Today I lost a very long slice of my time to this game, called Dwarf Fortress.

Dwarf Fortress is a curious game. It is a simulation of a small outpost of these long bearded, beer loving, short tempered, underground miniatures. The Dwarves are largely autonomous, although you can select for each dwarf each jobs you will allow him to perform (up to a point). Then you set tasks for the dwarves, like digging tunnels, mining, crafting things they will need for their fortress, like food, beds, armor, tools. The goal is to build a thriving outpost among rampaging goblins, thieving kobolds and cannibal, tree-hugging elves.

One thing that is impressive about the game is how much stuff is connected. Before you start the game, it generates a history of the world up to the point where you begin playing. Your starting dwarves are settlers from another dwarven civilization, intent to stake out a piece of territory in a new mountain. This past civilization may have entered a war with a band of goblins or humans (all procedurally generated), and your dwarves will remember this war, and make painting of it in the halls of their fortress. Maybe some of the goblins will have shields with images from this war, as seen from THEIR side.

Then eventually the war will come to YOUR front, and the dwarves will automatically give legendary names to those soldiers of your fortress who were able to fell many enemies, and write HIS stories in the paintings of the halls. Or maybe the hall painter REALLY likes cheese, and will fill your meeting halls with portraits of himself eating cheese, who knows?

Or maybe you have a couple of dwarves who have similar interests. They may marry, and move in together, completely out of your control, have kids, and those kids will be pretty upset if you don’t provide a proper burial place for their parents when they pass away, and even rebel and become berserk about it.

Like any good sandbox simulation game, there is no goal. Make a industry powerhouse, able to generate millions of dwarfbucks in value. Or make a grand fortress that will convince the king to move the capital of the dwarven kingdom. Or make a martial fortress where every single dwarf is a champion of some sort. You can also control the game as much or as little as you want to.

And that is why it is so dangerous. There are so many options, so much freedom, and so much varied consequences for your actions in-game, that it can very very easily consume hours of your time at once. And all this was build by two guys in their spare time (although it seems that the DF developer is now working full time on his game, living off the donations of the game fans – I’m certainly going to drop my two cents in the hat once my dry spell ends).

There, now you know what I do on one fourth of my spare time (and 80% of my procrastinating time).