I am on the edge of returning to Dwarf Fortress.

I know it will be a big mistake, though.

Here’s the thing. Dwarf Fortress is probably the most compelling city builder in many years. Like the best city builders, you can guide the development of your habitat but your citizens have wants and needs of their owns. There is both the predictable cycle of seasons and the unpredictable encounters with natural and humanoid resistance.

But I hate how much work it is to play.

I have it on good authority that at least one publisher has approached Bay 12Games and Mr. Adams about helping develop a proper interface and iconography and letting them finally make some money on what is one of the greatest time sinks since the original Civilization. Allegedly, the developer is so committed to the open and free model that he resisted any attempt to even negotiate about how he could turn his wonderful into something everyone can enjoy and appreciate.

See, getting into Dwarf Fortress is work, as hard work as any game since the days when you needed to know memory tricks in DOS and remember the 20 hotkeys that controlled your weapons. It’s not the ASCII (well, not just the ASCII) since I’ve always had a weakness for roguelikes. There are at least three different ones on my hard drive at any given time. But the assigning of chores and jobs, never mind understanding your layout is a big curve to learn, forget and then re-learn. I’m sure I never mastered it the first time.

But the game is so great…Dwarf Fortress is one of those games where you see things happen and you’re not sure you saw what you saw. It’s the old mind trick where something happens on screen – apparently randomly – but your brain gives it meaning and context so it makes sense within the master narrative of Mt. Fuzzy Pants. These things happen so regularly in Dwarf Fortress that it is impossible to not be enthralled by the epic tales of survival in the wilderness.

There are some decent tutorial videos on Youtube, so start there if you are interested. But what I wouldn’t give for a professional team to give this game the treatment it richly deserves.