Dwarf Fortress’s Adventure Mode brings the sim’s chaotic spirit to CRPGs

Enlarge / See that fortress over there? You can explore it. And then die, when someone in your party remembers a tragic incident involving meat and perishes of sadness. (credit: Bay 12 Games/Kitfox)

“I’m crying for some reason,” says Tarn Adams, demonstrating Dwarf Fortress‘ “Adventure Mode” for a Discord stream full of games writers and PR folk. His adventurer is crying, that is. “Something must have upset me. Probably the dead bodies… I have great grouchiness, though.”

Adventure Mode, out today, builds on the graphical version of Dwarf Fortress and the work you’ve put into it. The adventurers you create and send out into the world traverse the overland and underground places you yourself crafted. This allows you to both appreciate the realms carved out by your imagination and also be a kind of dungeon master for other adventurers (with, hopefully, an easier fortress-swapping mechanic to come soon). You can also generate a new world if you prefer the simulation’s weird choices to your own.

Everything about the standard simulation version of playing Dwarf Fortress applies to playing it as a hardcore CRPG. Everything has layers, all is described, and the combination of deep logic and utter silliness is unmatched.