time in documentation for that project, i olny really use 3 months on game dev itself and still need to do documentation and others stuff. The grade are almost entire HTML5, Java, SQL based soo, i made my first game in HTML5 JavaScript front-end and Java as backserver that handle scores and inventory system with login screen and soo on soo far... The game has a global scoreboard and was just a rogue-like that you save itens from one match to another... Has some small amount of enemies and itens, really raw coded but functional. After that i just are too tired due to personal reasson. I dropped from everything. By the way, first week in college i got a job in programming company, and since that i never stop working to relief my parents bills with my own meds. I finish college in 2017, is being 6 years soo far, always dreaming with making games, i even started unity class once, but not like the idea to use visual engined base stuff to make games. Is great, for visual editing and music editing, but for code is pure wast of time, and i almost only worked with pure code my entire live, i not even know how to make it without coding soo. I had this unity knowledge colded down, even because i got a really nice job opportunity, rise my payment about 5 times in 3 years and have no time left, but still always dreaming of gamming making. Now i got 29yo, earn a little bit, but had a little more time, since last year i started another project and are developing a game... 2D rogue-like but with much more stuff i want, and hope this game can open more doors to me, maybe as my main job or something, don't know but i hope soo. Soo this is why someone that start coding game soo early and did it by passion not blood greed, as a hero to me, someone that have the possibility to make it freely for soo long, i just see as a incrediable marvous person, dwarf fortress is not the game that sparkle my own will to play, is not the game that ignity my game dev dream, but for sure is the kind of game i love to see and know about, maybe if i got it early i was totally in this game. For know, i played only 10 hours of dward frotress, steam version to help with some money, and i'am loving the experience soo far!!!

Such a wholesome person.

I love how he answered your question about if it ever gets boring ... "I'd have to be bored of everything"

I fear that the intellect that went into this game will never be fully appreciated. I'm afraid to even think about playing this game.

I've never played the game but looking at the graphics I'm having a hard time visualizing some of the gameplay he is talking about. How can these characters have eyelids when they look like letters from the alphabet?

this is proof that we can live in a fuckin simulation.

I know about this game just because of Sseth's video, i dont know if i could have had a better revelation of the game existence.
brb gonna binge watch Sseth's stash again

this game is so...just started playing steam version and i am ..... is simply beatifull

Honestly the story about the cats dying of alcohol poisoning was crazy and is just a little snippit of how deep this game is

you hear this sort of thing and it sounds like the most amazing, playable thing in the world.

but then you look at it and it's only depicted – until very recently – as actual 1's and 0's and letters and things. it's intensely disappointing for someone shallow like myself to hear the most amazing things about a game that turns out to be very literally text-based.

same with RimWorld, unfortunately. there's just that giant visual barrier for my more . . . "casual" eyes that I can't so far get over. there's nothing keeping me through the initial hours and hours of learning the systems, because it's just so damned charmless visually (in my opinion).

we'll get there, though. one of these years I'll finally get RimWorld, maybe even Dwarf Fortress. be well, everyone.

This development done right 💖💖💖

Dwarf Fortress is now on Steam

This game has spawned some of my favorites from oxygen not included to rimworld to prison architect, simply brilliant

So I had this carpenter dwarf who could not take a joke. Easily had his ego bruised and was quick to anger. He cut off his toe making a table. Another dwarf apparently got wasted drunk and made fun of him for missing a toe, which made my Carpenter lose his shit and fight him. Well my master mason dwarf who had nothing to do with it but holds grudges got hurt in the bar room brawl. My mason was assigned to smoothing and decorating the walls of the main hallway in the living quarters.

So what this fucking mason does is COVERS THE ENTIRE HALLWAY IN MASTERWORK depictions of the carpenter cutting his toe off and losing the bar room fight. Every time the carpenter would walk down this hallway he'd get extremely pissed off, until he picked a fight with a cow and was murdered by it. That mason then made a statue in honor of the fucking cow, depicting it killing the carpenter.

This game is a wonder of the modern world.

damn, if game developers had 10% of his passion for games the gaming world would be such a good place

To anyone that doesn't know or may be put off by the lack of graphics , there's an updated version on steam that's full graphics and just as complex and intersting to play. Time has little meaning for me once I open the game .

This guy is on the spectrum....the D/A didn't use ascci code & save space & speed up the system...but put in graphics of ascci code....such stupid waste of time, space & resources.

Mao Zedong haircut

This guy has to close his eyes to exist inside the game to look around and see what he's talking about.

Congratulations to finally get millionaires with with awesome game (since the Steam version with graphical icons)

I am Playing it now! Addictive. 2022!

Dwarf Fortress is on steam now!!!

awww man miner vga was one of my earliest game experiences. I got my dad to teach me just enough DOS when i was probably 4-7 so that way I could run it on our win 3.1. I spent way too many hours on that as a kid.

Dork Fortress Sucks

and so forth