Dwarf Fortress tops Turtle Beach poll to find players’ “Beautiful Game”

Underdog indie game beats games industry heavyweights to top online search

Forget Far Cry 3, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or The Last of Us – a Turtle Beach poll to discover the title that gamers care for most passionately has crowned Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress as the community’s most “Beautiful Game”.

[sinspirit]

It's pretty obvious it's one of those poles where they "troll" the nominees. Not that the game is bad or looks bad, well it's kind of out-dated graphically and was never ahead of its time graphically.. Pac-Man was another attempt at "trolling". Can't really believe some people think CoD: Ghosts is "beautiful".

For games not already on the list I would have nominated Demons Souls/Dark Souls, Crysis 1, Breath of Fire series, Shadow of The Colossus, Zone of The Enders, Okami, and LittleBIGPlanet.

[Am_Ryder]

Not quite. Dwarf Fortress is a modern game- choosing to use ASCII graphics was a design choice, not a sign of the game's graphical age.

Dwarf Fortress procedurally generates a massive fantasy universe to rival Lord of the Rings, gives you a caravan of dwarves, and makes you take care of them.

When I say it generates a massive universe, I'm not kidding. When you choose "Create World" it literally makes like hundreds of miles of terrain, populates it with kingdoms, races, creatures, biomes- then it gives them all a history of wars, alliances, feuds, etc. etc. Every single person who plays it has a save file unique to them.

Gameplaywise, it's like a hardcore, violent and nasty The Sims, with permadeath and unbelievably complicated systems to simulate dwarves' emotions, its animal kingdom, combat, dismemberment, madness, thirst, hunger, happiness, etc. etc. Mixed in with better-than-Minecraft mining and physics systems, and you might start to get a picture.

So the fact that it creates beautiful scenarios is what may have won it the poll, not trolling. For example, stuff can happen like a homemaking female dwarf taking up arms and fight off five goblins who attack her husband or children; or a young dwarf befriending a mad old dwarf who is kept in the dungeon. Unlike The Sims you get almost no control over the dwarves- you give directions and orders, but they choose to do their own thing most of the time.

It procedurally creates unbelievably amazing narratives on the fly. It's like what Skyrim wishes it was.

But the obvious sacrifice is graphics.

And yes, you could be right. It may have just been a trolling campaign.

[nirwanda]

“It’s been really interesting to see the votes come flooding in for Dwarf Fortress,” said David Roberton, Vice President of International Marketing at Turtle Beach. “We had a strong and very eclectic list of nominations and are delighted, but not surprised, to crown Dwarf Fortress as the Beautiful Game. While some truly phenomenal games featured on the shortlist, Dwarf Fortress is an outstanding example of interaction design and proves that you don’t have to be a huge AAA title to really resonate with gamers.”
Lol that's a quote of someone that didn't realise he's been trolled.
Most beautiful game lol just had a look at it out of interest and posted some screens of the game.

[camel_toad]

Oh wow lol. Thanks for those pics.

[Am_Ryder]

Look at the other replies. This guy's talking shit- those pictures are not from Dward Fortress, but the first game in that series which was dropped early in development.

Dwarf Fortress still looks basic- it's totally 2D and uses ASCII graphics- but it has some of the most deep gameplay available in history.

[Lucifun]

Uhhhhhh, sorry to burst your bubble but that is not Dwarf Fortress. Here is a link to the website.

http://www.bay12games.com/d...

and a link to an article about the game.

http://www.polygon.com/2014...

[Am_Ryder]

That was the first game in the series, it was dropped early in development. Dwarf Fortress is nothing to do with that and looks nothing like that.

Dwarf Fortress uses ASCII graphics- so all the buttons on your keyboard, with a few more. It's 2D and very rudimentary visually.

But in terms of gameplay it has arguably the deepest gameplay ever made in history. It creates a world on the spot which can rival Lord of the Rings, then lets you play a kinda hardcore version of The Sims in it. So amazing.

[Ghost_Nappa]

Did Sasuke write this? Cuz this is some ****ing terrible english.