The game only gets more convoluted from there, becoming denser with each update. For example, in lieu of Hit Points, the game has a detailed, IVAN-esque Subsystem Damage mechanic for all dwarves, monsters, and other creatures, and an attack targeting system that allows any unit to attack or grapple any part of its opponent's body with pretty much any still-attached prehensile appendage. The game makes vigorous attempts to simulate real-life physics, biology, and even chemistry as accurately as possible, with a surprising degree of success, at the cost of user-friendliness. The key word for describing Dwarf Fortress is ' complex'. If you intend to play this game for any longer than five minutes without dismissing it as a glorified Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, keep that in mind. Both modes have no way to win, but hundreds of ways to lose, and hence the community motto, Losing is Fun. Adventure Mode plays like a very freeform roguelike - similar to NetHack or Rogue according to some - in the vast procedural world that your fortresses inhabit. The main game is Fortress Mode, which plays like a dizzyingly complicated hybrid of Dungeon Keeper and The Sims, only that all your little people are now stumpy, manic-depressive alcoholics.

Dwarf fortress fortifications