It’s always satisfying to see the underdog triumph.
Dwarf Fortress has been a little engine that might in the gaming business for decades, and the title is now finding some well-deserved success after its official release in December. Dwarf Fortress has only been released for a month, but it has already surpassed 500,000 sales on Steam, which is rather impressive for a game with such humble beginnings. This was the developer Bay 12 Games’ two-month sales goal, and the team exceeded it twice as fast as they expected. Furthermore, with well over 15,000 reviews, the game has gotten the coveted “overwhelmingly good” reaction on the site.
The roots of Dwarf Fortress may be traced back to 2002, when it was created as shareware. Dwarf Fortress released its initial alpha edition in 2006, thanks to the persistent labor of the game’s two-man development team (brothers Tarn and Zach Adams) and contributions to keep the project solvent. The game developed a cult following over time, is believed to have impacted games like as Minecraft and RimWorld, and was even featured in a 2012 show on the history of gaming at New York’s prestigious Modern Museum of Art. For many individuals, its completion and eventual release on December 6, 2022 represented a watershed point in gaming history.
The game itself combines building and management simulation principles with rogue-like aspects. A game with such a deep history breeds complexity in its gameplay, since even though it’s a notoriously difficult game to learn, it’s a tremendously gratifying experience — even with the chance encounters that may wipe out your carefully-planned town in the blink of an eye. The Steam reviews are full with humorous stories that spontaneously arose as players progressed through the game, which I believe is a true credit to some fantastic game design.
