It's an AWESOME roguelike,city building and survival simulator created by Bay12games with head developer Toady One.Its default textures are in Ascii but you can convert ascii letters into textures by urself or by using *<< PeridexisErrant's DF Starter Pack >>*(which contains the game plus some 3rd party programs,tilesets and more.I suggest you download it.Especially if you're starting out.)
Information:In this game you can choose 2 modes of gameplay and Legends viewer(which I explain below).
1.Dwarf fortress mode
In fortress mode you pick an embark location and then assign 7 Dwarfs you set their labors or skills(or jobs whatever you want to call it),set some starting equipment,food and some animals to start with and you build your own fortress.Your goal is to build a fortress and survive from any invaders goblins or megabeasts,keep your dwarfs happy so they don't kill each other,trade goods with merchants at trade depots,kill elfs,train military and the least goes on.
In Adventure mode you create an Adventurer Dwarf,Human,Elf or Kobolds(if there are no other civilizations and there are kobolds) set him some skills and venture around the world.Your goals are to accomplish quests venture in the wilderness to find caves,shrines,lairs,towns,camps(according to patch 0.40.01) and most of all visit abandoned fortresses watch how your fortress is still up and running even if it's not under your controll(according to patch 0.40.01) or take revenge from the foes that have sealed its fate.In this mode suicide is an option at any given moment seriously and if you don't kill yourself the world will do it for you (hehe).
I'm going to put a list of tutorials and useful links soon
Features:This game got some really cool features:
Weather:Snow,Rain
Seasons:Some areas change with the seasons etc if it gets winter it will snow so the green area you got will go white,lakes will freeze and also your dwarfs will freeze too
Caravan visits:Caravans come for trades,you give stuff to them and the give you back and so on,but there are many different type of caravans like elfs(which are the worst pieces of sh*ts everyone hates them),Humans,dwarfs.
Your building style and stuff needed will change to where is the area and stuff
and many other(will list more later) why dont you see them for yourself ;)
This game is complicated in the beginning but when you get used to it it is lot of fun.
(Trust me it does I got addicted to it O.o)
I suggest you watch many tutorials or else it will take long till you get use to it.
I suggest these dudes Captnduck, FogeyGaming, RiotHouseLP
I mostly suggest Captnduck but each one of them use different tactics so you choose.
The game is currently single player game but there is a tool called Dfterm2 that allows users to connect into the same world
There are programs which you can see your fortress in 3D,or 2D cartoonish style
All those programs can be found here
I watched captnduck's video tutorials when I was getting started (which was ages ago). I can't speak to how good they are compared to your recommendation, but they helped me out quite a bit until I got the hang of it and started figuring out things on my own.
It takes a while to get the hang of it, but once you do it's great (and pretty addictive, too).
Originally Posted by Hamster
Dwarf fortress has a learning curve right up alongside the most punishing of roguelikes, but it's very satisfying once you get into it.
Originally Posted by 4zb41
Suffice it to say, Vampire dwarves are the best dwarves to make an army with. If you can infect all of your dwarves (how you do that is a secret!) then you can effectively have a ridiculously OP fortress that doesn't need to eat and has a great, fast-learning army to defend it.
KillTheCook:Not really all you need is to poor some vampire blood into your dwarves' water source
Originally Posted by Powas
Dwarf fortress you say?
hm
looks legit
Originally Posted by floop78
Oh man I play this game too! IMO adventure mode is waaay more fun to play mostly because you can get into it a bit faster. However, you can do some pretty cool things in classic mode. The best thing about dwarf fortress is the stories that you can tell your friends things can get pretty crazy.