If you’re interested, No Clip, a YouTube channel, made a 4pt documentary about Dwarf Fortress. He’s not my favorite documentarian, but I still thought it was interesting.
I just wanted to post this, personally I really like NoClip and this is one of the most personal documentaries they’ve done, so far, I think. The Dwarf Fortress brothers seem really cool, so humble and unpretentious (and giant nerds, obviously 😸)
I kept reading r/Eve for years after winning. Seemed to slow down after the casino war, then the Mittani left. Just today I see that Pandemic Horde is disbanding.
I think eve might be winding down honestly. New player experience is still fucking awful and the people that had time and money in the past to dedicate to eve seem to be moving on.
Not saying it’s going to die soon probably just a gradual slow down.
I never really played that one or followed the stories on it, but I always thought it might be a good fit for me because I remember there were a lot of excited players when Excel integration was announced.
A user base excited about data and spreadsheets? Hell yeah.
Dwarf Fortress bug reports are incredible. Since this is lemmy I’m sure people have heard of the alcoholic cats but it’s a fun reread
I just can’t beat the drunken cat bug… That was the one where the cats were showing up dead all over the tavern floor, and it turned out they were ingesting spilled alcohol when they cleaned their paws.
I think that bug explains very well just how deeply complex Dwarf Fortress really is. Drinks can be spilled. Some drinks have alcohol. If cats step in something it sticks to their paws. Cats clean their paws, causing them to ingest what’s on them. Enough alcohol will kill a cat. Put together: dead drunken cats.
I vaguely remember that part of the problem was the game didn’t differentiate between licking a small amount of ale and drinking a whole glass. So the cats were basically chugging a beer each time they cleaned their paws
Yeah, no, it’s ridiculously, nonsensically complex. In the most delightful and unexpected ways. Like, it’s not necessarily complex in the ways that you think it is or should be complex. It’s complex in ways that you never even would’ve imagined. For no real reason. Just because.
I’m digging rimworld and have df owned but odd sometimes the names of things are “fuzzy” to my eyes. maybe font, coloring, whatever … I just can’t find myself connecting to the names. I’ll keep trying though.
You can give them nicknames in game if that makes it easier. You can also change the pool of names or even the entire dwarven language if you want, it’s all text files (at least in the ascii version, not sure about Steam)
Check your resolution and scaling settings if it’s literally blurry. If you’re not using an integer multiple of your monitor’s native resolution, fonts can become hard to read because they don’t scale evenly into the pixels available. Sometimes games launch for the first time with weird defaults for resolution, so worth having a look if you haven’t already.
I’ve seen and picked up describing Rimworld as Dwarf Fortress for babies (positive). Sometimes I want a baby game! Like, 1000+ hours of a baby game. Don’t judge me.
Tarn mentioned a couple of his favorite bugs in this interview:
My favorites are the one where the farmer walked over to the furniture stockpile, grabbed a bed, walked over to his farm and planted it, and the one with the injured hammerer. The hammerer is the dwarven executioner. When both of his arms were broken and he was unable to hold his hammer to administer Dwarven Justice, he still went ahead with the punishment, but he bit his victims. This included shaking his head vigorously and tearing their arms off, which he then held in his mouth for years.
When I read “injured hammerer” I initially read hammer, which made me think of an ARK Survival Evolved bug from years back. This was more unhinged though.
Regardless; vehicles, I believe, are basically just dinosaurs without a lot of the dinosaur-ish abilities, as far as the code is concerned. At least that used to be the case. When rafts were initially implemented, they’d forgotten to disable the hunger functionality on them, because over time your raft would starve to death.
IIRC, the devs re-used code for dwarves blinking, which resulted in cats licking their beer-soaked paws at the same rate as blinking. Even a small amount ingested per lick at that rate led to alcohol poisoning.
Tarn once explained it in more detail: the game’s code is object oriented, and the small amount of beer on a cat’s paw inherited all the variables of a full mug of beer. And the game uses a creature’s body size + amount of alcohol ingested to calculate/simulate drunkenness (all the way to alcohol poisoning and death).
Good luck bit you won’t be able to dive in blind, it’s far to complex to do it without tutorials and so on. It’s a bit hard to get into it initially as the learning curve is steep and the UI clunky. (I played several years ago though so hopefully it improved) Also just for people to know the game is open source and free (like in free beers) if you don’t want to buy it on steam. On Steam you support the developers though
I always hear about Dwarf Fortress being the spiritual progenitor of Rimworld; “It walked so Rimworld could Run” kind of thing. But honestly everything I’m reading in the comments makes it sound even MORE fucked up than Rimworld (in the best kind of way).
There was another bug where dwarfs would sometimes go blind after a fight. The problem was that they got blood in their eyes and had no way to get it out. This led to the addition of eyelids so they could blink away blood.
Starting with 2 cats would mean the extinction of local wildlife because they would breed and hunt everything until there are only cats.
Dwarf Fortress is so complicated that the bugs tend to be hilarious.
EDIT: Okay clearly the cat alcohol story is already infamous and is recounted much better about a dozen times in this very thread. XD
Also don’t forget players discovering tons of dead cats, apparently from alcohol poisoning.
If I recall correctly, their fur absorbed liquids. The cats walked in booze. Each paw counted erroneously as a full mug of beer absorbed. When the cats cleaned themselves, they drunk themselves to death.
Game is absolutely bonkers wild and a gem of emergent mechanics.
Nah the best bug was cats dying of alcohol poisoning because they’d walk through the tavern, get booze spilled on them, and then lick it off themselves when cleaning. Since they weren’t programmed to drink booze directly, they had 0 tolerance for it and would easily die from it.
Nonono, alcohol tolerance is a function of the creature’s weight, and it works perfectly.
The problem was the amount of alcohol that would get transferred on their paws when walking on spilled booze. If the alcohol was spilled from a mug, then the game would place the equivalent of a full mug of booze on each paw, which would then be ingested when the cat cleaned them.
Four full mugs of beer would be more than enough to waste anything the size of a cat.
Was that just so you could get a pint of blood from the cats? And then the cats die of alcohol poisoning because you have a secret vampire cat and they normally hit the bottle pretty hard, but with not enough blood disorder they get wasted too easy and thus die.
They added cats. Because the dev has a cat, he had the cats have some catlike behaviors, including licking itself clean. This tied into the ingestion code, deliberately.
The ingestion feature hooks into the new syndrome system. There are all kinds of procedurally generated poisons that can do all kinds of nasty things, mostly for the “forgotten beasts” that dwell in the caverns to make use of. While he was at it, he added the syndromes for a couple of canonical substances as well, primarily alcohol, inputting the values for a serving of beer, whiskey, etc, that a dwarf might drink, so that they can get drunk, and even sick if they overindulge. This is calculated by body weight.
Elsewhere was included a contamination feature, so that walking through puddles would get mud on your dwarves boots and clothes.
Then he added bars for the dwarves, and gave them carousing features such as quaffing, which would end up with spilled drinks on the floor.
Result? Cats walk through puddles of beer, get it on their paws, and lick it off. The syndrome information of the beer or whiskey or whatever is then applied to the cat. This is not a bug, this is intentional behavior.
The bug was that the full dosage of the syndrome was applied upon ingesting a contaminant. So the few drops of beer or whiskey were being treated as if they were full servings, so when the alcohol was applied to the cats’ body weight, which again, was an intended feature, it absolutely overwhelmed them and the cats started dying of alcohol poisoning. Just from the smattering on their fur.
It’s an awesome series of steps and combinations of systems to get this bug, and 99% of it was fully intended. And that’s all you need to know about dwarf fortress.
I have the Razer one. It said it was for Android, and I do have an Android phone, and it basically works, but back then, iPhones were using Lightning. For whatever reason, it does not support iPhones. My iPhone has a bigger screen (6.9" vs 5.8") and is more powerful. The Android phone is good enough for retro emulation, of course, but iOS wins Nintendo emulation with Delta, due to the Google Drive backup feature. I have a Flygrip on my iPhone, and I have an 8bitdo Bluetooth controller that can pair to the iPhone. I think Xbox controllers can, too. My old Xbox One controller pairs to my Macs just fine. Maybe it’ll pair to iPhone.
Fortunately RetroArch is on iOS as well. I don’t think it can use all the cores, but it can use the ones that count (like PS1 and prior). I know on Android you get all of them, including PS2, PSP, Wii, NGC, and so on. But my Android phone is a Galaxy S10 (2019), so I wouldn’t expect it to run the newer games. My iPhone 16 Pro Max is capable, but won’t run the actual cores due to iOS restrictions.
I wonder how hard it would be to homebrew a Raspberry Pi, a custom screen, and a custom controller. Though for what you’d spend doing it (and the value of your time!) there are existing devices (mostly from China, I think) that are meant to do exactly that. But I wouldn’t know where to start with those.
I can even play games on my Apple Watch, but you gotta think, with only one hand controlling it (assuming you’re wearing the watch), you can’t play too many games. I have Zelda, as a proof of concept, but Pokemon is far more likely.
These days, just about anything can emulate. Not too many of them can do it well. A good example is, the original Super Mario Bros… The latency is way too high to play it like you can on original hardware, and it sucks that as advanced as our tech is, the game is virtually unplayable in any emulator. It feels like you’re playing on an ice level (like in Mario 2) almost with how slow the game is to react. We didn’t have this problem in the 80s playing on an actual NES. Even the newer Nintendo consoles are just emulating, and they are subject to the same latency issue. Even first-party Nintendo games on modern consoles can’t beat the latency. For example, on Animal Crossing — fucking Animal Crossing — fishing is impossible to do if a fish has 3 (of 5) stars of rarity or higher. The fucking second it bites, you press the button, latency got ya — you were too late. But undock the Switch and I can catch 5 star sharks, whale sharks, the fucking Coelacanth — every time. It’s a game for grade school kids. It’s not hard. But latency makes it go from “tricky” to “what the fuck why is this game so hard?” real quick.
Thanks for bringing Delta to my attention! I use my Steam Deck for emulation - but now, I have another rabbit hole to go down for when I need to pack ultralight!
Any obvious iOS restrictions, assuming I’d be primarily interested in SNES gaming and have local access to any/every ROM file?
Okay, say we’re standing face to face and I’m showing you my iPhone. I swipe between library pages showing you my games. I go into Final Fantasy III and show you a 50 hour save. Then, to your astonishment, I swipe up to Home, then uninstall the app. “But your save!” you say, but I’m just smiling. I go into the App Store, re-download Delta. I show you my empty library. Then I go to sign into Google Drive, turning my back for privacy. I turn back and show you I’m hitting Enter/Submit/Log In/whatever. We watch as my games repopulate the library. I open Final Fantasy III. My save is intact.
You’re excited. You want Delta too. So you download it on yours. You have the games at home and you’ll load them up later, but you wanna get some time in on Super Metroid right now. So I scroll down to it, long press it, and tap AirDrop. You swipe down, long-press your connections widget, tap AirDrop, and change it to “Everyone for 10 minutes.” Your iPhone shows up, and I AirDrop you the game. Your iPhone receives it, and it opens in Files. You tap on it, it gives you the option to open it in Delta. It’s now in your library. And backed up to your Google Drive account, if you set that up.
Android guys have some better options than Delta, for sure, but they also kinda wish they had Delta.
Delta emulates only Nintendo and only up to the NDS. That said, as a Super NES gamer, you should be aware of better ports on later systems. Most notably IMO, Zelda 3 on Super NES vs Four Swords on GBA. Four Swords is a multiplayer thing, but it also includes Zelda 3 but with better translation, widescreen support, a better inventory, updated translations, and some other fixes. Of course, if you’re running a JP Zelda 3 1.0 for exploits and speed runs, well, that’s different. (You can do that, too.)
Razer Kishi. That’s what I have — but mine only supports Android (I have one of each). It’s USB-C, but doesn’t support my iPhone 16 Pro Max. That being said, if your controller is recognised by iOS, it should work. I use the 8bitdo controller that looks like a Super NES controller, only it has analogue sticks and a second set of triggers (like a PlayStation controller). Works great.
But yes, since Apple revamped the Files app, every app that exposes its files to iTunes/macOS should have its files accessible right in Files, and you can move from the app folder to the download folder and vice-versa. It still isn’t as open as Android, but functionally, it’s just as good. I have no problem moving files between my iPhone and either my Android phone, or my wife’s. What you really need for this is an app that will set up a file host, and that app also needs to expose its files to the Files app. Have one host, have the other connect to it, two-way communication over WiFi. No AirDrop needed, they just have to both be on the same WiFi network (could be one’s hotspot).
Ya, whole show was kind of a let down, TankRat, from the Beginning no less, was the only one that really cought my eye. Oh well, at least Expedition 33 got its due & EVERYTHING ELSE SOMEHOW.
I really should play it already, if even the notoriously AAA subordinate Jeffy K. had to acknowledge those French people’s game so hard.
The Jabroni Mike one was done with Fredrik Knudsen like 4 years ago. Also if you want to watch Fredrick Knudsen do a Mage the Ascension game he does one with some of Bruva Alfabusas crew, also it’s on Bruva Alfabusas channel.
I personally use a PS4 controller with a phone mount. The weight distribution is maybe a bit less comfortable depending on what angle your hold it, but it’s pretty compact and the controller itself is great quality this way.
same setup here! only i’m using a ps5 controller. i actually swapped the clamp for a magsafe car adapter i had lying around, turned out it was the exact same thread size.
the main benefit really is that official controllers (switch pro, xbox, ps, whatever) just feel way better quality-wise. plus you can still use them on pc or the actual console. totally agree on the weight though, you definitely have to adjust the angle depending on how you’re sitting. and yeah it’s technically portable but i wouldn’t pull this out on a train lol, mostly just for the couch at home. and if you already have a controller lying around, the mount is only gonna cost a few bucks, even a used ps4 controller is super cheap.
Aside from the weight, I don’t know why but I felt my setup was more shaky this way… That’s why the telescopic controller is still my way to go when I want to properly play on mobile.
Same for FF but also no tactical shite either, turn based is fine but the damn chessboard shit was enough during the 3DS era, so many great stories ruined by the gameplay.
I haven’t played the tactics games yet (Ivalice right?) but you just broke my heart. I love tactics games man, and I feel like there’s not a lot of them outside of the Fire Emblem series. I haven’t gotten around to many to be fair though.
Larian’s next game is the teased statue that Keighley tweeted, so they’ll have something to announce tonight. The only thing they said it isn’t is Divinity: Original Sin 3, but it could be a different Divinity RPG, or a looter like the old-school Divinities, or a new Dragon Commander, or a new spin-off entirely. They’re also a multi-project studio now.
Starfield was undoubtedly inspired by Interstellar and such, which is extremely my style, but even though it had some ideas here and there, the execution was what bothered me, and that’s why I’d like to see Larian’s take on the same kind of setting.
Nah, Larian will jump the gun, release too early and have another bug infested game. They need to reduce their scope, actually take their time and make a great RPG. BG3 was too much for them, a smaller more refined experience would have been amazing, they shouldn't chase "bigger is better".
Ignoring all the problems, sure. You could get through it, but there were lots of bugs and inconsistencies. I played again recently after all the patches and while it was much better, it still had it's fair share of issues. The overall game, lore and story is very good, though I think DOS combat is far superior for a video game than DnD.
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