Tim Denee: Master of Dwarf Fortress
Well, maybe not exactly. Earlier this year, Tim Denee posted a few illustrations of one of the battle reports generated by his dwarf fort called Bronzemurder on the NZFortress forums. Dwarf Fortress is pretty infamous for its steep learning curve and inaccessible ASCII graphics, but Tim has reminded me very much the reason why I love this game. If you have never played Dwarf Fortress, its an ASCII based game with an extremely high level of detail, featuring real liquid physics, extremely detailed bodily injuries, and dwarves with their own personalities, wants, interests, and psyches.
It is any micro-management lover’s dream, but Tim has managed to turn his experience with the game into something highly entertaining and along the lines of Something Awful’s Boatmurdered. Without further ado, experience the fate of Bronzemurder as told by Tim. Click each image to expand and read the rest of the story.
Tim essentially captures the essence of the end of the fortress, as you can only watch as monsters rage through your fort, or dwarves go insane and murder everyone for their hides, or a magma chamber collapse that rushes through the fort swallowing everything in an angry rage. One thing is certain when you fire up a game of Dwarf Fortress: it’s going to end horribly, fantastically and most of all, story-worthy.
Want more of Tim’s work?
The story of Bronzemurder exploded and unfortunately for Tim, he hadn’t attached his name to his illustrations so he lost quite a bit of recognition for the story. However, PC PowerPlay magazine commissioned him to create another telling of a great dwarf fortress and so Oilfurnace was born.
Tim has also set up a Etsy store where you can commission one of your own dwarves to be illustrated for the meager sum of $6.00, or if you are in love with any of the above illustrations, you can order a print on A3 paper for $20.00. I’m highly tempted by the “Smells Like Dwarf Fortress” print, but I’m told that just makes me even more of a geek.
Wanna play Dwarf Fortress?
Dwarf Fortress is the product of Bay 12 Games and has been in development since 2002 though the first public release was made available in 2006. Since then, fans of the game have created numerous graphical packs to help ease people into the game because most people are like me and ASCII burns eyeballs. Phoebus’ tileset is pretty newbie friendly and transforms the game into something you would expect to see on your NES. It’s highly tolerable and recommended for anyone who is interested in getting into the world of Dwarf Fortress.
