MisterStone
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2006
- Messages
- 9,422
Has anyone been following Dwarf Fortress development lately?
Here's what the developer (Tarn Adams = Toady One) has been working on:
In short, this game will be in-fucking-sane once the next release is out. A lot of these features probably seem pointlessly ornate or complicated, but as the developer has noted, a robust working model of these things makes it easier to add cool stuff later on in development. No doubt a lot of people are skeptical of all these features, but he's shown the videos, and I believe that they have mostly been implemented. I believe that he's moving right along towards a huge f'ing release. Pretty f'ing amazing, this game.
The only big worry I have right now is that the game will be a huge processor hog. Sooner or later he's going to hit a serious wall in this regard. Luckily, he is planning on some options that should allow you to cut down on processor demands (like limiting Z levels, simplifying temperature, etc. etc.).
Seriously, this game is starting to sound like the kind of thing people have been dreaming about for decades, since computers grew huge hairy-processor balls. Instead of using all that processing power on 3-dee, he's using it to model other things in a tile-based game world. Here's hoping he succeeds.
Here's what the developer (Tarn Adams = Toady One) has been working on:
- Temperatures
Fire/freezing (actually mostly done in the latest release)
Z levels (up and down)
Water that obeys laws of fluid dynamics. It falls, flows downhill, etc. For instance, if you were to order a dwarf to dig a tunnel into a body of water, the water would flood through the opening until pressure equilibrium is reached.
Randomly generated terrain that models real life geology, etc.
The "world map" will consist of a seamless quilt of smaller wilderness/town maps, so in effect there is merely a single huge-ass map. Even mountains will be modeled in Z levels with ramps, impassable areas, mountain tops, etc.
Groups of people (caravans, armies, etc.) will move around on the main map.
Fortress maps are no longer the same left-to-right "cliff face, river, chasm, magma, demon pits layout". Fortresses can be built in any area in the world map. Since mountains might have any variety of shapes or sizes, the orientation/shape of fortress maps is extremely varied.
In short, this game will be in-fucking-sane once the next release is out. A lot of these features probably seem pointlessly ornate or complicated, but as the developer has noted, a robust working model of these things makes it easier to add cool stuff later on in development. No doubt a lot of people are skeptical of all these features, but he's shown the videos, and I believe that they have mostly been implemented. I believe that he's moving right along towards a huge f'ing release. Pretty f'ing amazing, this game.
The only big worry I have right now is that the game will be a huge processor hog. Sooner or later he's going to hit a serious wall in this regard. Luckily, he is planning on some options that should allow you to cut down on processor demands (like limiting Z levels, simplifying temperature, etc. etc.).
Seriously, this game is starting to sound like the kind of thing people have been dreaming about for decades, since computers grew huge hairy-processor balls. Instead of using all that processing power on 3-dee, he's using it to model other things in a tile-based game world. Here's hoping he succeeds.
