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Originally published October 22, 2015

“The official motto that we have in our help manual is ‘Losing is fun!’ ”

Dwarf Fortress is a construction and management simulation computer game set in a procedurally generated fantasy world in which the player indirectly controls a group of dwarves, and attempts to construct a successful underground fortress.

Tarn Adams works on Dwarf Fortress with his brother Zach.

Questions

• What is the objective of Dwarf Fortress?
• Does the way you’ve designed the gameplay reflect any philosophy about life that you have?
• What language is Dwarf Fortress written in?
• Do people build constructs in Dwarf Fortress that you would never have expected?
• Did your studying complex math at Stanford affect how you’ve developed Dwarf Fortress?
• What advice would you give to developers listening that want to create their own game?

Links

• Dwarf Fortress
• Infiniminer
• Tarn on Wikipedia