But it will never ever happen. Forget it. Anyone dreaming about open source DF should go make their own game. And I mean that sincerely: Dwarf Fortress is very good, but there are even greater things that will come. Build those things!
And in the same way, they are honey traps for young coders who don't get the sheer amount of different games which are working together here. (With the commensurate gripes about interfaces as well)
However, as yet, no-one's come close to the epicness of the generated world and story, even if they've made progress on the core gameplay.
https://web.archive.org/web/20091102174928/http://notch.tumb...
Not that it's close to done yet.
It has proper graphics (though simple, it is a one man project). It includes utilities like Dwarf Therapist. The random events are not so random, but tries for better story telling.
There are some limitations, which might or might not be fixed. For example, there is no digging down, only one z layer, so you cannot build elaborate fatal traps.
Overall, I really like it. :)
I haven't tried other DF inspired games from Steam, though...
Subversion tried to generate everything and have deeply complex simulations -- mostly because he realized Introversion couldn't design every last detail by hand at the scale the project was trying to provide. PA itself was actually directly the result of Chris realizing that he had more fun trying to build these intricate simulated scenarios than actually playing them.
There's a beautiful demonstration of Subversion where he shows a heist scenario with intricate alarm and security systems and how the player could just bypass all of it by simply shooting people -- that was apparently the dying blow to the project.
There's plenty of crafting games way before DF. In fact, some of the earliest RPGs I played, like Neverwinter Nights (1991), allowed crafting weapons and armour. Maybe crafting has taken off a bit (too much) since DF.
I'd try "survival sandbox". In Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress the initial goal is to survive. Later the game turns into a sandbox where you can build magnificent structures. For the sandboxing there is some complex simulation going on (biomes,fluid dynamics,etc).
http://i.imgur.com/YzevDTs.png http://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png
I know EVE was in the original version I saw years back, and there seems to be some misattribution to XKCD (presumably due to the art style and humorous graphs?). Bonus points if anyone knows the POTBS reference offhand.
http://images.mmorpg.com/features/4577/images/LearningCurve....
https://m.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3m1ahz/which_games...
The only thing DF has going for it is the depth of detail. That is a significant feature, but some day one of these superior games is going to have that too.
I am a huge DF fan, I wish they'd hire an art developer or something. It's just ridiculous.
There is a great 3D one that lacks features but the interface is great, that one is called Dwarves! if I recall correctly.
And that's ignoring the lack of any story component, complex interactions, any interesting events apart from "something came to attack your area", etc. It's just boring once you play it a few times.
The same bug that's never going to be fixed makes the game not fun at all for me.
That sounds to me like you're avoiding parts of the game because they're not fun, regardless of the chance of them being fixed in the future.
I've read the developer's reasons for not having graphics, and it's BS. If he doesn't want to do it himself he should let someone talented in that area join the development team.
You're right of course, it's his project and he doesn't have to share it. It's free and beggars can't be choosers. But a game belongs as much to it's community of players as it does to the people who create it. The best games ever created have all been open, either open source or by embracing a modding community. As a gamer who's had a passion for all forms of gaming since before I could read, I find the developer's attitude extraordinarily negative in general.
That's my opinion, nobody is obligated to share it. I'm just saying something superior is going to come along and when it does nobody will remember DF. And that would be a shame, really.
> If he doesn't want to do it himself he should let someone talented in that area join the development team.
And it's also one guy living off Patreon and the donations generated by DF. Where should he find the money to pay an employee?
Toady's reason for the simple graphics is that it lets him focus on core gameplay, which is what he enjoys.