One of this writer's mostly hotly anticipated games of this year (if it makes it out in time) is Dwarf Fortress. It's a game I've long wanted to dive more deeply into, but time and again I bump up against its unintuitive interface, its difficult to parse graphics, and the sheer myriad of options and Wiki entries that you need to dig through to figure out what it is you've done wrong to get everyone killed this time. That should change with Steam version, which overhauls the user interface to make the game far more accessible for a wider audience.
Dwarf Fortress is an open ended, open world, civilization simulator, where you take on control of a small group of Dwarves out in the wilderness and try to build a life for them. It's one of the most ambitious games ever made, with deep mechanics that can see your warriors slay a poisonous beast, only to tramp the poison back into their home's watercourse, poisoning everyone before you've realized the hellish mistake you've made. Maybe goblins will invade, maybe you'll dig into an aquifer and drown everyone, maybe you'll just let everyone get too drunk and set about one another in besotted brawls.
In short, Dwarf Fortress is a fantastic experience, but it's hard to get into. The Steam UI overhaull will make that far less of a concern. The new system is better laid out with scrollable lists, tabs, buttons, and hot tips to help explain what's what. They are also far kinder on the eyes, making the experience less fraught with squinting to read the text than it was before.
If you're looking for something in particular, there's even a text filter to help refine the menus. No more clicking and clicking or reading entire lists of menu items to find the one specific hotkey that you need.
This is just one of many changes coming to the core Dwarf Fortress experience to make it more accessible to new and returning players. Something I couldn't be more happy about.
