An Exercise in Futility: Dwarf Fortress

There's a possibility you've heard of the game Dwarf Fortress. If so, then you probably know how impossible and unforgiving the game is. If you don't, let me lay down a beat for you. As you figured out, you're tasked with building a dwarf fortress. Except it's not you building it, it's a pack of rough-n-tumblin' dwarves. You don't so much control them as suggest places to dig and build, but they're usually agreeable unless they're injured, sick, or dead. Those qualities occur more frequently than not. You've got goblins, wildlife, the elements, and starvation to contend with. But it's okay because they're a bunch of dwarves. Right?

Numerous websites are dedicated to sharing stories about players' DF experiences like recording the epic tales of lost civilizations. There is no endgame. You play until the civilization falls. Or you get frustrated because you keep confusing a dwarf for a tree or vice versa. Did I mention the game looks like this?

That's not the Matrix; that's Dwarf Fortress. And in Dwarf Fortress, losing is fun. Let me repeat that: losing is fun.

I have decided for the eighth time that I'm going to attempt to learn and play Dwarf Fortress until my dwarves cave themselves in and are devoured by demons. The first time I even tried to play the game I had no clue what was going on, only saw little characters strolling around the wagon, waiting for my command. I don't think I ever issued a command because I didn't understand how they worked. But I have a better idea now, after having attempted several different tutorials, I think I'm ready to lose all over again.

Eweanenu, "The Enchanted Planets," Year 87 of the Age of Myth

The band embarked in the Courteous Field on the continent of the Sacks. My party of seven arrived from the Mountainhomes, ready to strike the earth and establish a new home called Asdugtun. Though tired from the long journey, they knew it was important to get to work quickly before the the world sought to consume them.

[It was by this point the writer had commanded his two woodworkers, Shorast Kolimik and Stukos Delersakrith, to chop down trees to start building furniture. The game remained paused until the writer finally saw that pressing the space bar resumed the action of the game so his dwarves could proceed with their job. He also shifted the camera view in such a way that he lost sight of his dwarves and had to perform a Google search in order to figure out how to center the camera view back on his dwarves. -Ed.]

Miner Sibrek Endokmafol was tasked with carving a home into the earth for his companions.

[The writer struggled with commanding the dwarf to dig downward, continually trying to set a zone for him to mine. The writer realized that mining does not occur on a vertical axis but rather a horizontal one, so he had to pick the Channel function in order to dig downard. -Ed.]

Sibrek chipped away through rock and dirt to create a long hallway that they could soon channel off into offices, private rooms, workshops, meeting halls--

[The writer decided that he had accomplished much by this point so he saved his game and went to find food. -Ed.]

TO BE CONTINUED

Sojourning Skyrim Again, or a Confession

Skyrim is nearly two years old, and the fun returns on the game have diminished little. After my Hard Drive Crisis of '13, I lost some of my save games--specifically my original character--but thanks to the Steam Cloud service, I retained the rest, specifically a female dark elf named Elaris. Burning stuff her thing. Burning it with * M A G I C *

I put about six hours into her game long before I got a new hard drive. By that point, I had returned to my original character, the defaultly named Prisoner whose Redguard background in one-handed weapons fueled his bloodlust. I had started Skyrim's expansion Dawnguard and joined a band of zealous vampire slayers to, uh, quite literally guard the dawn. My interests shifted back to The Witcher 2, so it was a long while before I traversed the cold mountain and Skyrim, home to Nords and giants alike.

I reinstalled Skyrim last week and saw only Elaris--no Prisoner--remained. I did not click on her save, instead I hopped into a new game. the long familiar intro of my character wheeled up to a small village in a prison wagon was still the same chore to sit through, but finally I was called up for execution, which meant I was called up for character creation. It's a curious thing that one's character should be birthed only a moment before they rest their neck on a chopping block. Leave it to those clever bastards at Bethesda.

Skyrim is a game of sandboxy freedom, and character creation is an extension of that. Want to be human? You've got four choices. Elf? Choose from a few different pointy-eared dudes. Cat-man? Sure. Lizard-lady? Fine. Dwarf? Go screw yourself.

Skyrim is part of a long series of games with an established lore that while they threw fifty different variations of fantasy tropes en masse towards your face, they wrote out the single best demi-human race the genre has even known: dwarves. Sure, dwarves are referred to and you can explore their steampunk ruins. But they're not Tolkien's brand of bearded badass. Oh no, they're just an extinct society of elves. There's a reason why The Hobbit focuses on a band of dwarves and not elves. Because elves suck.

And I don't mean this from an "elves are gay" position, because that's just an insult to the LGBT community. When it comes down to it, I cannot separate the word "elf" from its Christmas connotations. I've been immersed in fantasy long enough that I know full well that Tolkien was not referring to Santa's Little Helpers. I don't have this same issue with dwarves and Snow White because they mostly perform the same function. When they belt out "Hi-ho, it's off to work we go," you better believe they got some mining to do for gems and ore and stuff. Sure, we don't see them tear it up with ale and battle axes, but that's because Disney's a family company and they can't show that Sleepy's just in a perpetual drunken stupor.

So what do I go with in Skyrim? Khajiit, or anthropomorphic gypsy cat. Why? Because they're naturally stealthy, got claws they can use as weapons, and I DON'T LIKE ELVES