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Comment by namuol | Hacker News Reader

Frontend UX developer perspective on DF: The ascii interface is actually fine and mostly a superficial complaint. The real problem is just how hard the many interfaces are to navigate and learn, and how unconventional their designs are. If I could pick one thing for the UI team to focus on: DF needs a “command palette” to help find/learn all of the game’s many functions.

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The Steam version has a much-cleaned up UI including things like normalizing menu items, commands, etc.

I agree that it isn't actually that bad, and there is (was?) a form of logic to it and it eventually became second nature.

Will those improvements make it to non-Steam versions? I'm kind of bummed the Steam version is Windows only (according to Steam at least).

At release. A Mac and Linux release is planned for later.

> [..] We also have the Classic ASCII mode to support, and we are also working on Mac and Linux builds.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/30990438...

That I don't know - I do know there's a large group that do NOT want the improvements to the UI/graphics, because they're set in their ways.

I suspect that at some point things will begin to settle down and merge.

"once you get into it its actually quite easy to navigate in" is something i would have said back when i played, at least ten years ago though

I agree, but pretty much every UI has its own learning curve to get over, and taken together it’s just overwhelming to get started with. Curious to see how the tutorial system in the premium version helps address this. I’m cautiously hopeful but still doubt I will have the time to properly run a fortress. Maybe we’ll see the premium version lead to a jump in DF as a spectator sport given the much richer graphics library.

Time is what's been preventing me from getting into DF. Do I need to spend a significant amount of time on this game to get a good experience? Could I get away with, say, one hour once in a while? I'd probably need to invest time upfront to learn the basics though.

and before that, take your time to generate your world :D

in my experience, the hints at the bottom row are pretty good reminders of how to navigate the menus.

i advise you to use a keyboard with numpad, otherwise it is a mess iirc

It's genuinely terrible. I played enough to 'get it' at one point, then walked away for six months. When I came back had forgotten how to navigate the menus and just gave up, as it didn't seem worth it. Different kinds of branching per menu, different idioms for hotkey letters per menu.... just a mess.

I've always played with the help of Dwarf Therapist, a second program that helps you manage everything spreadsheet-style.

So we have spreadsheets in space (Eve Online) and now spreadsheets underground...

Last time I played I used Dwarf Therapist, and it definitely helps with min-maxing, but I've been thinking maybe min-maxing isn't the right way to play this game and I should just be happy with the in-game interface?

managing the labor is probably the least fun thing to do. dwarf therapist makes it better but even still I would love an algorithm that just manages it.

If you're using the Lazy Newb Pack, type "autolabor enable" into the dfhack window, you'll never have to think about it again. If you need to restrict jobs to the experts, there are easier ways to do it. For example, you create a crafting station that only your expert stonecrafters can use, then send all of your stonecrafting jobs to that single workstation.

Endlessly fiddling with Dwarf Therapist is not a rewarding use of anyone's time.

I think they're adding a similar feature to the premium release.

DF is like an old mainframe application; once you memorize the command layout you end up typing ahead of the UI almost. Still a pretty steep learning curve. Still amazes me that I remember so many of them every year or two when I get the urge to see the new things available. Modern Fun has made it challenging to fire and forget a very successful colony.

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