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Dwarf Fortress, an inspiring example

When reading about Dwarf Fortress I immediately remembered something I read many years ago (probably more than 20) in a book on game development. It stated, practically at the beginning, that Tetris had marked the end of successful games developed by one personthat the evolution of the video game sector would not allow something like this to happen again in the future.

Be careful, it is not a criticism of the author, because at that time everything seemed to indicate that he was right. The video game industry was beginning to be an industry with big budgets, great titles and great launches, something that, of course, entailed great teams. Graphics, especially since the advent of graphics cards and accelerators with 3D support, began to pursue realism, which brings us to the current point, with titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator continuing to leave us speechless.

However, and although we live in times with impressive graphics, we can also find other titles that are much more humble in this respect but that, for the most diverse reasons, have managed to become overwhelming successes. Stardew Valley, Undertale, Fez, Papers, Please or Dust: An Elysian Tale, not to mention the best-selling title in history, Minecraft, which now has a team of developers but was originally created by just one person.

Dwarf Fortress, an inspiring example

In this case it is not like that… but almost, since Dwarf Fortress has been created by two brothers, who have taken more than 20 years to complete it.. Of course, it is important to clarify that the Tarn brothers and Zack Adams have not waited to complete it to publish it. The truth is that a first version of the game, a fantasy-themed construction and management simulator, was released in 2006, although it was a very basic version of the game that didn’t even have graphics, which didn’t arrive until last year. , with images created with mosaics of pixel art blueprints.

In this case, the tenacity of the brothers has undoubtedly paid off because, according to what they themselves have reported, by January 2023 Dwarf Fortress revenue was $7,230,123.58. Yes, you read that right, more than seven million dollars, without a doubt an absolute success that, among other things, has allowed the brothers to add a third person to the development team, which allows us to think so much that they will continue working on improving Dwarf Fortress (hopefully they consider translating it into more languages), as other future developments are already being considered.

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