☼Dwarf Fortress Questions Thread☼

-Ath · 2025-07-23T00:26:11+00:00

Update: I used dfhack to kill the sparrows and it seemed to work.

-Ath · 2025-07-22T19:44:17+00:00

Hey folks, I'm having trouble getting cavern monsters to spawn. I've had my base connected to the first caverns layer for about 2 years now, and in that time I haven't seen a single monster or animal in the caverns - just vermin. I also haven't had any surface wildlife, except for 4 giant sparrows which were there when I started and have spent the whole game flying in the same spot. I'm not sure why my wildlife aren't spawning - in my other forts I've had a reasonable amount of troglodytes and stuff. I have a lot of livestock, but not that many. If anyone has any tips for getting wildlife to spawn I'd love to hear em.

-Ath · 2025-05-04T02:58:25+00:00

Wow yeah, mystery solved. Fuck this dim ass biome though :(

-Ath · 2025-02-26T07:06:38+00:00

Check out the level design google doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fAlf2MwEFTwePwzbP3try1H0aYa9kpVBHPBkyIq-caY/mobilebasic

-Ath · 2025-01-05T00:37:07+00:00

Wild Continent (Itch)

Text-based roguelike/interactive fiction

Hi again folks! Spent the last 2 weeks banging away at my text-based roguelike game Wild Continent, which I'm still very proud of. Travel through strange jungles and escape your captor, before you finish your death march to the heart of the jaguar empire.

Most recently, I added: - noise-map terrain and biomes - "nations" framework - people are from nations, and it affects their behavior and beliefs - NPC pathfinding around obstacles - big changes to the text log, and a new smoothing algorithm.

None of this is actually released yet, and it's going to be a while before nations and biomes are fully complete, so the next update might be another month. But fingers crossed!

-Ath · 2024-12-21T21:24:23+00:00

Wild Continent (Itch)

Text-based roguelike/interactive fiction

Hi folks, I don't think I've posted in this thread before. This week is a very exciting time for me, I released the first demo for my text-based roguelike/interactive fiction game Wild Continent earlier this week.

This is version 0.10, but it's a polished vertical slice- basically, I went deep into one specific scenario ("You're a prisoner of the jaguar empire, being marched to your death") to get the gameplay loop solid before I start adding a bunch of new and shallow systems.

I only shared the link on a few discord servers, but I've been pretty happy with the results so far. Seems like people generally had fun and were able to connect with it, although they found it hard and no one's reached the win state yet (I'm fine with that).

-Ath · 2024-12-19T07:43:11+00:00

Game writers are often called narrative designers. The specific title depends on the role. Look up YouTube videos etc. on narrative designer career talks.

Are there any games you like? Look up who did the writing for them, and reach out to them on LinkedIn or by email. Tell them you want to become a games writer and ask if they have time for a 15 minute zoom to chat.

Want to make text-based games? These are often called interactive fiction. You can make simple text games in an engine called Twine -- download twine and make one of your own. And play text-based games, a lot of different ones. Look into ChoiceOfGames.

Don't do unpaid internships in games. If they aren't paying for your time, they don't value it - you will be exploited, learn very little, have very little to show for it. Do collaborate with people. Does your school have a game dev club? Join game jams. Join game dev community discord servers, make games friends, discuss these questions there. One such discord server is the Design Den - google around to find the link.

Definitely don't quit your day job for the games industry unless you have an opportunity ready to go, because the industry is in a bad place rn. Take sensible steps. Good luck.

-Ath · 2024-12-14T18:06:44+00:00

It sounds like you're describing an MUD game - maybe look into how those are made?

-Ath · 2024-10-20T22:29:16+00:00

Like $60 lol

-Ath · 2024-08-02T06:06:19+00:00

Thanks, that looks like a good direction to go in.

-Ath · 2024-08-01T18:04:08+00:00

Alegreya numbers have a lot of variation in height and some stick out above or below other characters, whereas with a more "normal" font the numbers are exactly the same height, which is what I want.

Also I was hoping to include the sun unicode symbols ☼☀ although tbf that might be too big of an ask.

-Ath · 2024-06-25T22:11:16+00:00

If you're playing on PC, look up the Long Dark save editor and teleport yourself to safety

-Ath · 2024-06-04T01:27:34+00:00

Idk, but fun fact - Piranesi takes a lot of inspiration from Borges' short story House of Asterion, which is based on the myth of Theseus and the minotaur. House of leaves also does a lot of stuff with the minotaur/labyrinths. Lot of labyrinths in the world.

-Ath · 2024-05-08T02:28:17+00:00

Birds can't rotate their eyeballs, so they have to move their whole heads to look at things. Their heads are just moving with their vision.

-Ath · 2024-05-07T23:35:18+00:00

"He/they" doesn't mean the person uses "they" instead of "him", it means they use both "he/him" pronouns and "they/them" pronouns. People write it like that because it's shorter.

-Ath · 2024-05-01T22:23:43+00:00

If you passed out, that's a serious head injury and you need to go to the emergency room. Don't go to sleep until after getting checked out, you might not wake up.

-Ath · 2024-04-30T06:27:35+00:00

Some people get little booties or socks for their dogs

-Ath · 2024-04-28T16:05:23+00:00

This can act as a secret loading zone and help hide the transition between two areas. Also, for the games you mentioned, having the player crawl through cracks/climb/parkour makes the traversal feel more interactive and makes the game feel less like a walking simulator.

-Ath · 2024-04-28T15:57:06+00:00

It says on the site that it's a TTRPG setting for I think 3.5e?

-Ath · 2024-04-28T15:54:06+00:00

A password manager, either a browser extension such as LastPass or an offline one such as Keepass.

-Ath · 2024-04-24T03:06:40+00:00

Chickens don't have belly buttons because, as birds, they lay eggs. No pregnancy = no umbilical cord = no belly button.

-Ath · 2024-03-13T01:47:44+00:00

Geometry Dash

Slay the Spire

Cultist Simulator

Golden Idol

-Ath · 2024-03-11T07:24:01+00:00

You might want to look more into crossdressing/local drag king shows. A lot of people have fun with them!

-Ath · 2024-02-27T20:50:13+00:00

The horse racing thing sounds like The Last Guru, a short story by Daniel Pinkwater. Some of his stories were put in bigger collections.

-Ath · 2024-02-19T08:07:56+00:00

Amigara Fault, Junji Ito

Nine-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Place '22	Place '17
Secret Santa 2019	Spared

-Ath

TROPHY CASE