Tough but Fair: Dwarf Fortress
When giving a review of a teacher for a classmate, one popular comment for a good teacher in whose class one received a suboptimal grade is that "She's tough but fair"; in other words, it is easy to do poorly, but if you do end up with a bad grade, it will be for a legitimate reason.
If I had to pick a video game that best represented this concept, I would have to select Dwarf Fortress. For those of you not familiar with the game, Dwarf Fortress is about playing either as a single adventurer roaming the world or running a colony of dwarves trying to build a fortress (hence the name of the game).
Dwarf Fortress is not a terribly popular game. It has a devoted fan base, but that base is very small. There is, of course, a very good reason, and that is the "tough" part of the "tough but fair" claim I'm making about Dwarf Fortress.
Dwarf Fortress prides itself on being a realistic game (inasmuch as a fantasy game can be). For some games, that means that the graphics look very real, or that it creates an accurate feeling of being a soldier on deployment, but not Dwarf Fortress. For Dwarf Fortress, that means simulating combat down to the level of tendons, muscles, and bones on each section of each finger when a hand is struck (which sometimes leads to hilarious combat notifications involving dwarves punching other dwarves on specific knuckles).
This extends beyond combat to all of the other systems of the game. There are dozens of types of stone in the mountains and metallurgy is realistically simulated. The difficulty in Dwarf Fortress also stems from this realism and detail: the many systems of the game, combined with the almost intentionally clunky user interface, make it easy to lose due to an overlooked area of fortress building.
This is so prevalent that it is generally accepted amongst fans of the game that "losing is fun", a phrase which is the motto of the game's fan base. But in spite of this, the game remains true to the principles I outlined in my first blog post: it is fun and fair even in its absurd difficulty. Every time the player loses a game, he can always find a reason: "I didn't build up enough troops to deal with the goblins", "I forgot to grow enough food", etc. This basic principle keeps the game enjoyable and the fanbase devoted in spite of the difficulty and steep learning curve.
If I had to pick a video game that best represented this concept, I would have to select Dwarf Fortress. For those of you not familiar with the game, Dwarf Fortress is about playing either as a single adventurer roaming the world or running a colony of dwarves trying to build a fortress (hence the name of the game).
A screenshot I took of one of my forts in Dwarf Fortress, showing its unique graphics (if you look closely, you'll see that everything is an ASCII character)
Dwarf Fortress is not a terribly popular game. It has a devoted fan base, but that base is very small. There is, of course, a very good reason, and that is the "tough" part of the "tough but fair" claim I'm making about Dwarf Fortress.
Dwarf Fortress prides itself on being a realistic game (inasmuch as a fantasy game can be). For some games, that means that the graphics look very real, or that it creates an accurate feeling of being a soldier on deployment, but not Dwarf Fortress. For Dwarf Fortress, that means simulating combat down to the level of tendons, muscles, and bones on each section of each finger when a hand is struck (which sometimes leads to hilarious combat notifications involving dwarves punching other dwarves on specific knuckles).
This extends beyond combat to all of the other systems of the game. There are dozens of types of stone in the mountains and metallurgy is realistically simulated. The difficulty in Dwarf Fortress also stems from this realism and detail: the many systems of the game, combined with the almost intentionally clunky user interface, make it easy to lose due to an overlooked area of fortress building.
This is so prevalent that it is generally accepted amongst fans of the game that "losing is fun", a phrase which is the motto of the game's fan base. But in spite of this, the game remains true to the principles I outlined in my first blog post: it is fun and fair even in its absurd difficulty. Every time the player loses a game, he can always find a reason: "I didn't build up enough troops to deal with the goblins", "I forgot to grow enough food", etc. This basic principle keeps the game enjoyable and the fanbase devoted in spite of the difficulty and steep learning curve.
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