Dwarf Fortress

I outfitted the seven dwarves in my settlement party with everything that I thought they'd need. An anvil, and some wood and stone to build a smith, and some copper bars to forge into picks. A bunch of seeds for creating some subterranean farms, and some animals for meat.

They found a site near a large stream, and pitched the first couple of buildings. Got the picks crafted and then a couple of the dwarves set to tunneling into the rock. I had a new scheme for a fortress layout, so I marked off areas within the rock for the miners to tunnel through. They made a goodly bit of progress, when we had a visitor. An ettin caught one dwarf out in the open and pulverized him, then came down the entrance to my partially built fortress. He stomped through the halls, killing dwarves as he found them.

Sigh.

But I launched another group to go and reclaim. Thanks to the dwarven king, it was a strong party, seven hammerdwarves, seven axedwarves and seven crossbowdwarves. They haven't seen the ettin yet, but the hammerdwarves and crossbowdwarves have a defensive line outside the fort, while the axedwarves have been stood down and are continuing the digging operation.

Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress

The other day, I read a post from AttacksofOpportunity in my feed reader, where he talked about Dwarf Fortress. I followed the link, read the review, and downloaded the (free) game. I spent a few minutes playing with it, in the way that a child plays with something that it does not really understand, comprehend, or know what to do with. I read a little on the wiki, and soon, actually got a working Dwarf Fortress going. It's ugly, and the menus alone present a learning curve, but ho-ly cow, I'm so hooked. I've managed to stay up late two nights in a row playing with it. Think "Dwarf Ant Hill (in ASCII)" and you've pretty much got it. I highly recommend giving it a shot.