So, my experience has been very similar to Amiga’s. Much of my time was spent figuring out how to actually play the game (literally, how to physically push buttons and do things) and also reading up on some dwarf profiles and what not. The tutorials from the wiki helped me at first. I could figure out a decent place to settle (though I decided later this area sucked) and then I just got completely sidetracked on how to actually do any damn mining. Was it happening? Shouldn’t there be some kind of walls being set up at some point? I unpaused the game for several minutes and nothing seemed to be happening. But I was getting nervous. My dwarves needed me and I did not want my incompetency to lead to their demise. So like any good political leader, I relied on some good old fashioned stasis in my decision making. I spent many moments yelling at the wiki to be more clear about how to get these dwarves to work. The wiki, I suppose, does not respond well to this kind of treatment. It returned no answer. That’s my fault. I apologized, but still, the cold shoulder is what I received.

Simula’s link to this was really helpful. Things began to, at least, make a little more sense to me because it is loaded with screenshots. Still, no mining was happening. I did note that much of my land was covered in snow, and thought, well, maybe it’s just too cold to mine. Or something. So, despite my earlier devotion to my beloved dwarves’ welfare, I abandoned them to their fate and created a new world to hopefully pick a better spot, figure out how to make a fortress so I could say I fully experienced both words in the title of the game, and start from scratch with Simula’s link instead of the wiki.

Ok, so things are making a little more sense. There’s trees, and plants, and not a bunch of white wavy lines (i.e., snow) all over the place. I want to make the fortress, but the wordpress person wants me to gather plants, so maybe that matters (I guess stuff to make the fortress?). I’m ready to gather some plants as the wordpress person tells me. I’m trying to designate an area for this to happen. No dice. I try again, and I think I get it. You have to hit enter in kind of a diagonal fashion? I’m not sure. Either way, something happened. Shapes changed over after hitting enter for designation in this diagonal move. I unpaused, some dwarf moved around. I think something happened?  I just can’t say for sure. I’m also not sure how much plant gathering should go down before doing something else. Arbitrarily, I decide to pause and move on.

I’m down to the end of my Dwarf Fortress endurance, and now that I am feeling slightly more confident, why not try to make the fortress again? I designate just like the plant gathering only this time I select “mining.” But nothing seems to be happening. Why does the game refuse to report to you what the hell is going on? Who am I? Aren’t I a dwarf deity of some kind? If so, why am I not omniscient? I certainly seem to have some kind of great power, maybe not quite omnipotent. I certainly feel blind. I can see the little smiley faces moving around, but as far as what they’re doing, I have no clue. I also am pretty sure that zero mining is being done.

But hope enters (only to then quickly exit). Aha! Something. An announcement. What great wisdom to you bestow upon me oh mighty Dwarf Fortress? What’s that? You say, “It is now raining.” How insightful. Does that mean mining can’t be done in the rain? Like some part of a collective bargaining agreement between my dwarves and me? Have they unionized? I’ll bust their union you just wait!! Twelve hour work days for all; I won’t budge on it! Well, no fortress for me yet. Hopefully by the next go of it, some sort of dwelling will take shape, even if it’s some sort of dilapidated mess.