Dwarf Fortress news...

Everybody's favorite ASCII graphic game, Dwarf Fortress, is still hard in development. Mac and Linux builds are out now, and ToadyOne is implementing tissue layers, anatomy, and materials; now critters are made of bone, flesh, blood, lymph, skin, hair, scales, and what have you, with each of the materials having properties like color, phase, hardness, and what have you. Pretty much the same way he did the various strata, minerals, and what not in the geology:

01/17/2009: I did partial fractures today and did some more with healing breaks and scarring, did some changes to permanent deformation wounds (bends/dents on metal creatures for example), handled how heavy bruising and miscellaneous damage causes function loss, did permanent bleeding for wounds like heart bifurcation/throat removal, and refined the contents under pressure characteristics for guts; the ability to grab the exposed guts, attack or sever the exposed guts, the guts getting dirty when they drag on the ground and other such things all came basically for free. There are some dev items on that I guess... you can't yet strangle people with the exposed guts, though I suppose that's now within reach (grabbing the guts now would only open up a pinching attack I think, which would be the least of your adversary's problems). All very disgusting. In any case, that was all grouped under a misc. damage item, so 836. Pfft. 32 left to the wound/fighting count.

Click to expand...

The next big release is due in another month or two. It ought to bring the thing to a whole new level, yet again.

In the meantime, especially in honor of the big events in DC these days, it might be worth checking out his other roguelike RPG -- Liberal Crime Squad. In it, you direct a band of Liberals out to bring the Good News to a Conservative country, e.g. by selling T-shirts, working at homeless shelters, assassinating Conservatives, and kidnapping and brainwashing key individuals to become deadly sleeper agents in the Establishment.

WARNING: The scope of this game is narrower than that of real life. We have attempted to include foul language, graphic violence, politics, religion, sexual references, adult situations, narcotics, prostitution, bodily functions and bad pickup lines, but Bay 12 Games recognizes that there might be omissions which will make some players uncomfortable. In light of these facts, use your discretion when making decisions about downloading LCS.

Click to expand...

The lack of "grand theft via tax policy" just undermines the whole premise, PJ. Besides, isn't that title redundantly redundant?

One of these days, I'm going to get serious with DF. It's just too interesting to ignore forever.

Nono, dte -- that happens AFTER you win.

The win condition is to have the Supreme Court and Congress with Elite Liberal supermajorities, and, of course, an Elite Liberal President. *Then* you do grand theft via tax policy (and send all the remaining Conservatives to re-education camps).