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Dwarf Fortress is a game of unparalleled scope, where tiny dramas happen daily between ASCII characters. The game’s programmer, Tarn Adams, was kind enough to talk with us about gaming and living life on donations, and whether Dwarf Fortress will ever be a little more user-friendly.

Matt: Could you introduce yourself briefly for our readers?

Tarn: Hi, I’m Tarn Adams from Bay 12 Games. My most recent project is Dwarf Fortress.

Matt: So, making Dwarf Fortress is pretty much your full time job, isn’t it?

Tarn: Yeah, I used to be a mathematician, but I quit last year in June. Now I make ends meet purely on donations. I make less than I used to, but it’s cool.

Matt: What made you take the leap?

Tarn: I always preferred writing computer games, but I didn’t think I’d be able to make it without a side job. I might have been able to keep a different sort of job, but it’s hard to be a math prof as a side job. It really demands all of your time.

I don’t regret it now of course. But it was a little scary, since I handed in my resignation before I even put DF out. Fortunately, they let me stay on a year after that.

Matt: Given the scope of Dwarf Fortress, I imagine that keeps you pretty busy as well.

Tarn: Oh yeah, DF can eat as much time as I give it.

Matt: How much time DO you give it? What’s a typical day look like for you?

Tarn: It has changed over time. Right now, I get up at 3:30 in the afternoon, handle my email and look over forum threads and other stuff like that, and by the time I’m done with that, it’s usual around seven or eight. Then oftentimes my brother will call, and we’ll take a walk through the swamp here, and plan stuff out.

Matt: Swamp?

Tarn: Yeah, the Clear Creek Trail by my apartment here. It’s nice and deserted, aside from the occasional crazed dog.

Then at around ten or eleven, give or take, I can start by programming for the day. That usually runs until around seven AM, often later.

My current schedule is to work on DF for the first 23 or so days of the month. Then I take a week off at the end. It used to be weekends off, but it’s tough to work on other projects that way.

Matt: The week off is for your other projects, or just relaxing?

Tarn: Mostly my other projects, but it’s also the time where I can take a day trip or something if it comes up. Like the zoo down in Tacoma, something like that. I don’t get out much though, he he he.

Matt: About Dwarf Fortress itself: What started as a game about dwarves digging a home out of the side of a hill seems to have blossomed into simulating an entire fantasy world. Was that always your intention?

Tarn: Well, it was originally a side project to the original Slaves to Armok: God of Blood. That was itself an evolution of a previous fantasy game called Dragslay I wrote in high school and college (and it had an earlier version itself).

Matt: That was the gladiator game, right?

Tarn: Well, there’s not much to do but wander around and die, so I guess you could call it that, but even that is a bit generous. It’s still up at http://www.bay12games.com/armok. Sort of a tragedy, but it has amusing parts. But by the time DF was released, it was already the main fantasy project. So in that sense, yeah, it was always intended to be a fantasy world simulator.

Matt: You’ve made games with your brother for quite some time, right?

Tarn: Yeah, as long as I can remember.

Matt: What draws you guys to games?

Tarn: It’s hard to say, since I have no memories prior to experiencing them, so it’s difficult for me to conceptualize.

(lemme get a glass of water, maybe I’ll think of something…)

Matt: I have to admit, it’s not a question I could answer for myself either. I was hoping for some insight.

Tarn: Perhaps it would be easiest to start with the first games I remember.

Matt: Shoot.

Tarn: That would be around ‘84 I guess. I was 6. We had tons of BASIC games we’d downloaded off of BBSs, and we had a Vic20 and then an Atari…

I don’t even remember the Vic20 being purchased, so it must have been before I was really aware of what was going on. A lot of the BASIC “games” were just these animation/demos, and there were text games. we had the epyx version of Rogue on a floppy around ‘85, a little later…

The Vic20 games were consolish, but it was almost like watching TV, I guess. Just playing with the control and doing whatever you were supposed to do.

And as I got a little older, I started thinking and understanding a bit more about what was going on. I found I disliked sports games, say, and liked rpg type games a bit more, probably because they were more like the cartoons I liked or something. But I was also programming in BASIC at that time. Mostly animations, but also some IF type text stuff and little D&Dish battle sims.

Matt: IF?

Tarn: Interactive Fiction, like text adventures.

Matt: Right, right.

Tarn: We weren’t roleplaying by then though, so our first experience with hitpoints and that sort of thing that was in our early games came more from other games that were ripping off D&D or whatever.

But there were also little BASIC creature makers and pet rat simulators and gun fight stuff… really whatever… inspired by tv and movies and books, more than anything.

I’m not sure I can really answer the original question though. It’s pretty much always been there, so I wasn’t really drawn to it, per se, like a lot of adults were.

Matt: Hmm. I suppose, what keeps you going, then? This is pretty much your life now, it seems like.

Tarn: Now that I’m writing games in an aware fashion, yeah, it’s easier to see what’s going on at an intellectual level, anyway. It’s thrilling to get things to work out, and to set up all of the moving parts and watch them work together and produce unexpected stories and so on. That’s satisfying.

And to be able to change things and make them better. That’s something that became very dissatisfying about the games we were playing growing up. And it wasn’t really that long before we were operating in spite of them rather than being inspired by them, for the most part.

Matt: How so?

Tarn: They just weren’t that complicated or new after a while, when this graphics stuff started picking up. I suppose when the first 3D ones started coming out. A lot of the procedural stuff people are just starting to do should have been done many, many years ago, if you ignore the graphical side of it.

Matt: Like Spore, for instance?

Tarn: Yeah. The graphics there wouldn’t have been possible, but it actually seems pretty shallow beyond that, I guess, from what I’ve seen (though I can only go by demos and presentations). As far as I can tell, bits of SimEarth were more intricate, though I really don’t know.

Matt: Heh. Well, on some level it’s a way to get the players to do your dev work for you.

Tarn: He he, that’s another issue. Mixed feelings on that I guess. The best ones should probably get royalties.

Matt: Speaking of which, do you have any plans to up the modability of DF? I know at least one person who’s itching to build it into 3D. Even just isometric sprites or double-tall sprites for pseudo-3D.

Tarn: Well, there’s interface modability and other sorts of modability. I’m leery about third party interfaces. If a third party interface becomes popular, I think I might lose control of the project. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to accommodate and work with other people.

Of course, it seems more common these days to script up and XML or whoever your interface so anybody can mess with it. But aside from having no technical expertise, I also have to live on this project for a long time. It’s not a one-off that’s going to be replaced by a sequel the next year. So the issues are exacerbated.

Matt: DF is about 28% done, if I read the version numbers correctly?

Tarn: Well, large grain of salt there, but yeah. Of course, once it gets up to v1, I have all the post v1 items posted as well… It can really keep me occupied permanently. It’s not as if I can just start another general fantasy project. That wouldn’t really be an option at this point.

Matt: I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but it seems like a friendlier interface might help you by getting a lot more people into the game. It’s pretty daunting.

Tarn: Oh sure, it’s just something I’m going to have to slowly do myself, and I have many dev items along those lines. It’s just not something that I currently think is a good idea to do in a moddable fashion.

Matt: Fair enough.

Tarn: Not that that will really stop people. There are a lot of talented utility writers etc. out there working on the game. The situation I fear is probably inevitable.

I don’t want to sound down on the general premise. I’m not ideologically linked to the text-based interface or anything. And I plan to continue to support graphics (you can just do the creatures right now), and once I get to the first overhaul, adding isometric support would be trivial. It just fills me with dread, that’s all, he he he.

Continue on to part 2

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