The most amazing part is the dedication of Tarn Adams, the developer. He’s got a doctorate in Math from Stanford, but plans to spend the rest of his life working on his game, which is appreciated by few, but is possibly the most intricate game ever created. He works on the game every day, and pays his basic expenses with the few donations he receives. His living conditions would be considered a nightmare by many, but for some is nirvana: he works from 3PM to 6AM every day, in a room with boarded up windows, living on barely more than just soda, coding and brainstorming game features with his brother, Zach.

Somebody on reddit had this to say about the complexity of DF. In most games, you have hit points. Each time you are hit by a bad guy, your hit point total goes down, and when it reaches zero, you die. Dwarf Fortress is different:

In Dwarf fortress, you have individually modeled bones, internal organs, fingers, toes, facial features, and a circulatory system. And that’s just what we can see; I suspect much more. If bitten by something with paralytic venom, the diaphragm (eventually) stops filling the lungs and the dwarf dies minutes later after blood oxygen levels fall too far.

…and the one on the right is kind of creepy too HEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the release of The Legend of Zelda for the original NES. This reminded me of one of my crowning achievements in the field of video gaming. I got Zelda right after it came out, and a friend and I worked together to beat it pretty quickly. We were then surprised by the Second Quest, which starts the game over from the beginning with the levels all switched around and some of the rules changed. We got stuck in the second dungeon, and decided to take the unprecedented step of CALLING NINTENDO. This was back when you could call and talk with “Game Masters” for free. So we called in, described our situation, and got this answer: “Sorry, we can’t help you. We haven’t got that far yet!”

Oh and here’s my favorite bit of Zelda trivia. Hold on to your seat, cause this is kind of like finding out that the clouds and bushes are the same. Are you ready? All the dungeons in Zelda fit together like a giant puzzle. There’s some more detail and discussion about this at incredible revelation at MetaFilter.

Finished the game, finished all the challenges. Completely excellent! If you liked The Codex of Alchemical Engineering or KOHCTPYKTOP, then the $20 for SpaceChem is totally worth it.

I’m hoping that in the last level I have to create a state machine that accepts a paper tape with a PROGRAM ON IT and then EXECUTES IT.

#3 Scariest Moment: Dracula

Castlevania was the first game I ever played where, when you finally manage to kill the final end guy, after weeks of playing to reach him… HE COMES BACK TO LIFE IN AN INCREDIBLY MORE SCARY FORM and immediately jumps on you with huge sharp claws and you die. This is the music that plays as that happens. It took many more weeks to figure out how to kill the alternate form of Dracula. The secret, which is to use the Holy Water, came to me in a dream. For reals.

#2 Scariest Moment: About that cake…

In Portal, throughout the whole game you have been promised, and I quote, “delicious cake”. When you finally finish the last set of obstacles and your Aperture Science Unstationary Platform rounds a corner, instead of cake you find… the oven.

And the #1 Scariest Moment is: MOTHERBRAIN

Anybody who has played Super Metroid remembers this moment with perfect clarity. You have descended to Tourian, in the depths of planet Zebes, and found Mother Brain, in exactly the same setting as the original Metroid. The same way to destroy it works too: missiles through the glass. It doesn’t even take that many before Mother Brain explodes, and you get ready to celebrate. But then, after an eerie pause, this music begins to play and Mother Brain comes back to life in a screen-filling, and seemingly invincible form. None of your weapons work, and Mother Brain keeps shooting you with an energy draining beam that pins you to the back wall and leaves you immobilized. No matter how many E-Tanks you have, all you can do is sit there and watch them all be drained away. To raise the drama even further, Mother Brain shuts off the beam when you have like 10 energy points left, giving you a few moments to helplessly pound on the buttons, or scream and swing the controller around over your head, depending on your panic level. Lots of games do the “that was only a hologram… now my TRUE FORM” thing with the final end guy, Castlevania was maybe the first, but I say Super Metroid did it the best.