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A comment on The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress (2011). Parent comment

Re:The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress (2011) by zeveb on Tuesday February 28, 2017 @10:55AM (#13754640)
It's not either the traditional DF UI or a mouse-driven interface: other alternatives would be an improved keyboard-driven interface or an interface which uses both the keyboard and the mouse well (yes, I'm aware that technically DF does have some mouse interacton: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mouse_control).

Dwarf Fortress is an amazing game with an incredible engine, but its UI is notoriously terrible, and IMHO deservedly so. But then, I've never managed to last very long, so perhaps there's something wrong with me.

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Re:The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress (2011) by GrantSolar on Tuesday February 28, 2017 @11:50AM (#13755091)
The UX is a hurdle. There are inconsistencies and the last time I played, third-party utilities were pretty much mandatory in order to manage your dwarves effectively.

That said, the great thing about the UI is that once you've learned it you can discard it. If you know the commands you need, you can hide the 'commands' area to give you more information on the current gamestate.

FWIW, DF is absolutely fantastic at doing what it's designed to do. It's primarily a story generator not a game, which is partly why interactivity is almost an afterthought

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