I wonder if this works for the Linux version of Dwarf Fortress? It would be an ideal workload - requires a lot of CPU but doesn't do a whole lot of disk or screen I/O. It would be an ideal way to run DF on a laptop.
I love this idea! I've never played Dwarf Fortress, but I just tested it on a fresh vps by setting [SOUND:NO] and [PRINT_MODE:TEXT] in df/data/init/init.txt and it seems to work fine!