#df steam

[shepspencil]

HOBGOBLINS / February 2023

Thumbnail for my Dwarf Fortress mod on the Steam Workshop, released earlier this year. It's playable, you can find it here:

If you want to play the little dwarf game as a civilization of persnickety goblin-folk, check it out! They've got a handful of unique traits that set them apart.

Visual concept originally inspired by @filibusterfrog , with permission.

[thesmitchell]

Lava Moat

The final days of November fort begin now.

Watch the end at twitch.tv/the_smitchell

[dwarvendiaries]

i mean he came to chill in the tavern but i'm keeping an eye on him in case he decides to start causing Fun while the butcher's running

he got lucky tho, best name evar!

If the animal's butchered soon after it's slaughtered you shouldn't have too many issues. A steak can't exactly charge anybody.

Great name

[rockergiirl]

I realise now it probably means laboring as in working but my first thought was was “WHY WOULD YOU DEPICT THAT?!?”

[fuckyeahdwarffortress]

News from the Fortress in the constellations - our fellow dwarfs in the far skies have come to us in this time of need, and we will back them.

Starting today, I will be tagging many games with "dwarf" in their Steam store pages until this injustice against us has been rectified.

Friends - now is our time. Strike the Earth!

[evilfarmin]

Li Xiangyi has died. Badly. 😔 🪷

[dantes-funky-inferno]

yes, that's perfect, thank you

[justmaghookit]

bro if i can't get dwarf fortress to launch i think i might just walk into the sea

[qat-fort]

The Tale Of Brainpulp, the Defender and Madman of Stinkfinger

So, I've been working on a volcano fort called Stinkfinger, and a dwarf named Sazir has been the most interesting dwarf there with 0 doubt in my mind. I don't have any images of when he originally migrated to Stinkfinger, but here's what he looks like now:

He migrated to Stinkfinger in the year 102, where he was immediately drafted into the army, which at the time was only 3 dwarves. He excelled at this, and before he even became a Expert Macedwarf, he managed to single handedly stop a goblin attack, almost entirely by himself.

I decided that he deserved to become leader of the militia after this. Granted, it was a very small raid (only 4 or 5 goblins), but considering that my other 2 mace dwarves didn't even contribute in the battle, I figured it was a fair promotion. He served me well as Stinkfinger grew, until a goblin raid in the year 103 had resulted in him having motor and sensory nerve damage so severe he could no longer walk, not even with a crutch. I didn't want to take him off the now royal guard because he was technically one of my most knowledgeable dwarves, so I had to settle with demoting him. He couldn't walk and had to crawl around on the ground, but he could at least pass on what he knew about the art of the mace to new recruits. Understandably, this major injury was upsetting to him.

Despite this, he still worked and trained hard, and actually became a Grandmaster Macedwarf, which was his dream! (sort of)

After he achieved his dream, he became sort of lost and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. This plus the already large mental toll of his injuries, and the trauma that came with those injuries, overwhelmed him, and he started to show signs of madness by the year 107. He'd crawl around the halls, babbling nonsense. At this point I knew I had to do something, so I I checked his needs and his top need was that he wanted to make something. So I decided that I'd make a room just for him to make some rock crafts as a pass time. It seemed to of worked, somewhat, and after getting a few more Grandmaster mace dwarves, i figured it was for the best for him to retire. I ordered him to return his gear in the and to live a life of making rock figures so he could artistically work through his trauma.

Sazir thought this was a stupid idea, and expressed this by throwing a tantrum and giving a bard a DIY LOBOTOMY WITH HIS FUCKING FIST.

Despite committing this crime in broad daylight, no civilians reported this crime to the royal guard. Why? I have no clue. If I had to guess they didn't want Sazir to come for them next for snitching. I was upset by this, but since nobody reported him, I couldn't have him convicted. I could of done some cheesing to get him unofficially jailed, but I wanted to see how this would play out. I donned the nickname of "Brainpulp" to Sazir. Now a season or so later, Brainpulp did strike again, killing the exact same way he had before. This time however, someone reported it. Just as I was about to have him arrested however:

The largest goblin siege we've ever had came upon us. After deliberating, I decided it was fate that they had arrived when they did. Sazir could die doing the same thing that had made him so important; defending Stinkfinger. The goblins wanted to have parley, so they didn't mind waiting for Sazir to crawl around the fort to gather up his old equipment. I stationed him across from the goblin horde, alone. He would go down in a blaze of glory, gore, and goblins.

I thought that would be the end for Sazir Brainpulp, but he did the last thing i expected.

He ran.

He had literally nothing left to live for.

He had achieved his dreams, watched Stinkfinger grow from being a hole in the ground to the capital of our dwarven civilization, and had trained a fine royal guard. I figured the reason he had become so angry and hateful was because he was succumbing to the madness of having no real purpose anymore. I thought he knew that his stone crafts were simply a thing i told him to do as a way to distract him from that fact. I thought he was killing people because he was tricking himself into believing those dwarves were a threat to our home, much like the original siege goblins he had fought years prior to now. So I decided to give him one last final purpose and that was to sacrifice himself for the glory of our fortress.

I thought this was what he wanted.

I was wrong.

He crawled all the way back up the mountain to the entrance to Stinkfinger, and despite having clear orders to attack those goblins, he crawled deep into the fort, as far away as he could from the goblins marching upon us.

Fortunately, with our trained royal guard of macedwarves, we made quick work of this attack, despite it being the largest yet. When the last goblin had fallen, I checked to see where Sazir was, and he was sleeping in his room. Hiding from a honorable death.

He didn't want to retire and live out his days making stone crafts, and he didn't want to sacrifice himself in battle for our fort. So I'm not sure what he wanted. But whatever it was I couldn't provide it to him. The only thing I provided was a conviction. I convicted him for the murder of the dwarf he had killed earlier, and i ALSO convicted him of a artifact that someone else had stolen. There was no way we would ever catch the person who had done that particular crime, it was a cold case, so I figured that would be a substitute for the crime that is his cowardice.

So now lets fast forward to now, year 108. Brainpulp, now known as the local mad man, is still in his cell. You can usually hear him babbling if you happen to walk past near the doorway to the dungeon. At some point, in a fit of rage, he ripped all his clothes off and is now completely naked. His days are a cycle of insanity, brief gratuity when the poor carpenter Zuglar comes to gives him some water, then spiraling back into insanity.

Aside from Zuglar the only person he even remembers anymore is Rakust, one of his old students. Even that memory is hazy though, Sazir doesn't even remember what he looks like. The only other person Sazir claims to know aside from those two dwarves is god.

The once proud macedwarf is a hollow shell of what he once was, deteriorating after after being in confinement for so long. His prior injuries have become infected, no doubt after the poor bastard tore out his stiches.

His voice is raspy and hoarse after screaming about repentance for days on end, and his eyes have sunken into their sockets after months of guilt.

Despite his crimes and cowardice, I was starting to feel remorse for Sazir. Sazir as this fellow dwarves knew him had died in that cell ages ago, leaving behind something that could only be described as feral. I decided to see when his sentence was up, surely it would be soon, right? It had almost been a year, a i've never seen dwarve be jailed much longer than a year even for the harshest of crimes.

I checked his convition sheet and was stunned to see this:

Legally, he should of been let out ages ago most likely. Nobody has done it though. I guess the dwarves of Stinkfinger have come to fear Brainpulp, and have decided that he wouldn't be safe to release. I can't say I disagree with that.

Normally this is where his story ends, however when I built my dungeon, I built it in a very special way. I built it above a pool of magma, with levers hooked up to the grates outside of the cells. If for some reason i desired, I could pull the lever to a specific cell and have the convict in that cell killed instantly in the burning magma.

I could put him out of his misery. I'm not sure if I will yet, because theres the chance that, someday, one of my dwarves will free him, and he can leave Stinkfinger and try to find purpose for his broken life. If something important happens to Sazir, I'll be sure to let you guys know.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this little mini story from my fort. If this proves to be popular I may do more of these.

[atombombtom]

Walk up to whoever you see in public and remind them that Dwarf Fortress released on Steam. Carry tissues because it will make them cry with joy. We've all been through so much

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

BoCo and Bear have this unique look they exchange. Not every day but like once every month or so—whenever there is extremely predictable drama going down at Tidmouth.

It's a wordless "Can you believe this shit?" / "No, somehow, even after forty years, I cannot quite believe this shit."

[rottknightofrage]

Starting a new dwarf fortress world and there's a monastery called "Tattooedgirl"

[dwarvendiaries]

Dwarf Fortress bug fixes continue to be high quality

[rockergiirl]

Dwarf dropped dead in a rainy field, I don’t even know

[sassquire]

remembers dwarf fortress exists after the winter steam sale ends

[superconductivebean]

#1023: about the update

It's alright to feel disappointed.

Building hype for this long-expected unification wasn't warranted, HL PR team. People are reasonably upset over not receiving anything for a year. We can explain it by that MMO game, older console gen ports, but looking at other releases and how this one gets handled, well.

If you'd like to indulge, feel free to jump under the cut. But before you do, know that if you're upset, I'm with you.

Why hope for the sequel when something already as costly can't put it mind to garnishing itself. It isn't an impossible ask, especially when you know the HL situation is rather unique with its update absence.

I am aware not many people came to HL after a lengthy log of games to have something to compare with, so, a few examples.

No Mаn Sky. Everyone hated on it on release for not delivering on its ambitious promises; money were spent on a nothing burger. But the devs eventually turned the bland experience into something more fun but maybe repetitive, but fun nonetheless. People don't mind a game to be repetitive at times. They are finally able to meet their friends somewhere in the game's vast expanses of the traversable universe.

Cybеrpunk. Dumpster fire. Upset people, refund river. Completely bland, according to some, and definitely not an RPG of the millennia. Like, the main character, V, is basically the HL's MC: they were made to be filled with your own colours but the devs didn't have time to implement it besides the backstory choice (which doesn't matter 95% of time). Years after the release, a few systems were revamped and remade, and a long-overdue DLC has finally seen the light of day. It's arguably the best thing in the entire game now.

Stаrdew Valley. A phenomenon. It was already awesome on release but it was only the beginning; has been becoming increasingly more complex and wholesome since. This game has been developed by just an one guy plus a very few people helped him on the way. Today, he continues to drop DLC-sized bangers, with the community's help, but it's never company-structure-size thing. This all for free.

Eurо Truck Simulatоr 2. Metric ton of content for if you love a rather monotonous gameplay loop. The devs add more to the pile: free map revamps and content updates + paid DLCs with entire countries worth of territory to explore.

Deep Rоck Galaсtic. Steep and flat learning curves, four different characters with unique play styles, free content updates + you can pay for the cosmetics for nothing more but rizz (the game is meant to be played in co-op so you'll have someone to shot it off to).

Dwаrf Fоrtrеss has been out for 20+ years and it is free and has always been updated a lot since.*

An absence of plans or content for HL is thus disheartening to me.

This game being a half-baked cookie for a steep price is, well. You'd expect the level of developmental commitment of other scandalous releases, or you'd expect the passion the less known developers nourish their projects with. In this day and age we have to live with a sad realisation that the industry would rather push the half-baked thing on the market to patch it later, or it wouldn't meet the deadline.

But it also asks to pay a hefty price. It's alright to demand your money to meet the promise given, and we certainly were promised a lot. It isn't unreasonable. It isn't dull or stupid. You bought a liter of milk and got 750ml and no promise of the missing 250ml being added later, what's here not to be upset about?

It isn't any different with anything you buy, I suppose? Would it be fair if you were told the house you're about to buy has AC but when you are moving in, the wall has only a spot where it's been mounted? Or if you bought a book with *inserttopic*, half the pages were torn away?

Games aren't any different. You pay, a lot, and sometimes get 1/3 of the amount. This -- isn't alright. And in no world it should be.

Saying 'uncommon' doesn't mean there aren't games that look oddly familiar to HL, though. Stаrbound is only alive thanks to its modding community. Ovеrwatch is just sad. Bоrdеrlands 3 flopped, stripped from everything its predecessors had besides the gunplay. It will depend on who you ask, but Minеcraft, too, has these issues. Also, Anthеm. Some will shout, ThеSims4.

So. It is alright to feel disappointed if you paid for something based on, well, what's the seller said about it and literally got little from it. And just, let's not cynically defend predatory business practices here.

It is also okay to be upset when you've been lured into hoping something is about to come only to realise it's been used in a tactic to gain cheap engagement from you.

You're most correct in being sad.

tldr; Breaking the radio silence with a hype for the long-awaited but known small pack of content wasn't the PR team's brightest idea.