Dwarf Fortress

[Shadowman]

I'm curious to see if anyone else on this forum knows about this free Roguelike game. Basically it is set into a fantasy world and you play as a starting group of 7 dwarves on a terrain of your choosing. The goal is simple: whatever you want it to be since there is no "win" condition (but a long string of "lose" conditions).

As taken from the wiki: "Dwarf Fortress is an ASCII game which includes both a roguelike adventure mode, and the more popular Dwarf Fortress Mode, which focuses on the creation and survival of a small dwarven settlement. It has a very steep learning curve, partly due to its ASCII graphics, but also due to the fact that it is one of the most complex games ever released. Dwarf Fortress is completely free.
Before you play, you must generate a world to play in, which persists until you create a new one. World generation can be time consuming, even on modern computers, but be patient. It's worth it."

If any of you got turned off by the word "ASCII" it is possible to change the tileset to something more intuitive so, say...barrels look like actual barrels instead of some keyboard character.

Also no matter if you wanna try (and die alot, which is okay but rather fun when you first flood your fort) or not, there is the epic saga of Boatmurdered from version 0.22.110.22f which was in 2D, the game has vastly improved since then (0.28.181.40a) and made the jump to 3D, and lack killer elephants but has made up for it with schools of deadly carp.

If your dream in life is to base your doctorate thesis in social sciences about Morals VS Need, Capitalism VS Communism (the good kind) or just want to know why mittens rhyme with kittens, then give Dwarf Fortress a try...then create a goblin arena where you dump a dragon in for giggles.