Dwarf Fortress from Bay 12 Games and Kitfox Games has a fresh update available on Steam today, and this brings with it their official Native Linux support.
Got it working on Linux Mint. I had to also install libsdl2-image-2.0-0 (with the recommended libsdl1.2debian libsdl-image1.2 libsdl-ttf2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libopenal1 libsndfile1 libncursesw5)
I used it in Beta and it’s amazingly stable. Love the game,too bad I don’t have the time or patience to scratch all the cool features and am quite bad it it anyway.
Do you think i’d like the game as a hardcore rimworld fan?
I like how accessible RW is, yet very unforgiving, i like the amount of freedom i have and how important pawns are, how i can be on the brink of a game over for HOURS but still bounce back. Is this anything like that?
I dont know anyones who has played it and money’s tight so asking for random’s opinion
Yes, this game is like that. This game also has more in depth simulation and mechanics, but it’s way less accessible.
One major difference is that RimWorld has a narrator AI that will make up events for your colony to experience, while dwarf fortress tries to simulate a world and the events are most of the time the result of the world simulation.
This makes RimWorld more gamey, meaning dwarf fortress can kind of get stuck in weird or bad situations, and men in black won’t magically show up to save your colony. But for many players that’s part of the charm!
MiB never helped anyways, if he appeared the situation was bad enough to guarantee a New Game.
I found some vids and learned theres a FREE ver, so im def checking when i get back from work.
Saw some vids about the game during break, its quite different imo - losing pawns doesnt seem as painful as it is in rimworld and dont really like the “classic” fantasy style it has but again, i can check it for free.
One question tho, could you give an example of a ‘weird/bad situation’?
I bought the Steam release day 1 and it has worked great with Proton. I played a couple forts and had my fill.
Now that the Linux version is out I might have to run another fort on it and see how it works.
Well I hate to say it but so far I can’t get any audio from the game when running the Linux build.
Of course as soon as I post it, I see a comment online saying that the sound properties were altered and need to be turned up much louder in the Options menu. I had to crank the game from 15% up to 100%, but it’s there and working well so far!
I can’t relate because my forts never got to that point even with a really big number of cats. I know that with DFHack you can set up an auto butcher thingy that controls the population though!
Omg, auto-butcher plus so many other niceties… everyone should be using DFHack. It’s installable through Steam as well so everything automagically works.
That sounds incredible! The game used to be so barebones and unoptimized that it was essentially a balancing act between efficiency in the game and efficiency in processing it.
My personal benchmark is $1/hr; so my question is, will I get 38 ($CAD) hours of enjoyment out of it eventually? I think I almost certainly will, this kind of game is pretty on brand for me.
While I typically love a good sale, some labors of love like this or factorio involve so much quality they warrant paying to support these wonderful developers
The game has been free for 16 years. This is the paid version to support the devs, literally because they’re getting old and they have medical bills to pay.
This game (and the people behind it) are definitely deserving of the price if you have any love for this genre of games at all. I wish all games had this level of attention to detail and love poured into them over the years.
I too was a bit skeptical at first when I bought it on the Steam release but its been one of the best game purchases I’ve made in years easily. This is one of those games you’ll come back to time and time again over the years.
FWIW there is a free version on their website. It’s worth looking into. It doesn’t have the fancy steam graphics and interface which made the game much more accessible to people, but it’s an option if you want to see what it’s all about!
The game history, and its always a pleasure to see news about it, this is a monument and the brothers deserves everything good that is happening to them.
Unless it has been changed, I believe Valve described their algorithm along the lines of “7 days after your purchase it will count towards the OS you’ve used the most to play it. If you haven’t played the game at that point it will counts towards the OS you used to buy it”
I often buy games in batches, so I usually don’t play games for a week or two after purchase. I think I fired up DF on my Steam Deck though in that first week, so I’m probably good, but that’s why I generally buy on my desktop so it gets credited even if I don’t get around to playing it for a little while.
Got it working on Linux Mint. I had to also install libsdl2-image-2.0-0 (with the recommended libsdl1.2debian libsdl-image1.2 libsdl-ttf2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libopenal1 libsndfile1 libncursesw5)
I used it in Beta and it’s amazingly stable. Love the game,too bad I don’t have the time or patience to scratch all the cool features and am quite bad it it anyway.
Nobody’s anything but ‘quite bad at it’
Do you think i’d like the game as a hardcore rimworld fan? I like how accessible RW is, yet very unforgiving, i like the amount of freedom i have and how important pawns are, how i can be on the brink of a game over for HOURS but still bounce back. Is this anything like that?
I dont know anyones who has played it and money’s tight so asking for random’s opinion
Yes, this game is like that. This game also has more in depth simulation and mechanics, but it’s way less accessible.
One major difference is that RimWorld has a narrator AI that will make up events for your colony to experience, while dwarf fortress tries to simulate a world and the events are most of the time the result of the world simulation.
This makes RimWorld more gamey, meaning dwarf fortress can kind of get stuck in weird or bad situations, and men in black won’t magically show up to save your colony. But for many players that’s part of the charm!
MiB never helped anyways, if he appeared the situation was bad enough to guarantee a New Game.
I found some vids and learned theres a FREE ver, so im def checking when i get back from work.
Saw some vids about the game during break, its quite different imo - losing pawns doesnt seem as painful as it is in rimworld and dont really like the “classic” fantasy style it has but again, i can check it for free.
One question tho, could you give an example of a ‘weird/bad situation’?
Give it a try: https://bay12games.com/dwarves/
This game is a time machine. I open the game and find myself 3 hours in the future.
Play at your own risk.
I bought the Steam release day 1 and it has worked great with Proton. I played a couple forts and had my fill. Now that the Linux version is out I might have to run another fort on it and see how it works.
@pelotron @petsoi let us know
Well I hate to say it but so far I can’t get any audio from the game when running the Linux build.Of course as soon as I post it, I see a comment online saying that the sound properties were altered and need to be turned up much louder in the Options menu. I had to crank the game from 15% up to 100%, but it’s there and working well so far!Bought it day one and went in blind. Had my fun with it but I’m excited to dive back in when adventure mode is out.
Great, it was working without issues on Gentoo and Steam Deck respectively before, too.
Is the steam game still a fight against the frame rate or can I let a hundred cats breed in my fortress without restarting?
You don’t need to restart a fortress, you can just kill the cats
At .05 fps, it’s faster to restart entirely.
In current versions of the game you have to try to get low frame rates like that.
I can’t relate because my forts never got to that point even with a really big number of cats. I know that with DFHack you can set up an auto butcher thingy that controls the population though!
Omg, auto-butcher plus so many other niceties… everyone should be using DFHack. It’s installable through Steam as well so everything automagically works.
I still don’t know how a lot of the tools in DFHack aren’t just baseline in the game at this point they are that good.
That sounds incredible! The game used to be so barebones and unoptimized that it was essentially a balancing act between efficiency in the game and efficiency in processing it.
It’s always going to be a concern, but it’s multithreaded now.
Thank you!
Just looked it up, but it’s quite expensive compared to the <£12 I usually spend on steam games (eg Terraria, Stardew Valley, Portal)
My personal benchmark is $1/hr; so my question is, will I get 38 ($CAD) hours of enjoyment out of it eventually? I think I almost certainly will, this kind of game is pretty on brand for me.
Fair enough, everyone has their own preferences.
While I typically love a good sale, some labors of love like this or factorio involve so much quality they warrant paying to support these wonderful developers
The game has been free for 16 years. This is the paid version to support the devs, literally because they’re getting old and they have medical bills to pay.
DF is also free and there’s fan made installers to run it on Linux, the Steam version just has an enhanced UI and other features.
Looks like $26.99 is the lowest it’s ever been on Steam.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/dwarffortress/info/
Yup, way above my normal budget
This game (and the people behind it) are definitely deserving of the price if you have any love for this genre of games at all. I wish all games had this level of attention to detail and love poured into them over the years.
I too was a bit skeptical at first when I bought it on the Steam release but its been one of the best game purchases I’ve made in years easily. This is one of those games you’ll come back to time and time again over the years.
FWIW there is a free version on their website. It’s worth looking into. It doesn’t have the fancy steam graphics and interface which made the game much more accessible to people, but it’s an option if you want to see what it’s all about!
There are also fan made graphics packs for the free version but they are not nearly as good as the steam version.
Love this game and its history !
And the people behind it seem genuinely awesome.
Lol. So you mean the history of the game? Or the history the game generates? Or both?
The game history, and its always a pleasure to see news about it, this is a monument and the brothers deserves everything good that is happening to them.
Cool
Well, time to buy then, to show support/demand for Linux gaming.
Literally virtue signalling lmao no one asked
I just bought like a month ago, but I bought on a Linux machine, so maybe it counted.
Unless it has been changed, I believe Valve described their algorithm along the lines of “7 days after your purchase it will count towards the OS you’ve used the most to play it. If you haven’t played the game at that point it will counts towards the OS you used to buy it”
I often buy games in batches, so I usually don’t play games for a week or two after purchase. I think I fired up DF on my Steam Deck though in that first week, so I’m probably good, but that’s why I generally buy on my desktop so it gets credited even if I don’t get around to playing it for a little while.