Congrats to them! Very rare to see people who follow their dreams no matter what their field become millionaires.
On a side note, I feel like I should like Dwarf Fortress, but every time I look at it, it seems completely daunting.
On a side note, I feel like I should like Dwarf Fortress, but every time I look at it, it seems completely daunting.
I strongly recommend just digging in, and it's never been easier than right now. The DF Wiki is one of the most comprehensive video-game wikis that exist due to a very passionate, very tight-knit community; and has excellent guides on how to play your first game.
I'd recommend playing one fort while strictly following a guide so that you can learn the interface and concepts, then try another fort totally on your own to experience the chaos in full.
I say this only from observation, having never played the game. I saw a headline recently about the graphics update and you can see it in the videos on the Steam page:
The complexity is daunting, but also a big part of the fun. Since I started playing the new version I find myself constantly sniped by trying to re-design the UI in my mind.
So someone else will copy what they've done and add multiplayer and get that bag.
The Toady One is just the madman who actually did it.
I do agree though, whilst it’s made the game, for me, playable, there are lots of smaller annoyances that really add up once you’re a few hours into a fort. The UI is inconsistent in many areas. Sometimes you can view dwarf details, sometimes you can’t. Sometimes right click closes one level, sometimes it’s all of them, then for the squad menu you dismiss by the squad button/hot key again… Search is useful but not available everywhere.
I hope some of these annoyances will get resolved, but certainly it’s not a perfectly polished game either. It is still fun - yes - but I can’t help but be a little sad because it could absolutely be better.
that is, figuring out or looking up-
- how to get a small farm plot going ('plump helmet' is the staple food)
- how to brew drinks at a still (set it to repeat- brew-able plants will be used indiscriminately, generally plumphelmets, and seeds will be left behind for planting)
from there, you'll start to see messages about (cancelling the brew job due to) needing more barrels/rock pots, which aren't difficult, neither are beds and mugs, which you'll see dwarfs complaining about
oh and you'll obviously want to set up stockpiles, which will keep your workshops from getting all cluttered...
anyway, the new game-start options make it easy to turn off attackers, which should ease fortress-management enough to figure out any other features you want to work on:
-centralized job management with a 'manager' and an office, which will also let you schedule jobs to occur as needs arise
-getting charcoal and ores for forging is of course a big one
hopefully the new interface makes it even easier to see what is going wrong, things that you can get a head-start on the next time you start a fortress