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Comment by phil248 | Hacker News Reader

I'm a dedicated gamer who has found countless hours of enjoyment from games like Minecraft and Crusader Kings 2. But in my attempts to play Dwarf Fortress, I felt like I was being trolled. Like the entire thing was some 'in' joke and by spending hours attempting to figure out the UI, I was the butt of said joke. I find time to play games like CK2 despite the poor UI and serious time commitments, but I'm a grown man with a job and I don't have time to play a game with what is quite possibly the worst UI in gaming history.

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I have tried the game multiple times but have not had the patience to stick with it.

I am glad that it exists, though. I want to live in the kind of world where two brothers are happy to devote the majority of their life to a project like this.

Maybe it's the same impulse that drove the Voynich manuscript's creation.

I think it's best to play it when you have something you want to do, build or prove and to read about others playing it when you want a story.

I haven't really played the game itself for a while now, but I still love reading the stories of others playing in it.

Although they're out of date now, captain duck's tutorials on youtube demystify the entire thing a great deal. And most of the core concepts haven't changed much since he made the tutorials.

Believe it or not once you "get" the interface it's really not all that bad. There's one or two incredibly annoying intracacies - but get the lazy newb pack with dwarf therapist and you'll be in for an easier time.

I had the same feeling, then decided that DF should be packaged with one of the online wikis about the game.

Don't feel ashamed to look up how to do the game. There is a regularity, but the learning curve is very high. I think it's easier to think of DF like Blender more than like Sim City. You're using a "professional-quality" dwarf simulation tool, some manual reading is required.

I think DF is like Magic The Gathering in a way: Half of the fun is absorbing the mechanics and idiosynradicies of the game. It's fine not to like it, too.

The game is damn near impossible to play in its stock form. Look up the Lazy Newb pack and give it a try. The learning curve still is quite tough, but it's a real fun challenge.

It's actually not the worst UI at all. It's optimized for expert play. After a few days you can quickly do what you need to do in an efficient manner. It's a bit inconsistent but it's very functional. It's sort of like emacs in that at the beginning it seems perversely difficult but later feels very natural and powerful, despite some quirks.

It is not like Emacs. Emacs is sensible and logical. It is more like vi.

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