[Flipside]

For those of you who always liked the idea of Dwarf Fortress, but couldn't get on with the UI or the increasing genocidal nature of the gameplay, there's an interesting Isometric game out called 'Gnomoria' that pretty much is identical to the basic gameplay but without as much 'Fun' going on.

The Good : Nice interface, no more trying to remember 3-4 keystroke combinations to access certain menus. Good graphics engine with objects changing colour depending on what rock they are built of and moderately easy scrolling along the Y-Axis.

The Bad : Doesn't come across as 'deep' as DF, you cannot pick where you embark or what you embark with (though it's far, far harder to die at the start), it's around $6, which whilst cheap, DF is Freeware. The Music is 8-Bit Midi style, and I find it pretty grating.


The game is still in Alpha at the moment, and is available on Desura, so the gameplay will be expanded on as time passes, and so far is looking pretty promising.

[Scourge of Ages]

For those of you who always liked the idea of Dwarf Fortress, but couldn't get on with the UI or the increasing genocidal nature of the gameplay...

That's me, exactly. Thanks!

[Flipside]

Heh, I should say that, if you haven't played DF or something similar, you will still be spending some time on the Wiki at first, the game does sort of assume that you've played Dwarf Fortress before, and the Alpha is somewhat limited with regards to on-screen help

[Mefustae]

But... I like the idea of doomsday lava floods and genocidal elephant attacks!

Well, I guess I'll check it out anyway. But if I can't see everything die in a hilariously horrific manner, I'm going to be disappointed.

[Flipside]

Oh, you'll still lose Gnomes along the way, mostly to Goblins, but if you're looking for big Fortress-killing events then I've not encountered any so far. I'd say this game is oriented towards the Builder than the Manager mentality, there's no huge tantrum-landslides, in fact, so far I've encountered no 'opinions' at all, which is probably among the largest differences between the two games; much of the social structure is missing. But I'm not sure how much of that is deliberate optimizing, and how much is just not coded into the game yet.

[Polpolion]

Damn I want to play dorf fort now. If you want my opinion: to hell with gnomes. It's like buying notepad when you could just use vim or emacs. Suppose it'd be worth checking out if it didn't cost money, but srsly.

(Inb4butyoucantbuynotepad)

[Scotty]

Damn I want to play dorf fort now. If you want my opinion: to hell with gnomes. It's like buying notepad when you could just use vim or emacs. Suppose it'd be worth checking out if it didn't cost money, but srsly.

(Inb4butyoucantbuynotepad)

Perhaps the analogy would be more apt if vim or emacs could decide on a whim that your document wasn't worth the memory it was using, and then lava-flooded it out of existence.

Some of us don't actually like it when that happens.

[Polpolion]

Believe it or not, I actually have done that with vim and a bad vimrc file. I know what you mean, though.