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As the original gamer generation(s) age, they have an ever expanding sense of what a videogame can acceptably look like. While a gamer of a more recent generation may (tho not always, of course, god bless them) find it difficult to make the visual transition to ye olde games, older gamers in particular often find they are as happy with decades-old depictions of a gameplay evironment as some more cutting edge.

With that in mind, may I recommend a brief smattering of games from genres or eras that we often forget:

The good old days of insane fast paced simple, straightforward multiplayer FPS, Sauerbraten: http://www.sauerbraten.org/
Incredibly deep dungeon creation/management simulation, in glorious ANSI, Dwarf Fortress: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Straight-up honed turn-based hack-n-slash roguelike, Angband: http://rephial.org/
Kooky realtime multiplayer roguelike dungeon crawl (yes, multiplayer and realtime) MAngband: http://www.mangband.org/


After decades of gaming, I think many of us come to realize that its the quality of gameplay that matter far more than fidelity of depiction. ASCII kobolds and twitch rocketlauncher firing FTW!

I am reminded of Dwarf Fortress - a game which I saw the graphics, and assumed 'oh, old game' until I realised that it was possibly the most intricate 'simulation' style game I'd ever run into. And the graphics are ascii, although I believe it has coloured text too :)

Without Rogue there would be no Nethack and no Dwarf Fortress.

And I could probably have used all that time to write a frakkin' book or something, instead of zapping ghosts with a wand of polymorph or dropping merchant caravans into lava just to see what would happen.

None of your examples are of games. There are no good, free, fun, games.

You forgot the best example of all. There is even a Mac version for jimicus and a Linux version for the rest of /.

I don't think most of those games turn a profit, or even that much in revenue. For full-time game developers who don't have a day job to pay the bills, they need to earn money with the games they make. Some go with ad revenue, donations, or micropayments to keep their games free; others, like those from the author of TFA, prefer to charge for their games.

If you would like to play only completely free games, you're certainly welcome to. I'm willing to pay for games that I want to play, and hopefully that will encourage the developers to make more games I like.

My point is that your examples are of games that don't need to make money, which completely ignores the entire indie games market. Don't devalue games because free ones exist; examine the quality and decide if it's worth paying for.

In response to the GP, Ubuntu makes money on service contracts, Firefox on donations and corporate partnerships, and Gmail from ad impressions - analogous to micropayments, donations, and ads in games.

You might like Dwarf Fortress.

Once you see past the total lack of pretty graphics, it's the kind of game DK might have evolved into. Multi-level dungeons, with their own geology, geography, local wildlife, economy, and neighboring civilizations.

You've obviously never played Dwarf Fortress

You need to check out Dwarf Fortress then, from the feature list,

# The world is randomly generated with distinct civilizations spanning over 1000 years of detailed history, dozens of towns, hundreds of caves and regions with various wildlife.
# The world persists as long as you like, over many games, recording historical events and tracking changes.

Also the latest beta version can run natively in linux

You need to check out Dwarf Fortress then, from the feature list,

# The world is randomly generated with distinct civilizations spanning over 1000 years of detailed history, dozens of towns, hundreds of caves and regions with various wildlife.
# The world persists as long as you like, over many games, recording historical events and tracking changes.

Also the latest beta version can run natively in linux

Screw Crysis! I'm still waiting on the processor that can play the ascii-based Dwarf Fortress at a decent framerate.

Maybe all I needed is a little liquid helium...

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Do read the wiki http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page before pestering the people in the forums there if you check it out.

As far as commercial games go, my pick in 2008 was embarrassingly Fallout 3. Though the game had it's flaws, certainly, it was still fun and generally enjoyable.

Biggest disappointment was Spore, though playing it again with lessened expectations generated some fun bits.

I second that. Water on the other hand has killed many of my brave dwarves. I once had my mayor trapped for two years in a tunnel by pressurized water.

For those who don't know, the parent talks about Dwarf Fortress 2 which is awesome.

Must secound Dwarf fort, it's a wonderfull game if horribly complex, the sheer amount of details in it are great. I think it really encourages a bit of imagination building to, sometimes lack of great graphics is actually a good thing.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Some of the best fun can be had making your game into a story, try reading the boatmurdered story if you have the time - http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/

dwarf fortress http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

This game has enough layers of complexity to keep the recipient entertained for quite some time, and they can engineer magma and water systems while watching their dwarves stubbornly not do what they want them to. http://www.bay12games.com/

You may be interested in this game I found out about a few weeks ago:

Dwarf Fortress

I don't know what to say other than it's freaking awesome... the game randomly generates a few hundred years or so (depending on your settings) of history before you begin playing, and then your actions are also written into the worlds history. You can play an adventurer and kill an ettin, then start up a fortress (sort of a turn-based RTS mode, with the computer making turns go by as fast as it can process events) and your master engravers will fill the halls with "a superiorly engraved rendering of a dwarf and an ettin. The ettin is cowering. The dwarf is laughing. This picture refers to the slaying of Raxl Goblinsmasher the ettin by Urist Hammertime the dwarf in the year 305."

If that doesn't convince you read this: The Boatmurdered Saga
and keep in mind that story is from *several* versions ago.

It certainly isn't perfect; but I'd say Dwarf Fortress had some of that feel for me.

It isn't perfect!?
Somehow after looking at a memory dump for long enough the people playing the game start seeing dwarves and magma.
They are getting their brain reconfigured by the software version of prions!

Games undeniably require considerable evaluation and analysis to play at a high level. Strategies have to be formulated according to a model, and honed by tests against the gameworld, unknowns have to be tested, etc, etc. However, I'm not sure that what goes on in games is very much like science, except perhaps at the level of small scale mechanics(testing and similar).

With all the games I've ever played(not all of them certainly; but a fair few), I've never escaped the sense that I'm attacking a constructed puzzle, that was built by somebody with the explicit purpose of being a game. Games just reek of design. Some are better than others; but all of them are, to a noticable extent, a process of reverse engineering somebody's carefully designed puzzle.

Very few games even rise to the level of having a degree of unintended emergent behavior, rather than strictly scripted design, and what does emerge frequently derives from the humans in a multiplayer game, not the game itself. Most games are also orders of magnitude less complex than even fairly simple natural systems. Find an object in a game? It almost definitely has a purpose.

I agree that there is an overlap between the skills needed to dissect a game's workings, and the skills needed to study the world; but the epistemology of dissecting a game and the epistemology of studying the world seem significantly distinct.

Since games are probably more relevant than my amateur whinings about epistemology, does anybody have examples of games that seem particularly "natural", not in the sense of visually appealing or having accurate physics(though those are nice); but in the sense of feeling as though they hadn't been engineered in every detail?

It certainly isn't perfect; but I'd say Dwarf Fortress had some of that feel for me.

Nethack's gameplay is far superior to what Diablo offers, because Diablo is static. Woohoo, the maps regenerate. It's still the same game every time--and can't even begin to touch the complexity and entertainment value of Nethack. Of course, the main bitch about Nethack (aside from "too hard," which is hilarious) is that it doesn't have graphics, so they've lost half the droolers out there (and a good thing, too--maybe they can lose the other half?).

I wouldn't want to compare with Starcraft, because Starcraft fucking sucks. Simplistic gameplay, retarded technical failures (rendering a unit--the Valkyrie, I think?--useless because half the time it can't shoot its weapons because of sprite limits? Are you fucking kidding?), and a community of asshats. No thanks.

And there are excellent ASCII-based strategy games. Dwarf Fortress is head and shoulders above anything Blizzard, or the rest of the mainstream gaming industry, has done since DOS 6 was the new hotness.

Dwarf Fortress's website looks like it came straight out of 1990. The game looks like something out of the 70's. The controls are confusing and inconsistent, and you get very little guidance from the game itself.

That doesn't stop it being incredibly deep, absorbing and rewarding; Looks aren't everything.

Dwarf Fortress's website looks like it came straight out of 1990. The game looks like something out of the 70's. The controls are confusing and inconsistent, and you get very little guidance from the game itself.

That doesn't stop it being incredibly deep, absorbing and rewarding; Looks aren't everything.

Please drop the whole "scripted storyline" concept and make a super fancy algorithm so that the story derives from whatever the player does and whatever happens as a consequence

Here you go. Some assembly required. Dwarf Fortress is in many respects built to allow stories to emerge from gameplay; indeed, it's a significant part of what people find attractive about it.

It's kind of a mixture of Dungeon Keeper 2, Sim City, Nethack, The Sims, The Incredible Machine, and experimental brain surgery.

If you don't mind the rogue-like style of interface (or gameplay), perhaps you should consider Dwarf Fortress?

Free and constantly under development. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's a great game with a fun community -- and the scope of the project is both immense, and slowly taking real shape.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

This game exemplifies the problems and advantages of such a system incredibly well.

It has two modes --

First: a Civ mode called Fortress Mode where you try to survive in an environment of your choosing with a starting crew of 7 dwarves

Second: Adventure mode where you play a single entity in the world.

In both modes, every single entity tracks damage to individual body parts, and each part is rated on a scale ranging from healthy to completely missing, affecting every aspect of the life of the character. After one of my cats attacked an infiltrating kobold, it lost an eye and a leg, as well as suffering major head injuries. It spent the rest of it's life wandering aimlessly in my fortress and passing out randomly from the trauma until a goblin killed it during a siege.

I mostly agree, however Dwarf fortress was made pretty recently, and it is pretty darn good.

Since you're here and considering your line of work, you should find the game Dwarf Fortress fascinating: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/features.html

It features a world generator and history simulator of unparalleled (in games at least) depth. I will copy some choice paragraphs from the developer's log:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_now.html

Another island map with good/evil turned off and high rainfall/savagery. The only civilized creatures left alive after 1000 years were three demons and a nine hundred year old elf born in a goblin tower. In order to stay alive, one of the demons had killed 3 hydras, 4 titans and various cyclopes and minotaurs. The elf was a guard and had killed a cyclops and two minotaurs. He had a wife, 6 daughters and 2 sons, but they were all killed by marauding beasts early on. The high savagery didn't impact play other than killing a few hunters -- the beast problem was caused by all of the caves crammed on the islands (it's possible to compensate for this by changing the cave parameters, but I didn't do that). Also, you can see a rain shadow very clearly on the right side of the upper island.

(...)

Now I'm in the process of adding wounds, in particular since a few too many of the beast duels end without a result, and wounds give both the beasts and their victims/challengers character without removing them from the game, as well as any future revenge motives that might come up. The worst wounds will be realized in-play even in this preliminary world gen release (for example, a missing eye it mentions will be missing if the dragon comes to your fortress, as expected).

(...)

In the first world I ran, pocket world zero, the only beast was a dragon named Atheli Coalparches the Flame of Mining ("Mining" because dragons currently have the mountain sphere). Atheli managed to survive all the way until the end at the year 300, long after the only demon had died. The dragon rampaged through every site on the map. There were no humans or kobolds, but Atheli killed 22 dwarves, 15 elves and 6 goblins, all in fair contests (as fair as they could be, with one combatant being a dragon). Many of these unfortunates were also eaten. In addition, Atheli devoured three cows, four horses, five mules, a donkey, six dogs, two cats, and a rhesus macaque and fox while tormenting the elves. The hoarding beasts can only steal one object at a time at this point, but Atheli still managed to collect a few crowns, four scepters, five amulets, six earrings, four rings, an idol, eight bracelets and a large yellow jasper (it tracks all of the materials for later adventure mode realizations -- one of the scepters was kimberlite, and one of the rings was made out of cave crocodile bone). During Atheli's last rampage, the dragon devoured a grizzly bear in the elven forest retreat.
Then I created a "smaller" world. This one had a dragon, as well as a giant and a minotaur. The minotaur was named Ust Wringwebs the Hale Lancer and focused on an elven forest retreat that was under the rule of humans. The poor elves were forced to construct hovels to live in, which the minotaur would knock down. Six elves were also killed by the beast. Eventually the minotaur was killed by a shopkeeper (who had been forced to move a dozen times during the minotaurs 160 year reign of house-wrecking terror). The giant was a bit different, since giants like food and drink in addition to other objects. Ciba Willknight the Bejeweled Berry not only destroyed hovels, apartments and shops, stole crafts and killed three humans in the town of Tourtalks -- the giant also stole both prickle and fisher berry wine, river spirits, sewer brew, beef, raccoon meat and strawberries. Ciba was killed by a lye-maker during one of the rampages after 130 years of causing trouble. Civilians should be able to do this very rarely, but I think I'll probably have to tweak the numbers a bit to make size mat

Since you're here and considering your line of work, you should find the game Dwarf Fortress fascinating: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/features.html

It features a world generator and history simulator of unparalleled (in games at least) depth. I will copy some choice paragraphs from the developer's log:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_now.html

Another island map with good/evil turned off and high rainfall/savagery. The only civilized creatures left alive after 1000 years were three demons and a nine hundred year old elf born in a goblin tower. In order to stay alive, one of the demons had killed 3 hydras, 4 titans and various cyclopes and minotaurs. The elf was a guard and had killed a cyclops and two minotaurs. He had a wife, 6 daughters and 2 sons, but they were all killed by marauding beasts early on. The high savagery didn't impact play other than killing a few hunters -- the beast problem was caused by all of the caves crammed on the islands (it's possible to compensate for this by changing the cave parameters, but I didn't do that). Also, you can see a rain shadow very clearly on the right side of the upper island.

(...)

Now I'm in the process of adding wounds, in particular since a few too many of the beast duels end without a result, and wounds give both the beasts and their victims/challengers character without removing them from the game, as well as any future revenge motives that might come up. The worst wounds will be realized in-play even in this preliminary world gen release (for example, a missing eye it mentions will be missing if the dragon comes to your fortress, as expected).

(...)

In the first world I ran, pocket world zero, the only beast was a dragon named Atheli Coalparches the Flame of Mining ("Mining" because dragons currently have the mountain sphere). Atheli managed to survive all the way until the end at the year 300, long after the only demon had died. The dragon rampaged through every site on the map. There were no humans or kobolds, but Atheli killed 22 dwarves, 15 elves and 6 goblins, all in fair contests (as fair as they could be, with one combatant being a dragon). Many of these unfortunates were also eaten. In addition, Atheli devoured three cows, four horses, five mules, a donkey, six dogs, two cats, and a rhesus macaque and fox while tormenting the elves. The hoarding beasts can only steal one object at a time at this point, but Atheli still managed to collect a few crowns, four scepters, five amulets, six earrings, four rings, an idol, eight bracelets and a large yellow jasper (it tracks all of the materials for later adventure mode realizations -- one of the scepters was kimberlite, and one of the rings was made out of cave crocodile bone). During Atheli's last rampage, the dragon devoured a grizzly bear in the elven forest retreat.
Then I created a "smaller" world. This one had a dragon, as well as a giant and a minotaur. The minotaur was named Ust Wringwebs the Hale Lancer and focused on an elven forest retreat that was under the rule of humans. The poor elves were forced to construct hovels to live in, which the minotaur would knock down. Six elves were also killed by the beast. Eventually the minotaur was killed by a shopkeeper (who had been forced to move a dozen times during the minotaurs 160 year reign of house-wrecking terror). The giant was a bit different, since giants like food and drink in addition to other objects. Ciba Willknight the Bejeweled Berry not only destroyed hovels, apartments and shops, stole crafts and killed three humans in the town of Tourtalks -- the giant also stole both prickle and fisher berry wine, river spirits, sewer brew, beef, raccoon meat and strawberries. Ciba was killed by a lye-maker during one of the rampages after 130 years of causing trouble. Civilians should be able to do this very rarely, but I think I'll probably have to tweak the numbers a bit to make size mat

The best games are the ones where you learn without realising.
Dwarf Fortress (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/) taught me about different ores and smelting metals, and in which bands of rock they occur (geology seems to be simulated pretty accurately).

It is Dwarf Fortress, of course. One of the most complex game ever made, especially with a 2-men team.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Dwarf Fortress ..of course!. A text-based roguelike that is so complex that can thrash a high-end core 2 duo? OH YES!!!! Massive fractal worlds, fluid dynamics, infinite replayability. Most people who have played it rate it game of the year. The virtues of Dwarf Fortress cannot be put in writing - just go there! http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ ( Ps: Losing is fun!)

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

It might look like it at first, but while it does share many similarities with the genre, it's not a roguelike game. It's a sandbox-style kingdom-building game of absolutely incredible complexity. They just released a huge update about a month ago that gave your digging a z-axis and, combined with a fluid dynamics engine, you can do some pretty hilarious things to defend your fortress.

And to get you started, check out the "my first fortress" and other starting guides in the game wiki:
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

Dwarf Fortress has been a decent time waster for offline play (great for airplane rides as it turns out).

For an online flash game I can't believe they left out Gold Miner, one of my favorite turn-brain-off-and-play flash games of all time. Great for those long corporate meetings...shhhhh. :)

Mod this AC post up if you wish to promote the new Dwarf Fortress version, which has been a nine-month journey of daily marathon programming sessions. Congratulations to Toady One, now let's get a story on the Slashdot front page!

Mod this AC post up if you wish to promote the new Dwarf Fortress version, which has been a nine-month journey of daily marathon programming sessions. Congratulations to Toady One, now let's get a story on the Slashdot front page!

Mod this AC post up if you wish to promote the new Dwarf Fortress version, which has been a nine-month journey of daily marathon programming sessions. Congratulations to Toady One, now let's get a story on the Slashdot front page!

Grab it at http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
An interesting title where failure is, while not always fun, at least usually pretty interesting. Google 'boatmurdered' for an example. Not for you overly graphical sorts.

I play Dwarf Fortress.

Sounds like you want to play Dwarf Fortress: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Sony practically encourages homebrew apps on the PS3, what with being able to install Linux on it. Of course, half the things people would install homebrew apps for (media playing / streaming) are already part of the console...

You're restricted from using the graphics processor, which kind of sucks, but other than that you're pretty set. I want to see a PS3 Dwarf Fortress. Maybe then a world won't take 10 minutes to generate.

Actually, I think the real state of the art ASCII game is Dwarf Fortress; it's even in alpha! All kidding aside, Dwarf Fortress keeps true ASCII graphics, and has quite a few unique features, such as it's massive, uniquely generated, persistent world. Or a sort of "Sim Fortress" in which you command a legion of ASCII dwarves carving a fortress into a mountain. In my opinion, this portion trumps the rogue-like aspect of it, but that play mode is enjoyable as well. Want to go visit the fortress you've abandoned? Go right ahead.

I think the next evolution of Rogue-like games is the MMORPG. You can quote me on this: we will see a Rogue-like MMORPG before the decade is done. Not a MUD, mind you, a real Rogue/NetHack-ish MMORPG, possibly with PvP. Take that, WoW!