Getting Started With Dwarf FortressLearn to Play the Most Complex Video Game Ever Made

Dwarf Fortress (DF) has a reputation as the most complex video game ever made. The game is a construction and management game, with a complex physical modeling engine that belies the crude ANSI graphics. All aspects of the world are modeled, tracked, and affect gameplay: everything from weather patterns, erosion, the flow of magma, the movement of small animals, and the accumulation of garbage. Sound like fun? Apparently it is, but there’s a huge learning curve at the outset. This concise real time book will dampen the curve and serve as a gentle primer on DF gameplay. It’s not really a game guide so much as a celebration of an improbable manifestation of geek culture. In July 2011, the NY Times Magazine (and BoingBoing) featured the game in an article “The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress.” Creator Tarn Adams sees DF as his life’s work; he predicts a version 1.0 release in twenty years or so.