Posting my comment I made about this game three years ago:
The UI in Dwarf Fortress is completely indefensible. Even when you do understand how to play the game it's a kludge. Let alone the fact that AN ASCII GAME CAN BRING AN 8 CORE DESKTOP TO A CRAWL. (The ASCII is actually rendered in OPENGL for performance which is a joke in and of itself because 99% of the system resources are spent poorly simulating stagnant blocks of air rock and dirt with nothing happening to them).
There are many amazing and laudable aspects to DF. Tarn has a physics background and in this regard the game is well thought out. It has unmatched emergent gameplay and behavior due to the physics and complexity of each dwarf.
What isn't well thought out at all are both the 'design' of the software and interface. This is the most beautifully complex game with endless unique and hilarious morsels of awesome (the naming of geographic features and depictions engraved on items) Yet absolutely no effort is spent on conveying that to the user. It's like the game itself is autistic in its savant level complexity and all that beauty is hidden behind an utterly unusable interface and horribly inefficient software design.
Dwarf Fortress is a perverse decent into a single brilliant yet mal adjusted person's 'ideal' game. It's wildly capable and meticulously tended to in all the wrong areas while the glaringly obvious flaws go unattended.
It's like a brilliant mathematician who shits on the floor and writes earth-shattering proofs on discarded fast food bags leaving them strewn about homeless shelters. The hobos (DF fans) all rightfully commend his genius and defend the antisocial idiosyncratic behavior as "part of the creative process" or that anything else would detract from 'the experience' of reading a revolutionary proof off of a shit stained McDonalds bag.
The main problem is Tarn's inability to work with anyone else or compromise. The poor quality interface and software design is a perfect metaphor for the developer behind it. The smallest improvement such as rendering more ASCII layers at once from an isometric perspective would vastly improve the usability and likely expand the userbase by 10 fold yet no effort is made to make ANY UI adjustments.
Minecraft is the perfect example of the level of success DF is capable of. Their premise is quite similar, but where Notch's effort went into a simplistic usable UI with simple physics, Tarn went without a UI and devoted his effort to a bewilderingly complex and amazingly inefficent engine with no reasonable way for anyone to experience it. Tarn could be a multi millionare if he simply would take some damn advice about sofware and UI design.
Seriously, With two more people helping him, one person focused on optimizing the codebase and another focused on improving the UI this would literally be one of the greatest games of all time.
Until that day DF will remain an obscure oddity, like a model train set with a revolutionary efficient engine whose owner steadfastly refuses anyone to use it in anything except a toy which actually causes physical pain to all who attempt to play with it.
I see DF mostly as a work of genius, like TempleOS. DF has a more practical way of touching me (like your sentiment: "it could be the best game ever") than TempleOS, but both are great feats of engineering made by people who are clearly outside of the regular order.
We can only be amazed by what they build, but it's hard to expect them to follow 'mainstream' advice.
The UI in Dwarf Fortress is completely indefensible. Even when you do understand how to play the game it's a kludge. Let alone the fact that AN ASCII GAME CAN BRING AN 8 CORE DESKTOP TO A CRAWL. (The ASCII is actually rendered in OPENGL for performance which is a joke in and of itself because 99% of the system resources are spent poorly simulating stagnant blocks of air rock and dirt with nothing happening to them). There are many amazing and laudable aspects to DF. Tarn has a physics background and in this regard the game is well thought out. It has unmatched emergent gameplay and behavior due to the physics and complexity of each dwarf. What isn't well thought out at all are both the 'design' of the software and interface. This is the most beautifully complex game with endless unique and hilarious morsels of awesome (the naming of geographic features and depictions engraved on items) Yet absolutely no effort is spent on conveying that to the user. It's like the game itself is autistic in its savant level complexity and all that beauty is hidden behind an utterly unusable interface and horribly inefficient software design. Dwarf Fortress is a perverse decent into a single brilliant yet mal adjusted person's 'ideal' game. It's wildly capable and meticulously tended to in all the wrong areas while the glaringly obvious flaws go unattended. It's like a brilliant mathematician who shits on the floor and writes earth-shattering proofs on discarded fast food bags leaving them strewn about homeless shelters. The hobos (DF fans) all rightfully commend his genius and defend the antisocial idiosyncratic behavior as "part of the creative process" or that anything else would detract from 'the experience' of reading a revolutionary proof off of a shit stained McDonalds bag. The main problem is Tarn's inability to work with anyone else or compromise. The poor quality interface and software design is a perfect metaphor for the developer behind it. The smallest improvement such as rendering more ASCII layers at once from an isometric perspective would vastly improve the usability and likely expand the userbase by 10 fold yet no effort is made to make ANY UI adjustments. Minecraft is the perfect example of the level of success DF is capable of. Their premise is quite similar, but where Notch's effort went into a simplistic usable UI with simple physics, Tarn went without a UI and devoted his effort to a bewilderingly complex and amazingly inefficent engine with no reasonable way for anyone to experience it. Tarn could be a multi millionare if he simply would take some damn advice about sofware and UI design. Seriously, With two more people helping him, one person focused on optimizing the codebase and another focused on improving the UI this would literally be one of the greatest games of all time. Until that day DF will remain an obscure oddity, like a model train set with a revolutionary efficient engine whose owner steadfastly refuses anyone to use it in anything except a toy which actually causes physical pain to all who attempt to play with it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5277033