Dwarf Fortress

☼«☼TIPS FROM MY EXPERIENCE☼»☼ - The game speed is tied to the Game FPS option (default 50). I learned this after 100+ hours playing at 144 fps. - Creating a Venice style water fortress is a quick way to reduce your fps to about 10. - Children love starving to death after climbing trees. - Rock coffers and glass boxes are the same as wooden chests. - Reloading saves to prevent disasters legitimately makes the game way less fun. ☼«☼STORY TIME☼»☼ - A Giant visited my fortress very early on - Everyone inside and lock the doors - One child and her dog left outside - Child explodes the Giants head with a single punch - Nickname the child "David." David values martial prowess - Plan to make David Captain of the Guard when she grows up - David kills members of the Guard one by one - By the time David is an adult she's killed 10+ members of the guard - Doesn't matter. David is an unstoppable one woman army clad in steel armor - Goblin Parley. No problem, David's got this. Send her outside - New ceiling being constructed collapses and crushes David on her way out. - Backup fighters have no training because David kills everyone with experience - Try to defend anyway - Recruits die immediately - Watch goblins kill all my Dwarfs - I lost my fort to a psychopath and a workplace accident 10/10 This game is overwhelming at first. Give it some time and it gives a whole lot back.

Possibly the coolest game ever, so complex and deep, and endless replay value. Definitely one of the best purchases in terms of video games, totally worth it.

I've been a huge fan of Dwarf Fortress before it came to steam, and was just an ACSII character game. I prefer fortress mode, so that is what this review is focused on. That being said, while I like the game, it has issues. I love building my dwarven fortress, dealing with each dwarves intricacies, fighting off invasions, digging deeper for valuable ore, and crafting weapons, armor and furniture. The industries are diverse, and the metals/stone/wood options are complex (making it very realistic, in that aspect). Enemies and visitors are cool, and can be looted for ALL their items. Also, the game has a large modding community making things more interesting (and addresses some concerns with the game). My biggest issues with the game are the same issues that I had with the old ACSII game.... First, there is a large learning curve. You need to figure out the tricks to build a successful fortress, and that takes time. Finding a good world and build location is key, and its not clear how to do it (for a beginner). The worldbuilder is very complex (most people opt for the very simple version) -- It needs to be streamlined, and not always "fail" if conditions aren't met. Plus, learning how to build industries isn't always straightforward... if you want to make rope, you need certain plant fibers (i.e. hemp, rope reed) ... and the only way to know that is to look online. The "Management" tab makes things easier, but it's an "advanced" feature that takes time for newbies to learn ... and even then, as someone familiar with it, things aren't always clear. Sometimes you want to build a stockpile for a specific item... but can't find the item (i.e. empty barrels or bins? No idea; soap is under bars (with the metal bars); hives, minecarts, coffins, and other items are all grouped under tools .... which is confusing and unclear, and makes it difficult to separate each of those items). Dwarves drop their stuff all over the fortress, leaving socks, shoes, weapons and armor all around (adding to the clutter and slowing up the game). Note: You can build rooms for your dwarves with cabinets and chest, but they rarely use them ... you can build garbage dumps, but unless something is manually tagged for dumping, they wont dump items ... and for some reason, your soldiers drop all their armor and equipment whenever they stop training/fighting ... leaving them in the middle of dark caverns or outside your fortress (only to try and retrieve them during an attack!). Also, there are bugs ... plenty of bugs. Sometimes, a dwarf will be assigned to a workshop, but will stop going there. Your lumberjacks will stop working ... it might be because they don't have any axes (because they are being used by your soldiers), but it could also be a bug. Also, when your base has alot of dwarves, or you dig deep and have alot of underground enemies, or your fortress is cluttered with dropped items and refuse ... the game slows to a CRAWL (10 fps). This is my biggest gripe. I spend all this time building a great fortress, and want to dig really really deep ... but the game starts to move SOOO slowly that you just get so frustrated and stop playing. There are TRICKS to speed it up for a bit (i.e. cheating with DwarfHack to kill unseen invaders, cleaning the map), but they are often temporary. THAT is my biggest issue, and I can't come back til that's fixed. So, until they fix these issues, I'm out.... I hope fix these issues and I can edit the review.

Please consider adding Korean language support! Dwarf Fortress is a legendary game, and I truly admire the depth and creativity it offers. However, for many Korean players, the language barrier makes it difficult to fully enjoy and understand the game’s complex systems. Adding official Korean language support would open the gates for a whole new community of fans who are eager to dive into the world of Dwarf Fortress. We would be deeply grateful if you could consider this in the future. Thank you for your amazing work and continued support of the game!

One of the most fun games I've played in a while. The mix of base building and just pure random chaos is fantastic. Glad there's a steam version, though, because while I'd heard about the ascii game I would have never gotten into it in a million years. Anyway, worth the price. Watch your dorfs die with great excitement.

Easily the most complicated game I've ever been unable to stop thinking about.

I only have 5.7 hours on Steam, but I've played it for 1k hours at least since its release. The game has changed a lot. For some the ASCII is very appealing and nostalgic, for me - when I discovered Noob pack I couldn't go back. It just made it all so much easier in an already VERY complex game. Stuff can just happen out of nowhere, like for example there was that famous cat bug. Or that one time one guy had a war with goblins because one Dwarf got obscenely drunk and attacked a Goblin dancer because she accidentally bumped into him. And if you master this game - you can build stuff on water, conquer aquifer, spawn in Corrupt zones and defeat all. And when you are tired of your perfect fortress, enter Adventure mode and explore your own fortress as some random guy in this world. And now -- since its on steam, installing mods has never been easier. Its one of the best simulation games of an entire world that has been created to date.

so much genius and effort into something that is extremely hard to have any amount of enjoyment due controls and menus. also this game punches far above it's weight meanwhile theres still moments like mission important items in rooms with no doors. you need to already like this game to enjoy it and I just dont

Good sim/colony-builder. Adventure mode needs polish, but it's still in development (occasional crashes). Overall enjoyable.

I had read that this game had a steep learning curve, that's a lie, mechanics are all quite simple and easy to learn, what is hard to work around though it's the UI, this game has by far the worst UI I've ever seen (and probably will ever see) in my life, it's so convoluted that some of the most simple things requires opening multiple tabs and quite a few clicks, 90% of the UI and game stuff doesn't have a description so you don't know what things are, what their requirements are or what they do, it's a mess. The game is also quite buggy and to be honest it's just tedious to play, I didn´t enjoy it at all. If you are like me and you are thinking on buying it because you've seen some cool narrative videos about it, don't buy it.

TLDR: Similar to Rimworld, but with a bad UI, Also: weak wiki. This is a great and horrible game. Bad Stuff First: It has a horrible user interface. Unintuitive, user unfriendly. LONG search lists that are neither alphabetical nor by any category that I can see. And when they are alphabetical, Cut Diamonds and Rough Diamonds are under C and R respectively, instead of putting them both under D for diamond! I /facepalm myself about every 5 minutes, this Windows98-level UI is so unforgivably bad. Can't even highlight and press backspace to get rid of stuff you already typed into a search bar. Slowly backspace one letter at a time only! When you pull up the info screen on one of your military squads, it lists who your dwarves are, but if you want to see any info on them, sorry, you can't get there from here. Need to remember their names and then go to the dwarf info screen and look them up there. When you want to look at a deeper level of the map, move the mousewheel towards you. When you want to zoom deeper into one specific level, press ctrl and move the mousewheel again, but in the OPPOSITE direction (/facepalm)! Logic rules are inconsistent and arbitrary. Fonts are hard to read, items go by different names in different situations, etc. Can't click on stuff you see to find out info on that thing. You will spend so much time trying to figure out HOW to do stuff! OK, so if I want this dude to go there, I first need to create a military squad of one, assign him as the leader, wait, where is the menu to do that, then create a zone called a "burrow," wait, where do I do that, then click on.. oh wait, this time it is right click? Let me check the wiki. Hmm, wiki wants to tell me jokes and talk about how the game used to work, how it is designed to work and why it doesn't work before telling me what to do... !!!!! If you're going to build the deepest game in the world, you MUST give your players an easy way to navigate that complexity! This game does a mediocre job of that, at best. On the PaSS/FAIL grading system, I give the UI a grade of FAIL. Then again, it does create an interesting challenge. I love complicated games, and mastering the controls of a hard-to-control beast can be satisfying. This game is totally right for some people, but understand exactly what you are signing on to before you buy! After 50 hours, half of that time has been on pause while reading the wiki (which is equally confounding, confusing and frustrating as the game itself) or searching Google/Reddit trying to figure out how to DO something. Nothing is intuitive. Fortunately, devs are still working on it. Good soundtrack. It truly has the potential to be one of the greatest games ever, but after 20 years of development, that ain't saying much! So I can't recommend the game in its current form, but if it ever gets a professionally-polished modern UI, look out! Currently more headaches than fun.

one of the most iconic and important games for basement dwellers everywhere. the game and its devs have my utmost respect and i can only hope my hundreds of hours (on previous releases outside of steam) is proper offering, i have moved on to rimworld, with its obscene levels of modding, but this game stands true as the ultimate colony sim of all time.

If you're looking for randomness, creativity, depth (quite literal as well), tactics and hilarious occurrences within a fantasy setting then you'd probably want to give this a try.

Very detailed colony sim, underground warriors, dwarf simulator to a TEE. Very good design and mechanics.

The only thing i can think about when playing was "there's no SFX in this game". Dwarfs digging? Silence. Clicking buttons? Silence. Creatures walking? Silence. Alerts? Silence. After 140 hour of Rimworld binge, Dwarf Fortress feels so unsatisfying to play, as if there's absolutely nothing going on. I want to give out orders of sowing and tree cutting and be able to perceive dwarfs doing these actions. I've heard so many good things about this game's depth, but i just cannot immerse myself in it at all.

My first 15 hours on this game have been on the world creator trying to get a cool world. My dwarfs decided to swim on lava in an attempt to flee a bunch of goblins.100/10

I fuckin love this game, but there is waaaay too much jank - Some menus are missing displays for relevant information or basic search functions. - The build queue is not smart at all [spoiler]STOP WALLING YOURSELF OFF[/spoiler] - I really wish there was a way to push some tasks to priority - I spent 3 hours trying to equip a specific squad with [spoiler]candy[/spoiler] but because of dozens of reasons I just could not (still have not figured this out) - The circus didn't come just because I fortified the clown car. Worst of all you get FPS DEATH if not just horrible fps lag anytime you do anything remotely ambitious [spoiler]Tried to empty a river to grab dead dorf gear that was piling up and my fps shot down to 5[/spoiler] Some of these things DFHack fixes but these should be in the base game. DFHack also doesn't fix even a quarter of the jank in this game. You spend too much time trying to get around the mess instead of enjoying yourself playing this game. The amount of fun I had somehow outweighs the frustration though so I'm still giving it a thumps up. Give it a try.

Dwarf Fortress is a monumental achievement in the world of simulation and strategy gaming, renowned for its unparalleled depth, complexity, and emergent storytelling. Originally released in 2006 by brothers Tarn and Zach Adams, this indie masterpiece has evolved into a legendary cult classic that challenges players to build and manage a thriving dwarven settlement in a procedurally generated, richly detailed world. At its core, Dwarf Fortress is a simulation of an entire ecosystem, with systems governing geology, weather, economics, social dynamics, warfare, and even individual dwarf psychology. What sets the game apart is its unmatched ambition to simulate an entire living, breathing world where no two playthroughs are ever the same. Players start by selecting an embark location and then directing a small group of dwarves to carve out a fortress beneath the earth. The gameplay involves managing resources, constructing intricate underground networks, crafting tools and weapons, farming, trading, and defending against a variety of threats ranging from invading goblin hordes to underground monsters and natural disasters. The steep learning curve of Dwarf Fortress is infamous, with its ASCII graphics and complex interface intimidating many newcomers. However, for those who persevere, the game offers an almost infinite sandbox for creativity and problem-solving. The storytelling that emerges from the interactions between dwarves, their environment, and the myriad events that unfold is truly unique—each fortress develops its own history filled with triumphs, tragedies, and unexpected disasters. Whether it’s a dwarven carpenter developing a drinking problem, a siege that turns allies into enemies, or a cavern flooded by magma, the depth of simulation generates narratives that players eagerly share and celebrate. The recently released Steam and itch.io versions have modernized the experience with an updated graphical tileset and a more accessible user interface, making the game more approachable while preserving the complexity that longtime fans adore. Dwarf Fortress also stands out for its open-endedness and lack of defined victory conditions, instead encouraging players to create their own goals, be it building an impenetrable fortress, exploring the sprawling world, or simply surviving against overwhelming odds. The game’s procedural generation ensures that every world is unique, from the detailed geology to the languages, cultures, and histories of the civilizations that inhabit it. The depth of detail extends to simulating individual dwarf moods, skills, and relationships, which directly impact fortress productivity and survival. This level of simulation complexity makes Dwarf Fortress not just a game but a platform for emergent storytelling and player-driven narrative creation. While the game’s complexity is its greatest strength, it can also be a barrier, requiring a significant time investment to master its systems. However, the passionate community surrounding Dwarf Fortress has created numerous tutorials, mods, and utilities to help new players get started and customize their experience. Additionally, the developer’s continued commitment to refining and expanding the game ensures that it remains a living project, with updates that deepen the simulation and add new layers of gameplay. In conclusion, Dwarf Fortress is a uniquely challenging and rewarding experience that pushes the boundaries of what video games can simulate and narrate. It appeals to players who crave deep strategic planning, emergent storytelling, and endless replayability. For those willing to embrace its steep learning curve, it offers some of the most memorable and complex gameplay experiences available in modern gaming. Rating: 9/10

This is probably the most addictive computer game I've ever played, and I've been gaming since Pong. It's also one of the most difficult to master. If you like creative problem solving, discovering new stuff, and especially micro-managing, this is it.

I've played the game off and on since it was 2d. The original charm and extreme depth remain intact today, just with more polish and breadth. If you like challenging sims, this is the grandaddy of em all.

This game has historic weight to it for how long it has been around and that it continues to provide its strong legacy to this day. This mini-civilization/colony sim is designed to be an unexpected journey, and the best thing that the steam version has done is make the game accessible to the average person. You start by generating a world, and picking a location to start your fortress. All these systems are designed to be intensely complex and deep so that you can enjoy them at different levels of play either starting out or when you have many fortresses under your belt. You begin then with 7 dwarves and you start to carve out your mountain home, and then you decide how to run the society to meet their needs and keep them happy/heathy. However, given that the motto of the game is "losing is [[fun]]" there will come a point where something unexpected will happen to cause the downfall of your fortress, and there is definitely amusement in the ways that this can happen. Once you get a hang of things it becomes a game of how long can you keep a fortress going? Or what new things can I try for this one to make things interesting? There is a reason that this game is available for free and yet so many people decide to purchase the premium version to show support.

Top 10 games of all time just based on how influential this one is. 11/10 Its a game I can never get bored of given how wild each new run can be.

Quickly became on of my Favorite games of all time. It can be obtuse at times but overcoming those challenges in different ways is what makes the game fun.

It's quite interesting. Definitely download DFHack on steam if you want to play this, it adds a lot of minor tweaks by default which make the game much nicer to play, mainly UI stuff. Really the UI is lacking many simple things. Ah well. Other than that, the game is pretty much what it says on the tin. You are not omniscient so you can't easily see all the complexity that is there, but the gameplay is satisfying enough, I think. However, there is a bug known as loyalty cascades, which while FUN is not very fun to deal with. Being able to effectively randomly lose a chunk of your population because someone punched someone else is not nice.

There is nothing, literally nothing, that compares to dwarf fortress. The game is full of detail, made with passion, and incredibly deep.

This is probably one of the best and most complex world simulators I have ever played. I only have about 50 hours on Steam, but I have thousands more into it since I have been playing since about 2008ish I think. It was still 2D when I first stated. I saw someone reference Boatmurdered, I went and read that story (you should too!), and downloaded it. I kept going back to it over the years when I want something complex and deep. !!!Losing is FUN!!!

Learning curve worth it. Stays interesting. Clown party was a surprise.

I am ashamed I had this on my wishlist for 5 years, mebbe even 6 years, but my hesitance was directly related to other games looking like old school games, that really have not added up, and no way was I going to drop more than 20USD for another disappointment. I regret I lost 5 or 6 years active play time, because THIS is what I'm always hoping for when I look at such games. My god, is it what I am looking for... I just finished playing scant of an hour, most of that time creating my character, which I originally thought might be a quick proposition, but so many things to choose and designate--this is a good quality, in my book--I was really able to get into a genuine character creation, unlike anything I've touched in years. When I set out creating the character, I was originally in a hurry to get to the GUI, the graphics, as it looked decent in the wee trailers, and I was genuinely thinking I was going to be horribly letdown, and wanted to get over with quickly. No! To my joy, it is the opposite. It was precisely what I've dreamed of for some time, completely matching/exceeding the expectations I began developing during the character creation. I played my first computer games on a TRS-80 in 1980 (I was a legal adult in 1980). My all-time favourite game I'd rank as TW2002. This has more depth and breadth than TW2002 by about 2 orders of magnitude (mebbe 3? 3 would be a lot, but mebbe 3), and also... obviously ...superior graphics (TW2002's ancient ANSI "graphics" will always hold a special place in my heart, though). I do wish someone would create a space 4X, with a TW2002 flavour, that was like Dwarf Fortress, but never mind that noise: I'm thinking I'm going to be playing this game, perhaps for the rest of my life, and happily so. Oh so happily. Even if they never do another update, as of today, happily shall I play, perhaps until I die. (I actively played TW2002 for more than 20 years, and I'm thinking Dwarf Fortress easily likely has double/triple that. It is rich and dense in all the very best ways.) In particular, if you have been playing strategy/sim/RPG computer games since the dawn of computer games, get this thing: do not stupidly sit on the fence for years, based on all the previous letdowns of the recent past decades. This game exactly what it sounds like from the creator's description. Get the game. Just fkn dae it dae it dae it! You will not be disappointed. No kidding on, this game is the dug's baws. Also, the music soundtrack is pure amazing. (Music in the trailer is indicative of what you can expect throughout the game, it is *not* merely tunage they grabbed to sound good in a trailer, that never occurs in the actual game. The music is genuinely perfect and highest quality.)

Best game I have ever played. All other games are boring to me now. I don't enjoy other games now I just spend the entire time thinking about dwarf fortress.

Finally got my bearings in my last game until a Wereiguana attacked and killed some men and wounded others. "Tough setback, but I can move on," I thought, until my wounded men started turning into Wereiguanas, because of course they would, thats how it works. I could only laugh. GG

This game is addictive and has numerous hilarious stories of oversights and learning fails in progress. One fort held of the green tide real well, but a dwarf got drunk, got mad, saw another dwarf he did not like, went out beat her to death, another dwarf saw this, they began to fight, the corpse made others mad, chaos ensues. From a population of about 170 down to 4 then the green tide arrives again. Shut the goblins out and watch the last 4 dwarfs go mad hauling stinking corpses to an overfilled mass grave. Then some forgotten horror shows up and in my oversight did not put a gate in the entrance to the underground cave. Three of the last dwarfs are quickly killed send the last to unlock the gate and let the green horde in. Watch him die and then watch the goblins fight the forgotten horror. The horror is killed but left behind a bunch of corrosive spit watch the wounded goblins die, and see others get hurt by the corrosive spit they leave bringing with them some wounded and items with corrosive spit knowing that many will die and wondering if they will make it home bringing death with them or will they die in the wild. Then start a new fort because losing is fun!

have many hundreds more hours than logged on my steam copy of this game over the years, and recently got back into it. will express the same thoughts i've had about this game since i first fell in love with it over ten years ago - it's a piece of art. i could do an impression of Roy Batty's "Tears in Rain" monologue from Blade Runner but just wistfully recall all the absurd occurrences i've seen in this game. i remember certain dwarves, certain stories, certain legends to this day. my favorite of this genre.

+ Addictive gameplay + Feels free + Won Modern Art prize in an American Major Art Gallery + Most detailed game in existence + Now with eye tweaking graphics and better interface better suitable for newer generations - the bugs still persist in certain areas

Best thing I've found since Rimworld. As a former C++ aficionado the OG ascii art Dwarf Fortress is an absolute love letter. I'm glad they kept some ascii stuff in the GUI version of the game. A playthrough of the game really TELLS A STORY. Sip some tea and eat some cookies and watch your dwarves' lives play out :)

Giant attacks, one shots elite marksman, gets bitten and injured by a guinea pig sow, dies to guinea pig sow and miner, incredible game 10/10.

This is the king of Colony Sims. It made Rimworld what it is, It inspired minecraft, It is one of those legendary source pieces that inspired all your favorite hits. Now playable by the mere mortal with actual graphics!

Basically everything I've ever wanted in a game, if only I could play as werewolves it'd be perfect.

Learning curve of the game is steep, but it keeps me coming back. Each Fortress better than the last.

One Of Greates Games ever made if You give it time of day Best game if you have a lot of time to burn and luck at side you need it for the countlless adventures you come to see

STRIKE THE EARTH ! This game is so much fun, it at the very least deserves you give it a chance.

management and tiny details. the downside is that the mechanics are not transparent and self-evident so you should google quite a lot

This game is a work of art! You can tell because it was in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

Quite entertaining and addictive. I wish, all the crazy storries within each game would be somewhat more visualized. An mod with AI picture generation could be a solution.

The greatest colony sim, now more accessible! A game full of complex histories to uncover and legends to live. Gameplay: Complex, 3d colony management game managing the lives of hundreds of dwarves, surviving mythical beasts, infiltrating vampires, wars with neighboring cultures, and your own stuck up nobles. Explore webs of deep caverns but try not to dig too deep... Adventure mode, where you can live in your worlds, visit your old forts and experience the most detailed turn based combat system I've ever seen. Legends mode, where you can examine the rich histories of your worlds Improvements from classic: -Addition of dedicated mouse controls -Full graphics -A banger soundtrack both reimagining the classics and adding flavorful new ones. Seriously, listen to "Drink and Industry" and "Sisters of War" -Significantly more disability friendly, both in visual clarity and ease of use Baffling changes from classic: -Removal of many hotkeys -Removal of the 'look' option to get descriptions and room quality -Simplification of stairs, paradoxically making them more complex to use -No easy access to the combat log Other assorted issues: -Mouse lag/no hotkey to select search bars -Many work orders lack any customization options (especially agriculture) The developer is extremely dedicated, as you may assume seeing as the game is nearly in its third decade of development. You can rest assured the game will only improve from here on out, and what is here is already a masterpiece.

A lot more accessible than the original version, but most likely going to kick my ass regardless

Dwarf Fortress is the only video game. Everything else is a pale comparison,

While Dwarf Fortress is still a VERY good game, even revolutionary for its time; there are a few.. problems with it. Most of these problems can be solved by installing DFHack, and mods. (you can find DFHack via steam store; not the workshop) However,he UI is still quite outdated: while there is now mouse support, the UI itself is still made for playing with a keyboard. You will have to learn tons of key bindings to play the game "properly". Also, while the majority (99+%) of the community is nice decent people, there are a few.. "elitist zombie trolls"... I asked for some help, ONCE, and after i had already received the help i needed, (thanks again! :) 2 of them almost immediately started to harass me. If you also get this problem, feel free to block and/or report them. Anyways, if you like "colony manager games", then you MUST try this game at least once in your life. And remember: losing is fun! :D

So much fun. I’m a huge fantasy world lover and this scratches every itch I’d have for a fantasy civ builder/simulator. SO MUCH DETAIL in the entire game. I just learned combat works with body parts and their individual tendons and bone etc, instead of a simple HP bar. It’s been out a while so you’d expect detail but u can tell there’s a ton of love that went into the game based on how in depth it is.

Loaded into the game with no idea what to do, but was very excited to get started. First embark I didn't know what I was doing and apparently picked a bad spot. I had been told rivers were a good place to embark, since you can use them for power and wells. As soon as I hit the play button, my doctor was ripped apart by a giant alligator (came right out of the river, who'da thunk?), which then proceeded to kill all of the remaining dwarves in very rapid succession. It really is a shame I wasn't recording, because it felt like a speedrun record. If you told me my first embark would last less than 30 seconds, I would not have believed you. Needless to say I now have over 200 hours and counting. Well played, DF...well played indeed.