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Comment by deadbunny | Hacker News Reader

DF is extremely fun.

And in the same way, it's a game's job to make sure their players have fun, one of which is to have a good onboarding experience.

No, that’s not a game’s job. You will not enjoy every game. Those games that you did not enjoy are not necessarily failures. They are simply games that _you_ did not enjoy.

Sure, that's not what I'm saying though. It's the job of the game to be fun in general, not in specific to some individual, and one of those ways is to have a good onboarding experience. People saying DF is fun are having fun despite its terrible onboarding, not because of it; in other words, cope.

No, no. If you cannot figure out a game then it won’t be fun, and you won’t enjoy it. But other people _will_ figure it out, and will enjoy it. And many of them will enjoy it more _because_ it was challenging to figure out and to do well at. It’s ok to write an approachable game, but not all games must be approachable.

They should be approachable to have the maximum number of people be able to enjoy them and even cynically increase sales. That some people find them fun despite the lack of approachability is just that, cope.

I remember the "onboarding experience" essentially being losing over and over again and learning from my mistakes, getting a little further or trying a new approach altogether on each new attempt. Maybe it's an acquired taste but by the time I started playing Dwarf Fortress, I was not only already used to that, but thoroughly enjoying it as a core mechanic of games like Rogue, NetHack and Ancient Domains of Mystery.

I don't believe in the concept of "fun in general" in the sense you imply here. I've played very successful games that have evidently achieved popular appeal but that nonetheless turn me off because they're the absolute opposite of Dwarf Fortress: carefully manufactured designs of intentional experiences that you are guided through at every step. Some people really like that, some will want to be thrown in the wilderness with no clue, some want something in-between. Different strokes for different folks.

Some games are not fun to anyone, that is what I'm talking about for fun in generality. Games must be fun for someone, at least some number of people, to be called a good game. Some games get there with a good onboarding and some do it despite that as I said.

Sure, maybe someone may enjoy Dwarf Fortress despite that, but as I recalled from my own experience, it wasn't despite it that I enjoyed getting into Dwarf Fortress, but in large part because of it.

So are you wrong in saying generally that it's "despite its terrible onboarding, not because of it", or am I coping by lying? Mind you, Dwarf Fortress is preceded by a whole genre of more traditional Rogue-like games that made losing hundreds or thousands of times for a lack of knowledge of the games' systems before you figured them out a fundamental part of their appeal, so I'm not exactly alone in this.

Plenty of players have fun with the game, regardless of your personal opinions on the "on-boarding experience".

I think you want this game to be something it's not. It's not a casual game for casual gamers. It's a game whose mantra is literally "losing is fun". It's esoteric menus and attention to detail are the result of decades of work by a couple of guys that just wanted to make the game they and their fans wanted to make.

It's imperfections are part of it's charm and if that turns you off from the game then it's not for you and that's OK.

I play Dwarf Fortress quite a bit. It does not stop me seeing the flaws in it. It is not perfect so I'm not sure why people act like it is, they're just coping that it doesn't have a good onboarding experience and once Tarn adds it (as he's always been doing), suddenly gamers will act as if that's what was missing all this time. It's a sense of hypocrisy I've not seen elsewhere.

> It does not stop me seeing the flaws in it. It is not perfect so I'm not sure why people act like it is

You're being way too dismissive of people that think the onboarding is reasonable. They can disagree with that without being blinded and thinking the game is flawless.

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