The Art of... Dwarf Fortress
In continuous development for 20 years, Dwarf Fortress was regarded as one of the least approachable games ever made, thanks to its many layers of storied gameplay buried beneath a famously impenetrable ASCII interface. The game’s co-creator Tarn Adams and artist Carolyn Jong reveal the process that led to it selling half a million copies in just a few weeks, turning the cult freeware classic into 2023’s first indie hit
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT ADDING GRAPHICS TO A GAME WHOSE INCREDIBLE SUCCESS AND LONGEVITY IS PREDICATED ON NOT HAVING ANY? Tarn Adams: Our hope was to expand the audience, so in some sense we were required to move beyond the past. We needed graphics that worked for more people, in a format popular enough that we were sure that players would pick it up and be interested. At the same time, we wanted to remain faithful to the game as it had existed so far, and this also aligned with what we needed practically - to keep the graphics in a 2D grid, for example. So much of the existing code depended on following so many rules that many choices about the graphics were made for us in advance, if we wanted to finish in any kind of reasonable timeframe.
…MORE TO THE POINT, WHY DO IT? TA: This was a practical decision. In order to cover healthcare costs both present and future, something had to change about our situation. Once we were in that place though, we could start to think about all of the nice things that players might have, ha ha, and think about the changes more broadly. We’re happy with the result, which has been very well-received.
Brothers Zach (left) and Tarn Adams (right) celebrate the Steam release of their life’s work, Dwarf Fortress.
WHEN YOU MADE THE ANNOUNCEMENT, DID YOU FEAR YOU MIGHT ALIENATE THE PLAYERBASE? TA: Yeah, any kind of change is potentially troublesome, and it’s important to explain clearly why things are happening. It was important for us to also promise a Classic Dwarf Fortress release, without the new graphics and audio, for people that wanted the game to remain in that format. There’s always some worry, but we were hopeful the fans would stick with us, and for the overwhelming part they have. People were surprised that with the decision, I think, but many welcomed it from the outset. Others were more sceptical, and some of those are happy now and some aren’t, mainly to do with specific issues rather than any larger problem with the new release.
48 | MCV/DEVELOP February 2023
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