About

About Dwarf Fortress: the game and its makers

A game made by two brothers, given away for free for years, supported by its players, and eventually honoured by a major museum. Few games have a history quite like it.

Dwarf Fortress has an unusual story. It was built for most of its life by a very small team, released free of charge for years while under constant development, and sustained by the goodwill of its players. It grew into one of the most admired simulation games ever made. This page gives a brief outline, drawn from published sources, for players curious about where the game came from.

The makers

The game is made by Bay 12 Games. Wikipedia's article on the game lists its designers as Tarn Adams and Zach Adams, brothers who started the Bay 12 Games company and released their games online, and it says the game was free to download and had been under development since 2002 before its first alpha appeared in 2006. The same article points out that it drew notice as a project of just two people, kept going entirely by donations.

Bay 12 Games still maintains its own page for the game. Bay 12 Games' page for the game announces that it is now available on Steam and itch.io, offers the classic version for download, and carries a running record of development reports and release notes. Reading those notes is a good way to get a sense of how much detail goes into each update.

The long public alpha

For many years, the game existed as a free, continuously updated alpha. Players downloaded new versions as they appeared, and each release could change or add major systems. This long period shaped the community: players documented everything, built tools to cope with the game's difficulty, made graphics packs to make it easier to read, and wrote countless stories about their fortresses. Many of those threads are covered elsewhere on this site, from graphics sets to utilities to succession games.

The Steam edition

A commercial edition arrived much later. The Steam store page gives a release date of 6 December 2022 and describes the game as the deepest, most intricate simulation of a world, in which you build a fortress and try to help your dwarves survive. The same Wikipedia article explains that this paid edition, with graphical tiles and a new soundtrack, was published by Kitfox Games and released on Steam and itch.io, and that it includes an option to switch between the new visuals and the old ones.

Kitfox Games' own site lists the game as developed by Bay 12 Games and published by Kitfox Games. The commercial edition brought a fully reworked interface, mouse support and a tutorial alongside the art, and introduced the game to a large new audience. The classic version continues to be offered as well.

Recognition

The game's influence reached beyond players. Wikipedia's article records that in 2012 the Museum of Modern Art chose it as one of a group of games illustrating the history of the medium. It also records that the game influenced a number of later games. Critics have praised its depth and its capacity to produce stories, while acknowledging its steep difficulty, a combination the community long ago summed up in the phrase losing is fun.

What kind of game it is

Wikipedia's article describes the game as a construction and management simulation and roguelike, with fortress-building as the primary mode and an adventure mode alongside it. At its core is a world built by the game, with its own history, into which you place a small group of settlers. From there, everything that happens emerges from the interaction of detailed systems: geology, fluids, creatures, personalities, economies and history. The world generation page and the adventure mode page go into more detail.

The community around it

A game this deep needs documentation, and players supplied it. The official community wiki, linked at the foot of every page here, is the definitive reference for current, exact detail, gathered and kept up to date by players over many years. Deep Ledger is a separate, independent guide, focused on explaining concepts, and it points readers to the official wiki whenever precise information matters.

Where to start

If this history has made you curious, the best place to begin is the first fortress page, followed by the common questions. Expect to lose a few fortresses. Everyone does.