[HN Gopher] Dwarf Fortress - Boatmurdered Part #1 - Intro (2006)
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       Dwarf Fortress - Boatmurdered Part #1 - Intro (2006)
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 103 points
       Date   : 2024-10-19 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lparchive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lparchive.org)
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | (The submission should have a [2006] in the title)
       | 
       | As silly as it sounds to say, the importance of Boatmurdered
       | can't be understated. Boatmurdered was an internet sensation and
       | put Dwarf Fortress on the map; the depth and complexity of the
       | simulation was mind-blowing to read about for the era (and it's
       | still more-or-less unmatched in many ways). Without that there'd
       | be no Infiniminer (and later, no Rimworld, no Factorio), and
       | without that there'd be no Minecraft.
        
         | refulgentis wrote:
         | TL;DR: Is it possible that it seems to you that Dwarf Fortress
         | was the first game with procedural generation?
         | 
         | Full comment:
         | 
         | Factorio wouldn't exist with Dwarf Fortress?
         | 
         | If this is a claim that Dwarf Fortress paved the way for
         | deep(er) simulation games, enabling Factorio, I don't think
         | that's accurate.
         | 
         | I was ~18 in 2006 and a _huge_ fan of simulation games when I
         | was growing up. There were plenty with depth that approximated
         | Factorio.
         | 
         | I've never heard of Infiniminer or Rimworld.
         | 
         | 5 minute review of Infiniminer shows its a very different game
         | and has a specific triad of inspirations named by the creator,
         | all of which predate Dwarf Fortress. (Team Fortress,
         | Infinifrag, and Motherload)
         | 
         | Rimworld is nearly a decade after Dwarf Fortress, so its
         | impossible for me to claim it wouldn't exist without it, and I
         | believe vice versa.
        
           | Philpax wrote:
           | No, their claim is that specific lineage of inspirations led
           | to the games we enjoy today. It is very unlikely that the
           | games would exist in the same form without the innovations
           | and discoveries made along the way.
        
           | ekidd wrote:
           | > Factorio wouldn't exist with Dwarf Fortress?
           | 
           | According to Factorio's developers, they were heavily
           | inspired by Minecraft factory mods like IndustrialCraft.
           | Minecraft is commonly said to have been inspired by
           | Infiniminer.
           | 
           | I'm not aware of Infinimer being inspired by Dwarf Fortress.
           | 
           | RimWorld is basically "Dwarf Fortress on an alien planet",
           | although the simulation doesn't go as ridiculously deep.
           | RimWorld has in turn inspired a bunch of attempts to do
           | "RimWorld on a spaceship," but none of so far have achieved
           | the status of being a "classic".
        
           | kozziollek wrote:
           | Notch (the original creator of Minecraft) mentioned he got
           | inspired by DF:
           | 
           | > Infiniminer is the main inspiration for the blocky design
           | and the terrain deforming. Dwarf Fortress is the main
           | inspiration for the survival game mode, and this is where I
           | want to take the majority of the gameplay.
           | 
           | https://web.archive.org/web/20120126163153/http://notch.tumb.
           | ..
           | 
           | Kovarex (creator of Factorio) mentions Minecraft mod(s):
           | 
           | > I always loved minecraft mods like industrial craft, but
           | limitations of minecraft were my motivation to create
           | something on my own.
           | 
           | https://forum.industrial-craft.net/thread/8845-factorio/
           | 
           | and not getting job at Mojang:
           | 
           | > I had this great idea to apply for a job at Mojang as
           | working on Minecraft might be very inspiring. I didn't get
           | any reply, and later on, I decided to try to make something
           | on my own.
           | 
           | https://web.archive.org/web/20170324040836/https://www.minec.
           | ..
        
             | refulgentis wrote:
             | My curiosity/claim is neither "There are 0 games inspired
             | by Dwarf Fortress" nor "Minecraft was not inspired by Dwarf
             | Fortress" :)
             | 
             | Rather, 2 of the 3 specific games named, none of which are
             | Minecraft, seem directly contradicted. I'm curious about
             | the larger idea OP was getting at.
        
           | itsoktocry wrote:
           | > _There were plenty with depth that approximated Factorio._
           | 
           | Curious if you could name a handful.
        
             | refulgentis wrote:
             | SimCity, Age of Empires, Sim$X (they really need to
             | rerelease SimAnt), Roller Coaster Tycoon were my gotos, off
             | the top of my head. Railroad Tycoon is probably the best
             | obvious simile but also wasn't my favorite. Too much
             | management :)
        
         | beng-nl wrote:
         | Nitpick, but I think you mean "can't be overstated" - no matter
         | how important you state the thing to be, it's not overstated,
         | because the thing is just that important. Hence, can't be
         | overstated.
        
           | sshine wrote:
           | Maybe he meant "mustn't be understated", so "can't" as in
           | "mustn't".
           | 
           | Not to argue about idioms, what you say is right.
        
             | rrssh wrote:
             | Then it sounds authoritarian, "we'll have a beef if I hear
             | you understated boutmurdered"
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | Listen, my capacity for malapropisms can't be understated.
        
           | Fuzzwah wrote:
           | Similar to "I could care less".
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | I tried to get into dwarf fortress, but always went back to
         | Rimworld occasionally and mostly Oxygen Not Included.
        
       | lubujackson wrote:
       | My favorite Dwarf Fortress playthrough description and did a good
       | job of explaining how the game actually works and how different
       | people approach the game. I believe someone made a comic or
       | animation or something based on this specific playthrough.
       | 
       | Reminds me a lot of sofrware engineering projects where someone
       | works on this pet project for a long time then someone else comes
       | in and completely ignores it or has no idea how to use it because
       | there's no documentation...
        
         | recursivecaveat wrote:
         | It looks like the animation had to be abandoned in favor of
         | real life commitments unfortunately:
         | http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60750.0
         | 
         | This artist made a short series for another LP that are really
         | charming: https://youtube.com/@starguarded
        
         | sundarurfriend wrote:
         | > Reminds me a lot of sofrware engineering projects where
         | someone works on this pet project for a long time then someone
         | else comes in and completely ignores it or has no idea how to
         | use it because there's no documentation...
         | 
         | I didn't understand how this connects to the first paragraph at
         | first, but I think you're saying this playthrough is an analog
         | to someone making such documentation, thus saving DF from such
         | a fate?
         | 
         | The general point is certainly true, there's a lot of projects
         | out there that never see as much use as they could, where
         | someone has put a lot of effort into the work, but never
         | managed to present it in an accessible way - where you can't
         | even tell what problem it's solving, even if you're dealing
         | with that problem at that very moment.
         | 
         | No documentation is one obvious way this happens, but there's
         | also lots of projects where there's a good amount of
         | documentation but only at the wrong abstraction level. It's
         | easy to get lost in the implementation and document only the
         | minutiae, but taking the small step to imagine your past self,
         | go back to the big picture, and write just a few paragraphs
         | from that perspective, can make a project so much more usable
         | for others. (It's also ok to just create something for yourself
         | and put it out there in a "take it or leave it" way if you're
         | not charging for it, this is more about the projects that do
         | want more people to use them, but just never manage to present
         | themselves in the right way.)
        
           | tehbeard wrote:
           | No.
           | 
           | It's because it's a succession play (series of users, each
           | plays one in game year before handing it to the next.)
           | 
           | So the various mechanisms set up for drawbridges, flood
           | control etc by player 2-3.... aren't labeled / clear to
           | player 7...
        
             | sundarurfriend wrote:
             | That makes sense, thanks.
        
           | icen wrote:
           | > I didn't understand how this connects to the first
           | paragraph at first, but I think you're saying this
           | playthrough is an analog to someone making such
           | documentation, thus saving DF from such a fate?
           | 
           | (Not OP) Possibly, but one of the repeated themes in
           | Boatmurdered is a number of fortress defenses (some with
           | considerable collateral damage) attached to a variety of
           | scattered and unmarked levers.
           | 
           | Does pulling this lever lower the drawbridge, irrigate the
           | fields, or douse the world in cleansing magma? Only one way
           | to tell!
        
       | becquerel wrote:
       | Absolute classic.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Dwarf Fortress is a single player game. But if you take a saved
       | game and pass it around you can take off from where others left
       | off.
       | 
       | Boatmurdered is a Dwarf Fortress game session done by different
       | people in this way, which is a good intro to the game for those
       | who haven't played it.
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | tempts me to finally pick up dwarf fortress
       | 
       | that will keep me away from new factorio for a sufficient time
       | for that world to settle out and become safe, surely
        
         | moreofthis wrote:
         | If you've not been back in a while, give it a look a lot has
         | been added. There's multi-tile enemies now, and a UI!
         | 
         | If you do go back, there's an option in the Game tab in the
         | settings to bring back keyboard controls for area selection
         | called "Keyboard cursor enabled".
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | I got it on the steam deck but it needs a keyboard so I haven't
         | actually played it yet.
        
       | sgrove wrote:
       | Does anyone have a pdf of all of the pages together? This seems
       | great to listen to as a NotebookLM podcast on a commute to work
       | on Monday.
       | 
       | Better yet, if someone has already _done_ that Notebook Lm
       | podcast and has a link to it, please share!
        
         | gloflo wrote:
         | Why would want to hear a so wonderfully written story changed
         | into a shallow, awkwardly phrased shadow of itself, read by
         | robot voices in podcaster cadence?
        
       | leononame wrote:
       | A Boatmurdered read is one of the few times I actually burst out
       | laughing in front of my screen - multiple times.
       | 
       | Every time I read it I want to get back into dwarf fortress, but
       | this damn game introduces so much new stuff over time that I
       | can't shake off the feeling it's just too much for me. I _loved_
       | that game until about ten years back but haven't played in ages.
        
       | arwalk wrote:
       | I don't know if that's appropriate, but that's an opportunity for
       | me to boost this little tool I made :
       | https://github.com/Arwalk/lparchive2epub
       | 
       | This tool builds an epub file from a let's play from lparchive.
       | 
       | Installation is through pip, it requires python >= 3.12.
       | 
       | Boatmurdered has been built with it for the occasion on
       | https://github.com/Arwalk/lparchive2epub/blob/master/prebuil...
       | (click on raw to get it) , but i wouldn't advise on downloading
       | stuff from the internet without prior verifications, of course.
       | 
       | I'd love to have some feedback on it and its output, considering
       | i've been the only one using it so far, afaik.
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | For sure it's appropriate!
        
       | CodeCompost wrote:
       | The Deadwood narrative in one of the parts put me off. I might
       | read it again but I'll ask ChatGPT to clean that part up.
        
       | fluorinerocket wrote:
       | Yes!! Such a classic
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-19 23:00 UTC)