I had my PSP playing Angband for a few months, until my brother updated the firmware and I lost heart in the whole homebrew venture. If only there was a boutique manufacturer willing to build a handheld console dedicated to playing roguelike games such as Dwarf Fortress, ADOM and Nethack? Sadly, no such vendor exists, but that hasn’t stopped BoingBoing from coming up with Photoshop prototypes.
From the post:
Some sort of UMPC or handheld console solution dedicated to one single purpose: Playing ASCII rogue-likes on the go. Everything has to be designed so you can play Dwarf Fortress or Nethack with the minimum amount of bullshit.
I know I’d buy one, but I know only one other person who would as well. Cool, yes. Profitable, no. Which is sad.
Who’d like a portable text game console? [BoingBoing, via Backstrip] More »
Gamasutra has a lengthy (10 page) but interesting interview up with Tarn Adams, the programmer behind Dwarf Fortress. The interview touches on a lot of issues: the history of Dwarf Fortress and how it came to be, game mechanics, the follow that’s sprung up in the game’s wake …
What’s left to answer is why’d we be so into doing a fantasy game. That’s probably the same as everybody else: Tolkien, D&D, myths, and of course, the movie Beastmaster. (We like the part where the evil priest is like, “You’ll be sacrificed to ‘The God of AAaa,’” like they didn’t even bother thinking of a name, just powering through on the power of their badarsedness.) But there were all kinds of things like that. In the movies, books, the arcade, PC, consoles, we were surrounded by that sort of thing.
It’s an interesting, if lengthy, interview and worth a read through. The community that’s sprung up around the game is almost as interesting as the game itself, especially the bits and pieces that have become popular outside the Dwarf Fortress community.
The Making Of Dwarf Fortress [Gamasutra]
