Curate of Curiosities

I'm sure that some of you have heard of Dwarf Fortress, the roguelike/colony sim about managing diminutive, alcoholic maniacs within an almost inhumanly detailed virtual fantasy world shown entirely in ASCII graphics. You may have even heard about the games that it inspired, such as Rimworld. I myself first heard about it more than a decade ago, yet never got around to playing it until recently.

It simply cannot be understated how much effort has gone into this game. In the more than 20 years that this game has been in development, it has introduced more and more mechanics and subsystems that most games would not even think about. It is the work of two brothers, Tarn and Zack Adams, who have been adding more and more features to it for more than two decades and yet, according to them, are still far from finished. I can't help but respect game developers willing to eschew game features that we take for granted--concrete health bars, for instance--in the name of providing a more unique, realistic experience.

Of course, I'm not the person you need to go to if you want in-depth info on the making of this game.

While I have some familiarity with the roguelike genre, the first real roguelike I've played is Elona, a Japanese-made game that, in a very bizarre manner, combines the genre with a life sim. It would be years later that I started to get into roguelikes in earnest, trying out games such as Ancient Domains of Mystery, which shares design elements with Elona, and IVAN, where I couldn't even get past the tutorial dungeon. You might think the extreme difficulty of games like these, which is shared by a number of well-known roguelikes, would hinder any attempts for me to properly document them.

As for the game...I won't actually be showcasing it. Instead, what I'll be doing is playing through the creator's other games. Of course, something as polished as this cannot have been its developer's first project. But don't worry, even his earliest, most simplistic games have some seemingly unnecessary detail and odd quirks to them. One in particular may be especially timely (or perhaps poorly timed) in today's social environment.

Sections:

1. Slaves To Planned Obsolescence
   Most indie devs are, but Adams is just different.
2. The Revolution Will Be Text-Only
   Before anyone says anything, I would have done this no matter who won.