In my 13+ years of playing Dwarf Fortress, I have seen my share of legends. I have witnessed a one-armed dwarf general strangle a prehistoric dragon. I have watched in horror as a craftsman, trapped for months in a cave beneath the halls of the fortress, emerged, alive just long enough to do his final work on a puzzle box made of obsidian and bone. Now that Dwarf Fortress is on Steam, Colony Sim's emergent storytelling is more accessible than ever.

Dwarf Fortress, the ever-evolving life's work of sibling developers Tern and Zach Adams, is entering a new era, eschewing text-based graphics in favor of basic modernity with proper pixels and native mouse support. Still puzzling and epic, Dwarf Fortress remains an unparalleled treasure trove of procedural mythmaking for those willing to plumb its depths.

At its most basic level, Dwarf Fortress is a settlement sim. With a small group of dwarves, you set sail to secure your own territory in a tract of wilderness far from Mountain Home. It is up to you to build a timeless fortress in the typical Dwarven fashion of gaining or losing ground. Winter is only a few months away. Start digging.

At first, Dwarf Fortress is deceptively simple. The controls may be clunky, but when you're marking tunnels to mine or trees to cut down, it looks easy. Within minutes, three menus appear, analyzing labor details and duties, assigning management positions, designating dens, and attempting to organize stockpiles of food, gems, finished goods, and precious cave wheat ale.

Meanwhile, the livestock are fighting because the pastures are too small, one Hunt Dwarf is driven home in a panic after turning a giant capybara against him with his last crossbow, and the best farmer is in a depressing spiral of low dining room chairs. And all that was before the first goblin siege.

Aside from the delicate balancing act of fortress management, the most obvious change in the Steam release is the visuals. Until now, Dwarf Fortress has been an ASCII-based enterprise, requiring mods for images more appealing than the letter "D" facing off in martial combat.

Dwarf Fortress now boasts beautiful tile-based graphics. The physical features of the dwarves are represented by sprites, which are attractive enough to look at. Along with the visual revamp, the soundtrack has also been expanded, moving between the gruff warmth of the dwarves' labor songs, acoustic playing, and bewitching atmospheres. The soundtrack is at times whimsical, at times punishing, and at times devastating.

In terms of playability, the interface and controls have changed significantly. Previously limited to keyboard input, Dwarf Fortress now natively supports the mouse. Being able to specify, manipulate, and examine objects with a click is a long-awaited and welcome change, but the new UI struggles to accommodate all aspects of this bottomless game.

Dwarf Fortress's furtive reputation is not unwarranted. The game does very little for you when it comes to building and managing your new mountain home. All you have is yourself, a lot of menus, and a few bits of self-preservation instinct from the dwarves.

You are responsible for every component of the fledgling dwarven society, and there are so many components. Every nook and cranny of every room and hallway is something you told the dwarves to dig. If the dwarves grew crops, you directed where to plant the seeds. And if they were lost to the countless dangers of the Dwarf Fortress - whether it was a goblin horde, a worm gazelle, or an accidental cave-in - it was because you failed to protect them.

And you fail. Many times. That's to be expected; the guiding philosophy of Dwarf Fortress is that losing is fun, as the game itself tells us. There are no victory conditions. There are no victories. Ultimately, every fortress you build, whether you are forced to abandon it or choose to abandon it, is doomed.

Instead, your victories are measured by lessons learned and knowledge deployed. Success at Dwarf Fortress means that your success will last in each of the following areas: production lines, military defense, and civilian life.

Making it last in Dwarf Fortress means opening up so many potential avenues of labor in the production line, military defense, civil planning, and all the other areas of the dwarf industry that you have been playing for 13 years and have not yet tapped into. Mastering the new logic of the Dwarf Fortress is like mastering the spells of the Eldritch. Imagine how powerful you will be once you have mastered the hydraulics of the Dwarves.

I don't blame anyone who reads all this and says, "No, I'll be fine. I understand. But for those wonderful sickos who may be feeling the glow of wild joy, let's be clear. Beneath the layers and layers of arcane menus and mechanics, Dwarf Fortress is a priceless treasure. All you have to do is be willing to dig.

But that's only half the magic. Though convincingly acted, Dwarf Fortress is merely a colonial sim masquerading as a colonial sim. Dwarf Fortress is a marvel not only of logistics and managerial decision-making, but also of procedural world-building. It is a toolbox of storytelling that calls itself a game.

Each dwarf has its own unique physical characteristics, from the way it grows its beard to the shape of its earlobes. Their personality traits, preferences, goals, and mannerisms are also unique. The same is true of their pets, their livestock, and the goblin invaders who try to spear them in the ribs. Every object generates its own characteristics, and every sculpture has its own randomized image.

Dwarf Fortress cloaks every part of the gameplay in dozens of layers of procedural simulation. And it begins from the very first moment of play. Just clicking on the "Create New World" button and watching the unique terrain of a new continental land mass with simulated biomes and bodies of water is impressive enough.

Decades will pass in seconds, and the new world will usher in the first era of demigods walking the earth. As the demigods walk the earth, a human civilization sprouts up, its settlements winding up roads as they prosper and shrinking as they perish. During this time, Dwarf Fortress simulates thousands of events, mapping the relationships between historical figures and legendary artifacts, charting migrations and deaths.

When I send out a new caravan of dwarves, it is not in a vacuum. It is the latest chapter in an ongoing history. Behind what is projected on the screen, my dwarves are connected to a vast and historical web of ideas. As they carve murals of past events, each has its own form and rules of time signature in the poetry they learn and recite.

The ridiculous depth of this simulation makes Dwarf Fortress, frankly, unreasonably detailed. But it doesn't have to be. But it doesn't have to be. It is that horrifying, almost pathological complexity that has kept me enthralled for over a decade.

This amount of detail makes it so easy for me to believe that there is a world happening off-screen, that what I am seeing is a small part of something alive. Every piece of procedural flavor text is a potential space for forming attachments, turning the pixels shuffled around on the screen into a story worth sharing. if Dwarf Fortress players meet each other, they will see the result: stories are the basic unit of interaction.

Thanks to the modernization of Dwarf Fortress' Steam release, we will see a new generation of players exchanging fortress stories. All in all, it's a success. However, Dwarf Fortress has not entered a new era without stumbling.

For me, something was lost in the translation of the UI. Once you got used to it, the keyboard-driven interface of the classic version followed a reliable logic, and the visual play space and menu information were nicely differentiated.

By comparison, the new interface feels cluttered. More things are clickable and accessible, but there is no real logic as to where they are located. Even after dozens of hours of use, the visual noise can be overwhelming, especially in the busier fortresses. That said, I don't think I'll be returning to this game.

With the move to Steam, Dwarf Fortress' roguelike mode, Adventure, is temporarily unavailable. Nevertheless, my strongest concern with the Steam version was one of the most important additions: the tutorial.

This is the first attempt at an introduction to Dwarf Fortress, and it guides you through the most basic things needed to set up a fortress. It is a simple but adequate introduction to the operation, and the in-game help menu provides additional instructions. However, as comprehensive as Dwarf Fortress' tutorial could hope to be, I can't help but feel that its explanations are a bit vague and its warnings a bit too sparse.

From the tutorial to starting a new fortress, it's easy to watch the giant praying mantis devour the dwarves. Once the tutorial is over, it's only natural to read the guide on the Dwarf Fortress wiki (opens in new tab); the wiki has always been a faithful companion to the player. The tutorial can at least point you in that direction and you will get acquainted with it early on.

As ever, Dwarf Fortress is a game that cannot be played halfway. It requires a willingness to buy in voluntarily in order to teach yourself the rules of Dwarf Fortress, understand the abstract details of the generated worldview, and create your own mythology. But now, the first step to exploring its depths is a little easier. If you are willing to do so, you will have an experience like no other. I'm in this for at least 13 more years.