# Dwarf Fortress *Game* · `dwarf-fortress` · status: **sourced** A colony sim in which the player directs a fortress of autonomous dwarves inside a procedurally generated world whose history, geology, fluids, bodies, and minds are all simulated. | field | value | |---|---| | aliases | Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress | | year | 2006 | | developer | Bay 12 Games | | platforms | PC | | subgenre | Colony sim | | subgenre secondary | Systemic RPG | | sim domain | Social / interpersonal, Physical / mechanical, Biological / ecological | | player role | Overseer | | agency model | Order queue, Zoning / placement, Indirect incentive, Direct unit control | | time model | Real-time with pause | | sim scale | Settlement | | fidelity | Systemic | | perspective | Top-down / side 2D | | win structure | Open sandbox | | failure model | Cascading collapse | | narrative mode | Emergent | | multiplayer | Single-player | | modding | Scripting | | production tier | Hobbyist / free | | agent count order | ~100 | | emergence | 5 | | influence | 5 | | cluster *(computed)* | C02 | | core count *(computed)* | 8 | | mechanic count *(computed)* | 30 | ## Summary A colony sim in which the player directs a fortress of autonomous dwarves inside a procedurally generated world whose history, geology, fluids, bodies, and minds are all simulated. ## Core Loop embark and dig -> designate jobs, stockpiles, and workshops -> dwarves self-assign labors and craft -> needs, emotions, and stress accumulate -> migrants, caravans, sieges, and beasts arrive -> fortress thrives or collapses into the world's legends ## Design Notes Tarn Adams's stated principles are to break a system into parts, avoid overplanning, and base each model on a real-world analog; he describes the game as a story generator. The fortress is embarked inside a world whose geology and history were already simulated, and the fortress's own events flow back into that history through Legends, so a collapse becomes a record that a later adventurer can visit. Strange moods let an inspired dwarf seize a workshop to make a named artifact and go insane if materials are missing, which turns the production system into a story source. The game was free and donation-funded from 2006; a paid Steam edition with sprite graphics followed in December 2022, still short of a 1.0 version. ## Store ids - steam: `975370` ## Relations **uses** - [Simulated history generation](../mechanic/history-generation.md) (core): World generation builds elevation, rainfall, drainage, temperature, and vegetation layers, then simulates civilizations, sites, and historical figures for a player-chosen number of years before the fortress is embarked. - [Designation orders](../mechanic/designation-orders.md) (core): The player designates digging, chopping, construction, and workshop jobs; dwarves with the matching labor enabled pick them up, and a manager can queue work orders automatically. - [Mood and breakdowns](../mechanic/mood-breakdown.md) (core): Emotions add to or subtract from a hidden stress value (-1,000,000 to +1,000,000) with effects from +10,000, +25,000, and +50,000; stressed dwarves throw tantrums, fall into depression, or wander obliviously, prolonged stress leads to insanity, and one breakdown can spread unhappiness. - [Injury body model](../mechanic/injury-body-model.md) (core): Body parts are layered tissues (skin, fat, muscle, bone, nerves) damaged individually in combat; injuries can be permanent and are treated in a hospital with traction benches, casts, sutures, and splints. - [Fluid and gas simulation](../mechanic/fluid-gas-simulation.md) (core): Water and magma flow tile by tile with up to seven depth levels per tile, so breaching a river, cavern lake, or magma source floods connected tunnels. - [Vertical layers](../mechanic/vertical-layers.md) (core): Z-levels, added in 2007, let the fortress descend level by level through soil and stone to caverns, the magma sea, and the underworld, connected by stairs and ramps. - [History chronicle](../mechanic/history-chronicle.md) (core): Legends mode lists historical figures, sites, artifacts, and civilizations with a historical map; fortress deeds and retired adventurers are added, and the archive exports to XML. - [Agent skills](../mechanic/agent-skills.md) (supporting): Work quality and speed rise with skill gained through practice in each labor. - [Needs decay](../mechanic/needs-decay.md) (supporting): Food, drink, and sleep, plus personal needs such as socializing or praying met at taverns, temples, and libraries. - [Memories and thoughts](../mechanic/memories-thoughts.md) (supporting): Emotions become short-term memories; strong or revisited ones are promoted to long-term memories that keep adding stress. - [Personality traits](../mechanic/personality-traits.md) (supporting): Facets such as bravery, stress vulnerability, and anxiety scale how stress builds and dissipates. - [Relationship values](../mechanic/relationship-values.md) (supporting): Friends, family, and pets; their deaths are major stressors. - [Production chains](../mechanic/production-chain.md) (supporting): Ore is smelted to bars and alloyed; steel needs flux to make pig iron plus coke or charcoal, and magma can replace fuel. - [Heat transfer](../mechanic/heat-transfer.md) (supporting): Tiles, materials, and creatures carry temperatures. - [Fire spread](../mechanic/fire-spread.md) (supporting): Fires spread and burn dwarves and furniture. - [Raid defense](../mechanic/raid-defense.md) (supporting): Ambushes, sieges, megabeasts, and forgotten beasts are met with squads, fortifications, and traps triggered by levers or pressure plates. - [Adaptive threat scaling](../mechanic/adaptive-threat-scaling.md) (supporting): Wealthier and more populous fortresses attract sieges and megabeasts. - [Immigration by attractiveness](../mechanic/immigration-attractiveness.md) (supporting): Migrant waves from the mountainhome grow as the fortress develops. - [Trade routes](../mechanic/trade-routes.md) (supporting): Yearly caravans from neighboring civilizations are handled by a broker; caravans can be absent or hostile depending on history. - [Room recognition](../mechanic/room-recognition.md) (supporting): Furniture defines bedrooms, dining halls, and offices; nobles demand rooms of rising value. - [Crime and policing](../mechanic/crime-policing.md) (supporting): A justice system punishes assault, murder, and vandalism. - [Crop cultivation](../mechanic/crop-cultivation.md) (supporting): Underground farming on soil layers; plump helmet mushrooms are brewed into wine. - [Hauling jobs](../mechanic/hauling-jobs.md) (supporting): Dwarves carry goods to player-defined stockpiles. - [Unit commands](../mechanic/unit-commands.md) (supporting): Military squads in uniforms train at barracks and can be ordered to attack. - [Stress accumulation](../mechanic/stress-accumulation.md) (core): Emotions from events add to or subtract from a hidden stress value (-1,000,000 to +1,000,000) scaled by facets such as stress vulnerability and bravery; above +10,000, +25,000, and +50,000 dwarves risk tantrums, depression, obliviousness, and insanity, and long-term memories keep adding stress. - [Pause and speed control](../mechanic/variable-speed.md) (supporting) - [Building placement](../mechanic/free-placement.md) (supporting) - [Utility action selection](../mechanic/utility-action-selection.md) (supporting) - [Storage and buffers](../mechanic/storage-capacity.md) (supporting) - [Modding API](../mechanic/modding-api.md) (supporting): Raw text files define creatures, materials, and reactions; DFHack adds Lua and C++ scripting. ## Backlinks (computed) **influenced:** [Minecraft](../game/minecraft.md), [Oxygen Not Included](../game/oxygen-not-included.md), [Prison Architect](../game/prison-architect.md), [RimWorld](../game/rimworld.md), [Space Haven](../game/space-haven.md) **precedent for:** [Why-query over the simulation log](../opportunity/causal-why-query.md), [Generated dream and replay views](../opportunity/dream-replay-layer.md), [Event-sourced simulation runtime](../opportunity/event-sourced-sim-runtime.md), [Illustrated chronicles](../opportunity/illustrated-chronicles.md), [Intent-level orders](../opportunity/intent-level-orders.md), [Factories with a living workforce](../opportunity/living-workforce-factories.md), [Language-agent society terrarium](../opportunity/llm-society-terrarium.md), [Automated mechanic discovery](../opportunity/mechanic-discovery-search.md), [Learned motion for simulated crowds](../opportunity/neural-npc-motion.md), [Salience-gated language agents](../opportunity/salience-gated-llm-agents.md), [Research by named scientists](../opportunity/scientists-not-tech-trees.md), [Simulation games as agent benchmarks](../opportunity/sims-as-agent-benchmarks.md) ## Sources - [Dwarf Fortress](../source/src-wikipedia-dwarf-fortress.md) - [Simulation Principles from Dwarf Fortress](../source/src-adams-2015-df-simulation-principles.md) - [Legends](../source/src-dfwiki-2026-legends.md) - [Stress](../source/src-dfwiki-2026-stress.md) --- Provenance: created in run `2026-10-24-catalog-gb`; reviewed in `2026-10-24-review-fixes`, `2026-10-25-contributor-readiness`, `2026-10-25-store-ids-pilot`.