Gnomoria is my personal favorite.

There is a great 3D one that lacks features but the interface is great, that one is called Dwarves! if I recall correctly.

I tried Gnomoria and it simply doesn't compare to DF. You could read multiple reviews on steam to find out lots of stupid bugs, but here's a taste: gnomes don't comprehend levels and path finding across levels fails badly - if you want to build a fence around some tunnel entrance, you'll find them running around confused until they die. (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=67559...) And it won't be fixed. Gnomoria is "complete" as far as I know and no updates are planned. My next favorite is that gnomes will happily do any work when injured, but if you have a hospital? They'll lay on the bed and die out of hunger just because nobody is assigned to care for them. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=675590...)

And that's ignoring the lack of any story component, complex interactions, any interesting events apart from "something came to attack your area", etc. It's just boring once you play it a few times.

To be fair, that's a similar bug to what Dwarf Fortress had until recently: unless you built walls from certain directions, your dwarves would end up on the "wrong side." And you can't say Dwarf Fortress doesn't have stupid bugs; a recent fort had a were-elephant scared up into a tree. He couldn't climb down, being an elephant, but inflicted terror on anyone who dared approach, including a lumberjack instructed to chop the tree down. In fact, the stupid bugs make the game amusing [and frustrating] [and !FUN!].

The difference is, for some reason DF bugs are amusing as hell. It's pretty freaking funny to imagine a were-elephant in a tree yelling at everything. I think part of it is that DF doesn't really have graphics. You have to imagine what's going on, which makes it pretty freaking funny. Also almost no bug doesn't have solution, and none really stop the game either- even with that tree you could probably tunnel under it and collapse it, which is again, funny as hell.

I'm not saying DF is free of bugs, but actual bugs in it are going to be fixed, so it's easier to ignore them. If you knew your dwarves are going to get stuck now, and in a month, and whenever you want to play, would it be still fun?

If a game depends on future changes to be fun, it's not fun until those future change actually occur.

I have to disagree with this. I'm definitely going to have fun with a game with a known bug that's going to be fixed in a week. It can even be a crashing bug, or making some mechanics unavailable. I'm just going to avoid that area, because the game is still evolving.

The same bug that's never going to be fixed makes the game not fun at all for me.

> I'm just going to avoid that area, because the game is still evolving.

That sounds to me like you're avoiding parts of the game because they're not fun, regardless of the chance of them being fixed in the future.

I love when people use the word "fun" without knowing what "FUN" means in the context of Dwarf Fortress.

For context, I think it's a shame Carp don't gain the Swimming skill anymore. Or teeth, apparently, if the wiki is to be believed.

That isn't the point, the game is a better game. It's existed for about 2 years, how long has DF been around?

I've read the developer's reasons for not having graphics, and it's BS. If he doesn't want to do it himself he should let someone talented in that area join the development team.

You're right of course, it's his project and he doesn't have to share it. It's free and beggars can't be choosers. But a game belongs as much to it's community of players as it does to the people who create it. The best games ever created have all been open, either open source or by embracing a modding community. As a gamer who's had a passion for all forms of gaming since before I could read, I find the developer's attitude extraordinarily negative in general.

That's my opinion, nobody is obligated to share it. I'm just saying something superior is going to come along and when it does nobody will remember DF. And that would be a shame, really.

DF has been around, and under active development, for ten years and is quite a bit more popular than you seem to realize.

> If he doesn't want to do it himself he should let someone talented in that area join the development team.

And it's also one guy living off Patreon and the donations generated by DF. Where should he find the money to pay an employee?

Kickstarter for Dwarf Fortress graphics initially, then Patreon again with an expanded community due to the Kickstarter. Seems like that would work reasonably well, without changing the basic game.