Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead also gives this deep simulation experience in the form of an ascii survival game.

You’ll be hopped up on cocaine trying to offset the painkilling effects of the opioids, so you can maintain the necessary concentration to install a nightvision cybernetic enhancement directly into your eye, when a once domesticated hungry dog stops by and sees you as a regrettable alternative to starving. Knowing you won’t survive the encounter in your current state, you throw a grenade at it just to be on the safe side. Except, you didn’t throw it cause in your euphoria you decided to take a little micronap.

Or: you build a freaking TANK powered entirely by an array of solar panels. It doesn’t move very fast or far given its power source, so you just let it roll forward on its own while you read a book from before the cataclysm about How to Win Friends and Influence People (in case you ever actually meet anyone). While you’re reading, you accidentally crash at 5mph into a wall. You get out to repair the minor damage, and a zombie grabs you, and hundreds more are spilling out. If only you were in your tank...you bludgeon the zombie with your book and think about how to Win Friends and Influence People.

To save people some googling:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataclysm:_Dark_Days_Ahead

Home page: https://cataclysmdda.org/

Github: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA

Stable releases: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/releases

Daily builds: https://cataclysmdda.org/#downloads

Stable releases are very old. 'Experimental' builds are very stable and most players update to newest build regularly. Some prefer to use a launcher for automatic updates: https://github.com/remyroy/CDDA-Game-Launcher/releases

Well shit, I'm sold. Dwarf Fortress is a delightful idea, but it was never something I was actually going to play.

This, though... this is exactly what I want.

Use the latest experimental build

Is it still under development? The OS X builds appear to get built daily, but the last blog post is over three years old, and so are the stable releases.

Use the experimental builds. Active development with a very active modding community.

> This is the crucial thing that distinguishes DF stories from LP writeups of other games.

I had never heard that term. To save others the time of googling it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Play

A Let's Play (commonly referred to as an LP) is a style of video (or a screenshot accompanied by text) series documenting the playthrough of a video game, usually including commentary by the gamer. A Let's Play differs from a video game walkthrough or strategy guide by focusing on an individual's subjective experience with the game, often with humorous, irreverent, or critical commentary from the gamer, rather than being an objective source of information on how to progress through the game.