# Dwarf Fortress *Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II* - Work: Simulation - Date: 2006 (first alpha, freeware); 2022 (Steam edition) - Made by: Tarn Adams (Creator, programmer & composer) - Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dwarf-fortress/ > Two brothers, one text screen of smiley faces, and a simulation deep enough to track every dwarf's liver and grudges: Dwarf Fortress generates whole histories, then lets you watch your fortress drown, burn, or go mad. **Why it matters:** Dwarf Fortress is the purest expression of procedural storytelling in games: a fantasy world simulated in such detail that its players' chronicles became literature. It inspired Minecraft, RimWorld and a generation of colony and sandbox games. ## Quick answers **When was Dwarf Fortress first released?** Dwarf Fortress was first released in 2006 (first alpha, freeware); 2022 (Steam edition). **Who created Dwarf Fortress?** Dwarf Fortress was made by Tarn Adams (creator, programmer & composer). **What kind of work is Dwarf Fortress?** Dwarf Fortress is a simulation in the Roguelikes tradition, released for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. **Why is Dwarf Fortress important?** Dwarf Fortress is the purest expression of procedural storytelling in games: a fantasy world simulated in such detail that its players' chronicles became literature. It inspired Minecraft, RimWorld and a generation of colony and sandbox games. ## Overview Seven [dwarves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dwarf/) arrive with a wagon at the edge of a mountain. From that moment everything is simulated: the geology of the rock they dig, the temperature of the magma below, the water that floods an unwise tunnel, the personality of each dwarf, the friends he makes, the wine he prefers and the grief he feels when his cat is eaten by a carp. *Dwarf Fortress*, created by the brothers [Tarn](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/tarn-adams/) and Zach Adams and released as a free alpha on August 8, 2006, is a colony simulator, a [Roguelikes](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/roguelike/) and a history generator at once. For sixteen years it was displayed in text characters, a dwarf being a smiley face, and funded by donations. It has never left alpha. It is also one of the most influential games of its century. ## Origins The brothers had been making fantasy games together since childhood, among them a BASIC text game called *dragslay* inspired by [*Dungeons & Dragons*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/). One of its variables, "arm_ok," counted the limbs the player still had; it became the name of Armok, god of blood. Before graduate school in mathematics, Tarn Adams began *Slaves to Armok: God of Blood*, a role-playing game with ambitious simulation. A side project, *Mutant Miner*, in which a lone miner dug for ore beneath buildings, suggested something better: many dwarves, working in real time, carving a fortress from a mountain. When the fortress fell, an adventurer could come in and find the goblets the dwarves had made. Adams started *Dwarf Fortress* in October 2002, estimating it would take two months. By 2004 it had become his main project, officially titled *Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress*, a name he admitted was mostly "for kicks." In 2006, during a mathematics postdoc at Texas A&M, he decided to work on the game full-time, living on about $15,000 in savings. The first alpha appeared that August. Donations followed, enough to live on, and Adams chose to rely on them rather than sell the game. Zach Adams, who studied ancient history, shaped the generated histories, drawing on sources such as Suetonius and the annals of Assyrian kings. Tarn cited *Hack*, the ancestor of [*NetHack*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/nethack/), for its random levels and the persistence of dead characters, the [*Ultima*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-iv/) series for its worlds, and the tabletop game *Cyberpunk 2020* for its wound system. He also composed the game's flamenco-inspired music. ## How it plays Every game begins with [world generation](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/procedural-generation/). The program raises mountains, calculates rainfall and drainage, erodes river valleys and then runs centuries of history: civilizations of dwarves, [elves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/elf/), humans and [goblins](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/goblin/) rise, found cities, worship gods and go to war, and every notable figure, battle and artifact is recorded. In Fortress mode the player chooses a site and directs the settlers indirectly, designating rooms to dig, workshops to build and jobs to do. Dwarves farm underground mushrooms, brew them into drink (they grumble at plain water), smelt ores, forge steel, cut gems and carve engravings that depict events from the world's history. Migrants arrive; nobles make demands; caravans trade. Occasionally a dwarf falls into a "strange mood," seizes a workshop and, if given the materials, creates a legendary artifact. Unhappy dwarves throw tantrums, and one death can set off a spiral of grief and violence through the whole fortress. Combat is anatomical, with individual layers of skin, fat, muscle and bone. Goblin sieges, [vampires](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/vampire/) hidden among migrants, forgotten beasts from the caverns and the demons beneath the magma sea all await. There is no victory condition. Adventure mode drops a single character into the same world as a turn-based roguelike, and Legends mode lets players read the history they have helped to write. ## Reception & impact Critics were fascinated and exasperated. They praised its depth, independence and emergent stories and despaired of its interface; one *Rock, Paper, Shotgun* writer compared the controls to "teaching a beetle to cook." *The New York Times* and *Wired* profiled it. The community became as famous as the game. In 2006–07 players on the Something Awful forums passed a single fortress, Boatmurdered, from player to player, each adding a chapter to its increasingly lunatic history until elephants, flooding and lava finished it. The phrase "Losing is fun!", a joke in the manual, became the motto. In 2011 Adams declined a $300,000 offer to license the name. After showing it in the 2011 exhibition *Talk to Me*, the Museum of Modern Art in November 2012 named *Dwarf Fortress* among the first fourteen video games in its permanent collection. ## Legacy *Minecraft*'s creator acknowledged *Dwarf Fortress* as an influence, and reviewers called *Minecraft* a friendlier version of it. Tynan Sylvester said the stories players wrote from it inspired *RimWorld*, and developers of *Terraria*, *Prison Architect*, *Caves of Qud* and *Project Zomboid* credited it too. It is a touchstone for the idea that a game can be a story generator rather than a story. In March 2019, citing family circumstances and falling Patreon income, the brothers announced a paid edition with pixel-art graphics, a new interface and music, published by Kitfox Games. It launched on Steam and itch.io on December 6, 2022, exceeded its two-month sales projection of 160,000 copies within a day, and sold over 800,000 copies in its first year and more than a million on Steam by April 2025; revenue in January 2023 alone exceeded $7.2 million. The free version continues. It won Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year at the 2023 D.I.C.E. Awards. Adams calls it his life's work, and in 2011 said version 1.0 was at least twenty years away. ## Did you know? Carps eating dwarves, one of the game's early legends, was an accident: Adams had made the fish carnivorous and dwarf-sized. One of his favorite bugs involved a dwarven executioner whose arms were broken, so he carried out sentences by biting. ## Facts - The deity Armok takes its name from 'arm_ok,' a variable in the brothers' early BASIC game dragslay that counted how many limbs the player still had. - Tarn Adams left a mathematics postdoc at Texas A&M in 2006 to work on the game full-time, living on savings and donations. - In 2011 Adams turned down a $300,000 offer to license the Dwarf Fortress name. - The community motto, 'Losing is fun!', began as a throwaway joke in the manual; every fortress eventually falls. - In 2006–07 players passed a single saved fortress, Boatmurdered, from hand to hand; their chronicle of its destruction spread across the internet. - New York's Museum of Modern Art added Dwarf Fortress to its collection in 2012 and archives each new version. - Revenue in January 2023, after the Steam release, was over $7.2 million, compared with roughly $15,000 a month before. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Fortress) - [Bay 12 Games](https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/) - [Steam (Kitfox edition)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/) - [Dwarf Fortress Wiki](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.