Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress begins before your settlement appears. The game creates a world with terrain, natural conditions, peoples and its own history, and you choose a place for a small group of dwarves. You then organise mining, production, food and defence. Each resident has skills, needs and feelings, so a fortress cannot be reduced to a set of working machines. An uncomfortable room, a lost loved one or a shortage of supplies can become part of a chain of events you never planned.

A public version appeared in 2006, and the project continued developing for many years. Early releases' symbolic graphics left details to the imagination while the simulation calculated relationships between residents, materials and the surrounding world. Building a stable economy is interesting, but so is understanding why it breaks down. Failure provides a story: what happened, who was nearby and which decision changed events. For the encyclopedia, Dwarf Fortress presents a game as a story generator, where the author establishes rules and interactions while a particular drama emerges during play.