Depth of Storytelling in Dwarf Fortress: Tarn Adams on Demon Invasions and Cheese

[@bahamut256]

I had one particular dwarf who just wasn’t good at anything in particular who wound up drafted to the military. Through some strange twist of fate, every time something horrible happened, he survived unscathed. But as he spent more time training he made friends with the other militia and nobody else. This started to affect him because he was constantly losing friends in battle. His uncanny survival led him to becoming squad leader, and was given a steel war hammer. Once he got the war hammer something went strange, and he regularly began to wander around naked, slowly this progressed to him charging naked into battle, he was always first to meet the foe because he would never go equip armour first, and he would always survive unscathed. He became so good at dodging that he became legendary at it. My other dwarves would paint artwork of him nude constantly, engraving giant pillars in the dining hall and entrance hall with artwork of him. He eventually gave his life by single handedly grappling a colossus that slaughtered 15 dwarves and hurling himself and the colossus into magma together. I turned the fortress into a giant memorial to him, by creating a 40 z level high statue of him naked overlooking the fortress he loved.

[@moxxy3565]

This is fuckin epic

[@Azure9577]

Brooo

[@Dat_Guys_Wise]

You could make that into a movie or a show and I’d watch the hell out of it

[@Drakuba]

@@Dat_Guys_Wise i hear ya, imagine game coming with more interesting story than modern screenwriters

[@TMAXXPUNISHER]

General Buck Naked... cept a Dwarf.

[@comical9587]

I remember that story of the dying Dwarf and his engraving. I remember it saying "It shows a dwarves surrounding the demon. The demon is in a fetal position. The dwarves are laughing".

[@lunyxappocalypse7071]

Epic...

[@xuxu2020]

Last chad move

[@nacmacfeegleslawyer]

Correct

[@marcelbernardi3848]

Also i quink the sword he used was made on a fell mood from que bones of its spouse or something, not sure if the demon he killed had killed his family as well, but the feeling was more of a final F you to the demon he slain

[@chimedemon]

Absolutely badass and kinda sad…

[@Grimosaur]

I love how he just openly says how the interface is terrible

[@Dayvit78]

I think alot of devs took the wrong lesson from that statement =T

[@clray123]

I think it could be made less terrible quite easily, e.g. support filter/grep in all screens or alphabetical sorting... idk why they have kept it so bad over the years.

[@reeceshugrue6167]

Well they are finally improving upon the UI(though only for the $20 steam version; the game will still be free and updated on their website).

[@clray123]

@@reeceshugrue6167 I've since discovered that with the free "dfhack" the worst parts of the UI for the common tasks are fixed. The bigger problem now is the atrocious frame rate.

[@Asporez]

Well they are planning on adding an interface for the steam release but the main focus of the game is not ''finished'' yet so... Polishing a game is great but it also locks the addition of mechanism because you have to add features and THEN link them to the new interface and you end up focusing on your interface more than on the mechanics.

[@CaptainLekirk]

Was once playing a mod, masterwork iirc, and was playing as orcs. They were perfectly fine drinking water, so I figured it was an advantage to use them over dwarves. I was a new player, so I started out, built a little closable fort on top of my mine entrance. Eventually, I was invaded by dwarves. I sent out my military, who were completely demolished by these monstrous dwarves with steel weapons and armor, and so I close the gates. Only problem was, I don't have anything to drink. All my orcs just drank from a lake above ground. In depseration, I tap the small lake from the bottom, building a little tunnel to it, and the orcs all rush to the water. They are being swept around by the rushing water, but at least they are getting a drink. Then, the blood starts to flow. I see the red flowing in the water, and am completely dumbfounded. The dwarves start walking out of the water, slaughtering my fort. Apparently, a crack team of dwarves saw the orcs through the 3 or so Z levels of water, and decided to hop in, sink to the bottom, and walk to the tunnel to massacre my orcs. It was over quickly at least.

[@kidpog3d101]

oof

[@kekvult3730]

Untold stories, why do dwarves think they have the right to all worldly resources! - hippie Elf civi only alive because there are Dwarves invading Orc territories for oil err metals...

[@tomhill3248]

@Solve Everything Not very far. the amount of pieces in the game makes it impossible for deep mind to play it well. Starcraft 2 is infinitely simpler.

[@goodoc8248]

i literally just started playing this game.... is it really this complex?

[@quinnlaya331]

@@goodoc8248 its not as hard as you think. People lose and no matter how "good" of a dwarf fortress player you are, you will lose. Quite frankly, the way you lose is often the story that gets told! So dont worry about the complexity, while it is hard, it is also fun.

[@odiwalker3973]

One time I was ordering my dwarves to dig a tunnel under a lake so that we'd have a reservoir on the main hall of our fortress. However they dug too much and the lake started to flood into the tunnels. Fortunatelly I had a stone door and lever for just such an occasion. All dwarves escaped...but one. He was too slow and ended up locked inside the flooded tunnels. I thought the little fella was done for but he decided to march towards the end of the tunnel, once there that madman dove into the leaking portion of the tunnel, swam from the bottom of the lake and safely onto the shore. That was one badass dwarf!

[@kekvult3730]

Nice dodge on ordering them to dig too deep Mr Mayor... Now tell us the Ale shortages are because your Dwarves drink too much!

[@johnrayordas]

HAHAHAHAHHAHA Yep! He prolly preferred to die fighting a demon or something rather than die because he was slow af

[@Pathologic9]

He was a master swimmer I take it t xD

[@JordanBeagle]

Wow, not a quitter!

[@mrosskne]

Imagine the partying when they saw their bro they thought was a goner crawl onto land

[@anthonybracuti6898]

"It has like a 30% chance to be cheese"

[@AspenBrightsoul]

Id raise it to 90%, hell if I had to choose between my grave marker being me slaying a demon or cheese I'd go for cheese.

[@neinherman9989]

@Ajit Adonis Manilal Cugganusan never forget

[@wazimonkaprozniak4198]

I once had a moody dwarf produce an artifact ring. Engraved on it was the ring itself - such a beautiful ring it was.

[@sicariusflamus3033]

its like when you look at a screen that replicates your screen, or putting a mirror in front of a mirror

[@halusinjackbow8043]

SicariusFlamus A book that references itself. An advertisement of its own show. A painting of said painting.

[@Ace-od8en]

Now this is truly amazing and original.

[@arthurbarros5189]

I imagine it as a mesmerizing object

[@linkmariokirby7373]

tarn:

[@bartgroen2846]

My best story was from one of my first forts. It had a lovely gate to keep invaders out and everything. But one day a world dragon appeared. I locked him out of my fortress, but unfortunately one of my hunters was locked outside and was engaged by the dragon. I scrambled my army to go out of save the dwarf, but by the time they arrived this happened: The dragon bellows fire at the dwarf, the dwarf dodges the attack, the dwarf threw his copper crossbow at the dragon (he ran out of arrows before the dragon arrived) The dragon attacks the dwarf with his right claw, the dwarf dodged the attack, the dragon bellows fire at the dwarf, the dwarf dodges the attack and punches the dragon in the mouth and parts are sailing away (he knocked all the dragons teeth out) at that point the army arrived and the dragon was wrestled to the ground by the hunter dwarf and beaten by the army, the killingblow was again the hunterdwarf punching the dragon in the head destroying the brain. A month later, a dwarf gets a strange mood, it's the hunterdwarf again, and he makes an artifact from that dragons teeth. Can't beat that experience

[@jaxblonk5127]

Reminds me of a dnd 3.5 story I'd heard where a grappler latched on to a dragon and so it flew into the sky. Naturally they roll to pin the dragon- pin the wing, as far as style goes. Upon a cronchy demise the party cleric spare the dying's the poor party member, and that's how they levelled from lvl3. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

[@Azure9577]

@@jaxblonk5127 dnd and dwarf fortress are the only games where you can get crazy situations and stories like this

[@simasroguelike1877]

if there are traders later on u can see it in legends... some other spot in world will know him about immortal figure..

[@WexMajor82]

@@jaxblonk5127 Los Tiburon, the land shark. Masked wrestler.

[@leodtoro]

Finally have a sorta-successful fort running, so I do have some stories happening! Here's one I'd like to share: -My Herbalist that has been with the expedition since the beginning starts becoming withdrawn after being stressed from daily life. -He eventually goes berserk and starts attacking people in the meeting hall near the central stairway, the nearest dwarf being a Performer. -Performer is a novice in combat, but holds her ground pretty well, and I can see that before long she's injured the Herbalist badly while sustaining almost no injuries herself. -Activating my militia to kill the Herbalist before he attacks more people, but the Performer kills him before they arrive, somehow destroying his upper body completely (?) leaving his splattered bits and pieces all over and running down the steps. -I want my fortress to be a place of compassion and forgiveness, and given that the Herbalist didn't actually kill anyone, I want to give him a proper burial equal to everyone else. However, because going berserk marked him as 'Other' in the units tab, I can't actually assign him a tomb, so his corpse (or pieces of it) are left to rot outside in the refuse pile. -As for my Performer, she's obviously traumatized after the confrontation and feels afraid after having to kill someone (she's never killed anything prior to this). To make her feel a bit better, I carve out a big new bedroom with smoothed walls, a bed, chest, cabinet, desk, and chair just for her. -One last thing I want to make her is a statue of herself, to boost her self esteem, and place it in the corner of her shiny new bedroom. -I queue up the statue and one of my Miners gets to work. -After placing the statue in her room, I take a look at the description. -The statue is depicting her terrified while being attacked by a group of snakes. -That's... odd. I don't see how that would make her feel any better, but whatever, it's cool. -I don't think about it much for a while, but I get the idea to check the info on the Miner who sculpted the statue. -In his relationships tab I find he was close friends with the Herbalist. -Yikes!

[@felixmarihessenauer3158]

This is gold

[@Cant_Hit_This7]

This is a KZbin video by On Doupt. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality.

[@OnDoubt]

The KZbin channel is smiling. 😁

[@FestusOmega]

"Apparently the 2 most significant historical events here in Boatmurdered are elephants and cheese. Take a close look at the cheese ones actually, they aren't even carvings of cheese, but _renditions of some other_ image of a cheese. They're freaking homages!"

[@MystycCheez]

homage to fromage

[@aarontheperson6867]

@Wyatt Brusch what a world we live in

[@pacificnorthwet]

Oh my god, they're making memes

[@stephenchurch1784]

This is the best engraving in the world... tribute

[@kaprikorngamer9662]

@@stephenchurch1784 couldn't remember the greatest engraving in the world, no, this is just a tribute

[@highgrove8545]

*The convenient Lover* _is an image of a dwarf and a turkey_ _the dwarf is embracing the turkey_ _the turkey looks confused_

[@AndrewBrownK]

I had to make an effort not to choke on my sandwich when reading this. That’s a real gem

[@highgrove8545]

@@AndrewBrownK Was it a turkey sandwich?

[@saifuusuri]

@@highgrove8545 The Convenient Lunch

[@coldaddysupreme2956]

Classic

[@keithklassen5320]

@@highgrove8545 No, just one dwarf.

[@jasonfenton8250]

Tarn Adams is a real life mad scientist, but instead of turning puppies into giant mutated predators, he makes a video game about dwarves making engravings of cheese.

[@olliski2802]

I love this game truly mind blowing. I had a dwarf named Izzy. One day Izzy got into a fight with a kobold thief welding a copper dagger. As the fight went on Izzy was stabbed multiple times all over his body mostly his legs cutting nerves and tendons. Izzy didn't not give up and eventually He was able to kill the kobold by crushing him with his bare hands. Izzy then collapsed and laid in a field at the edge of the territory for 3 days until a fellow dwarf came and dragged him to the newly built hospital were he lay for another couple days no soap or medicine. I thought for sure he died when I checked back and he was not there in his bed. But sure enough he survived and to this day is a master carpenter, master crutch user, and is living with multiple infections in his body never treated.

[@dlscorp]

dorf

[@geogallant8172]

LLAP IZZY

[@olliski2802]

So I recently picked up DF again and got my old save back with my old fort Cobaltvine where Izzy resides. I got familiar with the controls and came up with the great idea I’m just gonna let time run and wait til something cool happens. Left my laptop unpaused and went to get food. I returned to big bold letters stating a wereelk yes elk has been spotted near your fort. We had been having trouble with wereelks since the beginning.This wereelk tho seemed different it had black curly hair and glowing violet eyes. So I look and it’s only a couple yards from my fort and One dwarf is standing out in the open near it. It was Izzy crutch in one hand copper axe in the other fresh from cutting down trees. I could only imagine the fear you would feel turning around and seeing that devilish looking wereelk so close just standing there watching you. Izzy was the only dwarf topside all the guard I had stationed in case of wereelk attack must have been on break. It was just Izzy and the beast. Izzy did not hesitate he immediately began to run wereelk hot on his heels. Izzy ran right by the open undefeated entrance to my fort. He must have known that if he led it in the wereelk would have done unimaginable damage. Izzy continued to run or hobble away from the fortress actually out running the wereelk until he came to the banks of a river. Turning around izzy came face to face with the wereelk standing right behind him. It immediately lunged forwarding biting into his eye socket ripping it to shreds. Izzy screamed and swung at the monster with his axe chopping into the fat on its leg. This must have angered it because it grabbed his arm ripping it clean off sending his crutch flying. Izzy thru the blood and pain took another swing this one was easily dodged by the wereelk who retaliated with trying to grab his toe but it let go. Izzy swung yet again this time reaching up a little farther hitting its lower body again tearing the fat. This blow stunned the wereelk giving Izzy the chance to run. He ran away from the river trailing a lot of blood behind him but the wereelk was not going to let him escape. Izzy finally turned around one last time urttering the words “ my wounds are to great I am not long for this world” or something along those lines and with all the energy he had left he swung his axe one final time jamming it right into the wereelks chest ripping apart the muscle. Right at that moment the creature tackled him to the ground and strangled Izzy till he was no more. By this time my military begun to show up starting with a human lasher who had the most intense fight with the wereelk holding his attention waiting for the rest dipping, dodging and lashing the crap out of the wereelk. Once the rest of my military showed up they really went to town on it. Knocking it down bashing and slashing every part of it. Even went as far as to smashing its hooves. Apparently wereelks have hooves. I like to think it was out of revenge for Izzy who will go down as a legend and will be forever remembered.

[@joelrichardson5139]

O Must RIP Izzy

[@olliski2802]

Andrew Whiting I honestly have no idea if he was. All I know is he fought like he just lost his best friend. I just remember pages of his dodge the wereelks charges them lashing the shit out of him. He didn’t give up.

[@falsegarden]

Toady is like a possessed dwarf crafting his masterwork in real life

[@Eclipsed_Embers]

so he's getting no experience from it?

[@Allcozeltser]

Distant Future. Mind Conglomerate "Toady Aleph" finally releases DF 31.416. Young cyborg boots up his quamuum computer, downloads the game, and generates a new world. He starts the game. FPS counter says "16". A black, oily tear rolls on his cheek: They finally updated the interface.

[@chavorocket]

Got some good news for you chief

[@Allcozeltser]

@@chavorocket Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaah!

[@Spankytimez]

I love this game. It is still my all time favorite and it never fails to blow me away. This game is what got me into programming, and although i'm still very new, I've gone back to school to peruse doing such things as a career. I even wrote Bay12Games thanking them for helping me find a purpose, and they even wrote back. This game has a very special value in my life. Plump helmets and millet beer for ever!

[@OnDoubt]

Thanks for sharing your story. I think the dwarves are smiling! 🙂

[@FawkesSake]

Dwarf Fortress never fails to blow my mind. Probably one of the few perfectly imperfect examples of a labour of love.

[@Fuchsia_tude]

I like the slide at 7:00 explaining why a dozen interlocking game mechanics led to a tavern full of cat vomit

[@JRMoore]

Great, now I have "pig milk" in my search history.

[@JRMoore]

On Doubt the Wikipedia article on pig cheese is actually surprisingly informative. Well worth the read.

[@Graknorke]

No technology? Just needs some dextrous finger work I'm sure.

[@robertsides3626]

You're now on a special FBI list. The "Do not spy on" list.

[@Graknorke]

Fyi people really can milk pigs by hand. Looked it up. It seems to just be automation/mass production that's an issue.

[@BoatSniper49]

Pig's milk? Please. All my Dwarves drink Dragon milk. Much more !!FUN!! when it gives them firebreath.

[@ballistixwearesilent5576]

If we ever get to the point where we can make a humans immortal. I vote we crowd fund these two.

[@saifuusuri]

Imagine Dwarf Fortress in a million years if they were immortal.

[@nachfullbarertrank5230]

@@saifuusuri Yeah, it's still gonna be in alpha

[@gideonmele1556]

@@nachfullbarertrank5230 as it should be, nay, must be

[@drjian6852]

@@saifuusuri I wonder if that's already happened, and we're living it as I type this, the cycle continues.

[@PavltheRobot]

@@saifuusuri Maybe we live in a Dwarf Fortress someone else created

[@backseatslidepuzzle]

"here lies Zassit Paintthins, slayer of demons and conoisseur of cheese"

[@hwaht8084]

This interview is... beyond quality

[@OnDoubt]

=) thanks!

[@telendar2949]

Since everyone is sharing his little DF story, here are some of mine : - I had a dwarf who was taken by a mood who made a mechanism out of leather with carving of said leather mechanism depicted on it. To this day I think it still is one of the weirdest artifact my dwarves managed to create. That and an organ entirely made of ruby. That shit was crazy valuable. - I had a elven diplomat visiting (well, squatting is more realistic) my fortress and he got is ass beaten by 2 dwarves in the dining in hall for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I assume the roast mussels in red wine weren't fine enough to his fancy elvish taste. The fun part is that they only punched him a couple of times leaving him with less teeth than initially, but where it becomes hilarious is that the same dwarves decided to finish the job a few weeks later but this time beating him to death in the middle of the dining hall before throwing him in the corpse pile with goblins and other junks. I still don't understand what happened here...

[@heyfucko]

i had a moody dwarf make a scepter with an adamantine engraving and other gems, was worth 375k. it was my first fortress so i was hyped, then some fucker stole it and it was gone. he was promptly beaten to death

[@harryvh3356]

So you had a "corpse pile" in your fort ?

[@strevortni]

@@harryvh3356 yes every fort has one so any dead bodies don't stink up the halls and make everyone puke

[@nullpoint3346]

Did the depiction of the mechanism have a depiction-

[@Eclipsed_Embers]

I once had a Dwarf in a fell mood engrave the item with a depiction of the murder that he committed in order to get the materials.

[@footbroke]

What makes games like Dwarf Fortress so amazing is you aren't just playing a game, you're creating a story. They aren't just games, they're experiences. I find games where you're able to describe your experience as a story to another person infinitely more interesting than regular games.

[@Rygir]

Every game can be a story, the story is in the player's head. Df just gives you a lot to work with

[@ajbleas]

I had a Yeti break into my turkey pen and all the turkeys started to peck off its toes...

[@deanmilos4909]

gold

[@Loromir17]

When a dwarf makes a masterful engraving of chalk (or other stone), I just imagine it as a breathtaking engraving of a rocky natural landscape by googling up pictures of something like "chalk in nature".

[@OnDoubt]

it might well be!

[@MsNathanv]

The amazing thing about DF isn't that it creates these narratives all on its own. Its that, somehow, it interacts with our human need to *create* stories in just the right way. It's not hard to find all of these mythologies about DF, where people will insist that some personality trait is good for some task or whatever (been years since I played, maybe they do now) but the reality is, we tell these stories to ourselves, and all DF has to do is to give us *just* enough detail to allow it. The awesome (and occasionally awful) thing is really the human capacity to find meaning, where often, none exists.

[@KainMcnab]

Drums in the deep, they are at the door, I hope they have cheese.

[@redapple360]

Im not excited about VR. Im excited about games like Dwarf Fortress + Space station 13 with atleast sims1 like graphics with 1000 players without lag.

[@Jeffin8or]

If only the industry was interested in that sort of thing . . . If you look at where games were in like 2009, we should have some really balls to the wall simulations by now, but AAA doesn't care so underfunded indies have to carry that flag alone

[@willowism]

im excited about both because both are super neat

[@lonexg7610]

Imo Dwarf fortress is before it's time and an innovator of the games market even though it is nearly 2 decades old, despite so many games being inspired by it, despite so many games building upon the graphical fidelity and creating "similar" styles of games (Rimworld for example), none have focused on what truly matters. . The ability for stories of amazing quality to be made by a series of events 100s of in game years in the making. Sad ones, funny ones, epic ones, etc. the skill ceiling for this game is very high with many intricate systems that can be used. . So many would laugh at my statement but mark my words the games market will trend towards simulation in the future, though it may take several more decades to get there...

[@sockmon1]

At what point did we decide reality was less entertaining, or is this the perpetual loop of creationism in motion.

[@willowism]

@@sockmon1 gaming's fun bro

[@YammoYammamoto]

Dwarf Fortress is one of the greatest management games ever created... ...please keep working on it for ever! :D Every year - I have come back to this beautiful creation.... and I've been playing since depth/z-levels were added. And every year I'm treated to a new story, told in a way that is personal to me - and me alone. :) //Best wishes, from a senior game developer working @ a AAA-company. :)

[@DPtheOG]

I remember the original story. The dwarf in the engraving was also laughing at the demon. "Ha ha ha, stupid immortal! Killed by a -- *dies*"

[@BoatSniper49]

7:48 That is goddamn Boatmurdered. You could not have chosen a better image to describe Dwarf Fortress.

[@OnDoubt]

Thanks - just started​ reading up on it; I didn't know about it, the choice was incidental. How cool.

[@fireleafofdawnclan1763]

think i saw that but i suppose i should look at it again

[@Razzlion]

There is a guy who has done a reading of the entire boatmurdered saga on youtube, he's pretty freaking good!

[@fireleafofdawnclan1763]

Johan Johansson that's probaly the one I saw. Imma checking . The one i saw is by some dude "dr. Professor robot" ?-? Eh

[@DeonGaming]

Boatmurdered is what got me into DF and modding in the first place.

[@synthetic240]

You'd think that the memory of a recent DEMON invasion would be given a much larger weight in a dwarf's memory and would decay much slower than other sorts of memories.

[@shadowmere541]

Synthetic H E R E S Y

[@Mirvra]

It was some REALLY good cheese though! o.o

[@IronicHavoc]

When you're about to die slowly you probably become less concerned with recent or old. Like the phrase "their entire life flashed before their eyes".

[@Delta9Church]

You can drop descriptions from dwarf fortress into an AI* art generator and get some really interesting artwork. It's become a quick favorite pastime for me lately.

[@swahilimaster]

I've yet to have one actually produce something that looks like what is described, you gotta use a lot of extra fluff to produce results.

[@rainbowsorceress2082]

Why not draw these things yourself? Infinitely more fulfilling

[@curorisluodi]

“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” -George Sand

[@brutalerinoduderino3970]

why does this give me goosebumps? this story is so legendary

[@davidbeppler3032]

Tarn and Zach are Gods among men. Remember to support them. DF is free but they send a crayon drawing to you if you donate! ;)

[@OnDoubt]

+David Beppler also, they're benevolent gods, and actually talk back. With good humor even! :) As for spending money: you can always also support this channel here: www.patreon.com/on_doubt - quality doubts of the highest order, talking to Gods among men ever since .. well, only 2017.

[@ss-oq9pc]

I sooooooooooooooooooooooo wish they would write a book on the techniques they came up with for DF. I use C# but I'd learn C++ just to get the most out of it. Looking forward to seeing the rest.

[@OnDoubt]

There are several video presentations by Tarn - check them out on YT and Vimeo! =)

[@DevinDTV]

Surprised they haven't made things like engravings and the art on artifacts be based on more significant or recent events that the dwarf has experienced, rather than one completely at random.

[@marcusavron47]

The fact that they have put so much content into a simulation and they still come out with anything remotely coherent is absolutely unbelievable.

[@thelastmelon6458]

This Story isn't deep by any means but this is the result of my first successful fort and I thought It was really cool. My legendary swordsdwarf described by her peers as an extremely agile, absolutely inexhaustible, and Mighty dwarf who also happened to be one of my miners accidentally awoke an entombed warrior angel clad in a suit of angel metal armor and wielding a mace made of the same stuff. To my surprise, after watching a fight I did not think was winnable between a pigtail-cloth-wearing mighty dwarf vs entombed warrior of an ancient deity she proceeded to embed her copper pickaxe into said angel's skull and come out of it unscathed. After watching this go down I saw potential and melted down the suit of angel armor and mace getting 4 bars of "Bright metal". Soon after my only two smiths in the fortress, one a novice weapon smith and the other my Legendary armor smith as well as militia commander had two consecutive strange moods one after the other. One made Mace out of the angel metal and named it Arbanulab and Thob the militia commander and now duke created a shield naming it Ozoramnek. Since then Thob has kept the two artifacts at his side and has fought off many goblin, elf, and human invaders with them. And yet there remain two more bars of bright metal ready to be turned into something else awesome.

[@JokeDeity2]

Heard about Tarn for years and honestly he's way more normal than I had built up in my mind from other people's descriptions.

[@WilliandaSilvaJoinville]

I like how he closes his eyes, is a sing of accessing a inner world

[@settratheimperishable4093]

I by mistake tapped into my main cavern when I tried to give my inside dwarves running water. I had to wall in three human mercenaries and a farmer dwarf who didn't make it out fast enough and save two of my miners and another mercenary who were clinging to a giant mushroom. Every time I go through my fortress I see those skelletons up against the flooded corridor wall.

[@Soitisisit]

1:44 His homage to his fromage.

[@OnDoubt]

:) well said.

[@ToddsDiscGolf]

How in the world could the dwarf carve a memorial of him slaying the demon? Is that part of the “memory” system I heard about where dwarves, if unoccupied, will go over the “big events” of their lives in their minds? And there’s a chance for the engraver to engrave the last important event on that list? And apparently a chance to engrave his favorite food or just a random thing? And chances for other things? The way this system is programmed is stuck in my mind…my brain just keeps going over how I can build something very small with these types of interacting systems. This is the most beautiful kind of programming to me. The interaction. The programming a thing and then setting it free to interact with other things you also programmed, and having no idea how these things will behave together…FASCINATING!!! I want to build a world and watch it interact with itself

[@JordanBeagle]

I love the thought of the starving now crippled dwarf not giving and instead engraving a mural to commemorate his pyrrhic victory.

[@LetsGoGetThem]

Is this the official DF trailer?

[@OnDoubt]

Someone should carve it. Every single frame. Out of cheese.

[@Tim_Sviridov]

"If you ever decide to milk a Jaguar." Oh yeah, I've got that down for 10 o'clock on Tuesday.

[@aFewBitsShort]

Thanks for the detailed credits list and "about" section!

[@OnDoubt]

You're welcome! I'm still baffled about these not happening everywhere else.

[@aFewBitsShort]

@@OnDoubt because comments asking about references are seen as "engagement"

[@OnDoubt]

Oh. I see 🙄. My naivety! 🤘

[@aFewBitsShort]

@@OnDoubt think less "treat em mean; keep em keen" and more "KZbin algorithm"

[@adamhenriksson6007]

Give that man a GPT-3 and hell will break loose. This is a great reason why I want to study machine learning someday. Imagine making a lore-generating model for books, personal stories, hearsay, and engravings based on a small transformer model. Hell, you can even generate the story of your fortress when it's destroyed, abandoned, or encountered by another fort/adventurer.

[@BizKwikTwist]

This guy......is so cool....not even joking idk why, but I really like this dude.

[@SethBattin]

I would really like to look at those references listed at the end of the video. Unfortunately they are mostly covered up by the watch-next suggestion thumbnails. Would you be willing to edit their text into the video description, especially the KZbin links?

[@OnDoubt]

+Seth Battin I'll do this, thanks for the feedback! (It should be possible to disable the overlays - but even then, typing those URLs is cumbersome. They're mostly intended to make sure everyone knows whose external work I'm referencing). Give me couple hours, and I'll add these to the description once in front​ of the laptop!

[@OnDoubt]

Hey Seth - I took the video's media credits (exactly as the appear at the end), and appended them to the description. Hope this works for you!

[@SethBattin]

On Doubt awesome, thank you very much.

[@OnDoubt]

+Seth Battin 🖖

[@JordanBeagle]

6:05 Wow, he has the whole Big 5 Personality Matrix in this, impressive, now I feel bad for the dwarves having to deal with emotions like us

[@roetheboat1]

I remember in one interview where Tarn was discussing the system they use for memories and emotions in the game, and how they accidentally introduced PTSD into the game. An NPC would have a traumatic event and then end up with severe depression because they would be negatively affected each time they remembered that traumatic event.

[@enkephalin07]

One of my first failed fortresses fell to a goblin raid, not just because the architectural security was so inadequate, but more than half of the militia had been wiped out by undead horses, at the end of the day of consistent victory against herds of those undead horses. By the time of the raid, a large number of survivors were going insane from grief and/or going into outright tantrum. Soon after the raid, the only sane survivors decided to hold a party, everyone invited. The only dwarf still doing jobs was the expedition leader. Even before that, enough of the subterranean layers had been breached to expose a strange fortress with an upright spike, which in that release version was the only way to get adamantine and unleash the demons. So I sent the expedition leader down to get that spike, though I don't remember what weapon it was now. He pulled it, and heard the unearthly howls of a demonic invasion. He actually starved to death before he could witness the horror himself, and the fall of the fortress. I went back in adventurer mode later and found the bodies, the violently maniacal dwarves who had gone insane, the demon lord and a scattered few of the demons, and recovered the adamantine weapon that the expedition leader had drawn. Though I still don't remember what that weapon was, it went into my adventurer's collection, and I'm pretty sure I used it again in my adventure.

[@EnderCrypt]

this is awesome :D

[@OnDoubt]

Glad you liked it. There's more where this one came from - but this scene was too amazing to edit into a shorter version, yet too long to include in the full documentary released next week. =)

[@EnderCrypt]

yeahhhhhhh, will the full version be free and available here (on youtube)?

[@OnDoubt]

+EnderCrypt Japp, of course!

[@OnDoubt]

+EnderCrypt right on this channel.

[@EnderCrypt]

wonderful, subscribed with great anticipation :D

[@mozarteanchaos]

re: 2:36 i think the main reason you don't see much pig milk/cheese is because pigs are _tremendously_ hard to milk. unlike other dairy animals, they only allow themselves to be nursed from(/milked) for short amounts of time and under specific circumstances, and iirc even then you don't really get much milk from it. combine that with the fact that they were never really bred to produce milk, and you get a general lack of incentive to milk them. (in case anyone wants more specific information: pigs can only be milked for around 15 seconds, compared to a cow's 10 minutes. they also produce less than a quarter of what a cow can, and tend to be less docile. interestingly, their milk is actually described as watery. pig cheese is apparently quite tasty, but the difficulty of milking a pig makes it hard to find and expensive to buy. source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_milk )

[@ZDarabos]

To be fair, a starving dwarf's last engraving of a cheese would have been also a great story.

[@T-Even_phage_destroyer]

I’m very new to the game but the only story i have to tell is this: a 5 year old baby dwarf wanting to help, picked up a stone to take it to the storage area. It was so heavy he wasn’t moving at all. I realized that kids shouldn’t do any labour and turned it off yet he still stood there holding the bolder. He eventually died at the age of 6 and started rotting in the hall because i forgot he existed.

[@AxelCross]

I read the story he is talking about. Found it posted like 9 years ago on a private forum.

[@CertifiedFreshMemes]

Yeah, Boatmurdered!

[@Luchoedge]

That engraving story is so fucking epic! I bet there's material for a million movies in the Dwarfs Fortress community!

[@dlscorp]

DF ... a game so high fantasy, it's almost alien to the concept of "game". Abandon hope all ye who desire GUI. I play a lot of Rimworld now, the only decently playable modern game that comes close to that sweet sweet DF flavour

[@zwenkwiel816]

They should really tie an image generating AI into DF somehow. These descriptions would make perfect prompts

[@Demonica2539]

If anyone should gain success, fame, and wealth from their games it should be this man here. Bless him and I hope for a full recovery

[@Adol666]

I wish I could get into DF. Its a great game and none of the other knockoffs have been able to beat it. The UI blows balls though

[@dlscorp]

Would you learn a few words of another language to enjoy its rich culture?

[@OnDoubt]

That's really how to think about unknowns, especially if they're complex. As a process towards understanding. Thanks for you comment!

[@waytocoolforyou]

Really like what you’re doing man, keep it up!

[@calebboatsman7856]

Tarn is very very good at abstraction. This is a fundamental part of engineering

[@dragonfly9083]

every time i leave to go designate a mining op or something I come back and it's like what did you guys break

[@jama211]

Why so short with Zach? Would love to hear from him more! So cool though

[@danielsjohnson]

Dwarf Fortress is to all other video games what books are to movies. You sort of have to imagine things so the stories are so much better.

[@MarioVelezBThinkin]

How is this not everywhere!

[@OnDoubt]

I'll let a dwarf engrave that everywhere. 🍃🙏🤗

[@budlikycz2445]

Damn I am really looking forward to that steam realease. I just cant get through those controls :(

[@miguelpereira9859]

Dwarf Fortress is PC gaming taken to the extreme

[@BalancedEarth]

The next step should be to add a system for invention/discovery. With ai I'm sure they can get custom art be portrayed when you click a description. But they're gonna need a ton of art they gotta pay in order to train the ai. It's still kind of a grey area. But surely devs and others can figure it out to make Dwarf Fortress 10x better. Or a mod will come out and change everything. I'm so excited to see that they have finally put the game on steam. Making it way more accessible to the casual Dwarf fortress/simulation gaming fan.

[@danielpalacios1130]

Once i was waiting for a caravan to enter the depot when one of the liasons turned into a werelizard,the whole caravan died including the werelizard, so i took the whole loot free

[@applejacks8160]

That was the eye roll of a man who has unsuccessfully tried to milk a Jaguar.

[@Gastogh]

5:44 All stand and salute in the presence of Flarechannel!

[@chrismorris5241]

I'm worried if I start it will be to big of a time sink. I really want to play though. Been looking at Rimworld but same concern.

[@OnDoubt]

If the time's spent well, why does it matter how much time is spent? I don't get this. In one of my videos, Jonathan Blow comments on this. I'll look for it. Enlightening.

[@chrismorris5241]

@@OnDoubt Time well spent is a very subjective view. I feel time bettering my programming ability is more beneficial.

[@OnDoubt]

Oh - that I can relate to! Expanding skills and deepening your knowledge is the ultimate thing to do. I mostly​ play games in phases - and then not at all, for months. But I'm always working on expanding my skills, business and networking areas..

[@shorgoth]

One of my friends had his forteress end due to a whale killing all his dwarves... it was a zombie and back then zombies didn't need to breath, so the whale walked out of the water and went on a rampage since water/land creatures were constrained by how they were "breathing".

[@jettisoncargo]

Toady's intentions for this project have a horrifying implication: If OUR universe is a simulation, there's a non-zero chance that Toady is the programmer.

[@skye4485]

1:32 the piece of cheese would have resonated with me.😂

[@Welgeldiguniekalias]

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

[@Petrico94]

I like the idea the stories that line up are what people remember most, but in a deep procedural generated world and lore it might be helpful to increase the odds ever so slightly so themes keep coming back up. The dwarf might etch in cheese but it should also acknowledge one of the last major moments was killing an archdemon, maybe because that dwarf is experienced in combat he relates more to scenes of fighting over farming or poetry, maybe he's seen a lot of peacocks in this base so he has peacocks on the mind rather than cows, seahorses or something not in the game.

[@jacobhamilton7106]

My two favorite stories I can share thus far include the same fortress save I was playing heheh - First we had a travelling troupe of male goblin dancers arrive at my tavern. My dwarves "loved their performance". Ill let the readers decide if they were strippers or not lol - Same fort, my first dwarf to die went crazy shortly after having his third child. He went so crazy he died from dehydration just babbling nonsense words. His memorial slab says "He was a loving father". Sure, okay. Editing in this story, on another fort I opened my tavern to the public and within three days I had naked elves running through my halls coming in and out of every bedroom. Thieves? Prostitutes? I don't know but I was not about my dwarves having that level of debauchery so I shut that down quick.

[@novikovPrinciple]

Thinking about Dwarf Fortress being systems upon systems, the Tarn Brothers must have eventually started writing documentation, if only for themselves. Which would still be a nightmare to sift through @_@

[@restlessfrager]

Why do people say Jagwires?

[@Mr.Plant1994]

I would of lost it and been unable to breath for like 30 mins if after a great fight with a demon and barely surviving the dwarf decides to draw a block of cheese on the wall 🤣 🤣 🤣

[@aberroa1955]

I think making DF closed source is almost like a crime. It could live practically forever with community support and probably modding, and it deserves to live forever. And it's already free, so making it open source is a win-win for everybody.

[@stevecarter8810]

Except for tarn, whose lifes work is seized by us zombies and turned into something for US.

[@DBT1007]

Basically Dwarf Fortress is a story generator/simulator. You can make comic, novel, anime, game, movie from this game..

[@cartoonfreack9671]

Dzulfiqar Bagas Tito Yha except for literally everything besides broad story strokes

[@avvvqvvv99]

my new goal in life is to try pig cheese

[@OnDoubt]

+Avvv Qvvv do tell us how it went! #lifegoals

[@Soulsphere001]

Gah, I'd love to watch that Long-term Simulation Design in Dwarf Fortress someday, but I cannot seem to find it.

[@OnDoubt]

Hey! Apparently the Vimeo link has been taken down by the content owner. I have a downloaded copy of the file, but am hesitant to post it publicly - I don't know whether I'm allowed to. Shoot me a mail though and I'll send you a link to it!

[@de_make]

Quest unlocked: Make Jaguar cheese, Good luck

[@frogger5687]

I remember reading that story, or one very similar years ago. I could never find the source for it. If anyone has a link I'll be grateful to the lowest z level.

[@mr.cup6yearsago211]

frogger5687 You mean Boatmurdered? It's pretty cool, entertaining too.

Amazing!

[@tomdaley9974]

Really have decided to get my act together with the game. But I have a lot to learn. Legend humbly request contact for assistance.

[@MisterSquirtle]

It seem like the video of his talk about long-term simulation is down. Does anyone have another source for it? Would love to watch it

[@OnDoubt]

Are you referring to a video from this channel?

[@MisterSquirtle]

@@OnDoubt Thanks for the quick answer! No, I'm referring to the talk that is shown at the 5:35 mark. You provide a link to this talk on vimeo in the description but apparently the uploader has taken it down.

[@OnDoubt]

Oh, ok. I can check my external/backup hard drives; chances are I still have a downloaded version of that presentation. If I do, I could upload to Dropbox and send you a private link.

[@MisterSquirtle]

@@OnDoubt Wow, that would be incredible. It's totally fine if it's too much of a hassle though. Thanks a ton!

[@OnDoubt]

Hey Mister Squirtle! I just checked all eight external drives, but didn't find any of the external files. I'm speechless. For production, I downloaded all of them, to incorporate them into the video here - but now they're gone? Quite obviously I must have erased them. I don't get it. This means I could not easily even render a new version of this documentary. Oh my. Well, just so you know. :/

[@alexandersmith9144]

Love your game! :)

[@123TeeMee]

Before really understanding forgotten beats I had a giant 3 eyed cockatiel demon emerge from the depths and kill all the dwarves