I picked up DF to support the devs because as I mentioned in another post here, I played the free game off and on for years. Now it's practically the only game I play because the steam version just added so many quality of life things.
I'd love to spread some democracy as well, but I've gotta invest in some PC upgrades to make that game run. :(
I've played DF off and on for years. The UI overhaul it had recently makes the game much easier to play, and get into and really enjoy. The learning curve is way softer. Previously, I'd load the game up once or twice a year, build a fort, get to the point where I'd be wiped out and be like, okay, that was fun and then not play it again for months, or years. With the updated UI... I've put in 700 hours since it came out.
It's still a game where you basically have the wiki on alt-tab, and you still have to google some crap to learn how to do intricate stuff. That said, I also find youtube is much easier to follow along with the new graphics set, so that helps too. TwistedLogic gaming, Blind, and few others have great tutorials on youtube. If you want to watch some fun stories, Kruggsmash and Hoodie Hair put up some fantastic videos as well - and they've honestly kind of inspired how I approach playing DF sometimes.
It's kind of nice to play, and it scratches the same itch for me that Cities: Skylines used to, wherein I can go "one more thing, need to do one more thing, one more thing, ooh a forgotten beast gotta deal with that, then one more thing" BUT if I have to, I can just hit pause and walk away for a bit, or, if my fort is in a good state with no monsters or armies running around, I can walk away with it running while the dorfs just do their thing for a bit.
About 8 months ago I finally started using DFHack, which despite the name is really just a collection of really awesome tools, while it has the potential to make the game very easy (and that's fine too!) it does include many quality of life things if some process is just too tedious. I'd say it's upped my enjoyment another notch because it's just so well implemented. When I feel like easy mode, I turn on things like fastdwarf, and when I'm ready to just challenge myself I can turn it off.
DF is very much a game of play at your own pace. Even without DFHack, if you're getting overrun by werewolves and goblin armies, just turn the settings for that stuff down or off. But the main thing to remember with this game: Losing is FUN!
Yeah we imposed a no toy that can roll under the couch rule in our house. That game got old fast.
...and benchy refused to print entirely.
Meanwhile in another Creality...
"Where do all these benchies keep coming from! That's the 5th one today!"
Reading this thread, I feel like this company has paid some actors and is just A/B testing a logo change.
We just can't have nice things can we. There's always a goddamn catch.
Higher density homes? No, no, no, we want to build our single family mini-mansions on wetlands and nature conserves. Get out of here with your logic and sensibility.
Oh yeah, this was the solution later on. For like kid me? At the time I didn't know you could even replace the showerhead... :(
Growing up we had a walk in shower, the way it was setup there was no way to reach in and not get hit by cold water. Especially a short kid with short arms, you were getting a full blast cold water trying to go "out" of the shower. The tap was the push-pull type and very difficult to modulate so limiting to low pressure trickle was basically a game of russian roulette. The best I could do was hug the wall and let it only get whatever corner of my body I wanted to sacrifice to temporary hypothermia that morning.
Every fucking hotel shower in western Canada at least. Hate those taps.
The free version of the game still exists! The paid version literally only gets you the new tileset and music but is otherwise the exact same game and still updated! And if the ASCII tileset is a big turn off, people had made free tilesets years ago you could use instead (it was the only way I could play the game myself back in pre-steam days).
https://bay12games.com/dwarves/