(Part 1 and part 2 of this interview)

Matt: Do you have any sense of how many people play this thing?

Tarn: I can only go by the download numbers from our site. ~4,000 on the first day for this latest version. I could pull up the number for the version that was up for five months, but it becomes difficult to quantify, because of repeat downloads and so on.

Matt: If you don’t mind.

Tarn: Sure, sec.

Tarn: It’s yelling at me for not updating my contact information…

Tarn: Okay, here we go… The first mirror had 53,000 downloads. As a general rule, after looking at some stats, the other three mirrors usually combine to 50% of that. The Mac version also had 10,000 downloads.

89,500? I’m no good at math anymore, he he he.

Matt: Not half bad.

Tarn: I’ve received about 1,300 donations over the life of the project, so some of them are even paying.

Matt: There’s a school of thought out there that you only need to have 1,000 hardcore fans willing to drop $100 a year on you to make a great living. (Or 10,000 in for $10, etc.)

Tarn: Sure, $100,000 wouldn’t be bad at all. More than I’m currently getting!

A great majority of the downloads probably aren’t retained as players as it stands though. It really is difficult to get into.

Matt: Ever thought about something like a… I don’t know, a Dwarf Fortress club? Like a PBS membership or something. Donate x dollars and get a tote bag.

Your continued support helps keep us on the air.

Tarn: Right now I list them as champions on the web site and offer them ASCII and crayon art. Real tangible goods are sort of tricky though.

Matt: I must have missed that.

Tarn: He he he, I don’t advertise very well. I think it’s buried on the support page.

Matt: Still, making a living off straight donations is pretty impressive by itself.

Tarn: Yeah, I didn’t think it would work out at all. I was fully prepared to crash and burn when I told them I was leaving my job.

Matt: But you handed in your resignation even before you released DF publicly?

Tarn: He he he, yeah, I really wasn’t liking mathematics.

If I didn’t have the game programming, it would have been a really good deal. But as it was, I was sick of it.

Matt: I think I get what you mean. I’ve had times like that.

Tarn: Most of the other mathematicians are quite devoted. It’s hard to compete with that, and it is very competitive.

Matt: Do you have a favorite Dwarf Fortress moment? One of those unexpected stories?

Tarn: The most entertaining ones have been the bugs, beyond being unexpected. Birds giving birth in the air, civil wars started for no apparent reason, people suddenly catching on fire… I’m never any good with “favorites” though. Those are the things that come to mind.

Matt: So, what’s Dwarf Fortress 1.0 going to look like?

Tarn: Some of the general ideas are that you should be able to live out dreams of world conquest in dwarf mode, be able to have a meaningful, lengthy and interesting adventure in adventure mode, be able to get into the game without having to open up the wiki and be able to use it easily without getting a migraine.

There are things that are standard for fantasy like magic that are sidelined right now, and probably will be through v1. Of course, the official word is at http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_v1.html, but it’s also subject to change. And very colorful.

Matt: Definitely looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Tarn: Yeah, the dev notes will always outstrip the reality of the project, and it’ll never actually be done.

Matt: How long do you see yourself working on this?

Tarn: I’ve been working on it in one form or another for fifteen years, so I don’t think I’ll get tired of it. If somebody makes something better and all my support drops off, I guess that would be it. Right now I have a dedicated niche following, but you can’t blame them for going to the superior offering.

Matt: Not sure there’s quite anything like it out there, though.

Tarn: Not at present, but things will come down the road in the long term. Even in the sort term, there are things like Hinterland which sound vaguely DFish. And who knows what lone coders are crazily typing away on their unreleased pet projects as we chat here.

Matt: Quite a few: http://caltrops.com/article0031_01.php

Ain’t it grand?

Tarn: Yeah, it’s great that everybody is doing their thing. Of course, it’s little consolation if you’re dead on the roadside, and that’s always lurking there. But I think I’ll be fine if I keep working.

—

Thanks again to Tarn Adams for taking the time to speak with us. Also, we got some Dwarf Fortress trivia loaded yesterday, if you’d care to test your knowledge.

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