As a masochist, I don’t really mind Dwarf Fortress. I’m not proud of what I had to do to get it to run, but the deed is done. Now, after two days of unspeakable horrors, I am happily dwarfing.

Fortress 1: I’d Rather Not Talk About It

Right, so, because tutorials are for squares, I started out by poking around a pocket-sized dwarf map on my own. After fifteen minutes of texting screenshots to my friends with the caption “Look what I have to do for homework!” while my dwarves, presumably, drank themselves into oblivion, I grew antsy. Another fifteen minutes passed. The dwarves continued to mill about (pun not intended). Fine – tutorial it was.

In terms of gameplay, I found the following sites quite useful:

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

https://dftutorial.wordpress.com/

Using these sites, I more or less got the hang of the basic operations of the game. I chopped trees, gathered plants, carved out a couple of caves, and constructed a carpenter’s workshop. Unfortunately farming was beyond me. Since there was no rhyme or reason to my digging, the map looked very unappealing after an hour, and, being a creature of high aesthetic taste, I grew disgusted with my dwarves, the game, and myself. I abandoned my travesty of a fortress to ruin. The dwarves are still there drinking, I imagine.

Fortress 2: Pigbushel

Apparently, in my first go, I had completely missed the preparation screen. Not so this time around. I named my group Necrocrow the Crazed Beguiler and my fortress Pigbushel. I surveyed my dwarves’ skillsets, and I used up all my points on starting goods and creatures. While playing, I was able to successfully mine to create a fortress with separate rooms, workshops, a kitchen, etc. For a while, however, farming was still beyond me. Eventually, I figured out the 3D aspect of the map and reasoned out that I had to dig in some semblance of soil to grow subterranean crops. By the time I cottoned on, however, it was past midnight, I had run out of food, and my dwarves grown in number and looked murderous, so – like a cruel and distant god – I abandoned them to their fates yet again.

Fortress 3: Pigbushel Returns 

At this point, I can comfortably say that I have a basic understanding of the sustenance portion of the game. I created a pretty nifty fortress complete with four farms, multiple storerooms, a dormitory, separate bedrooms for each dwarf, a meeting hall/dining room, a still, a kitchen, a carpentry workshop, a mason workshop, and several other workshops (fig. 1). Two or three seasons have passed, though, and I haven’t noticed any immigration. I’m hesitant to start a military until I have more than seven dwarves, and I’m a bit concerned that I might have screwed something up in my starting settings. Since nothing appears to be happening apart from buzzards stealing my food (fig. 2) and the occasional haunted cloud of dust floating by, I’m considering retiring this guy and starting another fortress for next week.