Dwarf Fortress

if you find games like SimCity or Civilisation a little too simple, Dwarf Fortress is the game for you. Technically, its full name is Slaves to Armok: God of Blood: Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, but absolutely nobody calls it that.

It's a mixture of NetHack and SimCity, played out (by default) using ASCII characters, with the focus on building a functional dwarf mine. If that sounds simple, it's only because you haven't played it.

From the dark horrors if you dig too deep to the need to manage the psychological condition of your dwarves and create an economy out of nothing but a hole in the ground, the only thing more impressive than the number of ways you can fail is seeing how much people have done with the simulation engine.

Here for instance is one forum's game, served up in episodic Lets Play format. Excellent, yet bewildering.

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