Dwarf Fortress hits 800k copies sold, generating over 1 million wishlists on Steam
The premium version of Dwarf Fortress is approaching an impressive milestone of 1 million copies sold. And the Adams brothers have no plans to stop developing their life’s project.
This game is pretty much the best game ever made.
It's probably the longest development time, too
There are quite a few other roguelike (or roguelike adjacient) games that do beat it handily. To give a few examples:
DF started development in October 2002 (according to their own website, scroll all the way down.)
UnReal World's first release was in 1992 and is also still getting regular updates.
NetHack has gotten new versions ever since 1987. The latest big change was 3.6.0 in 2015, 3.6.7 came out in early 2023 but there's no reason to believe there won't be a next version. If we count that in 1987 it started as a fork of Hack, we could even add another 3 years in the front as Hack was published in 1984.
Edit: I just realized: In the world of MMORPGs we also have a few examples: Everquest which came out in 2000 and is still getting expansions. Even WoW isn't too far behind with a 2004 release date, which probably means development began before DF's development too.
I mean, it's just 1 dude and he's simulating an entire fantasy world as granularly as he can.
It’s interesting that DF has been around for just year and years and whenever I think it’s fully faded out some YouTuber makes a video about it and back it goes.
It’s like a cycle. People play dwarf fortress, people make a video on it. Then they forget. And then a new, young audience is around and another video comes out about Dwarf fortress and they watch it and get into it.
I never forget about Dwarf Fortress but I racked up two months of playtime in the first three months of its release and I needed to stop
I'll go back for adventure mode, I've put probably thousands of hours in the non-steam version. I am so extremely happy that Steam sales are approaching a million. I remember that specific number was some imaginary unattainable number for the devs when they agreed to try a release on steam.
Tarn and Zach deserve all the best.
Tarn and Zach deserve all the best.
I know I don't know them personally, but I believe they are wonderful people. Every time I see or read an interview of them, I'm endeared to then even more.
Kruggsmash has been one of my favorites for years now. I remember around 2010 getting into it because of those long threads on bay12 forums where people would pass around a save file.
The steam release was weirdly divisive in the community. I played countless hours on the original, messing around with Dwarf therapist and dfhacks (which I still use) and I love the increase of attention and funding that the steam release gave the game. I feel the game is in a better state than it has ever been. And I love that so many more people have gotten into it.
I'll be so happy for the bros if this game hits a million sales. They toiled away on it for years with nearly no profit whatsoever. It's delightful to see them getting such a surge of recognition and support.
So glad to see it. One of my best friends is working on the upcoming soundtrack for it, which is a dream come true for him as a long-term super fan of the game. He did the music for The Deer God and Mines of Mars too.
Awesome!
It's a shame that Rimworld will release their dlc around the same time as the adventure update and steal the show.
Never heard of Dawrf Fortress until I had sheddit and came to lemmy, where it's sub(? Instance? Thread?) Came up on my feed before I made an account. Like a lot. Linux, programmer humor, memes, and dwarf fortress where all I saw.
I'll need to be in the right mood to start that game, but the hype is kinda insane for a roguelike. I have high expectations.
It's not a roguelike. There are two game modes. There's a colony manager (similar to Rim World, in fact it inspired Rim World and they first announced it on the DF forums), and there's also an RPG style game, except it's not like any RPG you've played before. It gives you absolute freedom, and there's also no main quest or anything. The game is being updated soon, which will be a big update for the RPG mode, and finally brining that to the Steam version, which has the graphics rather than ASCII (ASCII version is available for free and still updated).
I recommend checking out Kruggsmash if you want to learn about what Fortress Mode (colony manager) is all about, and BlindIRL for general DF news and information.
It got a lot to learn, but it's not too bad if you just know that you'll lose your first few fortresses and that's good. It's part of the learning process. You'll hopefully live the game, and welcome to the community!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.